I Talk with a Parent and Make a Hallpass.

First thing this morning, I was being summoned to the teacher's lounge to take a phone call. It was the mother of the student that I have been struggling with. Great call to get first thing. It actually went well. Her Mom understands that she can be difficult sometimes and that she is not a big fan of computers and that sometimes, she shuts down if she gets frustrated, which happens pretty easily. All in all, it went well. It sounds like Mom is on my side. We'll see how it goes when I have her in class tomorrow.

Today, the classes are all finishing up their initial project and submitting it for grading. Most kids have been working very hard and a number of them have created some great stuff. I look forward to figuring out how to print some of the projects in color and putting them up in my student display in the room.

In my 6th Period class, the kids have been a little advanced of all of the other classes. It helps that there are only 12 kids in the class. Most of them were wrapping up their project halfway through. It might have been a good idea to have some little "Sponge Activities" for them to work on, but I didn't have them. I decided that, because they have been working so hard, I would give them the last 30 minutes or so off. I have seen what happens when kids work hard, finish a project early and do good work and then a teacher lays "extra work" on them. They tend to shut down and will refuse to do any hard work anymore.

A couple of kids were still finishing up the last couple of touches on their project, most others were talking or looking on the internet. I decided to make a hallpass. So far, all I have had is the little hallpass pad, which I have to fill out each time someone wants to leave the room. This is a pain in the butt. I took an old broken keyboard from the still lingering pile of junky computer parts under my desk, cut off the cord and wrote in big letters across the front: "MR. BURKHARD'S TECH LAB HALL PASS!" I also found a notebook that I wasn't using and labelled that as "MR. B'S PASS BOOK." From now on, if a student needs to use the pass, they ask me. If I say "Yes", then they sign out in the hall pass book with the date and time and take my keyboard.

I am hoping that this makes my life easier.

Must run now. I have about 90 projects to grade!