Filmstrips
The cat wanted breakfast around 5:30 a.m. She got it. I checked “subfinder”: K – 2 or special ed. Drat. I listened to “Morning Edition” and fretted. I called back around 6:20. “Office assistant, 7:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.” . . . hesitate, hesitate . . . “press 4 to hear next job.” <4> “Godwin High School, English.” BINGO. Even I if I got the worst-behaved kids in the whole school, I’d still be teaching from a position of strength.

After some initial messing around over lesson plans, which the teacher’s bow-tie wearing husband carried in, I got settled in with the Very West End crowd. Only two out of thirty-three names gave me pause as I called roll – versus ¼ - 1/3 of them at Northside of East End schools. Indeed, 6/33 of the students had a variant of the name Katherine (Please reduce. 2/11.)

Because of SOL (Standards of Learning, to you Virginia ex-patriots) testing, the students followed and odd schedule, and I had non-testing groups all day. In journalism, for instance, I had about a dozen kids, with whom I watched Spider-Man, on DVD. (Yeh, that’s right, friends, the days of filmstrips that go “boooop” signaling you to advance to frame are long gone.) I even got them to elicit some journalism themes before I let watch some episodes of The Simpsons. The seventeen-year-olds completely pooh-poohed my suggestion that we start with the Halloween one on the disc, because it includes a fabulous presentation of “The Raven.”

That foolishness aside, I saw only well-behaved, sharp kids all day. Class? Race? Being "advanced" students? Being high school seniors, and not twelve years old? Dunno. I do know they made a pleasant change after the challenges (which I can generally meet) of middle schoolers.

Captial City weather: 80-ish, and weird skies, perhaps the leftovers of the terrible weather west of here.