So here I am experiencing my second Teacher Prep week. Wow.
Last year, I was just trying to figure out what everyone was talking about AND trying to meet my new coworkers. This year, I'm amazed by the amount of crap from last year that I've still got that I don't want.
Last year, I had no idea what I was doing - I'd had some loose training (one week long orientation) and my alternative certification program, but I was nervous and really kinda unsure of what to do when actual children arrived in my classroom. This year I know what to expect, job-wise at least, and I have a better understanding of teaching and working with children.
Last year I hoped I would like teaching and wondered what I would do if I hated it...or the children. But I had a great time last year - I wasn't the best teacher, most 1st year teachers aren't, but I feel pretty sure I didn't scar anyone for life and my students may have learned something too! (Most of my students even passed the TAKS test!)
This year I've got some great ideas (that I know will work), much more confidence in myself and my teaching skills, and I'm looking forward to the kids that are coming up to 8th grade.
This year will be better than last year - amazing how experience can greatly increase confidence, yeah.
The kids return next week - can't wait!
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Last year vs. Now
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Saturday, July 28, 2007
GT Training Week
Went to a Pre-AP Training for the entire week and it was amazing! The trainer was wonderful and real and shared with us so many ideas and lessons and skills that I'm kinda spinning in circle with all the things I want to implement for the new school year.
Now I can't wait for school to start! Only 3 weeks to go.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Mmmmm, cupcakes!
Thanks to several of the food blogs I worship, I've been hankering for cupcakes for months. I finally made some tonight. Just a plain vanilla with a hint of lemon and a chocolate cream cheese frosting...yummy.
Special thanks to Jaay D. over at Culinarily Obsessed for the vanilla cupcake recipe. The frosting recipe was yoinked from one of those random recipes on All Recipes.com.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
10 Reasons Why I Love Teaching
For lack on anything better to do, here are
10 Reasons Why I Love Teaching
10. Two degrees in English Lit - What else am I supposed to do?
9. I hate office work - With teaching, I always feel like I'm accomplishing something on a day to day basis, not just shuffling papers around pointlessly.
8. Love of the written word - I enjoy sharing that love with others.
7. Variety - It's the ultimate job for the multi-tasker in me. There's at least 16 things that need to get done on any given day, and that doesn't include the teaching.
6. Freedom - This goes with #7 - as long as the requirements are met, there's a lot of room to maneuver and get the job done. Creativity is prized since it can be hard to keep the kids' attention and have them learn at the same time. There's a certain "magician" quality to teaching - you gotta keep the kids (and parents) watching the left hand so they don't notice what the right hand is teaching them.
5. Fellow teachers - Middle school teachers are a bizarre lot, and the longer they stay, the weirder they get - I love that. I am that. There's a certain quality of interdependence and competition woven into the whole mess. And there's also ALWAYS someone you can turn to for help, support, or just venting when it's all just too much.
4. The kids - For the most part, even the pains are neat in their own way. Since I deal with 12-14 year olds (the occasional 15 y.o. thrown in for variety), it's an interesting and exciting time to be dealing with them. At least I think so.
3. Creativity - Not just mine, but the kids are pretty creative when given the opportunity (and often not on purpose). As an English teacher some of the stuff I'm trying to convey is dull and/or confusing - that's when thinking creatively comes in handy. Then again, sometimes you just have to know when it's game time and have a good one at hand.
2. Autonomy - While I do have to answer to administrators and parents, it's up to me - in my classroom - to get the job done as best I can.
1. It's fun. - Some days you just need to know when to call it a day, play some music, and toss a ball around the room. (All in the name of education, of course.)
A pleasant surprise
Today's been okay so far - caught on the freeway in a torrential downpour, not so great but hey, I didn't crash or die so that's a win. I finally find a place to nest at my favorite coffee haunt (or at least one of my favorites) and decide to check a semi-defunct email address - why do I have three email address(FOUR if you count the one at school)?
SIDEBAR: I know I have one for "throw away" spam-esque mail - for years Hotmail was so regularly and heavily spammed I quit using it for anything except junk mail, you know, the kind where companies and websites insist on having a "valid" email address. END SIDEBAR
Anyway, I check my gmail account and one of my students has sent me photos that she and her best friend had taken on the last day of school! And she reminded me that they love me. Wow. This is ONE of the reasons I teach...it's so cool to know that they remembered I'd said I wanted copies of the photos. Neat, huh.
That made my day.
Monday, June 25, 2007
One Month into Summer
I did not anticipate being bored this summer...but I was totally wrong. I cannot find anything to do other than work on my lesson plans for the upcoming school year, read blogs, and drive around wasting gas. I clearly need to find something to occupy my time. On the other hand, my first six weeks is planned and I'm going to start working on my second six weeks sometime this week.
AISD middle schools participate in a program called Laying the Foundations (LTF), a study/prep program to help get Pre-AP students prepared for the Advanced Placement (AP) classes and testing they'll have to do in 11th and 12th grades. Teachers attend workshops and in-services to help us better utilize the study materials and lesson plans LTF provides. I didn't make much use of the LTF stuff last year - hell, I had no idea what it was about even though I attended the in-service trainings during the year. It came as a huge surprise to learn that the kids were going to be tested over what they should have learned using LTF. Oops - my kids didn't learn that. Sorry, didn't have time to squeeze it in. Darn.
Well, at the beginning of June I got a chance to go grade the LTF written exams (a paying gig, too!) and learned a lot about LTF and it's goals/expectations for the students AND the teachers. They actually provide materials to make teaching the lessons easier and more manageable. I also got a chance to speak with my department head about the level of rigor the 8th graders are getting - we both think it's not challenging enough for them. So now I'm working on writing my lesson plans to be much more rigorous - more reading/writing opportunities each six weeks. The great part is that using the lesson plans LTF provides, I won't have as much work to do or have to scramble to find work for the kids and they'll do much better on the End of Course exam in May. It's also part of my goal to become a better teacher.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Sunday, May 13, 2007
My first summer vacation
School's almost out! I only have 13 more days until I'm off for the summer. This is the first time I've ever had the summer off. I almost have no idea what to do with myself. I wanted to take a class at ACC but those jerks don't offer payment plans for the summer - not that that will stop me. I can still take a class in the second half of the summer but we'll see.
Reflecting on my first year, I've realized that I truly do love teaching. It's fun and interesting and even occasionally exciting. In all honestly, it's also frustrating, exhausting, and aggravating. It's almost never boring. This is the first job I've ever had where I haven't wanted to quit when things got hard or overly stressful.
I'm looking forward to meeting the next batch of kids and making changes to my lessons, rules and approaches and finding out what works best - fine tuning my approach and skills.
I'll be back at Bailey next year but after that my plans for the 2008-09 are either to obtain a job working overseas somewhere (I'm wide open to a certain extent) or move back to Houston and begin searching for a house. We'll see what happens between now and then.
I'll miss this batch of kiddos though. They'll always be really special to me.
Monday, April 16, 2007
TAKS
It's TAKS time in Texas! Imagine it if you can, over the next four days, for 3.5 hours/day, the students at BMS, all 1200 of them, will do nothing but test. They aren't allowed to get out of their seats, except to go to the bathroom, or to talk. They get one 15-minute break and then it's back to testing. Most will finish the test in under 2 hours, and then sit there with nothing to do for the remainder of the time. Once testing is done, teachers will walk them down to lunch and then, THEN, they will continue on a convoluted and confusing schedule for the rest of the day.
It's a brutal schedule and, personally, I feel it interrupts the flow of the school year. But what do I know, I'm a new teacher. I'll do whatever they tell me to do and just try to keep my kids on track as best I can. It's amazing how stressed out everyone has become though. The kids, the administrators, me. TAKS is such a big deal that everyone's kinda panicky about getting it right and making sure our scores aren't invalidated by something as silly as a kid talking during the testing.
At least we'll get snacks and a chance to catch up on our reading. Teachers aren't supposed to even grade during the testing time, so I'm going to lesson plan and read. A masterful use of my time, don't you agree.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Spring Break
I was really looking forward to the week off and let me just say, I had a great time. Didn't do much but anything that didn't involve kids was a brilliant time. Drove through Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Mostly ate and drove to be 100% accurate but that was the whole point of the trip.
Now I'm ready for TAKS testing and the discussing the Holocaust...yay.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Will it never end!
I am still grading! I really am not a fan of timed writings but the kiddos need to do them and get used to writing clear and articulate essays on random topics that they could care less about. The problem is reading 100+ essays on "my mom/dad/brother/sister is my hero because..." I've got approximately 40 left and it's proving very difficult to get through them. It must be done today; as you can see I'm totally on it.
Many of the essays are fantastic and about someone other than a family member.
I like those. An enormous amount of them are entirely too personal and make me feel like I'm invading their privacy. Never ask a kid a personal question - they might answer it.
On another note, I had my first "encounter" with a student outside of school. I was walking through Target and I hear my name in a schoolroom tone (fellow teachers know what I'm talking about). I turn around and there's one of my students. It was awkward and weird since I live almost 30 miles from where I teach. Apparently he was visiting his dad who lives in my little town. Neither of us knew what to say after the initial hellos; we just wandered away from each other after that.
Enough stalling, back to work.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
All complaints week
Testing, particularly standardized testing that the kids don't take seriously, is not my favorite thing in the world. Especially when it requires fiddling with the bell schedule and everyone's all confused and nobody knows where they're supposed to be.
On the upside, I'm still sick but my grading's almost done...wait, that's only half-good.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Grading...ugh!
Never give 3 writing assignments in the same week! I'm now trying to get two short answer assignments and a timed writing graded by Tuesday. Usually I try to avoid telling my students when I'll have their writing assignments back but I made that mistake last week and now I have to live with it. Since I've been sick, I figured I'd just plow through them this weekend and be done with it. I am clearly a little too optimistic.
On the upside, I feel better after almost 11 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Sleep usually helps me kick whatever funk I've picked up at school in any given week. Although at Christmas I ended up with bronchitis and laryngitis. Good thing I didn't have anywhere to be for those two weeks.
Ah, well, back to grading.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Blech!
I'm sick but I went to school anyway today. It got pretty bad by 6th period - my eyes were blurring, I kept losing my train of thought (twice the kids had to remind me what I was talking about), and I was pretty sure I'd vomit at any given moment. After that, it took me almost no time to realize I need to stay home tomorrow; that isn't at all what I want because we've got an in-service on Monday. I didn't want to lose teaching time this week since we lost so much time this month due to Winter Break and the MLK holiday and the ice storm.
On the other hand, it's nearly impossible to teach when you're trying to calculate the time it'll take you to sprint to the lady's room and toss your lunch. So I'm staying home tomorrow.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Huh, Fall Semester's done
I'm stuck at home and have been since the beginning of "Icemageddon" on Sunday. I've left the house for a grand total of 2.5 hours since then...once in the sleet/snow flurries just to be out of the house for an hour. I walked to the only open convenience store in a 6 block radius. I didn't fall even once!
AISD has been closed since Monday, first for MLK Day and now because of the Winter Storm "gripping" the Hill Country and basically making it impossible to drive anywhere without getting intimate with an immovable object like a tree or telephone pole or stalled car. So I've decided to reflect on my first 4.5 months of teaching.
For the most part, I do not completely suck at it! Many of my kids like me, which surprises me, and not too many hate my guts - if they do, I don't know about it. I've got a group of girls who hang out in my room and a group of boys who will actually talk to me and try to make me laugh. I genuinely like almost all of my kids and even the annoying ones are funny in their own unique ways. These are great kids and I enjoy working with them.
I was reading my last post and I've got a good chunk of my discipline issues under control - even 3rd period no longer drives me nuts. I finally figured out that I can just toss the troublemakers out for the class period, and then still hold them responsible for the material they miss. It clicked one day that while I'm responsible for the learning of 120 kids, I am not responsible for their obnoxious behavior and I don't have to put up with it. Yay, me! Plus, I have a habit of just telling them that too. It's all on them. Realizing that makes me feel so much better and more confident.
In the interests of full disclosure, I still suck at lesson planning and 85% of the time only vaguely have an idea of what I'm doing. Crazy. Occasionally I'll ask the science teacher across the hall how she's doing (she's new too) and find out that she feels the same way. That makes me feel better. Apparently that's the norm for new teachers. I kinda feel sorry for these kids because they're the unfortunate recipients of my enormous learning curve...but amazingly enough, they seem to be learning. Kids are amazing like that - they learn even though I'm not sure that I'm teaching them anything.
I have to say that I really love what I'm doing. It's not boring, it's hard but not too hard, and even the administrative work is only annoying when I'm not sure what I'm doing and why. I've known for years that I wanted to teach but it's great to have it confirmed as the right, possibly even perfect, job for me. I definitely don't want to do anything else.
Now if only I could leave the house and get back to work, I'd be happy...or at least immensely less bored.
