Off to another week of work again. I'm ready for my kids to finish Flowers for Algernon already. They're just not into it like I thought they would be. I mean, it's one of my favorite books, so I thought my excitement about it might rub off on them. The thing I didn't think about is that these kids are much less mature than I was (and most of the rest of the people I knew were) in the eighth grade, and they see it as a story about a retarded guy getting smart rather than the literary masterpiece that is. Although, they really enjoyed learning about subliminal messages when we got to the part where Charlie talks about learning subconsiously. So at least they got something out of the story. They still call Algernon a rat, because whoever drew the pictures in the book made him look like a rat instead of a mouse, but whatever.

I'm hoping when we get to the Holocaust Unit I have planned for the rest of the year (after we finish with Charlie) that the kids will get more into that. Considering most of them probably have no idea what the Holocaust is or what happened in WWII, I think they'll be interested. And they seem to like when I teach them about history, because their actual history teacher doesn't actually teach. He makes them copy the definitions of the vocabulary words in the book and then they get tested on that. He very rarely stands in front of them and teaches. I know this because I was in his history class in 8th grade, and he hasn't changed at all, so I know firsthand what he does and doesn't do. So when they learn something from me about history, they're always like "We learn more about history in your class than we do in History class." It's true � so far this year, I've taught them more about the Civil War ("The Gettysburg Address" and "O Captain! My Captain!") and the Civil Rights Movement ("I Have a Dream" and "The Power of Nonviolence") than their History teacher has. And I teach Language Arts!

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I can't believe - 11.22.2006
life sucks - 11.19.2006
alone and unhappy - 11.14.2006
please don't let it end - 10.15.2006
nothing to wear - 08.28.2006

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