Science Fair!

Today was the the annual Science Fair! It went really well. I think we had some really great projects. This year the focus was on creating an experiment instead of a model. Once the students understood the difference, they really stepped up the plate. The winner, a student in my class named Fiona, created an experiment in which she tested which dance got a dancer's heartbeat to speed up the fastest. I was really impressed with most of my students.

Only one student, Fonzo, didn't turn one in. The worse part of my job is definitely the stories I hear about the home lives of the students. I'm pretty sure this is one of the reasons I have problems sleeping at night or awake with a start...I worry...I worry about the students when they are at home in my subconscious. Fonzo has a particularly sad story. He came to us as a new student about two weeks after I started in the sixth grade. He had a really hard time adjusting...constant disrespect, refusal to work, obvious homophobia, the works. Not a lot of teaching went on the first few days he was with us.

Spring break happened and he did a complete 180. Out of nowhere, I never had to ask him twice, he showed me that he was great a math and a good writer. Then we found out what he had been doing on Spring Break. He had moved to La Pasa with his mother, because his gay father is dying of cancer and didn't want to talk to him. Over Spring Break, he got to go and visit him. Then about two weeks after Spring Break, his mother left him with his sister and her husband and she went back to her boyfriend in (not his father) El Paso. So not only does he feel like his father doesn't want him and is dying, he mother left him too...so he feels completely abandoned. He admitted to me that now he is afraid his sister doesn't want him...and if she doesn't then he has no where to go because his uncles in town are all alcoholics and drug addicts.

What the hell do you say to that? I think I was able to say that instead of flipping a kid off when he was having a bad day he should come and tell me he's having a bad day and I can cut him slack with heavy duty assignments and give him some time to just do some journal writing. I think I also managed to get out that perhaps he should try to help his sister out as best he can so that she appreciates having him around. We've already offered counseling services to this family and have been turned down, so there is nothing more we can do unless we think he is being abused or neglected.

In other news, the school day went particularly well today. The students were in a good mood, excited about their science projects and excited about starting geometry in math. We finally finished the unit on fractions and decimals.

We may actually close on the house tomorrow. Please. Please. Let us close tomorrow.