End of the Year Frustration

OK, Mom said I would have a day like this and boy am I having one. I wish there was some way I could make my student's understand that we only have a few days left to finish stuff up and they don't have time to mess around.

Today, I just don't know what I can do to get this one important fact across to them. I'm feeling like I'm beating my head against a brick wall. If no one can tell, I'm a bit frustrated right now!!!

I guess, welcome to the end of the year check out. I understand where they are coming from, I was ready to check out months ago, but I knew I still had work to do. I have to find a way to get that lesson across to them now or they are going to have to come in after school or finish up a couple of days after school gets out. Hope they buckle down soon!!!!

Summer is just around the corner and I can't wait!!!! Though I don't know why? I still have one more practicum I still have to do for my special ed. degree. Oh, well summer is summer!!!!

Hope everyone enjoys graduation and the parties that follow! Congrats to all my fellow students I am very proud of all of you!!!

Have a great summer!

Letter to my Past

Dear Self,

                What can I say, you are about to embark on a long but fulfilling journey. There will be times that you will be asking yourself, ‘why am I doing this?’ In the end I promise it will be well worth the time, effort and stress.

Taking time off from your job is not the most convenient or the most agreeable with your bank account, but in the end is worth it. You will get to know some of the students and you will become more comfortable in the classroom.

I know you will have doubts along the way about whether or not the program is a good one, but trust me it is and they are doing wonderful things to teach you how to become a better teacher. They will give you ideas on classroom management, websites that will give you great ideas and you will meet new friends that will be a supportive group that you can lean on when things get rough.

I will tell you to take more computer classes that deal with InDesign and Photoshop. It will help when you are working with the students during your student teaching. It’s just nice to know how to get around the programs and then help your students with their projects.

                Ok, taking summer classes or a lot of hours while working full time may not sound like fun, but it’s worth it in the end, you will get done sooner. You will find the time to do your homework and you will have no life, but once all said and done, you are done! There is a light at the end of the tunnel though it may seem too far to see, you will get to end before you know it. Have Fun!!

Your Future Self!

2 1/2 weeks left = 10 classes

It's hard to believe that I have only 2 1/2 weeks left of student teaching. That means there are only
3 1/2 weeks left until the end of school. The light at the end of the tunnel is a lot brighter then it used to be 4 years ago. Even when I get my degree, my educational journey will still last another 2 years as I progress through my master's program in special education.

I won't be completely done with yearbook staff, I will see this group until the end of the year. I told them, when they asked me, I had started the book with them and I was going to see this book through to the end. That now means we with the block schedule we only have 10 class periods left to finish the book. There is still a lot of work to do, and I'm starting to feel the pressure mounting.

I printed off some of the pages and gave it to my cooperating teacher to have her look at them, I've looked at them and now they needed a fresh pair of eyes. It was a good thing, she gave them back with a number of corrections that need to be made. The pages were handed back and I had a number of unhappy campers. They thought they were done with the pages and were not enthused about making the corrections. I turned on the soothing voice and explained to them that we needed to put out the best book possible, so that they could look back at this book in 20 years and be proud of what they had put together.

I am very proud of them all, even though they were not happy about the corrections, they got right to work and made the corrections. We still have enough work to do but I think it will get done on time if we can keep up this work ethic. I guess we will see!!!

Weather Changes and So Do I

Welcome to Kansas if you don’t like the weather wait 5 minutes; it will change. That was the truth this week. We go from a nice weekend to freezing cold, rain, snow and ice. I think most people will agree with me; I am done with this weather. Not only is it hard to know what to wear but these fronts then set the students off. I don’t think there was one teacher in the building who I did not hear ask another teacher if their students were a bit bonkers this week.  

Growing up in a family of teachers, this is one thing I heard about often; Weather Changes and the effects it has on students. My father who worked in Special Ed. Even said you could sometimes see the system as it passed through the area and room.  When I was a para I got a first-hand look at what my parents had been talking about. The students were out of sorts, they were not themselves and they couldn’t help it.  

To some it may sound like crazy talk, but all I have to say to them is; come work in a school and you will soon learn what I mean.  

It is at these times I know I must be patient with my students. There are days when this can be a challenge and spend my day making sure everyone is alright. At one point I had two different students in tears and had to be the comforting person and let them talk it out. Luckily they were not major issues, just students having a bad day.  

Those days can wear me out, but it’s that good tired the tired that I know has made a difference for the day. I was the listener when they student just needed someone to listen to them and allow them to vent.  

Pressure changes also mean, I need to be wise and pick my battles, because sometimes the fight is not worth fighting. Working as a Special Ed. Para, that is one thing I learned very quickly. Sometimes those little things like a tapping pencil or the not staying on task, it may not be worth the headache and you can always try again during your next class period. One thing my father taught me is sometimes you may get 5 minutes of work out of student and that’s OK. Because tomorrow is a new day! 

Hope everyone has a wonderful week this week!!! and I hope all your students are Good Workers or at least attempt to be!

 

The Home Stretch

Spring is supposedly here, but you couldn't tell it by the weather some days. I know I'm done with the cold and I know many of my students are to. But with the spring weather comes the fact that summer is just around the corner and students are ready for the vacation.

That mentality has already started to show up in the classroom. Students are done they are ready for their vacation and no homework. I will admit I am also ready for a bit of break, but I know we still have a couple of months still to go and in my room a number of pages still left to finish for the yearbook.

That end of year mentality is the big thing I have been seeing. I get it, students are done, even some teachers are done, we are all ready for a mental break, BUT, we still have a couple of months to go. We have to keep pushing and find that energy to keep going so that we can, hopefully, pass that same drive onto our students. This is the time to finish strong and not just say "the heck with it," and quit.

As teachers, we set that example for your students to follow and even though we may be done, we need to show our students how to push through that feeling and keep going strong through to the end. To use a basketball analogy (ode to March Madness), we are in the last 10 minutes of the game, with the score tied, we can keep pushing or we can just say 'were done.'  Having played basketball, I won't quit till the end and that final buzzer sounds.

I will admit, I have had my days where I am ready to just say the heck with it, but I remember I'm the teacher and what I model to my students they will follow. I need to be that good role model and show them that yes we may all be ready for summer vacation, but we still have a couple more months to go and we need to finish strong.

It is also a time of transition and for those of us who work at the high school level we have to help those seniors get ready to make that transition to life.  I have already seen the eyes become wet with tears as seniors realize their time in high school is quickly coming to an end and they will soon be taking their first steps into the "Real World." It's a tough transition, we as teachers know that and we need to take our experience and show them how to make good decision and give them that confidence to succeed.

Hope you all have a great week and enjoy the, hopefully, warmer weather!

Spring Break Is Over, Back to School

Sitting here in my chair enjoying basketball and the last day of my spring break, I will be honest I would like a couple more days of this. I'm not ready to go back to school. I know there are many students out there on Monday that will be thinking I was ready to come back. How little they know. I'm not really ready. Like my students I would love to have a few more days.

Guess it is time to look forward to the week ahead and what I have plan. I plan on doing something a little different with my yearbook staff this week. I will have to see how this goes. They are used to coming in and working on their pages, but on Wednesday I am going to give them an evaluation sheet and have them look over the other pages that have been finished. There are are couple of reasons I am doing this. One I want them to see what the others have been working on, but second I would like another set of eyes to look over the pages. I have been looking at these pages numerous times and I still find little things that need to be corrected. I have even found on one page where we totally forgot to list the players and coaches and I don't remember how many times I have looked at that page and not noticed the names were missing.

Since this is something totally different for the staff, it will be interesting to see how it goes. They have had this same routine all year, with the exceptions of handing out pictures and or working picture day.

I have already decided that I am going to talk to my staff on Monday to give them a heads up about Wednesday. That way when they come in on Wednesday it won't be such a shock. I think they will be just fine, but I understand it is hard for students to change things up when we have had this routine all year.

March Madness

Yes folks, for those basketball lovers, like myself, it is that time again. MARCH MADNESS!!! A basketball lovers dream month, Ups and downs, unexpected upsets and just pure fun!! I love it!!!

But with basketball season also comes the student aspect, sub-state and state tournaments. There are only a few teams that win and a number that don't, however this can apply to any high school and college sport. Having athletes in your class can be fun, your excited when they win and bummed when they lose. I had two such experiences this week, thanks to the Basketball State Tournament.

I have a number of basketball players in one of my classes and after a first round loss at state, they were all pretty bummed. I watched a bit of the game film that was posted with them and tried to help the understand what happened, having played I understand how they felt. I used to have these same conversations with my nieces, we talked about how it is just a game and this is not going to define who they are. The group I have, will all be back next year and there is always next year. They need to keep looking forward.

Even though they may have been bummed about state, we gave them a bit of room and time. However, we did get them to refocus and start in on the project that was do the next week. We are working on movie trailers which has been interesting. We have seen a number of creative trailers from a number of different genres. This group chose to do a parody of Titanic. Needless to say it was hilarious. They had a hard time taping because we were all laughing so hard. By the end of class the guys were feeling much better. Sometimes a bit of laughter can help lift some bummed spirits.

Now on the other side of things, I have a niece that plays and they made it through to the weekend. However, they lost Friday's game and were playing for third. Luckily, since I had just been through this with my group of guys, I switched to sympathizer mode. I talked to them about how, at the worst, they would finish 4th in the state. Fourth is not all that shabby, granted everyone wants to win it all, but it does not always happen. For a number of them who did not play, I told them that things would be different next year when they were on the court.

Now after taking 3rd, their attitudes had changed. They were all excited and taking pictures. Sometimes it is a wonder what a day or a project can make.

Basketball it not everything going on this month, there is also the Spring Fever going around. Students are already starting to check out and looking forward to Spring Break. I don't have a lot of room to talk, because I am too. Granted I have not checked out quit yet, but I am ready for a break and sitting around watching some basketball.

Hope everyone has a great week!!!

Back into the Swing

It has been a strange couple of weeks, with only being at school a 1.5 days last week and only 3 days this week. Then looking forward the students only have 8 days of school before spring break. There is a lot of learning we are going to have to cram into those 8 days.

I will have to say, coming back to school, the students did really well, I even heard a few say that they were ready to come back and they were getting kind of bored at home. I can understand that, I was, truth be told, ready to come back to. My reason, I was tired of being in my house, those walls were starting to bother me.

I did have an interesting lunch on Wednesday, I had finished and was going to the teachers lounge when one of  my students stopped me in the hall. This student was complaining about another student hanging around where they ate lunch and this student was starting to get on their nerves. They had asked tried joking around and asking him to leave, but this student just stayed.

This caught me a bit off guard and I could tell that it was upsetting my student, however, the other student was not doing anything bad, and was eating lunch. There was not a whole lot I could do. So I just tried to hang around and explain to my student that this other kid had every right to be there as much as they did, even though that was there "lunch spot." I did tell my student that if he was starting to get really annoyed he should come and get me, I was always in my room eating lunch, which is just around the corner.

I talked to my student again on Friday and the student told me that they pictured this other student's face on their punching bag and beat it up. I told my student that was a healthy way to deal with their aggression, but to keep that focus on the punching bag and not this other student. I said that it was not worth getting suspended over and I reiterated that I was in my room eating lunch everyday and to come and get me or join me if these aggressive feelings were starting to take over and they felt like they may lose it. I would rather have them in my room then suspended. I will just have to keep monitoring the situation, but I hope what I said has sunk in, but one never knows.

If anyone has any other advice, I am open to suggestions. This student is a good kid and I hope they make the better choice.

Hope everyone has a great 5 day week, which will seem strange after the last couple of weeks.

A crazy 1.5 day week

I just have to say I am feeling much better, however I passed this crude onto my father, who ended up with pnemunia. Ooops!

For all of us it has been a strange week, we at North didn't have school on Monday and then had in service on Tuesday. In services were somewhat informative, they are never my favorite part of the year, but necessary. Though it did give me some good information on what we can do in a crisis situation.

Then came Wednesday, our first day of the week back with students. Our first class was rolling along just fine. We were working with students on writing movie reviews. They did enjoy many of the reviews I had chosen, such as, the review for the movie Ted, Safe Haven, and Identity Thief. I was trying to pick movies that they would see, either in the theaters, rent or watch online. With in the Ted review I did have to censor that one, for those of you who have seen it, they had included some of the lyrics to the 'Thunder Buddy,' Song.

Students seemed to enjoy the exercise, we gave them a graphic organizer that helped them look for important information that they could use as an example for their own movie reviews. We then gave them time to catch up on work that they still needed to turn in.

As student's were working I started to notice the weather was starting to get worse, I called my parents in McPherson to see what the weather was like up there to try and gage how long I should or could stay at school. It became evident that the weather was not getting better and I did not make it through one class period. I appreciate both of my CTs, when I talked to them they both told me to go home. I am glad I did listen to them, because just between 13th street and the I-235 & K-96 Bypass I saw 6 different accidents.

It was a long and slow drive home, but I made it safe and sound and spent one day relaxing and the next scooping our very long drive. I can say this, I am really, really sore today, but at least we can now get to the store with out having to dig our cars out. Hope you all had a lovely and warm couple of snow days. Have a great week.

In Sickness and In Health

I thought I was done with all the junk that was going around. This week has that was a lie. I will say this, being sick and trying to teach can be an interesting combination.

It made my week interesting, starting with the drive to Wichita. Once I was up and moving around the classroom I was a bit better and meds were helpful. I am still getting over this nasty cold as I type this and I hope it makes sense, if not, blame the cold.

The week started out OK, a tickle in my throat, a stuffy nose and a small cough,  but by the time Wednesday and Thursday rolled around, all of those things had multiplied. However, I was not running a fever, so I went to school. This was straight out of my mother's playbook. She had to be really, really sick before she would stay home.

Teaching did become interesting and I am surprised that the student's understood what I was talking about. At times I felt bad, because I knew I could be a more effective teacher, had I not had this foggy brain. I would forget about my time table or forget to mention something else on the subject of movie reviews, so my CT would need to jump in and remind me. I felt like such a blonde.

Being sick and dealing with discipline can also be a new task. When I am sick my patience is slim to zilch. I had a student that would not behave and it was taking everything I had not to snap, even when this student started to give me attitude. I got the situation handled and pulled the student aside later to talk about what was going on during the lesson and why I had relocated them. Then I just really wanted to go take a nap, because that just wore me out. Blessed be, we had lunch right after and I had no more students the rest of the day.

Well, I am going to cut this short, before I stop making sense, if I did make any sense to begin with. Hope you all have a great week and avoid the junk that is going around.

The first full week is in the bag and I can say truthfully I'm feeling pretty good. Student teaching is going well, I'm still getting used to being there all day everyday. Other then that life is pretty good. The Red Day Students are starting to warm up to me and feeling comfortable enough to ask me questions. My White Day Students are feeling comfortable enough to give me a hard time, which I enjoy.

On Monday, one of the student's in my 4th hour class stopped me in the hall an asked me if I would be in class on Tuesday. The Friday before I had been taking care of the Seniors Cap and Gown Pictures all morning so I was not in class. I told the student I would be and that seemed to make their day. I don't think they realized that it also made mine. Those are the little moments that make me truly confident I am going into the right profession.

Even with those moments I'm still a bit nervous. When I started all this four years ago, the end seemed so far away and now that it is only months away a feel a twinge of apprehension. Parents are really going to trust me with the education of their children. That's a lot of pressure.

Well, enough about my feelings, on to the classroom. The only bit I am finding hard to work with is some classroom management. It's hard to come in and work with students who have been able to get away with stuff that I, personally, would not allow. I'm trying to find that fine line, I don't want to step on any toes. So that has been a bit tricky, I think we will be able to get all those things worked out.  I agree with my other teacher on the issues of letting students sit around and not do anything during class and not work on assignments. I understand it is that teachers philosophy and that is fine, it's just not mine. So, I will be working on that.

Other then that I am getting along swimmingly with both of my teachers. They do make for a fun environment, which I like. Now it is off to get ready for another week and more learning. Hope you all have a great week!!!!!