Take Tech!

The only problem with teaching an elective class is my job depends on enrollment. If kids don't sign up for my class, I'm out of two periods. This semester is going great so far--my classes are the easiest I've ever head (except for 7th period, possibly. They're a little chatty). I only have 23 Exploring Technology students, between two classes. It's great, because a dozen students is a lot easier to manage, and all my kids get the attention they need. However...at the beginning of the school year, I had 25 kids in Tech 1 alone. During the course of the semester, I lost HALF of them. HALF! And THAT scares me. If I don't get enough kids to sign up for Tech...I might have to teach another period or two of ~shudder~ Keyboarding.

So we're having a bit of a registration battle at my school right now. The hallways are littered. You'd think it was election season or something:It bothers me just a little that kids in my school would rather sing and dance and cook and sew rather than build stuff and make computer games...where are the "men"?! (Seriously, one of my 9th grade boys transferred to a "Sport Sewing" class so he could learn to mend his clothes because he's always ripping them up in sports. Huh?!!?!) I did see this sign above the water fountain right outside my classroom this morning, and it boosted my morale a little.

Immature? Yes. I shouldn't condone it, but I do. Deep inside of me, there's a very very immature middle-schooler who's dying to run around defacing the rest of the dance posters in the hallways. But I'm MUCH to professional to let that particular side of me show. Really.

I'm doing more to recruit Tech kids than I did last year--I put up a display down the hall, and there are fifteen or so posters littering the hallways. I put in plugs for my Tech class during CTE all the time, too. I hope Hope HOPE I'm getting through. There is a group of incoming 9th graders that have been telling me for ages they're going to take Tech, and I've seen some amazing potential engineers in CTE...so here's hoping next year I'll have better enrollment. Building a program from practically nothing is HARD!

Speaking of Tech class...we are working on the "Wall of Readiness" poster project again. In this project, my kids take pictures and make posters demonstrating how the classroom should or should not look, how to be on time to class vs being tardy, how to line up properly, etc. Sometimes I get great results out of kids, depending on good attitudes and high levels of creativity. Sometimes I get kids who are a little TOO enthusiastic and this is what happens:
I love my job. I would be so BORED doing anything else.