We live for Christmas and Summer!

Sitting at home drinking cider and watching Family Feud in my PJ's at 2:51pm on a Thursday is what makes being a teacher all worth it. I LOVE CHRISTMAS BREAK!

God's plans

Today I am requesting your prayers.

Can't say much, but what I will say is that God is showing me what it means to be His instrument... to serve Him and trust Him fully. His plans are great and he wants to use me to share Him with children.

I am scared and yet humbled that God has chosen to put me here now.

Proverbs 3:5,6 - Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

Forever 21

Today I realized why Forever 21 is very appropriately named. 26 year olds should NOT attempt to remain 21 when they are 26. Just as I longed to be of drinking age for several years before I actually turned 21 years old, the people who shop at Forever 21 also long to dress like they are 21. At age 21, not only was I a poor college kid just looking to have fun, I was more concerned with fitting in than being myself. Forever 21 is an attempt to provide cheap, poorly made clothing that is super trendy to girls who long to look grown up... you know, mature... like Paris Hilton.

Anyway, back to my story. Since the school district was nice enough to give us the entire week of Thanksgiving off, I decided to head to the Galleria to get some Christmas shopping done. I shopped for several hours with very little success and so began to kind of think about some shopping for myself. I wandered into Forever 21 thinking I might be able to find a cute, trendy, top to wear this weekend as I saw some old friends from high school who are back in town for the holidays. While I was slightly embarrassed to be shopping in such a store, I picked up a few things. As I was turning to head toward the dressing room I heard "Hey Mrs. (insert real name here)" ~CRINGE~ "You have got to be kidding me" I thought to myself as I flashed a very fake smile and greeting to my students who had just entered the store, one that they are very appropriately shopping in. Mortified, I exited the store as quickly as possible with a new lesson learned... In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am so very thankful to be forever past the age of 21. I am no longer as concerned with fitting in as I am with being myself... even if that does mean shopping at the GAP.

The Nudey Poster

My students are currently in the middle of a persuasive group marketing campaign project where they have a product and they target a specific demographic audience and use certain specific appeals. Along with creating a commercial, they have to create a print advertisement. Well, the print ads are starting to be completed and I got something today that I wasn't quite prepared for... it had nudey pics on it!

At first I just looked at it very quickly, shook my head and said, I'm not sure that is G rated. The boy argued saying that "his target audience was black males ages 15-25 and there is not a single black male 15-25 who wouldn't want to see all these beautiful women". I brushed it off for the time being until I got a chance to look over the poster more carefully later that day after school. Not only were the women scantly dressed, there was one picture of a girl in some daisy dukes with no top on and her long black locks draping over her chest to cover her nipples. When I notice the second severely inappropriate picture, I started to ask myself if these kids are just really naive and unaware of what these pictures infer... it was a girl in a red bra and panties DUCK TAPED to a chair! Are you kidding me! What made this kid think that he was going to get away with this! And the worst part is that he told a little freshman girl in his group exactly what to do and she was the one who actually cut the pictures out of the magazines and glued them to the poster board! I mean, what did her mom think as she had pictures of black women half naked strung across the dinner table as she pasted them together!

Well, if you are wondering, I told the kids they had to redo the poster. Of course they were pretty angry with me. The girls in the group accepted my request very quickly, knowing that it was probably going to happen. The male student however, fought me like I was taking away his brand new precious puppy. After about 5 min of arguing the discussion ended with me saying... "Well I don't mind writing a pass for you to go take the poster down to the vice principal to see if he thinks it would be appropriate to show in class. " Silence.

Ode to Patience

Ode to patience, precious patience,
Soothe my angry head,
The calmness comes with smiles for all,
From morning until bed.

But something evil inside of them,
Can take it all away,
And soon the monster leaps around,
And this is is what she'd say...

"Oh evil child, please do sit down,
don't ever speak again,
Or I will tear you all apart
You won't know where you've been.

Keep your head from turning round,
And tune your ears to me,
Or else those ears will soon me mine,
And deaf you'll surely be.

I don't care that you have to pee,
You shouldn't have drank more,
To write a pass would be the end,
So don't leak on the floor.

You're here to learn, so listen up,
You'd better take some notes,
Or you will wish you never lived,
And hope your body floats.

You need a pencil, did you say?
What're ya gonna do?
Did'ya plan to pull it out of air?
We'll then get some paper too!"

Yes there is a monster there,
She holds her tongue instead,
And will come to work another day,
With patience and a tired head :(

My First F Word

I had my first F bomb today... yup, you heard it!

I'll paint the picture for you. (leaving names out of course)

So, my super emo kid with hair over his eyes and holes in his ears large enough to put a pencil though, lets call him Nick. Nick was sitting in my front row (side note: since he sleeps ALL the time! or sometimes he is just stoned?) Anyway, my students were taking a test and Nick and the 5'2" talkative black kid who sits behind him, we'll call him Dee, had both finished their test and so should have been sitting quietly minding their own business while the other kids finished. Well, they weren't!

Dee decided that it would be funny to tickle Nick in his side (seeing that Dee is my class clown and will do anything to get a rise out of someone). Well Nick giggled at first in response to the tickling and then all of a sudden at the top of his lungs in my very quiet test taking room yelled "Don't f**king touch me!"

The room full of immature high schoolers quickly reacted with a unified "ooooohhhhhhh" for they knew he was in for it! Nick caught my eye and then placed his head down on his desk, where it stayed for the rest of the period. Minutes later I had Dee at my desk trying to convince me not to write up Nick, but lets just say his efforts failed!

While I could have had Nick given a ticket, he just had to suffer by spending a day in in-school suspension where I'm sure he pondered all the other great words that he could have used... fudge, frick, frank, or my personal favorite... just F.

The most amusing thing was the fact that Nick's dad called me to get the story about why his son was in ISS. After hearing the story he wanted to know why I hadn't punished Dee for tickling him! Are you kidding! Some parents!

A Different Sea

While I have been teaching at my school for three weeks now, today I feel like I finally stopped long enough to see it from afar. As I mentioned in a previous post, this week is homecoming and so today we had our homecoming pep rally. Since the school is still pretty new and small, the administration is working hard to start some new traditions. All the kids were to gather outside in the circle drive while the band, football team, cheerleaders, and homecoming court walked by as everyone cheered. Then as they passed everyone jumped on to the end of the parade and we all walked around the perimeter of the school to the gym. I entered the gym toward the end, and as I looked up into the stands full of kids I stood in the doorway in awe of the scene. These kids weren't white, or black or Asian or Mexican... gazing up into the stands I saw a sea of brown. While I had always seen the school as a patchwork of many different races and backgrounds, today I saw the school as one... culturally diverse and beautifully brown.

Busy!

Things are good here in teacher world... super duper busy! I laugh now at the comment that a co-worker of mine at my old job made to me when I left. She said, "Well at least as a teacher you won't have to work as hard as you do here"... ha! ha! If she only knew!!! I have been getting up at 5am every morning to get to school by 6:30 so that I can cram in any last minute planning before my duty at 7am and then classes start at 7:30. Yes, it is nice that school is out at 2:30, but to be totally honest, that is when I start my multiple hours of planning for the next day! I am lucky if I am out of there by 5, but usually it looks more like 6. I am exhaused and drained and am desperately needing some time to myself. That is the down side, but the good news is that I think I am going to really love it once I get through all the junk that I have to get figured out this semester. The kids are quite the challenge (this ain't no highland park), but for every bad day, I am motivated by the fact that I can already tell that these kids NEED me...not only to be a teacher, but to be a positive role model in their lives. I was feeling really beaten down until we had "meet the teacher" night on Monday. I was assuming that most parents wouldn't take the time to really stop by my room since I wasn't a core subject teacher. I was so touched by the fact that there was not a dull moment for a full hour and a half! I had over 30 of my student's parents stop by my room and most of them just wanted to make sure that I knew how much their kid enjoyed my class. What an encouragement... my kids enjoy my class! Tomorrow is Friday! Another week almost down...

Spirit Week!

This week is spirit week (since Friday is homecoming)!

Today was "Dress like a Super Hero" Day.

Four of my guy students decided to dress like the powder puff girls.

Let me just say that not only were these young African American men not very powdery, they should have considered shaving their upper lips before coming to my class wearing tights and a wig!

Tired

Week 2...

Too many kids to keep them all straight! Have you ever learned 120 names in 2 weeks?
I feel like I am drowning...but don't worry, I can float on my back.
Realizing that you can't yell over them is half the battle. Silent disaproval says more.
Every moment of my day is spent on my feet. I want to chop them off they hurt so bad!
Despite the errors that I will make this year, I have to keep reminding myself that I can make a difference.

So, in a nutshell... this blog will have to be short... I'm TIRED!

First Day

Well... let's just say the first day is over.

It's a relief, but I have to say, my anxiety is not really relieved. With such great amounts of planning for each and every lesson, I know this entire semester is going to be difficult!

Back to today... My school is VERY diverse... "red and yellow black and white, they are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world"... I couldn't help but sing to myself as I looked over the many colors of my classroom. With teaching Speech, there is such an emphasis on communications. I started the class teaching my kids the most basic of communication skills, introductions. Firm handshake, stating your name clearly, and eye contact seem to be such simple things that these kids just lack altogether. As I mingled around the room, I began to notice the kids with silent confidence.

I have several Korean kids in my class who don't speak English. They carry these small computer/calculator type things that I soon learned are actually calculators. They vigorously typed on their devices so that they could complete their work in my Speech class, go figure! I passed out a worksheet with various "get to know you" type questions... everything from Who is your idol? to what is your favorite TV show? The students in the class were asked to get up and present 3 or so of their answers from the list of questions (in an attempt to get them comfortable with presenting- since this IS a speech class). Well, after all the volunteers were exhausted, I began calling on kids. Sidenote: I require all of my students to clap for their fellow classmates after they preform in an attempt to be supportive and encouraging. Well, let me just say that most of the kids give this lacking effort kind of clap where they really don't care but are merely banging their hands together because I told them to. I called on this one small Korean girl and with head tucked she looked back at me and whispered "I know no English". At first, I kind of panicked, not knowing how to handle the situation, and knowing that the rest of the class was watching. "Can you tell us your name and answer just one of the questions?" I asked her. With head tucked she walked to the front of the class and stood there silently, staring at her paper. The classroom was silent, and then she spoke. "My name is ____ . My idol is my mom." After speaking those 9 simple words so silently that we could barely hear, I was amazed and inspired by what happened... every single student in that class clapped for her. Not just a half-effort clap, but a REAL one. The type of clap that you perform when you really want to express how you feel.

On this, my very first day... beneath all the junk that high school kids carry... I saw this raw and genuine encouragment for a fellow classmate... and I was inspired.

Aim to Teach

As I sit here in front of my computer on the night before the first day of my first year of teaching, I just hope in my heart that what Gail Godwin says is true... "Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater."

For months I have been filled with excitement for what this new adventure will bring, and yet tonight I can't help but cry tears of apprehension as I have never felt more unprepared to face the unknown that lies ahead of me. Along with the unease in my heart, I still know in my head why I am here... I am here to make a difference, to guide, to serve, to love, and most of all... to teach.

"What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches." ~Karl Menninger