the end is near

wow. i definitely sucked at keeping this updated this year. i'll add that to the list of things i need to improve upon.

we are now in our last few days of students at school and it's just starting to hit me how wonderful it would have been to stay at this school and really dig my feet into teaching and solidifying friendships made. i feel as though i'm just getting my grasp on things and now we're all moving on. it has been such a journey coming from ca and feeling like an outsider to being really sad to have to pack up and move on.

i thought i had more words for this topic but i guess i'm currently out of words.

april is here!

i just reread the last entry i wrote and i can't believe how long ago that was! two months later, the 3rd grade teacher has returned but we've lost our 6th grade teacher. my classroom management and teaching is somewhat a disaster but i've hit a stride that i think is comfortable and i'm basically waiting out my time this year until i can start anew next year. i feel bad saying that i am giving up on these kids and i hate to admit it, but i've sort of let go. i'm not sure what the first year of teaching is supposed to be like but i am certain i will not be a fantastic teacher. and at this point in my life, i feel okay with that. in october, i think i would have disagreed.

i had a student who was out for about 2 weeks before easter vacation and he just returned today. it wasn't until he returned that i noticed how the class dynamic had changed without him. it is true that the kids argued somewhat less and gross/inappropriate words were not used. it's so amazing how one student can change the entire class and with a group of 12, the difference is only magnified.

i also have come to realized how much influence knowledge of a certain local area has to do with teaching. i am unfamiliar with the area i live in and the common occurrences in dc and i wonder how much more effective i could be if i just have a simple knowledge of what theme parks kids go to in the summer or even what grocery store! so cal kids would never go to a giant or king's dominion and washitonians (washingtonian?) would never go to knott's berry farm or ralph's. this really only came up because i just got back from being home for a week.

i didn't realize how much i missed my family until this month! even christmas didn't pull up these feelings. i'd say 7 months is a quite a long time to suddenly be homesick :D

p.s. i feel sometimes that this blog is completely useless. hah!

i suppose i haven't been keeping up with the purpose of this blog...which is to mark my adventures as a first year teacher...so that in the future, i can look back and see how i've grown and quite possibly to laugh at myself in the past.

it gets harder to update because things are so crazy and even harder to update because of the things i want to avoid in my teaching experience or how i'm feeling. i'm almost 100% that i once heard a friend say, after her experience, that she most definitely was depressed for a good part of her first year of teaching but did not realize it until the year after.

i have to say...this has been one hell of a week. the third grade teacher, someone who acts as my mentor and friend, i would say, was out all last week because she had some stomach pains and had to be hospitalized. i didn't realize how much i liked talking to her or how much i depended on her for not only practical support but moral support as well..and i never realized how much i just liked being around her. she's young so good thing she is relatively healthy. she just had surgery yesterday so i'm hoping she will be back at school sometime next week.

on top of the third grade teacher being gone, our principal's daughter's boyfriend of 10 years passed away. as in he was talking on the phone to his supervisor one minute and dropped dead the next. crazy. and even moreso, on top of all school things, grad school has me totally overwhelmed. two classes with the same intense professor is NOT good...it's hard to even breathe when immediately, the same night you have class you come home to begin reading for the next week.

i don't think she understands what it means to be at a professional college...we have to work..most of my classmates have families they need to look after. i can't imagine having a family, working and going to grad school.

at mass this morning, the priest talked about our attitude...our set way of looking at things..and i realized that the attitude i woke up with was one that was negative. i literally felt like teaching, grad school, and living was tearing at my soul...it was breaking my heart. and so now i'm trying to be more positive...every encounter is a positive one to add to my life's lessons.

on friday, i left the school not wanting to go back and not wanting to see my kid's...it makes it difficult when they do not listen or there is no growth shown...and sometimes i think that i could be in better control...but sometimes it's the kids...and their inability to follow directions or take a seat SILENTLY.

enough ranting..i need to finish reading so i can do more reading. oh, this is the life.... -__-

jokes

"ms. t, i have a joke for you."

okay, let's hear it.

"can i feel you?"

(wondering where this is going...) um..okay.

he reaches out to pat my arm
"you feel like michael jordan"

ohh, good joke!




hahaha....this student is the greatest...he has been coming to school lately with some jokes tucked away just for me. one of my favorites was also...

ms. t, i have a joke for you.

okay.

what did the ranch say to the refrigerator door?

what? (thinking that the punchline would be "close the door, i'm dressing")

close the door, i'm naked!

hahaha...are you sure that's how it goes?

yup!

(a few seconds later...) or maybe not?



hahaha...kids are great!

coming and going

by now, i have survived living and teaching in washington dc for about 4 months. quite an accomplishment! being home was interesting and strange. it felt good to be home but at the same time, it's not home for me anymore. i think the best thing was to see my family and friends who i haven't seen in such a long time. but i think when the time to go came, i was ready. i find myself less independent when with my parents and i feel like their expectations are different for me.

coming back to teach was okay. we started on a thursday with a half day on friday so the week went by quickly. i think it was better this way, although i did complain about having to come back early for two days. if we had started on a monday, the week would have been a lot rougher and i do not think i would be as well planned. i came back with a lot more patience but i also lost my patience more quickly. my goal for the next school year is to be the teacher that the students say is mean on the first day of school. or after the first week. that would be the best compliment :D hah...i am definitely out of shape teaching-wise and it's hard to get back into the groove of lesson planning.

i'm finding that i am not as confident as i was at the end of last month and that i feel like i have not been doing a good job at all. i didn't follow the pacing guides...i didn't follow the instructional focus calendars...i didn't think it would make a difference. why did i think that? i have no idea! i just feel like my kids haven't learned anything so far! four months have passed and really, what have i taught them? what will these students take away from this year? i don't want them to go to third grade and know nothing...not only does that reflect badly on me (quite a selfish point) but they would flop in third grade! i'm supposed to be uplifting them and teaching them things so they can survive in third grade but i'm not doing any of that! why would anyone trust a first year teacher with their kids???????

yikes!

needless to say, i'm having quite a conundrum over my own teaching abilities and am trying to find the confidence i had last month. where did it go?

snow!

it snowed today!!!!!

i was so excited! and i still am :D we definitely had some snow starting at about 6am and stopping around maybe 9pm tonight...it looks so beautiful, everywhere is covered with a nice, fluffy blanket of snow. now, i'm beginning to think that this snow is definitely a reason for me to stay on the east coast. and i'm saying this now, at the beginning of the snow season but...it just looks so beautiful and pristine. i know, i know...wait until it turns icy and yucky from the cars and people but i like it. i think because it's such a drastic change.

so, here is a list of the things i did today that were snow related...

- threw a snowball
- had a snowball thrown at me
- shoveled snow off our walk
- cleaned snow off a car
- had a snowflake land on my tongue
- was the first person to step in fresh snow
- caught a snowflake that was the size of a hole punch and looked like the star of david on my glove
- checked for a delayed school day due to snow/cancelled school due to snow


pretty impressive, don't you think?? haha...and i'm the reporter to my housemates if we have a delayed school day tomorrow due to "inclement weather". i feel like i'm the town messenger...

anyway, altogether today was an excellent day...aside from being distracted while i was teaching because i was trying to look at the snow and forgetting my phone in my coworkers car..boo..i was too excited about the snow. okay, time to go to bed so i can wake up early to check the website for delays/a snow day (which prob won't happen).


xoxo to all my warm californian friends! Link

emotional (or) realizations.

there are a lot of things that come with working with my students that i never really realized until today. i was prepping for the day and one of my students came inside to get something for another teacher. it was her birthday last thursday then she wasn't at school on friday. well i asked her how her weekend was and why she wasn't there on friday..she first answered that her birthday was bad because she didn't get any presents and that her mom and her stepdad argued all weekend and her mom had to take out a knife...crazy shit...then she said that she didn't wake up early enough on friday morning, meaning that her mother didn't wake up early enough. and then she had this big scratch on her face and i asked her what happened and she said just said "scissors" and i didn't think at the time of asking but who had the scissors? was she fighting with someone else who had scissors? or was she just lying? she's a gifted liar this one...and another student in the class who is also a gifted liar seems romantically attached to her.

in another scenario that lasted the entire day...i have one student who is on a behavior contract and he's a student who i believe has one of the lowest self-esteems of the entire class. we were using play-doh (aka dollar store version: magic dough) to spell out our spelling words. well, he couldn't figure out how to get the play-doh to roll and become like a rope or something you could write letters with. he completely shut down and started crying, which he does often, and just wouldn't do the activity. i worked with him for a while and he was capable of doing the activity but continued to say that he was no good at it. there was nothing i could say that would bring his spirits up. later in the day, i pulled him aside to complete this daily behavior sheet with his goals on it. after we went through and found that we only checked two out of the five goals, he started to cry and said he hated himself and wished to kill himself. does he really know what he's saying? probably not. he's probably copying someone in his own house.

i talked to him for a while and asked him why he said he hated himself and i pulled it out of him that it was because he was upset but really, he felt like he couldn't do anything right ever and that if he got a bad report, his mother was going to call his dad and his dad would "come and whip him". now, his dad is out of the picture..was he talking about his mom's boyfriend? maybe...but how foolish was i to go through my teenage angst and depressed/suicidal phase when this student, 7 years old, is ALREADY telling himself that he is not worthy of living and that he hates himself. could it be an attention getting gimmick? maybe. but what really tears my heart apart is that someone in his life is saying these things. he's not picking it up out of the thin air...someone in his life is either telling him that he should hate himself or they are telling themselves that they hate themselves and he is just mimicking them.

my heart aches and cries for these kids. they argue all day long because they don't know how to play together or to even sit in a classroom together. their lives were set on an alternate course from the day they were born. are some of their parents crazy? yes. are some of the kids crazy? yes. what kind of world is it turning into where kids at 6 and 7 know about sex? sure they don't know all the details but they know what sex is and that it's not something they should be talking about during school. there's nothing left for them to learn as they grow older. there's no childhood left.

i just feel so sad. and i know that no matter how skilled of a teacher i will become, i will never be able to change their home life. i will never be able to change the circumstances into which these kids are born into. i will only be in their life for 9 months and then they will move on. 9 months is such a short time to become attached to students whose lives are unpredictable and unsteady. 9 months to undo 6 years of habits. who knows if i will even make a difference...who knows where these kids will go? i won't even be able to see them next year. i'll have no idea where my first class goes, especially if i move back to ca.



on top of this...my uncle is slowly recovering but still in pretty serious condition. please pray for him and my students...please pray that i may continue to have the strength of steadiness and dependability for my students. pray that i might make a slight difference in their lives.