My heart almost broke the other day. I've been working with a student all year trying to get him back on track. He's smart and has such potential but he's such a butthead. So instead of getting on his case all the time with negatives, I decided to turn it around to positive and just bombarded him with any kind of praise I can. It's been working so far because he has been so motivated and has been doing all of his work! Then the other day I told him to start thinking about some reward incentives he'd like to earn for finishing his work and keeping up on his good behavior. After about an hour of thinking, all he said was "I want you to keep telling me I'm doing a good job. I like when you say that." Doesn't that just make your heart melt? Omg. I really hope he ends the year with a bang because that will just be awesome!!!!!!!

I really, really need to get new running shoes. I'm going to try my best to get in the habit of running at least two days a week on top of my normal routine. I ran the other day and the insides of my feet hurt SO BAD. Oh man. I just love these shoes so much but they are a few years old so I guess I need some new ones.

I'm actually excited about my next project for my internship. My principal wants me to put together a trivia game that can be played across the grade levels at lunch time next year so that the kids are exposed daily to test questions and vocabulary. I found a Classroom Jeopardy kit and it is the coolest thing ever. You can make up your own questions on the computer and plug it into the consol and it is just like jeopardy on the tv. It even comes with three buzzers and score board!!!! It's gonna be alot of work to put it all together because my principal wants it for everyday next year so that's a ton of questions. But it'll be cool to see how that impacts our scores next year.

Speaking of, I'm really pissed off about our test scores. I think that the way that the determine if we have made yearly progress is based on subgroups. Across the board in 3rd, 4th, and 5th we all improved from last year as far as our percentage of kids passing. But, it doesn't look like we are going to make progress because our African American population declined by 20% and we needed two special education kids to pass. I think it's ridiculous that we are singling out ethnic groups and basically the "blame" is all on them for not making progress. And, I think it's ridiculous that special education students' scores count because 99% of the time, they are below grade level, which is why they are in sped, and yet they take the grade level test. Wtf. Of course they aren't going to pass! They are working on skills at their level! It's so annoying. There's too much unnecessary pressure on some of these kids!!!!!!

Ok, I'm going to end this on a positive note. I'm excited for tomorrow because I'm going back to kickboxing class. I can't wait. I LOVE that class and I miss going so much. It's been so hard though because class is from 5-6 and I like to go to the gym right after school so I can still have my evening to get other stuff done. But, I miss it so I'm going and I'm taking my friend Michelle too! I'll probably want to die on Saturday! :)