Student Teaching day 2

Met with the Intervention Specialist (IS) to discuss planning for 6/7 period. I guess its time to introduce them, out of a class of 17 there are 14 on IEPs or 504s. It is supposed to be an inclusion class but because of the ratio it is just a very, very large resource room. Because the number of kids with special needs is so high, they tend to dictate the socially acceptable behavior in the class. Which means sometimes you end the day feeling like you were hit by a bus. A very large, noisy, attitude filled bus. But…and this is my insanity which will most likely fade with the years…this is my favorite class and the class by which I will most likely judge my own success or failure in this school. I like the messy kids a lot. They are far more fun than the kids who just do what you tell them to. Heck, I like messy people in general. And maybe we are all messy, but anyway, I like this class a lot.

Student Teaching day 1

I’m amazed at how nervous I am. You would think I was being forced to start teaching on my first day with the lack of sleep I got last night. I spent the night thinking up things I need to learn about before I can possibly teach and convincing myself there was no way I could ever do this. I was in this class room for three weeks in October for my fields so I should have the advantage over most student teachers. I’d hate to see what I would have been like if I was in a completely new classroom.
I stood at the door on the first day and greeted the students. Only about half said hi. It was so cute. I’m pretty sure the standing rule of 8th grade (middle school in general?) is to deny emotions, affections, or connections to teachers who have not established themselves on the list of acceptably cool teachers. You don’t want someone seeing you being nice to someone who hasn’t been approved. At least that’s how it was when I was there age.
The school has adopted readers workshop as their language arts format and the classes are in block form so we get 88min with the kids. I like this because it establishes a routine but there is a temptation to fall into a mindless routine where the kids do the same things everyday and detach. I have seen routine take the place of instruction in some schools, as if, because the kids do the same thing without complaint every day, they must be learning and engaged.
My MT had to recommend kids for honors English and a foreign language based on grades and effort in the class. I was a little disappointed that the kids had no input on the decision. I would have liked to have known where they saw themselves.

Also, Rob is still jobless and I have the increasingly overwhelming fear that I will not be able to get a job after this. Because it is becoming more and more important to the survival of this little family that I do get a job.

Interviewy gooey kablooey

Six months later and we are still standing. Pretty much. I do believe the tough times make us stronger but, my oh my, I would take the easy less strong and/or wise path sometimes. Rob is still sans job but he had a really promising interview today at the company where his dad works. For the first time since the layoff I put out a public plea for prayer. For some reason, my crying and praying and pleading with God has been far less this time around. My anger on the other hand, has been whispering in my ear a little louder. While I truly think anger can be a wholly justified and healthy emotion, I think there are times when it is just straight up destructive and energy zapping. In this case, the destructive energy zapping kind is what I am suffering from. I feel like a spoiled kid kicking the walls screaming "not fair!" The irony is that I'm kicking the walls of my warm, food filled, sweet little 100 year old house (happy b-day baby) filled with the three men I love more than life itself.

I spent a week with two people who are divorced (from each other) recently. They were spending time together for their son and I admire that. One half of the couple had made choices that had exploded all of their lives together, their family, into tiny little fragments that had lodged themselves painfully into all those close to them. There was nothing pretty about their pain. And for one of them, it was absolutely not the life they ever had foreseen for themselves of their child. And they had zero control, their life was at the mercy of someone who made bad decisions. What I took from this, selfishly, was that I would take being poor and unemployed with a strong family and marriage a million times over being divorced. Also, it made me realized that people can be selfish jerks. But I guess I knew that already.

Ok, I still want Rob to get a job. Desperately. In large part because I want my hubby out of the house and occupied with something productive.

Unemployed Day 3

So here we are again. For the second time in four years, Rob has been the victim of corporate downsizing/restructuring. It stinks, it sucks, it's unfair, and it's scary. And then, once you get past that, it's life and there are worse things that could happen. But right now, it just stinks.

I came home on Wednesday after spending all day in class and found that Rob had been home and I knew right then. He hadn't been answering my calls because he didn't want me to have to sit in class all day after finding out...which was nice. But man, it is such a punch in the gut, it knocked the wind right out of me. And as much as everyone says that this is an opportunity and it's probably for the best and there is something better out there, I'm having a hard time having hope when every other report on the news is about growing upemployment.

This just made my night.  Thank you, Jenny!  

“If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning ‘Good morning’ at total strangers.” Maya Angelou.

I don't usually like to post quotes.  I like reading them, but I just don't have the personal connection with them that some people do.  But this one changed my life a few years ago and I was reminded of it today and I thought I should get it down where I can easily find it again.  I used to think that what other people thought of me was more important than what my own hubby thought of me.  I was prone to being an ass to him at any given moment.  This quote changed that.

My mom asked me today if I thought it was possible to teach a person something from one's own experience.  I mean, as a mom, as a parent, its our highest goal.  We want to spare our kids the pain of our mistakes, we want to give them the wisdom that we ourselves earned through experience.  But I'm not sure we can, not really.  I think we set up norms for our kids, I think just by living with them and interacting with them, and loving them, we set up their expectations for the world.  Then they go out and generally function within these parameters.  Not always, but generally.  Its a whole, the apple doesn't fall far kind of thing.  We are comfortable with what is familiar and we will seek to create surroundings that fit within our childhood expectations of 'how things should be'.  But real wisdom, I'm just not sure how much we get to impart.  The times I've really been struck by other people's experiences are when those other people are not close to me.  I am more likely to listen to someone whose flaws I am unaware of, someone who is an ideal (such as a Writer, a Leader, etc) rather than a actual participating member of my daily life.  

If someone, say my mom, had said 'quit being a witch to your hubby' I would have said, 'mind your own dang business.  I grew up with you.  I know how you can be.'  I never would have heard the truth or the wisdom.  And yet Maya Angelou, someone who, for all I know could be a total meanie to her family, changes my perspective on life.  

Just saying.  Seems unfair.  The people you love the most, you hear the least. And vice versa.  

Christmas

It's hard to even know what to write about this Christmas, but it been weighing on me heavily and I sort of feel like I need to write something about it down.  Maybe it'll help to make it all make sense.  But then again maybe certain things don't need to make sense or are better off left in the realm of mystery, beyond comprehension.  

Grief sucks.  Really badly.  

My cousin who I love dearly and who I've basically looked up to all my life, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Nancy Ann.  Nancy Ann was only with us for 9 hours before she died.  

I am very grateful that I was able to go to Baltimore last weekend and be a part of the funeral and to just be with family and be sad.  The pain of losing a child is beyond description.  It seems to me to be the deepest and darkest of pains.  Without words or boundaries of any sort, it spreads and grows and covers everything.  It is horrible and terrifying and sacred in its absoluteness.  

On the Monday we returned from Baltimore (so this monday) we learned that one of my mom's best friends from high school and long time family friend had been murdered over the weekend by her boyfriend, who then proceeded in the most cowardly and disgusting of fashions to kill himself.  

The point is, we spend a lot of our lives saying things like God will never give us more than we can handle, and even if things get rough, we'll have love or each other or our faith.  What never occurs to me is how damn much could be asked from us.  The world feels raw and dangerous right now.  And I feel extremely self centered as these things have not happened to me directly but to those whom I love and care about.  but I grieve grieve grieve.  It is all I can think about most days.  

And I love.  My boys (all three) are amazing.  I have held them closer and tighter the last few months.  And while I did let many of the details of Christmas go this year, less gifts, no cards, very little baking, my Christmas day was more wonderful than it has been in a long long time.