The Award Goes To...

The award, for most out of control of all four of my class periods, is.... 2nd period! If you've been reading past entries, this may come as a surprise - you were probably expecting 7th period to take this award in a landslide. Up until this past week, I would have guessed the same things. Here's a little background. Although my seventh period is talkative and loud, they are all friends (for the most part) and they all get along (hence the talking problem), as is also true of two of my other classes. Then we get to second period, a class that is quite talkative because there are cliques of students and the cliques do not get along at all!!! This problem started back in February but then improved when one student was placed at the alternative high school. Well, that student has returned, and another student, from a different alternative high school, has joined the class so the argumentative dynamic has taken place again in this class period.

All this to say that Friday morning, two of my students had enough, they both stood as if preparing to fight (not the first time this has happened in this class - but the last time they both sat right back down) and when one student said "hit me" the other student figured "okay, why not" and punched him in the face!!! What a way to start my day! I jumped and separated the gentlemen while escorting the littler one that I could control (the other one is tall and huge) to the vice principal's office across the hall. Thankfully two coworkers - both men - were in the hallway and helped me out by taking care of the other gentlemen and watching my class. While talking to authorities, one of the teachers offered to finish my class for me (which I am soooo thankful for) so that I could give a statement to the officer and the assistant principal and take a few moments to pull myself together and stop shaking! The student that punched felt awful for doing it in my class as I'm his favorite teacher and he really didn't want me to be upset with him - he apologized profusely and said that the reason he didn't keep punching was he was afraid he was going to hit me and he absolutely didn't want to do that!

I believe at least one of the students will be suspended for a few days and may return to the alternative high school so hopefully these last two weeks will be a little more peaceful. The sad news? I considered him to be my blocker - if a fight broke out I knew he liked me enough to protect me and now he is gone! Thankfully there are five more regular class days and three days of exams (shortened class days). Yay for the end of the school year!!

In other news, I've started teaching three night classes in Gatesville (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday) so I'm staying busy! Currently I'm teaching two trigonometry courses and a developmental math class - it's like high school algebra II. I enjoyed my first week of classes and I think it is going to be a great group of students!

Also, in case you don't already know, I've accepted extended to me by the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign so I will begin working on my PhD in Statistics starting in the fall! I am very much looking forward to this and cannot wait to start taking (and teaching next Spring) classes! In approximately five years, you can feel free to call me Dr. Patterson. :)

Smile: We're having a baby shower for Hannah next week so I get to see a lot of friends I haven't seen in awhile!!

Frown: Once my high school job is done, I have to start going through boxes to decide what's going with me to Illinois and what's staying here for a little while longer - not looking forward to this at all! Any one want to help?! :)