This is a post about my life at school. I have a great job. I teach all of grades 6-8 and half of grade 9 and have an average of 15 students per class. AISCT adopts the California State Standards that are actually not currently in use in California as they just moved on to the Next Generation Standards year. My classroom is outstanding compared to other middle school facilities I have seen and was actually equipped to teach AP chem when it was modified twelve years ago. I have running gas, a hood vent, and running water in addition to tons of counter space.
Recently, I had to fight a war against sewer rats, which was bloody and included a few scary encounters. In the end--this is actually difficult to determine-- I poisoned them, blocked two main entries, and kicked one in the face as he/she tried to escape my trash can. The escape from the trash can, sadly, was successful and the rat took my kick to the face like Rocky takes a punch. It then leapt to the ground and made it through a hole under my desk. Since that encounter many rats were killed and the classroom environment stabilized. Some of my more frightened students would actually keep their feet off of the ground when I would tell them stories about rats making it into the classroom. I mostly told those stories to discourage eating in the room.
Besides rats there have been a lot of interesting labs. I will add a few pictures that don't contain students so you can see some of the activities.
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| This was a building competition we had in my classes on the last day of school when finals were finished. |
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| There is a swarm of bees in the tree at the top of the picture--that blob is made entirely of bees. There was an earlier blog post that included links to the bee keeper transferring the bee swarm into a cardboard box. |
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| This is a gecko one female student found in her locker--another adventurous student helped catch and release it in the courtyard. |
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| This is the beautiful middle school courtyard. |
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| A picture of our fountain that we don't run--I think we're saving electricity :). |
