Monday, May 07, 2007

Block Party, not Chapelle style

Alright, for my next installment I thought that I would write about the Block Party that our grade had last Friday at my school. In the last blog I wrote, I mentioned that we had state testing last week, and so as a reward for "not acting a fool" all grades have their own type of party. Well, my homeroom class has 7th graders in it, so I would participating in the 7th grade block party. Basically, what the basic idea is that each teacher is put on duty in his/her classroom and they must provide an activity like video games, movies, board games, etc. Well, I’m pretty pumped up because I had been told that I would be running a video game or movie room. I’ve been dying to play a little NBA 2K especially since so many of my students are talking trash to me about the Mavericks lack of success in the postseason. Well, the day for the block party arrives and I see the teacher assignment list. I scroll down and find out that another coach and myself are the only two 7th grade teachers that will be working entrance duty. What this basically means is that if anybody tries to take off through the back door, I have to take them down. If this means lining up in a three-point stance and modeling a linebacker pursuit drill, then that’s exactly what I’ll have to do.
Well, you would think that if you’re going to put something on like this, you might want to be pretty organized. For instance, maybe your could have the students participating all sign up for a particular room and then call out these students a group at a time to report to their destination. Did we do that? Nope! Instead, we just said, "At this time all seventh grade students are allowed to leave their homeroom and pick a classroom to go to." Well, when they were given this reward, all the student busted through the hall and it was absolutely jam-packed. I’m talking it did not seem safe at all. Plus, the majority of students are not going to a classroom, they are just causing a disruption in the hall. Then all of a sudden a big group of students begin a chant saying, "Northside, Doom Squad, Northside, Doom Squad." I don’t know all there is to know about sayings and chants, but to me it sounds like their just getting more and more worked up and something is going to happen. Well, after that chant is building and building in the halls, a big group then runs through the hall towards the back entrance that I am guarding. I’m already plotting about my next move. Should I go low? Should I yell? Should I just take one out and see who follows? Obviously I’m embellishing about what I would actually do, but for a moment I was sort of panicking about how to resolve the situation. Fortunately, they all headed down to the right avoiding my exit and instead hounding the coach at the other entrance. I have no idea how he handled it. In fact, I don’t remember much after that. Somewhere along the way I blacked out and and woke up with a swollen lip and a sheet of notebook paper filled with Kool-Aid on my chest. I hope it ended up okay.
I’m joking again. But I just figured I’d share my experience. I’m out.

MCT that's easy, easy

Ahh yes, the madness that is the MCT. I’ve got to blog about this experience as so many of my classmates have already done I’m assuming. First of all, for a middle school kid I think it is pretty obscene to have to take three days straight of testing in which the test last more than two hours. I think that’s stressful for a 21-year-old much less a 13-year-old. But nonetheless, I thought my students sucked it up and did the best that they good. I even had a couple kids come and thank me after the test for some of the help that I gave them. That made me feel good, but I hate to say that secretly I doubt they did very good. It’s a weird mindset to believe that all the time you put in to something led to moderate results. It’s actually frustrating, but hey I’m just a teacher. I will admit that I am a little anxious to say the least about what the final three weeks of school are going to be like. Is it going to just be a riot where kids are fighting and cussing left and right? Will they submit to my authority?…haha. I really don’t know, and I’m not a person who likes to go into something without having a good idea of what it is really going to be like.
I’ve got to blog a little bit about what it was like in the room that I was assigned after the tests were finished. Holy crap!! This is where it gets interesting and funny with a touch of frustration. Well, since I was proctoring one of the smaller classrooms we naturally finished a little faster than the majority of the other classrooms, so that leaves with an enormous amount of free time; and they can’t leave your room. Now, the kids are already tired and antsy about moving around and talking, so it was quite the challenge to try and entertain them for three hours at a time. I did think that the funniest moment by far happened the first day of testing. The teacher I was proctoring with thought that it would be a good idea to bring the kids some magazines that way once they finished the test they could have something that would occupy their thoughts. Well, the magazines that she brought were definitely for girls more than guys; so as I’m walking around, I’m seeing the three or four guys in my class having to look through Essence and Cosmopolitan. I felt like it was a sad to be a man. I longed for them to have the opportunity to enjoy a nice ESPN the magazine or Sports Illustrated covers on their desk. After all, baseball had just begun, so there is quite a bit of material to catch up on. Well, about an hour goes by and I notice one of the boys smiling very mischievously and holding up his Essence magazine to show one of his buddies across the room. What did I see you ask? A nice lingerie ad; just perfect for a 13 year old boy with raging hormones. I hate to say it though; my first reaction was to just laugh. I’m talking I couldn’t stop. Awesome. That describes that moment.
But in the end, testing sucks. We’ve got to figure out a better way to assess our kids. I’m out.