Jinx

I know I'm going to jinx it, but so far this semester has been great. The 3 Gorges presentation/debate went over pretty well - the kids understood the implications of the construction of the largest dam in the world. (Except 4th period, which is my greatest challenge).
We have moved on to Japan and the Koreas. Specifically, we have focused on education in Japan and S. Korea, reading an article from the NY Times and using a handout from AskAsia.org. The students compared their educational experience to that in these Asian countries, and found it woefully lacking ( although they weren't disappointed that they didn't do school 15 hours a day). Today I read them parts of Paul Burka's editorial from the December 07 Texas Monthly, No Nino Left Behind. We looked at (former) state demographer Steve Murdoch's prediction for the year 2030 - the year Texas will become a majority Hispanic state. After hearing that median income was $20,000 higher for Anglos than Hispanics in 2000, and that over 40% of Hispanic kids quit school before graduating, we had some intense discussions.
In first period it lead to a discussion about college - I never really thought about it a lot, but many of my students don't have family or friends that have been to college, and they have many misconceptions about it. It felt great to help these kids see the importance of finishing school, not only for themselves, but for the future of our state and nation. We talked about where to go (jr college is inexpensive and fine to start with), where to get the money (live at home and work part time), and what kind of grades you need to make in high school (Bs and Cs will get you in - they were relieved to hear that).
I am still working on 4th period - even with all the schedule changes the make-up of the class has not changed; I have a lot of kids in there who don't much care about their schooling. The majority are great kids, so I have to figure out a way to encourage them and reform the nay-sayers. I am working on a new seating chart - I hope it helps.