First Week of School

I survived the first week back and this week has been FANTASTIC!!!!  We have such an amazing administration and the 7th grade team is AWESOME!!!
This group of kids are very different from last year's group.  Not the brightest group but they are pretty sweet.  I think my most challenging class will be 1st period--there's a lot of personality in there and I can definitely see them getting out of control quickly if I don't stay one step ahead of them.  My favorite class will be 2nd period.  This is my ESL class.  I only have 17 kiddos in that class--1 is from Abilene (I know west Texas can be like a different country but I'm not sure why he's in this class), 5 are Hispanic, 1 is from Egypt, and the rest are from Burma and those kids are such a joy to be around.  Most everyone in that class is so eager to learn, even the two kids who just came to the country just the past week.
As always, with teaching at this school there are numerous stories that make me want to take almost everyone home.  The kids started their "Lifeline" (using rational numbers to represent their life events) project this week.  The kids have to have a few events from before they were born, their birth, and events that happened not on their birthdays.  It was amazing how many kids didn't have a clue about anything that happened before they were born.  Even students who have older siblings couldn't come up with a fact that their siblings were born before them.  It was weird.  I was even more surprised to hear how many kids didn't know their actual birthday!!!  I don't have a single kid that is a Jehovah's Witness so why did so many have a hard time figuring out their birthday?  I had to look it up on the school system so that the students would know.  Crazy.  It was pretty crazy to hear the Chin students talk about when they went into hiding, fled to Malaysia, and then came to the US.  They are a lot braver that I am!
This week I learned of a student that watched his dad almost murder his mom, way too many of my kids have at least one parent in jail (it seems like more kids than usual are opening up this early in the year) and last night, a few of my kids witnessed a murder.  Ugh, it makes my heart hurt.
It's just now 7:30 and I'm already in my PJ's and I'm pretty sure I would be asleep by now if The Princess Bride weren't on tv right now.  In my defense, I am running 10 miles tomorrow so I should be going to be soonish  :p