First day of School...Part Deux

New year, New grade, New students.What isn't there to love about this time of the year? I've decided to keep this blog as a short diary about my daily routine as a teacher instead of what my blog turned into, which was a philosophical look on education. I would rather just remember the fun and horrible things that happen to me each and every day. Let's talk about how this was the worst day EVER! The other 5th grade teachers had the same thought, so it doesn't make me feel nearly as bad about myself. Just a talkative group of kids I suppose. Let me run off a list of horrible things that happened.
- Was supposed to spend a large portion of the day having my kids take some math tests on the computers...computers didn't work.
- Got new computers, they didn't have the program on them so I had to scrap the whole thing.
- As I was trying to frantically put names and passwords into the computer for the tests that we didn't take, I had a kid come to me bleeding from the elbow.
- While I was helping her, another kid farted. YEP...during a silent coloring time.
- Decided to scrap everything we had planned for the last hour of the day to work on policies and procedures. (why didn't we plan to do this for the first 3 days anyway?)
- Had the superintendent and principal pop into the class in the middle of a new math program we had to start today.
- Started a new math program that explains math in a way I don't even understand.
ETC...ETC...ETC...
I'm complaining a lot, but really it was a bad day. Just motivation to come back stronger the next day I suppose. I hope it can only go up from here. Also, decided to drop out of the math endorsement program and we haven't even had our first class yet. I have a feeling it's going to be a long year. I'm super excited for the adventures along the way.
Plan for tomorrow...Have another first day and forget today ever happened.

IT ALL ENDS!!!

It turns out that I'm awful at this blogging thing. I just read my last post and didn't realize how long it had been since I last wrote. The last three months went so quickly. Most of it was just reviewing and testing. In fact, A LOT of it was just testing. During this time we enjoyed some fun events at my school. We had our play day, our swim day, our read-a-thon day, our 4th grade trip to Salt Lake City, the school district mile run, and our yearbook video day.

We also had another up-day. This is the day where we meet our class for the upcoming year. Up until the last day of school I didn't know where and what grade I would be teaching next year. I was on the cutting block to be transferred to another school, but things eventually worked out to where I was able to stay at the same school and teach 5th grade for the next year. This is a job I have wanted for the last 5 years. I would even go as far as saying that it is my dream job.

Up-day was a fun time because I was able to to keep 9 of my 24 kids for the next year. These kids are so great and I hope I can do a better job next year for them. As I sent the other kids to their next year teachers I saw a look of confusion on the remaining faces. One of them asked if they didn't pass the 4th grade and I joked around and said, "Yes." Then I hit them with the news that I was going to be their 5th grade teacher and they seemed relieved. They seemed excited to be with me again, which is a comforting sign for me.

There is a lot I want to talk about, but the post is long enough so I just want to end with two of my favorite scenes from my favorite movie The Shawshank Redemption. As a first year teacher I feel like Andy Dufrane, the show's main character, as he made his escape from prison by crawling through 500 yards of sewage. I had to crawl through policies, procedures, gossiping, backbiting, lesson planning, and federal and state regulations. Unfortunately, I think I will have to crawl through a similar tunnel again this next year as I switch grades and change curriculum. I hope the tunnel is shorter and the smell not as bad, but I hope I learn just as much as I did my first time through.



I don't enjoy the politics in education, but I really do love my students and my classroom. Morgan Freeman, who plays the character Red, said it best. "These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them."

Hello blog, my old friend. How have you been?

Life is grand and I'm starting to get a hang of this teaching thing. The reason I haven't written in 4 MONTHS is because it took a lot of time to get to this point. What point? The point in my career where I feel comfortable not spending half of my week in my classroom and the other half doing work for my classroom at home. I hadn't quite figured out how to mix play and work together. I still haven't, but I feel less guilty when I just have fun.

Let me run down a list of events that have occurred in my classroom since my last post from November.
- Saw the production of "White Christmas" at the high school
- Took a few kids to a performance of "The Nutcracker"
- Had a school Christmas concert
- Took some kids to "The Music Man" at the Ellen Eccles Theater
- Went and saw Scrap Arts perform at the Ellen Eccles Theater
- Celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentines with some pretty awesome parties
- We learned some...stuff...as well

I feel like being a teacher is like being trapped in a time vortex where the time seems to pass really fast around you, but inside the classroom it tends to stand still. It seems like just yesterday I had walked in and greeted my students the first day of school. Only when I leave the worm hole of time, which is my classroom door, do I realize that I've actually been there for almost 8 MONTHS! I only hope that my kids have learned something from me.

I've changed routines, teaching methods, ideologies, and philosophies so many times that my mind is just a big jumbled mess of matter. I'm trying to wrap my head around the things that I've seen work and (more commonly) those that haven't. I hope I'm a better teacher than I was when I started. I hope I'm still as excited to walk into my classroom 120 days into the school year as I was on day 1. I PRAY my kids are smarter on day 180 than they were on day -1. I get really scared that they will have digressed instead of progressed.

This is my greatest fear as a teacher. I never realized how hard it is to reach EVERY SINGLE STUDENT! I've really tried, but no one has ever told me that it's not possible (insert "gasp" here). We've always been taught that we HAVE to reach everyone and that if we don't then we are to blame for their failure. My real job as a teacher should be what my mentor and life hero Rafe Esquith has once said. "Kids do not have an equal opportunity in our schools, but once given that equal opportunity; the students must produce." Once I realized that all I need to do is at least PROVIDE a chance for them to succeed, the students must then be the ones responsible for their overall success. You can lead a horse to water...

Here is a clip of my hero talking about a book he wrote a while ago. I would highly recommend his books to every teacher and parent. you can also visit his class website http://hobartshakespeareans.org/

CARPE DIEM...but who has the time?

So the phrase may be a little cliche...especially since Dead Poets Society came out. It seems like every teacher wants to be the next John Keating and be the inspirational teacher that every student looks back on and says, "Remember so-and-so? That teacher changed my life!" Well, I would be lying if I said I never wanted to be that teacher. The fact is I want everyone of my students to look back and say that about me.

I had so many pipe dreams coming into the profession. I wanted to do so much with my students. I wanted to take them to plays, concerts, and musicals every week. I wanted to stay after and show up early to provide extra help to anyone who was struggling. I wanted to start clubs, create programs, and just BE THERE for them when they needed me. Little did I know how exhausting being a teacher would be. Although I do show up 30 minutes early for school to help kids that need it...no one shows up anymore. Although I do take kids to plays and musicals, I can only go about once a month and only take a handful of students. Although I am THERE for my students when they need me...I'm also NOT THERE.

Team meetings, ESL classes, new teacher meetings, math workshops, faculty meetings, and committee meetings. This takes time out of my day. All of these things are supposed to help me reach out and help my kids with different teaching strategies. I think the one strategy that I would like to use is just spending more time with them. It seems to make sense that the more time a student spends learning in school, the better they do in school. Schools that implement longer days usually have better scores in every subject. So can we please get rid of these meetings and instead of TALKING about seizing the day...LET'S ACTUALLY DO IT!

Halloweenie

Halloween is great. One of my favorite shows as a kid, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, had a great Halloween episode entitled Halloweenie. The basic plot is how the older brother feels like he's too old to go trick-or-treating with his younger brother for fear of being made fun of by his schoolmates. (A short clip is found here) What a great show first of all. Secondly, what a great message. I hate when people start to ruin things for children. Kids lose a part of their childhood the minute they stop believing in magic, ghosts, or even Santa Clause.

I was so happy to see every student walk into class that last Friday with not only some great costumes, but an excited attitude for the Halloween festivities. The school that I work at is so wonderful. They have the best celebrations and activities. I get sad when other schools don't let their kids dress up and do fun things. Sure the day was almost a total waste and very little learning was going on, but when was being a kid just about learning.

I don't remember the day I learned long division, or when I learned to hate math. (It may have actually been the same day) I do, however, remember the scary story my teacher read to us on Halloween in fifth grade. I do remember learning that awful dance in 6th grade where we used the poles and utterly bombed our performance in front of the other 6 graders. I do remember all of those little things I did during school that had nothing to do with the Core Curriculum, but it made those other long days of sitting in those rock hard chairs more bearable.

Also, I hate the news. Why is celebrating Halloween so controversial? Is there nothing more important to talk about? I'm sure hundreds of people are dying in foreign lands every day due to disease, war, or shortages of food and clean water. I guess it's better than hearing about another child that Brangelina are adopting. Here's to Halloween and all the rights and rituals that go along with it. ksl.com - School Halloween activities: fun or waste of time?

SEP Time...where is my 5 Hour Energy when I need it?

Ummm...Life is great, but teaching is tough. I had my class going in the right direction behavior wise and then the system decided to throw the proverbial stick into my teaching spokes. I recently added two new students to my class. I hope they catch on to my classroom management plan because they are making it difficult to focus on teaching. Very intelligent kids though. I don't know if that's a blessing, or a cursing. People tend to turn a blind eye to trouble makers if they don't screw the school's test scores up. I think that's where the real travesty in education lies.

When people look at education and say that it's broken, they look at their math and science test scores. REALLY!? Is that all we care about in society these days? In a world of Enron and Bernie Madoffs, what good does it do to teach someone math if they use their skill to cheat and lie to others? I wish they had a test for decency and honesty because I bet those numbers would be more disheartening than the math scores. If we could get those imaginary, but very real, scores up I'm sure the math and science scores would follow suit.

I digress and proceed to talk about how unprepared I am to deal with parent teacher conferences this Monday and Tuesday. They have been handing me test scores to give to parents that I don't even know how to read, let alone explain to others. Speaking of tests, there are about 5 of them that they have already taken and none of the numbers make sense to me. Most of the testing seems to be so ridiculous and self serving to me. They have to read 115 words a minute in order to pass one test, but then we tell them how important it is to take their time and carefully read each sentence so that they can predict, pick up context clues, and understand their text.

Other than the fear of not knowing what I'm talking about, I'm really excited to meet ALL of the kids' parents. I'm so intrigued that just a simple meeting with them tells me so much about their background. It should be a great experience. I just hope one of them doesn't end up doing this to me. I guess the real horror would be turning into her. Cheers

I am the captain of my... classroom

Although the movie may not have done so well, I enjoyed it. I had just finished Nelson Mandela's biography "Long Walk to Freedom" before the movie had come out. It may or may not have taken over 3 years to accomplish this task, but after a countless number of reading hours while watching a gajiliion Bill Nye videos during my days of substitute teaching, I had finished the deed. (I should teach myself about run-on sentences)

As I reflect upon the life of Nelson Mandela and after downloading the TED Talks App for my iPad (Such an awesome toy) I've come to a conclusion. I need to be passionate about something. I want to make an impact on education as a whole, and I don't believe being JUST a teacher will help me accomplish that. I've had a HUGE wake-up call the last couple of days and I've been thinking a little too much perhaps.

I once believed my passion was to be the best teacher in the world. After the first full month of teaching, I've come to the realization that this just won't do, or probably happen. In a way I hope that it never happens. I feel that goal has been very selfish and helps no one but myself. I believe everyone who's ever accomplished, or who hopes to accomplish something that changes the world, has done so selflessly. They think of the greater good and then sacrifice their time, talents, and a countless number of both tangibles and intangibles for that cause. Such is the case with Nelson Mandela.

So now what? That's the question I've been asking myself for the last little while. Everything I've done for the last 4 years was done so I could accomplish this one goal. Now that I've reconsidered my hopes and aspirations, what do I do now?

Firstly, I need to figure out my number one priority. Even if I did know what is was, I'm apt to not say. I've recently heard (here)that if we say our goals out loud, it becomes less likely that we accomplish them. So I guess mum is the word on this one.

I still aspire to be the best possible teacher I can be. I've always had that drive to better myself. I guess the only difference is that I'm not going to compete for that title of "World's Best Teacher." Even if it does come with an inscribed coffee mug and bedazzled t-shirt that had such a saying emblazoned upon it. Being on the inside of education has opened my eyes to how we can better run the system, but especially better treat and educate the youth of tomorrow's world. Bring on the LEARNING REVOLUTION!!!