answering machine

i let one of my kids (a good one) call my house (the one in ky) and leave a message on our machine. did you guys get it? it was really funny. she was like i'm ms.matthews' student and she is a really boring teacher psych she's really great okay bye.

friday afternoon

it's been a little while since we've been in school on a friday afternoon (well,not really but it feels like it) - and it was TERRIBLE.

at one point i just sat back and watched them. didn't even try. felt like crying, standing by the door. ugh.

hahaha

yesterday my little guy asked me a question in his funny little voice ... and without even thinking about it, i answered him in my imitation voice of him. hahaha. the expression on his face immediately changed and he looked up at me and said, ms. matthews youw voice soundses like drrracula.

i about died laughing (inside).

class

i am sitting in grad school class right now. my friends have sweet laptops so our 8 hour saturday class is a little bit more interesting. yaya. so far i have looked up my house on google's satellite search, checked email, played games, and now updating my blog.

ugh

today we, again, got basically nothing done. except for when i read them an article in the paper about the beating incident and we talked about it.

the kid is an immigrant from liberia (like about 20%ish of the kids at our school) who spent most of his life in a ghanan refugee camp. he had never experienced personal violence until monday - after he had been in the US for a total of SIX weeks.

the article was interesting and brought out a lot of issues (email or comment if you want the article; i don't want to post the link b/c it uses the name of my school, etc on there and i need to stay as unplacable as possible ;). after reading it, we got into a big conversation about africa and refugee camps, wars and civil wars, slavery and the US, racism and bigotry, martin luther king jr and freedom, empowerment and education ...

it was quite good. unfortunately, about half my class didn't even see how all of this affects their lives, their history, their situations. i want them to understand all this stuff - but they don't really seem to want to.

questions

my favorite little guy (who was absent yesterday) came in today with the right side of his face totally swollen.

he said he just woke up and it was like that.

update

i found out today that at least 2 of my students were there when the kid got beat up on monday. from what i could tell, one wasn't involved - the other one was, i think.

the kid came out of the coma and is able to talk a little. he's not on a respirator either - it looks like he'll probably make it, although the injuries are still really severe. he has broken ribs, a broken jaw, and severe bleeding in his brain.

speaking of pets

kate and i have a bunch now.

they live in our walls and have broken into our food AND pooped in my shoes.

they've only been here for a few days, and i hear them ALL the time. it drives me crazy, and i mean that quite seriously. i feel as though i am going insane when i'm in my apartment. i get all obsessive about finding the mice, stopping up their holes, setting traps (well, since this afternoon when i bought some), etc.

ewwwwwww.

freddy jackson

we had a class pet for about 3 hours today. his name was freddy jackson. he was some type of a lightning bug.

today we were getting NOTHING done. really, nothing at all. and i got tired of trying to get them to settle down. so, when there was a small bug on a kid's desk, i seized the opportunity - and the bug.

he was with us for just a few hours - we spent quite a bit of time making his home out of two clear plastic cups, taped together, holes punched in the sides, name written on the side. we gathered around the computer and looked up insects. we learned a little bit.

then someone threw freddy out the window (oh! but not after he had a ladybug companion in his home. i forget her name).

bye freddy. nice having you.

tears

yesterday after school an 8th grader was beat up on his way home from school. he is in critical condition at the children's hospital with broken ribs, multiple facial injuries, and hemorrhaging in his brain. he was beat by a 20-something man, a relative of another student he had a dispute with. his sister also goes to our school. about 10-15 kids continued beating him once he was unconscious; paramedics had to break up the fighting. word has it that it doesn't look hopeful for him.

today, news crews and the ceo of the school district were at the school. we couldn't leave our classrooms at all. at the end of the day, i talked to my class about it. a few of them got how tragic this is. a few didn't. a few minutes later, they were threatening their brothers and cousins on another kid in our class who then threw a desk and ran out of the room crying. i absolutely flipped.

i'm standing there, tears running down my face, motioning wildly (of course), practically yelling but with more love in my voice than usual ... trying to convey to them that *this* is how it starts. these are probably the same things that kid heard as he walked out of school yesterday. there's no reason that it's him and not one of you getting hurt like that out there, and i absolutely can't STAND the thought of anything happening to them. this is not right, it's not normal, and it's not fair that kids come into school here afraid of what other kids are going to say or do.

uggh. it is really not fair. my heart hurts.

friday, in brief

1. kids brought raw eggs to school to throw out of windows onto their classmates, teachers, PRINCIPAL, and cops in the school yard before school. some kids came into school DRENCHED in water.

2. we were told to call the cops if we saw a certain kid (who until this week was a 6th grade student our school) around - he is a suspect in a homicide.

3. the pregnant girl was more than just a little pregnant - she had the baby, full term, this past week. it is healthy, even though she had no prenatal care at ALL.

4. my kids were crazy.

tomorrow is halloween. i am absolutely dreading it.