When the going gets tough...

Sorry for not posting for a while, things are just moving so fast now. The last two weeks have simply flown past, now that I feel I’ve found my rhythm.

Activities has continued to be awesome. After finishing up Italian cooking with 7^th grade (they LOVED making pasta alfredo) we moved on to Thailand and made Pad Thai (astoundingly, you can get ALL the ingredients for the dish at almost any store!) This week will be China for vegi stir fry, and then we get to Indian cooking (with a brief layover in France for crepes the week of Fat Tuesday.) The kids are really getting into it, even badgering me outside of class about what we are going to cook next.

7^th Grade art has been likewise a huge success, now that I am doing different projects from the 8^th grade art class. The 3 Object drawing project turned out great, and now we are working on hot/cold colors and organic/geometric shapes (very modern art looking drawings, but the kids enjoy it, and it challenges their visual thinking!)

Alas, 8^th grade has not been quite as successful, mainly because nobody has been bringing in their materials. In art we just finished a creative color wheel painting, and now are (theoretically) working on a four color scheme painting. I think the kids would like the project, if only they would bring in a picture to paint from. Likewise, the Chinese New Year dragon puppets we are doing in activities SHOULD be almost half way finished, but most students haven’t even started! I am truly at a loss as to how to get them to start bringing in their materials.

On the plus side, I really feel like I’ve got this teaching thing down now…well, at least the classroom management part. Many of the students actually seem to respect me, and know when I mean business. True by US standards my classroom is still a “three ring circus”, but that is a step up from “riot of killer clowns”.

However, there are still a few “killer clowns” lurking in the high trapeze, and taming them is proving problematic. Certain drama queens will just dig their heels in and find ANY excuse to argue and complain about the class at hand. I actually had to scream at one class today (something I try to NOT have to do very often) when they were on the verge of rioting. I had given them another group project, only this time they had assigned groups (dun dun DUUUUUUUUUN!!!!!!)

The  way some of them reacted you would think I had just told them I was going to shave their heads and send them to boot camp…hmm, now that I think of it, that’s not such a bad idea…

Oh, and here is a little video one of the other volunteers found. It's been my motivation during some of the more trying classes:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6wRkzCW5qI