Frustrated and anxious

This was a rough week but it was my first week of teaching my own plans and teaching completely on my own. I am exhausted and overwhelmed. I think I worked an average of 10 hours every day and then came home and did more work. Then I spent 4 hours in the school on Saturday making plans. The worst part is, that for all the planning, everyday forces changes. Some kids get some things and others don’t. One class forges ahead quickly while another is stumped by the first concept. And then there is the inclusion class where I am now working with a first year inclusion teacher who wants all the plans five days in advance. I am feeling very unsuccessful. I don’t seem to be having the sort of encouraging moments that made fields so amazing. I just find myself failing and falling behind. I wonder if this is normal.
I have my first meeting with a parent of a student who is on a 504 and has been diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder but who has not gone back to the doctor for any follow up. Dealing with this child (and the class he is in) leaves me feeling as if I’ve been hit by a bus. Here’s the kicker, I like this kid, he is a bright kid, and if I could spend my day working with him one on one I think we could get somewhere, but I’ve got 60-some other kids, 17 of which are in his class, and I cannot let him run the class which is currently what’s happening. I’m really nervous about this meeting.
Grammar is failing. The kids hate it. And I do too. I have an English degree and edited text books and I don’t know the definitions of the words they are supposed to be learning. I hate this. I asked J what she thought I should do to make this more successful and she paused and said, “I don’t know what to tell you.” She was nice about it but I hate feeling like I just got the stuff she didn’t want to teach. Poetry is going better. I used Robert Frost and Ozzy Osbourne to demonstrate symbolism and it was great. The kids loved it and they got it. They were all able to then independently identify symbols in other poems I gave them. Plus they wrote their first poem for me and they were so cute. Once they figured out that there were no wrong answers, they went nuts. One kid in the inclusion class said, “so you mean if I want to say ‘I’m from heavy hard headbanging highway to hell’ that would be ok?” I was so excited! And made him write he*% instead of hell because profanity is not aloud in class. He totally got it. And that was cool.

How in the world do you re-engage kids who have been out for almost an entire week? They are off the wall today. And I was lucky enough to get to teach the second half of the day. I had some severe disrespect issues with one girl (she is the stereotype of a attitude filled middle school girl). She is bright but completely disengaged. I was so taken aback by it, that I failed to deal with it immediately and therefore lost my ability to deal with it at all. I’m prepared for next week though. I have a feeling she could be my first detention. Julie and I went over some strategies for how to handle it next time. Such as, simply handing her a detention in the moment and making the class aware I’m not a marshmallow (which, I am). Afterwards, I will have a private talk with her about her behavior and potential, which she has a ton of. She has an A intellect and a C average performance. I plan on challenging her in the next five weeks, poor thing. I just think she needs engaged at a higher level. And she needs a little bit of being put in her place by me. Otherwise, no matter what lesson I throw at her, she’ll never respect me.
Also, I’m trying to plan for my grammar/poetry unit and I am feeling completely overwhelmed. How do you make Grammar engaging for kids as a standalone unit! I tend to want to make everything connected and this is not how Julie teaches. This is good for me though, my big picture thinking can lead to details being dropped, by being forced to become an all detail person, I am flexing and developing muscle that has been sadly neglected.

Snow Day!

Two days off of school! It's crazy and I'm realizing the perks of teaching. It's giving me a chance to catch up on my other two classes that I am currently taking. Also, I got my praxis scores back and I PASSED! Yay! I was worried for no reason. Rob laughed at me, I really thought I failed and it turns out I came darn close to acing both.
This is all starting to feel incredibly real, like I could be a part of the working world someday soon, with a paycheck to boot. The really crazy part is, I'm actually in a career that fits me like a glove, that I am excited to do, and that I want to be great at. It may have taken me longer than most to get here, but I'm darn glad I'm here.

Day 5

Today was a test day and…it was snowing. This means chaos in kid land. The school was abuzz with early release rumors which turned out to be true. Julie shut the blinds and refused to let the kids talk about it. And here is a big difference between us. I wanted to open the blinds, embrace the snow, and make the kids write a paragraph from the snowflake’s POV as he floats down on a scene from one of their historical fiction books (POV is what we have been working on all week). I wanted to embrace the excitement. Because there is a part of me that is still a middle schooler who is all worked up over snow.
The kids got out after lunch which means 6/7, which is behind the other classes to begin with, is now even further behind. Ugh.

Day 4

I think I’m understanding why I’m feeling overwhelmed here. Here is today’s agenda; Greek and Latin Root words-2 handouts, short response review on overhead, discuss mood, take notes on conflict and plot. They covered 5 concepts in 88 minutes. And they were not linked…at all. She just went from one to the next. I felt totally frazzled. This may work, and it may be a good way, it is not my way. I am a connections freak. I can’t help but see how this world is connected, it’s what I do. And it things are just thrown at me, my brain wants to put them in order, make them make sense in a larger context or it just throws them out. My teaching style is very different than my MT’s. But that’s part of why I wanted to come back here, I wanted a chance to learn about what doesn’t come easy for me.
Julie has complete control of her class, this is my weakness. I am too nice. She has these kids shaking in their boots. And while I will probably never be this, I have already learned a few basic techniques from her. For example, I cannot be afraid of silence.

Day 3

Feeling more confident today, which is funny because I’m feeling totally wiped out. I’m exhausted and getting sick. I’m starting to really plan for my own teaching and the more I plan, the more I realize what I have to do; grades, regular assignments, what do I need to maintain vs. what do I need to change. There is a large part of me that wants to keep the basic infrastructure of the calss the same. I don’t want to go through the chaos that comes with relearning the basics such as seating, how grading works, etc. Is this how I would do it in my classroom? Well, not really. But the reality is, this is not my classroom, or at least hasn’t been for most of the year.
I learned how to do progress book today which is where all the grades are stored. Just by getting a chance to flip through this and enter some grades I feel better about the whole grading thing. I think I get what I need to do here. I also got to grade some short answer essays today. The kids will be taking the OAA while I’m here so I will be doing a week of test prep with them. This essay is just a part of what they will be doing on the OAA. And it’s ucky boring but I understand it’s necessity. This is how they are judged and I am judged and the district is judged. But I don't like it one bit.

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.  

Dust in the Sunlight

Right now the boys are smacking the couch and playing in the dust that rises up and swirls around, visible only in the beam of sunlight coming in the window.  Its charming.  And yet I'm becoming increasingly disturbed by the amount of dust they're able to procure from a single cushion.  

Rant

Poverty is failure when you live in a nation that measures success by the size of your paycheck.  Poverty is humiliation when you live in a culture where pride is determined by the things you own.  I am not referring to great personal wealth, I am referring to simply having the ability to buy groceries, simply being able to buy shoes for your child.   I have been surrounded lately by people who have some sense of a redeeming social value in personal poverty, people who 'choose' to live in poverty or glamorize the idea of being poor.  But when you cannot feed your children, when taking your child to the hospital is making a choice to take on debt that you may never fully recover from, when you don't know where you are going to live from one day to the next, when you have to rely on others to provide for you what you cannot provide for yourselves, it is painful and it is destructive.  

The stress of worrying about bills and food causes people in poor communities to have higher rates of heart disease and diabetes.  According to the U.S. Department of Justice 55% of homeless girls are engaged in formal prostitution.  Children in poor communities are far less likely to graduate high school.  I find it to be so condescending to claim that living in poverty is in any way living simply.  Poverty is complex and overwhelming for those trapped in it. 

I know this all seems obvious.  And I know that most people just want to help those in need, but it seems to me that sometimes people want to help "the poor" but have no idea how to begin to relate to the people living in complex situations that have led to poverty.  

Things I am grateful for...

1. Vanilla cream chocolates

2. Biore Pore perfect strips

3. Thunderstorms

4. A hubby who can help do my homework for me (he designed a website for my final project...one class done!  Hurrah!)

Holy Crap.

Thats me.  At the fair.  With a butter sculpture of Mt. Rushmore only made with Ohio presidents.  And yes, thats dear old William Henry.  

I mean really.  Could I be more happy?  Could they have added any more of my very favorite things into one perfect...thing?  

I can't even begin to be articulate about this.  

Ira Glass and Chris Ware...oh it's all just too much!

Happy Birthday

I just returned from DC yesterday to discover that somehow, remarkably and unbelievably, my 20's were over. And it occurred to me this weekend, in one of those "it should be incredibly obvious and yes I understand in my head what's happening but, wow, I just got it" moments, that I will not get this time back. There is no going back, no do overs, no special compensation for those who threw time away. Life moves on and so must I. Trite. I know. But I think a part of me always thought that I would get a chance to figure out life like my friends who didn't get knocked up at 20. Like maybe I would be given some free time at some point to get to know myself. But this weekend was as close as it was going to get (thank you Rob for letting me leave you and the kids for 4 days) and it had to be enough. What I realized is, that no one knows themselves much better than anyone else. I know that I am capable of raising two young boys and navigating a marriage for 8 1/2 years. This has to be enough for now.

On the other hand, spending time with my three girl cousins (all older and all my childhood heroes, they wore black freaking lip stick for goodness sake!) this weekend made me realize that we are all aging in the same Grandma Fender mold, with thickening bellies and thicker skins. It's an odd thing to look around you and see three people raised in different cities and living very different lives who are very much like you in some defining ways. Things I thought of as my own are no more than character traits instilled in us by our hard drinking, tough as nails Grandma and the 8 kids she raised (our parents). Maybe it's because Grandma died this year but the whole thing seemed incredibly sad and sweet. We are her legacy. And we are crazy.

Don't get me wrong. All in all, between the cousins whom I love so very dearly and the amazing friends wishing me well, this was my best birthday ever. I'm looking forward to this decade.

Last night this seemed important

It seems like, as you live, the number of things you've known, enjoyed, and loved which have left and gone away begin to outnumber the things you currently know, love, and enjoy. As a kid, loss is so abstract and unreal but as you grow older and begin to experience loss, whether it's watching a neighborhood change or a friend leave or a parent die, you start to really see how precarious your place in this world is. I'm not saying I'm there yet, I'm just watching Rob's grandparents getting more and more fearful of a world that doesn't let them hold on to anything. I know that I have a hard time with my favorite flea market being gone, it's been over a year and I still am grieving. What will it be like when all of my favorite places and people have slowly disappeared into a past that no one but myself really understands?