October, WHAT?!

Ladies and gentlemen, I have officially survived my first month of teaching. And after this week, my first grading period. For the first time, I will be assigning grades for report cards. The tables have TURNED, my friend!!

But in all seriousness.. it's pretty surreal that it's already October. ROCKtober. I know I haven't updated in a while, believe me it wasn't for lack of stories to tell. I guess I just haven't taken much time to reflect. School is still pretty tough, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. Mondays are rough.. I still get anxious on Sunday nights when I realize I have another long week ahead of me, but it's all about taking baby steps. I'm surviving, enjoying my kids even, most of the time.

On Friday we had our all-school Welcome Back assembly, which for whatever reason happened at the end of the fifth week of school. The superintendent came and spoke and everything and they had a portion of the assembly devoted to welcoming new staff members, myself included. It was really cheesy and lame.. run under the balloon archway when they call your name and everything. But I'm not gonna lie, it was really nice that when they called my name and I walked through the arch, my kids cheered for me. Nevermind the fact that I told 4th and 6th period to cheer "Ms. Chew ROCKS!" I yelled at 7th period all day and they still showed love. Even the other staff members have mentioned my warm reception since. Yes, I've made it. I'm the cool teacher ;) Just kidding. I'm not letting it get to my head, but it was nice after a hard day to get some sort of appreciation from the kids. No matter how much I yell at them and confuse the hell out of them with the math-y side of physics, they still seem to like me. I'm trying to return the favor.

One of my 7th period kids decided to claim one of my chem class safety goggles. He said he just wanted to borrow it and wear it around. I agreed, on one condition: I would write "CHEW" on it. He did me one better, and had me write "Ms. Chew ROCKS!" across the front. He wears them on his forehead around school from time to time. He's also one of the kids who yells up to me from the first floor and gets me to do my "Ms. Chew ROCKS" dance. He can be completely hell to deal with in class, but boy, that kid is a riot to have around.

We had Back-to-School Night last week, and I was actually pleasantly surprised by the turn-out of my kids' parents. Next to the super-cool freshmen Earth Sci teacher, I had the most parents visit me in the Science Dept. Rocktastic. I only got a few comments about my age (muy jovenista!), but for the most part the parents were happy to see me and anxious to hear about how their kids were doing in my class. For the most part I had good news for them, I didn't have the heart to say anything bad besides the occasional "he talks a lot in class". Don't get me wrong, I wasn't lying about grades, especially since they've already had progress reports so theoretically they should already know their kids' grades. But the worst thing I could bring myself to say was "to be honest, your son likes to walk around the class a lot and sometimes he makes really inappropriate comments". For better or for worse, his sister was translating and I know that it just came out "habla mucho", but hey, I tried. All in all, it was a pretty good Back-to-School night, and I was actually less nervous for this one than I was when I was student teaching at Cupertino last year. Good to know that even the parents of some of the screw-ups still care. There's hope.

On a more serious note, I have one kid that I found out is a bboy. Ok, that's not the serious part, that's actually fun. I told him that I used to breakdance in high school and now his curiosity is piqued. He always wants to hear about what I used to do or see what I can still do. Maybe I'll make a deal with him.. pass my class and we'll battle after the final. I saw him dance at Back-to-School Night and I can take him. ;) But the serious part is when he stuck around afterschool to make up a test and chat. He told me about how he used to be mixed up in gang stuff, lost some close friends to the scene. But now he's out and he bboys to keep out of trouble. What do you say to that? That right there--that's inner city life. It breaks my heart, and I sincerely hope my heart never stops breaking.

The day my heart stops breaking had better be the day my heart stops, period.