Being Positive.

Starting today, I'm going to write about one positive thing that happened each day so that I don't kill myself due to severe depression. I'll write about a couple from a week ago to catch up.

I think one of my students has oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), which basically means whatever anyone says, he refuses to do, and he will cuss, yell, insult, and basically do anything to disrupt and show that he is the more powerful person. On many occasions I've been pushed, hit, and cussed out by the kid. Yet, I drive him home sometimes and let him sit with me during resource (supposedly teachers' alone planning time) and reteach math lessons to him (he misses a lot of lessons because he will run out of class and run around the building turning lights on and off). Basically, I don't know how to deal with the kid except try to be very patient with him all the time, and believe me, I've tried everything in the book.

Anyway, one day he wrote me a "Tootle," which is something the class does to compliment other people. It said:

tottles for Msr. Lyu. Msr. Lyu is caring helpful and sweet and kind to everybody help people Learn new stuff and also He Has a girl freind and some blanket and A picture of her on the phone.

Then, he drew a picture of himself and me at the bottom. I was very happy.

I know the writing doesn't show it, but this kid is one of the top scorers in math. He just gets it. I told him that I "knew some people" at UCLA and that I would send them his name so he could get some information. He was really excited about that... I worry about him a lot, because really, no one gives him a chance at school. Maybe one day he will go to UCLA. That would be awesome.

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Ok, this is a quick story. A few students were staying with me after school today. A long time ago, at the beginning of the year, I had tried to teach the scientific method. It's been a long time since we've done any science (I'm awful, I know). Half talking to myself, I said something about how so many people were absent today (6 kids were gone), and I wondered why that was the case. One of my students who had stayed behind to work on some things says, "That's an observation. And you asked a question about your observation." Those are the first two steps of the scientific method, and she is one of the last people I would have expected to remember that (I'm awful, I know). "That's right!" Nice surprise.