I’ve started being especially sensitive about the small handful of kids I teach who are antisocial to some degree. I’ve brought it up with other teachers who are exactly on the same page.

I’ve got a middle schooler who gets in a verbal fight with someone no matter who he’s around. Others often egg him on, but he’s set himself up for it. After I take attendance, other students assigned to his table flee it like rats leaving a sinking ship (they are allowed then to change seats.) He often is spectacularly argumentative with me. This is very sad to me because he is a fine artist who works very diligently and with a remarkable amount of creativity and organization. This is one of the ones that that other teachers are worried about too.

Another student always has his head down, gets mad if I catch him trying to sneak out without cleaning up after himself, and lacks basic skills like how to use a ruler or fold paper remotely evenly. He never talked to anyone else in class either until recently. His head is always way down nearly touching the desk when he works, back hunched over and arm hiding his work. I have discussed him with counselors and the district psychologist. I am relieved that he now sometimes talks to another boy in class, and is a little more animated than at the beginning of the year. Still bends way down over his paper though.

One high schooler I have, he’s not so alarming. I think he’s just a loner who rarely talks to others. He once told me, “I’m not really a people person” when asked to group with other kids. He talks to me sometimes, usually averting his eyes. I’ve helped him out with some projects by printing out images from the internet for him and such. I also gave him a set of expensive drawing pens I had lying around when I saw him trying to find good pens in the classroom supplies. So he approaches me more readily than he did at the beginning of the year. He has a certain sense of apathy that concerns me when it crops up. He often stops what he is doing and lays his head down on folded arms. He once said on a paper something about being depressed, so I think I’ll bring it up with a school counselor now. Except she’s on maternity leave and there’s a sub.

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I’m taking an entomology class this spring. I recently went to the Eastern Sierras with my boyfriend, and we took hundreds of photos. Many of these photos are of insects and spiders. I’d love help identifying these. I’ve asked my entomology teacher to help too. I numbered each photo:

1 & 2 are probably Tent Caterpillars.
3 & 4 is some kind of metallic blue-green bug or beetle.
5 is probably a Small Milkweed Bug.
6 is some kind of long-bodied green fly with orange-red eyes.
7 is a black beetle with a slender body and ribbed forewings (elytra).
8 & 9 are some kind of honey bee.
10 is the abandoned nest of some kind of wasp or hornet.
11-14 are several of the dozens of gray spiders we found on river rocks right near the water.

Click to see gallery page.

UPDATE 6/21/07

My etonmology teacher helped me narrow a few of these down to family names.

3 & 4 are stink bugs (Hemiptera order,) in the family Pentatomidae
7 is a Tenebrionid beetle (Coleoptera order,) in the family Tenebrionidae – possibly genus Eleodes
11-14 are wolf spiders (arachnid order Araneae,) in the family Lycosidae

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I passed my exit interview yesterday with flying colors! Chapman University is sending my credential application today to the state. I should have my really-real credential in six weeks!

There is much celebrating to do. For starters, my boyfriend and will be gorging on sundaes at a local family ice creamery tomorrow night.

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I just got excellent news. I passed Task 4 of the California Teacher Performance Assessment. This is a huge deal! It took me many weeks to pull together and I was really sweating it.

As I mentioned on March 27th, I also passed my graduate Education course (the one I won’t be using after all because I’m switching to a master’s in art) with an A.

I have one final hurdle before I apply for my big-girl credential. I have an exit interview at Chapman tomorrow afternoon. I have taken the day off to make sure my exit portfolio is flawless – or as close as I can get. I have been working for a good long time on this one too.

Then, moving on…I’ve signed up to take the CSET (Calif. Subject Exam for Teachers) in Biology on July 21st. I will be dedicating my first eight weeks of summer to passing this test so I can teach in this specialized area. I am super rusty. Except for the Natural History of Insects class I am currently taking, I haven’t had a biology class in 15 years. Long ago, it was my major.

I’ll be taking an accelerated Foundations of Biology class that wraps up on July 19th, right before the test. It’s Mon-Thursday all morning for six weeks, so I think I’ll try to avoid working during those months. I also bought an exam guide that darn well better help me pass for it’s $60 cover price. I’ll get my pass/no pass grade right before the new academic year begins. I hope that it will broaden my hirability. Plus, I would love to teach biology.

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