Planking and owling

Another school year has begun.  We haven’t had a full week yet.  We started on Thursday last week with two full days.  This week we had Tuesday off for Constitution Day which was also Eid al-Fitr.  Unfortunately, there aren’t many holidays this year, and only one three-day weekend.  Boo.

As you know, Brooke has moved up to teaching 9-year-olds (4^th grade).  I’ve stayed where I was and have a new group of 12-year-olds (7^th graders).  It’s an age group that I really enjoy working with.  I have a really bright bunch of kids.  We’ve spent the first week going over classroom procedures and creating a positive, supportive learning environment.  I really hope it will be so – really important at any age, but especially in the transition from elementary to secondary.  Most of the middle school teachers were here last year so we started working on this year’s middle school program back in March or April last year.  It has been great.  Again, we’re working to give students more support in this critical period of change from elementary through middle school so that they’ll be successful secondary students.

My 12-year-olds have already started saying the darndest things.  Here’s a sampling from today alone:

 “Mr. Michael, do you like planking?”

“No, huh?”

“How ‘bout owling?”

“What?!”

This kid was referring to the latest fad.  He then went on to demonstrate planking: lying on the floor, face down, expressionless, arms at his side.  Picture a soldier standing at attention who just fainted.  I looked it up and The Washington Post had an interesting article on it.  Have a look.

Another student asked me, “Can I erase the board?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you! It’s my favoritist thing, that and watching Star Trek.”

Okay, time to go owling.



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images sourced from the internet