Teaching High School

So, I've been teaching high school now going on eight years.  Wow!  Time has flown by.  Over the years, I've had the opportunity to meet all sorts of kids with all kinds of backgrounds, experiences, and personalities.  The kids are great!  They keep me entertained all of the time.  The things they say sometimes, and the things they do remind me why I love my job so much.  Let me tell you a little story involving a bee and a boy.  An eleventh grader, to be exact, not really so much a boy as a young man.  Anyway, there are often a lot of bees and wasps near our school.  In fact, at one point, there was a wasp nest right outside my classroom; that made for interesting class time, especially when it was hot.  Oh well, the maintenance people came and took care of that right away.  So one sunny day, this bee decides to fly into the room.  The students immediately inform me of the bee, and of course, I saw it, too.  I quickly ask if anyone is allergic to bee stings, just in case, and I go to see if I can somehow usher the bee out the door.  This boy has turned around in his desk to look at me, and it just so happens that the bee has flown just behind his head.  He turned around, saw the bee, screamed like a girl, and did a backflip out of the desk and landed it.  That was by far one of the funniest things that has happened while teaching!  The entire class erupted in laughter, the boy and myself included.  Of course, I asked him if he was okay before I let my full laughter escape, but he was, and we all had a good laugh for about five minutes before we went back to learning again.  It was quite a day!  Another time, more recently, I gave out a survey to my students to get to know them a little bit better.  The final question asked if there was anything they wanted me to know.  One student I had put, "I am NOT a gangbanger."  I just thought how sad that people must assume that he is.  I wrote back that I was glad he wasn't, and that I never thought that he was.  It is amazing what these kids go through, just to get through high school.  I'm glad I can be a part of their high school experience, and hopefully make it just a little bit better.  

Hi Everyone!

So, I finally succumbed to the world of blogs.  I figured this is probably the best way to be able to keep up with everyone, so here it goes.