blogvid

There's this kid in one of the third grade classes I help teach. He is almost as tall as me and just a bg kid in general. Hes really sweet, always smiling, but he never does his work. He passed by my room today on the way to the bathroom while I was not teaching and called my name out for recognition as he usually does. He asked if his class was going to see me today. I said yes. I asked him if he was going to do his work or not. He said he didn't want to do the work, he wanted to go to fifty cent's site. I pointed out that he already knows alot about fitty but not abou Sri Lanka (we are doing a project on animals in sri lanka). He agreed and said "fifty cent has a silver gun. it says on his website." i didn't know what to say. I kinda laughed and gave him a "thats redicuous" face, which I think he understood because he laughed. He left and I immeadiately went to the 50 website. I was curious because I know a lot of the students will try to put a 50 cent wallpaper on the computer or go to the website. On the home page the background is guns of all varieties, and down the page a bit is a silver gun, with bullets laying by its side. We learn about trying to incorporate the students culture into the classroom culture ( a big problem with education is that american classroom culture is primarily a middle-class white culture, which children of other cultures do not understand, and as such have trouble succeeding at school) and tap into their FOK (funds of knowledge, I don't make this stuff up). the FOK is basically what skills/knowledge the student has from previous expereince (for example many students in new york are from the Dominican republic, so they will often have storeis related to the subject you are teaching that happened in DR). Anyways, its confusing for me because I dont think 50 cent and especially his guns are something we should really be discussing in schools. But this is the number one thing this kid wants to do.
other funny things from the field:
Me: in Indonesia the captain met the only teacher at the school there that speaks english. what subject do you think he teaches?
Student: Mexican

about 1000 times a day a student wil have their hand raised or call out "Mr. David" for me to come help them. I get to their computer and they say "i don't know what happened." more often than not I see on their screen the right-click contextual menu. other times I will see the scroll weel button is depressed double arrow thing that lets you scroll faster, but is really just annoying thing. i am all for the right-click, don't get me wrong, but at a time when students are struggling with perfecting the 'ol double click we don't need contextual menu's to muck things up over and over. sometimes i try to explain what happened, but it does not seem to register.

i got a love note from a first grader. i don't even work with first graders. her teacher was absent and when they don't have a sub the students in that class get dispersed to many classes around the school. i had known this girl for 30 minutes when she asked if she could use m white-board marker. i gave it to her and a few minutes later she handed me a piece of paper with a big heart that had "I love you" written in it.

today a student wanted to give me a dollar. last week he gave me a sticker and i put it on my shirt. i told him i couldn't accept money from him. i htink he almost started crying.

most students call me "Mr. David." they cannot help this. I told them my name is David. after one class they add "Mister" to the front. grades 2, 3, 6, and 7. some students started calling me unlce david. another said she wanted me to be her father. i tried to change the subject afap.