Thursday, October 13, 2005

Chance Encounters

Wednesday was one of those "plus" days of being a teacher. I was in a good mood, well-rested, the "tester" kiddies didn't annoy me, and I had good/interesting encounters with a variety of students.

We did the PSAT as a school-wide, 3 period event. I proctored 2 different rooms with students I did not know. It's so interesting to see wariness on the face of the students when they see a new adult, so distrusting. Now these are kids that may have reason to be distrusting, so maybe their past experience has taught them to be cautious. However, I smiled and didn't bark at them, and things went okay. ...

Then I see a kid in the halls who should be in class AND he's on his cell phone. I have a 50/50 chance that those type of encounters will go okay. I jokingly said, "wow, a cell phone out during school hours. That's weird." He grinned and put it away. I asked where he should be, and he said class. His eyes looked funny, so I asked him if he was on something. He started to tell me that he was very tired since he didn't get to sleep until 4:30am. We discussed health and such ...

I also had 2 great kids stay after school. One girl has not been turning in her homework and had come in for help. We had a nice long conversation about procrastinating and goals and such ... all initiated by her.

So ... one of those smile-making days.

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