This is a study game that some of my fellow reading teachers taught me at LMS last year. I used it to good effect with my sophomores this year, and thought I’d share it. It’s good for any subject, as far as reviewing facts goes, and I think you could easily adapt it for math problems as well. It’s also a fun “rainy day” activity if you make a list of fun/silly trivia questions.

Bluff takes a few minutes to teach to your kids, and seems to work better if you do a practice round before you start. It often requires a fair amount of guidance from you at first to make sure everyone understands how it works. But once your students know how to play, it’s terrific!

HOW TO PLAY “BLUFF”

PREPARATION: Come up with a numbered list of questions that you want to review. The number of questions should be a square or the product of two near numbers (for example, 36 questions, or 48 questions) because they’ll be associated with a grid. Draw a grid on the board (or make a PowerPoint or transparency) with the same number of spaces as you have questions, and number them.

OPTIONAL SUPPLIES:
Three poker chips or other tokens for each student.
Egg timer.
Prizes.

RULES

1. Once the question is asked, players have 5 seconds to decide whether or not to stand.
2. Once the question is asked, no one can speak except for the people who are selected to answer. Talking causes cheating and can result in the forfeit of points or turns.
3. Once your bottom leaves the chair, you’re standing and can’t sit back down.
4. Optional rule: Once someone is selected to answer a question, they have ___ seconds to answer.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Divide the students evenly into two teams. Arrange their seats so that they are in symmetrical blocks or lines (so that you can tell which student is next).

2. The first student on Team A chooses a number off the grid. Erase that number. That number corresponds to a question on your list.

3. Ask that question to Team B and begin the 5-second countdown (using fingers).  

• Students on Team B should stand up if they know the answer.
• The number of students who stand up is the number of points that the question is worth. If ten people stand, the question is worth ten points. If only one person stands, the question is worth only one point.
• Because of this, it is often in your team’s interest for you to stand up even if you don’t know the answer.

4. The student from Team A who selected the question now gets to pick one of the standing students to answer the question. S/he is trying to pick the person who is least likely to get the question correct.

• If the chosen answerer gets the question right, the team wins the number of points equal to the number of students who stood up – SKIP TO STEP #6
• If the answerer gets the question wrong, the team wins nothing – GO TO STEP #5

5. If Team B gets the question wrong, the person from Team A who picked the question and the answerer has the opportunity to answer the question correctly. If s/he can do so, the points that would have gone to Team B go to Team A instead.

6. Repeat steps 2-4, with the teams switching roles.

7. Keep going, moving down the line so that each student has a turn to pick the question and the answerer.

The game is over when you are out of questions or when you are out of time.

VARIATION #1: A wrong answer results in a loss of points equal to the grid number of the question asked. This creates a higher-drama, wildly-vacillating game.

VARIATION #2: To keep weaker students from being harassed, or stronger students from being ignored, give each student 3 poker chips which must be clearly displayed on their desk. Each time they are chosen to answer a question, they turn in a poker chip. This ensures that each student is called on only three times.

Teachers, raise your hand if you get more adorable little teacher-themed doodads at Christmastime than you could possibly ever find a use for.

As a secondary teacher (and teaching in a less well-to-do district this year) I don’t see this as much. But if my kids (or rather, their parents) are going to spend money on me for a present, I’d rather it be something that I can put to good use in the classroom. Wouldn’t you?

One of my favorite online bloggers (and lo, my shame boils over, for I never actually get beyond my RSS aggregate to comment on these sites – I need reformation) by the bloggy name of Mrs. Chili writes weekly lists of ten things at her personal site, The Blue Door. (She does some great stuff at her edublog, too, but I can’t remember whether she tries to keep them separate, so I won’t link to it here.)

Anyway, her most recent “Ten Things Tuesday” list was one of practical gifts she wouldn’t mind finding under her tree this year. I kept finding myself saying “me too!” so I thought I’d do something similar, even though it’s getting late for the elves. This is a list of things that Santa Claus ought to bring teachers – and if any parents are looking for good ideas for presents for teachers, they might find some better ideas here than admittedly adorable but less-than-useful teachery decorations.

School Supplies

• PENCILS – #2, of course, and preferably cute ones, because even the high school kids like sparkly or Disney pencils – personalized ones, like the ones at Explicitly Yours, are the best!
• BULK BALLPOINT PENS, because goodness knows we can’t expect the little dears to remember their own pens
• CORRECTING PENS – nice ones for teacher, and cheap ones for the students to borrow
• POST-IT NOTES in a variety of sizes and colors are a teacher’s (at least this teacher’s) water wings in a churning wave pool of disorganization
• DRY-ERASE MARKERS, bold colors, Expo brand. They’re worth it.
• PAPER – looseleaf, colored copy paper, art paper, large white paper, unwanted rolls of fax paper…
• ART SUPPLIES, especially the always-popular colored pencils
• MOTIVATORS, like stamps and stickers, because I’ve yet to encounter an age group that didn’t light up with the stamp pad comes out
• DATA STORAGE. Blank CDs, portable hard drives, and especially flash drives. I can always put a flash drive to good use – even the cheap promotional ones you sometimes get at trade fairs.
• FREEBIES FROM CONFERENCES. Speaking of trade fairs. The pencils, pens, erasers, etc. that you pick up when your boss sends you to a conference will be put to good use in a classroom. Be careful of what they advertise, though.

Germ Fighters

• KLEENEX. If your classroom is anything like mine, you’ve still got enough for now, but will run out quickly once midwinter hits
• HAND SANITIZER – not the foaming kind (kids, even 11th graders, like to play with it too much) but the biggest bottles you can find. CostCo, anyone?
• ANTI-BACTERIAL WIPES for desks and other surfaces
• AIR FILTRATION SYSTEMS with a germ-zapping UV light can really cut down on sick days
• VITAMINS or Emergen-C. (I like adult chewable multi-vitamins because I’ll actually remember to take them! I’m totally a kindergartner.)
• THERAFLU, but not the kind with the menthol flavor, because that’s just disgusting
• LOTIONS – not actually a germ-fighter, but this seemed like the best category. Kids go through lotion pretty quickly, and will happily use up the weird scents that your great-aunt always sends you.

Foodstuffs (to have on store for students without lunch)

• GRANOLA BARS
• FRUIT SNACKS/FRUIT LEATHER
• JUICE or cheap soda, in single serving containers – the kind that doesn’t need refrigerating
• RAMEN/noodle cups
• CANDY (individually wrapped)
• NONPERISHABLE or slow-perishable foods, in bulk

Gift Certificates

• BOOKSELLERS (used is often better)
• VIDEO STORES
• OFFICE SUPPLY STORES
• COFFEE (or smoothies, or your teacher’s non-alc poison of choice)
• FOOD – having a nice dinner every once in a while can really help a teacher out!
• MASSAGE, anyone?

Magazine Subscriptions

• Time or Newsweek (both of which, I believe, have kids versions)
• InStyle, Teen Vogue, etc.
• Sports Illustrated
• Regional sports interests (snowboarding, surfing, rodeo, etc.)
• O, Martha Stewart Living, Real Simple
• National Geographic for Kids
• Ethnic interest
• crafting and building (scrapbooking, cars, etc.)

Used (or New) Books

• MAKING/DOING/BUILDING books
• BOOKS MADE INTO MOVIES (but not movie novelizations)
• IN-DEMAND FICTION, like copies of the Twilight books
• GRAPHIC NOVELS, but check them first – some are very graphic, in a different sense of the word
• CELEBRITY BIOGRAPHIES
• ILLUSTRATED TRIVIA BOOKS or books of world records
• BEHIND THE SCENES of movies, television shows, etc.
• COFFEE TABLE BOOKS
• CURRICULAR BOOKS – extra copies of the books that students read in school are always helpful

Technology and Bigger Ticket Items

• DESKTOP PAPER CUTTER (the sliding style is safer than the guillotine style for a classroom)
• ELECTRIC 3-HOLE PUNCH
• ELECTRIC STAPLER
• ELECTRIC PENCIL SHARPENER
• CLICKERS – hey, a girl can dream!
• iPOD DECK (and hey, a dedicated iPod would be nice, too)
• DOCUMENT CAMERA
• COLOR PRINTER with affordable ink
• TASER. Ha ha! Just kidding. (No, really. Taser.)

So, what did I forget, teachers? Or alternatively, what kind of unwanted presents have you received?

At my student teaching school, I never saw a referral slip. I presume that we had them, but we never used them.

At LMS, I tried to avoid writing kids up. No one wants to be the new teacher who deals with classroom management by sending all her trouble to the principal’s office, and some of my colleagues prided themselves on the fact that they had never used a referral form. Turns out I don’t have that kind of patience or management skills – or maybe I didn’t have that kind of students. I did end up filling out my fair share of referral forms before the year was up – things like kids hitting each other or stealing things off my desk or flagrantly cheating.

Then I came here, to CHS, and the discipline issues are like nothing I’ve dealt with before. And all I’ve really been given, in terms of advice for management, is that “You’ve got a really good support system here.”

Discipline here is all over the map. Some teachers kick kids out into the hall if they act up and leave them there, unsupervised, for the entire period. Some teachers put them in a corner of their room. Some give up their lunches for lunch detentions, and others stay after school for afternoon detentions. And the main word I hear is “referral form.” Since it seems to be the primary thing that teachers do, I started doing it, too.

And then I got fussed at by the Dean for writing kids up. I guess he thought that, in that particular case, I should have dealt with it in-house. If the infraction had been X degrees more severe, then I should have written him up – but in this case, it didn’t need to be taken to the Dean.

Okay, fine. I didn’t take offense. It’s just that it’s so hard to figure out what this particular school wants done, what SOP for CHS discipline issues really is. Each school has different unwritten policy – will someone PLEASE tell me what CHS’s is?!?

So I emailed him with a suggestion. I asked if we could maybe make a sheet with examples of infractions and suggested consequences. Like, “Copying another student’s assignment – first infraction –> call home. Cheating on test –> referral form.” Stuff like that. It seems to me to be a terrific idea. Teachers new to the school need to know what’s expected of them, what the appropriate thing to do here really is. And frankly, teachers not new to the school might out to have some guidelines, too – there’s some (IMHO) highly inappropriate classroom management going around. One of my neighbors locks his door at the bell, and if a kid – keep in mind, we’re talking high school here – is late, s/he has to sit out in the hall and miss 87 minutes of instruction. I didn’t tell the Dean that stuff, but I really made a strong case for creating a list of issue/consequence guidelines.

He didn’t respond.

Today I have a report from Monday’s sub that I had students leaving class without permission, roaming the halls, sitting on each other, and sleeping on my couch. I caught a student getting into my personal cabinet and suspect him of stealing supplies. I confiscated a note passed between two male students that consisted of a pornographic drawing of them having sex with a female student, her name labeled.

So what do I do? Is it a demeaning act of sexual harrassment, or is it just the eleventh grade equivalent of schoolboys drawing penises on their desktops? (I mean, I know what I think, but what does my school think?)

Sans requested guidelines, I’ve decided to email and ask him about each of these infractions, in the hopes that his direction on them will get me on the right page – and that maybe he’ll get a little irritated and realize that my list of guidelines is a good idea after all. After all, one of the things that we were taught was highly important about classroom management is that consequences be clear and consistent…

Junior English is a survey of American literature. Because the literature exists within the context of history, and because my kids tuned out every word their history teachers ever told them, I find myself trying to teach them a little bit of historical context along with the literature. For this past unit, I even brought in a guest speaker to teach them some of the more titillating (in an appropriate degree, of course) things about our nation’s beginnings.

I recently graded their quizzes over colonial and Revolutionary War-era literature. There were two questions on the back, asking for three facts they’d learned about Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, respectively.

Just in case you, too, would like to know more about these fine men, I’ve included some responses from my students below.

Little Known Facts About Benjamin Franklin

• he stoked himself
• he played with Zink Baperis
• gave up to go home
• he did not have wooden teeth
• Ben was the 1st president
• he died
• he helped with the light
• he was big President
• In vented Electricity
• he was a Fat Man

Little Known Facts About Thomas Jefferson

• sleped with his slaves
• who-ha
• he didn’t like the laws
• invnted Stuff
• that where an the decleration
• he was tall
• wrote letters to John
• he was a boy
• liked being naked
• made his half sister

See, I knew that November sucked.

This is a chart that my district provided to us “new-to-the-district” teachers at one of our in-service meetings.

You may remember that I posted a similar graph during my student teaching. It charted the highs and lows, emotionally speaking, of the student teaching experience. Looking at it, I wonder if the roller coaster ride isn’t more about teaching in general than specifically student teaching.

It’s November, and I’m firmly in Disillusionmentville. (I’m hoping that I’m ahead of the curve, so to speak, and that I don’t really have five months of this to look forward to.) I don’t really like my classes very much. I’m not crazy about what I’m teaching. My students are making me crankier and crankier. I’m not even enjoying NaNoWriMo.

I was really excited about moving to high school. Not only would there be all of those great high school-y things (sports, band, dances, events, graduation) but I’ve have students at a higher cognitive level with more life experiences – students who would get my jokes and be able to dig deeper into things. Well, the events and whatnot are here, but not worth it. And the higher cognitive level is totally absent. I’m pretty sure that my seventh graders were brighter than the majority of these kids, and certainly more motivated.

This is depressing. I am not enjoying this.

My school doesn’t believe in Honors English. Juniors and seniors have the opportunity for CP and AP classes, or classes tailored to their interests in their academies, but underclassmen are all lumped in together. As a result, I might have 3-4 smart cookies in the class, but they’re totally buried by the kids who are being forced to be here and who hate being in school and who especially hate being forced to learn about writing and literature. I don’t mind the “average” or even the struggling kids – they’re charming and hardworking and surprising. But there are so many totally apathetic kids that it makes it really, really hard.

Some days this feels like drudgework. I look out at the class. I’ve got a great lesson on a subject I care about, and it’s not like we’re doing predicates here, I’m talking about swashbuckling adventure novels and how Shrek uses parody and incongruity to satirize fairy tales and gender roles and how The Princess Bride is a satire and how it and The Princess Diaries are Ruritarian romances. And across the room, I see blank faces, tops of heads, rolling eyes, smirks as kids communicate wordlessly across the room. They don’t care. They don’t care when I read a section of The Princess Bride aloud and bellow about my broken radio at the top of my lungs. They don’t care when I show them the different movies being parodied when Fiona beats up Robin Hood and the Merry Men. They don’t care when I say that their 100-point essay is due next class, because they’re not going to write it anyway.

Is it me? Is it them? Is it just November? Has anyone charted student morale? Is it possible that the students hit a wall in November, and that their apathy and lack of motivation have this big a drain on teacher morale? Or is the low teacher morale leaking out and affecting student enthusiasm?

Or is it just teaching?

Look at that chart again. Here, I’ll even re-paste it so you don’t have to scroll up.

When I was counting the months of “disillusionment” I realized that they stretched from November through May. That’s practically the entire school year. According to this chart, teachers spend the first quarter barely getting by, the fourth quarter reflecting on everything that went wrong (and hopefully, how to improve it) and everything else during the school year is just dreadful. The only high point on the chart is during the summer months.

That’s not what I think teaching is like. Not really. The best part of being a teacher is not June, July, and August. I love teaching.

Don’t I?

Exactly which part of that chart isn’t accurate, Mrs. Bees?

Well, hopefully the part where the bottom of the curve lasts for two entire quarters…

I don’t want to mislead anyone. I’m in no danger of burning out on teaching – this is, still, the best job I’ve ever had, and I love it. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that, as of right now, I’m not sure that high school is the best fit for me. I miss my short, sincere, silly little twelve-year-olds. They can’t grasp metaphor, they can’t remember deodorant, and they can’t shoot hoops, but they at least act like they like me.

Several people commented on my post about “Hyde,” my junior for whom the best metaphor (thus far) seems to be a hand grenade tossed into my class. I wanted to respond to those comments, but decided that it would be better to do so as its own post.

Resources and Assistance

Molly suggested, wisely, that some of Hyde’s other teachers might have insight that would be helpful. Since the first day he came to my class, I’ve been trying to find anything that works. Unfortunately, it seems like Hyde has burned every bridge and every shred of teacher and administrator patience. Everyone is still pushing him, encouraging him… but he refuses to take any responsibility for himself or his behavior.

Last year I had a student who threw his desk around the room, threw things, and injured himself while in class. It was bad, but then again, he was 12. You can look at a 12-year-old with this sort of behavior and think that there’s hope, that he’ll grow out of it or find the right combination of meds or something. When that kid is 17, like Hyde, you begin to wonder what’s going to become of him.

Are some kids not teachable? I don’t like to think so, but Hyde makes me question it.

Hyde’s Diagnosis

Teachin’ asked about Hyde’s diagnosis. This is a point of contention for me. This district will give teachers accomodations (although we have to go hunting for them – they’re in our computerized grading system, and not handed to us as a separate folder or file) but usually will not give us the diagnosis unless we schedule a full IEP/504 meeting. So, technically speaking, I don’t know what Hyde’s diagnosis is. I have been told that he has “an alphabet soup of problems,” and that ADHD is one of them. From my own limited expertise, I would emphatically agree that Hyde is suffering from an emotional or behavioral disorder. He certainly exhibits symptoms that I’ve seen in confirmed SED students.

Accomodations and Legal Concerns

Teachin’ also raised concern about my legal situation as Hyde’s teacher if I can’t meet his accomodations. I’ll admit, it was one of my first concerns. I’ve been in touch with counselors, my department chair, and his case worker, and have kept copies of every email. I am a member of the NEA, but I haven’t brought up this particular issue to my building reps yet. Thus far, I’ve been doing everything that is asked of me. Hyde isn’t suffering from my actions in class – but the rest of my class is suffering as a result of his actions.

Hyde’s Future

Hyde ended up in ISS after our altercation. I spoke with the Dean to try to find out what’s going on with him.

Apparently Hyde is now on meds; his case worker says that the meds “turn him into a zombie” – which isn’t at all good for him, but will help those around him, I guess. (This is a point when I really wish I understood what his diagnosis was, so that I could understand what – on a chemical level – he’s dealing with. I mean, I know it’s not essential information since I’m not his nurse or counselor, but I am trying to teach “the whole child” – and IMHO, more information is better.)

Additionally, he’s put in paperwork to be transfered to an alternative school where he’d be in very small classrooms with lots of guidance and support. I wish I could say that I think he’ll thrive in that environment, but at least I can say that he certainly isn’t thriving in THIS environment, so perhaps a change will help.

The Dean, who has known Hyde since he was in elementary school, is at his wit’s end trying to convince Hyde to take his behavior and performance seriously. Hyde’s mom, meanwhile, is convinced that he’s headed for prison and has told the Dean that she would support Hyde being sent to juvenile detention. It’s not just me, I guess.

When I met Hyde, I wanted to be his champion. I wanted to take him under my wing and give him, if not success, then at least a chance. That lasted about a week before he made it clear that he doesn’t want a chance – at least, not from me. I can only hope that there is someone, somewhere, who will be able to reach him… before it is much, much too late…

Yesterday and today are Parent-Teacher Conferences. Yesterday we taught for a full day and then had conferences until 8 PM in the cafeteria. Things went well; I had about 25 families come in, almost all with their student. That’s better than I had some days in my more affluent schools, and definitely better in terms of having the kids present. I think that’s incredibly valuable – I don’t like the feeling of talking behind the kids’ backs, and I’m not sure how much good it does in most cases. With middle school students it wasn’t as big a deal to me, because they’re children – but high schoolers are old enough to be taking responsibility for their own success.

In order to explain why this subject even deserves a blog post, I need to rewind to last Friday. We had an in-service day, and several of us went to lunch together. While eating, we talked about conferences.

Our school has three “sessions” of PTCs at a go. There’s the evening session on Wednesday that lasts three hours. Then there’s a full-day session, from 8:30-4, on Thursday. Finally, there’s a third evening session from 5-8 on Thursday. The evening sessions take place in the cafeteria, where we’re lined up at tables in alphabetical order and families mill around like they’re registering for college classes on a pre-internet campus. The day session takes place in our individual classrooms.

The idea of having conferences in our classrooms is kind of nice. We don’t have an Open House/Back-to-School Night, so this is a parent’s first opportunity to see my classroom. (And I have a nice one, so I like to show it off.) Even better, in between conferences I can get work done. I’ve got a lovely list of to-do items today, including reorganizing my desk and putting together my file cabinet. I couldn’t do that if I was stuck in the cafeteria.

At lunch last Friday, though, it came out that there’s a flip side to the situation. My department head warned me that I might – or would – encounter the following situations while alone in my room:

• drunken parents
• irrationally angry parents
• dangerously violent parents
• parents deliberately coming during the day so that they’ll find it easier to try to bully the isolated teacher
• parents in their pajamas
• parents in… uhm… school-inappropriate attire
• parents looking for other teachers and deciding that I look like a likely receptacle for their off-base personal attacks of said teachers
• parents strung out on meth (see bullets 2 & 3)

I was advised to leave my door open, to open up the doors of the teacher work area so that there’s a straight path between my room and those on the other side of the wing, to have a plan for enlisting the help of either of the able-bodied men whose classrooms adjoin mine, and to have the admin/security’s number memorized. In what may have been a coincidence, we got a district-wide email the day before PTC reminding us that you have to punch 9 before dialing 911 on our classroom phones.

I’m… flabbergasted. And curious. I wonder if it will really happen? A couple of the teachers I ate with claimed to have had any number of the above walk into their classrooms over the years, but I don’t know how exaggerated it all is. I mean, yes – the Rural School District is “tougher” than most of the Urban SD, and much more so than most of the Suburban SD.

I’ve set up my conference area by the door. Visitors will sit in student desks, which means that they have to slide out of their seats sideways. I’ve got a moveable chair on the other side of the student desks, and I wore sensible shoes. I don’t think anything is going to happen today – all of my parents yesterday were super nice, even those whose kids were failing. But if something does, I don’t want to have to use my ninja skills on them.

My junior class makes me miss my seventh graders so much.

Probably I handled this entirely wrongly. I’m not sure I care.

Remember Noisy Boy? Well, he’s going to need a real name, I think, because I suspect we’re going to get to talk about him a lot. I’m told that there’s a softer side to him, so for now, let’s call him Hyde – maybe eventually I’ll meet Jekyll.

Hyde has issues. Let’s not forget that. Hypothetically, his behavior is not his fault. He’s supposed to have severe ADHD. He’s adopted, and I don’t know what the story is behind that. If I had to guess, based on his behavior, I’d say there’s some trauma there – some sort of “my parents didn’t want me, so who the hell cares who I am or how I act” feeling.

He’s angry, and he’s irritated, and he’s bored, and he could give a damn.

Yesterday we were reading Act II of “The Crucible.” A couple of talented student readers were reading the main roles, and doing a great job at it. It was interesting, understandable, and even – as junior English goes – enjoyable. Most of the kids were into it. Hyde, however, was refusing to look at a book, rocking his chair to the point where it almost fell over several times, and disrupting his cousin. I quietly told him to put his chair down and read along; he physically resisted me.

Later, he put his head down and went to sleep. I might would have ignored it – probably every teacher occasionally makes the decision that a sleeping kid is better than a disruptive one – but he was showing so much underwear that I couldn’t let it go. Without interrupting the reading, I woke him and told him he needed to pull up his pants. He told me (loudly) that there was nothing wrong with his pants, and put his head back down. At that point, I recognized that continuing the conversation would definitely disrupt class, so I waited.

After the reading was done, he immediately came to life and began bugging another student, taking her things and rooting through her bag. I pulled him aside and tried to talk to him about his attitude. He threw himself onto a desk, began twisting back and forth, rolling his eyes and making faces at me. He told me that the reading was boring and stupid, that he didn’t know or care what was going on, and that my entire class was boring and stupid.

I asked him what his goals were, what he wanted. He told me that I wasn’t allowed to talk to him, that he didn’t have to answer any of my questions. I told him that he should, because I was trying to respect him and talk to him like an adult. I asked the question again. He began saying “I dunno” over and over and over again, like a six year old having a tantrum. I finally told him that I was going to have to write him up if he couldn’t behave any better than this, and he told me that I didn’t have the right to write him up for not answering a question. I walked away and called security.

While waiting for security to show up, I tried to wrangle my class back under control. They’d had ten minutes to begin working on the assignment, and had taken that ten minutes to pack up, walk around the room, move desks around, and throw all the cushions off of the sofa. I stood in front of the door and told them that no one was leaving until I saw people in their desks working on the classwork.

The bell rang, and – knowing I meant business – the class remained seated. I said that anyone who had 5 or more of the questions answered could show me their work and go; two students did. Challenging Boy (Hyde’s cousin) tried to sneak past me and was sent back to his seat. As the halls filled, I let those with 4 questions done go, then 3 questions. Several kids, figuring I’d eventually let everyone go, just sat there. I stopped before the 2 question release and told them that no one was allowed to go without showing me at least one completed question. Backpacks flew open.

Hyde tried to storm out of the room. I blocked the door and told him he had to show me one answer. A few kids came by with an answered question and I let them go. Hyde came up with a one-word, incorrect answer scrawled on a sheet of paper. I told him it was wrong, and asked if he could tell me what the question was. (He hadn’t even opened the book.) He went over to his cousin’s desk and began loudly commenting on the stupidity of it all. Most of the class correctly answered the first question and was released. My next class was waiting in the hall to enter.

Meanwhile, security still hadn’t shown up.

Hyde went over to my printer and jerked out a sheet of paper. (I realized later that he nearly broke the paper tray in the process.) A moment later he came up to the door with an incomprehensible scrawl, covering the entire page in one-inch-high letters. I looked at him. “Hyde, I’m not accepting this. You’re a young adult and you can’t turn in work that looks like this. You need to do this correctly.”

At this point he began yelling at me.

“YOU’RE PISSING ME OFF,” he yelled.

“You’re not exactly making me very happy, either,” I responded.

“Well, that’s just great. You want a cookie?” he snarled. “What’s the big deal? I’m just going to throw it away the minute I leave this stupid room anyway.”

He crumpled up the sheet of paper, threw it across the room, and stomped back to my desk. He took another sheet of paper out of the printer, sat down, and rewrote his answer, this time making some approximation at correct assignment format. He shoved it under my face, and I took a moment to read it. It was close enough.

“I’ll accept that,” I said, “but for now, you need to take a seat.”

“Well that’s just great. I’m having fun now,” he said.

He threw himself into a seat. I ignored him and called security again. There’d been a miscommunication; they thought he just needed to go to the bathroom. (He’s on a hall freeze list.) Then they got confused when I said he was still in my room. They tried to tell me just to send him down the hall and they’d meet him; I refused, knowing he’d never show up.

Finally a security guard arrived, with apologies about the confusion. I explained the situation and handed him the hastily written referral slip that I’d been working on, off and on, for the past fifteen minutes. Hyde saw the guard and stood up, throwing his crumpled-up assignment across the room as he went. My classroom full of sophomores tried not to stare.

God, a third period like that makes me appreciate my fourth period so much. I wanted to cry, but they were smiling and joking, and I just smiled at them and was so happy that I had some nice kids to balance out the deeply troubled (and troubling) ones. They began writing spooky stories for our end-of-October formal writing assignment, and I played “Monster Mash” and “Thriller” and “I Put a Spell on You.”

I don’t know what to do with Hyde. I really don’t.

They’re giving out vaccinations against the H1N1 virus, but you can only get them if you’re in one of the following categories:

• pregnant women
• caregivers/contacts for infants younger than 6 months
• healthcare/EMS personnel
• people 6 months through 24 years old
• people with health conditions that exacerbate complications from flu

My students, all of whom are between the ages of 15 and 18, are eligible to receive the virus.

My school is in Rural School District. I live in Urban School District, about half an hour’s drive (under normal traffic situations) from my school. Here’s a map to help you visualize the geography:

I don’t know who funded it, but free H1N1 vaccination clinics were held at every school in the Urban and Suburban Districts this past week. Their intent was to vaccinate every student. (Unfortunately, they ran out of vaccines.) They did not send vaccines to the Rural School District, or to any of the other districts except the USD and SSD. I guess it’s okay if the RSD kids get swine flu?

Meanwhile, some of these smaller districts are reeling. I know someone whose school is having a 22% absentee rate, and I’ve heard numbers up to 30%. One district was completely shut down because over half of their teachers were out sick.

Wait – teachers?

Okay, obviously, some teachers are pregnant, live with infants, are under the age of 25, or have special health considerations. But there’s an awful lot of us who don’t fall under those categories.

In any given week – assuming I don’t ever leave my classroom – I directly interact with 170 students. That’s 170 kids that I could infect with H1N1, and 170 kids who could infect me. Each of those students has eight classes, and each class has between 20-40 students in it (except for ensemble/PE classes, which are larger). If I get H1N1, I could conceivably take down a very large portion of the school, just by infecting students who would pass it on to their classmates.

We’ve already had a great deal of absenteeism due to flu and, reportedly, swine flu – including some of my students. I guess that means I’ve already been exposed, to some degree.

We’re one of 41 states listed as having “wide-spread influenza activity.” At least seven people in our state (not an insignificant number compared to our relatively small population) have died as a result of H1N1.

I know several teachers who have already missed a week or more of school due to flu or H1N1 this year. The cost of teacher absenteeism is significant – not only does it cost the district money to hire a substitute, but students lose valuable instructional time. Even the best substitute isn’t the regular teacher and can’t teach in the exact same way. On top of that, schools receive their yearly budgets based on how many kids are sitting in seats during the first six weeks of school. Absenteeism due to illness has been so high this year that several school districts are facing catastrophic budget cuts.

Come ON, people. How can teachers not be a recommended group for H1N1 vaccines? We work with the highest risk group there is. I’m lucky; my room has windows and ventilation and room to move and breathe. Last year, I worked in a petri dish: completely sealed, too small, no air circulation, very rarely cleaned with real chemicals.

This isn’t a very well-organized post, but I’m aggravated and wanted to write about it. How are they handling vaccinations in your area? What do you think about distributing free vaccines to the wealthier, more prominent districts but not the small-town and rural districts? Do you think teachers ought to be in the target group?