School

I haven't said a whole lot about the opening of school, mostly because the only things I have to say probably aren't fit for cyberspace.

But today was probably, for a variety of reasons, one of the longest and busiest days of my teaching career, not necessarily in a bad way, just in a long way.

The kids were a little extra bonkers, and everyone including myself tried blaming it on the full moon. That is usually a true theory, by the way, from over three years of teaching experience, but on the way home I noticed the moon was a bit past that phase. So tomorrow at school I'm going to blame kids' behavior on the waning gibbous and see if anyone knows what I'm talking about.

And I'm going to do a scientific study on the calming affects of Six Parts Seven on 10 year-olds. This is a usually true theory as well, by the way, from over one year of using their music in the classroom. It was definitely the only thing that got the nineteen of us through the last twenty minutes of our day without raised voices, death glares, hallway talks, parent phone calls or nervous breakdowns.

So the goal for the first month of school is to get students to write in complete sentences. So far it's not working so well. For example, in the past two days I've received two cryptic notes in my comment box. Each contained only two words scrawled on their respective torn sheets of scrap paper.

"class pet"

and

"nice tie"

It's okay, because I think I like those notes better as incomplete sentences, as they are admittedly quite endearing, making me like their mischievous authors a bit more than I otherwise have been.