I Do Have Good Times at School, Too

My first period class, aka The One That Keeps Me Sane, took a test today. At least one-third of these students made 100 on the test!

[This includes one student who has never gotten a 100 on anything in my class. He is on an IEP, so I know he has some sort of learning disability, though I don't know which one. But he has really buckled down this quarter; he came to my room this afternoon and said, "Ms. Flower, am I missing any of my assignments so far?"
"No," I said, "you've turned them all in."
And he threw his fist in the air and said, "Yesssssss!"
And that sorta made my day.]

At the beginning of the year, I had this thing called The A-Team. Every student had an apple cutout with his/her name on it, and every time someone made an A, his/her apple would go up on the board. Well, the board's been used to display projects for a while now, but today somebody asked, "When is my apple going up?"

Another student answered, "Your apple's probably up there; it's just covered by those projects."

"If I don't see it, I don't believe it," Student 1 said. [Student 1 may be the smartest student I have ever known. He was in the library the other day during his study hall, reading Steven Hawking. JUST BECAUSE HE WANTED TO. His informative speech topic WAS going to be the theory of relativity, until he gave an impromptu speech about it and everyone in the class--including me--said, "Huh?"]

"Student 1!" I said, "What kind of attitude is that for a scientist? Are you discounting atoms? 'Cause you can't see them!"

"I was being sarcastic," he protested. "You should have heard it in my voice."

"If I don't see it, I don't believe it," I said.