2 weeks in

Conclusions: I really like 2nd grade. Wow they are so easy to motivate! All I have to do to get them excited is feign excitement (though honestly, my enthusiasm has been legitimate at times). I can illustrate this point with one of my favorite moments from the first couple weeks. We were lined up to head back to class from music and I had some yellow chart paper rolled up under my arm. In a really dramatic voice I simply explained that we were about to do an activity with YELLOW CHART PAPER and they just about went crazy. They were unreasonably excited about an activity that I hadn't even explained yet, simply because of the excitement that I projected. I think those acting classes in college are coming in handy.

Switching from a 5th grade class of all boys to 2nd grade has certainly been an adjustment. My first day taking them out for a recess I had 3 incidents: one girl peed her pants (after I told her twice to hold it!), one kid lost his tooth (literally - in the grass), and one kid ended up with a bloody lip. All this from a little duck-duck-goose. I guess 2nd graders just aren't quite as tough. Since then, I've toned it down a bit. And now I let Amanda go pee if she asks.

I saw Tydario the other day. I asked him how his anger management is going, and he said with a smile, "I haven't changed." I actually have his brother this year, who has different struggles- mainly academic. I also saw Bucumi today, one of my Burundians who tried hard to keep up contact with me during the summer with email. It seems that middle school is rubbing off on him: he had bootleg grills fashioned from gum wrappers, encasing his teeth.

Finished reading-aloud "Fantastic Mr. Fox" on Friday, and I begun "The BFG" today. If my students don't get anything else out of this year, they're going to become Roald Dahl fans (I'll omit the part about him being an anti-Semite).

All in all, this year is just going much, much better. I'm finding my personality as a teacher, and I've begun to own a reputation among the students, having been there for a year now. Even the administration has got my back. Apparently a parent called to complain that I'd embarrassed their child about not having school supplies, and the administration didn't even buy it. They told the parent, "No. Any other teacher, maybe. Not Mr. Stewart."