Thursday, January 29, 2009

Random Thoughts

Today we had our district writing prompt. My students surprised, pleased, and disappointed me in that heart-tugging way that only children are able to. Thankfully, the forced march is over. (Some of them still couldn't believe that would not be able work on this over a period of days. What happened to the writing process I'm always preaching about?)

M. really threw himself into his work. He even asked to work in an isolated area to prevent distraction. He was focused and on task during the entire time he was working on the prompt. Bear in mind, this is a child who has difficulty staying on task for more the four minutes, but he was focused and working for an hour and forty-six minutes (with only a ten minute break between periods). I complemented his on his attention to the task at hand but didn't get a chance to read his essay. I'm going in early tomorrow to grade some assignments and read some of their assessment work. I'll definitely be looking for his paper.

The social studies department had a meeting yesterday. The department chair kept the meeting brief and redundant (not a typo). We all noticed that two teachers did not show up. Come to think of it, these two usually miss half of any department meeting (language arts or social studies) or don't show up at all. Well, today, one of them felt she had some great idea. She sent out an email requesting the entire department, the principal, and the assistant principal to come to her room for a brief meeting. After school, an announcement was made for all social studies teachers to report to her room. Couldn't this have been shared yesterday? Couldn't it be put on the agenda for the next meeting. Was this a mandatory meeting? Who has the authority to call a mandatory meeting? I got a bug up my butt, found this troubling because I attended the meeting yesterday! I fumed about the fact that someone, who missed the first meeting, could ask me to attend another one! I didn't go. I wonder if anyone noticed.

For dinner, I bought a spicy tuna sushi pack from the grocery store and washed it down with a glass of white wine. I know made-to-order sushi is more appealing, but as usual, wasabi cleared my head and wine made everything seem better.

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