Taking Charge

Teacher Tips

With my being sick and out of school most of December, my students have managed to develop some bad habits. I decided we needed some "remedial work" in classroom deportment and a wake up call about taking responsibility for completing required assignments.

I will be doing new seating charts for my homeroom/first period class and I reassigned the computer workstations. Then I gave a very specific set of directions for completing assigned classwork and also gave a tight deadline. Most of my students will have to do some work at home to finish up, so I guess homework is included in the package.

The trouble is, there are at least 5-6 computers in my lab that are on the fritz. My big fear is that there may be a virus in the system or that, due to their age, one after another is going to fail as the year goes on. Since I only have 20 workstations and classes of 25-26, this poses a serious problem. Thank heavens the wonderful teacher in the adjoining room has spare stations for my students to use and she is very generous in accepting my overflow. I can easily move from one room to the other during the course of a class to check up on the students, but in general, they behave pretty well when they are "guests" in her classroom.

At any rate, with that and a summary lecture in my last period 10th grade class, things went much more serenely today. My seniors were still not exactly entralled with Anna Russell, but her retelling of all 4 operas in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle is simply too hard to resist, so afterward we ended up having some pretty good discussion. While I am not a big opera fan myself, I believe my students need to know there is more to the world of culture than rock concerts and video games.

Good thing the teaching day offered successful lessons, because it was bitter cold today and being out with the horses was not in the cards. The ground is like a rock and the air practically freezes my bones.

The Boys seemed quite content and Tucker was decidedly pleased to have his little pen open so he could go in and out of the barn at will, exploring all the paddocks.

When I got home, strangely enough, he was off by himself in the far west paddock while Toby and Chance were hanging out together in the center paddock on the other side of the barn. Usually, Tuck and Toby are together and Chance is the odd man out. As omega horse in the herd, he is usually off by himself while alpha Toby and "alpha wannabe" Tucker stick together.

That doesn't mean that Chance is always left out, because when it's playtime, he and Tucker partner up and Toby usually plays referee.

It is an interesting hierarchy. Just curious to see Tucker alone this time.

But everyone seemed pretty happy, so it was just fine.