I Will Not Chew Gum in Class

I was walking around looking for a students to assist during an after-school tutoring program when I noticed two girls, having finished their other homework, literally plowing into the task of writing in their journals. They were going at it with the sort of zeal reserved for things like pie-eating contests. I was pleased, thinking maybe they'd stumbled onto some great insight and were rapidly recording it in their personal journal before their thoughts vanished into nothingness. I came closer to discover line after line of "I will not chew gum in class". They'd filled up page after page in their spiral notebooks with these sentences. I commented, "So, which class did get caught chewing gum in?" The first girl replied, "I haven't gotten caught yet, but when I do, I'll have my sentences ready." I found it sort of funny, but then a sad commentary on the lack of effectiveness of that particular teacher. I guess it would be like all of us sending in a few hundred bucks a month and then speeding down the freeway, not even bothering to brake at the sight of a patrol car. Except that we can't do that. I usually have a problem, in general, with giving writing as punishment, although I've even stooped to it in desperation a couple of times in my 19 years of teaching. However, I'd prefer they write a research report on the history or chewing gum or something of that nature.

In other news....


I GOT A NEW LAPTOP FOR MY BIRTHDAY!!! Yes...I'm blogging right this minute on a brand new Acer Laptop. It's a wonderful, beautiful, almost cosmic thing. I feel human again. The Granbury school district provided us with laptops, so I've been without one since moving to OK. My parents bought me this one last week. I'm still figuring it out. I clicked on a desktop icon today and discovered that it had a built in camera. Here a a few shots of me at my desk at school, just after I figured out I could take pictures with it.

Pretty darn cool.

Thanks for checkin' in!
love and grace,
pam
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