Book Review

I know this book review is suppose to be for a book of leisure, well I read one but it was The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and since Dr. Zimmerly did a book talk on it I won't. So I am going to tell you about a book that you may have read in High School, but I a covering it in my class so I read it. It is called Of Mice and Men.
This is an amazing book about the spirit of man, loneliness, friendship, and showing mercy for others. It is about to men who travel together as migrant workers during the Great Depression. One man is small (George)and keeps a watch on the other who is big and 'slow' (Lennie). Lennie seems to always get them into trouble, he has a desire to touch soft things which has led to their need to move to the next farm fairly quickly. At their current farm Lennie reaches to touch the soft hair of the landlords wife and accidentally things lead to him killing her.
Now I said this was a book that was a testament to loneliness, friendship, mercy, and the spirit of man. If you want to see how you will have to read the book.
There are boys in my class that have never read a book, and they are reading ahead in this book and have written wonderful essays about it :) Just had to share!

Parent/Teacher

My Parent/Teacher conferences were tonight, I had about 20 parents show up, all went well. Too bad it seems that the two parents I really needed to talk to did not bother with showing up. Maybe that tells a little about why I needed to talk to that parent! Those parents who are not active in their childs school career cannot be surprised when that student is not studious, and we as teachers cannot be surprised when that student has a hard time taking school serious.

I'm not a math teacher!

Being someone who likes words more than numbers, I find myself saying, I am not a Math teacher, a lot. The other day I noticed a student trying to get her math done for the next class before the bell rang for our class to begin. As I walked by I heard one of the other students say, You did not do it right. So she asked if I knew how to do it. I had been years, but after a little review from the student who told her she did it wrong, but for some reason was unable to explain it to this student, I attempted it. I guess the student who was doing it wrong was also a words person, because after I told her in my words how to do the problem she was able to finish the worksheet correctly. I did not think I could teach math, but I guess we were just speaking the same language.

Let's call him Ty

I have a student who was held back for two years, after thought about that, the school decided to let him skip 8th grade so that he would not be 20 when he graduated, or drop out in the 10th grade. So he is my my class as a ninth grader. He has complained about every assignment I have given and everything we have attempted. BUT, we are studying Of Mice and Men, which he complained about in the beginning "I hate reading". Well, he came in class the other day and had gotten so into the book that he read ahead about 10 pages! He was so excited along with the class of students who have watched him have this attitude for so long. They are all "way to go" and asking him questions about what was going to happen next! Those little moments we all live for and want.