3 Weeks In

This week was the busiest and most tiring week so far. We had meetings, we had Back to School night, and I had piles and piles of things to grade. I attended all of the meetings, which went quickly & painlessly. This weekend, I will tackle 90% of the grading. It won't take too long, since it's all homework and classwork & a credit/no credit situation. As for Back to School night... it was the smoothest one I've had to do so far.

I really don't like meeting parents, probably due to the fact that I know they all have different expectations of what a teacher should be. Some of them want me to be the Grammar Nazi English teacher that will beat their children over the head with spelling, grammar, reading and writing. Some of them want me to just pass their kid, no matter what. And some of them DGAF what I do, as long as their kid learns something and I have a reason behind my actions. I'm betting that all of them expect me to be (or at least look) older. I used to try to impress upon them that I was that intimidating teacher (to the kids) and that they can trust me with their child's education by trying to be overly professional sounding, even though I look like I graduated last year. I don't do that anymore because it's ridiculous. I got tired of worrying if they automatically judge me as incapable due to my appearance, which I have no control over. (My mom would probably say they were just jealous of the fact that my family ages well, even though she once commented on how my 7th grade science teacher looked too young)

Truth be told, most parents are afraid of me just because I am The English Teacher. I know we've ALL had an English teacher that was a major bitch, no matter what you did. I had a few teachers like that throughout school--nothing you do will ever be good enough, they have ridiculously high expectations, they find it rude if you sneeze or cough without asking you first and punish you for ever smiling. Oh, and they correct your grammar at all times and look down on you if you don't speak or write "correctly". You don't know how many emails I've received from parents that have a note somewhere in there mentioning how bad their grammar and spelling is and to not grade them (or their student) on it.

Based on this, I went into this Back to School night with a different mindset. I dressed nicely (which netted me a lot of compliments that day) and I came up with a great plan to use the Promethean board to show my class website, the syllabus and the online textbook. These parents want to know that I mean business and I know what I'm talking about, but they don't want to be intimidated by me. I finally took the same approach I have with their children and applied it to them: I may look young, but I am an adult. I let them know that I know what I'm talking about, I've done this job before and had success, I'm approachable, and I'm more than willing to listen to their concerns. I don't care if the kids are intimidated by me, but I don't want their parents to be.

Unfortunately, this approach does not work on parents who like to intimidate teachers. Nothing I can do about that, though.

Things That Make Me Glad I Teach

There were a lot of reminders today about why I'm glad I teach. Here's a list of 5 things:

1. Hugs

I have my own personal bubble that I don't like kids to enter most of the time, but there are times where student hugs are nice. A majority of the hugs I get are from former students. Most of the former male students I have usually make a big show of it, yelling, waving (flailing) arms and then squeezing all the air out of me. I still appreciate it, though.

2. Emails

Every now and then, I get emails and facebook or myspace messages from former students. Most are like one facebook request (I have a separate facebook just for students) I got today from an Old School student that went something like "Mrs. P!!! I MISS YOU! I LOVE COLLEGE!"

But this is one email I got today:

Hey Mrs. P i just finished watching Finding Forrester starring Sean Connery. It got me thinking about my writing and how you helped influence me. My creative juices started flowing after I got into the movie and the plot thiccened. I really could relate to the main character Jamal Wallace in the movie because he grew up in the Bronx surrounded by the hardships of life and growing up without his father. Another good movie that got to me is The Hurricane starring Denzel Washington. It's based on a true story about Middleweight boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and his wrongful imprisonment for 20 years. I never tell people this but my favorite book is The Phantom Tollbooth written by Norton Juster. It's crazy because I dont remember how i got the book or how I began to read it. Once I got through the first chapter I was hooked lol. That book alone had a strong part in molding my imagination. Many important aspects of my life play a part in my writing. For instance, growing up without a father, me being a Crip because of me not having a fatherly figure, the death of my uncle when i was 8, losing my my cousin to the pen, all the drama and bull around me, and so on and so forth. I started with music to escape but when I combined that with my writing I really began to blocc out the madness around me. These were just some thoughts on my mind. Love to hear from you soon. Sincerely, [name removed] Lil Malcolm X He also emailed me again when he realized he wanted to tell me that he decided to reread Catcher in the Rye and see if he liked it more the second time. I told him that I brag a little about how brilliant he was, how great his writing was and how proud I am of him. He was supposed to go to school after graduating in June, but money issues got in the way. I know he'll get there one day and I know he'll love college. BTW, he signs all his emails with his name and 3. Stopping by Slowly, but surely, former students have been stopping by my room--in the morning, at lunch, and after school. Usually, they just stop in to say hi, but there have already been times where we've had deep conversations and laughed so hard we almost cried. It boggles my mind that they want to spend that much time with me because I'm always thinking, "Why aren't you out there, in the hallways, like everyone else?!". 4. "I miss your class" From a high school student, this is almost as great of a compliment as "You look nice today!". Most HS students are so busy being bored, they forget to enjoy class. It's always great to hear them admit that they miss a class, which leads to #5... 5. When they remember things It's great to hear them say they miss my class, but even better when they remember something we read. I love when students remember small things we read or wrote about and how it affected their life because I never expect it. What I hear while teaching is "Ugh, I hate this. This is so boring," and what I hear later is "Remember when we read that? Hilarious! Remember when we wrote that? I loved that assignment!". Who are you and what have you done with that other kid I taught? I hope to remember these things when I hit those rough days that happen throughout the school year. Those days are when you need reminders of why you do this the most.

The First Week

The first week of school is over and we're now heading into the second. This one was my fifth first week of school, and the fourth one by myself. This was definitely the least amount of nerves and the smoothest start to the school year. That is a nice feeling.

So, my students are still in the honeymoon period, where their true selves haven't quite shown up yet. We haven't had any breakdowns, meltdowns, blow ups, etc. yet. You gotta wait until after Thanksgiving for that (or Halloween, if it's gonna be that type of year).

I started the year off with two ice breaker games: Did you know bingo and candy introductions. Both went really well, thankfully, and the kids had lots of fun. We also started off the year with a new project that combines them identifying their purpose in English class and creatively expressing themselves. I also started off this year with a quiz on basic grammar concepts, which most students did well enough on to make me happy.

Here's the run down of my classes:

1st period: Mostly freshman, with a few repeaters. Pretty quiet so far, but starting to warm up.

2nd period: Mixture of first time freshman, freshmores, and a few that are taking English 9 for the third time. Most of the kids are chill, but the repeaters are a little testy already. This class has the girl that listed 4chan as her role model and "trolling" as an interest & hobby as well as the atheist boy who said George Carlin was his personal hero. I have a lot of different types of kids in this class, which could be awesome or completely horrible.

3rd period: Mostly freshman. I'm not sure if I have a repeater. I also have the least amount of kids with IEPs and 504s in this class. From day one, this period has been HILARIOUS. I absolutely love these kids already. This class is full of personality, intelligence (their journals were fantastic) and energy.

5th period: My new 5th period is so quiet compared to last year's! They were a little quiet to begin with, but when they're done doing their work, they like to play Would You Rather? a lot.

7th period: My 7th period last year was pretty awesome, but I think these kids beat them. There are a lot of really smart, intelligent and energetic kids in this class. From day one, this class came in ready to learn & have fun. We've already had some great discussions. I'm looking forward to spending the rest of the year with these kids.

I'm hoping that my odd day kids can stay as awesome as they've been, since I was given a full schedule on that day. I have four classes in a row on odd days and only two (2nd and 5th) on even. It's pretty lopsided, but I'm getting used to it.

As for my former students, quite a few have stopped by or yelled hellos at me in the hallway. One of them is my student involvement worker this year, so I see her every day. We had a Unity Day to welcome in the freshmen last Thursday and once I walked into the gym, a few of my former students spotted me, yelled and whooped. That's a good feeling!

Pre-Service Week '09

I love pre-service week. I love being able to have a whole week to work in my room and talk to teachers about our ideas for the upcoming year.

What did I do with mine? The usual: working, meeting, chatting, sweating, moving, bitching, moaning, and being professional developed.

The thing I worried about most this summer was confirmed on Monday. I was moving rooms. The administration didn't have a certain answer for me when I left in June, but I got an answer on Monday. All of Monday, between Convocation and a school-wide meeting, I moved from my upstairs room to my new room downstairs. I'm no longer in room 208, but I'm not changing this blog again. :)

At first, I was frustrated. Why couldn't they email me during the summer and let me know? I would've come in earlier and moved! Then I decided just to get it over with and see it as a fresh start for this year. Last year, I moved into another teacher's spot a week into the school year and never got to set up the room the way I wanted. This year I got to do that and I got to do it in a new room (a blank slate). By the time I left on Monday, it was all set.

Tuesday started off with parking in my new assigned parking spot. It is sooo much better than the one I had last year. It's on the academic side of the school, so I no longer have to walk all the way through the school to get to my room. It's also right next to the door. Since I had to move rooms on Monday, I decided to bring in all the supplies and books I bought over the summer on Tuesday. This new parking spot made the two trips I had to take so much easier. I quickly put away all of the supplies and headed off to the first professional development of the week.

The first PD of the week brought great news (for me, at least. Some weren't too happy about it): we are switching to a 4X4 block schedule next year. WOOO! For those of you who have no clue what that means, it means we are switching from a 7-bell schedule (7 classes for the whole year) that has 4 classes every other day (one meets every day) to a schedule with 4 classes per semester that meet every day for 90 minutes each. I love the 4X4 schedule, probably because the HS I graduated from switched to it and it made my life a lot easier (and I learned a lot more). As a teacher, this means a lighter student load and one planning period per day. Also, the students can no longer use the excuse of the every other day schedule to claim they don't remember homework, tests, quizzes, etc.

After that PD, we were let loose for lunch. The county I work in has a lot of new development happening, so we headed to one of the new restaurants that opened over the summer. Since pre-service week is one of the few times in the year where teachers have enough time to go out for lunch, most of my department jumped at the chance. We headed to what my department chair now calls "The Fox & The Hound". We actually went there twice during the week and it was DELICIOUS. I was so surprised! A lot of students from New School work there, too, which is cute to see.

Wednesday was full of working, chatting, and a meeting or two. I finally finished my syllabus for English 9 as well as English 10. I had to finish my room so it was ready for Freshman Orientation the next day. My room and my syllabi have never looked better! I think this is definitely the best job I've done of getting my room and information together.

Thursday was the Busy Day. It started with Freshmen Orientation. The freshies went off with Link Crew to have fun and be introduced to the school and upperclassmen who can help them through the year, the parents were stuck with us. First, we sent the parents to the auditorium to meet VIPs, then we went them to homeroom to sign papers, then I had to meet the three classes of Freshie parents. After meeting the parents, I watched all of my former 10th grade babies walk by in their new Junior attitudes and positions as Link Crew leaders. They were excited to see me and I was excited to see them. They were doing a great job and I beamed with pride as they walked by. A few of them stopped by after they were finished, lamented that I wasn't teaching English 12 anymore, and told me they'd talked me up to friends that have me this year.

Let me tell you, I hate meeting parents. I love talking to parents after I've met them, but I hate getting ready to meet them and I hate the initial "Let Me Tell You What My Class is About..." speech while they stare at me. I hate it mostly because I always end up right in front of the parents who give me the look that says, "You don't look old enough to teach my child. Are you qualified?" Nothing makes me more nervous than seeing that look on a parent's face. Gives me chills just thinking about it now.

One really awesome thing happened while I was meeting parents: A parent of a sophomore I had last year told everyone in my 1st period group that her daughter just loved me and my class last year, and her daughter hated reading and writing. I told them all I paid her $20 to say that. At least my 1st period parents will have good reports for their kids...

Anyway, I met a lot of parents, gave them my selling points, then breathed a sigh of relief and talked with the teacher next door about how much we were sweating after it was all over. She looks young like I do, so we bonded over the fact that all the parents probably think we graduated from HS last year.

As if meeting parents wasn't torture enough, we were sent to a three hour long professional development about high standards. This lady lectured at us for three hours and then said, "This was supposed to be 4 days." FOUR DAYS of PD into THREE HOURS! There were no breaks, either, so at one point in time, my legs cramped up and my bladder almost burst. I'm one of those people who hates getting up in the middle of someone talking, no matter how badly I need to and no matter how badly the lecture is because I had a few teachers scare the ever-loving daylights out of me whenever I needed to get up in their classrooms. It's a phobia that's stuck with me even though I highly doubt anyone would interrupt their own lecture to tell another professional to sit down. I ended up doing it anyway when I just couldn't take it anymore and everyone else in the room had gotten up and moved at least once.

I have no clue what she said for the last 90 minutes, either.

All in all, this was a very productive pre-service week. My room is set up, the homeroom materials are on the desk, the syllabi are copied and ready, and all my ice breaker games are ready.

There are so many positives so far this year, that I can't help but feel that it's going to be great. I have a new classroom and a great bunch of teachers that have welcomed me to the first floor. I have a great administration: a new AP who is hilarious, and a principal and AP that complimented me on my ability. I have former students who have stopped by and who have made me proud already. I have a department chair who is hilarious and a department as a whole that are motivated and connected. I have a great new co-teacher. I've already had another teacher say they want to come into my class and see what I do and learn from me. My room is next to a teacher who cracks me up and is new to the school, like me.

Basically, some things are new, but I feel comfortable. I know what I'm getting into, I know the people I work with, I even know some of my new students. I still have a few nerves and anxieties about the first day, but this year I'm not half as nervous as I was before. I don't think I'll ever meet a new group of students without some nerves, and I'm okay with that. I think this year will be a lot more smooth than last for many reasons and that makes me incredibly excited.

Seeing the other coast

This is a little overdue, but I kept doing other things and then going "Ohh, yeah, the blog..." around midnight.

So. This summer continued to be busy after Michigan. I had a week of rest, then headed out to the other side of the country.

All of this flying this summer made me realize something: I've developed an uneasiness about flying. Not quite a fear, but definitely not the easiness I remember having flying up to Canada and back multiple times. This was not helped by having to fly on a propellor plane once during my trip. It was terrifying.

I started in San Francisco, where I saw Emily, who is the MOST ADORABLE pregnant woman ever (seriously, look at her newest blog post with the pictures of her & her fantastic husband, Dan, and try and disagree with me). Emily & I met in an undergrad class we had together and then she ended up dating & marrying my boss/friend, Dan! I haven't seen them in two years and I saw I had to fly through SF to get to Oregon, so I asked Emily if it was cool to stop in for two days, even though she was ready to pop. Thankfully, she said yes (and also didn't give birth while I was there! As exciting as that would be, I didn't want to add any sort of complication to that time [or cut the cord, haha]). She was kind enough to walk around with me, even though she was mere days from her due date. It was awesome to just see Emily & Dan again and catch up, but I also got to see things in SF I didn't get to see the first time I was there, talk with Emily about all the TV shows we watch AND it was Dan's birthday the second day I was there. It was awesome to be a part of that and try out something new: Indian pizza! Seriously delicious. I wish there was a place in RVA that offered it.

After that small time in SF, I flew into Portland to meet Katy. Katy & I lived together in Kalamazoo for two years. Katy & Mike came to visit us in VA last year and we had a blast. This year there was a new addition to Katy & Mike's life: Alexandria! She is absolutely adorable! Seriously! I felt in love with her the moment I saw her. Katy & I went to an AMAZING bookstore in Powell's, then walked a little around Portland, swearing that next time, we would have ideas of other things to see, and headed to Eugene, where Katy lives. In Eugene, I introduced Katy to the IT Crowd and True Blood, and she introduced me to life in Eugene! We went to see Harry Potter (a tradition), talked about hippies and Eugene/Oregon culture, ate at delicious places (I now want a Cafe Yumm! in RVA), went to Saturday Market (all handmade things & a multi-cultural food area), went out on a girls' night, went to the Oregon Coast, went to an art museum, and tried to dodge the heat wave that hit Oregon.

When I first started this, I was going to include pictures & video of my trip, but they're ALL on my facebook and flickr & I don't feel like putting them here as well, since it took some time to get them on those two sites. If you don't know how to get to those, ask me.

This summer has been a summer of firsts, which is what it was meant to be. I want to stop letting excuses and anxiety get in my way of doing the fun things I talk about, and I think I've been pretty successful.

Firsts:

-Flew to Michigan alone

-Delayed luggage

-Flew to the west coast alone

-Ate alone in a restaurant

-went to a movie alone

-said "y'all" like I was born saying it. It just kinda popped out of my mouth before I knew it!

-sang karaoke (not quite alone, with two other girls, but STILL! way more than I would've ever done a year or more ago!)

-met the first additions to friends' families: Alex, Harrison (I didn't mention this in my Michigan post I now realize. I went to visit my friend Kate and meet her son, who is adorable, funny & smart!) and (sort of) Jackson. I'm just gonna put him on the list cause I got to feel him moving around :) All of my friends have such beautiful children! (Again, putting Jackson in that cause I bet you he will be just adorable!)

-many more I've forgotten!

I still have some plans for the rest of the summer. I need to start working on school plans more than I have, but I have some time...

Say Yes to Michigan!

This summer has been a busy one so far.

My last day of school with students involved giving 17 kids an exam, grading them and putting in all grades in a span of 2.5 hours. I then drove about 1.5 hours to Norfolk to see my first class graduate. It was AMAZING. I didn't take any pictures because I was too busy being bombarded by about 100 kids. It was crazy with hugs, screams, some tears, laughter and smiles. One of them spun me around screaming YOU'RE HERE! YOU'RE HERE!!! Another ran across a group of people screaming my name and almost knocked me over when he slammed into me to give me a hug while he told me I made his graduation day and senior year perfect by showing up. I didn't have time to talk to a lot of them, so our conversations were brief. Most of them said they missed me, and I told them the same. A lot of them said that they still had my notes and awards (some of them were reading them in the days leading up to graduation). I heard a lot of great news about their future plans. They reminded me why I teach and made me feel like I've been pretty successful so far as a teacher. They're all such great kids, I was really lucky to have the group that I did for my first two years.

Since I left early from school, I had to go back in the day after to check out. It was basically almost three hours of cleaning up my room, packing up stuff, and then running around the big school to find everyone that needed to sign off on my check out list. Ugh.

After that, I had a day and a half to myself before David's parents came to visit for a week. We took them all around Richmond, they went to see Monticello and I went with them to Va Beach. It was a beautiful week, we were given perfect weather for each activity we chose that day. It was great to see them!

The day they left, Charna, Jordan and Dave rolled into town for the moped rally in Richmond. It was TONS of fun! It was great to be on a moped again and see Richmond from that POV. They took us on some great rides and I met some great people. My moped ran like a champ with the only problem being that it didn't want to idle sometimes (that's fixed now, though!). Everyone left Sunday morning, which was fine with me because I was exhausted, bruised, sore and blistered!

Plus, I only had one more day until I left to spend a week in Michigan. My checked luggage didn't come with me, but it ended up okay. I spent one night in Detroit so I could see Joey's bike shop and hang out with him. Megan came to pick me up and we headed to East Lansing. I finally got to see her apartment (cute!) and meet her pet rat (CUTE!), Eve. Of course, we had Tim Horton's, went shopping, had ice cream made on MSU's campus (delicious!), and relaxed. The next day, we headed to Kalamazoo, tried to find my luggage, and then had a get together so Megan could tell us all about her Uganda trip. I am AMAZED by what she got to do--truly the experience of a lifetime! The next morning, we got confirmation that my bag was flown back to Richmond and was now safe and sound in my apartment, so Megan, mom and I went shopping, got Root Beer Stand (I cannot tell you how much I miss this place!) and headed out to the cottage. We spend Friday to Monday at the cottage, it was amazing to be out there again! It was barely warm enough to swim the whole weekend, but we got some time on the lake. We also went to the Hayloft, which has amazing sundaes, and a flea market, which is fantastic for people watching. I found a few books to add to my classroom library there, too. Most of the time at the cottage was spent relaxing, playing games, and reading. It was nice having some cooler weather because I knew that when I got back to Richmond, it was going to be hot and humid for another few weeks! When we got back to Kalamazoo, I HAD to go to Kazoo Books, mostly to find books for my classroom. Thankfully, they ship books all over, so they had no problem sending the books I paid for down to VA. I also got to see Krista before I left! I'm so glad we got together! I hadn't seen her in years, and it was wonderful to catch up a little bit. I hope we get to see her when we go up for the holidays, too. :) All in all, it was an amazing trip to Michigan. I got to enjoy some of my favorite Kalamzoo or Michigan-only foods, go to Meijer (oh man, I miss that place so much), see a movie with my sister, see my parents and have an amazing time with them. I'm really lucky to have seen them so much in the past year.

Now I'm enjoying some time without plans or travel before I head off on my next trip: SF and Eugene! I'm so excited!

About those 9th graders...

This fall will mark the beginning of my 4th full year of teaching. The past year was one of the most challenging, for sure. I'd say it was even more challenging than my first year, believe it or not. But that's really for a whole other post.

Each year I've been a teacher, I've taught a new prep. First year, I taught 10th grade, which I had never done before. Second year, I volunteered to do 11th as well as 10th (it gets really boring to teach the same thing 5 times over). This year, I was given 12th and continued to do 10th grade. I really love teaching English 10, so I'm glad that that prep has never changed.

Next year will be no different, but it wasn't really my choice. My AP came in one day to talk about my schedule for next year. He presented me with an opportunity that appeared at first to have two options: Yes or No. Turns out there was only one answer.

You see, at New School next year, they are changing things with the 9th grade, as they usually do. It makes sense to start with the incoming class because teenagers (and a lot of teachers) can't handle a lot of change at once and starting with the 9th grade means that those kids knew no different way of doing things. This year, we had three levels of English: Remedial, General (what I taught) and Advanced (AP in 12th). Next year, 9th grade English will have a Collaborative class, one or two General (I can't remember which, and I'm not sure why they're allowing that, but whatev), and the rest Advanced. They're trying to combine General and Remedial to avoid tracking, avoid lowered expectations (both teachers and students) and improved self-esteem and environment.

I was chosen to teach those 3 Collaborative English 9 classes. It was a compliment. I was chosen because they saw I was good at keeping all kids busy, differentiating, connecting to students, etc. I also have experience teaching a "collaborative" class. At Old School, we didn't have three levels like they did. We had Regular or Honors/Pre-IB/IB/AP. I taught five classes total, and two or three of them would have a co-teacher. It's nothing new to me and they know this. They also knew that I would not treat any of the kids in there as different or incapable of doing the work. My AP said they wanted the incoming 9th graders to start off their high school career with a "positive view of English class" (ooh, burn to those other 9th grade teachers! He probably didn't mean it that way, but still... word choice, man.).

I am excited about a few things involving English 9. A Raisin in the Sun. The Odyssey. Romeo & Juliet. Their text book has some of THE BEST short stories. Oh, and English 9 & 10 don't have a research paper, although they do have a research project. YES!! On the scheduling side of things, all of my English 9 classes are in the morning, English 10 every day (5th per) and one at the end of the day. That is a major plus, very smart scheduling.

Why did I not want to teach 9th grade? 'Cause it's 9th. I've never taught it before. They're 9th graders. I've taught middle school and it was tiring as hell. 9th graders are crazy. You get the idea.

Then again, it might be totally fun. Why not, right? A new challenge. Can't be any worse than teaching seniors in April & May. I told them I'd try it, but I did ask if I could get out of doing it if I really, really hated it. The answer? "We want you to try it for a few years... to get used to it... maybe you'll like it better the second year!" Uhh... right.