Tuesday tuesday?

Why are there no songs about Tuesdays? Teaching went well today, during the day. The last 5 minutes of class two of my boys, Co and Th, lost it though. They misbehaved at lunch and as a punishment the principal held them in from P.E. so they got no points for P.E. today, which meant that the daily progress reports sent home to their parents were rated at the lowest level, level 1. They were aiming for level 3's. If they got enough level 3's they were going to get to go on a field trip to the zoo. As as result, these two boys were very upset about getting level 1's, and instead of taking their sheets from the principal, they proceeded to trash my classroom. First they randomly threw all the desks and tables around the room, then they threw them all to the middle of the room, then they stacked them up 3 desks high. They also kicked the trashcans around the room, hurling garbage around. They threw the books around, stepping and sliding across the room on them. Well, they did damage a good bit of property. So they got arrested. They'll be suspended the rest of the week.

In P.E. today we got a lot more of the kids to participate, which was pretty cool. For about twenty minutes I ended up walking around with an ex gang-banger who told me all about the first time he shot someone, his jail time, and how he snuck weed in past the jail guards. (He snuck it in his shoes and in the space between the two layers of fabric in his pants.) He also talked about how he got a lot of respect when he was in his gang, and how if he goes back he'll get beat up really badly for quitting it. I also pointed out to him how he can get a lot of respect for doing what he was doing right then as we walked around - what he was supposed to - and how he doesn't have to be in a gang for people to respect him. It was kind of a cool time and I felt like we bonded a little.

I'm kind of excited because tomorrow I have a meeting with the district textbook coordinator so that I can walk her through my classroom and as a result, hopefully, soon I'll have textbooks for all my kids in all the subjects that I'm supposed to. I honestly don't know how the long-term sub before me got through over half the school year without having the textbooks! I guess he really did only make the kids do four worksheets a day because there certainly aren't enough books for all the subjects. (I'm sharing a set of books with the teacher across the hall right now, so we have to walk back and forth across the hallway multiple times a day switching books out).