Sometimes I wonder

With the upcoming election a lot of my students, even the young 7th graders, have been asking about politics. I've been trying to give my students an unbiased opinion about both candidates, but sometimes my liberal beliefs leak out. I don't know how many of them have noticed that I'm not a republican but so far I've dodged the topic successfully. But enough about me, back to my main idea..my students interested in politics. Most of my students, I'd say about 95%, are republicans and I'd venture to say that they are this way because of their parents. My junior high students are constantly saying "my dad says Obama is a terrorist" or "my mom says only republicans go to heaven" or the best so far "my dad would beat me if I ever said I was a democrat". It makes me angry when my students say things like this because I really want them to think for themselves, but it's very hard to tell these kids their parents are wrong. (I also don't want parents to come screaming at me) It also irks me that my students take these radical ideas about Obama or even McCain as the truth. We all know Obama isn't a a terrorist, McCain isn't a super conservative republican but my students won't believe that what's on TV is a lie. Am I even making any sense here?

I just want my students to be well-informed, well-educated; whatever you want to call it, I want them to be intelligent voters and members of society. Even if they can't vote in this election, they will have to vote someday.


Funny of the day:
One of my 7th grade students, as innocent and cute as she is turned to me during a discussion about politics and says:
"Ms. Tutwiler are you even allowed to vote? Aren't you too young?"

Aah, my students think I'm under 18, I just hope this face keeps looking young for the rest of my life.

Really?

All I have to say today is........McCain are you kidding me? You want to overturn Roe v. Wade? Seriously.....


And I'm out, because I'm at school and I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be blogging while teaching.

Oops!

Good people

I tend to be the most cynical person out of my little circle in life. And as this person I generally have the worse things to say about human nature, people, politics, life ...etc. I don't believe that man was made for peace or niceties but sometimes people can shock others, even myself. Case in point:
Saturday I needed to get air in my tires so I could make a trip up to Sherman to see Jessica. Well, I had no idea how much air to put in, how to use a tire gauge and all that nonsense so my mom decided to ask a guy at the Shell station. No one inside knew what to do so we asked some random dude who pulled in to get some gas. Not only did this guy inflate my tires, he explained how much air was supposed to go in, how to use the little air pump AND he gave me his tire gauge thing-y. Apparently nice people still exist.

By the by, Jessica and I had a wonderful Saturday being crafty and I even made a clock! I think I'm going to work on being creative because I want to make all these things that I see that are too expensive to buy. I hope Jeff is prepared to deal with my home craftiness.

..............................................................................

This week is going to be hectic and I'm definitely not looking forward to it. Monday and Tuesday are regular days, with cheer after school on Tuesday....Wednesday is PSAT testing for 10th graders which means the whole school schedule is jumbled around. I also have a meeting with some Academic assistance company Wednesday after school because one of my students met with them. I have no idea what to expect out of that meeting. Thursday is Rock-a-Thon/Jog-a-Thon which means kids will be going in and out of the classroom every 30 minutes; we're supposed to conduct class as normal....like that will happen. Oh, and we have a football game after school Thursday so that eats up that whole day. Friday we have parent-teacher conferences and I DO NOT look forward to this at all. I get so nervous around parents because I'm new and I don't know all the answers to the questions they ask. I know I'll make it through the day without any problems, I'll just stress about it until then.

Ahh, the joys of teaching.

Long time, no see

My life has been consumed by grading lately! It's the end of the first 9 weeks this Friday and EVERYTHING needs to be turned in by Monday so report cards can be run Tuesday. I can't beleive I'm already done with the first quarter of school. It doesn't even feel like I've been teaching that long, but I guess that is a good thing. Time flies when you are busy.
So here's a funny that my student said on Wednesday during Fashion Club (yes I sponsor fashion club, go figure):

Girl: Do you have any glue?
Me: Yes, it's right there on the desk.
Girl: Oh it's foam glue....LOOK GUYS THIS GLUE IS GOING TO FOAM!!!!!

Strange, strange child I tell you.


The other thing I wanted to write about is maturity. I don't know what it is about my students but they are so immature. Today I introduced my 8th graders to the Holocaust/WWII unit that we are doing in conjunction with Anne Frank and The Hiding Place (both good pieces of literature that I recommend reading if you haven't already). I told my students about the movie The Pianist and of course they all laughed when I said the word pianist. It wasn't that I didn't expect laughter but....it was the amount of laughs and how loud/obnoxious they were about it. I told them that this was a serious subject and that The Pianist was by no means a funny movie. So after they quieted down I started telling them about the Madagascar Plan, which was a plan to ship all Jewish people to Madagascar before they came up with the idea of just killing them all. You'd think that would just be a simple point and I'd be able to move on but nooooo! My students all started discussing Madagascar the animated movie, continued to giggle and laugh and I just got so mad at them. When I was told about the Holocaust I couldn't even think of anything remotely funny to laugh about; it's just so serious. I'm about to give up on them. I was NEVER like that towards a teacher, well I shouldn't say never because I was once (but she's the Antichrist). BUT-I just can't get them to realize that they embarrass themselves by acting so immature. For Pete's sake they are in 8th grade not 2nd!!!


Oh and I found out that some 8th grade girls were talking smack about me in the bathroom, pretty awesome.



Life is eventful.