AIDS and Blood Diamonds

I'm trying to piece together some interesting outside resources for my students for when we study Africa. I want to them to write a paper either about Blood Diamonds, or the AIDS epidemic. If you know of any great books, movies, articles, or anything else, please let me know.

Cheers,
Ms. Redman

I lost count of what week it is

It's Monday morning, and I'm not exactly prepared, but it's OK. My students are going to be starting a new unit this week studying Asia. I'm pretty excited for them, since it means that I'm going to show Slumdog Millionare, and we are going to study the war in Iraq and the middle eastern conflict. This unit will be big on writing!

I'm getting so excited for Thanksgiving, I can't even explain it. I cannot wait to see my family.

:) New Seating Chart = Genius

7th period has been driving me crazy for about 14 weeks. Today, I put them in a new seating chart and LIFE.IS.GOOD. Students are more engaged, it is quieter, and I'm not shouting over people.

I just hope 8th period takes to their new placements just as well.

Water + Computer

And you can guess what happens.

:-(

At least it's not my Mac. It was the school Dell. Those things are pretty much rocks, so hopefully, once it dries out, it will be just as crappy as it was when I got it.

The Mountain

This is the homework I should have graded this weekend. Well, actually, this is only part of it. Oh well. I have 2 off periods tomorrow to get some of it done.

In other news, this weekend I went to a Third Eye Blind concert, made pizzas, laughed a lot, drank too much wine, spent time with wonderful people, saw downtown, saw the typical Saturday night downtown crowd, got kicked out at closing time, played shuffleboard, and stayed out way past my bedtime. Success, but not something that I can do multiple weekends in a row.

Is shuffleboard an olympic sport?

I can't wait for Thanksgiving and cooking, and eating and seeing family and friends and sleeping, and the Saturday market, and the Portland skyline, and the Portland radio stations. 

This week in my classroom, my students learned about the history of Russia. Thursday and Friday were spent understanding Lenin and Stalin through pictures, quotes and some other resources. Some of the quotes that I used are pretty amazing. Here are my three favorites:

"Death solves all problems - No man, no problem." - Stalin

"One man with a gun can control one hundred without". - Lenin

"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas." - Stalin

My students had really great discussions about these quotes and pictures and stories. It sure is something when students grab ahold of an idea, especially controversial ones.

This is what happens when they see you in high school...

My desktop picture is a photo of my dad and I when I was in high school. This photo:

When I was opening up iTunes, the questions about this photo drew some interesting questions/statements from my classes. They included "Is that your husband?", and "Wow, Miss. You were really small." Mr. Schindler's 2nd period sophomores said, in response to hearing those comments: "I thought you were like 40, so I can see why they thought you were married."

My responses? "No, that's my dad, but he does look pretty young", "Um, thanks", and "What? You just told me I look 40? Thanks."

I think I'll photoshop a picture of Taylor Lautner and put me in it, and then put that as my background. I wonder what their responses will be then...

Has anyone else heard some ridiculous guesses/comments about age come out of your students' mouths? I'd love to hear some more.

The Countdowns have Begun

I'm counting down the days until:

New Moon: 17 days

When I fly back to Portland for Thanksgiving: 21

When I leave for Barcelona: 39

That's a lot to look forward to!!!!!!!