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?

Sunday Night...again

It's amazing how fast the weekend goes. I'll wake up on Saturday thinking I have so much time to play, then in a blink Sunday is here again. And yet again I'm not ready for school. Go figure.

I had an interesting conversation with another photojournalism teacher tonight. He teaches at the new middle school that was just built in our district. I've taught with him before at an elementary school a few years ago. He moved up from teaching first grade to 8th graders. What a switch. But he's a wealth of knowledge. He has a degree in education and journalism, so he kind of knows what he is talking about.

As we were talking today he was getting worried about the direction he was taking his photojournalism class. Apparently the computer teacher at his school is pushing his students to think outside the box, think of big issues, think of things beyond themselves. While this is great, it's wonderful to force students to think of more than they are....this has some drawbacks. Our students are only 11-13 years old. There is only so much "outside" thinking they can do. I think it's important to remember they are still kids. As grown up as they think they are, I still see little kid tendencies.

With my one journalism class, I'm trying to take it slow and build a strong foundation before we even begin writing anything. We just began writing our first article on Friday. The topics thrown out during our brainstorming meeting: school lunches still horrible, first day of school, 6th graders scared and lost, new students from one of the K-8 schools coming to our middle school, our principal still being long winded on the intercom system, sports tryouts happening, cross country starting, 115 degree heat at the end of august, our lovely librarian coming back to school (everyone missed her so much at the end of the year)....and the best of them all: the girl fight on Friday morning before school on the courts. Yes, my students wanted to write about the girl fight.

So there is a level of maturity, but it really doesn't extend all that far. I allowed them to begin writing about the fight, but there were guidelines they had to follow. These guidelines were more like "here is your barbed-wire lined path you must follow, do not dare try crossing these lines for fear of certain death". The lines were: 1. you must give the entire account from all sides. 2. You will NOT call names or say who "won" under any circumstance. 3. You must put the school policy on fighting into the article and state why fighting does not solve anything. 4. Discuss alternatives to fighting. Sooo yeah. We'll see how this article fleshes out. I figure that this is news to them. I am here to guide and direct, and to gently direct back to the acceptable range. Hehe, fun days.

But in talking with this other photojournalism teacher, I've realized how much I really do know. I've spent so many hours pouring over the material because I don't know what is going on. There are a few things that have sunk in. Yes! That's good. Now if I can just apply them. I'm good in the philosophical and ambiguous nature of education. I can think of ideas for lessons and how to get concepts across to students. But ask me to apply, and I fall apart. Though the farther our discussion went, the more I realized that what I was saying actually made a little bit of sense. Double yes! In the end, he felt more comfortable in the direction he was heading with his students. They are for all intents and purposes kids still. They are just a little bigger than normal. I'm not prepared to treat all my students as teenagers/young adults 2 weeks into school. They need to show me they can handle being treated like adults. For now, I'll stick with what I have. It's worked so far. If it ain't broke don't fix it!

As far as lesson planning, 7th grade is good to go. I'm still working on 8th grade. And I get to teach an additional class on Monday. Super. There goes my only break in the afternoon. I'll have to get someone to come in to watch my class so I can pee. Yup, I need pee break person. Nice.

Hazards of teaching middle school: germs and urinary tract infections. It's so glamorous!

80's Redux

Here is a list of accessories I saw on students walking through the halls today. Please keep in mind that the current year is 2009

1. Slap bracelets
2. Large cheap plastic jewelery. (I don't think this is so out of place. Any middle school girl's jewelery collection consists of this, but the colors, oh the colors.)
3. Hair backteased and hairsprayed 4 inches about normal height
4. Neon dayglo colors
5. Acid wash jeans ( ON A BOY!)
6. Enough skinny pants to circle to the moon and back.
7. 3 toned backpacks in the following colors: day glo pink, day glo yellow, and day glo blue. (are we sensing a trend?)

And to cap it all off.....

A headband worn around the forehead and pushed up to poof the hair in the back, made of.....braided metallic leather!

I swear on my life all these things are true. The 80's are back in full force. It's not pretty. Can someone please change the decade of choice for fashion?

Other news, my stomach has finally calmed down enough so I feel almost human again. Being sick while trying to teach is not a fun combination. I'm not a fan. But I'm almost back to my normal self. Worked my students to the bone today. I had 7th period copying lots of notes. Almost handed out band-aids on the way out the door. They typed so much their fingers started to bleed. Hehe.

Sunday Night

It's Sunday night. I have to get back into "normal" for myself. That normal is going to bed early on Sunday so I can get to school at a decent hour. I've found that I either need to come into school extremely early or stay crazy late to get my own stuff done. I'm the tech rep for my campus, which means when someone's technology malfunctions, I am the first call. Which isn't bad, I get to be out and around campus instead of stuck in my little black hole. But it does interfere with completing a full thought. I'll get started on planning/preparing something and someone will stop by my room. I'll fix their problem, or attempt to, then go back to my planning. By that point I can't remember where I've stopped at.

So the moral of the story, get planning done before Sunday night, or go to work earlier than everyone else.

While I've spent the weekend in bed, I've had the chance to cruise around some teacher blogs from all over. I was sucked into one. The more I read this particular middle school teacher the more I liked what I read. He was articulate, well spoken, thought out, and generally seemed to know what he was talking about. The best part, even though the medium of a blog, I could sense his passion for his craft. The more I explored the more I wanted to know. Then I saw a picture that made me stop and stare for a second. It was the exact same picture a fellow teacher from my district sent out depicting his day of "professional development". This teacher I had just spent the last hour or so researching is a teacher in my district. Even worse, I met with him before school started. At that time I practically dismissed him because he didn't say much.

Go me. I need to remember to be slower with my snap judgments. It's a huge problem I have. For some reason I can't wrap my brain around another teacher going through the same issues I am. I don't know if it stems from dealing with adolescents all day and how self absorbed they can be. Maybe it's rubbing off on me. Or maybe I'm reverting back to an adolescent view of the world. Either way, I felt plenty chagrined at myself. This particular teacher is a huge resource. He may not have been teaching computers for the last few years, but it certainly more well versed that I originally thought.

Moral of this story: Don't judge someone because they aren't saying anything.