The first weekend is upon us

But before that we had a fight in the cafeteria--one of our best students sent another boy to the hospital. I asked 15 boys to put on their uniforms before leaving the floor or upon re-entering the floor and longed for a tape recorder. This reminded me of multiple occasions where a tape recorder would come in handy as a teacher. I do spend a remarkable amount of time repeating myself.

My classes are over-crowded. Thus placing the whole "small-school" panacea in doubt. My room is so packed in fact, I fear allowing the students much movement because even the most self-controlled beings would be prone to a brawl in quarters such as mine. It's time to don a rubber-tipped pointer and go back to the chalk and talk method in that room. It's the only choice I can imagine.

My third period class will prove the most challenging. There's self-hating "edny" who cannot help but tick everyone off around him and is terribly lucky not to have a broken jaw. There's raw-mouthed Michelle whose vocabulary consists entirely of explitives and who I believe is 17.

Feeling the twinge of desperation, I fled as soon as the afternoon permitted, and on the train encountered my only white student. He is also seventeen, and of an entirely different economic status than the rest of my students. A total anomaly. A charming, drug-addicted by with unfortunate parents. We know each other a bit from last year but this is the first year he has been in my class. His reading level is remarkable and I feel obligated to push him out of my room. He even shares some cultural awareness of things beyond Jordans and Bling. He doesn't belong at our school and yet, he professed to like it, enough even to return after a fairly tumultuous freshman year. I hope he will stave off the high enough at least, to last a few months in good standing.

That was Friday and now I'm off to enjoy my wedding anniversary and some fine wine.