Admissions: of the seventeen eighth graders I've been teaching since last January:

one got into Brooklyn Tech

three got into Bronx Science

and eleven got into Stuyvesant.

A number also got into Horace Mann, Brearley, Riverdale, and Trinity (some but not all with scholarships).

So it's a good result, but the exultation (my exultation) is not quite what it was last year. Partly because my heart is with my sixth graders, who haven't yet heard results. Partly because I think: those eighth graders could be better educated. I could have made them write essays every week. We should have read more books and poems; we could have done some history. It's ridiculous that I should have had to spend so much time teaching basic grammar to seventh and eighth graders. When I was assigned them last January I was a bit disappointed: twelve is old; I didn't want to do a rescue job. But then I was impressed by their grinta, their determination, their spunk, their alertness and their curiosity. They're not passionate about books as my best 6th graders, but they're willing to work hard. Then last fall I was again disappointed with them for slacking off after the SSHSAT, and now I'm pleased with them again.
I congratulated them on their results (the two who didn't get in anywhere are not in my class any more), and they said, "That's old news!" Me: "But it's big news!" I had them write a few pages describing a recent family meal, and, as it turns out, high school admissions are the topic of conversation at everyone's dinner table.

The sixth grade is reading Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and we talked about John Holbrooke's disapproval of Kit's reading of plays. Why would a Puritan object? What does John hope to get out of his reading? Kit? Why do people read? Is fiction morally improving, and if so, how? Patrick mentioned having dipped into Pilgrim's Progress. "It was like The Phantom Tollbooth." Me: "How so?" He explained. What he was saying, without having the word for it, was that they're both allegories. (Which I hadn't noticed about The Phantom Tollbooth. The one thought The Faerie Queene left me with was "I hate allegories." So now I recognize allegory only when I'm peeved.) Patrick called John Holbrooke a hypocrite and a turncoat, and although I find him a likeable character, Patrick has a point. Anyway, practice in spotting hypocrisy is certainly improving.

The students have to write three sentences using vocabulary words at the end of their vocabulary quizzes. Richard wrote one sentence with three words, but I made him write two more sentences (especially since he had used one word incorrectly). Me: "Last year I had fourth graders who would write seven sentences when I asked for three." "Are you sure those weren't fifth graders?" Patrick asked coyly (he and his classmates were fifth graders last year). "Quite sure." "Gosh. They're better than we are." I'm not sure about that, but I didn't say anything.

Update: four of the sixth graders got into Hunter (out of ten); one is on the waiting list. But his letter said "Congratulations!" and invited him to the Open House, so how can they possibly reject him?