i'm officially cool

Great news. I'm officially a cool teacher. Already this afternoon I've had students stop by TWICE to say hi. It's probably the fact that I have the mechanical babies and they just want to see the babies. Either way--I'm taking it as "I'm awesome".
I can't believe that I'm almost finished with week three. This has been so challenging. I have spent way way way too many hours at school working on lesson plans and getting things ready. I think I have to come to terms with the fact that I will never be as prepared as I'd like to be. To be honest, I've heard that from a lot of teachers, and it's just starting to sink in to me.
It's so disappointing when you know that you need to teach something well, but it just backfired on you. Like today. My students have been in the kitchens for a few days making Pasta Salads. They ate the salads yesterday, and it was a sigh of relief, because it was so hard to get them made and ready. But they did it, and I was proud. I evaluated some things that I've taught--and they have no idea how to follow a recipe. Or maybe they know how to follow a recipe, but I've walked them through everything, so they aren't succeeding at it. Anyways, today I planned a lesson that really should have only taken 15 minutes, but it took ALL PERIOD. We were planning the labs for next week. By now the students have read the recipe and know what they have to do. Hopefully things will go better next week when we make fruit pizzas. We'll just have to see.
In other news, I've finally gotten my $1,000+ computer modules up and running. I was planning on having my 7th graders use them today, but there were lots of kids who left to go play football, so we cooked instead. My 7th graders do much better in the labs--but they were taught last year by a more experienced teacher. It will all come with time....
My 8th graders are neck-deep in human sexuality. It's such a hard subject to teach. It terrifies me, to be perfectly honest. But we watched an incredible movie for the last two days, and the result was mostly positive. All I want from my students is for them not to get pregnant during high school. I would be so happy if they would not get STDs and not get pregnant outside of marriage, and I would be overjoyed if they all waited to have sex until they got married. It breaks my heart so often when people say that teenagers are just "animals" and they all are just horny and have sex all the time. They are so much more than that. I hope that my girls have self-confidence and self-respect enough to wait. I tried to teach them today, but I don't know how effective I was. I did the best I can. Tomorrow is STD day. After that, we're going to move out of human sexuality....mostly because I'm terrified of angry parents, but also because I don't know what else to teach. We're going to talk about fetal development next week which is always super interesting. I'm stoked.
I'm off now to go watch the 8th grade volleyball team. My girls did their cheer for me after lunch today. And I'm here, so I might as well watch them play. I figure---when you have to teach sexuality, you should do everything you can so your students will trust and respect you. That way they will listen to and follow what you have to tell them. So....go team!!

~The Teacher