Character Counts

2 of my most talkative and rebellious kids are missing school tomorrow to attend a visitation and funeral for another classmate's grandfather who passed away this week. Tragic...and heartwarming to know that the eldest students of the school are grouping together in support of a classmate. These two talked to me today about their fears and concerns about the funeral and while I could only give them my best advice from experience and remind them that what they are doing is a tremendous act of support for their classmate, my main thought while talking to them that I was so proud - almost so proud to tears - of them, their courage, and their compassion. Beyond that, I was glad I could be the teacher they came to to talk about some of their everyday/out of school problems.

On a classroom side of things...
I fired the kiln a couple times this summer. Ran great. I turned it on last night before I left for the day, step by step - it turned on, started running and was doing everything normal. I had a dream that something would go on. This is just the first year teacher in me, of course, and I knew that anything that could go wrong would only be by accident. So I'm thinking A) either a pot will blow up or B) I set the kiln wrong. Anyways, I get to school crossing my fingers and what do I walk into? A smoldering hot room (which would be normal) and a kiln that is not flashing any "complete" lights at me, in fact! It's completely shut off, cooling down from the high heat it was in the middle of the night. I press buttons, I flip the breakers (my kiln is nearly brand new and powered by its' own separate breaker) and run over to my mentors room and express my panic. I could not open the kiln because it was around 1000 degrees still (that was a guess) to see if something had happened but my first solution was to call my predecessor and see if she had any thoughts. She directed me to the maintenance head who agreed with me that it was the fuse and it needed to be replaced.

Surely enough, they came and tested the fuses and replaced them because they were bad. And walah! Kiln turned back on and started assessing the temperature which read about 895 degrees. It cooled down by my prep period and I unloaded the kiln to see the pottery had fired well and reloaded the kiln. Now, that was not my fault or the kilns fault - just the fuse but still, as a first year art teacher you can imagine my panic! So now, having turned the kiln *back* on and having it run another set of pots through - I just cross my fingers hoping that I return in the morning to a kiln that is ON and running from a power source that isn't faulty! Woo! That was my adventure today. And I kept in mind alllll day that it would get figured out and didn't break a sweat - shows I'm growing up (yes, I slightly sweated because of the heat - just not the stress).

OH! And I'm very excited because I am going to incorporate Graphic Design into the curriculum for both 7th and 8th grade. The kids are very excited about this! They are excited to go further with the technology they already know - and I gathered my resources together so I could apply what was talked about at the conference to my classroom. The tech teachers are supportive and also seem excited about this. :) Wish me luck!