The Joy of Summer School

Unlike the Joy of Pepsi, the Joy of Summer School only lasts 3 weeks, and I'm 2 school days in - 13 more to go.

What to say of this group of 21 kids who are just about 7 weeks away from being 7th and 8th graders?

The phrase "blank stares" comes to mind. Actually, it's a noun phrase, to be more precise (thanks, Mark). Both mornings, I've been greeted by a visibly attentive audience. All eyes on me. And yet... I get no visual or audible feedback. Not even nodding of heads. I lavished praise upon Z. for nodding her head in response to one of my questions, hoping that would inspire others to follow suit. But it did not. I even printed out and passed around a photo from Pamplona of a guy getting gored in the "buttocks" by a bull, but nary a snicker. Tough crowd.

Teaching summer school is, I imagine, much like working in an emergency room. Time is of the essence - you can't spend a whole lot of it on getting to know your patient. You've just got to treat what's obviously wrong and hope that it helps them to get significantly better. I spent the first day assessing as best I could their strengths and areas of need in writing and spelling. I already got 3 spelling groups up and running today and did a review of the basic elements of paragraph writing (indenting, proper use of capital letters, the use of punctuation, sticking with one topic per paragraph, etc., and the improvements are vast already). I also took them to the book room to choose 3 informational books that are precisely at their reading level to help improve their reading comprehension. We're also working on a newspaper that will be published each Friday and sent out to all 200 summer school students.

There will be some interesting stories in the paper (which is currently nameless). We had an arson attempt on our snack shack on Monday morning, so we'll have an investigative piece on that. A pair of boys will be writing about the vandalism and break-ins that occurred in our middle school the last few weeks of the school year, resulting in the expulsion of 3 students. A girl will write a scathing social commentary about how kids blindly copy the examples of celebrities. We'll also have a horoscope, some poetry, and other hard hitting news. Nothing on Karl Rove, however.

Summer school also means trying to figure out what to do with my day after 12:30. So far, the answer has been rereading Harry Potter Year 5 so I can get to book 6 which I picked up on Sunday. Can't wait to read it!