On Having Hope

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.