My uncle used to say that when he was a 5th grade teacher he would get enough cologne and aftershave every Christmas to last him a lifetime. When I started teaching it was not unusual to get 20+ gifts at Christmas from my 125 or so students. Now, I receive less than 10 gifts of any kind each holiday season. I’m not complaining; just making an observation about how traditions have changed. When my daughter was in school my wife and I would give each of her teachers a gift certificate, usually for $25, from some local store.

Many of the gifts I have received recently have been homemade; cookies, candy and the like. This year I have already received 2 bags of homemade candy and some chocolate covered pretzels--all delicious. As well, I received a rather nice holiday mug, a bottle of wine, and a gift certificate. The gift certificate was from a young lady who I had taught last year and her sister who I taught two years ago--it was for $100. The wine came from another young lady I taught last year for whom I had written a letter of recommendation.

Semester exams started today. I have two exams to give today--AP Chemistry and my Chemistry B class. The administration released the list of students who are not to take exams because they still owe tuition and I have 2 students (out of 22) in my Chemistry B class who will not be taking the exam on time, while everyone in AP Chemistry is cleared. There is 1 Honors Chemistry student (out of 80) who is on the list, but I don’t see her until Thursday.

I have 6 outside tutoring students I see, four of them on a regular basis. I have two scheduled for tonight and then I am finished with them until after break. Except for one family, my tutoring students usually don’t give me any kind of gift at the holidays. The one family who does is very generous.

After grading the Chemistry B exams I was pleasantly surprised at how good they were. The highest grade was 95% and the average was 79%, the lowest grade 61%. Only two students failed the exam, one of them failed the semester as well, and will have to take it over in summer school. He had almost 100 points in missing homework 2nd quarter. I informed him that the homework was still missing last week and told him that if he did it all before the exam I would give him partial credit. Needless to say, nothing was turned in.

The average on the AP Chemistry exam was in the mid 80’s, with three students doing so poorly that I feel they should drop the class. It is not my policy to force a student to drop because of poor grades, but if asked I would advise them to do so.

There are still three days of exams left until break. A much needed break I might add.

Just when you think that you can’t be surprised by as colleague’s weirdness, they surprise you again. I have written before about a colleague who often acts like he needs tin foil around his head so the government can’t read his thoughts. About a year or so ago he announced that there was going to be an armed revolution if the rich (who he hates without reserve) kept “messing” with the people. I wrote about how he scared me, somewhat, with his seemingly violent comments. I decided not to report the situation because I did not believe he really would lead an armed revolt, and he hadn’t repeated his threats to the students. He was an angry man, upset because a family member had lost her job in the economic downturn, convinced that the Republicans only cared about the wealthy.

I can hear him teach when I pop into the work room between our classrooms. On several occasions today I heard him going on about the government and/or military who are involved in something detrimental to the hoi polloi. What I couldn’t make out was exactly what was being perpetrated on us by the “man” until after school when he came into my classroom to share his theory with me.

He started by asking if I knew about some new, exciting, research by a scientist. I confessed I had heard nothing earth shattering recently and waited for him to continue. He told me that a reputable scientist recently discovered that we may all actually live in the matrix, and experiments were being designed to test this hypothesis. My first thought was that he was joking, but his tone and demeanor conveyed his seriousness concerning the matter. He then excused himself, telling me that he had soup from the cafeteria to bring home to his wife. There was a student still in the classroom who heard the exchange. After my colleague left, the student looked at me and asked if he was crazy. I laughed, then lied and told the young man that he was just kidding.

If you think about it, there are several recent surprising phenomenon that might be explained by the world being just a computer program: like, how exactly did President Obama get reelected, or why is “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” so popular? In fact, maybe the Chicago Cubs haven’t won a world series in 104 years because agent Smith is a White Sox fan. Come to think of it, the whole idea isn’t as crazy as it appears on the surface.
Just who do I talk to so I can be married to Giada de Laurentiis.