GREAT NEWS on the homefront....
This Friday is a furlough day. That is, the state of Maryland is so broke that it gives its school districts unpaid days off. This is okay by me. I will forgo one day of pay for a day during which I can catch up. The weekends are no longer sufficient for getting ahead. They are only sufficient for getting by. For example, I worked 8-10 PM on Friday 10AM- 7PM on Saturday and 8AM-8PM on Sunday and I still am not caught up in life. ( I also, as a side note) went out on Saturday night and fell asleep at a bar) What will you do for that much time and still not be caught up, you ask? Lesson planning and classroom management takes far more time than i could have imagined. It takes about 3 hour for me to plan each daily lesson since it includes a outline of the plan, a powerpoint, a guided note sheet and some sort of guided practice activity. I know I should be using other resources, but even that takes a significant amount of time to find exactly what is needed and adapt it for my purposes. I've found that there is not much research/ lesson plan advice for urban classrooms of 35-40 students. That is, plans which take into account that teachers must purchase all their resources, have limited copies, no laminator and are working with students who will take a 3 second lag time to begin some flagrant act of disobedience. Thus, I (and all other teachers in similar classrooms) must think and plan out every minute of the lesson so that students will not have the opportunity to act up or call out and subsequently take the whole class on their downward spiral of misbehavior. 3 lesson plans per week x 3 hours per plan = 9 hours
Then there's grad school.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Finally an update
Hola amigos-
I am currently sitting in bed after my Saturday night out "release night." I've been giving myself one per week no matter how much work I have finished or not finished. I've accepted the fact that there will always be a mile long to do list and that I could always do more. And I mean that not in the way that I meant it in college. That is, in college you always have more to do because you always could be working further ahead on the syllabus or more thoroughly completing a reading. Right now, those tasks are also hanging over me, but then add to that classroom management, grading, TFA professional development, Prince George's county professional development, and establishing oneself in a new city. And its literally impossible to be caught up on everything all the time.
It's funny because at every point in my life -traveling around Europe and the Middle East, taking on a new job, taking a new class- I tell myself "This is the hardest thing that I've ever done," and I think to myself that that experience will prepare me so well for whatever else comes in my future. Well ladies and gentleman, let me tell you that I was dead wrong about all of that. Perhaps parts of things that I previously did were difficult and perhaps parts of what I learned from those experiences are helping me now, but on the whole THIS is by far the most difficult thing I've ever done and I can't think of anything in my past that would have really prepared me for it.
I now understand what the "real world" is. Yes, you may laugh in my face if you want. I resisted this idea as valid for a very long time. I didn't like the thought that the world that I was previously living in was by default "fake". The experiences that I was having were so real to me and I believed that my life was so rich that I didn't believe that there could be a whole other world out there that I was missing out on. Again, WRONG. Not to say that my past experiences were not valid or real, it is just that they took place within a bubble of utopia and lack of "real world pressures." I thought that the real world might include features of the jobs I held in Madison or it may be new and stressful like plopping myself down into a new city- something I have done several times in several locations....once again, WRONG. I thought I might be prepared because of past life experiences but the transition into the "real world" is something I was surely not prepared for and something that I could even go so far as to say that I'm failing at.
First of all, lets talk about moving to a new city. I now realize how spoiled I was living for 4 years in a city that was 1 hour away from my hometown and family. When I arrived to my new apartment in DC, I was absolutely frazzled. I slept on a rug in my empty room for a night before my friend Devra swooped in and saved me with a sleepover at her house and a mega-trip to Target and Ikea. It's been wonderful having so many friends in the area because they have helped me at every step of the way. I can't imagine moving to a city where I literally know NOBODY. While DC is a new city, I have the support of my friends, roommates and their families to help me get starting-something I am so thankful for. In Madison, they make moving so easy for you. It makes sense. There are thousands of people moving around each year, each semester, coming from all across the world. For some reason, when I thought about moving to DC, I never thought about the necessity OR the HUGE cost of furnishing a bedroom, much less a home. That has been one challenge for me since I have always been provided with a bed everything else I needed came my dad's Mercury Mountaineer or a U-Haul that the Wiesners shared with us. Needless to say furnishing a house on your own using a Ford Focus coupe for transportation has been a challenge. But things are coming together. My roommates are all from the Northeast so their parents have been down a few times to bring loads of STUFF- furniture, kitchen utensils, artwork, rugs, etc. I am proud to say that despite the ikea and amazon.com boxes that are sprawled in our breakfast nook, our house is becoming a home.
This is the first living situation (in the US, that is) that I've been in where I really feel like I am part of the household and we are truly sharing a living space. Unlike previous arrangements, I do not spend all my time in my room and the kitchen is not so strictly divided that we can't use each others salt or butter. I love the fact that we go out together on the weekends, we cook and eat dinner together and sit in the living room on those really tough days and bitch and drink a beer together. This is not just a place where I keep my stuff and where I sleep at night, but rather a place that I can and am proud to call home. That is absolutely necessary when I come home after a day at work where I've been stepped all over by 11 and 12 year olds and despite the fact that I have to extend the misery and devote my night to lesson planning, I am in a comfortable place with people who make me laugh.
So now for the part that everyone wants to hear about the most: my crazy, crazy job. I am a 6th and 7th grade (soon to be 8th as well) teacher at Benjamin Stoddert Middle School in Temple Hills, Maryland. To give some background, an average day in the life includes me waking up at 5:45, making myself a delicious breakfast (seeing as how the next time I usually have time to eat is dinner) and leaving for school around 7 AM. The children are released from their holding chambers (gym and cafeteria) at 8:20 and move "purposefully and expeditiously through the hallways towards their classes" (as the principal announces they should do every morning) and instruction begins at 8:30. Each period is 90 minutes long and my first period is my planning time-something which both love and hate. It means that I have two and a half hours to prepare every day when I get to school (since I arrive at 7:30), but at the same time it means that I have no break for the rest of the day, except for the 30 minute lunch period during which I am expected to escort my class to lunch and then deal with the several misbehaving students from my previous class. I start teaching at 10:00 AM and finish at 3:10 when the bell rings. During that time period I have three 90 minute long classes of 31-43 10-13 year olds. It's and A/B day modular schedule and I see a total of 181 students every two days.
Some classes are engaged in the material and silently listen to what I have to say and then follow the directions that I give. Then other classes are literally ZOOs. Actually not a zoo because a zoo implies that the creatures are caged and managed. My classes could better be described as a amateur bull fight free for all, as I saw it in Costa Rica. A bunch of fools jump in a ring and try to pop some balloons that are attached to the bull. I am the bull. My students are the amateur fools running around the room. Normally I gallop around the room to try and provoke the fools, but sometimes I get into a rage and charge at specific ones while they flee, running and screaming. Some of the amateur torreros stand quietly on the periphery waiting for something to happen, but others run towards me to see if they can get a rise out of me. Friends, this is not far from the truth.
In some of my classes, I have students sing at the top of their lungs during instruction, who are constantly turned around talking to neighbors, crumpling up papers at their desk and throwing them into the garbage or at other students. I have students who stand up to go talk to friends across the room or just stand up for no known reason. Those problems only take place with about 1-2 students per hour though. I real wide-spread problem is students calling out. For example during a previous instruction I asked students to look at a map on which the Roman empire was pink and see what happens as I change the slides to the pink area (trying to demonstrate the spread of latin to current day Spain). Apparently I had mis-judged the color and students began their protest. Ms. Señorita Ramirez, that's not pink its orange. Nah-uh its brown. A student raises his hand. Ok everyone, I need silencio, por favor. Quinten has something to share with us. (I'm thinking I successfully got everyone quiet and Quinten was going to ask a relevant question. Ms Señorita, its pink on the computer screen but orange on the projector screen. Then others: its not pink its more red on the computer! ... and so on and so forth. This happens every day with SOMETHING. I misspelled a word on my powerpoint. I referred back to something we did on Day 5 when it was really learned on Day 6. I share with the students that I'm not Spanish, but instead American. I think the students think about everything so literally that if what I say or do is not SPOT ON, they are confused. That I get, but students opening their mouthes during instruction EVERY MINUTE. Not okay.
Ok well I'm going to leave off here. Must begin lesson planning so that I'm not killing myself tonight or during the week when, oh yeah, the administration is doing a major overhaul of the schedule and I will be getting losing all my 6th graders (the angels!) and 50% new students- most likely 8th graders.
more to come about grad school, DC living and of course... the children.
I am currently sitting in bed after my Saturday night out "release night." I've been giving myself one per week no matter how much work I have finished or not finished. I've accepted the fact that there will always be a mile long to do list and that I could always do more. And I mean that not in the way that I meant it in college. That is, in college you always have more to do because you always could be working further ahead on the syllabus or more thoroughly completing a reading. Right now, those tasks are also hanging over me, but then add to that classroom management, grading, TFA professional development, Prince George's county professional development, and establishing oneself in a new city. And its literally impossible to be caught up on everything all the time.
It's funny because at every point in my life -traveling around Europe and the Middle East, taking on a new job, taking a new class- I tell myself "This is the hardest thing that I've ever done," and I think to myself that that experience will prepare me so well for whatever else comes in my future. Well ladies and gentleman, let me tell you that I was dead wrong about all of that. Perhaps parts of things that I previously did were difficult and perhaps parts of what I learned from those experiences are helping me now, but on the whole THIS is by far the most difficult thing I've ever done and I can't think of anything in my past that would have really prepared me for it.
I now understand what the "real world" is. Yes, you may laugh in my face if you want. I resisted this idea as valid for a very long time. I didn't like the thought that the world that I was previously living in was by default "fake". The experiences that I was having were so real to me and I believed that my life was so rich that I didn't believe that there could be a whole other world out there that I was missing out on. Again, WRONG. Not to say that my past experiences were not valid or real, it is just that they took place within a bubble of utopia and lack of "real world pressures." I thought that the real world might include features of the jobs I held in Madison or it may be new and stressful like plopping myself down into a new city- something I have done several times in several locations....once again, WRONG. I thought I might be prepared because of past life experiences but the transition into the "real world" is something I was surely not prepared for and something that I could even go so far as to say that I'm failing at.
First of all, lets talk about moving to a new city. I now realize how spoiled I was living for 4 years in a city that was 1 hour away from my hometown and family. When I arrived to my new apartment in DC, I was absolutely frazzled. I slept on a rug in my empty room for a night before my friend Devra swooped in and saved me with a sleepover at her house and a mega-trip to Target and Ikea. It's been wonderful having so many friends in the area because they have helped me at every step of the way. I can't imagine moving to a city where I literally know NOBODY. While DC is a new city, I have the support of my friends, roommates and their families to help me get starting-something I am so thankful for. In Madison, they make moving so easy for you. It makes sense. There are thousands of people moving around each year, each semester, coming from all across the world. For some reason, when I thought about moving to DC, I never thought about the necessity OR the HUGE cost of furnishing a bedroom, much less a home. That has been one challenge for me since I have always been provided with a bed everything else I needed came my dad's Mercury Mountaineer or a U-Haul that the Wiesners shared with us. Needless to say furnishing a house on your own using a Ford Focus coupe for transportation has been a challenge. But things are coming together. My roommates are all from the Northeast so their parents have been down a few times to bring loads of STUFF- furniture, kitchen utensils, artwork, rugs, etc. I am proud to say that despite the ikea and amazon.com boxes that are sprawled in our breakfast nook, our house is becoming a home.
This is the first living situation (in the US, that is) that I've been in where I really feel like I am part of the household and we are truly sharing a living space. Unlike previous arrangements, I do not spend all my time in my room and the kitchen is not so strictly divided that we can't use each others salt or butter. I love the fact that we go out together on the weekends, we cook and eat dinner together and sit in the living room on those really tough days and bitch and drink a beer together. This is not just a place where I keep my stuff and where I sleep at night, but rather a place that I can and am proud to call home. That is absolutely necessary when I come home after a day at work where I've been stepped all over by 11 and 12 year olds and despite the fact that I have to extend the misery and devote my night to lesson planning, I am in a comfortable place with people who make me laugh.
So now for the part that everyone wants to hear about the most: my crazy, crazy job. I am a 6th and 7th grade (soon to be 8th as well) teacher at Benjamin Stoddert Middle School in Temple Hills, Maryland. To give some background, an average day in the life includes me waking up at 5:45, making myself a delicious breakfast (seeing as how the next time I usually have time to eat is dinner) and leaving for school around 7 AM. The children are released from their holding chambers (gym and cafeteria) at 8:20 and move "purposefully and expeditiously through the hallways towards their classes" (as the principal announces they should do every morning) and instruction begins at 8:30. Each period is 90 minutes long and my first period is my planning time-something which both love and hate. It means that I have two and a half hours to prepare every day when I get to school (since I arrive at 7:30), but at the same time it means that I have no break for the rest of the day, except for the 30 minute lunch period during which I am expected to escort my class to lunch and then deal with the several misbehaving students from my previous class. I start teaching at 10:00 AM and finish at 3:10 when the bell rings. During that time period I have three 90 minute long classes of 31-43 10-13 year olds. It's and A/B day modular schedule and I see a total of 181 students every two days.
Some classes are engaged in the material and silently listen to what I have to say and then follow the directions that I give. Then other classes are literally ZOOs. Actually not a zoo because a zoo implies that the creatures are caged and managed. My classes could better be described as a amateur bull fight free for all, as I saw it in Costa Rica. A bunch of fools jump in a ring and try to pop some balloons that are attached to the bull. I am the bull. My students are the amateur fools running around the room. Normally I gallop around the room to try and provoke the fools, but sometimes I get into a rage and charge at specific ones while they flee, running and screaming. Some of the amateur torreros stand quietly on the periphery waiting for something to happen, but others run towards me to see if they can get a rise out of me. Friends, this is not far from the truth.
In some of my classes, I have students sing at the top of their lungs during instruction, who are constantly turned around talking to neighbors, crumpling up papers at their desk and throwing them into the garbage or at other students. I have students who stand up to go talk to friends across the room or just stand up for no known reason. Those problems only take place with about 1-2 students per hour though. I real wide-spread problem is students calling out. For example during a previous instruction I asked students to look at a map on which the Roman empire was pink and see what happens as I change the slides to the pink area (trying to demonstrate the spread of latin to current day Spain). Apparently I had mis-judged the color and students began their protest. Ms. Señorita Ramirez, that's not pink its orange. Nah-uh its brown. A student raises his hand. Ok everyone, I need silencio, por favor. Quinten has something to share with us. (I'm thinking I successfully got everyone quiet and Quinten was going to ask a relevant question. Ms Señorita, its pink on the computer screen but orange on the projector screen. Then others: its not pink its more red on the computer! ... and so on and so forth. This happens every day with SOMETHING. I misspelled a word on my powerpoint. I referred back to something we did on Day 5 when it was really learned on Day 6. I share with the students that I'm not Spanish, but instead American. I think the students think about everything so literally that if what I say or do is not SPOT ON, they are confused. That I get, but students opening their mouthes during instruction EVERY MINUTE. Not okay.
Ok well I'm going to leave off here. Must begin lesson planning so that I'm not killing myself tonight or during the week when, oh yeah, the administration is doing a major overhaul of the schedule and I will be getting losing all my 6th graders (the angels!) and 50% new students- most likely 8th graders.
more to come about grad school, DC living and of course... the children.
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