Personality Tests

Do you know why they didn't hire the cross-eyed teacher?

She couldn't control her pupils.

That, right there is a joke worthy of being called a dad joke.  I have more if you need them.

I haven't blogged in awhile because i have been super busy.  Like, crazy insane busy.

I've officially hit the bottom of the low point in my first year, and yes it is the pits.  I am grateful for the fact that I know this is normal and will go away eventually.  Working in charter school systems is hard.  Parents decide that their kid isn't doing well, or not learning what they want or blabbedy blah blah blah.  I just feel bad for the poor kids because I feel like they deserve some stability but that's just me.  I keep losing kids, even in orchestra and it makes me feel like a bad teacher even though it's not my fault.  I just always really like the kids that leave. Can't they just take the awful ones?

It doesn't help that other jobs are opening and I keep wondering if I would be happier here or over there, but then moving sounds way more daunting than just staying put for one more year so that's that.

I always wanted to be that cool teacher where students write me love notes....but this is all I get I guess.

It was pretty cool.  I whited out some names so that I would be legal.  If you see Jeffrey on there that is a student but not really.  He's the invisible class member who tries to turn in other people's stuff with his name on it. 

One more moment.  I give my new students an orchestra personality test and this semester I worked super hard to make it seem legitimate.  Then I interview all my students and make sure I have a balanced orchestra. When you tell someone that they test shows that they should be a cello because of this and this and this they will sometimes pick cello.  It's manipulative I know, but it works for me!  I got this idea from an awesome teacher friend of mine.  Anyways,  in class I'm tuning (story of my life) and I hear a cello player ask, so do you all wrote on your test that you like chocolate ice cream?  I panicked for a moment because some of them put like rocky road or something of that nature, but I guess they just heard do you like chocolate? They all looked at him and said well...yeah duh!  He said, awesome then we are meant to be cellists!!!  He looked at me and said, Ms. Helm personality tests do work!!   I was so relieved, all I said was yep. Phew! Crisis averted!