Kids say the darndest things

me: ¡Siéntense, estudiantes!"

student: Hey Ms. Ramirez that sounds like a Harry Potter curse. sientense!

I couldn't help but to break out laughing in the middle of instruction. Granted, this was said by the same student that stole and later chucked my phone into the yard of a nearby house. It was funny, but I did NOT want to give him that satisfaction of making me laugh!

anyway, important thing being: phone is recovered.

So Mad

Awful week. Phone stolen off desk by student while I was in the room today. I dedicate all my time to these kids and this is my reward? Awesome.

Friday Furlough

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.

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.

WIKILEAKS!

effing awesome and inspiring guy. we need to get real about the sad state of our mainstream media and infotainment that we all buy into on a daily basis.


or:
Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks | Video on TED.com

un lindo poema :)

I was reading through a Spanish lit book last night and came across this. Beautiful, no? Its an awesome description of true friendship. I especially love the last two lines.

La amistad es amor
por Pedro Prado

La amistad es amor en serenos estados;
los amigos se hablan cuando estan mas callados,
Si el silencio interrumpo, el amigo responde,
mi propio pensamiento, que tambien el esconde.

Si el comienza, prosigo el curso de su idea,
ninguno de nosotros la formula ni crea,
Sentimos que hay un algo superior que nos guia,
y logra la unidad de nuestra compañia.

Y nos vemos llevados a pensar con hondura,
y a lograr certidumbre en la vida insegura;
y sabemos que encima de nuestra apariencias,

se adivina un saber, mas alla de las ciencias.
Y por eso yo busco el tener a mi lado
el amigo que entiende cuando digo callado.

First week of teaching DONE!

I am currently on a bus back to Philadelphia from New York where I spent the weekend for Alicia's bachelorette party extravaganza. 'Twas quite a fun weekend. I was DRAGGING the entire time, but I think' TFA has instilled in me a great mindset which helped me though. They always say "Its all about the kids; How are the children? " During the week we have to remind ourselves this as we wake up at 5 am with 4 or 5 hours of sleep under our belt. So this weekend, despite the fact that I fell asleep during the intermission of "Mamma Mia!" I had to remind myself that "It's all about Alicia; How is my sister?" Thus, we made it til 4 in the morn partying at a place called Pranna and Willow. LOVE MY SIS!

Otherwise the weekend was another great break. I am starting to like NYC more and more. It's interesting how drawn I am to big cities. When I am in Wisconsin for too long, I become complacent. Chicago is near and I am sure there are plenty of other things to do and explore, but I just never have the drive or interest to seek them out. But being on the East Coast I am always looking for new places to go and things to experience. It doesn't hurt that public transportation is so much better here. For example, I paid $7 for this bus ride to Philly. Altogether it was a $18.50 round trip Philly-NYC. That's equivalent to a ONE WAY ticket from Madison to Waukesha. Round trip is $35... absurd. Aforementioned cheap transport is one of the things I love about cities, read on for more:

One of the things I LOVE about bigger cities is the ethnic diversity of the people. Introducing myself to others doesn't include the follow-up question of "What are you?," obviously desiring to elicit the response "Mexican," not caring whether or not that has anything to do with who I am or whether my ancestors also hail from other countries. They're "just curious" since I have such an "exotic look." That conversation doesn't happen too much in bigger cities. I love meeting people, knowing that their intention is not to immediately put me into a box with other people whose hair is as curly as mine and skin as brown.

On that same note, there are TONS of inter-ethnic couples. It's so comforting to see an Indian guy walking hand in hand with a white girl or a black guy with his arm around an Asian girl. I understand that the previous sentence would be rather strange if one were to read it out of context. But seeing inter-ethnic couples means again that there is a general understanding that American IS a culture and that anyone can be just as American as the next kid with blonde hair and blue eyes. In the end what it is, is intelligent people transcending dumb people. It's people understanding that brown does not make the person. It's people realizing that people are scared of the unfamiliar and it's smart people realizing that simple people like to categorize and group so that they can find their limits and stay within them.

Am I taking this too far?

Anyway:
On Friday night, I thought it would be SOOO funny to stop at a street food stand on our way back to the hotel and get a halal wiener to create a great bachelorette party photo-op for Alicia. I was ordering the wiener and heard the vendor talking to his friends behind the stall in what sounded like Arabic. I paused for a moment and asked "Excuse me sir, where are you from?" "I am Egyptian" he answered. So of course I blurb out "Masree?? Ana uhib misr!" which is an awful mix of fosha and 3amiyya masryya, but we ended up having a conversation consisting all the vital and basic phrases that I can remember. And as I was receiving the halal wiener I said to him "shokran jazeelan" at the exact same time as he said "shokran jazeelan" and then he gave me a free water! LOVE THE MASREES! people need to get to the middle east more often. these peeps is awesome.


So on to the main point of why I'm writing-- my first week as a teacher! Let me first start with saying that DAYUM, Teach for America runs a tight ship. For the last 4 years, I have been used to running my own life, doing things when I see fit, but at the same thing staying on top of my shit and getting a 4.0 throughout my senior year. That whole relaxed, do-things-as-you-can feeling doesn't really cut it with TFA. Actually let me say, doesn't cut it at ALL with TFA. Deadlines are strict. No one cares that you're sleep deprived. No one cares that you have a cold. No one cares that you haven't had any physical stimulation in days. Like I said earlier, it's all about the kids. Lesson planning, material creating, worksheet writing, theory learning and the like consumes my time from 5 am until 12 am just about every day. Last week I was able to sneak in 8 hours of sleep on Sunday and Thursday night due to the extra time allowed by the half-day on Monday, July 5.

The only way that I am able to keep waking up every day is because there is a huge team mindset that exists. We are all getting 3-5 hours of sleep on average. We all are loopy and out-of-it all day long. We are all doing it for the same reason (well most of us I assume). While it sucks to struggle through each day, only one other time have I been part of such a positive group of individuals. The people who are in TFA are extremely intelligent, lively and positive young people who are wholly dedicated and are "working relentlessly" to provide just an education for every child in the US just as strong and prestigious as they have received in the last 17 years.

I sometimes think about my participation with TFA in the larger picture as a service to the country. I think its extremely important for everyone to serve their country or community in one way or another. Seeing as how I would rather build up my own nation rather than breaking down that of others, I have chosen this path to public service over the US Military. If Americans are really interested with "spreading democracy" to the world, I believe we should start with our own country. Isn't a democracy a form of government in which the" supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system?" Or am I, and dictionary.com, mistaken? I really don't understand why more people across the country are not outraged at the current state of our own nation. Despite popular belief, we do not live in a true democracy. If anything, it could be called an oligarchy. What's changed since the inception of the United States of America and the rules that our friendly founding fathers put forth? I would argue not much. It is certainly more accurate to describe our nation as one ruled by a group of wealthy men with Judeo-Christian beliefs and Anglo-saxon heritage than a country in which the supreme power is vested in the people. While some of us live a worry-free live filled with vocational and educational opportunities up the wazoo and enough food in our kitchen pantry to feed the population of land-locked Lesotho, another overwhelming number of Americans never make it past high school because they're made to believe that they can't and that they shouldn't, and wind up in line for the community food pantry being judged by the rest of us who drive by in our Priuses and SUVs on our way to work.

Perhaps that is enough political rant for this Sunday afternoon. Until next time, friends.