Miscellaneous musings

My parents are in town -- actually, they are currently up in Vail, house-sitting a huge place for some friends who are off heli-skiing.  Now that's the life.  A and I went up for the weekend and skiied both days in snowy conditions, but apparently we missed the feet of powder that have come down since we got home!  From what I hear, my parents are living it up, skiing the back bowls, going snowshoeing.....  I think I'm jealous!

I've had a pretty good week at school, moderately surprising since one of my girls sent my student teacher home in tears last Friday.  They've spent the last few days focusing on each other instead of either of us, which I guess is a nice change, although still exhausting.  One was gone today and yesterday, home sick -- although she called the school twice, asking for one of her friends to be paged so they could talk on the phone.  Thank god for school secretaries.  Can you believe the balls it would take to make a request like that?  Man, kids these days.  Mimi, you better raise yours right.

Having a student teacher has freed me up to focus on some other things -- I'm taking four of my kids to the district spelling bee tomorrow, for instance.  It's mostly for middle schoolers, but they always save a few spots for fifth graders.  I hope they do well, or at least have fun.  I brought a couple kids last year, totally out of the blue -- this year we actually studied!  I sent a batch of my top math students to a math contest held last weekend, again mostly just for fun, and one of them (a fourth grader entering a fifth grade contest) came in second, out of maybe 200 kids.  I was pretty stoked, although  I think it honestly has very little to do with me!  The kid is just brilliant.

CSAP testing, our annual round of assessment (thanks to No Child Left Behind) starts on Tuesday and runs for nearly two weeks.  That's twelve hour-long tests for fifth graders, three each in reading, writing, math, and science.  We test three days a week, two tests a day. Whenever we're not testing, I think we're going to do Shakespeare (King Lear this year) and a wagon train simulation -- anything except sit at desks!  No homework, either.  CSAP is a big time drag, but at times I kind of enjoy it.  No planning, no grading, no talking......the kids are blissfully quiet for hours on end.  That never happens the rest of the time!  Of course, I don't like not being able to teach, answer questions, point out mistakes, all those things that are second nature by now.  I have to bite my tongue a lot.

And then it's Spring Break........big plans, anyone?