Nine days and counting.

I'm still reading And the Band Played On. Two of the heros have been diagnosed with AIDS by the fall of 1984 and people are beginning to talk about deaths in the tens of thousands. Scientists are fighting about glory and news media is still ignoring the epidemic. I've still got around 200 pages to go. I am so impressed with how Randy Shilts has gotten me so emotionally involved. When Harvey Milk associate and one of the men responsible for whatever AIDS research and education funding did make it through the Reagan administration was diagnosed with Kaposi's Sarcoma (an early stage AIDS infection), I almost started crying. That's how emotionally involved I've become. Kudos to Mr. Shilts. It's too bad we don't have any time machines perfected yet. I would love to take some of this back to researchers and government officials of the 1980s. See if we couldn't save some lives.

Closer to home and in the present day, We're up to about 15 students at school - 5 middle school and the rest high school. I teach 8 of them - 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade World History and 10th grade Civics and Economics. About three weeks into January, HS courses will switch as the semester turns. I'll be adding 11th grade U.S. History to the repertoire at that point. Planning for four courses has been extremely taxing and I struggle to feel that I am making a difference each and everyday. So many days I feel like I'm not really addressing my students learning needs and more like I'm just covering content. I hate it. But there is nothing I can do to change it, so, just like everyone else, I keep trying to do the best I can with what I've got. I'm much more at peace with this today than I was this time last week and probably where I'll be again in mid-January, but it's so close to Christmas break right now and I feel like I can almost make it there - hence the peace.

Some exciting things are happening though. My World History student, who I taught last year, is definitely more aware of the world and trying to pay attention to things happening. He's gotten really interested in Africa - especially the Somali pirates recently. It's funny, because one day he'll make me look up some current event he heard about to get more information, and then the next day he'll be trying to convince me that a bunch of famous African Americans (mostly rap stars and basketball players) are part of some satanic cult. So we're more aware, now we just need to be able to weed out the falsehoods. Also, my Civics student got a 70% on an online exam. The site is managed by NC State University and is designed to simulate the end-of-course tests. I know 70% might not sound all that good, but usually on exams from this site students in my district average 40-60%. Just a couple of the positives from the recent days.

Keep your fingers crossed that the Midwest recovers from Snowpocalypse II before I need to fly for the holidays!