Tuesday, January 29

Frozen pipes as a metaphor for education blockages....

Our pipes are frozen. Again. For the ten hundreth time. And the sewer line from our trailer is also frozen. About five guys have been out there working on it for over a week now. Shockingly FEMA trailers designed for New Orleans don't hold up well in South Dakota winters. Who'da thunk?

So I'm not very happy. Because I couldn't shower this morning and still can't now. And there was a bomb threat at school today. I'm not sure what went on exactly, they had the drug dogs in the school which they've done a few times this year. But this time after the dogs went through the made us all leave and get on buses and go sit in a parking lot half a mile away for about 30 min. Fun Fun. Tomorrow there are two different assemblies going on and we have some kind of crazy schedule where we only have 3rd and 4th period- or something, it's kind of unclear at this point. Between that and low attendance, kids leaving for basketball games, and being kids pulled out for various things, I don't feel like I'm doing all that much teaching anymore. I'm quickly losing motivation to spend much time planning lessons for kids who aren't there. Today I had 0,6, 7, 11, 2, and 3 students respectively in my six periods....

We're reading The Most Dangerous Game in Literature. So that's fun. Practicing lots of predicting. And finding details that create mood or characterization. Next week we'll get into plot mapping- woo! Literature is more fun than composition I think. The students would probably say they are both equally boring though I'm sure. Sigh.

Colorado last weekend was great! Check out pictures of the finished snow sculpture. It was good to see my parents and meet/see all my dad's snow sculpting buddies, plus I got in some really excellent cross country and downhill skiing.

Next weekend I'm off again- to Chaimberlain! For a "Take One" professional development weekend of some sort. I haven't even looked at all the materials they've sent me yet... hmm.

All for now- Think warm thoughts for me and my pipes please!

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