...But you said it was voluntary!

The boxes are still there.

Yesterday and today I went in to work on my summer school plans. I was supposed to go to a strategic planning for our school. However, Wednesday morning I woke up and decided I would not go. They told us it was strictly voluntary to attend. I figured I would get caught up, get my room organized, and de stress before next week's summer school.

I worked on a syllabus and the lesson plans. I determined what TAKS Objectives these students were weak in. I cleaned out the closet in my old room. Today, I wrote a letter to the parents and got it submitted to be translated into Spanish.

As I was working in my room yesterday, one of the teachers who helped me much this year dropped by and demanded to know why I was not at the meeting. I explained above. She left not looking convinced.

Then today, another mentor teacher came in and said since I got 86% of my students to pass TAKS, I needed to be there. I am not sure I see the logic.

After the meeting was over, I came out of room (cave) and went to the front office. Ms. P (AP) heard my voice and yelled "Is that Ms. A?" I told her I was at school, but working on plans for the summer. She tells me, "We didn't know where you were! We wondered if you were sick! or went out of town the week before summer school!" She sounded stressed out and looked like she was working on class lists, so I didn't stay and talk. But I think they were worried about me.

In other news, in my syllabus I put my pet peeves. I came up with 17. I know it's too much, but I could have come up with more. My favorite is: "I agree roosters are beautiful animals, but can you draw me a cat or an elephant or something!?" And "Putting on make-up during class. I don’t even want to see a mirror. You are beautiful no matter how you look. What matters in this class is on the inside, not the outside anyway. I don’t grade you on how you put on eye-shadow."

I am a little leary about telling the students my pet peeves. I think they will try to test me on some. However, I think I need to draw some boundaries and tell the kids where they stand with me. Hey, I am trying to communicate. And if I put something in writing that this irritates me, and I inform the student, and they do it, they can't blame me for getting irritated. I warned them. I keep telling myself maybe it will work

Oh, and another thing I have been thinking about: backward design of lesson plans. I love the UbD. However, does a real teacher ever actually plan this way. Where do you find the time? I found all last year I just flew by the seat of my pants in planning. Now, I had one week to plan for summer school. And I don't know what I will be teaching next year for sure. Planning has to be done after school and it takes alot of time. Maybe more years you teach you don't have start from scratch every time.

Oh, yeah, the boxes are still there.

I am calling today a bust!

Ok, today had good intentions. I got up at 7 a.m. to get ready for my 9 a.m. meeting at the school. I got there at 8, and moved some stuff into my new room across the hall. I met with the ESL director, assisant principal, counselor, and other teachers for the LPAC committe meeting.

When that was done, I discussed with the assisant principal, Ms. P, the curriculum for summer school. Strictly TAKS based. OK. I mentioned that in my new room, at least 15 boxes of workbooks were stored. They are not mine. Ms. P. came to my room and said all teachers are to store their own and they are not to be in the book room anymore. She said a janitor would come and remove them.

It went downhill from that. I talked to Ms. P. for a while about ESL. I have never taken an ESL strategies class. I feel like I failed horribly teaching the ESL sstudents. I had about 20 students that knew no English at all. I know very little Spanish. I learned and am amazed at how much communication is non-verbal. But, still, in the ESL 4th period class I feel I did very poorly.

Ms. P is a former ESL newcomer herself and is very supportive of (and very tough on) the newcomers here. She points out to them that if she could do it, they could do it. And, she is very supportive of me and encouraging me to learn. So I read as much as I can on the subject and go to all the bilingual conferences I can go to. I went to Stephen Kashen. (Loved it!) I went to the BEEMS conference. (So, so) I am working towards taking the ESL certification supplemental test in the fall.

After Ms. P. left, I looked at my new room. I checked my e-mail. I looked at all the icky not-my-boxes in the corner. I had to pee and I was hungry. I decided to go get lunch. While at the store, I picked up a salad and decided to eat it at home with good salad dressing. Then I decided why not just work at home? It would be cooler and I would not have to look at those dumb boxes. (I don't know why I hate those boxes so much. I think I have OCD and they are messing up my room and I-don't-know they just bug me!)

I got home and Mrs. Q. was inspecting her car. I live in teacher housing and I live next door to my principal, Mr. Q and his wife Mrs. Q. We have wild kittens and one got up into her car and took a trip with her to the post office. Somehow, we were talking and, somehow, I think, I volunteered to take one of the kittens. My puppy Vada will be thrilled.

I ate lunch. I washed dishes. I read all the blogs. I argued with the cable t.v. lady on why it's going to cost me tons of money to fix my cable. I threw the ball for my dog. We had a poop crisis. I discovered "Library Thing" and decided to enter all my books. I decided to blog. Four hours later, I haven't planned a thing for summer school next week.

I love planning for my classes. I really do! I'd rather plan and teach school than anything else. I used to get to school at 6 am and not get home until 6 pm. The other teachers were threathening to take away my school keys.

However, I am really not in the mood. I feel like a nap. I'm not bored. I just need a break. Yesterday, I crocheted on an afghan I'm making. I read a "fun" book. I surfed for totally non-school related things on the internet.

I do have to show some work ethic by tomorrow. I am calling today a bust.

Good News and Bad News

I'm a little bit sad, a little bit scared, and alot tired. The first year is almost over. Sad because I loved teaching this year and did not have enough time to do all I wanted. At least, I will get the same students next year. Scared because I have never had the entire summer off. I will be teaching summer school for a four weeks. What do I do with all that time?!!!!!? I have books, crafts, and other little projects, but... What do you do if you don't work?



I am very tired because I have a stack of research papers to correct. I think I forgot to actually tell my freshmen what a research paper is. I had a few students tell me that it was too much work and I sent them to the office to have a long talk with Ms. P, the excellent supportive assistent principal I have. They came back with a wonderful work ethic. Some students thought it was an essay and didn't use any of their research in their papers.

Also, I think my freshmen think they have to use every font known to Microsoft. I specifically told them Times New Roman 12 font in Microsoft Word. I made an examplar of the cover page, nicely centered, Times New Roman, Name, Class, Date. One group made a powerpoint with a picture of each of them as their cover page! It was very pretty and creative, but not what I assigned. Yi-I-Yi!!!!


On the good news part of the week, we got a raise for next year at the district level. At first, the rumor was $10,000 a year raise. It ended up being (for me) about $4000. Yay!!!!! And they promised more in years to come!

And, for teacher appreciation week, we got mugs and little metal starfish keychains. I'm sorry, but in "the real world" jobs, there are no appreciation weeks. Also, the local banks sent fruit baskets and pastries for the teacher lounge. I was disappointed that I got nothing from the kids, but they think I'm evil and mean. And, a little self centered. (Aren't all teenagers supposed to be?)

State Mandated Test Results

In Febuary, my students took their state mandated tests. I didn't know anything about this test and had no lessons prepared in September to teach anything. I grilled my freshmen, kept them after school, begged, pleaded, tortured, threathened them with everything under the sun to study. When the test came around, I told them everyone of them could pass, but secretly, I was adding up numbers feverishly. I figured the best I could do is 70% of them would pass.

Well, last week my mentor teacher came into my classroom and closed the door. He said he had to speak to me about my performance. He said he was coming to give me a heads up before the principal told me. I figured they are shipping me to the middle school next year (shudder!) or a parent complained or some other torture. I said, "What?" dreading the worse. He just said, "86%." I gave him my most quizzical look. He said 86% of my students passed. I got mad at him and told him not to toy with me. (We do get along quite well.) After he assured me he was telling the truth, I felt like screaming "yipeeee!"

The principal (who I like very much, too) came and told me last week that I would not be teaching freshmen next year. Evidently, some middle school teacher wants to transfer and teach freshmen. Some of other ELA teachers were very upset at this, because I was not consulted. However, I think I am grateful for it. I really want to stay with these students and teach sophmores next year. Sophmores determine AYP. By raising their scores from 80% as 8th graders to 86% as freshmen, it is more likely that the principal will go along with it.

Plus, when I tell the my students that I will probably be teaching them again, they get this strange "run away" look in their eyes. I didn't set out to be a tough teacher. But what I'm doing is working. And they are a great bunch of kids. They are so funny and smart. I love my job!

On another note, I read "huff english" daily. All our students got laptops two weeks ago and her blog on laptops in the school was timely. Many of our teachers are resisting the laptops. They say they have no training in how to use them. Between word processing, email, internet sources, etc, etc, how can they not find something not to use on the laptops?

I wish I was reading "huff english" and ms. cornelius' blogs at the beginning of the year....Often, I don't believe the things that are happening to me are normal. But all these things that happen are all too normal. Case in point, I overheard some kids talking about one getting married. I teach freshmen. I called the girl up and asked her. She affirmed she got married. She is not going to have a baby in the next 9 months. (Thank God!) And she is going to college in three years. I told one of my friends about this (she is from here) and she didn't even bat an eye. She told me to get used to it. At least the married student passed her test.