Shhhaapppy

Yesterday I substituted in the Special Ed. room. Interesting, it was the first job I caught on the website and it sat there for a couple days before I finally took it. Figured I'd look at it as an opportunity for sociological observation. The classes were all very small, thankfully, the biggest having only 6 students. It went pretty well but it was sad to see in a way, many of these kids had pretty much given up, don't give a crud, and they'd been given up on. None of these students were actually learning disabled, they were all capable of doing the work, one boy did have some obvious impairment. Several just stated they didn't have anywhere else to put them. The last class I had was Life Lessons or something like that, they were learning how to fill out a job application, then she left a read and answer questions handout about tornadoes. One girl just blatantly slept, I woke her up once she did some of the application then back down again. The English and Math classes I actually did the worksheets with them so they got done, if you let them 'work on their own' they will do everything but. The advantage in this room is once they finish their work they can spend time on the computer so that prompts them to finish their work. They are not limited to educational sites as one might think (and hope), no, they pretty much can go to any bullshit (pardon my French) they want. The cross-country team left early to get to the meet in Marlette, I didn't have a 5th block since that is her planning hour so I went out and caught a snap of the group waiting for their bus. Check out the sign, it's been up for days like this, just noticed the misspelling when I edited the picture. Sad but not surprising after the papers I read today.

Up at the meet in Marlette they had an elementary team participate from Brown City. What a great program for young runners, I think there were a few other younger teams also. Some of these kids were bookin'! They're like little wind-up toys. It ended up to be a rather huge group of runners though (130-140 probably) and they realistically should have split the race up, either elementary running separately or boys and girls. They got totally messed up with the scoring at the end and didn't even hand out medals because it was taking so long to sort things out. Everything will be sent to the coaches later today. Fox ran the 1.5 miles in 14:11. He said it was challenging with the little kids just zooming around between everybody, and you really had to be on the lookout around the first loop. One boy on the North Branch team got barreled over around an early bend in the course. As you can see in this shot, Fox is still working on keeping his head up!

Substituting: Tomorrow I will be in for one of Fox's teachers: Mr. Mitchell, 7th Grade, Boys Reading, English, Social Studies and SeminAR. Should be a fun time.

Candle Sales: Ben was able to sell 11 candles toward Ecology Camp so he only had to pay $4. Cool and thanks to those who supported his efforts!