Happy Chyck Wonders

No Interruptions, Please!

2011-12-22T07:20:00.001-08:00

I promised my students no homework over the winter break. This included not having any pending projects due after the break, too. However, in exchange, they had to work their little patooties off in December, and on the last day before break they submitted research-based persuasive essays.

Of course, this a wrecker on my holiday break, as I have all those papers to grade, but putting it off until we return will not make my life any easier. I had high hopes of getting those essays graded right away, but as we are nearing the end of the first week of my break, after 12 hours of grading and I'm only halfway through, I'm near my wit's end. Big shocker. Like I haven't been there a million times before...

This time, I'm finding things are a little bit different because my students have shared their papers in GoogleDocs with me. This is the first big assignment my students have completed in GoogleDocs, so there are a few bumps, but I'm so excited to use it! One of my colleagues, Mrs. E used it on a previous essay and said she ended up spending more time grading because she made so many more comments. I am finding this to be true, too, but I can type a lot faster than I can write, so it's actually for me to leave comments. Oh, and can we talk about how neatly the comments are arranged? It is so much better than my scrawl scrunched in the margins!

There is frustrating dark side to using GoogleDocs. I feel like such a horrible teacher even mentioning this, but as I am rushing to finish my self-imposed vacation homework, I am in no mood to have to respond to communications from my students about my comments and their grades. Quite a few students have messaged me, either though the document or in gmail, about their essays within an 30 minutes of my finishing grading.

Of course, these are the panicked students who could not follow directions or read the rubric and are shocked at their low grades. Some of them have fixed their errors (like not including bibliographies) and have asked me to look at their essays again, while others write begging, desperate messages inquiring what they could do to improve their scores. Don't get me wrong here. Last week, as I was giving feedback to students, they would come online and respond to my comments, and I thought it was a major advantage--especially for those students who never say a word to me in class but are comfortable speaking through the computer. However, this time it feels different. For one thing, this is supposed to be final draft I'm evaluating, and for another thing, technically, I'm on vacation and I do not want to go back to recheck the work that should have been completed correctly. It will suck up all my time!

Oh, I feel terrible having such feelings. I really do... In using Edmodo and GoogleDocs this year, I feel like my student have even more access to me outside school time, and there are many times that this is an advantage, but other times, I feel like I need more boundaries between my students and my personal life. It's ironic that at this point in my career I am all about leaving my classroom drama at school while I'm using digital tools that complicate that mission.

I can't help but wonder if my new love/hate relationship with GoogleDocs is also about teaching an old dog new tricks. I'm used being alone in my hours upon hours of grading. Just me and a stack of essays. In those quiet hours, I go through a range of emotions from pride to anger, making a list in my head on some next steps after I pass back essays. This is a process I am used to. Before I even started grading these essays, I knew that it probably would not be the final draft for many students, as my years of experience tell me that the first time we incorporate research into writing, it's a tough battle in writing well and without plagiarism. Perhaps those hapless students looking over my shoulder while I grade need to sweat in fear little bit, but I really don't want to ruin their Christmas vacations either. If they had turned in paper copies of their essays, their scores would been completely forgotten until I bring up the topic after the break.

My simplistic, blanket message back to students who have begged and inquired says, "After the break, everyone will have an opportunity to revise essays. You are welcome to work on the paper over the break, but I think it is better for you as a young person to enjoy this break while you can."

This old teacher, using her new tricks, still needs time to think about the plan of action. So, dear students, sshhhhh. Go back to your playing and let your teacher get some work finished so she can play soon, too.

Wits and Knowledge

2011-11-29T21:54:00.000-08:00

I was so looking forward to these three weeks of solid instruction between Thanksgiving Break and Winter Break, as the month of November is always a gigantic, fragmented mess. You would think that I would have been more prepared, but no, I've been flying by the seat of my pants. Luckily, these pants were made for flying.

What? You say it's only Tuesday? No matter. I'm going day by day. Tomorrow I'll be super prepared because this afternoon, I pulled the PowerPoint and support materials onto my desktop for easy access, as opposed to searching for it in my 20-gig drive 10 minutes before class, like I've done the last two days.

Ah, hahaha, I'm not really that bad off. I did sit down with the other English teacher during one prep last week so we could write our lesson plans, but sometimes writing them is not enough. Sometimes other preparation is necessary--like reviewing the material to see I truly remember it myself.

And that's where the winged trousers come in. I have had no time to study what I'm going to teach. How pleased I was to realize that with a PowerPoint outline (created some time in the past) and a stout cup of coffee, I was more than capable of lecturing to my students yesterday and giving guided practice today. With all the breaks and madness of the last month, it felt good to just teach. In fact, the last two days, I'd say I was in the zone.

(I hope my supervisor felt that vibe when she came in for her first (surprise!) observation yesterday!)

Not Good Enough

2011-11-03T15:42:00.000-07:00

This morning, as I began checking off which students turned in their first novel journals, an assignment due yesterday, I started to get increasingly agitated. This was just looking at the formatting, which is not even included in the assessment, but it was included in the instructions.

So what do I do? It is inappropriate to deduct points for papers submitted in pencil rather than in ink or typed, as I requested. I also do not like deducting points because the header is incorrect, although for this assignment, the header listed book, author, and number of pages read, all of which are important. However, the other irritant, papers that did not have paragraphing, is absolutely something that could be marked down, and was actually a part of the rubric.

Rather than get my blood pressure up, I opened up my drawer, took out my REDO* stamp (a first for this year), and started stamping away.

When the students came into class, I told them how irritated I was with the quality of work handed in and rather than complaining about how impossible they were with their other teachers during lunch or starting to hate them a little, I decided to just have them redo the assignments. No, I wasn't mad. They weren't quite in trouble yet, but they also had no choice but to resubmit the assignment because until they do, it is recorded in the gradebook as an incomplete, which I count as an F grade.

They took it maturely. I saw a few light bulbs go off when I articulated why I had been expecting multiple paragraphs. (I'm starting to have doubts about their organizational abilities!) Nobody argued that they had turned in their best work, and in fact, several looked rather sheepish when I approached them with their papers saying, "Formatting aside, is this really your best work? Do you think you might want to look at the overall quality before you turn it in again?" Thank goodness not one student groaned at the thought of having to redo an assignment--that would have ignited my ire for sure. Still it surprised me that there wasn't at least one.

I have a pretty good group of students this year, but I think they are starting to lose momentum. I don't blame them for testing the waters to see how little they can get away with. It's a good lesson for all of us today. I spent most of the day returning the assignments to be redone when I could have spent time scoring the assignments--an exasperating waste of time if you look at one way. I hope that this small act sets a new concept in class: do it well or do it over.

*I had this stamp made at VistaPrint. They often offer "free" supplies and you pay the postage. A lot of teachers have blogged about creative ways to use this company. Do a search--you'll see!

Status Report

2011-10-15T20:59:00.001-07:00

I've been much too busy playing Words with Friends in my spare two hours a day to blog. But if I were blogging more often, you'd know

It's kind of miserable with some of my colleagues this year. There's a lot of strife with strong personalities and inept support staff. I'm trying my best to stay out of it, but I've found myself in the middle a few times since school started. I've been in tears from frustration (rock and hard place) and once one of them made so angry that it triggered a painful headache. I guess my invisible headache was better than the violent thoughts I was having. Why can't we all just get along?
I'm having a great year with my 8th graders. When I get frustrated with other things, I like to keep in mind that they are a good group and I should enjoy them while I can. Most of them work hard, and they are sweet. Second semester often brings the end of the honeymoon, but so far, all the good things I had heard about this group are true.
My seniors take their next writing proficiency exam in two weeks. I cannot see where they have made progress. In fact, in my attempts to help them develop content, it looks like they have forgotten the knowledge on structure that they had in the beginning. I have six students in that class, and most days I want to murder them. You'd think that we'd have a great experience with such a small class, but I have some attitude problems.
It's unfortunate for my own children that I have spent 15 years with other people's teenagers. It is just not possible for me to be the cool mom. I thought I'd be better at this parenting pre-teens and teens thing, but I'm not. Sucks to be me.

We are nearing the end of the first quarter, and I'm neck deep in it all like I usually am. Sometimes I look out into my classroom, and I have no idea what year I'm in. Does it matter? Sometimes it seems all the same. That's depressing, right? So then I try to think of ways to make it more fun. Ways to enjoy the here and now... It's a daily thing!

What Happens in Game Club

2011-10-01T07:01:00.000-07:00

It all started when one of my students approached me on the first day of school about coming on Fridays to play Axis and Allies, as the teacher who hosted it for them last year is no longer at our school. I stay late on Fridays anyway, so I agreed.

Within a few days, I read about Mrs. Bluebird's Board Game Club and then thought of my own failed Scrabble Club from last year. I had a few students who showed up, but it conflicted with Leadership and Debate, which are more serious clubs, so my poor club fizzled away.

I spoke with Mrs. E.--we do everything together--and decided that it might be fun to just do a basic game club. I mean, if I there were going to be 3-4 boys playing a game, why not invite more to people come play games? No harm in trying, and Friday is a great day since there are few clubs and spending an hour playing games sounded like a great way to end the week. Kind of like a kid happy hour!

I had six Scrabble boards. The Leadership adviser had a box of miscellaneous games, such as mancala, checkers, and chess. My social studies colleague had more inexpensive checker/chess boards with pieces, and a 7th grade math teacher had three Clue games (still in plastic!) that some anonymous person dropped off in his room a few years back.

And so Game Club was born.

When Mrs. E. and I were talking about it at lunch, one of our colleagues said that it sounded like a great idea. We could feature a different game each week and teach them how to play it. As brilliant as that idea was, it wasn't what I had in mind, and that wasn't what the kids had in mind, either! On the first day we had 35 students show up, and it was sheer madness! We also had several teachers stop by to play for a little while. It was all I could do to get the students to sign in before they were grabbing games and rushing to tables to sit and play.

The first week was overwhelming because I did not know there would be so many kids crammed into my classroom, and there were some students (who happened to be mine) messing around and going in and out. Most of those students have not come back after I railed them about goofing off in the hallways, where they cannot be after school. "You're either in or you're out!" At our school, students are either in a club or outside the gate. The campus isn't open for wandering. The air conditioning was a little wonky and I wondered if I could require deodorant for kids coming to the club, but we survived. Mrs. E. and I played a few games, too. She learned how to play cribbage from another teacher.

After a few weeks, we have our groove going. The kids rush in, grab boards, and start playing. They clean up after themselves after each game, and some of them even double check to make sure all the pieces are back in boxes. We remind the rest of them. (That does not mean I don't have three Scrabble tiles and a miniature lead pipe that go in one of the games...) We allow snacks but warn them that if they leave their trash behind, that will be the end of that. Students need to stay the whole time and not a minute longer, especially if they are riding the late bus, but we also have learned that a good third of the students can only stay 30 minutes because they have to pick up their siblings from the elementary school across the street.

Mrs. E. and I cannot figure out if the kids know each other, or if they are just mixing it up with whoever wants to play. (We decided it would be lame of us to ask.) Sometimes we sit and play, but usually if someone wants a partner, we try to find someone else to play with them. We spend a lot of time making sure nobody is left out. The kids are really good to each other, and if someone wants to get up from the Clue game, which requires more attention span than most of them have, to play Uno with a lonely kid, nobody cares. I compelled three of my 8th grade boys to let an younger, awkward girl to be the banker in their Monopoly because that's all she wanted to do, and they didn't even blink an eye. Love those kids!

We've contemplated moving our club to the library where there are more tables (space, oxygen, air conditioning), and if we get over 40, which I think we hit yesterday, we might just need to do that, but for now, Mrs. E. and I are just giddy that we have such a large group of students from all grades who just want to hang out after school and be kids.

Oh, and you know what's crazy? The boy who wanted to come play Axis and Allies decided to go Tennis Club on Fridays instead!

Why It Was Due Last Tuesday

2011-09-28T03:54:00.000-07:00

I feel a little bad about that stack of process journals that still have not been graded after a week.

A little bad is about it, and as I lamented to my colleagues yesterday during lunch--a lunch where I was doing work--they assured me that it was okay.

These particular journals were submitted late. Granted, they were submitted only one day late, as that is the maximum I will accept, and late work gets graded last, but a week is a long time.

I'm sure there will soon be e-mails, "Why is this showing as missing? Johnny turned it in!" and then what do I have to say except my stack of excuses?

--All of the students who turned it in on time received it back the very same day. I just had to read it and give a complettion grade for their reflections.
--During class for the remainder of last week, I spent my time going from student to student giving them feedback on their writing while they read their novels.
--We were in the library one day last week, and although, I could have done some grading I did not want to lug their journals around campus, and more importantly, I have decided that this year, when we have library days, I plan to read with the students, so I can be a good model.
--My preps were taken up with STUFF. I can't remember exactly, but at least half the time was taken up with collaborative planning, and the rest included running around talking to people about pressing issues and getting materials ready for upcoming lessons.
--Although my contracted time technically ends with the bell, I did stay after every night until 4:00 pm. Two of those nights were for clubs I co-advise. the other day was more of the STUFF I was doing during my prep.
--It's mostly futile for me to take work home on weekdays because I have my own children to deal with at home. Last week I spent time bustin' my own middle schooler's chops for having a couple of missing assignments in her classes.
--In the evenings, I teach two classes, so doing any kind of homework for the teacher just does not happen. Sure, sometimes, I take it, but my students are needy, and they have their own assignments that need to be graded.
--On the weekend, I did five hours of grading and two hours of planning. Do some simple math about how much of a weekend I get. Again, I did not want to lug those process journals around. I already had a bin of work to carry out on Friday night, and taking those journals would have meant two trips to my car. Call me lazy, but it's just not worth it the hassle of exertion of the 100 degree heat, the long walk and obstacles of locked doors whe trying to get back onto the building for the second trip at 4:00 pm on a Friday.
--It's to bad that I have been out of my classroom for two days this week, but I am afforded sick days for doctor appointments. I have 130 days accrued. Obviously, it's not like I make it a habit to be gone. The other day is for school business. I was invited by the principal. I think it's excused, don't you?

So many excuses for myself. I know they aren't good enough. But you see, I am a busy teacher who is plagued with too much work. Sometimes I plan things for a reason. You know, like due dates.

Because I Said So

2011-09-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

Sometimes students have the strangest ideas about writing rules. Oh yeah, it doesn't help that a lot of English rules are more suggestions. It makes writing just so much fun to teach!

Last week, the conversation about because came up with my desperate-to-pass-their-writing-exit-exam seniors.

"Miss, is it true that you can't start a sentence with because?"

I sighed. This is not the first time I've ever had this conversation with my hapless high schoolers.

"Nope. It's not true. That's something your elementary teachers told you so you wouldn't try to write sentences with because and then screw them up. You see, it's really easy to write a fragment when you start with because, but if you are careful, using it can create a good sentence."

Now, I don't know if it's really elementary teachers who perpetuate this idea, but someone is doing it. I understand that the teacher is probably trying to save them from themselves. Oh boy, do I understand that!

Once I show the students on the board how because can go bad fast, and how to fix it, they understood. I suspect that a few years back they might not have understood, but they get it now.

But it's during times like these when I wonder if I ever send students down the wrong path when I'm just trying to help.

Effin Part 2

2011-09-23T21:49:00.000-07:00

A few days after confiscating bracelets from Marcos, which I took to the Dean's office just in case Marcos's mother wanted to pick them up, I was cruising the aisles of my classroom looking over student work, when I spotted a bright red bracelet with the letters STFU.

What is with these students?

These aren't even my hard-core high schoolers. This are my middle school students. It's the first month of school. They usually stay innocent until at least Valentine's Day. (Or so I like to believe.)

"Stephanie, you need to take that bracelet off." It was rather ironic that she had such a bracelet. I'm pretty sure I'll be screaming the words of that acronym to her--in my head--by the time the year is over.

"But, Miss--" she tried to look innocent.

"Save it. I know what it means." As she slipped it off her wrist, I gave her the low-down, "Take it home, and never bring it back. If I ever see it again, it will be mine."

How smart would she be?

The next day, I was heating up my lunch in the workroom, and I glanced into the Spanish classroom. There was Stephanie with her red bracelet on. I walked into the room (the teacher is a close friend, so it's okay), straight to Stephanie with my hand out.

"Give me your bracelet. I told you yesterday not to ever wear it again."

"But, at least it doesn't actually say the words."

I stood with my hand out. Eyebrows raised: Stink Eye activated.

Blah, blah, blah. She gave me some lip before surrendering it.

"Can I get it back?"

"You mother can. From the Dean."

I took it directly to the office. The way she was acting, I thought her mother might actually pick it up.

As I handed it to the dean, labeled with the student's name, I said, "This is the third inappropriate bracelet I've confiscated in the last week."

The dean looked confused.

"You know what this means, right?"

Blank look.

Not censoring for him, I said, "It stands for Shut the Fuck Up.'"

He recoiled a little when I said it.

Exactly my point.

(Sorry, Dad. Sometimes you have to tell it straight.)

Effin Part 1

2011-09-21T22:47:00.000-07:00

Marcos raised his hand to ask me a question, but I was too distracted from the words that I thought I saw on his silicone bracelets to pay attention. I squinted at him, trying to focus on what he was saying and while looking at the lettering on his bracelets.

Surely. No. It couldn't be.

"Marcos, just come here," I motioned him over to me. He asked his question. I answered. I was too distracted by my own agenda.

I pointed to his bracelets, "What were you thinking? You can't wear those! Take them off. I should take them, but you may put them in your pocket. If I ever see them again, I will take them and cut them into tiny little pieces."

You see, he had two thick silicone bracelets that said, "F*ck You." (censored for my dad)

He was irritated at having to take them off, but he shrugged off my reaction like it was no big deal. That ratcheted my irritation.

"It is so disrespectful! You raise your hand, and what's the message you're sending to me from your jewelry? What did I ever do to you? You know, I saw a woman with a shirt that said that once, and I instantly wanted to punch her. I'm a peace-loving teacher, but her t-shirt provoked me. Why do you want that reaction from people? It's not at all funny. Nor is it charming."

Several of his classmates were staring at him like he was an idiot.

I wanted to tell that disrespectful little boy to F-off himself.

He (and I) was lucky the bell rang for the next class.

I had my doubts about how I handled it. I probably should not have told him how I wanted to punch someone who had delivered the same passive aggressive message to me before. Mostly, I was pretty sure I should have simply taken the bracelets. It's just that I hate taking student possessions.

Two period later, I spotted him in French class with the bracelets on. He had the better sense to turn the words inward, but I did tell him if I ever saw them again, I would take them. So I did.

Slanted

2011-09-17T13:03:00.000-07:00

Dear parent, thank you for quoting me from open house night when I said it was best to contact me about things before they become a problem. Of course you are concerned about one of your son's assignment that wasn't turned in. Of course, I uploaded that fact 12 days ago.

What I meant when said that statement is that students need to come to me immediately if they are struggling with an assignment, not weeks later. This situation is not quite what I was talking about, but it's okay. I am happy to hear from you.

I'll certainly check into it.

Perhaps there's an error and the assignment was turned in. Perhaps I missed putting the grade in the computer. I hate it when papers stick together. Perhaps it didn't have a name on it. Did you know I've already collected five assignments with no names already this year? Yes, perhaps it's an error.

I should mention--or maybe it's not worth it--that your son did not talk to me about this problem? Also, he did not see me grading the assignment. Is that something you might want to check into? No I don't have a witness to my testimony...but that's the point. There were no witnesses when I graded the assignment in question.

How many themes I could visit with this story.

I always say, "It's the little things in life..." Usually I'm speaking of the simple joys of life and how I adore them, but there's a dark side to everything, right? Sorting through the many small untruths I encounter from the under-20 crowd on a daily basis is exhausting. It's takes a lot of simple joys to beat down the bitterness and paranoia that result in the barrage of lies I get weekly. What did I ever do to deserve this?

It Could Have Been Better

2011-08-29T17:24:00.000-07:00

The strangest thing happened this morning. Somehow, I set my clock an hour ahead. It's a completely different function from setting the alarm. How that happened, I don't know. I was minutes from walking out the door when I noticed that the time on my phone was an hour earlier than I thought it was, so I check all three of the clocks downstairs, my computer, and the television guide, and sure enough, the one clock that was wrong was the alarm clock.

My poor husband! He was already in the shower when he could have gotten another hour in!

I took the opportunity to have a leisurely cup on coffee. Perhaps that was the best thing I could have done for myself--especially considering I was tackling one of the hardest days of the 180 on reduced sleep.
__________________________________________
Arriving at school, we all found an inferno. Not literally. That's so not funny considering our history with fire. No, what I'm talking about is no air conditioning. Big shock. Unlike last year, when the same thing happened, it was 115º outside. Thank goodness I'm not a armpit sweater, but unfortunately my head and face get just drenched. Drippy. Disgusting. Embarrassing. So much for the extra time I took I my make-up. And my hair. My colleagues blew off their hairdos for ponytails. Too bad I cut mine too short for a ponytail but long enough to make me hot. Waaaaaah!

I take a 32 oz. bottle of water to work with me, and usually it's a struggle to drink it all. Today, I had to pace myself, lest should have to get water out of the bathroom sink, which for once was HOT. I could have easily finished that bottle by 9:00 am.

I felt some cool air blowing just before lunch. Not much though. I bailed as soon as the bell rang.

__________________________________________
I wore cute, yet comfortable shoes that were not new. After a few hours I was crippled with, well, not even blisters. It just tore the skin off my heels and little toes. I'm just not used to wearing shoes. It doesn't matter that in May they were the most comfortable shoes I owned. I don't know how I'll make it through the week. This isn't the first year I've suffered from shoes on the first day, but I thought I was okay with old shoes.

During 3rd period, one of my students who had me for publications last year said, "Why don't you just take your shoes off like you usually do?"

Well, I usually only get that comfortable with my publications class.

But today...I apologized to my 5th hour class and took my shoes off. I explained I wasn't used to wearing shoes. I also apologized for my lack of voice because I was not used to talking. And finally, I apologized for my haggard appearance, as I wasn't used to the heat.

So much for first impressions. I really liked my 5th hour class, though. Except for two boys who had to be reminded that it's rude to talk while I'm talking, they made a great impression on me, and I think it's going to be a good year with them.

The Curtain is About to Rise

2011-08-28T06:12:00.000-07:00

Twenty-four hours from this early morning 6:15 a.m., if I'm not at least in my car driving down the road, it will be a rough start to the school year.

Am I ready? Eh...I have today. I hope. My children came back last night after a three-week stay at their grandparent's house. It kind of depends on how needy they are, but before they left we did the mad dash to get ready for school. There might a few things on their lists that I didn't get, but at this point, it would be something for the classroom and not them personally, and it can wait. My main mommy priority is feeding them, as without them here, my husband and I scrimped along with whatever food was in the house, with mini grocery store trips to supplement. So, with the pressing need of lesson plans to finish, I've need to plan a grocery trip. Man, it's back to the same old life. Bleah. It's Sunday morning, I just want to sit with a cup of coffee and watch the news. I miss you, summer vacation!

At least my classroom is ready. I set up the boards before I left on Friday. I might need to adjust the desks a little bit because they are a bit too close to the front where I'll be standing for the first few days. I don't need any materials for the first few days, so no slaving over a hot copier for me today. In fact, unlike some of my colleagues, I won't even be setting foot inside the school today. It's open if we need it (we don't have access to the school on weekends), but, no thank you! Yeah for me.

Except...I still have lesson plans to write. I can tell you that they aren't so different from last year, but now we have this Curriculum Engine thing where I have to post my lesson plans. So, no just changing the date from last year's for me today. I'm sure there will be some cutting and pasting, though. And digging through the new Core Standards to find the ones that match.

The first order of the day in my English classes it address the question, "What is English?" (From Jeffrey Golub's book.) I have been asking this on the first day of class since the beginning of time. (Okay, maybe not that long. It's only my 15th year.) And look, we can get started right away on using some standards!

SL.8.1 - Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 8 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Is everybody happy now? Haha! Letting my slip show. Sorry. Perhaps later I'll blog later about how teaching with the new Core Standards has transformed my life after all.

Things are a little more dicey with my publications class. It's really big this year, with half of them--super dynamic and energetic kids--returning from last year. I spent the first week team-building with them, and toward the end of last year, I was seeing that we needed a refresher on working as a team. We did a lot of group projects and planning, so it wasn't like we didn't revisit the team concept after the first week, but... Maybe it was more like we were a family who needed a vacation from each other! I'm changing so many things about the coursework this year, but honestly, I haven't worked out the kinks on a few things. That's what I'm really nervous about.

And then with my high school students, I usually get them writing first thing, especially my proficiency students because we still start filling in their gaps on Tuesday. The nice thing about those prof kids, is that they are anxious to get help to pass their proficiencies, as many of them hope to graduate after the first semester. However, as writers, their confidence is low, so I have to build them up on what they can do, too. My creative writing students will be much the same. Unlike students in creative writing classes at other schools, my students don't necessarily like writing. They need a credit. However, I noticed that there is another section of English taught at the same time, so many I will have more students who enjoy writing. My classes are typically really small, and students have to share so much of themselves with each other, so community building is really important in these classes, too! Ugh. So much to think about!

I don't know why I worry and ponder about the first week. As mentioned, I have a pretty good system down that I use year after year, but I really hate the first few weeks. A good start is critical for a successful year. Any missteps, and it's miserable repairing the "damage." Again, I ready to get past these few weeks and get into the groove.

How Little It Takes

2011-08-27T05:42:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I teach at a full time at a middle school during the day, and in the evening, I teach two classes at an alternative high school. I teach the accelerated (what we call advanced, guess) during the day, and at night as, you might imagine in an alternative setting, my students are at a much lower skill level. In fact, one of the classes I teach is writing/reading proficiency, which is specifically for students who have not passed the the state proficiency exam or have been deemed in need of to help to pass. Sadly, my 8th graders are often better writers than my 12th graders. I blog about my high school students more often because the highs and lows are so extreme. Because of that, I probably experience more intrinsic rewards. (To balance out how much they drive me to drink.)

Last night, we met for the first and only time we will during the year. It was a two-hour meeting where the principal reviewed the most important rules and procedures for the school. With this, he also provided pep talks and professional development for our success at the school. He finished early, so we could pick up our keys and get ready for Monday. Most of us left with 30 minutes to left of the allotted two hours. How can this be? In an less than two hours, we did what has taken me three contracted days (plus two more on my dime) at my full time job.

Of course, my principal rides on the coat tails of others. All of us teach at other district schools during the day (it's a requirement of the job), where we all have had plenty of training on how using our grades, preparing our students for testing and life beyond high school, and all the other stuff.

The interesting part is that the principal never says, "Oh, you have heard this all at our other school." He doesn't labor over test scores with us. He doesn't remind us to use the standards. (What else would we use?) He just wants us to come in each night and use our best practices to teach our students. "Remediate the whole class if you have to! They don't know it. They missed it somewhere. Just teach them!" Of course, we are trying to get our students to graduate, with hopes of sending them to post secondary school or training, but he doesn't beating us with it. Furthermore, his pep talk on how to be effective in our classrooms has a ring of, "You all know how to do this, but here's a reminder to get ya going." I feel respected as a teacher. He has faith in our abilities. Although, we don't get a formal evaluation from him each year, he knows our abilities because he comes into our classrooms everyday. Every. Day. No joke. He knows what's going on. If he didn't like it, he would tell us. If it was terrible enough, he would say, "This isn't working out," and we'd be on our way out the door. We all know it's the truth. It's happened. Am I threatened with the ease of which we could be fired? Nope.

It's not that my daytime principal does not have faith in our abilities. She does. She even told us in her back-to-school spiel, and I believe that she believes in us. However, sometimes actions speak louder than words, and the hoops I am compelled to jump through--the trainings on the latest buzz words, the newest programs that will make the students learn, the documentation, the test analysis, and all the rest--belittle me. (Many of these hoops from the higher ups.) I appreciate how we are always trying to make learning better for our students, but when will I ever be good enough? Am I doing anything right?

Comparing my two schools is certainly like comparing apples and oranges. My middle school has 1400+ students, while my high school has 100-200, depending on the quarter and how many concurrent students attend. (There are students who only go there, which are the ones I usually have so late at night, and then there are others who have a regular day school and just come for a few classes.) During the day, we have five administrators and three counselors to assist with student troubles, while at night we have one principal and one counselor. At night, I hardly know my colleagues, and I do not have to plan and meet with them on a weekly basis. It's just me, in a classroom, usually populated with fewer than 20 students, helping students learn, often with individualized instruction that is difficult for me to manage with my 30+ middle schoolers. Things are really just too different to ponder, but I sometimes I just can't help it.

For years, I have marveled at how little it takes for me to do my job at the alternative high school. I walk into the school, minutes before class starts, tag-team the teacher who uses the classroom before I do, drop my bag, get out my materials, write the agenda on the board, and start teaching. It takes about three minutes--if I have it to spare. Sometimes, I just have to start teaching. I have no paid prep time, and when the students walk out the door at the end of the day, I'm right behind them, racing them out of the parking lot onto the dark streets. A lot goes on during my two hours (I'll perhaps paint a picture another day) of teaching there, but give me a classroom full of student, some paper and pencils, and we're ready go to. A whiteboard and marker help, but I could do it without.

That experience, night after night, drives home that teaching students does not have to be so complicated. Think about it. How little do you need to teach?

So the Insomnia Starts

2011-08-25T03:49:00.000-07:00

I have to start getting up in the during the 5 o'clock hour now--depending on how tired I am and how quickly I can get ready--but for some crazy reason, this morning I was wide awake around 3:00 a.m. Maybe it's because I went to bed around 9:00 p.m., or maybe it's because even with the A/C blasting, it's still too hot (91° outside right now), or maybe it's because I have too many things on my mind that seeped through my sweet dreams.

Yesterday was our first day back as teachers. We had our state-of-the-school address by the principal, accompanied by other important information from other administrators. The principal's spiel inspired confidence in me while encouraging me to kick it in the rear to do better--especially after discussions of our tests scores. Things are changing now that we are going to the Growth Model. No more targeting Bubble Kids, although our numbers show that by targeting that population, even the hopeless cases were helped. I'm glad to be done with that craziness, but who knows what new madness awaits.

Oh, I know! Common Core Standards are here to save the day. I'm not sure how much that will change my life, although we've been told that these more rigorous standards are more aligned to the IB objectives, so I've been told my life will be a bit easier on that front. Trying to balance IB requirements with our district/state requirements nearly drives me mad some years.

In another, short meeting with my department and the administrators, emphasis on the core standards, which are all completely ready to roll for Language Arts, whereas other subject areas are transitioning more slowly, was made, but yet another change (read last year's drama here) to the 8th grade writing exam was not. Apparently it's all going online! And it isn't going to count for AYP this year. Uh...A test just for fun? This keep that rumor tapped down, aye? I suppose the lack of hype over this new change isn't because we are all exhausted from last year's change (that's just me?) but because there is virtually no information about this new test. Yet. It's okay, I can punt. So, ya'll just let me know what you want me to do, and I'll get that done! Oy!

Oh! But the good news on the testing front is that we are suppose to do our state testing in May! It's about damn time that we got on board with giving students a full school year to learn before we test them.

On the more immediate reason for insomnia...there's just so much to prepare in the next few days. Many colleagues have work time today and tomorrow, but I will be peddling my yearbooks in the cafeteria to students picking up their schedules for the next two days. It's an extremely important time for sales, as I aim to sell at least half of what I plan to order. The last two years I've only sold a quarter of my projected order at the beginning of the year, but miraculously, when the books came in, and I sold out. It's a nerve-wracking year hoping we'll sell them. Only a few students buy in the middle of the year. I'm handing out fliers for online ordering, a Josten's service I'm going to encourage this fall, but I'm at odds about whether more people will buy because they can use a credit card, or if more people will put off ordering this week and then simply forget to order at all.

It's funny how these yearbook worries crowd my mind when I have more important things to worry about--like getting lessons and documents ready for the students on Monday!

I miss my summer already. Only two days into the new year. How pathetic am I?

Mantra for First Day Back for Teachers

2011-08-24T06:46:00.000-07:00

I will keep a positive attitude.
I will be a professional at all times.
I will open myself up to learn new things.
I will open myself up to learn old things differently.
Still keeping positive attitude.
I will use my bits of free time wisely.
I will try to have faith that change is a good thing.
I will grin and bear it when it starts to get deep.
I will try to be the HappyChyck I always want to be.

Not Ready Yet

2011-08-17T17:58:00.000-07:00

We can pick up our keys and access our classrooms tomorrow. I've already been on campus three times in the last week for meetings and professional development (all paid), but tomorrow is the day I can finally get into my classroom to put my boards up.

I am happy to tell my colleagues who will be waiting in line, "I won't be picking mine up until Monday. I'm taking one last vacation."

Honestly, I'd rather not even work in my classroom (unpaid) until I have to come back, but the work days are so busy, I know if I don't put in a little time, I will regret it.

I haven't always felt the need to not work until my contracted time, but the longer I teach, the more I don't feel like I need to the time for days of classroom arrangement. (It will come together eventually, right?) There's that...and well, since education is so unsupported by the government and "the public" these days, I don't see why I should care about working past my expectations.

Ouch. I feel uncomfortable saying that. Of course, I always work behind my contracted time. Every. Single. Day. Including weekends. There's work to be done that requires more than my contracted hours. What can I do?

Well, I suppose I can take back my time any opportunity I can.

Off my soap box, I'm headin' out of town to see my family. I could really use a break from the reality. You know, the reality that my summer is OVER. That reality check can take a few days off. I can't wait for some visitin' and porch sittin'.

It's Rollin'

2011-08-15T17:58:00.000-07:00

It started with an IB meeting last Wednesday. Informative. I tried not to be grumpy, but I am not so sure I succeeded.

Then I bought borders for my bulletin boards. You know summer is over when it's time to get the border. One of them has flames. Flames! That sets the tone.

My official teaching schedules have shown up in the mail. Teaching the same stuff. For the first time in years, I don't have 1st hour prep, but other than that, all the same.

I've spent the last two days buzzin' around the Internet looking for new ideas and resources. My head is spinning.

I'm going to some paid professional development this week. Tomorrow starts off with an hour of Web 2.0. I have no idea what we can talk about Web 2.0 in a mere hour, but I'm going in anyway. The session afterward is on Google Docs, which I have come to adore.

School starts in two weeks. I officially go back in 9 more days.

Where did the time go?

The Locker Game

2011-08-12T07:39:00.001-07:00

Poor Mrs. Bluebird, whose school started this week, has blogged about her school's locker woes. Besides dealing with the anxiety of nervous students who cannot figure out how to open locks, the the teachers at Mrs. Bluebird's school also have to deal with lockers are too old and tired to cooperate with students.

Locker Drama! The crazy things we teachers have to deal with besides teaching...

At our old school, we did not have enough lockers for students, so they had to carry everything with them. That situation was fraught with its own drama. At our new school, we have new lockers, but to prevent shenanigans in overcrowded, narrow hallways, students can only visit them before school, before and after lunch, and after school. Our locker drama is keeping kids out of them during the other passing periods.

The rule about staying out of lockers is serious, but many students believe that rules are made to be broken. In fact, for many of them, getting away with breaking the rules everyone else has to follow is a fun game.

The Locker Game

Objective:
Remove or place an item in the locker without getting caught.

Game Play:
Obviously, you need a reason for accessing your locker. It does not matter if it's real or critical. Just know your purpose.

If you get caught while the locker is open, the teacher may or may not let you get the thing you were trying to get, depending on teacher and mood. Whatever the outcome, try again next time.

Point Values:

+1 Access locker without getting caught for a forgotten textbook or assignment.

+3 Access locker without getting caught for the textbook or assignment you intentionally "forgot."

+1 Access locker to take or put away your jacket.
+1 if jacket is not dress code

+1 Access locker to put away textbooks you don't want to carry.

+2 Access locker to retrieve or put away gym clothes.
+1 if the clothes are not in a bag
+2 if the clothes are dirty/smelly

+1 Caught accessing locker but get off with a warning and mission completed.
+ 2 if you really didn't need to get in your locker
+ 1 if you told a story that wasn't exactly true

+4 Caught accessing locker, close it, and walk away while teacher is reprimanding you.

-1 Caught accessing locker before the door is open.

-2 Caught accessing locker but have to close it before completing mission.
-3 if the item is in your hand, but you have to put it back.

Strategies for Winning:

Set your combination so you just have to turn to the last number on the dial. Because the lock will automatically open when you reach that last number, this will save a lot of time, but do not let others see you setting up your lock for the quick open because they can quickly open your locker, too.

Although physically dangerous, open your locker when the hall is most crowded. The teachers cannot get to you.

Get 3-5 of your friends to gather around you to hide the opening. Make it quick, though. Groups of students standing around draw attention.

Make sure the item is ready to be grabbed. You do not have time to search your backpack for your "forgotten" textbook. Leave it on top.

If you are putting something in your locker, shove it in forcefully, pushing your whole arm into the back of the locker. If even a backpack strap falls out while you are closing your locker, you may not be be able to open it again. Jammed locker? You lose.

Game play ends June 6, 2012.

The winner gets to be the coolest person in school.

Why Is Feeding Them So Challenging?

2011-08-11T04:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my husband asked me if we were going to let the kids buy school lunch this year. About three years ago, we started packing lunches because I kept hearing stories that concerned me about the amount and quality of food their were getting. One of my children had the latest lunch and didn't always get the entree she wanted or enough of the sides because they would run out. At that time, my children also had to go to the before-school childcare program, so I bought school breakfast, too, and that usually consisted of a chocolate muffin and chocolate milk. What a great way to start the day! PLUS, I decided I could come up with healthier choices for less money. I'm quite the bargain shopper.

Packing lunches worked well in elementary school, that is, the kids were happy. Students with bag lunches go straight into the cafeteria and may begin eating. Our lunches are not elaborate by any means. Usually it's a sandwich, fruit and/or vegetable, and a treat, such as my homemade jello, a bag of Sun Chips, or a granola bar. However, last year, when my daughter went into middle school, apparently I wrecked her cool quotient by making her pack a lunch. She claimed that she was one of three students in the 6th grade, probably of 300 students, who brought a lunch. (I was surprised because a lot more students at my school pack a lunch--especially those who do not qualify for free or reduced lunch.) I know somebody is thinking of calling child services right now because of the abuse I've caused the child. I relented in getting her a cell phone this year. You can use hers.

It's been enough drama that I considered letting the kids buy school lunch, although I believe in Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, too, so as I was telling my husband, "No way!" I was also looking up information on school lunch on the district's website.

While I was secretly considering school lunches, he brought up the argument about the news item that was all over the television a few days ago about how unsafe home lunches are because they are not kept at the proper temperature. When I saw that "news," I was more irritated than concerned. It felt like propaganda bull. Why does the government really want me to stop trying to feed my own kids? My husband did raise a good point because halfway through the year, my son admitted to never putting an icepack in his lunch, and he always ate meat sandwiches. (Neither of my kids likes peanut butter. Brats.) He missed zero days of school from food poisoning. In fact, he missed zero days from sickness. Period.

So, as my husband and I were debating whether a warm sandwich ever killed any of us, and I was hoping my kids, who are vacationing at their grandmother's house, have not been watching the news, I found the district's school lunch website and discovered that it would cost my son $1.75 a day for lunch, and for my daughter it would cost $3.00! Three dollars? That seems like a lot, but the sample menus and restaurant comparisons make it seem quite reasonable, don't they? True. It's difficult to eat out for only $3.00. You can ask my husband. He has no choice but to eat out, and he struggles to do it on the cheap. Honestly, though, even for the price, the food choices are not healthier and more filling that we can do at home. When did chicken nuggets and pizza become staples? Maybe I'm putting the turkey/ham/tuna/peanut butter sandwich on a pedestal, but you know, it's fed people in my family for generations. Right, Dad?

Here's me shooting down school lunch again:

Chicken Nugget Meal (example)
5 pc. Chicken Nuggets
I'm not a fan...even before Jamie Oliver's demonstration. At my house the "nugget" part of the chicken is thrown away.
Crispy Tater Tots
Everything comes in plastic. They are not crispy. All six of them.
Baby Carrots w/ Ranch
Eh. Not bad. Most baby carrots, are not the sweet, young ones, but we eat them at our house, too.
Dressing
The kids prefer dressing, but they usually pack veggies sans dip.
Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies
We sometimes have cookies treats. Homemade is best...
8 oz. 1% Milk
I know for a fact, my kids will always select chocolate milk. It's not just a treat like when I was a kid. It's available all the time.

The chicken nugget meal is listed under the elementary meal, but I would bet that the secondary meal would be essential the same on chicken nugget days.

CCSD Secondary Menu
Low-Fat Cheese Pizza Slice
This is apparently an option every day. (Not the only one, though.) Although, it was a major selling point for my daughter to get school lunch, she did admit that everyone was tired of pizza by Christmas. Too bad it doesn't have meat or veggies on it.
Tossed Green Salad w/ Dressing
At my school, I've seen these few leaves of lettuce "tossed" in the trash each day. It looked more like garnish than a side of salad.
Fresh Whole Orange
Maybe it's my bias, but it's been a long time since I have had a good fresh orange in Nevada. My kids love them, but there are only a few months during the year when we can get any that they will actually eat. I'm betting these are much the same. More often than not, I see apples on the school lunches more than oranges, but they come already cut and packaged. Strange, no? They taste weird.
Whole Fruit Cherry Turnover
Wow! That's a great spin, isn't it? You get a whole turnover or a whole cherry? Just wondering.
8 oz. 1% Milk
Again, mine would choose chocolate every time. It's suppose to have like 30 grams of sugar. For that much sugar, I could probably pack something more filling and satisfying. Or given them a soda. They would love that treat.

I have to admit that just the description and the spin on price seems reasonable enough. Well, for my elementary-aged student it does. Three dollars is too much for food that comes frozen and is simply reheated. (Check out Mrs. Q's pictures. Our lunches look much like those.)

It's more than that, though. It's quality of food. Am I the only one who sees that?

What further surprised and irritated me is when I decided to do a search on bag lunch vs. school lunch, I initially found so much more support for school lunch--from both parents and school/government agencies. Last year, my students did a project where they hypothetically designed a school for a village in a third world country that did not already have in a school. I was surprised by the number of students who felt it was necessary to include a cafeteria. That's when a question popped into my head, "When did it become expected that schools much also feed the children?" I know we are not the only country that has school lunch, and I am not knowledgeable enough to know how many countries subsidize lunches for their students, but I really would like to know when parents gave up that responsibility?

I hate to do the back in the day thing, but seriously, when I was a kid, sure I remember eating school lunch, and it was probably a better deal for my mother (I had to start packing in secondary school, so perhaps it wasn't always a better deal), but I also remember getting a tray full of food that was prepared on site. I won't claim it was all healthy. We had butter. Stuff was sometimes fried, but usually it was baked. Lots of casseroles. We had canned food, but in those days, we didn't have "fresh" produce (out of season) all year long. Honestly, it often resembled what I ate for dinner at home, except my mother never made homemade dinner rolls.

If I had been a mother back then, I would have thought it was a blessing to feed my kids all that food for the money. As a mother now, and I am blessed to be able to afford to feed my kids well (I know so many families struggle), however, I think I can do better than the school district. Why is there so much guilt for that?

Yes, I will try to offer a balanced meal. Thanks for mentioning it, Government Guidelines.

Yes, I could offer something junky from time to time, Dear Daughter, but I cannot afford that junk food and neither can your health.

Yes, I will continue to threaten my son with peanut butter if he doesn't pack his meat sandwiches with an ice pack (and a frozen bottle of water for extra assurance), Media Hype. He'll live.

Thanks for letting me try to feed my own family.

Ugh. Homework. What's is Worth?

2011-07-21T11:12:00.000-07:00

Darren over at Right on the Left Coast is discussing LA Unified's new homework policy. In the original policy, which has recently been canceled anyway, homework would count for only 10% of the grade. My administrator would support the idea that we teachers cannot control what happens at home and students have varying levels of support at home. Darren supports this idea, too, but he correctly predicted that policy would make it more difficult for students to earn good grades. Placing value on homework is more than a numbers game.

Over the years, as I try to fairly assess my students and attach a grade to what they do, I've struggled with what this homework business is all about and what it is worth. (A few months ago, I anguished over how to squeeze the blasted work out of students.)

In the past, I counted homework as 10-15%, and assignments that were considered homework are assignments completed totally at home, such as independent reading. If an assignment was started in class but needed to be completed at home, it was considered classwork (formative assessment), which was 35-40%. Assessments (summative) counted for 50%.

Sometimes I just couldn't get that 10% = homework to make sense, though. Throughout the year, students had projects and major reading and writing assignments that require more time at home than in class to finish. In fact, many independent reading projects were done completely at home. Technically, that's homework. However, those were worth a lot more than 10%, and often they were considered an assessment in the end. I always had to be explicit with students that just because it is being completed at home, it was worth a lot. I'm not sure if they were even paying attention to the weights of the class, but some students had to be reminded that doing assigned work at home is very important.

Ultimately, I have had difficulty justifying assignments that were worth a mere 10% of a student's grade. Sometimes we would go weeks without an assignment that was technically considered "homework." Everything required of them was very important! Even when students were asked to do small tasks that might not add up to be worth much in time and points, the completion of those tasks was usually integral in the students being able to participate in classroom activities and move forward in learning. Is it really necessary give points to every little step along the learning continuum? In the big picture of assessment, I say no, but students are used to being rewarded often for their work.

When my students struggle--in my class and in others--it usually comes down to this concept of homework. My colleagues and I use homework as a means for students to practice and extend their knowledge or prep for upcoming classes. In my class, that means that students should have rough draft writings completed so they can receive feedback for revision and have time to practice in class. In algebra class, that means students should practice the newly assigned concepts so they may apply them to the next lesson. In geography, that means students should read the textbook and add to the notes/concepts that were discussed or will be discussed in class. This is not busy work.

When students do not do their homework, no matter what the value of the grade it is worth, they are not taking responsibility for their learning, and that translates into a lack of performance extends throughout the rest of their work. So when we tell parents, "Your student needs to do his/her homework," it's a pretty big deal.

Is this where the argument about how not all students have the same support at home comes in? Not all parents are home to give help on homework. Some students have to care for their siblings after school. Some students have too many extracurricular activities. Maybe we should not even have homework, right? Hmmm. Maybe. Maybe some some students want to do well and require more time. Maybe those students have no problem with working at home. Maybe the students need time to process their learning, and that time is not afforded during the school day. Perhaps we could lengthen the school day! Yeah, that will happen.

Maybe...it comes back to the responsibility issue. Students must take responsibility for their learning. There are wonder students who do this innately, but usually do need all the support they can get from school and home, especially in the early years as they are forming habits. Yes, some students live in heart-breaking circumstances that make it difficult for them to find the support at home. That problem cannot be fixed with a certain percentage of a grade being attributed to homework when homework is part of a learning process.

Oh! Some might say that perhaps homework should not be part of the learning process. No, it's not crazy. I mean, where are we going with the concept of placing a mere 10% of a grade on homework? We could have a big debate on that alone. But think about it. What are your goals for students? Does homework enhance student learning? Is homework that important?

I know in my classroom, homework will not go away. A specific grade for it might, though. I will continually strive to make homework valuable for my students, for without it, they just cannot progress as quickly as they are capable of doing. Now, if I could drive this point home with my upcoming students...

A Working Summer

2011-07-17T08:18:00.001-07:00

This is one of the posts where I explain where I've been all summer. I would also like to reflect upon where my summer has gone! Wow! Time is just flying by!

For the first month of this summer, I was busy with the writing project. I had the privilege to be a facilitator at the invitational summer institute, but at the very last minute, we lost some participants, so I wasn't really needed that much. In fact, I didn't have my own writing response group to facilitate. Basically, I was there as there to do tech stuff, and at times that kept me pretty busy as I took pictures, and archived the summer on our website.

For part of time, I was also hanging out with the youth writing camps, which were housed in two different locations. We have this cool program where students come to writing camp (grades 1-12) that writing project teachers consultants conduct, but last year we added a component where teachers earn college credit by participating in team teaching in the writing camp. While I was in and out taking pictures, I was also taking some video from students and teachers and the experience. The work everyone was doing was so amazing! The teachers were having a blast. The students were having a blast. All this excitement over writing! Now, that I have film and photos, I'm charged with creating some promos about summer camp. I'm a little nervous to put it all together, as I'm not a whiz with making videos--especially using video clips as opposed to just photos--but there's always room to learn, right?

As exhausted as I am from not having truly had a month off from work, yet, I was refreshing to work with writing project stuff this summer. There are always positive people learning, sharing, and writing new things. I was so done with everyone and everything and the end of the year. Who could have known that spending another month of working and talking writing would be refreshing? I only hoped...and thankfully, it did the trick. I am almost ready (no work until August) to strike up some enthusiasm to plan for next year!

(I'm really bummed that I only completed one piece of writing during the institute, and it was at the beginning.)

Reflections on Zombies

2011-07-10T07:38:00.000-07:00

According to a series of Internet surveys, I have only 60% chance of surviving a zombie apocalypse. It was pretty consistent across the board. (Try a few surveys here, here, and here. There are dozens of them.) A mere 60%. I’m pretty impressed with those numbers considering I know nothing about how to survive zombie-ridden world, but then on the other hand if I can to go up against a rabid pack of zombies, I’d really want my percentages to be much better—more like a 100%. It’s my life we’re talking about here. But we are talking about zombies not the swine flu. Just how likely is it that zombies might attack me?Actually, I’m not sure.

Have you noticed our culture’s current obsession with zombies? For a long time, vampires were the monster de jour because somehow they were sexy and romantic. What other way could we women get a true (and literal) renaissance man and the hope of eternal life? Chilvary’s not dead! Any vampire I’ve met in pop culture, revels in eternal youth and beauty. Swoon! So what if I can’t die? Oh, the tragedy of enjoying everything life has to offer! Who cares that I would have to drink blood? Squirt some chocolate in it or mix it with some vodka. I guarantee it will taste better than that psyllium and lemon juice “health” tonic I drank this morning. Vampires and their lifestyle sound enticing, so I can understand how people could become fascinated with vampires, but zombies? Ugh. They have no glamour.

A charming zombie is a dead zombie. I mean really dead, incapacitated, and decapitated. This brand of undead has no class. Stinking, rotting flesh falling off their bones…grossly misshapen bodies drag across the ground… and apparently, zombies have one thought: “Brains!” Now, I don’t know enough about zombies to know if this is an exaggeration, but it is evident that zombies do not possess high-level brain functions as they simply wander around mumbling and groaning. Poor hygiene, decaying complexion, and a one-track mind--how can the public be so obsessed with this monster?

It’s sad how the public mood has changed in its fascinations with the undead. With an interest in vampire fantasies, people were often hopeful and optimistic. I know that not all vampires are like Lestat and Edward, but at least with a vampire lifestyle, according to popular fiction, one can function almost normally as a human being. I’ve been waiting for stories told from a zombie’s point of view, but that will never happen. Zombies don’t think; they react. They attack and eat with no control, often infecting those they attack. This is where their popularity troubles me. With even one zombie comes a whole apocalypse. Why is our culture obsessed with a monster that will annihilate the human race? Are people wondering if the end is near?

I’ve enjoyed good vampires stories for two decades and in recent years, it has become such a popular genre that the market has been saturated with a glut of paranormal fiction. Never once in those years did I entertain the thought that vampires might exist. Not even when I’ve seen young people imitating the vampiric life, including the whole blood drinking thing, did I ever fear for my ephemeral life. Come on! Vampires? Wipe off your pasty makeup, pop out those fangs, and get a job!

But zombies…as ridiculous as they sound, I have half a mind to believe that they could exist. As a culture, we are halfway there. Our attention span is limited to the equivalent of 140 characters of digital drivel, as we bump our way through society, stopping only to refuel with anything that comes with fries. Perhaps it is extreme to think that we are so disconnected we might as well be zombies. However, in all seriousness, if our world did become overrun with zombies, I wonder how long it would take to notice.

Besides killing ourselves with mind-numbing “culture,” what we should worry about biological warfare. Let’s consider government conspiracies and mad scientists who could create viruses that will spread like wildfire, killing the human race as we know it. You see, some of the popular zombie fiction is based on the premise that a zombie apocalypse begins after a terrible virus is released. Brain-hungry walking dead sound bit far-fetched, but evil men creating biological weapons of mass destruction are much more plausible. If you believe that biological weapons are also too fantastical to reality, consider these common diseases that could make one act like a zombie:

· Rabies. People infected with rabies, which comes from an animal bite, often exhibit strange and violent behavior. They might have paralysis and could become mentally impaired to the point of irrationality. Images of violent, crazy people foaming at the mouth coming to mind?

· Sleeping Sickness. Induced by the attack of a parasite that goes right to the brain, the carrier gradually becomes less coherent as the parasite eats away at the brain. No brain function would certainly make one zombie-like.

· Necrosis. Premature dying cell tissue can certainly provide the look of a rotting zombie. It spreads and can cause limbs to die long before the brain does. Stinking gangrene, anyone?

· Leprosy. A highly contagious, often slowly developing skin condition that can deteriorate to necrosis and deformation, it is the epitome of what people might consider a zombie looks like. It’s been decades since anyone has seen leprosy, but often people who had it were treated as if they were already dead.

Of course, none of these afflictions alone makes a zombie, but what if a mad scientist mixed together a concoction of these diseases—or something even worse that we don’t even know about that includes cannibalism? Welcome to my dead man’s party!

Perhaps you think you’re safe as long as no mad scientist comes up with a way to reanimate the dead? Think again and read some zombie fiction. These living dead don’t have to brought back to life. A nice coma would do if you really want your average zombie to have that classic element of surprise when you find that something you thought was dead really isn’t. Simply a degradation of human function would probably freak me out enough. One day my spouse is hugging and kissing me, and the next day he wants to get close so he can feed on my juicy flesh and delicious brains. “Holy Living Dead! When did my sweetie become a zombie? This wasn’t in the vows! RUN!”

The real question is whether I believe enough that zombies could exist and if I should be prepared for an attack. Considering I’m an overweight, 40 year-old woman living in an urban area with only a 60% chance of surviving a zombie apocalypse, it’s quite unlikely that I’m going to take up an interest in machetes and shotguns. “I used to enjoy cooking and crafts in my free time, but now spend my time honing my commando survival skills. Wanna see my guns? A zombie apocalypse will come, you know.” How crazy does that sound? I think I’ll try to keep the possibilities tucked into my nightmares for now and hope that zombie popularity isn’t an omen.

Getting Started on Google Earth

2011-06-16T12:47:00.001-07:00

**This is a repost of something I wrote for a NING group that is no longer as easily accessible as it used to be.**

Google Earth is a program that has a plethora of uses in the classroom. As Google Earth has been around for over five years, many people, educators included, have written about the many applications Google Earth has. If you are curious about the different things you can see and do with Google Earth, you could easily spend the rest of your summer surfing the 'net discovering cool things. This post mentions just a few to get you started.

What are some reasons to use Google Earth in the classroom?

To help students visualize information--both current and historical
To engage and excite students
To use up-to-date real-world data
To provide cross-curricular learning opportunities
To help connect students to global ideas and cultures
To enable students communicate research, data, and stories in meaningful ways

Google Earth is a rich program that can be used where students each have their own computers as well as in one-computer classrooms. It can be used to stimulate ideas and conversation in teacher-led discussions, but it is also easy enough for students to use collaboratively or individually to explore or create their own projects.

Getting Started

It's FREE to download Google Earth, and it only takes a few minutes. Once you open the program, a window pops up to offer tips on how to use Google Earth. Those pop-up tips can be handy, and they can also be disabled if you find them irritating.

Don't forget to return to the main site from which you downloaded Google Earth. On the left bar are several links that can provide assistance for users of all experience levels. The Product Tour is actually a series of mini tours about different aspects of the program. These tours are short--no more than 2 minutes, but some as short as 30 seconds. If you need more help than that, the Community link takes you directly to a discussion forum that will likely have answers. If you don't have the patience for a forum, try the user's guide.

From the user's guide site, on the left side bar you can find a link to "Build Earth Skills." Although this sounds like a link specially designed for extraterrestrials, it's actually Google Earth: Learn, self-guided, in-depth tutorial on how to use the program's various tools. You can't just click around on the subjects: you have to start from the beginning. There are tasks to complete and quizzes to take before moving on to next levels. Too bad we can't earn some PD credits from it!

Google Earth in the Classroom

Once you dig around in Google Earth for a little while, you will probably start to think of ways you can you it in your classroom. How can it enhance an old tried-and-true unit? Does it build a bridge between your class and a colleagues for cross curricular lessons? Does it spark an idea for an inquiry-based project?

Here are a few websites that can help get your creative juices flowing with Google Earth. (Or you can just "borrow" ideas from others--that's why they post them!)

Twenty-Five Interesting Ways to Use Google Earth in the Classroom is a slide show by Mark Warner that can get you started with some ideas. (Check out Warner's other "Interesting Ways" slide shows.)
Google Earth Lessons is a great go-to guide for everything Google Earth for teachers, as it has links to current developments, lessons, and how-to guides. The lessons organized by type, such as teacher-ed and student-led rather than grade level.
Google Earth Across the Curriculum does not have a wide array of lessons, but it is a good, basic starting point for teachers wanting to explore how Google Earth can be used outside social studies classrooms.
Apple Learning Interchange's goals is to give students leverage with Google Earth in such a way they they call it "A Joystick to Learning." Navigate from the right menu to find enough ideas and links to keep you busy for a few days.
Free Technology for Teachers is a resource blog on many uses of technology in the classroom, including Google Earth. This may not be as robust as some of the previous sources, but it is casual site to poke around in.
Google Lit Trips is an especially interesting site for language arts teachers. How often do we try to bring a bit of a book's culture into the classroom so students can connect better? This site has some of those resources created already for books ranging from k-12+ levels. It also offers help on how to create some of those resources in your own classroom.
And just for my SNWP friends, check out Tom Barrett's journey in using Google Earth as a storytelling tool in his classroom. Scroll to the bottom of the post to link to and read the other entries in the series.

Each of these links can certainly provide hours and hours of study on using Google Earth in your own classroom, but these few resources are just the tip of what's available. Once you start digging around, you'll find there's a lot to learn about our world through Google.

Now go take on the world!

(And when you're finished you can start on Mars, too!)

Summers are for Reading

2011-06-10T18:57:00.000-07:00

I'm such a nerd. One of the things I am looking forward to this summer is having the time to read. It doesn't take much to bliss me out!

Throughout the house, I have quite a few book I have purchased over the years, but for one reason or another have not gotten around to reading them. Some of the books take a little more concentration than I can spare, so I often read quick, brain candy.

I don't have as much time as I did last summer, when I read 30 books, but I bet I can do half that!

Over at Shelfari, I have my to-read list. Chime in on any you think I should read right away. I might be adding to the list in the next few days because there's a donated box of reads kickin' around her somewhere, too.

I'm Sorry I Asked

2011-06-08T17:52:00.000-07:00

The final question on the 8th grade final exam is actually an essay where students brainstorm the units or activities they liked and disliked. Afterward, they select one thing that should be changed or aborted next year. It is up to them to persuade me to change or modify the activity or unit. It can be so powerful to get feedback from students, but this is the second year in a row where I wish I hadn't even asked.

I'll think I'll post some of them here in a few days, but I'd say 85% of the reflections were simply whiny. It's too hard. It was boring. Everyone did a bad job on it. It was stupid. It's really too bad that some of my students couldn't be more articulate because my colleagues and I do take the feedback into consideration when we plan for next year. Instead, at this point, I have a poor opinion of my students' poor opinion of me and my class.

Next year, I definitely need to help my students develop their persuasive skills so they don't sound like lazy, bratty teenagers when somebody asked for their critical opinions.

The Final Act

2011-06-05T18:57:00.000-07:00

Glancing up at the clock, I see that it is exactly 12 hours until my class starts in the morning. In the morning, it will be the last week of school. Finally. My mood is better just thinking about it.

At my school, the last week is rather anti-climatic. We have one full day of classes, and then the next three days are minimum days where students come in and take exams for two classes each day. I still have to show up the day after that to...do whatever until I can take my keys and check out papers to the office.

It is not a week full of field days and fun. Students may not bring backpacks to school, and they are searched at the gates each morning. No stink bombs, Sharpies, and shaving cream for the kiddos! They may bring pencil and paper. Please bring a pencil; you are taking a test today.

After the last class, we escort our students to the quad and herd them outside the gates. Yes the message is very much, "Get the hell outta here!" I mean, uhm, "Go home and enjoy your afternoon while your teachers spend the afternoon grading your exams."

It's always amused me because I hear of other schools who have a week of fun, and my school is all about academics. Plus, we take every measure to avoid shenanigans that will result in the school being trashed the last week of school.

I've often felt sad for my 8th graders. Although in the week prior, we do have an awards ceremony (not everyone is invited, though) and the fancy 8th grade dance, their final moments in middle school are almost hostile.

Last year, the administration decided to hold a short promotion exercise after school on the last day. I think such ceremonies have been frowned upon a bit because there are people who think that 8th grade is as much education as one needs; however, it's a pretty big deal to be leaving middle school and moving onto high school, so why not celebrate?

Representatives from all of our classes formed the promotion committee where students decided on songs, colors, and guest speakers from the student body and faculty. The students walk in front of the stage where their names are called along with their future high schools. I love that part. It's not the end for them; it's the beginning!

That's more like it! A celebration for the students, by the students. That leaves much more lasting memories.

Textbooks in? Check!

2011-05-31T17:48:00.000-07:00

The deadline to collect textbook was today, and by some miracle, I collected every single one of my books without having to write a fine slip.

A few years back, in a fit of anger, I assigned homework to students who did not return their books on the day I collected them. In a lot of ways I don't even agree with my behavior. Punish students with homework? Eh, well. Sometimes we gotta do what we gotta do.

I told the students, "There are so many things we did not learn this year, and it is evident that you are still willing to learn because you are keeping your textbooks. Here are some exercises that will help you. This is not busy work. These are weaknesses from your writing that I've noticed could use some attention."

The truth is that few of the students did the homework, but they did bring their books in. That was the objective! I didn't grade or penalize the lack of homework. It wouldn't have affected their grades anyway. Shhh! Don't tell them that.

As I was leaving today, one of the near-retirees was in the office picking up fine slips to fill out. I proudly told him that I had collected all of my textbooks and how I used homework as leverage. It worked like a charm! He patted me on the back and said, "You keep telling yourself that."

Burst my bubble.

So Done

2011-05-28T07:06:00.001-07:00

It's been a long year with my students since October. They came with a bad reputation, and except for a few weeks early in the year, they lived up to it.

You know, let me just insert here that sad truth about this rough class we've had. Not all of them are awful. In fact, there are so many who are darling and wonderful, but they are overshadowed. A class is determined by its worst students, no? You know it's so true.

Apathy has been a major battle all year. Although I do not have too many students who are failing, I have far too many who have Cs and Ds--and not because it is beyond their ability levels. For most of the year, the apathy has resulted in missing assignments, and worse yet, missing final writing assessments and major projects. Those students made the ones who turned in poor quality work look like geniuses. Such frustrating performance for an accelerated class.

Two of my classes are difficult to manage. Of course, one of them is my largest, and there are no more seats available for segregation. Not that it would matter. In that particular class, there are so many chatty Charlies and Cathies that I've given up on any useful seating configuration, except for five, whom you might think I pick on if you walked into my class, but they absolutely have to stay away from each other. That particular class has produced a record number of parent conferences, and for the most part, it has made no difference in anything. Despite all of our efforts, those students are just difficult...immature...distracted--super exasperating!

No joke, I am just plain mean to some of the students. I don't know what else you would expect of me after all we've been through. It would be nice if I could rise above to that teacher quality that makes me a super-being, but I'm just done with it all. My restraint in not screaming, "STFU!" and throwing actual daggers--not just the ones with my eyes--should be good enough. And what does mean look like? From the time they walk in my classroom, my foot is on their backs. Not literally of course. At this point in the year, they do not even have a chance to do the right thing before I assume they will do wrong. Don't shake your head and think, "She is creating the behavior. She should encourage them to do the opposite, and they will." Yeah, well, the psychological ship sank a while ago, and I'm in dying a slow death on a half-inflated life boat.

Oh, but wait! I see land in the horizon! Get me off this boat! HELP ME! Bring margaritas!

Yesterday, the students were working in groups to revise their last writing project and a few students asked me to sign their yearbooks, and so I passed mine around, too. It was a low-key day. I was cringing, hoping that nobody wrote something mean that would ruin the rest of my year, but nobody did. Some of my biggest irritants wrote long, sentimental notes about how they my class was really one of their favorites--even if they didn't do everything they should have... even if I did constantly yell at them...even if I did make them stand because they liked to sleep in class..even though they didn't get good grades, they learned new things. They thanked me for being a good teacher. They told me they would miss me.

Man, do I feel terrible for my animosity toward them at this time of the year.

Wait? Is this a manipulative trick orchestrated by students who use their intellect for evil? Let's get even for her being mean to us. Let's make her think everything was okay! Ten years from now she'll remember me for being one of her best!

I'm just paranoid. They're kids. They'll mature someday.

So, I guess I'll try to be more patient in the next 8 days.

Try.

Celebrating People Like Me

2011-05-03T17:23:00.000-07:00

It's finally here! National Teacher Day, the day where the students celebrate their teachers by lavishing them with gifts that cannot be construed as bribes.

Oddly enough, it is one of the few holidays in our country that doesn't encourage people to purchase massive amounts of junk food or expensive greeting cards.

The ~~only~~ best gift I received from a student was a jar of homemade plum syrup. From a student--not a student organization or administrator. Homemade. Witty. Sweet. It's the simple things in life...

(Okay, I'll be honest. The student who brought the jam has been bringing sweet little teacher gifts all week. She's not a brown-noser or anything. She--along with her mother who is an elementary teacher--is just very thoughtful.)

Too bad that the everyone does not get behind lavishing teachers with gifts. Bring on those apples, but please keep in mind that teachers are truly powered by chocolate. I don't care that over the 15 years I've taught I've accumulated 2 teacher coffee mugs, I could always use more; there are seven days in a week, you know! And it is here that I have to admit my personal shame in my lack of teacher-related pencil and ruler-shaped jewelry. By the way, I like rubies are my birthstone, but anything shiny enchants me.

Oh, but in all honesty, I really do appreciate the simple things in life. My students could get a little creative in their gift-giving. Perhaps they could follow all of the rules without acting like they hadn't learned about classroom procedures 9 months ago. Maybe they could turn in all of their homework assignments done to perfection. How thrilled I would be if they listen to me with rapt attention as if they truly believed I am the smartest person they know. Now, that would be a great gift to the average secondary teacher!

Too Bad...

2011-04-28T21:37:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, one of the administrators posted a reminder to us teachers to watch what we say in front of students and parents.

In the hallway we pondered what the story behind that e-mail was, and which one of us said something that triggered an angry parent's e-mail to administration. We joked about the poor sucker who stepped in it, but we also wondered if one of us was the one who screwed up. Reflecting back, haven't we all said something to students that, when repeated at home, might raise some ire? I've had a rough bunch this year, and I've given a record number of brutally honest speeches this year. What have I said? Oh lordy...let's not go there.

Worse yet, in this late part of the year, as some of us are locked in gladiator-type battles of wills with helicopter parents, so goodness only knows what could have been said to a parent. I've been there, too, on a smaller scale. Early this year, I said to a parent that her student didn't care about his work, and that was why he did poorly on a project where we had multiple drafts. (The student should have been there to give his own excuses so I didn't have to speculate, but that's another matter entirely.) There was almost blood in the meeting, and after the meeting the parent was still ranting about me to other staff members, and later I did end up in the principal's office. My team's tough love approach does not always go over well...

One of the teachers in my hallway was able to dig up the dirt on the offending words warranted a reminder from adminstration, and she reported back to us during lunch that somebody had said, "Sucks to be you."

Oops, I should have warned you. It is pretty harsh.

I hope my colleagues will be more careful, as will I, when offering sarcastic sympathy for petty excuses.

Sonny, I remember when "Sucks to be you" was too crude for the classroom, but it has become a lot more mainstream in everyday life, including in the classroom. Nonetheless, we should soften our words our students.

No pencil?
"~~What idiot doesn't bring the one thing he needs each day?~~ Too bad you will not be able to do your work."

No homework?
"Thank you for telling me about your non-achievement. ~~Sit your ass down now.~~"

Forgot the project I assigned three weeks ago, although I have reminded you daily about the due date?
"~~WTH is wrong with you?~~" Perhaps saying nothing is best here...

See? It takes some practice, but teachers should learn to censor themselves, or as one of my colleagues mutters under her breath as she's monitoring her classroom, "I will not say what I think. I will not say what I think."

I should take this to heart, too. I am harsh with my high school students (this "sucks to be you" matter was from my middle school), and in fact, one of my boys frequently comes in complaining that his arm hurts and he cannot write, to which I reply, "Okay, cupcake. Suck it up like a real man, grab your notebook, and sit down." Except for the cupcake part--I think he prefers being called "creampuff"--it's quite motivating for him.

What will become of my students in the future? I think of my them struggling against the hard, cold world, unable to stand up on their own, unable to take responsibility for themselves, and unable to learn from life's hard knocks. They take the wrong things too seriously and cannot laugh at their own little mistakes. Man, it's going to suck to being them.

Vacation is My Kryptonite

2011-04-25T21:49:00.000-07:00

I put in my typical 12-hour day, and I'm exhausted. Actually, had I remembered to do a few things during the break, my day would not have been so long. Well, home for 3o minutes, and I'm ready for bed. How quickly I forget how to get through each day.

How long did my rose-colored glasses stay on? Er, I'm still trying to have some hope, but about 15 minutes into my first class, that is at 7:20 a.m., after having to remind two girls to stop talking--two girls who had previously been assigned new seats but found their way back to each other--I wanted to go back home. I get so tired of the stupid shenanigans. Just SHUT UP!

I don't think I'll need as much energy to get through tomorrow.

I hope.

Refreshed!

2011-04-24T18:30:00.000-07:00

It's been 10 days since I've had my in-class teacher shoes on. Reluctantly, I have spent most of the day getting back in the mind frame so I can walk into the classroom ready to roll. I know it's pointless, as the students will not be ready to roll until at least 3rd period, but that's them. I'm going to be a professional about going back to work for another month after a blissful spring break.

(I am thinking of this spring break as practice for summer break, and I was getting pretty good at it.)

I had some essays I need to grade, as they were turned in earlier in April, and now it's the end of April. I'm pretty sure nobody cares about what has happened in the time since I collected and how I wasn't actually one the job to correct them. In the first part of the year, the students wrote a lot of essays, but since the big state tests, we have had other projects going on. The essay I assigned to them, the topic on what makes a good communicator, was not a big in-class production, but we did go through the whole writing process over the course of a few weeks.

And so far...the essays are pretty terrible. I started with ones that were turned in late, as they were on top, so I keep telling myself that they will get better once I make it through the students who didn't care enough to turn it in on time. (Years later, my theory that late work is rarely the highest quality work still stands.) Unfortunately, there were a lot of students who didn't turn it in on time, so I am not sure I'll ever make it to the good stuff before I totally lose any drive to get up and go to work in the morning.

(Thank you blog for the distraction.)

Because I'm feeling refreshed from spring break, I'm ready to squeeze more out of the students before they move on to high school, but this isn't my first gig, and I know that the next month will be nothing short of hell. Okay, so maybe it won't be totally roasting the whole time before June 9, but I'd say I really only have a good solid 2 weeks before everything really falls apart. Still...I'm ready to make rockin' writers out of every single one of them!

Oh! In my burst of energy (from getting to sleep in until 7:30 am each morning), I am even thinking, "We should have a longer school year because the last few weeks of the year, students shut down, so we should add a few more weeks." How crazy am I? Wow! It's like I'm back to the beginning-of-the-year optimism!

This might be a good time to start a pool on how long this good mood will last. The refreshed me is thinking by the end of the week I will have lost my spunk, but that other voice in my head is saying, "Yeah, right. You will be lucky to make it to 7:07 am with your first class. They screw your mood over all the time."

Oh! But maybe...maybe not this time!

Gettin' Schooled

2011-04-14T08:25:00.000-07:00

I'm off to a 3-day IBO workshop for "MYP Assessment in the 21st Century." I'm always interested in learning more about assessment, but sometimes it seems the more I know, the less I really do know. I don't know why it's so complicated. I'm looking forward to learning some new things about the IBO Middle Years Programme because it is time to freshen up. Besides assessment, I think the whole IB realm is something that just when I think I'm getting it, I find I'm not doing as well as I could be. In the case of IB stuff, as I've come to realize, it's just a difficult program to do well in the structure of our test-frenzied school system.

I'm going with the coordinator of the program, so I anticipate some great planning and conversations that we can bring back to the school to enhance our program. Oh yes, it is sure nice to attend workshops with dynamic people. It's much easier to bring back valuable information and ideas.

Great content, great company, and we're going to Vancouver, British Columbia. (I do feel guilty knowing that times are tight, but the rub is also that part of having an IB program means that we are obligated to get training...) It's a short plane trip for us, and it's not Tennessee or Texas. No offense to either of those state, but I have attended a lot of conferences in those states. New places, new perspectives, new experiences. Those are ideas that fit with the IB program!

Continuing Support with Writing Projects

2011-04-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

It's been a disheartening week for me as an educator. Besides the alarming conditions in my school district, the reality of the National Writing Project being defunded hit home with me yesterday after the leadership team at my writing project, Southern Nevada Writing Project (SNWP). There's a project to encourage teachers to blog in support of trying to get federal funding back.

Over the years, since I went through the summer institute in 2005, I've reflected many times about how much SNWP and NWP have impacted my life. It's only been six years since fateful summer that changed my life, but I am not sure I can easily articulate how it's impacted my life because writing project experiences have woven themselves into my life in so many different ways that I cannot pick out specific threads. The Writing Project continually helps me grow as a teacher, and that is in itself awesome, but because it keeps me going as a teacher, I am able to keep my students going, too.

I was a fairly experienced classroom teacher before I joined the Writing Project, but I have always been a humble teacher who feels she can always learn more and do more to be a better teacher. That summer I attended the summer institute, I had wanted to be a better writing teacher. I'm an secondary English teacher. It's a big part of my job. Now, I don't remember what I used to do, but I know what I do now, and I can think of specific things that I picked up that summer, such having response groups modeled from my experience, that are mainstays in my classroom. I'm pretty sure that my constant encouragement for students to be writers--be thinkers--is much stronger after my experiences.

A big part of my job is helping students pass writing exams. My 8th graders take a big exam, and my high school seniors are desperate to pass their exams for high school graduation. I have three frustrated seniors who have just found out that, 7 weeks from the end of the year, have still not passed their writing exams. I am frustrated, and they are terrified, but we are still working away. Just recently I was reminded that as often I can help my students with tips and tricks, I do not allow them to take too many short cuts. Unfortunately, it's not much consolation to my students when I say, "I know you didn't pass, but you have some so far since August." The proof is in the portfolio. It does give them hope to keep growing.

Two of my students recently found out that they passed their exams. Neither of these boys have had an easy time of high school, and writing class is never a class anyone wants to take. Because my class is structured for students who need to pass their exams, and we are just a few weeks into the quarter, both of the boys had the option of leaving my class, moving onto more popular classes such as art or P.E.

At separate times, I spoke with both of the young men, and told them they could transfer out if they wanted. OR, if they were planning on attending community college, they could stay, and we could continue to work on their writing so they could be better prepared for college.

"Nah, nah, Miss. I'm staying."

"Are you sure?" I asked, "You know the schedule this quarter. Some collaborative brainstorming. Independent work. Peer evaluation. Back to your own writing. Of course, I'll help you, too. A topic a week."

"Yeah, yeah. No, I'm staying. I want to be even better."

Super score! Not only have they passed their proficiency exams, I have convinced them to keep growing past the exam. Not only am I teaching them to pass their tests, which is frustrating, but I am teaching them to be writers and thinkers, too. What are they thinking? Oh, they think a lot, but the theme of this week is thinking beyond yourself to be better than you thought you could be.

Yes, in July of 2005, I was very much interested in how to be a better writing teacher. I almost didn't make it that far because in the January of 2005, I was searching for jobs outside education. I was frustrated with being a classroom teacher, and from students to administrators, it felt like all the forces were against me. I'm one of those people whose life was "changed" from being in the Writing Project. I'm not going to pretend that it's been a cakewalk in the years since, but I am thankful for opportunities and support that I get from the amazing professional community I've found.

Tonight, one of those boys, so excited and relieved that he passed his exam insisted on giving me a big hug.

"Miss, nobody ever helped me with my writing before," he told me. Of course he could write before he came to me, but I helped him fill in the gaps.

This is what it comes down to:

The Southern Nevada Writing Project and The National Writing Project helped me.
I help students.

It's no small thing.

Reality Comes

2011-04-07T05:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a rough day, as teachers were called down to the the office to be told their positions have been cut. One colleague was no shock, as she was hired in the middle of the year when a little extra money was found for her position. The shocking moment of the day was hearing that we lost a foreign language position, leaving two teachers to provide foreign language to 500 students who are required to take it it the IBMYP program.The low man on the totem pole has been at our school 5 1/2 years.

I've heard that lost 11 positions. I don't know which ones for sure, but that's 11 teachers with uncertain futures and 55 classrooms full of students left to be absorbed by those of us still standing.

I don't even want to go to work today with the mood so heavy and situation nothing but hopeless.

To make matters more depressing in my mind, the proposed cuts on the table now include a 5% pay cut and a 20% increase I what I pay for health insurance. From estimates I've seen on what that means is that I need to cut $300-400 from my family's budget.

My poor kids are really getting the shaft at school and at home.

Now with 20% More!

2011-04-03T10:28:00.000-07:00

It's hard to be a happy classroom teacher in my neck of the woods right now. Things have been bad in Nevada the last few years, and we have experienced drastic cuts in educational spending, but we've survived. This year, the governor has put it on our district to cut $400 million from our budget. What we're looking at to save that money is an 5-8% salary cut (something we had avoided in the past few years, yet we did go into a pay freeze last year) and 2,500 lost positions, some of which will be support staff, but a gigantic chunk will be classroom teachers. There are other proposed smaller cuts, like no new textbooks and transportation adjustments, but when it comes to cutting millions, it has to be teachers and salaries.

I met with my principal on Friday to sign my evaluation this year. She gave me my directives for next year, which are pretty much to continue with doing the things I'm expected to do in my job anyway, and she thanked me for doing a good job. (I appreciated that actual verbal praise.)

She said, "I don't know what to tell you about next year."

"Oh, I'm not worried about my position here. It's like it was last year. If I get bumped, the whole department is screwed," I joked with her.

She glanced at her seniority list, confirming what I knew already about my seniority, which is 2nd in my department at my school. When it comes to district seniority, I'm pretty much in the middle of the list, too.

I continued, "No, what I'm worried about is how much more it's going to suck working here with larger class sizes and no funding. Moral is already low. It's not going to get any better."

You know, my boss didn't even bat an eye at my frank talk. We're all in this sinking ship together.

The buzz among us teachers is concern for those larger class sizes, which are predicted to be 7 students more than we have now. I don't know about others at my school or in the district--although a new student in my night school class claims she has already 56 students in one of her classes at a local high school during the day--but my classes have 4-5 more students in them this year than they did last year. What do you want from me? A scientific study or something? My larger classes are harder to manage. It takes us longer to accomplish things. Students have fewer opportunities to speak or interact with each other. I do not have the opportunity to interact with many of my students.

I can tell you that adding adding 20% to my class next year will absolutely change the way I teach. Oh, is that a threat? Or am I going to evolve as a teacher? Parents and the public should know that more work--especially with the reward of less pay--will not be a great motivator for me, but more importantly, having to do more work with the same amount of time and resources will not produce a better experience for the students. What I should tell parents is that we are preparing them for college. Students need to come to class, get the information, do their work, turn it in on time, get their feedback, and if they need help, it is up to them to seek me out after school.

Wait, that's kind of how it is now anyway. Only parents, and sometimes administrators expect much, much more of me as a teacher. I'm expected to hold hands. Pay attention to the whole child. Differentiate my instruction to meet the varied needs of students. Teach them to think while teaching to the test. Document everything as I do it, too. You know, pay attention to each of those 150 students. Oops. I mean, 175 with classroom size increases. Yeah...You can go---oops. I'm in teacher mode here. Language in check, please.

I don't even know where I'm going with this post. I've want to talk about these frustrations, but my thoughts are so jumbled with work overload, depression from constant public abuse of teachers, and doubt about exactly how much I should be expected to do as a teacher.

I'm not happy about having my pay cut.

I'm not happy about my job being made harder.

I'm not happy that teachers are being demonized in the public eye.

I'm not happy that I'm begrudged a living salary, health benefits, and retirement benefits for my service.

I'm not happy that my students do not value education, and I'm to blame.

I'm a survivor who has stuck out tough times in the classroom since the day I walked into it.

I'm going to do what is expected of me and act professionally--even when I'm not treated professionally.

I'm going to still give my best to the students; I'm not going to blame them for situations they cannot control, like overcrowding and lack of materials.

Life in education is disheartening these days. I'm not ready to quit it yet, and after investing 15 years of my life in it, it would take a major shift for me to move out of it. But how much more major would that be?

I understand that times are tough and we all need to make sacrifices, and I'm okay with it for a short-term fix, but with all this talk of cut, cut, cut, there has been no talk of how education will be built to pull us out of this slump. For three years, in the state, it has been all about cutting education, and little talk from leaders about funding education. In the meanwhile, in schools, we talk about raising achievement--getting those test scores up--with the fear that if we don't, our schools will be deemed ineffective, taken over, and reorganized. In our classrooms, where we try to block out the adversities knocking on our doors, we fight student apathy and a cultural disregard for the value of education. We teachers love our jobs, but there is a lot to hate about it, too.

I don't need sympathy. A little respect would be nice. Education is not about the teachers just like health care isn't about the doctors. I wish I could be persuasive enough to convince the public and politicians that they really don't get what is going on with education, but from everything I've read and seen in the last few years, it's a waste of my breath.

Frustrating.

Speak Up!

2011-03-22T16:50:00.000-07:00

Did you see that post that took me three days to finish? The one about my students who were too shy to record their voices for their public service announcements during class so they decided to come to an after school work session where there were over 40 students with the same idea?

Didn't see it?

It was hilarious.

And frustrating.

Oy, this gig is rough sometimes.

That was the topic of the post, but now it's how much the technology gods must hate me. Seriously, where did that post go? I saved it--actually hit the SAVE button despite the fact that Blogger automatically saves--a few times this afternoon. When I finished, I pushed the bright orange PUBLISH POST button. I've done this before.

Yeah. Seriously. Technology gods have not been smiling on us this week, but I blamed my students for procrastinating. It hasn't been terrible, but I can tell you that live without wireless Internet is just not as much fun. Sometimes it's crippling.

In anyway case, podcasts are over. I'm thinking about blogging with my yearbook kiddos the rest of the year, but it's been a few years since I tried that, and it didn't go very well. I have a different group, though. A great, interesting, creative bunch of students who will be back next year. I'm going to take a leap of faith. Or stupidity.

That's the news from HappyChyck's World.

Test? What? Pshh. A Memory.

2011-03-10T22:58:00.000-08:00

Wahoo! The testing madness is over for the year!

There have been so many times in the past six months when I felt I was just not doing enough as I felt that cloud of testing doom looming over my students and me. The year started off rough with a change in the writing exam. My students had been so well-trained on narrative writing, but then the test switched to expository. For years, I've been helping seniors who could hardly write paragraphs pass the high school writing proficiency exam. You'd think I'd have it dialed in, but the difference is that my middle schoolers can write paragraphs, and I expect then to do more than barely pass. They still have their high school careers ahead of them--most of them in magnet or accelerated programs.

So, you would think it would have been easy teaching my brainiacs how to write thesis statements. Or the importance of a creative lead, which they should have been able to do with their excellent narrative skills. You might expect that they could learn to organize a basic essay with actual transitions and everything. My principal is expecting that they'll all pass the exam, too, but on the day of the test, all I could do is shrug my shoulders and hope for the best---

And then I started doubting myself. Although my students wrote about 20 essays before they took the test in February, I starting doubting my other moves. Maybe I should not have taught that long novel. I wish I hadn't spent time collaborating with the science teachers on the science fair reports. Research isn't a benchmark for me until 4th quarter. I should not have done it in the 2nd quarter. Did I give them enough instruction to help them with their practice? Ack! I don't know.

About three weeks after my students took the writing exam, we had the state reading exam. I had some packets of practice tests for them, but then I started worrying that it wasn't enough. Why didn't I talk more about this literary term, or that literary term. Did we read too much literature and not enough expository writing? How would they do on the constructed response? I mean, I did have students doing more literary analysis than ever before, but what if they didn't make the connected to how they did that to what they needed to do on the test? I started stressing about how I might have given them too much writing and not enough reading.

You see the madness, right?

Is there enough time for me to have balance?

I can only hope.

The testing is over. The rest of the year will be just as rigorous, but perhaps I can beat myself up less. In between all the testing mania this week, my students started researching for their public service announcements, a cross curricular project related to their foreign language classes. You know, thinking, creating, the IB design cycle? Good stuff! Next month, we'll be celebrating National Poetry Month with a unit on spoken poetry, a unit that still needs to be created, but I'm über excited about it. We'll wrap up the year with an awesome Anne Frank unit that includes some creative writing.

Learning still going on the rest of the year? Oh yeah. Testing mania? Been there done that.

Homework Hassle

2011-02-26T05:44:00.000-08:00

Mister Teacher is talking about his homework woes this week, and several teachers are chiming in. Wow! Do I feel his pain. Getting students to turn in work is something I always struggle with, and this year's students have been particularly stubborn about not doing their work.

Let me start off by reminding everyone that I teach accelerated English to 8th graders in a magnet program. They are our school's best and brightest. Granted, a lot of them are on a bus for a few hours a day to attend our school, but that is a choice their families have made. One wouldn't think that I would have too many issues with students not turning in work, right? Oh...only in a perfect world.

During most of the year, I give a writing assignment to be completed at home each week, but we start it in class on Monday, and the rough draft is not due until Thursday, when we do some sort of revision or editing activity with it. School-wide, students are expected to read 30 minutes every night, and over the years, it evolved into a system where they plan to read four nights a week--their choice of nights--completing a book a month. It does sound like a lot, doesn't it? I consciously do not plan for other homework, but students are also expected to complete any work not finished in class as homework. Those who stay on task do not usually have this type of homework...

A few years ago, my team instituted a no late work policy. It does cause a little panic, but many of us use some sort of Oops Pass where students have a few chances a quarter to turn in an assignment late with no penalty. It's a system that I like because it demands students do their work but gives them a break if they have a couple of bad days.

Although, my administrator approved my course expectations this year, and for the past several years, she prefers that we give homework detention. Now, it is not expected that we personally stay after, which would conflict with our contracted time, but there is apparently an aide who conducts the detention. At the beginning of the year, the details of this system were wonky, and at this point it conflicts with the system we have in place.

I have two major issues with the homework detention. The first is the paperwork I would need to do. I'm smart enough to understand that I can hand the kid the slip and make him fill it out, but the process of collecting and discovering who hasn't done it would certainly take more time than, "Okay class, pass your work forward." I think I could make it work, but what if the kid did not attend detention? Here lies my second issue with detention. If the student does not go, I should do something about, right? Well, I guess I could call home or issue it again, but I cannot refer the insubordination of not attending academic detention to the dean. Ultimately, the punishment if I assign homework detention is nothing for the student, and everything to me with the responsibility for me to contact the parent and document the insubordination. I mean, I guess I could just let it go, but if I dole out detention with no consequences, that weakens my authority. I guess I could say to students, "I do not accept late work, but if you would like a chance to turn it in, you must attend homework detention." Still a hassle. So shoot me for being a lazy teacher.

There is a third reason I do not like the homework detention "system" we have in place. It puts all of the burden on me, and just the thought of it gives me panic attacks. I have more than enough on my plate with the curriculum and grading. I try my best of offer quality units, which takes time--much of it collaborate with my colleagues. The program in which I teach demands a bit more paperwork, which is kind of an unspoken reality. Spending another hour each day cajoling students and their parents into contributing their share of the effort is a poor use of my time. I know I mentioned this at open house this year. Something like, "Hey parents, it's a poor use of my time, energy, and expertise to simply babysit your student."

Ah, but what if homework detention worked like a charm and students were compelled to stay after school to do their work? Well, it hasn't worked that well when I've done it myself. Just last week, after I discovered that many students did not turn in an assessment essay we worked on in class, an assessment grade that dropped them a full letter grade by not doing it, I handed out detentions to be served with me. Only 1/3 of the students assigned showed up. Do you know why? They don't care.

No, they don't care. If it really mattered to them, they would have done it the first time. This is why I should not stress so much about those who don't do their work and spend my precious time planning excellent learning opportunities for this who do care. Those poor brilliant, compliant students don't get enough of my attention anyway.

One Hurdle Down

2011-02-10T17:38:00.000-08:00

Wahoo! We made it through the state proficiency writing exam. Of course, the results will not be back for a few months, but the TEST is over.

It's been a rough path because the test changed. In the past, our 8th grade students spent two days writing a one narrative or descriptive essay. Now the students are tested on two different expository topics in one sitting, much like students do for the high school exam. Apparently, the federal government thought our 8th grade test needed to look more like the high school exam, thus the change.

As you can imagine, in a time of test mania, we have always focused more on narrative writing than expository writing. Yes, yes, we did teach expository writing, but for the sake of the test, there was so much more focus on narrative. (Those high school teachers are going to so thankful with this test change for sure because their jobs should be easier now!)

I agree with having students write expository essays over narrative at this age, but I don't know if I agree with making them write two essays in one sitting. The time suggested is two hours, but as long as students are working productively, they may take as long as they need. For most students, it was between three and four hours. Rough!

So, with the change in test, it's been a panic to get the kids ready. It's been a rough road, starting from scratch with some of the students, and I still have students who can't write a decent thesis--by my standards at least. And I almost started crying when I saw one of my students, who was one of the last to finish, turn in an essay with three sentences in each paragraph. Bless his heart for trying so hard...but seriously, I wanted to quit on the spot. I wanted to shred the tests I glanced at that had a boring restate-the-question-in-the- answer-lead. I can't even tell you how many times I told them that they needed to make a good first impression and not do the functional, "If I were to compare and contrast blah, blah, blah..." And you know I didn't just "tell" them, right?

From the beginning when we heard about the change, I was worried sick about two general things: (1. distrust that the state's test, which was scant on information and materials at first, would actually assess what they said it was going to assess, and (2. our gains in writing the past few years (indicated on the old state assessment) would all be lost and nobody would acknowledge that our scores were lower because of the test bait-and-switch, not because of my instruction or our students' abilities.

The test is over now. I'm putting my fears on the back burner for now. We're moving on to the next obstacle: the state reading test.

(And the rest of the year: PROJECTS!)

I'd Rather Poke Myself in the Eye with This Sharpie 1/17/10

2011-01-17T20:52:00.001-08:00

I'd Rather Poke Myself in the Eye with This Sharpie 1/17/10, originally uploaded by Kristine.

WTH Yearbook Staff?!?!?!?!?!

2011-01-13T16:37:00.001-08:00

WTH Yearbook Staff?!?!?!?!?!, originally uploaded by Kris. Click on picture for details.

So...Yearbook is going well. NOT!

Is There an App for That?

2011-01-10T16:30:00.000-08:00

I'm currently searching the Internets (hehehe) for new technology that allows me to simple think, "I should blog this," and it is done. Dear friends, does anyone know of this kind of technology? Let me know. Thanks!

Another Year

2011-01-01T21:51:00.000-08:00

It just does not seem like another year has started. Perhaps it's because my clock is more run by the academic school calendar. That could be it.

The old year rolled out the door without much fanfare, and today I woke up the same old person. Sure, I have a few resolutions I'd rather not destroy in the first few days. After all, it is good to have a reason to start new habits and break the old ones. But seriously? I have to keep reminding myself that we are indeed in a new and exciting year.

Perhaps a good resolution for me this year would be to more enthusiastically embrace the celebrations of my our culture, no matter how large or small they might be.

Now, what the next big event? MLK Day or the Superbowl? Wahoo! Bring 'em on!

Time

2010-12-27T07:56:00.000-08:00

Time flies.
When I'm having fun.
When I'm suffering.
It just flies.

I couldn't wait for December to show up because November was a crazy, nonproductive month in my classroom, and I was certainly ready to spend some time cramming learning so I felt like I deserved a break.

Of course, I was also looking forward to December for the break.

Now, here I am on the second week of my break. It's the week I told myself I'd do some grading--I tried not to bring any home, but I ran out of time to complete it.

It's also the week I said I'd clean out my closet. No problem. I'll have plenty of time. I won't mind.

And here I am, having had a lovely first week of my break, and I just want to continue my peaceful, no-stress, lazy buzz for another week.

Who could blame me?

School's Not a Buffet

2010-11-30T05:49:00.000-08:00

Hitting the ground running today so I can save my students from themselves. I hate that duty.

When I was out of the classroom 1 1/2 weeks ago (seems so long ago), I gave some assessments. One was a chart for students to map out some cause and effects of the novel. The other was an essay relating their own lives to the essential question of the unit. Each one was given in one day and was to be collected the same day. The sub knew this, and the writing assignment even stated that it was due at the end of class. Imagine my shock when I found that some students didn't turn it in. Thus, these students have Fs on assessments. No big deal? Assessments account for 50% of their grades.

I think the sub factor played a part in this crisis, but I'm mostly blaming the students. When the sub asked for papers to be passed forward, why did they think they had the option to not follow instructions? It could have easily happened with me standing at the front of the room, collecting their work just before the bell because I wanted to give them as much time as possible.

I'm calling this the buffet mentality that my students have:

I'll do this work but not that work.
That looks yucky, so I think I'll skip it.
I took bite, but I'm just going to throw the rest away.
That work is good. Can I have extra?

Oh, and because I found two charts with the exact same answers, let me add:

Can I have some of yours?

I should just say, "Your parents are paying the same price no matter how much you 'eat.'"

I can already anticipate those who threw theirs away are going to be hungry now that the meal is over. The parents will probably wonder why their kids didn't get enough. My administrator will probably wonder how they could walk in, sit down, not be a happy little consumer. Did I not serve them?

Sure, I served the picky little ones. Apparently I'm not allowed to force-fed them, so what can I do?

Detention. You will sit there until you finish.

(That's a battle of wills to take on, thus a rotten day for me...)

My Pen Bled Out

2010-11-28T21:43:00.000-08:00

It all came crashing together during the one full week of instruction we had in November. Three assessments for the novel we recently finished and the independent book project whose due date was pushed back two weeks because of all the days off we'd had.

The grading would not have gotten out of hand if I would have been in my classroom doing those assessment days because, of course, when the students are working independently at their desks, that is also work time for me. I would have had been able to keep a handle on it. Oh sure, it's likely that I would have taken some home, but it would not have been the 26 hours I spent this weekend grading.

Excessive isn't it? Honesty, I would have blown off about half of it and graded it next week, but my midterm grades must be posted tomorrow.

I did not think it was teacherly possible to conquer such a pile in one weekend.

Once again, I have performed an educational miracle. (Oh, I don't even want to think about the accuracy of my magic in the last few hours!)

I need a do-over on my Thanksgiving weekend.

That miracle isn't happenin', is it?

So starts my countdown to Christmas--and a promise to myself for a 100% work-free holiday.

Thanksgiving HappyChyck Style

2010-11-25T16:05:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone has had a lovely Thanksgiving. I am thankful for my family, friends, and just my life in general. No complaints here. It's as simple as that.

The kids are with their maternal family this weekend, and we had no other plans, so when I woke up this morning, I seriously had no idea what was the plan for the day. In the end, we had a leisurely morning of coffee and news--if you can call it that because it was such a slow day the newscasters were playing [frozen] turkey bowling--and then we drove over the Hoover Dam Bypass. Uhm...not that exciting. It's very pretty to look at, except while one is on it, of course, and what's worse is that the sides are so high that one can see over it to the Colorado River. I suppose it's for the best, but we passengers would appreciate the scenery.

We contemplated driving an hour to Kingman, Arizona for the heck of it, but I wasn't sure what kind of Thanksgiving dinner option we'd have, so we turned around. On the way back into the city we had Holiday Edition of this Typical Dining Out Conversation:

Me: "So where do you want to eat?"
Him: "Wherever."
Me: "No, really. Any ideas?"
Him: "Nope. You decide."
Me: "I. Don't. Know. Why don't you choose?"
Him: "Whatever you want to do, hun."
Me: "Can't you make a choice about dinner for once? Does it even matter to you?"
Him: "Nope."
Long silence.
Me: "Do you want to go to a buffet or a restaurant?"
Him: "Whatever."
More silence.
Me: Well, we could go to Green Valley Ranch for a change. Or maybe Marie Callender's. They'll have a nice dinner. Oh! Claim Jumpers is open for a Thanksgiving Dinner. Any of those sound good?
And then I waited to see where we actually ended up.

In a classic Vegas move, we went to Green Valley Ranch for buffet. We waited in line for about 45 minutes for some terrible turkey. Bummer! It wasn't in the carving station (Fish and prime rib were); instead, it was in strangely uniform slices in a pan of broth. However, some of the sides, like a spaghetti squash dish, pumpkin ravioli, and a Greek salad with cranberries were delightful. My sweetie ate his fill of crab legs and shrimp. Much like a family Thanksgiving dinner, if one dish is found unpalatable, surely there are many other yummy things to eat.

This evening my sweetie and I are hanging out in our warm cozy home. More coffee. Sappy holiday movies on television. Oh! I should "turn on" the fire place. Blissfully, simply peaceful.

If you are relaxing with your computer this holiday weekend, do as I did and go back and read my Thanksgiving stories from 2006. Start here and follow the links after each one. These old stories of mine make me smile. I hope you enjoy them, too!

Time

2010-11-22T22:37:00.000-08:00

As I was driving home from work tonight, I felt the fatigue deep in my bones. How many days had it been since I woke up this morning?

It felt like months.

One might think it's the nature of Mondays, yet my day had not been terribly stressful. Just busy. And long.

Betcha anything that tomorrow morning when the alarm rings, it will feel like just a few minutes had passed.

Some Love Me; Some Hate Me

2010-11-16T22:45:00.000-08:00

Love

When I walked onto campus at night school this evening, I found one of my students from last year, Evelyn, sitting on one of the benches. I was very happy to see her, and we exchanged hugs.

"What are you doing here?" I asked her.

"I came to see you!"

"No, you didn't!" They always say that, and it's sweet, but I'm not the primary person they come to see. They just want to see everyone.

"Yes, Miss!" she exclaimed, "I've been waiting since about 4:30 p.m. They said you'd be here sometime but it was going to be a while."

She waited two hours to see me. Wow. Do I feel loved!

Evelyn was one of those students that by the end of the year, I was more like an auntie to her. She was in two of my classes, and because she didn't pass her writing proficiency exam, she was one of three of the remaining students I had in my remedial class during the 4th quarter.

I love it when the students come back to show us they are hanging in there and doing well. It was a major bright spot to my day.

Hate

I had a parent conference with one of my 8th graders today. He is on probation in the program for his grades, and during the 1st quarter he ended up with a D in my class. A few weeks into this quarter, he has an F. He has turned nothing in!

Now, as a person, I really like this kid. He is polite and he participates in discussions, but his follow-through is terrible.

I went into the conference shootin' straight with the mom and the boy. He claimed that he was not good at reading and writing, which is just fine, but I can't work with a pile of excuses. Bring me a craptastic piece of writing or stupid questions on a reading, and I can help, but bring nothing to the table and I'll bring out Queen Cranky.

The conference went pretty well. The boy was excited about the mock writing proficiency test we took today (and he was one of the last ones working because he was trying so hard ), and come to find out that he t.v. production teacher gave him some tips and a way to think about approaching writing. That's awesome that she has been able to help him make writing more relevant to his life. He is also doing very well in his Algebra class, so we looked at how he could transfer the strategies he uses to be successful in some of his other classes, including mine.

At the end, we set some goals and discussed the idea that he needed to come for help after school sometimes. Before we parted, his mother thanked me and told me that he was embarrassed around me. Embarrassed? I asked the boy if I had ever embarrassed him because although I can be ~~a bitch~~ strict, I didn't ever mean to embarrass him. In fact, he is not even one of my targeted fools in his class.

What she really meant was that sometimes he was too embarrassed to ask me for help. The boy confirmed that I had never done anything to embarrass him, but apparently I have a reputation that precedes me from his brother, who was never actually a student of mine, but he was such a...well...pain in the butt...that I certainly know who he is.

Poor kid. I had to explain to him that he need not be afraid. If he were to come to me for help, I'd be nice as pie. I just have no patience for excuses or laziness.
_____________
I think I'm a pretty nice teacher, but I'm not all sunshine and rainbows. More often than not, I just don't have much patience for shenigans. (Later in the year when I'm more tired I might be.) I'm not the kind of teacher that makes a great first impression. I kind of grow on the students, and even students like Evelyn have taken plenty of my wrath when they were acting like fools. The smart ones realize that in the end, I am mean because I care. My bark is worse than my bite, as they say.

Need Time

2010-11-15T23:05:00.000-08:00

It's been a rough instructional month. We started off with two days of staff development. last week we had off Veteran's Day and the day after that, too. of course, next week we have the long Thanksgiving weekend.

In the mix my students have had a field trip, an assembly, a career day speaker, and a day for a mock writing test. While we're adding, let me put in the three days I will be out of the classroom, too. I've left quality assignments, but they are different from the ones I would have done if I were in class.

This madness is pretty common every November, but that certainly does ease the pain. I'm actually looking froward to the three full weeks of instruction I'll have between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Ah bit weird?

Is iPad for Me?

2010-11-14T19:00:00.000-08:00

As I wrote in my last post, I have borrowed an iPad from my writing project, and I've been looking for uses related writing and the classroom. It's left me a little disappointed at times, but I am interested in deciding if it's an investment for me. I'm going to need to get a new computer sometime in the near future. Although I can get a PC a lot less than a Mac, I will be going with the latter. But wouldn't it be nice to simply get a iPad?

Okay, so although I haven't found a lot of use for the iPad in the way I hoping to, it's not like I've left the thing sitting around unused. Are you kidding me? It's a blast to use, particularly for the general kind of web reading and surfing I do. I can comfortably sit anywhere and read my feeds, check out the gossip on Facebook, and Stumble until I start to lose brain cells. It's so much lighter than my (also borrowed) 15-inch MacBook Pro, which has a dying battery and needs to be plugged in quite a bit.

I love, love, love the touch screen interface. It just feels so...zippy! And maybe a bit like Star Trek...

Besides catching up on blogs I enjoy, Stumbling, and Facebook lurking, I also enjoy playing with my pictures in Flickr and Picnik quite a bit, and I'm trying to get back into being a better blogger again. However, blogging is not a joy on the iPad, especially without an external keyboard. Perhaps if I weren't so verbose... In Blogger, it's especially frustrating, but I recently figured out that I have to switch to HTML blogging if I want it to work. So, I guess it might be something I could handle. I still prefer typing on my laptop, though. Having to use the HTML tab just isn't as user-friendly. I could guarantee you that if I were using the HTML right now, there would be no hyper links in this post. And that's not even fancy! I'm too lazy to type the code--OH! And plus, I haven't figured out how to paste a URL from another window yet (Uhm, where's the C and V?), so being able to work around with 7 windows open, looking up and pasting information is not as easy. Blogging from Blogger...eh.

Viewing Flickr is beautiful because the quality of the screen on the iPad is amazing. Of course, it can be used as a digital picture frame, and many people use it to read ebooks, so of course, Flickr would be expected to be fun. However, not only do I like to upload my pictures, I also like to tweak with them a bit with Picnik. Unfortunately, it uses Flash. iPad doesn't do Flash. That's really too bad because I could really get into uses the touch screen to edit my photos. I would love to make photography more tactile again! This Flash issue has been ongoing for iPod and iPad, so this argument is fairly common against the products. I didn't see where it affected me too much outside of using Picnik except when I was Stumbling. It's just a shame that such a cool device doesn't do it all like I would expect.

Because I'm using a borrowed iPad, I think I am more cognizant of the cost of using the iPad than serious Apple lovers might be. You see, the more I use the iPad, the more I see that I really need to purchase apps and accessories for it to be the perfect tablet for me. Thus, the iPad probably works best as a personal device. (This is a point that probably goes better on yesterday's post.) But it is driving home the point of how much this thing could cost. Now, the iPad I'm using does not have a 3G plan with it. My friends who have an iPad pay for the service; I think it's around $30/month. Not bad, but it is really worth it?

The cost of using the iPad was driven home this weekend as I prepared to take it on a trip.
I'm going to the National Writing Project Annual Meeting this week. I attended a few years ago, and as a good technie person (it's my focus at our writing project's site), I lugged my laptop with me. As nice as it was a few times, it was just too heavy and bulky. I didn't take so many notes that I couldn't just write them down in a notebook. I decided that it didn't matter that I was the tech liaison now, there was no way I was taking my computer.

Oh, but I have the iPad now! Sweet! I do have a wireless/bluetooth keyboard that I don't use very often. (I should because the project paid $69.00 for it.) It's a little funky because if the keyboard and iPad are both flat on a table, the iPad's screen is hard to see. If I'm balancing things on my lap, it's even more awkward. My friend has a keyboard dock that makes more sense for the same price. I haven't decided if I'm taking the keyboard. The real issue is that if I am to take note--do any type of word processing--I need an app to do so. I suppose Pages is the way to go, but it is $10. If I were serious about tools that produce work, I might investigate using iWork instead for a whopping $79. Ha ha!

Since I'm not really wanting to spend a lot of my own money, and I like the budget way, I thought, "Hey! I bet there will be wi-fi available! I could just use Googledocs!" Am I brilliant or what? Can you believe that such a slick made-for-the-web machine does not work with Googledocs? Insane! Apparently it has something to do with Safari. The consensus out there is that iPad is indeed not compatible with Googledocs, yet people are begging for it to be. I've seen a few people who have a it-kind-of-works work around, some of which use another app, costing around $10.

I like technology that just works. I don't want to have to figure out a way to get it to work. I have needs. They are not unusual. They should be met. How are it is that, technology developers?

You know...I've been around the Internet boards a lot reading how people are figuring out how to get things to work with iPad. Oh, there's a tweak here or an app there. Can't get information onto or off the iPad because there are no USB ports, CD drives, or connectors? You know you can can what you need from iTunes, or maybe you should visit the Apple store for some more accessories.

And this is where I started to get pretty disillusioned about iPad...maybe even iPhone and iPod, too. The base price is pretty stiff, and then one has to keep putting more and more money into it.

If I had $500, I'd get the low-priced iPad just for the fun of surfing the 'net. I would not be willing to pay for the top of the line model for $829 because for between $1,000-1,300, I could have a (smaller) MacBook, and I know for sure that a MacBook could serve my needs--as it's been doing for the last 7 years with minimal frustration.

iPad Ponderings

2010-11-13T09:01:00.000-08:00

I borrowed an iPad from the writing project a few months back with the goal of figuring out how to use it...you know...with writing instruction. I've done some searching around, and to just have ONE iPad in a classroom, just like only one computer would be frustrating. I like the portability of it, and I suppose the novelty of it would fascinate many students. But I don't know... I'm not even sure I want to buy my own. I'm completely torn.

So, some things I've been thinking about. Perhaps somebody has new insight to add?

iPads Would Rock in the Classroom

Small and easily stored
Touch-pad is intuitive and user-friendly
They are touted as being a good e-book readers
Great for web-based learning tools

iPads Would Kind of Suck in the Classroom

No usb port to import/store information, so it might be an issue with multiple users
Easily stolen
It comes with virtually nothing and apps cost extra money. How would that work with a classroom set?
Typing anything of length on it is a pain unless you have a keyboard, which costs more.
If a school does not have wireless Internet (and I visited one in my district last week), it would not be half as fun.

As much fun as I've had on the iPad, I've run across some frustrations. I'll save that for a post tomorrow. For now...iPad users and technology peeps, what do you think? What role does iPad have in the classroom?

Planning

2010-11-12T10:07:00.000-08:00

How often do you create new lessons and units?

A few years before I moved to Las Vegas, I started to get into a groove where I didn't create any new lessons--that I remember anyway. I used the same texts. I taught the same things. I don't necessarily think I was stagnant because it was during the time my district was embracing standards-based teaching and curriculum aligned in a big way. It was just before NCLB took over our classrooms.

After I moved in 2004 and started teaching middle school in Clark County where we have each quarter mapped out with districts tests approximately every quarter, you'd think I would have definitely teach the same thing over and over, but I haven't.

I try to follow the quarter benchmarks, but sometimes I kind of wiggle around them because I also teach in an IBMYP school. The constant conflict I have in teaching a program that has a different structure (and values) than the district where I teach is confusing and frustrating.
When I first started teaching in the program, I had no idea what I was doing and what an IB lesson even looked like. As I've learned more about the program, I've shaped my lessons differently. Oh! And sometimes I do get new novels and resources, so I don't have to use the same resources. While, I do have a few units I do every year, I even tweak the lessons within the unit to better match IBMYP and district benchmark needs.

Creating new units and lesson is exciting for me--except when I need to have them done ASAP, and then I long to drag out the old stuff. But even my old stuff isn't always tired. Lately, I've brought things out of retirement that have turned out to be pretty fresh. Kind of like the fashion of my youth that is creeping back. Plus, sometimes I tweak the same old stuff just a bit so that it's not so tired, but it's not certainly not new. Essentially, I don't create that many new units and lessons.

I'm not as passionate about teaching as I used to be. Oh, I still like my job--probably more than I did in the early years--but I am more into working smarter these days because I relish my personal time. I'm interested in being able to leave work at work.

I'm not judging, dear readers, how much do you reuse and how much is new each year?

Television Catch-Up

2010-11-11T19:14:00.001-08:00

It seems like I'm always trying to catch up something. At home, it's usually cleaning or bill-paying. At work, it's usually grading or lesson planning. Wait! Haven't I blogged about being behind in life before? Ah, I have. Unfortunately, the honesty of that post a year ago reveals a much more realistic and tragic reality of just behind I always am.

A year ago? Hmm...I wonder if there is some sort of pattern where in November I get backlogged. Might merit some investigation.

This morning I drove the kids to Baker, California, the drop off point, so the grandparents could take them for the weekend. My sweetie was working all day, and I had nothing pressing to do--that I wanted to think about anyway.

So, I spent my day catching up on my favorite televisions shows that I've recorded. Pretty important stuff to catch up, right?

I don't think I've ever really talked about the television I watch. I'd like to be more intellectual than I actually am and not watch as much television as I do, but I am who I am. There are times I've been a major "reality show" junkie, but lately I've only been interested in cooking shows, like Top Chef, Chopped, Hell's Kitchen, etc., and if I don't see every episode, it doesn't really matter.

The power of the record button on the satellite remote became a part of my life only about 6 months ago. Because I work at night, I usually miss the television shows I'd like to watch, and the strange thing is that now that I record, it seems like I actually watch less television because I just watch the shows I want and spend less time mindlessly surfing for something worthwhile after prime time.

I'm not very behind on the shows I enjoy, but I had quite a stack today because some of my favorites come on earlier in the week.

Here is the line up of my afternoon marathon:

Glee--I usually watch this with my daughter, and we did start it yesterday, but I was multitasking and didn't catch everything. Sometimes I don't like some of the episodes because the story lines are mighty weak, but "Never Been Kissed" storyline was pretty powerful on different levels.
The Millionaire Matchmaker--I love Patti, but this season in New York is making me wonder about her "high success rate." I haven't seen any happy endings this season. This show makes me thankful that I found my wonderful husband. (No, he's not a millionaire, though.)
The Sons of Anarchy--I cannot explain why I love this show so much. It's a pretty complex story that just keeps me hooked. Plus, it's pretty bad-ass. It comes on the same night as Glee, and I used to try to watch both after work, but it's just too messed up! There's something about the volume of the show or the channel, so I sometimes feel like I'm missing part of what is being said--and now that they are in Ireland, it's worse! Today I watched it with the closed-captioning on. It helped a lot.
Criminal Minds--I just started watching this show in the last year. What can I say? I love crime dramas, and this one is particularly sick, twisted, and brilliant. I wish A&E would stop repeating the episodes over and over and show me some I haven't seen. I just can't get enough. Just when I think I have a favorite character, I learn more about a different character. Love them all!
Desperate Housewives--Has this show been on forever or what? I thought around the the 4th or 5th season, it was dying, and my interest waned, but we're in the 7th season, and I'm hanging in there. I am not particularly fond Vanessa L. Williams as part of the cast. She's too fresh from being mean to Betty.
Melissa and Joey--I don't think this show will be around long, but I've always enjoyed Melissa Joan Hart. It's a cute show with a storyline about an alternative family situation. It does amuse me to see actors who used to be teen stars cast in family shows as parents now.
No Ordinary Family--I'm crossing my fingers that this show stays on for a while because there aren't very many family shows like this on the regular network channels. Who doesn't love super heroes? As we all know, the best ones are flawed, and then you mixed in a regular messed up family whose struggling to keep their lives balanced, and it's just a great show!

In the queue I also have The Walking Dead, which I haven't started watching yet and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which is a show that has been around too long so sometimes it's good and other times it's not.

I doubt I have room for other shows (The Closer and Southland will come back in a few months to fill in my schedule even more), but what is everyone out there watching?

Blocked

2010-11-11T18:51:00.000-08:00

I already blew the whole NaBloMoPo thing. I had my laptop open last night, and I just went blank. Well, I guess that's how one might explain it. I dozed off, and when I woke up the screen was empty and it was nearing midnight. Time for sleep! Er, uh, the kind that includes cozy quilts and fluffy pillows...

This is a not a big deal. Exhaustion and sleep rule over all! So, onwa

Smells Like an Idea

2010-11-09T23:05:00.000-08:00

The students in my creative writing class are writing some letters to send to Marines overseas. They were excited and up to the challenge, but it is difficult writing letters to people--soldiers--they don't know.

I was helping one of my students, Sam, come up with things he could write about when another girl walked up to the table and started sniffing the girl sitting next to Sam. Seriously! These kids are weird sometimes. Their behavior started really getting irritating when they started sniffing Sam while I was still talking to him.

"Girls! Could you please stop sniffing each other?"

"But, miss!" Andrea said, "She smells really good. I think. Someone does. Wait! Or is it you?" And then she sniffed me.

I had applied fresh perfume before going to work, so it made sense that it was me.

"Oh! It is you! What kind of perfume is that?"

"Er..." I had been on a long quest (like years) for perfume that I liked, and I finally found one this spring that I like, but it's embarrassing to admit, "It's called Circus Fantasy...by Britney Spears."

That's right, folks, my favorite perfume is by Britney Spears. Actually, I think it's an Elizabeth Arden product, but that's not the name on the package. It's stupid Britney Spears.

We joked about how nice the perfume was and how it didn't smell as skanky as one might expect, and then Sam had a great idea for his letter: "I'm going to write, 'My teacher smells like Britney Spears!'"

Glad I could provide some inspiration.

What's the Point?

2010-11-08T22:38:00.000-08:00

One of the students in my high school proficiency class, a ELL student from Iraq, began questioning the point of the writing exam he will be taking next week. I have a few students who complain, but this particular student usually has a positive attitude.

"This test does not prove anything. What's the point?" he said.

Blah, blah, blah. When they start talking about the hoops they have to jump through, I stop listening. It's the same old stuff.

All the same, I like the kid. It disappointed me that he was wasting time.

"You know what? Welcome to life. There will be a lot of things that seem pointless that you will have to do."

Does that make me a cynic or a realist? I don't know. I work in a system where there is a lot that doesn't make sense. I live in a world where sweatin' the stupid small stuff can suck the joy out of life.

But then...aren't there times when perhaps I've given into complacency simply because it's easier?

Sometimes I wish the kids knew when it was time to question life and when it was time to just suck it up and move on.

Sometimes I wish I knew, too.

The Uncool Mom

2010-11-07T20:02:00.000-08:00

It's not that the slumber party was at all terrible. Overall, I'd say it was a huge success. I just hate having so many invaders in my home, and after the incident with the girl drama within the first two hours, I was on edge waiting for more drama to surface. I mean, 12 year-old girls cannot help but bring drama. How I remember from my own youth!

My friend, Heidi, was my saving grace. She texted me early yesterday afternoon asking when the party was. I had considered asking her to come hang out, as I knew she would be home alone for the weekend, but I thought she wouldn't possibly be that bored. Of course, being the lover of children that she is, and the overall fun spirit, (and she brought wine), she was the perfect person to have over while the girls were off doing whatever.

Seriously, I am not even sure what the girls were doing half the night. Well, I mean, I do know, but it boggles my mind how they could play Just Dance 2 on the Wii for six hours. We compelled them to come downstairs for food a few times, but seriously, were they really locked up in the family room dancing that long without food?

Oh, yeah, they did have the giant tub of toxic cheese zombie snacks that my daughter convinced me to get against my better judgment. It was the allowed food upstairs, along with water (Remember, I have issues with sticky messes, and at home this means that children under 18 cannot leave the kitchen to eat or drink. A rule that makes sense to me but befuddles most people I know.) But when there was other tasty food and sweet drinks downstairs, the draw of the Wii was more compelling.

Or it could be that we adults were downstairs. Even sweet Heidi did not impress them much. (Although she did weasel a confession from one girl that she did not like the Silly Bandz as much as the other bracelets everyone is wearing because rumors were going around that they were made our of old condoms. Ah! Thanks for the laugh, kid!) And if you asked our students, they would wholeheartedly agree that she is the nicest and coolest of all of us. (She's not pushover, though.) One of the girls in attendance, whose mother is a friend from work, was excited to see her and ran up to her right away for hugs, but the rest girls who did not know her could not be convinced of her level of coolness at all.

Anyway, back to the adults are uncool thought...I had the feeling that we were unwelcome, and I gave them space and reprimanded my sweetie for harassing them, although it really is his job as dad to freak them all out. Two incidents really drove the point home that we were not welcome in their little world, which, incidentally was a world located in my inviting home.

My sweetie grilled up some chicken on skewers, and because we have more chairs for outside and it was a beautiful evening, we set lawn chairs outside. I thought they might like to chill outside for awhile, but after quickly eating, they went back inside, and locked the patio door, leaving us outside. Perhaps it was a joke, but still...we adults did not react too much: Heidi and I were working on wine and shrimp, talking about her trip to Africa for the World Cup this past summer, and my sweetie was still slaving over a hot grill. We were enjoying the evening. Before they shut the door, we'd also been enjoy some Taylor Swift on the player, but we were denied that joy, too.

We did ask them unlock the door and leave the screen open so we could enjoy the music and get some air into the house, too. (Finally, it's the time of year where we can have the doors open!) When the girls were outside, we had tried to engage them in a little conversation, as people in polite society might, but perhaps they took it as their own grilling session.

Not long after we had to get on them after the 2nd time they locked the door, not because we wanted in, but because we wanted the door open, they wandered back up stairs to return to the game.

After Heidi and I picked up the kitchen a bit, I decided I should go take some pictures of them playing upstairs. You know, some memories for the scrapbooks? I was going to use some sneaky yearbook adviser technique, and quietly turn the knob to see if I could catch them unaware. It's not that I thought they weren't playing Wii, I mean I could hear them, but the door was LOCKED. Locked?! The door didn't even need to be closed. We adults were hanging in a different part of the house. Paranoid, much, girls?

I knocked on the door, and one of the girls, whom we adults had already pegged for being the mean girl of the group, opened the door with a "What?"

How lucky that child was that she lived! I didn't say anything. I remained silent for a moment and gave her the stink eye. I felt Heidi stiffen behind me. In our world, the world where we've been through hundreds of these little twits, we deal with disrespect stealthy. It's different though. This is my home. But you know, the classroom is my turf. I rule it. My home? Still my turf.

The girl back-pedaled a little, and I think my daughter helped her, and as we entered the room I said, "We have left you alone most of the night, haven't we? There is no reason to lock the door. If something happens in here, and I have to break down the door to get to you because you've locked it, there will be hell to pay."

My daughter knows it's true. She didn't know what the hell would be, but I am pretty good at thinking of good ones. That she does know.

And then Heidi and I took up our places on the couch for the next 20 minutes until we got bored watching them.

I could have stayed all night. Hahahahaha! But after we heard all the good songs we could stand, and after I saw a techno version of "Satisfaction," I definitely had to bail. Ick. I thought I was being the cool mom by leaving them alone, and when we were in their presence, Heidi and I tried again to relate to them a bit. Nope. Uncool to the max.

I'm much better at this in the classroom. There are kids who constantly want my attention. Many of them are interested in my stories. At home, I guess I'm just destined to a piriah to all the teenagers who cross my threshold for the next decade.

It sucks being over 30.

Fading into the Night

2010-11-06T22:18:00.000-07:00

Planning for the undead sleepover today has nearly made me one of the living dead.

There were many times when I thought to myself, "This is why I haven't thrown a birthday party in a few years."

Coffee Talk

2010-11-05T21:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the best part of my day is when I get to school 20 minutes early so I can catch up on the news and have 7am conversations with my friend and colleague, Heidi. We have been tea drinking buddies over the years, and we have amassed quite a collection of teas.

However, lately both of us have been craving coffee, which is something I only drink at leisure on the weekends. Strong. With flavored creamer. It's a beautiful thing. A lot of people need coffee in the morning to function. I am finding it simply pleasure to cherish.

Sort It Out

2010-11-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

A vocabulary activity I've used with my students a few times is the word sort. I'm not sure if I'm suppose to credit this activity to a specific source or not. I've seen it in a few different places.

The way I've used it is with vocabulary words that my students have. They generate their own cards with words, so there is very little prep time for me as a teacher, and the activities yield high-quality learning. Simple is best--my kind of activity!

I always give students one or two closed sorts, that is, specific categories in which they should sort their words. A particularly interesting one I have used prompting my middle schoolers, asks them to sort words that applied/described certain characters. Another basic one is when I ask students to divide the words into positive and negative words. Oh, holy connotation! That gets some discussion going. Tonight in my creative writing class, the words "audacious" and "willful" started some heated debates. Fighting over words! I love it!

I think it's particularly engaging to have students create their own categories (open sorting), too. My middle schoolers needed some suggestions in the beginning when we first started using sorts, and I had to guide them away from boring sorting. I have used opening sorting differently with my creative writing students, as I usually have them write stories or poems with their words, so I have them group their words into smaller groups of words that would sensibly be used in short poem or paragraph.

What I like about sorting is that students get to work collaboratively, talking about words. They refer back to definitions, debating how words should be sorted and start to see relationships with words. I've never seen students interact so vigorously as they do with this activity.

Lost

2010-11-03T22:32:00.001-07:00

I am often the type of person who happily rides in a rut. Sometimes change is a hassle, and sometimes change is scary, while usually I just think that what is not broken should not be fixed.

For years, I had been using Haloscan for my comments. There was a time that Blogger had a terrible, weak commenting system. I was happy with Haloscan, and I didn't even pay attention when Blogger upgraded their commenting system. Then, and I am not positive of this, they sold out to JS-Kit. I didn't really notice much until Echo took it over.

Dah Dah DUM!

Echo really messed me up because I had reinstall things, which is not a strength for me. The messaging system was suppose to be so much better. Instead, I found that it was a little funky. I think it made it more difficult for people who weren't members to comment. Like my dad. Even worse, on my blog, one had to click on the comment twice to get the box to pop up. To top that, sometimes the comment would post to Blogger's commenting system, and other times it would post to Echo. The two would not meet up, so sometimes there were comments in Blogger that I could see for a split seconds and never again.

After visiting some friends' sites, I saw how the commenting system in Blogger looked, and I decided it would make me happy. So, with a little fear and trepidation, I switched over. It was my understanding that my comments would come with me. Of course, just my luck, they did not. The commenting from the past year or so transferred, but the other four years of interaction with my blogging buddies are GONE, GONE, GONE.

I tried not to let it get to me, but when I look back through my archives, I know there are conversations that are lost, and it makes me sad. It's like my poor blog's soul has some holes in it.

A Refresher

2010-11-02T16:25:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow begins quarter two, and students have had five days off in a row. I've just spent the last two days in professional development. Thankfully, they weren't too rigorous, and we've had a bit of time to talk and do some planning, too.

Yesterday, we had a presenter from the district professional development talking to us about vocabulary instruction. For me, it just seems like there's never enough time to build vocabulary, especially to the depth in which we want students to understand concept. Come to think of it, I can't say I've left with any particular strategy that I'm dying to use. I know it seems strange, but in English, we necessarily have as much content vocabulary as I would imagine the social students or science classes do. So many of our words come from our literature, and if we aren't studying a piece of literature, I still want students to learn new words, so then we're back to the vocabulary books. You know, they didn't kill me.

In the afternoon, on our own as a staff, we looked at our p-scores from the state exam, and collaborated with some of our p-values. I don't even know how to explain p-values, and our math-minded vice principal claims we use the term incorrectly in our district. Essentially, we looked for areas of growth and areas we should improve upon and tried to come up with ideas on causes and solutions.

The people at my table, English, foreign language, and geography teachers, focused on how we could be critical thinking on expository texts, particular in areas where students need to make inferences and predictions. I think we made some progress after hypothesizing that our students live within their small worlds and have a hard time making connections to things outside their small worlds. This is especially true of our ELL students, but it is also true of all teenagers, no? Okay, maybe I exaggerate--just a bit, though. We came to the conclusion that we need to offer as much scaffolding and extension to our expository texts and current events as we do with our literary texts. We also decided that this is an area where students might be excited to share what they know as much as we might share what we know, and that means sometimes we need more talk!

Today, the same presenter came back and talked to us about Depth of Knowledge. We've had DOK before, presented by one of our own teachers who came back to the classroom after leaving the regional PD cadre. The thing about DOK that I hate is that I don't need another acronym about how I need to get my students to think more deeply. Nonetheless, I feel that this is an area of my instruction--whatever I call it--where I try to be purposeful in trying to get more bang for my buck. I became cognizant of just how I do try to ramp things up when I had a student teacher a few years ago, and I was constantly asking her what she wanted students to learn and how she could get more critical thinking from them. Oh, I humbly admit that am not perfect, but this is an area where I am giving it my all.

Okay, onward with the rest of the semester. I have a couple of fresh ideas that I'm ready to try. As much as I am irritated by PD days (and I'm on the committee and was a key organizer for the one we had last month), it's nice when we have time to get some new tools together, especially when we have time to talk with each other.

What Pushes Us to the End?

2010-11-01T21:46:00.001-07:00

**I didn't mean to post such a long post for my first NaBloPoMo, but this is an important entry about what might drive a teacher to take his own life, a question that will be on the minds of teachers in my city this week.**
___________________________________________________________

An off-handed comment from my administrator is on my mind tonight. I don't even remember how we got there, but I suppose we were talking about how some of our students are in serious crisis these days and how that affects their performance in school. Same old story, but in the last few years, it's been a more critical story.

Without revealing any details whatsoever, my principal revealed to me that there were several teachers also in crisis on our campus. I wasn't at all surprised.

The Vegas Art Guy has posted about a teacher who committed suicide on campus today. I'm instantly sick--heart-broken and near tears--at the thought, but in so many ways, I'm not surprised. I could see the same thing happening at my own school, and I don't even know why the teacher at his school might have been distraught enough to take his own life.

It's not that I could point fingers at certain teachers and say, "Watch out for that one!" I'm not really even saying that anyone would commit suicide at my school. It's just that I can see that there are too many stressors in teachers' lives right now.

Times are tough in Las Vegas. The economy is tight, and people have lost homes and jobs. I can think of a few teachers who have lost homes in the past few years. I can't imagine what that might be like to lose a simple security like a roof over one's head. I have two close friends who are over $100,000 upside-down in their homes and have sought help with no results. It's likely they will let their homes go, going bankrupt in the process. One is near retirement, so her security is no longer solid. I can think of a handful of teachers whose husbands have lost their jobs, too. Construction and tourist-related jobs have been plentiful in the past decade, but now there's nothing. Being in "the union," is pretty meaningless as there are simply no jobs.

It's not just Las Vegas. Our whole state is in financial crisis, and that directly affects the funding in our schools. In the last two years, we teachers have been living in fear of budget cuts. We've been threatened with pay cuts and furlough days. Staffing has been cut, but for the most part, we haven't lost too many teachers thanks to attrition, but we have certainly lost positions and programs. At my school, our use of materials has been seriously scrutinized. There's this constant feeling of being choked. That's what it feel like to me, anyway.

Essentially, we are constantly being asked to do more with less, and like puppets, we dance on command.

Our principal told us today that we should expect next year to be even worse. She's said that the last two years, and she has lied neither time.

With NCLB and The Race to the Top--and whatever other catch phrase out there--we are certainly being pushed to do whatever it takes to make our students perform. Interventions, differentiation, focus on bubble kids. Make. It. Happen.

The pressure is high, and administrations from the school level up to district levels scrutinize our scores. If you are a poor math teacher, good luck with those requirements to...well...I don't know what they have to do, but there's more paper work and mandatory teaching procedures that have to be documented. (I hear about it from the math teachers around me, but I don't want their extra work load to rub off on me, so I try to stay clear.) Math scores are low everywhere, and the public knows it since district quarter assessment scores are published in the newspaper. Published in the newspaper, from pre-algebra on up. I remember the first time that happened. It was not pretty. It caused a lot of panic, and it made it look like a lot of hard-working teachers weren't doing their jobs. It's so demoralizing.

The job alone is stressful with the performance emphasis, which is fine. We all want our students to do well. I mean it, too. Even the grumpiest teachers want their students to be successful. When it comes to performance, what we teachers are finding, and I know this is a prevailing issue everywhere, is that students do not necessarily want to achieve as badly as we want them to. Some of them are downright stubborn in resisting our the quest to get some damned knowledge in their gullets. Oh, boy, does it seem like force-feeding some days.

I've been one of those teachers who has been at her wit's end in dealing with students, and I know I have some colleagues who also have their issues. I deal mostly with apathy, but some of my colleagues have serious behavior problems (much like the one from my night school), and multiples of those problems in a class. A colleague whom I consider a friend has had to completely redesign her curriculum because her students simply cannot handle any kind of interactive work. It's a shame that her students will not get the quality education she was prepared to give them if they'd just let her.

Our 8th grade class is particularly difficult this year. Usually we just have to stand out in the halls, and our presence keeps things flowing, but this year, we have to actually get into the mix to move things along. Our students have been some fights, but not really in our hallway (unless you count the one that happened in a classroom while there was a substitute in the classroom next to mine), and I think our constant vigilance can be thanked for that. Our students are lose cannons this year. They are immature. They are mostly too goofy with no common sense, with a few violent ones mixed in. There are some days, and some mixes of kids in classrooms that prevent teachers from doing their jobs well. Or doing the job at all. It's easy for us to blame the kids--especially when they deserve it--but you know, our administrators still put the responsibility back on us when we are ill-prepared to do crowd control in riot conditions. They don't teach us that in college.

Dear readers, I know everyone has his/her stories of unmanageable students who make our jobs a living hell. I've been there. Some of my dear colleagues have to go there each and everyday.

On top of all the financial and professional woes, I know we also have staff members who have gravely ill family members. One of my colleagues has a teenage son who has been battling cancer for two years. Through multiple surgeries and treatments, she's tried to stay strong. We've had a handful of our staff members lose family members, some lost parents to old age, and while other lost siblings to suicide and illness.

Sick family members don't hold a candle to the health problems some of our teachers have had. One of my friends was months worrying about the lumps in her breast, while several of my female friends have had a myriad of female problems, one of which required 8 weeks of recovery. I know we also have people with heart conditions, and diabetes plagues a few other teachers. A little over a year ago, we lost one of our own teachers to a cancerous brain tumor, a battle he bravely fought in front of our very eyes.

So, when my principal dropped the bomb that some of our teachers are just as much in crisis as some of our students, I didn't even bat an eye. Some of my dear colleagues are dealing with multiple personal and professional issues. Life can be hard sometimes, and this job can be hard.

I am deeply saddened that one of our own district teachers took his own life. He could have very easily have been dealing with some of the issues that teachers in my own school have been dealing with in the past few years. It's too bad that he ended his life so violently.

We always focus on how our students are doing, but I wonder if anybody really cares how the teachers are doing. Many of us teachers are bad at even paying attention to our own physical and mental health stressors. We give, give, give. Others take, take, take. But we also feel pain and frustration. Some of us get the end of our ropes with no safety net underneath.

It all makes us human. How do we cope with our lives? We don't need to be tragic heroes. We just need to be okay.

Dear friends, please take care of yourself first. Reach out to friends and family when things get tough.

And watch out for each other. That teacher at his/her rope might climb up the next day, but does it hurt to take a moment to listen? Perhaps an intervention or advice is needed, or perhaps just another sane human being to vent to can help.

Some of my mantras might help you or your colleagues who get stressed out:

1. That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Embrace the strife of life. It makes us interesting.

2. Things can't get any worse, right?

3. It's just a job.

Kick Off to NaBloPoMo

2010-10-31T23:11:00.000-07:00

I thought I might give National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) a try this November, and after visiting the hosting site, it seems that November isn't the only month anymore and that people can pretty much participate any month, just as long as they commit to posting each day in a month.

Ah, well. I'm going to go ahead with November. I don't participate for the glory or to win prizes. Mostly I do it to kick myself in the rear and give myself a bit of a writing challenge. I tried it for the first time in 2007, and successfully completed the challenge. I also tried it last year, which was pretty foolhardy considering I was still working on my master's degree. I ended up posting a mere 22 times last year, but it was nice making the time to write.

Making time to write. Yes, that is what I long to do.

A few days ago my colleague, Mrs. E. and I held our first meeting for the e-zine we are starting up. I thought it would be a good idea to begin the meeting by writing to the following prompt: Why do you write?

Here's what I wrote:

When I write, it give me time to get my thoughts together. Sometimes it's a time for me to process the thoughts that go through my head, to solidify what I think, feel, and believe. Unfortunately, I don't find a lot of time to write as life is hectic and

No joke. Ironically, while I was trying to write this reflection down, two students and another teacher tracked to down in Mrs. E.'s classroom to ask me something. When the third student showed up, I had to go down to my classroom so I could give her a test that her coach was going to let her do during their study hall. Mrs. E. and I had a good chuckle over what I wrote, but I'm not sure the e-zine writers truly understood because they don't see how many gazillion times a day I'm interrupted from one train of thought to follow one that is more pressing. It's madness some days.

I'm looking forward to some time to reflect and write. I've had a lot of ideas lately, but rarely have I taken the time to sit and write. For the next month I'm looking forward to getting my thoughts straight--it feels like I might become more centered--and perhaps even develop some better blogging habits.

Reflection on a Problem Student

2010-10-29T09:20:00.000-07:00

A post at The Desert Glows Green brought to surface a dilemma I'm having about one of my students at night school. What does one do with a student who talks, talks, talks?

Last night I had a conversation with the counselor about a student whom I have in both proficiency English and creative writing. He's been a pain in my butt most of the year, so it's been an on-going conversation between us, and it has has gone between the counselor and the student, too. One night I had enough and sent her an e-mail along the lines of, "Talk to this kid, or tomorrow there will be a homicide." It's a small school, so she grabbed him out of class that very night. The line of the conversation between them leaned heavily on the fact that he's a leader, and he's leading the wrong way--this was a slant I wanted to focus on. According to the counselor, the student wants to do well, he wants to graduate, but I just don't see that most of the time. Apparently he's so much better than he used to be. I guess I'm thankful I am working with the new and improved version.

Although he needs the help to pass his proficiencies, we are thinking about taking him out of that class because he leads too many people astray with his attitude and misbehavior. Part of me does not want to give up on him, but then he is directly affecting the development of two other students. In a class of 10, that's a pretty big deal. He goofs off, talking Spanish all the time with three other boys (one will pass his proficiency), and then when I'm on their asses to get on task, it ruins the class atmosphere, and it becomes me and against them.

Now, the rest of the class, they are able to function pretty well despite these disruptive boys. Sometimes they'll join in and laugh at a joke or something, but with such a small class, I think that's normal. The difference is, the rest of them can get back on task. The rest of them produce writing. The rest of them understand that the more they write, the more feedback I can give them, the faster they will become proficient. The rest of them are acting maturely, even to the point they tell the boys to be quiet and get on task. Two of the students in the class are also ELL students who do not speak Spanish, and they get irritated with all the Spanish speaking, too, and will often tell them to stop speaking in Spanish. These other students I adore.

While I am writing this, the obvious choice, since I have one, is to dump him from the proficiency class. Although the counselor and I would like for him to pass his proficiencies and graduate, at this point we are leaning toward the stance that if the student does not want to help himself he can go down the hallway to art, which is also an elective credit, and leave the class to those who are desperate to help themselves. He doesn't want to be in the class anyway, and if he knew we were considering it, he'd be camped out in the counselor's office until she changed his schedule.

Last night, the class was smaller than it usually is, sans the students with a bad attitude and one of his friends, with the gradebook closed out for the quarter and a five-day weekend ahead, we sat at a table ready to play word game, but instead the students asked me about how much money I made. They always want to know that, and the technical answer is that we all make different amounts because we have different levels of experience and education. It's uncomfortable, but I told them how much I make, which blew them away. However, that segued nicely into a long conversation about education and careers and how hard and long the average person has to work to make good money. Not one of the students believed that they would be able to get rich quick. They are all preparing to work hard in the next few years so they can play hard later in life. That's a refreshing perspective I don't often see in young people.

They shared with me their plans, hopes, dreams, and fears. It's moments like this I love working at the alternative high school. It's these in-between moments when I'm a different kind of teacher, and even more like a friend or wise auntie, that I really feel like I make a difference in their lives. I can push and prod them to get more education, be it a certification program or a college degree and try a career, instead of a job. They are on the brink of the rest of their lives, and they understand how important their choices are right now. Yes, they are nervous but mostly excited. Some simply need to pass their proficiency test to they can move on, while others finally see that their abilities to communicate will make a huge difference in the opportunities they have.

On my drive home, I reflected back to the conversations and questions they had, and I realized that had the problem student been there, it would not have been such a candid discussion. He would have turned everything into a joke, focusing the attention on himself. It's what he does in every situation. He needs to go. He's not at the same place the rest of the students in his class are in. They are growing up. He's not there yet.

A Day of Writing

2010-10-21T22:48:00.000-07:00

The National Day on Writing event in my classroom went just about as expected. Of course, there were students who did not see writing for a class period as remotely fun, but what can I do about those students, mostly boys, who seriously hate English?

Well, I let them "write" comics for one thing...

It was a joy to see students get excited over some of the prompts I had and then want to share with me and their classmates later on. I noticed, just at a glance, that many of my students are quite good at writing short stories and even have a handle on how to write dialogue.

The biggest ah-a moment I had throughout the day was that I have to figure out a way to foster such enthusiasm for expository writing. I'm feeling a lot of pressure this year because the 8th grade writing exam for the state suddenly mirrors the high school exam, and I am just not sure how ready the students will be. They've had a pretty steady diet of narrative writing in their lives, and that is no longer the focus of the assessment.

Maybe it wasn't really that big of an ah-a moment. I suspected that they enjoyed creative, personal writing and were much more successful in that mode of writing. I saw proof of it.

On a side note, I did write along with my students all day. Each period I tried a different prompt, and some periods I wrote some crapstastic stuff. I think it's pretty typical of a writer's life!

Dear Deaf Family,

2010-10-20T22:22:00.000-07:00

Although you may not have been physically able to hear the middle school choir concert very well tonight, it is still good concert etiquette to not talk during the performance. In a gymnasium packed like sardines, your exuberant sign language is just as distracting as if you'd been talking aloud.

Oh, and by the way, don't assume that people don't know your language.

Next time turn up your hearing aides and enjoy the misery like the rest of us.

~~I hope I don't~~ See you at the Christmas concert,

HappyChyck

Get Write!

2010-10-19T22:27:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited to celebrate the National Day on Writing tomorrow. We have spent so much time working on expository writing, and I know the students miss writing more creatively, so tomorrow I've promised them that they can write whatever they want. My hard-core nerdy writers are so excited--they've been talking about what they might spend their time writing. The rest of the students have been reticent, as any type of writing is the same torture regardless of a special occasion. Oh well, normal stuff there.

We're going old school for prompts tomorrow. I have a bunch of picture prompts, that is, pictures cut out of magazines and mounted to construction paper, from which students can seek inspirations. I also have a bunch of prompts from The Writer's Book of Matches for students to randomly pick. (My creative writing students love the ideas from this book!)

I will be disappointed with anything less than holy inspiration and excitement throughout the day.

Did I mention that I'm going to spend the day writing with students, too?

Sheesh! When does that ever happen? Can't wait!

Bring Your Brain to School, Okay?

2010-10-11T22:50:00.000-07:00

Today we reviewed compare/contrast essays today because for their monthly reading project, students have to write an essay comparing an aspect of their books to something else. I gave students several thing that they could compare, but I still had a couple of students ask if they could compare things other than what I was offering. Although some of them had good ideas, such as comparing two characters in the book, I asked them to stick to the seven possible comparisons I offered.

One student asked if he could do a different comparison that was not as brilliant:

"Could I compare the paperback to the hardback?"

I took a deep breath before I made my snide remark. I looked toward the back of the room where there was a parent volunteer and bit my tongue from delivering the thoughts that instantly popped into my head: "No, you #?#*$ idiot!"

Instead, I smiled at the student and said, "No, let's just stick to the options I've given you. But, do you think you would have much to compare between the paperback and hardback?"

Behind the student, his classmates rolling their eyes.

He answered, "Well, I guess not."

"And why is that?" I asked.

He looked a little stumped.

"Because it's the same book, right?" I prompted.

A light bulb went off above his head, "Oh yeah!"

(Face palm by teacher.)

Coincidence Comes Crashing to Weirdness

2010-10-05T22:58:00.000-07:00

As a matter of coincidence, two of my high school students ran into each other at a local hospital this weekend.

Do you realize how many hospitals we have and how big they are?

The reason they were both there?

Both of the young men are became proud papas.

No joke.

When I found out, I made them show me pictures of their new babies. I think it's important to be supported of these young parents.

One baby looked cute. One baby looked angry.

Then the boys started talking about the birthing process their baby mamas went through with another, female, student who has given birth.

Sometimes life in my classroom is so weird.

You Know You Need a Day Off When...

2010-10-01T21:33:00.000-07:00

This morning, I met with the other accelerated English teacher, Mrs. E., to plan for next week. The students are reading The Secret Life of Bees, and it will probably take us forever at the rate we are going. We debated over how many chapters we could feasible ask the student to read next week, and we decided to hold our schedule tight. I distinctly remember Mrs. E saying, "We cannot push back reading chapters 6-7 into the following week or it will be Thanksgiving before we're done!" Okay, so we decided that students could indeed read those two chapters by the end of Friday. The following week we planned to do a writing assignment that would take us a few days from the book, so that was why we really wanted to get a good chunk out of the book before we put it down for a few days.

After we finished planning, we talked about the staff development day we have coming up next Friday. Both of us are on the professional development committee, and since our first meeting was just a few days ago, and our first PD day is in a week, and during this PD we teachers will be conducting our own trainings, we are kind of scrambling to get things in place. I was unable to find some information that was integral for our plans, so we talked about what we could do and then we decided to try to call a meeting today.

As crazy as it was, I e-mailed everyone with the information I could find with some suggestions and asked if anyone could meet today after school for a bit. Super crazy is really the idea considering it was noon before I could get it out. (You know those days when it takes four hours to construct an e-mail?) Miracle of all miracles--there were four out of six of who did show up after school, so we spent a little under an hour getting things shaped up better.

About 20 minutes after the meeting broke up, I was setting my boards for Monday, writing the homework due dates for the week, when it hit me what idiots Mrs. E. and I were.

Our time spent debating whether to go on with our novel and how to juggle our classrooms to make it happen was all pretty pointless because there is no school for students on Friday--staff development day! DUH! I've forgotten about staff development days before and planned for students to be there, but this is serious silliness considering I'm part of the planning committee for the day!

And to think how I get so irritated with my students don't make connections to the things they learn. Well, I'm not in much better shape. I cannot even make connections of things I'm creating. I think it's pretty evident that I have a one-track mind. Or I'm going crazy. You choose.

Disoriented

2010-09-21T22:29:00.000-07:00

It all started when I looked at a student and thought, "He kind of resembles my son."

And then I started thinking about my son when he's in middle school. I sent his sister, who just started 6th grade, to her zoned school, but he may not have that choice because he's a much different kid, so I had a flash about what he might be like when he makes it to 8th grade, possibly even sitting my class.

Four years from now that would be.

I thought, "Four more years of this? Same old stuff. Year after year. Oh. My. God. I'm bored silly from doing the same lessons four periods in a row today. Could I really do this same stuff four years from now?"

And it depressed me a little.

That all happened in just a moment while I waited for students to copy some notes about effective conclusions from the Power Point slide. It was a breath. A blink.

Yet also a deep, sinking feeling.

...A little later, while I was sorting some papers, the floor tilted a bit, and I had to lean to catch my balance.

"Wait!" Didn't I have a Jennifer Munoz last year? And Rodriguez. I know I had a few of those. What were their names? Brian...Ana...Jazmin...Could it be? Do they have the same names as students from last year."

The floor leveled again and I realized that it just a distorted--perhaps negative--perception that the students are all the same...year after year after year after year after year.

I usually don't get so unbalanced at the thought of another 15 years of teaching. I don't have aspirations to move to another school to start over. I like my position, and most days it's neither miserable nor enchanting. It just is, and at this point in my life, I'm totally okay with that. But today, I didn't feel so okay.

So what's the deal? Cracks in my contentment? Or something more base, like the need for less caffeine?

The Eye

2010-09-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I turned around and gave a little kid who was jumping up and down in the booth behind us the stink eye. My daughter almost fell out of her seat from laughing so hard, but it worked. The kid stopped bouncing.

I have a particularly strong stink eye: it's been known to make naughty children hide behind their parents in the grocery store. And well they should, the rotten little stinkers who run around the store or whine and cry when they don't get their own ways. Grrr.

My eye is strong because it's probably the most exercised part of my body. Well, that, and the fact that it takes a particularly potent eye to work on teenagers. That probably explains why just a 3-second glance is enough to settle down a bouncy 5-year old .

By the way, some parents don't appreciate it when strangers reprimand their children, so that short glance usually goes unnoticed by oblivious parents.

It's really too bad that more parents don't learn how to use the stink eye as a nonverbal discipline tool with children when they are very young. With my own children, it usually* just takes the eye, and maybe a finger point to change a child's behavior when we are in public. It's true that the older the children get, the less effective the eye can be, as I have discovered that my hairy eyeball is merely an amusement to particularly hardened teenagers; however, parents can get a lot of mileage out of it between the ages of toddler to teen.

Once they become teens who outgrow the eye, I think the foot is probably the best bet. Unfortunately, it's pretty much against the law, or at least social standards, to use it.

*My son is a particularly hard case, but he doesn't like what comes after the stink eye, so he's learned to obey the eye. Some of my middle school boys, who are not hardened teens yet, are about to learn what comes after the eye, but then they'll easily comply, too.

Fantastic or Craptastic Year Ahead?

2010-09-03T21:01:00.000-07:00

This is a little note to myself on my desk, and today after I came back from meeting with some colleagues, I found all tagged up. Another prankster colleague is surely the culprit, but it did make me take pause.

It's been a hard week.

It's felt like three weeks.

Thank goodness for a three-day weekend.

Inferno!

2010-08-30T16:36:00.000-07:00

Of course, in typical first-day of school misery, there was no air conditioning for half the morning. My room tends to be extra chilly year round, enough so that I was comfortably wearing sweaters through the last day of school, and you know I'm afraid to complain because then it might get hot.

Last week, while other teachers were roasting while putting up their bulletin boards, I was feeling cool. I love my classroom!

Why should I expect there to be no air conditioning on the first day, then?

Afterall, our school is a mere two years old.

Like that matters.

There are just too many days where the heating and cooling are wonky.

Of course, the first day of school has to be one of them.

Outside this morning it was unusually cold--in the 70s! Therefore, it was actually cooler outside than inside. Bizarre for August here!

So, I was ever so happy (right!) to make a first impression as the sweaty English teacher. Embarrassing.

Oh, how was my day other than that? Well, it had its moments...

Finally!

2010-08-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

Finally tomorrow is the day school starts!

The last week has been crazy busy with getting everything ready in my classroom, attending the back-to-school meetings, getting my own children ready to attend school, doing some writing project work, and just handling the day-to-do stuff like groceries, laundry, and bills. Frankly, I'm glad that tomorrow has finally come.

And I'm adding more to this idea that the back-to-school event is as expensive as Christmas. The preparation and hassle is just about as great as Christmas. Bet ya anything that it will just as anti-climatic, too.

I'm sure I've blogged about this before, but I really do not relish the new beginnings of the school year. Sure, it's exciting to have new opportunities to improve the things I screwed up last year. Thank you for that! I really don't like setting up the procedures in the classroom, some of which I believe are no-brainers and I should not have to hammer them in every year. The initial assessments I give seem to take so much time--especially the ones that have to be done on the computer. And, well, it takes a little time for things to start flowing smoothly. How I would love to just wake up in about three weeks and be good to go for the rest of the year!

So, here we go!

More with Less

2010-08-24T23:36:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the first day back for us teachers. I've been wandering in and out for a few weeks. I had some professional development opportunities, and I have spent three mornings in my classroom getting things ready. Some years it's been torture simply trying to put some posters up and unpack my supplies. This year, it went really fast, and I'm left feeling like something's missing.

Oh, but of course, I don't have everything planned for my instruction the first few weeks, but I'm well on my way there, too. Hello? What I did last year wasn't broken! Doin' most of it again.

So far, it's smooth sailing. Wahoo for me!

There have been a few of my colleagues hanging around a bit, too, so we've done some cussing and discussing. I do not want to start the year with a bad attitude, but, of course, there's just so much drama. I suppose if I really thought about it, this happens every year.

Every year, there's some insurmountable obstacle that precludes us from being perfect teachers without much effort. Oh, what is it you say? We should have to work for our pay? Of course, I agree, but sometimes this gig doesn't even feel like a job. It feels like a season of Survivor with all the drama of Big Brother.

The theme of our strife the last few years has been, "Do more with less." It's exhausting. I was near a breakdown in my principal's office last spring when I articulated my frustration with this theme. I haven't been blaming the administration for this theme, as they are in the same position as we teachers...it trickles down, ya know.

So, anyway, through the cussing and discussing, I've heard some rumors, and since they seem to be matching up among different staff members, I'd imagine they are true. We'll see what is said tomorrow by administration--and what more is added to our theme this year. I'll share my troubles when I have them all rounded up. I can tell you that I keep telling myself that there's nothing that can be thrown at me that doesn't have a solution. We teachers get so set in our ways, don't we? Sigh. It's just that sometimes getting down to Plan E ( after A, B, C, & D) is not effective at all. It's just better than having no plan at all.

Worse Than Christmas

2010-08-09T12:30:00.000-07:00

I've decided that back to school shopping is much more costly than Christmas shopping.

This is the very best time for me to stock on supplies for my classroom, such as highlighters for editing, index cards for various activities, glue bottles because teens never learn to close them, and red pens so I can make people feel bad all year long. Of course, I also need to stock up on things that make me happy, like good pencils, post-its, and correcting fluid. Since I've been cranky with my job, I have not gone overboard on these essentials, which I've sniffed out at good sales, and of course, I'm keeping my receipts for tax purposes.

As all of you teachers and moms know, these professional needs are compounded by The School Supply List each of my children has. I only have two, and thankfully, the older they get the less they need.

My son, who will entering 4th grade needs everything except crayons. I'm going to hold as much as I can at home because within all my crankiness, I am irritated at the idea of buying my son 6 boxes of pencils that he has to share with other students who brought none. Oh, but when I say that aloud, my heart breaks, and I want to help those poor kids whose families can't afford it. Seriously, though, who can't afford some pencils? Oh, yeah, but add that to the other 20 items on the list and multiply that a few times because stereotypically, if there's one poor kid whose family who can't afford pencils, he probably has a sibling. Or two. Or three. I'm way off on a tangent here, but this List--it's tough.

It's not the pencils that bother me so much on the The List. It's the tissues, hand sanitizer, hand soap, paper towels, and sandwich bags that bother me. I'd like to supply these for my children's classrooms because I know what a cesspool those classrooms must be. I know how dirty my son gets, and I have my own classroom. I need to go sanitize just thinking about it. I'm irritated because a few years ago my principal told us that we could no longer ask our students to bring these supplies in. Originally, I thought it was a district command, but then I think it was something about how families could not afford it...Well, my own children go to a Title 1 school, and there is it always on the list. A colleague of mine, who is tighter yet more loving than I am, brought rolls of toilet paper (an idea that was used school-wide at the alternative school where I teach every night), and rationed out sanitizer. Great idea to keep the cost low, but remember back in the day when we didn't haven't to shoulder that cost? If each of my students was asked to bring in one box of tissue and a bottle of sanitizer, it would be enough for the entire team of teachers (12 of us) to use all year. That's actually less than what elementary students are asked to bring.

My daughter is entering 6th grade this year, and her School Supply List was shockingly simple: paper, a package of dividers, pencils, pens, two binders, and a student planner (they buy that at school). It was also suggested that she have a flash drive, but she already has one. Now, those binders are incredibly expensive, but from experience, I know that one gets what she pays for. Interestingly, tissues and sanitizer were not on her list, so either her principal has the same edict as mine, or the kids at her middle school are less contaminated with kid germs than the ones at my middle school.

Speaking of incredibly expensive--have you seen how much backpacks are? I think I ended up paying $60 for two. And they were on sale! I like to force my kids to use their backpacks for more than one year. This worked out well for my son, until about two months ago when his Jansport started falling apart everywhere. (Aren't those the ones that are suppose to last a lifetime?) But then I also discovered he was keeping a rock collection in his backpack. My daughter went through three backpacks this year, and she wasn't collecting rocks. I've seen backpacks advertised for $5 at various places, but I don't even stop to look. I'm pretty sure I cannot afford to keep my kids in $5 backpacks all year.

Oh! Yesterday while we at Office Max, my sweetie found a backpack--his zipper is ripping out--for only $55. Actually, that's not a bad price for a backpack/laptop bag, especially since I think they are closer to $100 at Fry's. It's just that...well, it's another $55! Last spring, I wore out my favorite tote bag, and I've been on the hunt for a new one. (Yes, I'm a real teacher. I do have dozen of tote bags from conferences, but they have neither pockets or a way to close.) In the last few weeks of school, I took to using my backpack from college. You know, the one I bought in 1990. So, do you think that my sweetie can hold out until Christmas for a new bag? Or at least next month? I hope because we're just about B-R-O-K-E.

In other words, pencil rich, but cash poor. 'Tis the Season.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

2010-08-07T23:35:00.000-07:00

Click the X in the right hand side of the Super Poke advertisement. That's a disappointing aspect of this app!

I still have a few more weeks of vacation left, but a few weeks ago, it did occur to me that when I meet with my colleagues again, we'll have to engage in the traditional catching up ritual when we regale stories of our amazing summers. Awesome, huh? Yeah, except I work with a lot of people who lead more interesting lives than I do. People whose families live in more interesting places than mine do. People who leave the country to vacation. People who do service in the summer. People who might have travel tales to tell.

I can't wait for this scenario to be played over and over:

Nice Colleague: So, how was your summer? What did you do?

Me: Well, I visited Idaho twice and Utah once. Neither of those were vacations I'd had planned, as we had a bunch of family here in June, and we thought that would pretty well be our vacation.

Nice Colleague: Oh, well. That's nice.

Me: Actually it was nice seeing family and friends I hadn't seen in a while. What did you do?

Nice Colleague: Oh, you know, I took a cruise to the Bahamas./ I helped youth build houses in needy areas./ I went to the World Cup./ I went to Disneyland and Disney World./ Created the cure for cancer.

So, shoot me now.

I had a very nice summer vacation, actually. And I'm not finished because yesterday I woke up with a wild hair that I should call my friend in Grand Junction, Colorado to see if I could come visit for a few days. So, I'll be able to add Colorado to my list of exotic destinations.

Okay, now seriously. I have had some great times this summer, and here I will list them for my pleasure, and yours, if you like.

In June, my eldest step-daughter and her family came for a week-long visit. It was a pretty big deal because there was a grandchild in the house for the first time! And she is just cute, cute, cute! They live in Tennessee, so we don't get to see them often. My mother-in-law came at the same time, and I was so thankful to have such a large home (we just bought in November) to accommodate everyone so comfortably. Although I was nervous to be in a house full of people who are not my blood relatives, we had a blast!

We traveled to Kimberly, ID, which is a suburb of Twin Falls--like Twin is even big enough to have a suburb--to visit my best friend at her parent's house on the 4th of July. My friend's brother had a big barbecue, and although I was so cold all day, we had a lovely day just hanging outside. The best part was watching my son run wild with other little boys all day. Feed the horses, play kickball, have a water gun fight, walk on barrels. It was a boy's dream day.

My childhood best friend came to Las Vegas for a conference, and we had a nice afternoon shopping and catching up. I saw her a few weeks later when I was in Utah, which is where she lives. We usually celebrate our birthdays together, but I didn't have much time, we spent another nice afternoon making plans for our birthday next year. We are moving into another decade. It will be a big deal.

My mom and I took a road trip to see my grandma in northern Idaho. Mom lives in northern Utah, about 7 hours from me , and it was about 13 hours from her house to my grandmother's house. I had road shakes--you know when your body vibrates for a few hours after a long drive--several times in two weeks. Throughout Nevada, most of Utah, and southern Idaho, the scenery is pretty much the same. Desert and sky.

When we first hit the pine trees, we pulled over so I could take a picture for my 365 project. TREES! I didn't get a good picture, but I could have stood there all day smelling the trees. Love the smell!

On the way we stayed at this little motel along the Salmon River and we saw deer right outside our window! There was a patio behind the hotel, so we sat outside and drank beer, watched deer, and listened to the river. It's hard to find such peace where I live! It was a great evening to share with my mom.

Grandma lives with Aunt Diana, and yet another aunt, Barb, came to visit, so we girls had a dandy old time catching up! One night we broke out the camera and were taking goofy pictures. We tried to take a self portrait of ourselves, but without a tripod and five of us in the group, we found it challenging. I think the best one was the one we took of our feet. It was certainly the easiest one to take!

I also spent some time with my brother and his family when Mom and I came back from Idaho. I was impressed with his yard and the "green" way they live. My sister-in-law works at a greenhouse in the summer, and she gave me a tour of her work. I know nothing about plants, so I am just in awe of her!

While in Utah, I ran into an old high school friend, Ali, who lives in the Netherlands. We are the type of friends who, unfortunately, lose touch for years, but when we reconnect, it's like we had never been apart. When I saw her, she had just arrived, and I was just leaving, but as it turns out, she was going to be meeting family in Las Vegas! Happy dances! She came over one afternoon, and we drank tea and caught up on too many years. I was so sad to see her go, but that afternoon brightened my whole week. (You know, I've had a standing invitation to go to the Netherlands for 15 years. Maybe I should go!)

I'm sure there are other little things that I'll forget. I've actually had a pretty busy summer visiting friends and family. Nothing too exciting or exotic, and for the most part, I've visited places I've been before, and those places are small, slow-paced towns. Some of my young, adventure colleagues may not understand it, but I've had exactly the kind of summer I've wanted and needed!

On Having Hope

2010-08-05T07:52:00.000-07:00

I started reading a few new books on instructional practices, and I've been flipping through some of the older ones on my shelves. I'm feeling a little more optimistic that I know what I'm doing.

Well, actually, maybe I don't know everything, according to my self assessment on how to teach literature according to Fresh Takes on Teaching Literary Elements. However, reading this book made me realize that I have a lot of tools (I've done a lot of things suggested in the book), my goals for the students are right on track, and with a little tweaking here and there, I can easily pump up my instruction. Oh! And maybe I can make reading more interesting to the students, too.

Please, let me hold on to my dreams about students enjoying reading and writing.

Sometimes it's frustrating for me when I don't have all the answers. I've been teaching long enough that I should not have to work so hard at helping the students learn. In my last post, the parts that make it hard seem to be forces at work against me. Now that makes me sound all paranoid, like there's a conspiracy theory out there sabotaging teachers in their quest to educate the world's children. Crazy, isn't it?

So besides being cranky, now I'm paranoid. I'm well on my way to being an eccentric teacher! (That's a long-range goal.)

But in all seriousness, when I start reflecting on myself as a teacher with ideas, strategies and pedagogy from other educators, it actually makes me feel more hopeful about who I am as a teacher and what I can do to foster learning in the environment of my classroom. Oh, there I go again being verbose, but these are some key ideas.

Who am I? I read a lot about what other teachers have done, but I can only go with my own strengths and experiences. I cannot exactly copy what another teachers does. There's room for stretching and tweaking, but the more I know myself as a teacher, the better I can hone my skills. (And protect my weak underbelly!)

How do I foster learning? Don't we spend the majority of our time designing lessons and units? This is the heart of what we do. How do I get the knowledge into the students? How do I engage them? How do I get them to think? This is the area where I have so many tools in my toolbox, and although many of the tools work regardless of how old they are, some of them are like a cheap new can opener that won't cut the lid no matter what. Oh, and this changes from year to year depending on students. I suppose an important bullet point might be to know your students. If you don't believe students make a different, I can refer you to numerous posts about how my alternative high school students like to destroy every good idea I have ever had.

How is the environment of my classroom going to enhance learning? I would say that most teachers spend an inordinate amount of time planning how their classroom looks before the students arrive. It's a pretty big deal because how the furniture is arranged and where the pencil sharpener is sets up important structures that show students how learning will take place. (Only teachers are nodding their heads right now. Non-teachers are likely thinking, "What does it matter where the pencil sharpener is?") In the first few weeks, teachers work even harder setting a tone with the students, too. How do we treat each other? How many shenanigans can students get away with? How much will they be expected to be responsible for their own learning, that is, will they be able to just sit and get or will they be required to think and speak?

Whoa. I was just talking about reflecting about who I am and where we're going, and the next thing you know, I'm knee-deep in getting ready for the year.

This teaching gig is hard work, and it takes a lot more of behind-the-scenes planning than many might think it would. Whether you are a newbie or a veteran, as especially if you are in that 3-5 year range when things are really coming together for you in the classroom, take time to dig around in your books and files, seek out other bloggers (search their archives, too!), and have some conversations with colleagues. Afterward, Take some time to reflect. You don't have to have all the answers. In fact, the questions are probably more interesting.

Now, this is important--don't let that reflection get you down, like it did me earlier this week. Let that reflection give you power and hope that although you know more than enough to be a good teacher that there is still room for growth for you, too. Stretch yourself, just as you ask your students to do all the time, and tweak or add a few new things this year. I know that I'm not giving up hope on teaching until there is nothing else for me to learn. Or until I get my 30 years in.

Doubts, Irritations, and General Pissiness

2010-08-03T14:58:00.001-07:00

I miss being a wide-eyed optimist.

I'm being the kind of cranky teacher I always wanted to avoid, and sadly, it really didn't take me as many years as it should have.

Yesterday I had lunch with the other accelerated English 8 teacher. Our plan was just to ease into things, start thinking about what we'd like to do, and maybe take some notes on a to-do list. Of course, after we spent half the lunch catching up, we started talking about what we'd like to do differently this year. That is, we put a microscope on our weaknesses, and it didn't take too long before I started feeling like I can't do anything right.

But then, of course, why would we talk about the things that work? We have so many other kinks to work out. Too many kinks to work out. I'm no newbie, so what's with all the kinks?

There are just too many things to teach, and not enough time. Although English is pretty flexible, as there are a lot of ways to approach teaching the skills through speaking, reading, and writing, English class is like five different subject. I just named three. Let's toss in research. Okay, that only makes four. There's always grammar and vocabulary, but apparently, they falls under writing, and those areas vaguely mentioned in the standards now. However, without those foundations...

The pressure for students to achieve on tests is unrelenting. I feel that when I teach what I am suppose to, the students will leave with what they need. I believe that I could structure my classroom in such a manner that I could probably get to the things I need to, but with testing pressures, I have to teach in a certain way, placing emphasis heavily on one or two areas. Oh, and the tests are in February and March. I wish we'd test in May. Give me a whole year.

In the program in which I teach, there are some conflicts with the ideals--students centered, project-based, technology-rich, multicultural, well-rounded learner--and the testing mania. I am held accountable for both, and sometimes I cannot get it to work smoothly. It's taken me a few years to fully realize this, and last spring when our program was under review, these conflicts came to a head. I thought it was the big elephant in my head, but it turns out, he was right there in the room for all to "see." I don't know if anything can be done about these conflicts in ideals. It's just the way it is.

Just the way it is. Boy I get tired of doing with what we have. No, wait. Not just doing with what we have. This year we are bracing for the worst amount of us doing with what we have, which is more students and fewer resources.

Finally, and this one gets my blood boiling, has to do with students' performances and expectations. Some of the things we are working on improving are things that students simply did not do last year. Like reading logs and projects. And along with that conversation, we return to what we do if students don't turn in work. Take it? Take it with penalty? Give academic detention? So much of what I need to tweak in my classroom has to do with me making it difficult for students to blow-off or cheat on assignments; it has to do with me thinking of ways to keep them from academically hurting themselves. (Last year I saw the worst apathy, and we've heard it might be bad this year, too.) Sure, I can accept that sometimes I do things in my classroom that may not be best practices. Perhaps sometimes I'm wrong. However, there are many times when I do know what I am doing--I have plenty of experience and training--and the whims of teenagers screw it up. They have too much power, and they use it in the wrong ways.

I'm so full of self-loathing right now that I shouldn't post this. Do I hate my job? Do I hate the students? No, neither. I'm pretty cynical, though. I wish I had my rose-colored glasses because I'm pretty pissed off at the system and feeling stubborn and cranky toward the students I haven't even met yet.

Transitions

2010-07-30T19:50:00.001-07:00

August 1 is fast approaching. That's the day when I need to start thinking about getting back to work. Maybe more than think. Maybe looks at some books. Review my lessons from last year. Collaborate with colleagues.

The thought of going back to work is giving me anxiety attacks. I'm sure they'll wear off.

Okay, on the down-low here, I was thinking that I am not sure if I like these long summers. In some ways they are too long. The last few years I have actually forgotten that I have a job like everyone else, and I'm not spending my waking hours reading books, watching movies, and surfing the net because I'm wealthy. When the time comes for me to go back to my reality, it hurts. Seriously. Hurts.

Of course, I work my rear off during the year, and I think I deserve my vacation. I mean if that's what you call it. I really only get paid for 180-something days of work, and in the district where I work, they choose to spread my salary out over twelve months. But whatever the justification, maybe the allocation of time does not always help my mental stability.

For nine months of the year, I'm a whipped servant, a lowly teacher keeping her head low, just trying to do her best by the students. The other three months, I'm a lady of leisure, with money that magically appears in my bank account, thinking that I should do something charitable with my extra time. Ah, but I never get around to it. I'm much to busy with myself.

Funny, I know. It's my dream world. I must do it very well though because at one time this summer, my aunt said something about my not seeming like a teacher. The way I look? The way I act? I don't know. But I was playing my lady of leisure role very well!

Sigh. Two more days.

Transitioning to reality is hard. I need a 12-step program or a detox diet. Something to ease the pain.

Not As Bad As You Think

2010-07-29T20:09:00.000-07:00

cross post with Flickr photo project

"Being a teenager is not terminal," I tell the hundreds of students who've walked through my classroom door. That's not how I begin the welcome-to-my-class speech, but perhaps I should because over the years, I've come to realize that whether they are spoiled brats or hood rats, they are all messed up.

Sometimes my colleagues and I joke about how f'ed up they all are, but deep down, we're not joking.

We just wish we were.

Some ease the angst of adolescence with alcohol and drugs, a social way to fit in and while feeling better. Others withdraw into themselves, with some of them exiting through self-inflicted pain. I hardly notice those who float through life high or between highs, a condition I've come to expect but not to approve of, yet it's the cutters that break me from the inside out. Cutting can be just as lethal as binge drinking or overdosing on drugs, but to make yourself bleed just to feel...

I don't know.

It's so desperate.

No, neither the hungover nor the high affect me the way those cutters do--when they've come to me in a panic, rolling their sleeves up, revealing their fresh scabs and pink scars, knowing that in the end it didn't really make them feel better. They come afraid, clinging to their fears, not wanting to die, as they aren't suicidal, yet knowing they are too close to the dangerous edge when they slit themselves open.

But, what am I suppose to do?

I wish I could have stopped their pain before it started...
if only I could make them see...
life isn't as bad as they think--
things won't always be so unbearable.

Crawlies

2010-07-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

This morning I spotted something under the kitchen table that looked a little odd, and when I leaned in to look a little closer I realized it was a SCORPION!

Eek!

I called to inform my sweetie that he needed the exterminators to make a house call because I'd found a dead scorpion under the kitchen table.

While I was on vacation he said he talked to the neighbor, and the neighbor had recently found a scorpion, but that's the neighbor. His house is twelve feet away. (Ah, life in suburbia hell!) We have an exterminator and a security system. I'm suppose to be safe against what is out there.

I went out to the garage to get a broom to sweep it up, so then I could bag it up, but then it started scurrying around the kitchen floor. Toward me? Away from me? I DON'T KNOW! I JUST KNOW that IT WAS VERY MUCH ALIVE!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!

Thank goodness I didn't try to just pick up its dead body with a paper towel like I do with other undesirable creatures.

I beat it with a broom and call my sweetie back to tell him that the scorpion under the table-- where his children had eaten their Cheerios just a few hours before--had actually been alive.

Shivers.

Attention all scorpions in the area: I have no problem with you. You seem like very nice little creatures, well, except for the venom stuff, but you are NOT invited to visit my house. I have this tiny little space to live. You have the vast desert. Bug off!

Disclaimer: I am not always the weak wife who calls her husband over bugs and such. I deal with a lot of things around here, like other dead bugs and spiders; loose, bleeding baby teeth; clogged toilets; and the things that perished horribly in the refrigerator. He can take on this new heebie jeebie business with the scorpions.

Sneaky Thoughts

2010-07-13T06:50:00.000-07:00

It's pretty common that we teachers spend part of our summer planning for the next year. Goodness knows we seem to fall short of planning time during that year, and most of us are always bent on doing it better next year. I've been doing this gig long enough that I don't want to change a whole lot, but I might be getting a little stubborn in my old age, too. I swear I've been there, done that, and had the parent conferences about it. Nevertheless, at the end of the year, I knew there were some things I needed to work on...now what were they?

Oh, yes! That bag of journalism books behind the couch. Something about beefing up my curriculum. Less time for students to be sitting around doing things that could get us all in trouble.

Every once and a while, I have a flash about the need do some planning, but then I get distracted doing more interesting things.

Last year, I put my foot down and said that I would be taking the entire month of July off. No work. No talk of work. No planning. No research. I thought it was a wonderful compromise to being able to enjoy a guilt-free vacation and needing to spend some time preparing for my hectic life in the classroom. This year, I made myself no such promises, yet it wasn't too hard to do it naturally.

Some of you might call it procrastination. Whatever. I'm still on vacation. So, be gone thoughts of work! It is not time for you! Go have some iced tea! Chill out already!

Road Trip!

2010-07-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

What a great idea for me to get back into blogging this month. It's not like I'm going to be on vacation or anything. Computer gets a vacation at home, and blogging from my Blackberry bites. I'm doing the best I can here!

Mom and I are off to see Grandma, who is 800 miles from where Mom lives. She's about 950 miles from me, but I'm taking the long way, adding 500 miles, to go get Mom so we can take this road trip together. Road Trip!

People have been asking, "So, is your grandma okay?" Well, kind of. She's not in the best of health, and last year she appeared to be at death's door a few times, but she's a tough cookie. She's doing fine. But still...it's important to go visit.

My dad is not keen on taking the long trip to visit my grandma anymore. I can't blame him, and I've always said I'd ~~go with~~ drive Mom to see her if she would go during the summer when I'm off. I think my dad is pretty serious about not taking the trip because when I mentioned it to Mom a few weeks ago, she said, "Okay. When can you go?"

We've done taken a road trip or two before, but it's been quite a few years. In fact, I think the last time we went, I had a super-fun Mustang to cruise in, but that was before kids. Now, I have my sweetie's new Toyota (Wahoo! And, yes, we'll be eating and drinking.), but we can still put our shades on, sip our iced coffees, and look super cool as we wind our way up the Salmon River in rural Idaho.

Excuse me, I had to recover from my self-induced LMAO moment.

Seriously, though. It's going to be a blast hanging out with my mom. We'll take our time. Stop when we see something interesting, and just enjoy ourselves without the guys. Plus, when one approaches a trip with that ROAD TRIP! attitude, it just opens up the potential for fantastic things to happen.

Another Year and a Car Show

2010-07-10T07:30:00.000-07:00

Today's a special occasion! Okay, actual it's two special occasions because for one thing, it's my birthday, but it's not a monumental year or anything. Actually, turning 39 might be considered big one because later in life, this can be the age I'll lie and say that I am. Maybe this is a year where I should be taking notes about what was like for future reference.

I'll try not to reflect on just how old I'm getting because I'm going to an event where everything is older than I am. I hope, anyway. The fun event for the day is a car show where I'll be hanging out with my Dad and his car, Elda Mae. She's a cool little ride, and my Dad is sure proud of her. I told the story a few years ago when he just finished restoring her. It's a nice story about a man and a car.

A Little Thing Like Attitude

2010-07-09T11:13:00.000-07:00

During my anniversary month, I've been looking over my ramblings and wonderings, and I recently stumbled across what I thought was a pretty well-written rant. Many of my rants are stale, you know, with so many things in education, it doesn't matter how smart or experienced I am, some days it just seems I'm in an impossible pickle to do my job well. Furthermore, it feels like our whole education system is suffering in the same brine. Blah, blah, blah.

Please revisit one of my fresher posts I made about how something little like not doing one's work is either the root of all evil or is result of a hell our culture has created.

Can I get an Amen?

The Food that Binds

2010-07-06T19:30:00.001-07:00

A few years ago, I blogged about the bonding power of mangoes. When I think of mangoes, I think only of making my specialty, which is mango salsa. (Check out the post for the recipe.) Over the years, and I mean years, as I have been making this salsa for well over a decade that might even be creeping into two, I have tried to introduce this salsa to my dearest friends and family. Frankly, most of them don't get it. In other words, that means that the food I am known for with my best friends has been a complete and utter flop to many, many other people.

Regardless of how picky people can be, the one thing I know is that food brings people together. Furthermore, the more of a tradition the food it, the more it seems to bond. I was reminded of that over the holiday weekend while visiting friends. Miss June, my best friend's elderly yet spunky mother, just had to make her 15-minute chocolate cake. I think there has always been a 15-minute chocolate cake there when I've come to visit, but there was also a family event, so seriously she had no choice but to make the delicious chocolate cake.

I thought of asking for her recipe, which I am sure she would share with me, but it just wouldn't be the same, would it? It's not necessarily the cake itself. It's much more than that. I could say that it's about Miss June and the love she puts into it. I think it might be more about Miss June and the love we have for her. But it might also be the occasions for which she makes the cake. It could be a combination.

Around my hallway at work, I've become known for something other than mango salsa. I make brownies. These brownies are hardly anything special. I use brownie mix that I buy when it's on sale, and half the time I use applesauce instead of oil, so they are more cake-like than chewy. If I have them, I add chocolate chips, and I always add cinnamon. (Miss June adds cinnamon to her cake, too. Try it!) Sometimes it's Brownie Wednesday and sometimes it's Brownie Thursday, but whatever day it is, I'm a hero. I find joy in bringing a few moments of joy during a hectic week, and my colleagues appreciate a few moments to sit back and enjoy something special between lesson plans and grading.

Sometimes the brownies are shared in the back room, but usually they are wrapped in a napkin and carried out to be eaten alone in peace. Yet, somehow, the brownies still bind us together. Strange, isn't it?

What foods bind you with your friends and family?

No Food and Drinks!

2010-07-03T01:09:00.000-07:00

My sweetie traded in his car for a brand-spankin' new one a few months ago. And then he proclaimed that there would be no eating or drinking in the car. That rule is meant for the kids, of course, unless he ever stops wearing his shoes in the house, and then I might consider following his rule. Just kidding. I know the rule is for the kids.

Just look in the back seat of my car to see how this is an excellent rule. I am very careful about what the kids can eat (nothing sticky, messy, or staining) and drink (clear liquids), but it is still gross. I guess it's not sticky, but the stains on the seat, especially where the youngest one sits, make me wonder, "What has been going on back there?"

Our first big road trip in the car is coming, and I'm wondering how it will go. Hours and hours driving across the desert. Just looking at the desert makes me thirsty. And the kids, well, with a few granola bars and fruit roll-ups, they can last a lot longer without a regular meal, which is a good thing since rest stops and towns are few and far between where we're going.

We'll see how long this no food and drinks rule lasts. My sweetie is no pushover, and in fact, he's a tough dad, so he won't have much sympathy for kids saying, "I'm huuuuunngrrrrrryyyyy! I'm thiiiiiiiirrrssssssttttttttyyyy!" Over and over. This a bottle of water and a baggie of healthy treats, I've rarely heard this chorus, but that might all change.

We're going to have to stop more often, or I'll will have to murder some children. And maybe a husband. This new rule is going to change the way we travel. But at least I won't be embarrassed by my dirty car.

Flashback:

As much as I freak out about the kids and the messes they leave behind, read about the time I made a big sticky mess in the car. It still gives me nightmares.

Lemonade Out of Lemons

2010-07-02T00:12:00.000-07:00

"Hun, do you think you could take the car in for a service on Thursday? We can take care of that recall issue, too."

Hell no! Not having to deal with car stuff is one of the perks of marriage. Crap! I have nothing better to do, and he has to work, and I need the car to be in good shape for my travels in the next few weeks. "Okay. Call and make an appointment."

This appointment was slated for mid-morning, and the service was suppose to take "half a day." I asked my sweetie exactly what that meant, and he said he wasn't sure, but that's what the service tech told him. Great. Half a day.

I psyched myself into a long wait and picked an interesting book to delve into, but this morning, I woke up thinking, "Don't I have any friends who could come rescue me from a day of misery?" Oh course! In fact, my walking/bird watching/photography friend lives less than a mile from the dealership, so I called her to see if she was free for a few hours.

In fact, she was free for a few hours before she had an appointment of her own. We set out for the mall, which is not my favorite place, and is a completely foreign place to her. I had a little errand to run, and then we stopped for iced chai tea.

And then we just sat and chatted.

During the summer, I have recluse tendencies. It's hot outside, and if I leave the house, I just spend money, so why not stay inside where it's cool and save my pennies? Unfortunately, I forget how much I enjoy visiting with my friends. I forget how much I appreciate the connection. Sure, in the evenings, I have my family to connect to, but it's different. None of them are conversationalists, except for my 9-year old and he has the bad habit of just talking to hear himself talk, so half of what he says makes no sense. (Maybe it would if I were a young boy?)

Apparently, I'm not the only one who becomes reclusive in the summer, so the visit was particularly welcome when my friend and I both realized that as nice as it is to escape from work and the world, it's nice to come out and play sometimes, too.

I know myself well enough to know that I probably will continue to hide out in my home this summer, not wanting to be bothered with socializing with people outside my family, but perhaps I should seize the moments when I do have to go out to reconnect with my friends. It makes those errands of drudgery tolerable, and it will probably keep me from becoming too socially inept.

Happy Blogiversary to Me!

2010-07-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

It's my five-year blogiversary this month! Now, technically, the exact blogiversary day isn't until the end of the month, but that's okay because I'm celebrating for the whole month! Afterall, I have only celebrated one blogiversary at all during those five years.

Part of that reason skipping during the past is that I kind of think that blogiversary is a weird word. Oh, and not to mention, there are a lot of celebrations that others recognize IRL that I don't, so what's the big deal about a virtual one?

What's the big deal?

FIVE YEARS!

That's a long time for someone who did not even have a crystal clear vision about why she was doing this blogging thing. But then, I'm not in this to make money, so I've done quite well just saying things I wanted to say and gathering about five people who didn't mind listening.

In life, if one can gather a few people--friends--who can bear to listen to them through the good and bad times for five years, it's a pretty good life. I only have a handful of friends who have stuck with me that long, and I have no complaints. Although I have not risen to some great blogger status in five years is okay with me. I have met some pretty amazing people whom I would never have met without this crazy blog.

I've had some years where I was not a strong presence here. Honestly, in the past few years, while I was overloading myself with work, family, and professional knowledge, I was hardly a strong presence in my own life. Oh, what a strange feeling to go through life so detached!

At one point, I thought about pulling the plug on HappyChyck and maybe come back as someone else--maybe even just myself. I just couldn't do it, though. HappyChyck is too much of an extension of who I am. Bah! That sounds so sappy! I just wasn't ready to quit.

And now we're ready to party! But, uhm...how does one have a party on a blog? I am not good at parties. (Hmm...that's a story I haven't blogged yet.) Well, we'll do something. It will be fun. I promise.

So, BYOB, and stop by often this month!

The Teacher Shows Up to Lay Some Smack Down

2010-06-23T22:25:00.000-07:00

I've been on summer break for a few weeks, and for the most part, I am having no trouble forgetting what life is like for the workin' folks. Unlike Mister Teacher, I have not been doing any lesson planning at all.

The teacher in me is on vacation!

Or is she?

She popped up for a visit this after when I went to the grocery store and reprimanded the bagger, who might have actually been an adult, but he looked like a teenager to me. He was acting like one with the checker, who also happened to be a floor supervisor, when he had the audacity to claim that she didn't tell him to do something that she said she had. It wasn't just a claim, either. He was arguing with her. You know how these kids get. They just can't say, "Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn't hear you." And then do the thing they were suppose to do. No! They have to argue and bicker.

Hey, I know kids like this. Some of them are contrary just for sport. (My stepson is this way, too, and he may not even live to be a teenager if he doesn't get it in check.) I'm not going to say that I don't get dragged into a little spat from time to time, because sometimes it just happens before I even realize I'm in the middle of a stupid argument that I should win but probably won't. My stock comment is, "I'm not your mother. Don't talk to me this way." (With my stepson I say, "Excuse me? Who are you talking to?") Okay, usually that just makes the kid angry because apparently I've insulted his mother in some way, but 99% of the time it ends the scene.

Back to the grocery store--the bagger was being a punk, trying to pick a fight with the checker about what he claims she didn't tell him to do, and I interjected, "You know, it is a poor reflection on you to be doing this right in front of me." He looked smug, but a little confused that I should insert myself into his argument as I continued, "No, really. It makes you look like you aren't the star employee you should be." Not a big deal at all, right? But he stopped talking and started bagging my groceries.

Of course, this message could have been for the checker, too, but she was old enough to remember a time when subordinates had the sense to say, "Yes, ma'am," and move on. She was probably ill-prepared to have to deal with his immaturity in front of customers.

The truth be told, I was a little embarrassed that I said anything. This was totally none of my business, but that little teacher just popped out of my mouth before I even knew what happened. Not that I was embarrassed or sorry enough to apologize, though!

(Did I tell about the time when my hallway teacher voice came out when went to the movies?)

I Cannot Bear Facebook Today

2010-06-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

And these are people I know from different parts of my life... One is my colleague, one is a high school classmate, and the last one is a former student. Two of the three have at least one college degree. Sigh. Three in a row on my feed! Is this a conspiracy?

I know I shouldn't judge because I make plenty of errors when I post my status--especially when I post them from my phone. My excuse is that I am a terrible texter. Seriously, I'm a bumbling idiot. I often delete posts when I see that I've made some stupid error, which usually includes misspelled words or omitted letters and words. It's embarrassing to me!

When it comes to the people I know and their little errors, I am not usually a snob. It makes some friends and family uncomfortable enough just thinking that I judge them, which I don't. I really don't care how they talk or write to me. I love them, and we are not part of the elite. We are just folks. (Children are a different matter, though.)

However, there is that other part of me. The English teacher part. I can only be bombarded with so much non-standard English usage before I start to feel like I am being assaulted. Yes, assaulted. It's one of those straw-that-broke-the-camel's back kind of thing. I'm irritated to the max, and if I didn't enjoy being able to catch up with friends and family around the world through Facebook, I'd quit the site entirely. So, I'll be taking a break. Right now Facebook ranks right up there with this brain-numbing site.

Ama

2010-05-27T17:04:00.000-07:00

I have been an English teacher for long enough that I can see why students make certain mistakes. Most of them are quite predictable, so I typically try to address the common problems before I see it too much. Usually the students are quite shocked to find that they are even making errors. Often my bilingual students are the worst because they do not understand that what we say is not what we write.

The evolution of cause (worse: cuz) is easy to explain to students.

Incorrect usage: My sister boyfriend is a tool cause he dropped out of school.
Of course, that sentence does not make sense because, technically, cause is the wrong word. It makes no sense in the context.

So, I show students: because --> 'cause --> cause --> cuz.

I don't need to give you the details; you know how this disaster happens. It has to do with how we speak. No big deal, right? Just use the real word in your writing. Are you imagining me in front of the classroom explaining this devolution? I always like those days because I see light bulbs going off all over the classroom along with a chorus of "Oh! I didn't know!" From juniors and seniors! Hilarious!

In the last few years, I have seen of joins the verb ranks, nearly putting poor have out of a job. This one is frustrating and harder to explain to students who simply want to use the language well enough to pass their proficiency writing exams and get a job. Even more, it's absolutely entertaining seeing students who know the difference interact with students who don't.

A conversation between two students in my creative writing class:

"'My brother should of given me some money.' This is suppose to be have not of."
"Huh?"
"It's should HAVE, not should OF."
"Are you sure?"
"YES! SHOULD HAVE. HAVE. HAVE!"
"Uhm. Okay. I guess--Hey, Ms. HappyChyck, is it should have or should of?"

And then a series of eye rolls follow (between me and the students who know the answer to this easy question) as I calmly answer, "Yep, it's have."

It's during time like those that all the suffering I endure being a blasted English teacher is worth it.

As in tune as I am to these common writing issues in my classroom, so much that I hardly blink an eye over them, this week one of my students who just joined my class this quarter introduced me to a new crazy devolution of language.

AMA

As in, "Ama miss you next year." This is what the student wrote in a letter to a teacher she was thanking for helping her in her education. A letter, I need to add, that would be given to her teacher--not just a random writing assignment. A real letter on nice paper! Time to make a good impression!

I called her over to so I could help her revise, and I said, "What the heck is this?"
"Ama."
"You mean, 'I am going to,' right?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"You should change it. Nobody is going to know what you're saying. Use some real words, even if they are contractions."
"Oh no, Miss, she'll get it!"
"I doubt it."
"No, she will!" And then the girl went bouncing back to her seat like she had no worries in the world.

Does anyone have a gun? A needle? Please, shoot me now!

I just sat like the speechless, powerless fool I am.

Sometimes I hate being an English teacher.

Scrabble Time!

2010-05-22T18:01:00.000-07:00

My high school students have fallen in love with Scrabble.

My high school students, although in a creative writing class, are reluctant writers. They are not lovers of language. Some of them could not spell their way through a ransom note. Yet, they beg to play Scrabble. It is the most amazing thing to me because last year when I tried to introduce Scrabble to students at this school, they just didn't get it.

It started as a Friday activity, when classes are only 30 minutes, and then we found ourselves to the time of the year when the students--they are seniors, afterall--are just DONE. And they just want to play Scrabble. And for some reason, I was okay with that. Honestly, I was okay because I'm tapped out in finding writing topics and projects for this fickle bunch.

Anyway...

Call it word play. Vocabulary development. A cop out. Whatever. I can spin it so we can do it.

They didn't just play regular Scrabble during out little word play unit. I taught them some variations on the game, and they found some of them rather challenging.

Theme Scrabble was the first one we tried. I told students to play the game just as they normally would but to try to build words that were school-related. That night I gave extra credit to students each time they built a word related to the theme. The students were excited to earn extra credit, so that was a big motivator.

Proper Scrabble should have quenched their desires to always use proper nouns, as that's ALL they could use when playing this version. Of course, it proved to be difficult, but that's the point. Think, little darlings, think!

Anagrams or Clabbers was a bit hard for them to catch onto at first. Actually, they didn't use true anagrams when coming up with their plays. They were able to simply put down the word in any order that they wanted. This made them think about strategy a bit because they were able to put down high-point tiles on the bonus spaces.

Tonica was interesting because all the tiles were divided up at the beginning of the game, and those were the tiles they had to work with during the whole game. I told students that they could still get the "bingo" for having words with 7 or more letters, so of course, the scores were high for the game. I was interested in seeing the various strategies. One group just played as usual, but another team spent most of their time with their noses in dictionaries trying to come up with the longest words possible. Nose in a dictionary? Seriously. Wow.

After a few days of this, of course, the most natural thing for me to do was to ask each team to make up their own variation of the Scrabble game and then give it to another team to play. The day we played the student-made variations, I only had students enough for 2 teams, so I am not sure what all the game variation ended up being, but here are some of their ideas:

all tiles passed out, and the person who has a word with a z ready to play starts the game
players have enough tiles to fill the tray at all times
all words put down can only be animals or colors
all words can only be placed backwards on the board
drink theme--drink names get 50 extra points (I was fearful of this risky topic, but surprisingly, they did not pervert the game at all.)
bonus point squares are only good if the word is a drink, otherwise, points are normal
a player can trade hands (or rack of tiles) with another player at any time if an agreement is reached

All in all, I thought their games were rather creative, and they thought the other groups' game instructions were fairly easy to understand and the variation were definitely fun to play.

I know I don't have much time to play such games in my regular English classes, so this is really only a wacky kind of thing I could have some leeway with in creative writing. I've just been in awe how attentive my students have been--not to mention how much thinking they've actually been doing in the name of playing games.

Burst

2010-05-06T03:12:00.001-07:00

You know how small children often get that burst of energy just before they have to go to bed? They get super hyper, running around, acting crazy, being loud, and in general, driving their parents a little loony at the time of day when they are the most tired?

Well, I believe my 8th graders are having a burst of immaturity in the last few weeks before they move onto high school.

Work independently and silently?
Foreign, incomprehensible concept.

Walk into a classroom, sit down, and be ready to work?
Seriously, children, do I need to model that for you in May?

Listen while others, especially the teacher, are talking?
Do you lose your home training, too?

Do your work and turn it in.
What am I giving you time for during class? It's not to talk to your friends.
What's so hard? Do. Your. &%*$. Work!

It's not just in the classroom that they are a mess, either. In the hallways, they congregate like they are on a 15 minute coffee break when they only have 3 minutes to get to class. After school isn't much better, as they mill around the hallways cackling and goofing off. Go home, already! For students who are so disconnected from their academics, they are awfully bound to campus at the end of the day.

Yes, I know, it's about seeing their friends. I got that. Thank you. Still irritating.

Of course, part of this is my problem because at this point in the school year, my patience level is virtually nonexistent.

We're are in such a pickle.

Back to Normal Life

2010-05-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

I finished my master's program this week, and I am not knee-deep in papers to grade this weekend. I'm a little lost. Really? There's nothing pressing that I must do? So this is how the other people live. Interesting.