Twelfth Grade Mayhem

So, I had my first day of teaching today at CHS. My cooperating teacher is pregnant and forgot to tell me she had an ultrasound appointment this morning (she called it "baby-mesia"). So, it was just a sub and me in the first four blocks until Mrs. Chavez got there. Everyone, regardless of teaching experience, knows how kids act with a sub. So until sixth block when she got back to school, the kids were off their rockers. Already on day one, I had to lay the law for a few kids. One threw a water bottle across the room at a window and bent the blinds to pieces. One attempted to lie to me to go to the bathroom when he really was going to make copies of another child's test to cheat off of. That didn't fly with me. So, needless to say, it's going to be a crazy few weeks. I'm hoping because my unit is actually fun, they'll be cooperative and enjoy it. Of course, it's not just fun--it's education and learning disguised as fun! I really like my cooperating teacher this time--much better than my crazy experience at BCHS. I also know the teacher next door--she's a _(my university)__ grad and we have almost the same exact name. We freak the kids out and they think we're like, twins or something, because we have the same first name and her last name is the same as mine with just 3 extra letters on the end...AND our middle initial is the same. It is pretttyy weird. Of course, I started teaching the day after Halloween. Kids were eating candy from 8 o'clock this morning until I left at 2:30 this afternoon. Between that and there being a sub, you can only imagine. I also picked my "target students" in each class. The ones who don't give a crap about anything and don't do any of their work. Guess who gets to be my pets these next few weeks? Yep, them. They get called on frequently, they get to be the PowerPoint clicker, and all other things that force them into doing work. I'm going to post more on my unit as far as the actual lessons are concerned, but right now, I have like 80 pages of Marxist criticism to read in the next two hours. Aaaah!

Oh, I forgot to mention. I had a young girl have a nervous breakdown in class because she thought a teacher was treating her unfair compared to the rest of the class. She punched the sink in the girls' bathroom and her finger was swelling. She was crying hysterically and discussing how she wanted to punch the teacher and choke the teacher and many other forms of violent action. That was a little insane. She came back a few blocks later and had composed herself and devised a game plan to talk to that teacher about how she feels. I'm just thinking there should be some sort of partition between them...