6 Down, 24 to Go!

And there goes another year! This was about the weirdest end-of-year I've ever had. We always meet, as a department, with our principal to turn in our keys and check out. I was actually put in charge of the technology check out this year, so I ended up missing that last little meeting with the department and principal because I was busy with some technology checkout related thingy (mostly people stopping me in the hall to sign their checkout form). But the weirdest thing was my attitude. Usually I'm jumping and screaming and super pumped to be out of there. This year I bawled. A lot. Still bawling, actually. Two of my very good friends in my department are leaving this year. One of them is the retiring Woods teacher. He's been here with me since I first started, and he's been there for me more than all of the people at my school put together. It was really hard saying goodbye to him today. We joked that we would be leaving together this year--him retiring, and me with a new job. But here I am, planning on a 7th year at this school. I'll be mentoring Steve's replacement--a much younger guy whose background is actually agriculture, not Woods. I'm not very excited.

Anyway, I'll get over it eventually. As soon as I'm done moping, I'm going down to this pastry shop to get a Napoleon, to celebrate the end of the year properly. Seriously, crying about the last day of school?! Something is clearly wrong with me.

This year was really hard. I had some really difficult students in CTE, and the politics of education are getting worse and worse. It's really the politics that got to me this year and made me want to quit. At the same time, I really feel like I'm hitting my stride as a teacher. For one thing, my engineering class is coming together:



I think I mentioned getting a 3D printer this year. It's been a big hit, and an even bigger success. This last semester, I had my students design their own object to print. Here are some of my favorites:



Seriously, these kids amaze me. I had to take a million sub days this past semester thanks to some stupid political things happening in my school district, and my subs couldn't say enough great things about my 25 9th graders in Engineering. They were just spectacular. We also made pull toys again and went on a parade, like last year. The pull toys are getting more interesting, which is generally what happens when you repeat projects semester after semester. The kids just keep trying to top whoever went before them. My two favorites this year:



This was the third parade I've put on, and I always send a mass email warning the faculty about the potential noise, etc. I usually have one or two teachers request us to march through their rooms. This time, I had around 13 teachers email me back. Sadly, the ducky pull toy had a lot of technical difficulties and only made it into two classrooms. And we also ran out of time and didn't make it through our whole route. But it was still fun!

In CTE Intro, I haven't done anything very new. This last quarter I somehow got my kids insanely fired up about programming (we use a program called Scratch and make animation shorts)! So we had a lively round of Scratch Academy Awards, with some really awesome animations. Check out this one, based on The Hunger Games:


That one ended up being the most popular, followed closely by one based on Super Mario Bros. There were quite a few where the kids drew EVERYTHING in the animation, which I thought was impressive. I put together a ridiculously over-dramatized award presentation video:


So anyway. I feel like now I can officially say without a doubt: I teach because I love my students. I'm coming back because I love my students and I want them to get excited about engineering. And that is the ONLY reason.

Oh yah, one more thing: I managed to double my enrollment next year! It would be a shame to quit after FINALLY getting decent enrollment in my electives. Next year, my schedule looks like this:

	Semester 1	Semester 2
1st	Engineering	Engineering
2nd	CTE Intro	CTE Intro
3rd	CTE Intro	CTE Intro
4th	CTE Intro	CTE Intro
5th	Exploring Tech	Exploring Tech
6th	Keyboarding	Free Period
7th	Engineering	Exploring Tech

Sweet.