This
Journal

November
1999

Oh, I am a miserable cur, I know. Seven feet behind me sits a box and a pile of Reading Response Notebooks. I collected them yesterday from the freshmen, along with quite a few from straggling sophomores who should have turned them in last Thursday. Last night I checked them for submission and minimal quantity to be able to comment on them in the deficiency reports which were due this morning. So I've got a lot of stuff to process, but I choose to do otherwise right now. I knew I wouldn't get to them tonight and told my classes so. They'll be ready by Friday. Still, they blame me, plopped there smugly muttering, "Hey, you're not such a hotshot." No, I guess not.

But I'm a bit worn down. Carmel's efforts to keep parents in touch with student progress (or lack of it) is keeping this teacher kind of frazzled. No sooner are progress and probation reports finished than we get parent-teacher conferences, followed immediately by deficiency reports, followed again a week from today by more progress and probation reports...to say nothing of the regular weekly progress sheets that many students toss at me...have mercy! Somewhere in the midst of this, a fella needs to plan daily classes and process the work that flows from them. So I sit here guiltily clicking away my misery, trusting that some kind, unjudgemental souls out there will whisper a tiny prayer of hope and support for poor old Brother Tom. I want your pity. I have no shame.

So what about those classes? Today was actually not so bad on the front lines. I set the sophomores to preparing a vocal performance of one of three romantic poems. Showtime tomorrow. And the freshmen had a composition day, scribbling away to the mellow bop of Lionel Hampton and Oscar Peterson - good writing music. I'm pretty impressed with their topic variety - and their willingness to do it for 25 or 30 minutes straight. We ended the period with some Power Writing - sort of like sprints at the end of a workout, it shakes loose some neat stuff when their resistance is down.

Today I realized that this coming Sunday is Open House and I've been assigned a position as Tour Guide. This should be a hoot, considering that I know next to nothing about the set-up of this place and am just as uninformed about various programs we offer. No matter - I'll be fine as long as no one asks any questions.

Hey, how about this weather? How about them Bears? How about these goofy over-reactions by school administrators to signs of student "weirdness" or aggression? How about these cool books that arrived yesterday which I might get to read sometime before the end of the next millenium? How about that plastic bag?

Nature never makes any blunders; when she makes a fool she means it.
Josh billings