Being Tested

Yesterday was one of the toughest teaching days I've had in a long time. All week long we've been benchmarking, meaning we've been giving last years TAKS test to our students to get an idea of where we stand. That gives us a better idea about who needs to have extra help and tells us specifically what areas they are struggling in. I administer the test to the dyslexic students because they receive a few special accommodations on the test (like me being able to read the questions to them).

My group yesterday only had three boys in it. The day started off great. They did everything I asked them to do without a problem. Then about halfway through the test something changed. I'm not sure what happened to cause it, probably just the fact that the test is really long and all that reading is tough on a dyslexic child. The change occurred in the attitude of one the boys taking the test, and boy oh boy did his attitude change.

This little boy is new to our district. In his previous school he had failed every single subject last year, but they'd moved him on anyway. When we called to see what was up with that we were told that he had failed because he spent almost the entire year expelled or in I.S.S. (in school suspension). So basically he had never been in class. I'm not blaming that school. I know exactly why he was kicked out of class. It was because that is what he wanted. The reason I know that is because that's what he wanted me to do with him yesterday. He wanted me to send him to the office or kick him out of my class.

He started off by saying stuff like, 'I don't care about this test. I'm not taking it anymore.' When I kept insisting that he was going to take it and he was going to do well he started making really loud noises while the other students were testing. When this didn't get him kicked out of my room he started throwing things (his test, his pencil, his sharpener....anything in reach really). He threatened, he flipped me off, he was determined to get sent out of the room and get out of doing his work. He finally came right out and said, 'why don't you just kick me out of here? That's what everyone else does.'

And there it was. I had known the reason he was acting so mean (he said some way mean things) and violent, but I had not expected him to just come right out and say it. My answer to him was that I wasn't everyone else and I knew he was smart and that he could slam dunk this test.

And it was true. I knew he could do well. It is obvious this child is very bright. There is no reason for him to be failing all his classes and throwing his life away. So what the rest of the day (several hours of it) came down to was a battle of wills...him against me. I sat across from him and pointed to each and every word saying 'read it' and then on the next word 'read it' and on the next and the next and the next. I never raised my voice. I acted like I had all the time in the world and that I was never, ever going to stop pushing him to do his best. Eventually he got sick of me pointing to each word and saying read it over and over until he read it and he started reading on his own.

Of course when he'd get to the questions he'd try to just randomly circle answers. My response to that was that apparently we needed to read the entire story again (there are six fairly long stories and about fifty questions). When I flipped back to the beginning of the story and pointed to the first word and started saying 'read it' to him, he backed down and said, 'okay, okay. I'll answer them right.'

There was so much more that happened, but you get the idea of how the day went. It wasn't fun and it was very stressful. When he finally walked out of my room with the other students it was all I could do to not cry....from stress...from relief that we'd managed to finish...from sadness that he was so hardened at such a young age...just from a lot of things.

I sucked it up and took the tests down to the boy's regular classroom teacher. She graded the tests and they all passed. Not only did they all pass, but the little boy who was so angry and mean made a perfect score. I knew he could. He was the only person in the entire grade to do that. I saw him last night walking down the street with a group of kids with hats on crooked and pants down hanging low on their hips. I pulled up and rolled down my window and said, 'Hey J, guess who made a 100 on that test.' He responded with a tough and attitude filled, 'who?' I didn't say a word. I just pointed at him. He tried to hide the smile that burst through, but I saw a quick glimpse of it before he tried to act like he didn't care. Then I said, 'guess who was the only person in the entire grade to make a 100.' He again says, 'who?' and I just slowly point at him. This time he doesn't try to hide his delight. 'No way!' he yelled and I smiled, pointed at him again and gave him a thumbs up. Then I drove away.

I love my job.

Power Team

Tonight the Power Team came to visit our community. Actually they will be here for five nights, but tonight was the first. If you don't know anything about the Power Team check out their website http://www.thepowerteam.com/. They are incredible and bring a wonderful message in a way that captures the attention of the youth.

We started working to raise money to bring them here, gosh, months ago. Several of the local churches did fund raisers and some of the businesses donated too. I was a little disappointed to see that we didn't totally fill the high school auditorium on the first night. But boy howdy, I was NOT disappointed by the end of the altar call. Guys, over 100 people came forward. That is AMAZING in a town this size. Most of them were teens and that is almost half of our high school enrollment. Can you imagine the change this can make in this town and in our schools? Some of the people were older though. I even took down contact information from a lady that was about seventy years old. I am so happy that she found the Lord! I couldn't stop crying. And smiling. And crying some more. And smiling some more. I was all teeth and tears.

The 'show' started out with stack after stack of wood being lit on fire after they were doused with some type of fuel. Now remember this was in the high school. My husband is the high school principal and gave them permission to have the rally there. People, you should have seen that man's face! I thought he was going to have an aneurysm on the spot! I can just see visions of the school burning down dancing in his head. But things went fine. They broke all the wood, nobody caught on fire and everybody was happy. Of course Dave had to go to the men's room shortly there after and I am convinced it's because he almost messed his britches!!!

As I said earlier the Power Team will be here through Sunday so pray that God continues to move in the hearts of the people in our town. I am helping sell stuff, usher during offering and with the Altar call. It will be a busy week, but well worth every second!!!

Side Note: The Power Team visited our elementary school earlier today and Brookie is now crushing on a 21 year old man with muscles bigger than she is! What am I going to do with that child?

Love Note With A Twist

This morning while I was showering a wave of hubba, hubba husband love washed over me. You know, the kind of feeling that a wife can only feel early in the morning BEFORE their hubby actually wakes up and opens his mouth and ruins a perfectly good moment.

Oh I kid. My husband never annoys me when he opens his mouth (I love you honey!!! You can go back to watching ESPN now. Muah!).

Okay, where was I? Oh yes, I was in the showering feeling all warm and lovey dovey (gosh, that sounds dirty. What is with my blogging lately??). Well, while I was feeling sappy I spotted Brookie's bathtub markers and that gave me a grand idea. Dave always showers after I do so I decided to take the red marker and write a big giant I HEART U on the shower wall for him to find. After that was done I went back to my normal showering routine and smiled stupidly to myself as I thought of his reaction to my note. I thought of the way my serious, quiet, anal retentive husband would smile and...

Wait....anal retentive....he is anal retentive and he is going to climb into this shower and see my note and instead of a little love note left to make him smile he is going to see RED MARKER on his SHOWER WALL and he is going to FLIP OUT. He has never given the girls a bath. He'd have no idea what shower markers were. Well poohdunkle. Now what was I going to do? I really didn't want to wash it off. I wanted to surprise him with a note in the shower, but I didn't want to make him angry. So I did this:




In case you can't read it, the note ended up saying: I HEART U (don't freak...this is a tub marker).

After I amended my little note I once again returned to my regularly scheduled shower and then halfway through washing my hair I started to giggle. What kind of love note was that? Who wrote an amendment to a love note? The more I thought about it the harder I giggled at myself. I almost decided to erase it all and forget the whole thing, but then it occurred to me that there was nothing wrong with my note. It may not be a typical love note, but it was OUR kind of love note and it was perfect...perfect for us. So I left it and guess who loved it?

My anal retentive husband loved it, that's who.

Prayer Request

My cousin Taylor was attacked by a pack of wild dogs earlier today. So far all I know is that when they got her to the hospital part of her skull was exposed, her neck had been ripped open and that she had no feeling in her hands (they fear spinal cord damage I think). They say she is in pretty bad shape and has been care flighted out. She is Lauren's age and has no parents (lives with her grandmother). Her mother died when she was a few weeks old and she never knew her father. Please add her to your prayer list. I know this blog doesn't reach very many people, but every prayer helps.

Thank you all and God Bless.

Edit: Ran home at lunch to post a quick update for you. I called the hospital and Tayler (I spelled it correctly this time Jax- nannie nannie) answered the phone herself. She really sounded like she was in good spirits. They had to repair 36 areas during surgery and there were at least that many more puncture wounds that they cleaned and left to heal on their own. She was out skating alone when a Pit Bull attacked her. She fell to the ground and covered her head and then another dog joined in...and another and another until SIX dogs were attacking her at once. Finally a wonderful and brave woman drove by and saw them attacking her and honked her horn repeatedly to scare the dogs away. When that didn't work she grabbed one of her golf clubs and jumped out of her car and beat the dogs off of Tayler. As far as I am concerned this woman is a hero. Anyway, Tayler isn't sure when she gets to come home, but her life isn't in danger and she has all the feeling in her hands now. Praise God. Continue to pray for a speedy recovery (physically, mentally and emotionally). Thank you!!

Snap! Crackle! Pop!

When I was a kid I loved static electricity. I used to lay in bed at night under a fluffy blanket and amaze myself with the sparks I could make (somehow that sounded dirty, but I promise it wasn't). Then there was the time I had a slumber party and my daddy took what seemed like hundreds of balloons, blew them up, rubbed them on his head (he had hair back then), and stuck them all over the ceiling in the living room. All of us little party animals in princess pajamas slept under that canopy of hairy balloons and while we were happily dreaming of what it would be like to be Smurfette all the balloons drifted down on top of us. When we woke up the next morning we were covered in a blanket of balloons. It was like magic! And oh my goodness what fun my brother, sister and I had sliding around the house in our sock feet building up a charge and then sneaking up and shocking the crapola out of each other. Good times, good times.

Well things have changed. I no longer like static electricity. In fact I am starting to loathe it. It messes with my skirts. It messes with my hair. It makes me accidentally shock the daylights out of people (mostly myself) and since I'm officially old it's just not funny anymore. It's annoying. But apparently we chose to live in the center of where all static electricity in the universe dwells because no matter what I do I get shocked. If I touch a door, it shocks me. If I touch a car, it shocks me. If I touch my computer it shocks me so bad I keep to check and see if my eyebrows were blown off.

I'm not the only one being stalked by the static. Brookie often looks like she stuck her finger in a light socket. Man oh man that child's hair can stand on end. It's amazing really. And the last time Madame Dog went out to potty she came back with so much static charged dry grass stuck to her that she looked like a tiny scarecrow (of course Mighty Dog is still the one that needs to petition the Wizard for a brain).

Speaking of my dogs, if I don't figure out how to stop this shocking madness soon they are going to run away (I have shocked them so many times that they now look at me suspiciously if I get within ten feet of them). Then I'll have to resort to a pet elephant or rhino so that their tough skin will protect them from my jolts. Of course the thought of the Dave's face the first time the rhino hiked it's leg on his shoes makes that idea almost fun, but I like my dogs so I'd rather just stop zapping them.

So does anyone out there have any ideas on how I can stop the static madness?

Toilet Owners Beware!

I don't want to cause nationwide panic and mass hysteria, but I think there is a monster in my house. Seriously people, A MONSTER.

I know! I was just as amazed and frightened as you are.

This isn't just any monster either. Oh no, not for me, I just don't roll that way. You see if I had a vampire it would be easy...garlic, holy water, sunshine, a stake in the heart...no problem. Or maybe a nice werewolf...hello, this is Texas, guns are everywhere and surely a silver bullet could be found. A monster under the bed? That's easy. I'd just show them what's under Brookie's bed and they'd so be running for their lives.

But could my monster be something that simple?? Nooooo. Instead of a run of the mill one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater I end up with some freaky monster with what must be half a dozen butts! Seriously people, A BUTT MONSTER.

I'd show you a picture of the beast, but I haven't actually seen it yet. But that matters not, because it is so living in my house and I have proof! Behold the evidence....

This toilet paper roll was full this morning. FULL. But look at it now. It's empty. EMPTY. Scary no? And if that freaks you out wait 'til you see this...

All of these toilet paper rolls are fresh out of the trash in one of our bathrooms (yes, just one of them). This very trash was emptied less than a week ago and now it is filled with all of these emptied toilet paper rolls (and we were out of town half the week!). It's okay. Don't panic. Take a deep breath. I was frightened too, but things will be okay. I will find this horrifying butt monster and I will conquer him.


But first I have to wait for him to get home from the basketball game.

Resolution

It's a brand new year and this will be my first post in 2008. For some reason I've had trouble trying to pull all my thoughts together for a post. Material to write about shouldn't be a problem. 2007 was a rough year on our family, but in the end we came out of it wonderfully blessed.

For more than half of last year my baby sister was in the hospital fighting a mysterious illness. As if her bone disease and connective tissue disease were not enough she up and got tetanus, or what the doctors thought was tetanus for six months. It turned out to be a tumor on her thymus causing her to have horrible spasms that kept her hospitalized and even caused her to be put into a coma. When they finally figured out what the problem really was they didn't give us a lot of hope that she would survive the illness, the surgery and the treatment after surgery. But God is GOOD and she came through the surgery with flying colors and ended up avoiding chemo totally. This was all God and His answer to hundreds and hundreds of prayers.

Still, even with such a wonderful story to share I couldn't decide what to write about in my first post of the year. I was torn between Shanna's story, or sharing how wonderful Christmas was, or about our lovely trip to visit good friends for New Year's Eve, or maybe even sharing my New Year's Resolutions.

Finally, after starting and stopping numerous posts, I decided to take the easy way out and simply post a few pictures that Lauren took throughout the year and by doing so, avoid writing anything at all. That's when I came across this picture:

I took this picture a few weeks back when stopping by to check on some of my students and their family. Six people lived in this house...four children and two adults. It's hard to see in this picture how very tiny this house is or that several of the windows are broken out and covered only in cardboard and tape. We (some teachers at my school) made sure the children had a good Christmas with bikes and toys and clothes. The family ended up moving out of our district over the holiday and I know I will worry about the children for a long, long time.

Even though the boys are gone, I am thankful that I still have this picture. It serves as a reminder of what many of my students face each morning when they wake up. Some don't have electricity. Others do not have water. Many of them worry about food for their next meal and having warm clothes to wear.

I am thankful, so very, very thankful that God allows me to be a part of these precious lives day after day. I pray that I am a blessing to them and that I touch their lives in a positive way. God loves each of the children I teach even more than I do (and that is saying a lot) and seeing this picture somehow rekindled my desire to be the very best teacher I can be.

So there you have it. That is my resolution and my prayer for 2008...to be the best teacher I can possibly be and to let God's love overflow onto the children I am so very blessed to teach.

Edit: Please ignore the bird poodunkle/tinkle (not sure which it is) in the picture. Apparently it fell just as I snapped the picture. The bird obviously wanted it's 'stuff' to be famous. Well, now you've done it bird, a whole six and a half people will forever remember seeing your poodunkle/tinkle. Congratulations.