Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Happy Cinco de Mayo. For anyone who doesn't know--that means May 5th in Spanish. It is a Mexican celebration. Most people think that Cinco de Mayo is Mexico's Independence Day--like our 4th of July. But it isn't. It is actually the anniversary of a huge battle that Mexico fought and won many years ago. I'm sure everyone is very impressed with my knowledge. But actually I used to teach Social Studies and we did a whole unit on Mexico. So we would always have a huge Cinco de Mayo celebration. The sixth grade teachers would make homemade salsa in our rooms in crock pots. Then we would see who made the best salsa. It was so much fun. But now since we are so test driven in our education, there is not time for fun stuff anymore! :-( That is very sad.

I had a crazy day today. Our students had a half of day of school because of the prom. In middle school, "half a day" translates into the following:

Number 1-- you don't have to follow any of the rules today--

Number 2-- you can wear whatever clothes you want to wear today--

Number 3--you can do whatever you feel like doing today--

and, my personal favorite...

Number 4-- you can talk to adults anyway you would like to today--

One of my knucklehead students felt that all four of the above points pertained to him today. He came into my room and decided he wouldn't do any of his work. Which, by the way, I probably wouldn't have made too much of a deal about since it was a Friday and it was a half a day. But he made his big mistake when he "tried" to get smart and be disrespectful. I tried to calmly inform him that I WILL win if he attempts to battle me. He didn't want to listen to my words of wisdom and tried to battle me anyway. To make a long story short, when I got through with him, my boy ended up sitting in the hall doing the work that he didn't want to do in the first place.

But before you think I am a mean and nasty teacher for making kids sit on the dirty hall floor, I did get to call two parents today and tell them how wonderful their children were doing lately in my class. It is alway so nice to call for positive things. The one mother was so happy and proud of her son. I made sure I called these two parents after I called the knucklehead's mom from above. I wanted to leave school on a positive note.