Conferences

Yesterday and today were Parent/Teacher Conference Days for the Des Moines schools. I blocked-off yesterday evening for my own children, and was pleased to see that Miss Alice has made a LOT of progress in her reading this year. Isaac is reading at a higher lexile level than Martha. Martha only had one "F" and one "D" this time around, which is certainly an improvement... she gets to have her ears pierced as soon as she brings home a report card with no "Ds" or "Fs", but so far hasn't been able to achieve that yet. Getting her tested and placed in SPED classes was a huge help because she just can't work at grade level... now it's just helping her keep up with the general-responsibility things like keeping up with work and turning it in.

Today I had to keep the kids with me at school, since they were out and I still had to be in my classroom. I would've been able to tolerate that without much fuss if I just had had a place for Martha to go. She doesn't do well in situations like that, but there just weren't any other options this time around. I'm thankful that Sidney's mom came and got her about halfway through the afternoon, which helped. Isaac and Alice can entertain themselves for hours and hours without a complaint, but Martha's just a bit needier.

I don't like conference days. It's not that I don't like meeting parents; that's never a problem. I just don't like having to sit for hours in class waiting around for people to show up.

I filled out a transfer request today. Don't know yet if I'll turn it in, because I still don't know if I want to stay in the district or even if I want to stay in the teaching profession. I know I would feel better if I could just get past the paperwork that's hanging over my head like a giant guillotine blade.



Isn't that a cool little gizmo? It's a "Desktop Guillotine" and I'm considering ordering one, just for kicks...

Just kidding. The Behavior-Disorder Classroom is probably not the appropriate venue for display of miniature execution devices. But I'm wondering who in the world WOULD order such a thing? And where would you put it? I guess if I were a French teacher or a History teacher and I was teaching about the French Revolution, it might be an interesting artifact...