Back in the groove

So I've been out of the blogging thing for quite a while....a long while.

Life has been interesting and I've done quite a few things since the last time I actually logged in.
- bought a house
- met new friends
- kept my job as a middle school computer teacher
- went on a life changing trip to Nepal

The last one has sparked me to begin blogging again. I've had many people ask me to explain/tell/share my experiences while in Nepal. I want everyone to know how much fun I had while I was there, how much I learned about the Nepali people and myself, and just generally share the amazing once in a life time experiences I had. I figured that this would be the easiest way to do it.

Originally I wanted this blog to be about only school and how I deal with my students. I'm realizing that I don't want to be defined as just a middle school teacher. There is so much more out there that I can contribute. I tend to pigeonhole myself into being a "teacher" and not exploring other facets of myself. So in an attempt to expand my horizons, my blog will be expanding as well. I'm hoping over the next few days I'll post a day by day account of what I did, where I went, what I saw, and the experiences I had.

Hope you enjoy! I'm excited to relieve and remember myself!

OOpps

The last 3 weeks of my 7th grade classes have been consumed with learning how to create a Keynote presentation (yes I am that much of a MAC snob I make my students use Keynote instead of Powerpoint blah!), learning how to find key information from a web page, then taking that information and presenting it to the class.

Once the students found out that they were going to have to present their information and slides to the class, one of them yelled out, "But Ms. V! I'll die!". I looked at him for a second and responded. "That's okay. I know CPR. I'll bring you back to life, stand you up, then have you finish your presentation." He didn't like that response. I've said it so much though that my students can now finish my sentence for me. It helps to break the ice about presenting to the class. I don't make them stand up in the front, they get to hide in the middle of the room by my teacher station. All of the lights are off so we can see the projected images. And they get to use my fun little clicker remote. So it's not the most threatening environment at all.

I purposely gave the students a choice of 10 semi-exotic animals to choose from. I didn't want 100+ presentations on "dogs" or "cats", let's learn something new please. That might have been a tiny bit selfish on my part, but for goodness sake, I'm the one that has to sit through and grade all of these!

The last 2 days have been spent trying to calm antsy, scared, and wiggly 7th graders down just enough to present a 5-7 slide presentation and speak loud enough for the entire class to hear. I'll entertain you with some of the highlights that I learned:

- Pandas are big bears, they can be up to 75 cm long.
- Seahorses live in the ocean so it doesn't really matter how much they weigh, the water keeps them up straight.
- Snow leopards are endemic to Asia (pronounced enemeenenc, pretty much mumbled) I could tell this student did not put their research into their own words.
- Snow leopards have yellow underpants. Yes, that is exactly what was said, yellow underpants.

The best part, all of this was happening while I was being formally observed by my assistant principal. I'm just trying to keep a straight face hoping that he's not judging my teaching skills based on the incredibly factual information my students are presenting.

I did have a kid who was so wiggly while she was presenting that tripped herself and fell over down to the ground. It took all I had not to laugh, but to instead keep a straight face, help her stand up, then tell her to continue. I think we need to discuss "proper presenting postures" or something to that accord. I just want to say, "Don't wiggle so much, it's distracting!"

My Friday did end on a good note though. After my AP stuck around in my clas for the ENTIRE hour. Normally he just pops in looks around, listens for about 10 minutes then leaves again. This time he stuck around longer. Either he was enjoying listening to kids present, or he was trying to hide from other people. (My room is located down an empty hallway with no other classes in it). After he left my 8th graders were coming in and being rowdy as usual. As I was giving the instructions for the day's assignment, my AP comes back into my room dragging the principal with him. What? He wanted to show "the boss" something that I had created for my students to learn different programs. It's something called ScreenFlow which allows you to record what is happening on the computer screen along with a video of yourself talking. I use it for students who were absent, or who need extra reminders of how to do the program. They both were really impressed. Yahoo!

It's great to be acknowledged for what you are doing correctly. No one really bothers me in my room. My administration trusts that I'm going to teach what I need to, and they pretty much leave me alone. But when they do come in, it's nice for them to be excited about what I am doing and how I am trying to reach all of my students.

Yay.

Lost in translation

I overheard this conversation between two 8th graders earlier this week:

Student 1: I need to translate my file, how do you do that again?
Student 2: Oh, put it into the folder so Ms. V can translate it for you and give you a grade.

Me: Do you mean, transfer?

Student 1: No, translate. That's when you move something over to a different place, right?

Me: Oh my.

Love my students. Their misconceptions and all.

Where does the time go?

So I've realized that it's been waaay too long since I posted something. It's amazing how life can just pick you up and sweep you away before realizing it.

So this blog was meant to be (in my eyes) a tribute to all things "teachery" that happen in my life. I've come to realize that it's extremely hard for me to differentiate between school and the rest of my life. Probably not the most healthy thing to do, but it's me, so whatever. Things that happen in my personal life affect my work at school. Just like things at school affect my personal life (ie: did I finish planning for next week, that will affect how much fun I have on the weekend).

So instead of writing a huge in-depth dissertation of last week, I'll just give the highlights.

Saturday 9/19: spent 4 hours sitting at the Scion dealership getting an oil change and having them fix my back window. It now goes up and down with ease, hurray! Especially since PHX is returning to a more normal state of temperature. I can actually roll down my windows again. I did manage to finish all my lesson planning for the week due to the fact the dealership had wireless for it's customers. The slowest wireless on the planet (I think it was dialup).
Sunday 9/20- spent 6ish hours at church in meetings. Nuf said there.
Monday 9/21- At school from 7.30-4pm. Then raced as fast as I could over to teach teachers how to use an extremely involved software program that is Amazing! Promethean products should be in all schools if I had my say. One of the only interactive whiteboard systems that is made by educators for educators. No outside commercial sales. Truly innovative and responsive to student needs and learning. Now if only teachers would relinquish their reign at the front of the classroom and let the kids learn with it, that would be the ideal. Finished at 7pm then ran over to church for our monthly potluck. 200+ people and I still don't know them all.
Tuesday 9/22- Taught at school from 7.30-5.30, then raced home. Met with a friend from my church leadership group to go and meet new members of our congregation. Home by 8.30pm.
Wednesday 9/23- Taught at school from 7.30-5pm. Came home to have a presidency meeting with the women's leadership for church. 7.30-9 had bell choir rehersal. It's really the one thing that I truly do for myself. I've played in a bell choir for the last 4 years. I love it. They are so christmasy and beautiful. I've staked my claim at the top of the line. I love the little little bells because I can fit more of them in my hands and play double octaves. I've been proclaimed as our choir's designated "bell hog". I think I can live with that name.
Thursday 9/24- Taught at school from 7.30-2:20 (early release day), then sat in a staff meeting from 2.30-3.40. Raced over to another technology teacher meeting to learn about Adobe Photoshop and how to begin using it. Super fun. Most of it I already knew. Then stood in the parking lot with my technology supervisor discussing the woes of our district and just because "it's always been done that way" doesn't necessarily mean that it's right for students. It irritates the living daylights out of me that we continue to bang our heads against the wall expecting things to change just because we put a new committee name or new title to an area. Isn't the definition of insanity "Doing the exact same thing over and over again expecting different results"? For heaven's sake let's shake things up and see if we can get different results! We decided at 9.30pm when the cops circled the parking lot and a 4 door sedan came around the backside of the building and shut it's lights off that it was time to go. We followed each other out of the parking lot until we got to the highway.
Friday 9/24- Taught from 7.45-3.40. Raced over to meet with my Realtor to look at houses. The PHX market is amazing right now. Even I, a single girl with limited income, can afford to buy a house right now. But not any of the ones we looked at last night. Just a quick rundown of the 8 houses we saw
#1- LOTS of work needed. Tile was laid, but furniture was put back in place before grouting. You could see where the grout lines stopped, at the bed, dresser, cupboards, cabinets, pretty much anywhere a piece of furniture stood. Still had the tiny X pieces though, wouldn't have to buy those!
#2- really old but lots of charm. No bathrooms or fridge, 4 of the 10 windows were broken, and the "guest house" was a 6 1/2 foot 23 foot long coffin.
#3- occupied by a "tin foil hat guy" would need $100,000 on top of what I would pay to make it habitable.
#4- built in 1925, cheap price, but the entire house bowed from the middle. Not a single right angle in the entire place. Squishy subfloor and scary bathrooms.
#5- Backyard was next to manufacturing plant, missing windows
#6- lots of tile, very loud and echoy, exactly 2 1/2 feet of backyard. I could touch the back wall by standing in the sliding glass door.
#7- same layout at #6, but broken in glass door (all boarded up) and right next to the canal, serious security threat.
#8- no kitchen, period. Nasty carpets, weird smell.

So there's my week. Fun huh? Under everyday where I placed "Taught 7.30-4pm" there is just so much more that goes into that. I just don't have the patience to relive it all this afternoon. I am so stressed out that I can't even remember the funny things my students say to me. I can usually always remember silly quotes. There is a breaking point, and I might be at it already. It's only week 7 and this is no good.

Well I'm off to drive by more houses. My Realtor told me to not get discouraged. She actually believed that we wouldn't find something last night anyway. Soooo, yup. I'm going to keep on looking and hopefully find something before the end of the tax credit runs out. That would be sad to miss out on the $8000 the government is willing to hand over to new homeowners. That's me!

Signing off...
Teacher Teacher!

Appreciation

This last week has been a struggle, I can't lie. The school year is only 4 weeks in and I don't think that anymore can physically be placed on my plate. I should be quiet. I'm sure that there is a minuscule tiny place somewhere on my plate that is still unoccupied.

Last week Thursday by far was my low point. I got into school at 7:45 am. At 8am I had a team meeting which consisted of a member of administration come for a "quick 2 minute" explaination. During this "2 minute" explaination a member of our team wasn't completely paying attention. This particular member is rather vocal when things aren't going her way, so when she realized that she wasn't understanding, fireworks ensued. Neither the member of administration or my team member took the time to stop and listen to each other. This led to a 10 minute "discussion" between the two. Ugh. We finally got the issue resolved.

I then moved to yet another meeting discussing the "pendulum shift" that is happening with our grading systems this year. Of course this information was on classified lockdown. The federal government has nothing on my school district. Our new report card system (which is COMPLETELY different) is totally web-based. I'd like to voice a concern, or few about this.
1. The system is extremely unstable right now. It has been unreliable since the beginning of the school year.
2. There majority of our teachers are extremely tech-unsavvy. Techno-petrified is more like it. I have two teachers that have completely refused their laptop computers because they didn't like them.
3. During report card time, all teachers will be attempting to place their grades into the system. On the same unreliable server...at the same time.
4. Our ever intelligent district has decided that the middle school platform for the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades was.....too expensive. Right. So let's just not take care of those students, who are part of your district, not give them the evaluation tools they need.

This meeting lasted until 9:26. I know this because that's what time 2nd period started, and the administrator leading the meeting had gone over....way over. I do not have a 2nd period class so I stayed to voice these concerned. Should not have done that. It just made me even more irritated. I left that room at 9:45am.

I had now been on campus for 2 hours and been in meetings for just that long. I only had 18 minutes to prep for my day's classes. Super. The classes went well that day, until 7th period. 7th period is always a struggle.

Then, at 2:30pm I had to attend another meeting until 3:40. So of my school day, I spent exactly 3 hours and 10 minutes in meetings. INSANE! There's got to be something wrong with this picture.

My real reason for posting tonight, not to gripe about how bad last week was. Even when the week is terrible, there is always a silver lining.

I have to preface this story a tiny bit. My AP came to me at the end of last year asking if he could strike a deal with me. He wanted to trade me a class period for a lunch duty. Which means, I lose my lunch period, but gain an extra period off. Sure, I was game. Unfortunately, once school started, the rules changed. Orignially I was going to eat lunch during the 5th period intervention, where I did not have a class. Now, I am currently teaching an enrichment intervention. So, I lose my period to actually eat lunch. No biggie, I grab my sandwich between classes. But it makes for an extremely long long long day.

So last week, I forget the day, I'm headed out for lunch duty. I have my polka dot umbrella, a must in the oven baking heat of Phoenix, my sunglasses, watch, whistle, and had just picked up my radio from the attendance lady. I was tired and irritated that I had to go outside. As I was walking through the office on my way outside my AP said to our principal: "Have you told Teacher Teacher! lately that you really appreciate how she goes outside everyday on time with a radio?" My principal was slightly taken aback, but did immediately say that I appreciated what I was doing. Even though it was just parroting back what my AP said, I still appreciated it.

It's amazing what a little appreciation can do for a person. It didn't erase any of the frustrated feelings I was feeling from the massive amounts of meetings I had spent in that day. I didn't take away the fact that our district is so technologically backwards I was to cry. It didn't fix the fact that our teachers work so hard, but yet struggle to get our kids to read. It doesn't change the fact that we have 7th graders reading at below a 1st grade level that do not have special education issues.

It does change the fact that I am appreciated, if even on the smallest level, during the school day.

This is my job....

So people ask me what I actually do during the day.

I say that I studiously plan out every minute of my classes, making sure to include background knowledge, follow up activities, extensive planning for hours and hours ahead of time. I ask in-depth questions that access my student's higher order thinking skills. I challenge them as they've never been challenged before. I know exactly what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and how it is going to affect my student's and their work. The problem: others don't see things the way I do.

If you were to walk into my classroom today, you might see me with a camera in my face like this:

Or working on my jumping pictures shots like this:
Truly there is a reason behind each of these pictures and why they were taken during school. I won't bore anyone with the actual details. Unless you really want the lesson plan and reasoning behind it.

But....I can see why it's joked about in our teacher lounge:

"She doesn't actually teach anything. She plays on the computer all day."

Struck by lightning!

Our writing prompt for journal/bell work today was:

Have you ever been in a thunderstorm before? What was it like? Describe the thunderstorm. What did you see or hear? How did you feel? What did you think would happen? Use a simile or metaphor to better describe the storm.

(we are working on describing things in detail, using actual words instead of bcawz, l8r, u r 2 4unny, OMG!, etc)

I walked by "Bob" in 6th period and read the following:

Getting struck my lightning sucks. You feel all tingly and your muscles move when you dont want them to and you have to stay in the hospital. You go all blind and deaf and stuff for 2 weeks after it happens. Never get stuck outside again. You will so be hitted again by the bright stuff it can find u.

I had to reread and then ask him. Yes, he was totally and completely struck my lightning.

I know my comments are messed up. Can anyone help me turn them on, or atleast figure out what I did wrong?