Mrs. Rieger gets T-U-F-F

I broke up a fight today.

Not an every day occurance at our school, but not totally uncommon either.

I was walking past a crowd of kids that are typically pretty loud and rowdy anyway. Suddenly, the noise and the scuffling escalated until two boys, both much larger than I am, were standing nose to nose with their hands around each others' throats. Of course, I HAD to jump in.

"Stop it!! Stop it right now!" I screamed, like a ninny. I stepped in between them and waved my arms wildly. "You two both cut it out!"

They broke apart when a third boy pushed one away from the other.

I told one of the kids to follow me into the back entrance of the office, while another teacher took the other kid in the front entrance. After the dust had settled and I had reported to the Principal what I had witnessed, I walked back to my classroom.

As the adrenaline began to wear off, I started to think about what had just happened. Maybe I had made an impression on them. In fact, I was pretty proud of myself. That fight could have gotten a lot uglier had I not flexed my experienced "teacher muscles" on them to break it up, right? Maybe my far-to-friendly exterior is finally getting tough enough to match my no-nonsense attitude!

After the next class, I remembered where I had been going when I stopped to play peace maker. Headed out again, I walked past the same area where a few of the kids had gathered again.

I overheard one boy say to another, "Yeah, and So-n-So wasn't even trying! I mean, MRS. RIEGER was holding him back."

Ok, I have GOT to start working out.

Right after I reward myself with a chocolate ice cream cone and a stack of cookies at lunch.

One kid's treasure...

Julia came home from Kindergarten today and proudly announced that as an award for her good behavior, she got to choose a prize from the "prize box" at school.

She chose a card that allows her to eat lunch with her Kindergarten teacher as her reward.

Ironically, I have her teacher's son in one of my classes at the high school.

Tomorrow, as an award for his good behavior, I will surprise the Kindergarten teacher's kid by eating lunch with him and his friends at the high school.

He will probably never speak to me again.

What IS she doing?

When the announcements come on over the intercom in my classroom, sometimes I stand in the front of the room and pretend I am signing them for the class. I know, it's immature. Probably even offensive in the wrong crowd. But the kids get a big kick out of it.

Ok, so maybe I only really amuse MYSELF with this fun game.

The only real "official" sign language I actually know is the word "flag". You put your right elbow on top of your left palm and wave your right hand like a flag. I use the sign for flag whenever the secretary reads of the list of kids who have messages in the office. Apparently, it is convincing. It goes flag-flag-pretend to spell students' names with hands-flag-flag.

Today I also used the flag sign and a bunch of other made up stuff to sign that the Freshmen and Sophomore students should be released to the auditorium for an assembly. One student looked at me, then looked around room, then looked at me, then looked behind her seat.... she could NOT figure out what was going on. She really thought I was signing to someone.

And then I taught Chemistry.

Nice Try, Rookie

This morning I sent out a carefully composed email (to the entire staff of the school) outlining how the CCCHS Student Council would be commemerating the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on Friday, September 10, 2010.

Approximately 5 minutes later I got a response from Officer Brumfield, our School Resource Officer, reminding me that 2010 - 2001 = 9.... NOT 10.

I got out my calculator. I counted on my fingers. He was correct.

I took another swig of luke-warm coffee, swallowed hard, and sent out another email telling the entire staff that this had been their one-year advance notice about the commemeration of the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that the CCCHS Student Council will be hosting NEXT year.

Geesh.