Neglectful on all fronts

I feel like things are slipping. Like tim ehas runn through my hands too quickly.

Its christmas being on my doorstep again, its the end of the semester and my classes needing to be wrapped up. Its the end of my teaching semester and those classes needing to be wrapped up in such a way that the kids will be excited to come back.

I have a whole list of things I wish I had done differently. I taught the bio one kids a bunch of cell biology stuff, that I think is absolutly facinating, and plan on running through the kingdoms next semester, now I almost wish I hadn't done any molecular stuff and saved it all for the advanced bio and the bio two kids. But the intellectual inside me got the better of me. I like the cell bio stuff. I like the genetics stuff. SO I taught it to them.

Now I have the bio one kids doing some veyr basic ecology and animal behavior type stuff. I thought it would be a nice transition from micro to macro bilogy and I though that around christmas and thanksgiving would be a good time to get them thinking outside themselves.

But the kids aren't doing as well as I would like on their tests and a parent I met with Friday (same one I had the phone conversation with: I am a surgon, I must be an expert on everything) complained that he thought it was too hard. Maybe it is, this is my first year, maybe I was asking too much of them. But, I still won't give his daughter and just his daughter a special extra credit assignment to pull a D up to an A, in two weeks. Not going to happen. I also can't help it that the book for bio one is a collegel level text (and poorly written) and ten years old and that they are held together with duct tape. I know they are held together with duct tape, I provided the tape.

I have been promised new books. I have my ear to the ground for a good system. But this is what we have to work with for now. Its a hell of a lot better then what some schools get. I make worksheets and find articles for them to go along, but I really do not think that it is too much to ask a sophomore to read her book, review her notes and study her vocabulary before a test.

Anyhow, I am thinking of making a teired study for points scale next semester and I was hopeing to run it by any parents of highschool teens who might still be reading what has to be the worlds most borring blog.

For a manditory five points, the student must have a parent signiture that they were 1) seen actually reading the nextbool or 2) quizzed on vocabulary words or 3) taught the parent that day's consept.

One of those, once a week would be manditory. But I figure I would offer an additional thre extra credit points for doing another activity and two more points for the third, so a student could make double points on the grade book if they did this. But it would require the cooperation of all the parents.

Lets see, I wish I had done plants before it got cold, Took me a little while to get into the rythem of teaching everyday. And I wish I were just one of those super organized and super together people.

LEts see, we put up the christmas tree today. I guess its kind of late, but I honestly get stressed out about the whole thing. Putting it up is a mess. Keeping the kids out of it is a HUGE hassel, and I am always wanting to fiddel with the ornaments to get them arranged just right, which is really impossible with a one year old screeching "apple" and pulling them down. At least I am smart enough that all of them are shatter proof, except they look like what they are, plastic with shiny metalic paint on them . Oh well. One of these days I will have kids big enough to buy actual breakables. Until then, why bother.

Isaiah said something interesting today. I guess I must have started it. We were at walmart, and passed the little girls clothes and they had some gorgeous holiday dresses out for little girls. and I said, mostly to myself, One of you should have been a girl, then I could buy things like this. And at the time that was the end of it, We went through the store with me tickling the kids and encouraging Gideon to not wander too far.

Then tonight at dinner, Isaiah says, MOM you should adopt a girl. And I said somethign about being busy with three boys and a baby was hard work, and he say's adopt a big kid, like me. He added that I could wait until we had a bigger house.

I don't know what to make of this. DId I make the poor kid feel bad for being a boy? Does he want a sister? Have the foster care ads gotten to him (they ardvertise here)? Is this a healthy line of thought?

I am not a fan of infant adoption. I have been subjected to the pressures from proadoptoinists and now my cousin is being too. SHe is eighteen and pregnant and will graduate in december and have her baby in january. She is a smart girl and plans to go into the army. Her father and his partner have already agreed to take care of the baby as much as she needs them to while she serves her country. HEr mom is making her see an adoption counsilor, who apparently guilts her and scares her to death once a week. And then her dad tells her, look at your cousin Alyce, she does it. I am not sure I want to be that kind of role model, but I hate the way income has been linked to parenting in this country.

Being wealthy does not make a person a better role model, more loving or better able to raise a child. Being poor does not make one lazy or useless.

But why would my son suggest we adopt a ten year old girl. Sometimes girls that age scare me. They get so nasty in their teens.