And It's Not My Fault?

The principal came over to me today to tell me that the 7th grade's persuasive essays were atrocious.
I got a little defensive as I had spent a long time teaching them to write and I was afraid the principal was going to bash my technique.
I asked her if she thought it was my fault.
She looked at me and said, "Absolutely not! I knew what I was doing when I hired you. You are a great teacher and this is just your class acting lazy. I know they can do better than this! I'm going to go it and talk to them about it!"
I was so excited. I almost called my husband right then to tell him how much I loved this place.
I went into the 8th grade and we were too busy talking to get too much done is history. I'm not too excited about that because their test is Wednesday.
During class, the light fixture fell onto R.S.'s desk and the entire class had a "mouse reaction." They all jumped up and shrieked.
We finally got Jerry the janitor to come in and fix the problem. He seems to be in my class a lot lately. This place is falling apart.
I told the class that we'll be having seminary girls observe us tomorrow and that they better make me look good.
The girls were very spunky today and they totally agreed to behave tomorrow.
I had brought in a chassidishe CD that was produced by the Pittsburgh chassidim because I had taught the girls about the steel mills in Pittsburgh and wanted to tie in a little bit of Judaism.
They were hooked on this chassidishe CD and asked me to play it during their writing class.
I didn't mind and I thought it was insanely funny...so did my husband.
During recess I spoke to my co about a sub for me.
The Hebrew principal had suggested asking Hebco to sub for me when I need to leave, and I was really not happy with the idea.
I told the Hebrew principal that I was intimidated by Hebco because the class liked her so much that they probably wouldn't want me back after her subbing them for 6 weeks.
My co had another take on the matter. She said that if Hebco subbed for me, they would need to find a sub for her too. She refuses to teach as a co to Hebco.
We decided we had to go talk to the principal about her because we found some 8th graders talking to her about their shabbaton. They were asking for her help with ideas. It makes me nauseous to see them kissing up to her like that.
We went over some history today in 7th and then the principal came in and spoke to the girls about their essays.
She promised that if they did a good job and if they persuaded her to cancel school uniforms or give them more trips, she'd give it to them.
The 7th grade was so excited and they even felt a little bad when the principal told them that I was too good of a teacher for them to hand in such sloppy work. I felt great.
After we learned some history, I spoke to the girls about their writings and then gave them back and read more of their read aloud.
I also hung up a seating chart which the girls went a little crazy over. I hope it works out well.
Tomorrow I'm teaching the triangle shirtwaist fire and the Boston teach party. I'm so excited!