What a GREAT Week!!!!!!!

Wow! I don't know were to start, so I guess I'll begin at the beginning =)

On Monday, I was invited to a Sukkot party. Sukkot is a Jewish holiday celebrating the time the Jews wondered the desert for 40 years. During this time, they stayed in temporary dwellings called Sukkot (Sukkot is plural for Sukkah, which literally means booth.) The celebration is a lot like Thanksgiving. Everyone brought food, we had a huge bonfire, and the fun part was we slept outside! Part of Sukkot is you need to dwell in a Sukkah. The word "dwell" can be interpreted as eat a meal or sleep...this particular group sleeps outside in these temporary dwellings and let me tell you, in Alaska, that is something! The night we slept outside the temperature dropped to about -3 degrees! There were 15 of us that started outside and I was one of four who made it the whole night (I stayed outside all night, but I probably only got about 45 mins of sleep...it was chilly!!) As most of you know, I am not Jewish; however, I respect all religions and I am very open to trying new things. I was invited to the Sukkot party by a local Fairbankian as a way for me to meet some members of the community and to have a nice home-cooked meal. It was rough, but I had a great time! Here is a link if you are interested in reading more about Sukkot...Click me.

The week kept on rocking!
On Wednesday, I tried to go spearfishing again with the same teacher who took me out last time. I said "tried" to go because it was a little cold. As you remember, it was below zero that Monday night and Tuesday was not much warmer. John picked me up at around 7:30 and we went to the river. On the way there, we saw three moose...almost hitting two of them (a cow and calf.) For such huge animals, they are hard to see! We got to the river in one piece and decided to give it a try. We put on our waders and went into the ice. We traded off holding the lantern and braking a path. On my path shift, I took a spill and ended up in the river! I actually did not get to wet thanks to the waders and I never got cold because I was wearing many layers. We realized that we were not going to see ANYTHING that night. There was just too much ice. When we got out of the river, the water on out waders turned instantly to ice, so taking them off was fun!

About teaching this week:
I had a break though in classroom management this week. I have been doing this thing where if a student is talking or playing when they should be listening, I put a check mark next to their name in pencil. When a student earns three checks, they get a lunch detention. It is pretty neat because as soon as they see a pencil, for the most part, everyone stops talking. I never say who I am giving a check too, so everyone stops in fear it might be them. I could stand in front of the class and compose a grocery list and it would be silent because students would think someone is getting a check (I let them know when they have two checks at the end of class in private.) That was working well, but here is the icing on the cake! This week I drew a self portrait on the white board. When the class as a whole makes me happy, I put a smile on the face, when they are misbehaving or not following directions, I change that smile to a frown. There are for or five different levels of emotions I draw on my face. I have made the agreement that everyday the class ends and the face on the board has a huge smile, I will erase one check from everyone's name. The students know what they need to do to make the face go happier and what negative behaviors make it go sadder (or angry when the eyebrows get drawn in.) I have had LOTS of success with this strategy!

And now about today.
I took the Randy Smith Jazz band to the 22nd annual International Friendship Day here in Fairbanks where we played our first gig...they did GREAT!!!!! I am so proud of them. The crowd was clapping and toe-tapping the whole time. This was my very first performance as a music director. Other teachers who were at the festival said that I should be very proud of my accomplishments...and I am, but all I did was say, "two...four...a one, two, three, four!" and the kids did all the rest! They rock!

I hope everyone out there in blogging world has had a great week like myself and I wish you all an amazing weekend!

Rock on!
~Mr. Lockwood