I'm not a big fan of generalizing entire groups of kids but it's hard to ignore the fact that in certain years you seem to get certain groups of kids.Last year my 8th graders were noisy and social but worked quickly. A couple of years ago they were well behaved but needed a lot of extra one-on-one help. Some years you seem to have more discipline problems. Other years you get more academically gifted kids.I've only had these kids for 5 days and already I'm noticing a trend.Kid 1: I can't find Harriet Tubman in the index.Me: Did you look under "T"?Kid 1: No I looked under "H".Me: Ahhh...remember we look people up in the index by last name.Kid 1: But "H" comes before "T".Me: Right but we don't need to worry about that. Just look the person up by their last name.Kid 1: I'm confused.Next class:Me: So there were about 20,000 people in Pompeii and 5000 in Herculaneum. We think about 16,000 people died.Kid 2: Did they all die?Me: Ummm...all of the people in both cities or all of the 16,000 that died?Kid 2: Yeah.Me: Maybe I can say it a different way. Out of the 25,000 people in the area...16,000 of them died. Got it?Kid 2: Ah, OK. :raises hand:Me: Yes?Kid 2: How many of them lived?Me:

I don't teach math.LaterMe: Alex? What's your 3-digit class number?Alex: I don't have one.Me: I gave it to you yesterday. You were here, right?Alex: Yeah.Me: OK, what book are you using?Alex: Number 15Me: That means your number is 415 because you're in period 4.Alex: What's the 15?Me: I just did it alphabetically. You're the 15th person on the list.Alex: Oh, OK. I was wondering why you had me write down '415' on my History folder yesterday. Me: So you wrote it down and you remembered to get book 15 today?Alex: Yeah but when you said '3-digit' I thought you meant it started with a '3'.