Malice in Wonderland
I had an awesome night with the other two members of the English department. Last month we had a fitness competition, we had three categories each with a specific prize (or penalty). The loser of one category had to buy dinner, the loser of another drinks, and the loser of the third had to buy tickets to a show. Luckily, I managed to come in first in one category and in the middle in the other two, which meant tonight was completely free for me.
We enjoyed dinner and beer at Deschuttes Brewery before heading over to Portland’s Center Stage to watch Clybourne Park. Following the show we walked a block up the street to Whole Foods where we bought and ate dessert. As we were eating they began to start cleaning and locking up the store. We eventually took the hint and they walked us to the door and locked it behind us.
It was a great night and feel extremely lucky to be in a department with people who I enjoy spending time with and like on both a professional and personal level.
How I Graduated College
How I Lesson Plan
How I ‘Life’.
(Source: dont-tell-anybody-anything, via hisnamewasbeanni)
I have been told by many if my colleagues that I am extremely patient when it comes to my students. I put up with a lot of things that other teachers would kick students out of the classroom for. Don’t get me wrong, I have boundaries and if a student is being disrespectful or disruptive there are consequences, but I feel the best place for the students is in the classroom, not the office.
Because I’m more patient and only boot students when I absolutely have to, I have developed a pretty good relationship with some of the more difficult 7th & 8th graders. Today, one the 8th graders came into my 6th period 7th grade English class. He had been sent into the hall to work because he was too disruptive.
He walked up to me and asked if I had a second to talk. He told me he needed help focusing. He was having a hard time working and didn’t know what to do. He doesn’t want to keep getting kicked out of class, but he also doesn’t know how to stay focused. He asked me if I would help him.
I know he gets distracted and angry easily. I gave him a few tips then sent him back to the hallway to work. I want to see him succeed. I know he wants to do better and I’m super excited to finally see him advocating for himself and asking for help.
Hey everyone, as you may have heard the recent sequester will impact many government programs and their funding. My program is getting a cut, but it looks like no positions will be cut from instructional staff at this point. However, other parts of our staff may be.
Each year Pre-K teachers get a modest classroom supply fund. This is not much different than the grade level funds that are often used to purchase take home folders, construction paper, notebooks, etc. except that we each individually decide what to spend it on. This year, I spent mine on art supplies, stuff needed for science and math activities (not reusable), and some books. I am guessing that our classroom funds will be very small next year, as they have gotten smaller every year.
As you know, Pre-K kids play hard and at the beginning of the year are still learning a lot of social skills and rules. So books get ripped and toys break. And, I am sometimes able to replace them through classroom funds or my own, and sometimes I am not.
This year’s class has loved every minute, but there’s things from free choice centers that need to be replaced. Also, this year, I put a lot more focus into using rotating centers for all academic centers. While I do have a number of books that need to be replaced or that are still on my dream classroom wish list. I want to focus on stacking up on materials for literacy, science, math, and social studies.
If you have the funds this month or are a billionaire I’d appreciate it if you could take a look at my wish list (linked above). I partner with another teacher to plan a lot of things and we share materials so you would be helping out two classes.
I totally understand that money is tight for many, but all the reblogs in the world are appreciated.
Help her and her students out! :-)
On my very first day of student teaching, my cooperating teacher gave me three pieces of advice: arrive early, don’t leave as soon as you’re contractually allowed to go, and leave with something in your hand every single day, even if you know you’re not going to do…
It’s interesting that this is the advice the OP’s CT gave them. Mine gave me the exact opposite advice. Granted, my natural MO is already to get there an hour early and stay several hours late so I didn’t necessarily need that ingrained in me. He’d yell at me to go home, to take a lunch break. He’d tell me that “the quizzes will still be there in the morning” that “all work and no play make you a very cranky teacher.” I think we all have a tendency to feel guilty for putting off work (since it’s all about our students and goodness knows we love ‘em) but really, if we’re not taking time to care for ourselves, what message is that sending our kids? They need to learn to put themselves first—in a constructive way—that the best thing they can do to take care of the people they love is to take care of themselves. This is still something I struggle with.
My experience is similar to Strangenewclassroom’s. I naturally like to show up to work an hour early (I feel I do my best work in the morning) and during my student teaching and the first semester of this year I stayed at work until 5ish. My mentor teacher last year would yell at me and tell me to go home or to sleep in, but I had trouble with and I still do.
I was lucky enough to get hired at the school I student taught at and I now teach in the classroom next to my former mentor teacher. He still comes into my room on Fridays and tells me to go home. One day he even packed my bag for me and walked me to my car and waited until I left because he knew if I didn’t I would have stayed until all of my grading was done.
I’ve been getting better about going home at a reasonable time, but it’s still something I struggle with. I feel guilty when I leave early, especially right after the kids leave. I do it occassionally, if I have an appointment, but generally I stay. After first semester I was really tired. Even during third quarter I was physically and emotionally drained. So I have started going home early and not taking as much work home with me.
My students have noticed. It’s taking them longer to get papers back, but I’m honestly happier (though some of them are not). A few students even came in the day after a test and asked if I’d graded them all. I explained that I hadn’t had time left, and he looked disgusted. He told me that I should have taken them home, because it’s my job to do so. Normally, I feel that my job doesn’t end at 3:30 or 4, but I explained to him that if I took home grading every night that I would never be able to leave work. That I would become cranky and upset and that it wouldn’t be good for him or the other students. He just shrugged at me. I don’t know if he understands, but I hope he does some day.
I love my job. I don’t want to get burnt out. So, some days I force myself to go home at 3:30 and to leave my work at school, and honestly I think I’m happier because of it.
Can’t stop, won’t stop,
ALL THE EXCITEMENT. 8th grade
and 8th grade teacherme are happy dancing right now.
(Source: timberlakelove)
So, I’m a chaperone for prom tonight. Normally, I’m not a dress person, but then I found this super cute mint with white lace dress at Maurice’s. I paired with a pair of gold glitter flats and a pearl and crystal (all fake of course) necklace and I’ve got to say it doesn’t look too bad.
I’m still not super psyched for the dance, but at least I’m just expected to stand there and not to actually dance.
I ordered a few things from Amazon last week. When selecting a shipping address I noticed that my old apartment’s address was still in my address book. So, I hit delete address, at least I thought I did.
I received a text today saying my package had been delivered, but when I arrived home it wasn’t there. When I logged on to Amazon, I discovered that instead of hitting delete I hit ship to. Luckily, I only live about 2 blocks from my old apartment and the college-aged guy who lives there was really nice about it.
When he handed me the package, however I discovered that it’s actually too small to have my entire order. So I quickly logged into Amazon on my phone, to discover that they had shipped it in two boxes. Again, he was really nice about it and took my number and said he’d call when the second package arrived, but I’m not going to lie I was (still am) super embarrassed.
Needless to say, the first thing I did when I got home was delete the old address and then log out and back in to make sure it was really gone.
At our high school we use a proficiency model in all of our core classes. The students who fail our classes often do credit recovery through a program called Odyssey. However, in order to hold them accountable and ensure they are meeting CCSS (because Odyssey is not aligned to CCSS) they have to pass an end of semester proficiency exam.
Before today, these exams did not exist. As an English department (there are three of us) we got permission from our principal and superintendent to get subs and spend the day writing these exams and finishing our vertical alignment. We started working at 8 AM and we stopped at 4:45. We each worked on our respective grade levels (however, I have two because I teach looping classes and because I’m a first year teacher I have never taught the second year of the course and don’t know where to begin with the assessment) and by the end of the day we hadn’t even completed one semester proficiency. One of my colleagues was almost finished, but not quite there.
My current test consists of 2 reading passages and 22 questions. Granted they are very extensive and in-depth questions that are written in CCSS aligned language. A bit of my time was taken by having to type in the reading passages, as we didn’t have editable digital copies. I also have the writing prompts for each semester written. It took a lot of thought to develop meaningful questions that hit upon the areas that needed to be covered at my grade level. The questions had to be at the higher level of Bloom’s and consist of the students examining the effectiveness of literary devices and the author’s structure, etc.
I spent the entire day working on my assessment. I can’t think of a single moment in the day, with the exception of my half-hour lunch break, that I wasn’t at my computer typing questions/reading passages, or debating the wording of a question with a colleague, and yet looking at what I accomplished I feel defeated, like I didn’t use my time wisely.
I was hoping to finish one of them tonight, but my lesson plans for tomorrow took longer than I thought they would. Now, I’m exhausted and going to bed. 
