Free Write (3/2/2011)

     Well, after a plethora of comments about my pants, I have finally decided that they actually are too tight around my legs and ass cheeks. I mean, I am working out two to three times a week, drinking lots of water, only eating a breakfast biscuit for breakfast, one for lunch, and one other meal for dinner. I will stop before I begin digressing, but the point is that I do not think it is a weight issue. Before I began the program, my life was much less stressful and, consequently, I did not have pent up tension that needed to be remedied by physical activity. Nowadays, I am much more active and I think my leg and butt muscles have grown to a size that now makes my school pants too tight. So, though my pants were a very nice birthday present (they are from Brooks Brothers), they do have permanent blemishes ranging from small pen and dirt marks around the pockets, ink stains from pens that have burst in my pocket, and holes in the back right pockets from my money clip. Being on my current salary, I do not really have the option to go back there and buy a few pairs of some larger pants. At this point, I’m thinking Wal Mart is my best option. That having been said, I have yet to peruse their selection of khaki pants, but I continue to remain hopeful

     Every now and then, I receive some free time other than my post-school physical activity when I can enjoy the escape of video games. I have found that my skills in Super Smash Bros have not diminished one iota. Well, at least my skills against the computer have not eroded. My skills against humans is a different story, and I might be able to write about it if my roommate, AW, hadn’t quite literally smashed our third controller in a priceless fit of rage caused by losing a very close game late one night during Christmas Break. Since I now stay away from using Pikachu due to his cheaply overpowered moves, I have become more adept at using other characters. Ness is my new jam. His movements are very unorthodox and he wields surprising strength and edge advantages, especially for his small stature. His drawbacks are that he is frustratingly slow on the ground and, if you can hit him, he flies off the screen very quickly due to his light weight. 

     Other than these two things, everything else on weekdays is school, school, and more school

Join MTC or not?

   Being a teacher with less than one whole school year under his belt, I am not sure how qualified I am to answer this question. However, since part of my grade is based on trying to answer it, I suppose I will give it a go. 

   There are certain, obvious reasons why someone should join the program: steady work with federal benefits, a masters completely paid for by the university, the chance to meet plenty of intelligent, interesting, and very talented people who enjoy teaching and run the gamut from being just as inexperienced and timid as you to more seasoned and confident than you could imagine. Oh, and how could I forget the sweet MacBook that is issued in the summer?  These are all wonderful things and great incentives, but, unfortunately, this view of how the program operates and what you will experience is simplistic, naive, and incomplete at best.

   Let’s look at the first item on the list: work. Perhaps the word “relentless” would be more apt than the word “steady”. I honestly feel consumed with school, which makes sense when I’m actually in it, but work associated with school pervades every part of my being even when I get home. Once the school day begins, I do not stop working until I go to sleep... honestly. I arrive at school at 6:50 each morning and do not stop monitoring students until 3:45. Also, since track and field is in season these days, I switch from monitoring students to monitoring athletes from 4 - 5. After a 30 minute commute back home, it is time to make the next day’s powerpoint/worksheet/lesson until it is time for bed. If I did not have certain breaks such as my 2nd period planning period, the 30 minute commute, and some physical activity that I make sure to do when I get home either before or after planning, I probably would not have made it this far. But hey, if I need a flu shot, the cost is next to nothing so I guess everything evens out in the end, right...?

   Next, we get to the masters degree. While I won’t say it is exactly free, since my soul is taxed every single day, it is nice to know that I am working towards something. However, the classes we take for it do not exactly have an inordinate impact on how good of a teacher I am. Also, it is not like we are working towards a dissertation or huge research paper. Let it be clear that I am not complaining about the seemingly small amount of work required for this degree because I more than work my ass off at school. However, I am not sure how much weight such a degree will carry on a resume.

   I can’t really complain about the people or the computer, and the details about my list are not meant to be reasons to not join. I’m still confident that I want to teach and I am glad that I am going through something like teaching at my school very early in my career when I do not know any better. Applicants, though, need not be uninformed or misinformed about what they are getting into.

Education in Finland

So Finland is going to take over the world in mathematics and science pretty soon, eh? Well... at least per capita... maybe... ok, probably not, and even if they do take over per capita, it basically amounts to nothing in the end. I am well aware that that was not the article’s intent, but I thought I would poke some fun at Finland by inserting some American chauvinism into the mix. Also, not to attempt to refute the article, but I would like to point out the glaring irony that Finnish students’, teachers’, and schools’ successes are not measured by standardized tests, though Finland’s rank amongst other countries is based on standardized tests... I’m just sayin’.

A huge and very important difference is the perception of the profession of teaching by the Finnish people. Teachers need higher-level degrees? Teachers are regarded with the same confidence as physicians? Finns trust public schools more than almost any other public institution? That must be what heaven is like. In my dystopian present, nothing could be farther from the truth. I am openly mocked by students for what seems to them as ineptitude when I don’t teach an objective exactly the same way as their previous teacher taught it to them (don’t get me started on how infuriated I can become when this happens). Students are insanely disrespectful in other ways, such as when I give them a writing assignment for talking (“Mane, I ain’t gonna do it” or “This mane be writin’ down checks and givin’ out writin’ assignments, mane!” or “It’s ovah with!” or “Dis mane’s just a school boy”). Also (a commonplace complaint), when I send students to the office, a slightly hyperbolized metaphor would be that they usually receive a tickle on the wrist with a feather while lounging, being fanned with palm fronds, and fed grapes by beautiful servants. Unless every adult that I heard talk about school when they were young was lying, I assume that there was a time when teachers had a certain swagger and air of respect about them in the community, and maybe that still exists in some long forgotten corner of the nation. Unfortunately, those days are long gone due to our, perhaps masochistic, infatuation with sensationalized bad news. You know... a teacher sleeping with a student here... a student being whipped with a weight lifting belt there. The combination of too many isolated incidents of bad people doing bad things while under the label of “teacher” and the media licking their chops for any egregious activities to report have forever crippled the image of teachers in the United States.

Successful Group Work... Finally

It took forever, but I think I’m finally starting to get a true fell for what good teaching is. I finally feel like my power points are the correct size and depth for what I want to cover, my worksheets assess what they are supposed to assess, my kids are somewhat quiet when I am speaking and during work, and I think that I have finally conquered the beast that used to be the bane of my existence... group work.

I remember trying out group work during the summer just to see how it would go and it is obvious to me now how poor of an approach that is. With group work you have to be an incredible multi-tasker, answering and coming to the aid of every stupid little question that each group inevitably asks because they were not present, were asleep, or, most likely, just did not care to attempt to comprehend your futile efforts to teach them how to find the intersection of two lines on a calculator or some other skill that will be on a test in three or four months that they do not care about at that moment because their foresight does not go beyond what unhealthy, if not illegal, fun they will be having that weekend... *takes a deep breath*... Also, you have to rule with an iron fist and have a very structured setting for them to work under.  For example, I pick the groups beforehand in order to not let best friends be with best friends as that can certainly be a recipe for disaster. Also, I present rules and consequences for that particular activity on the power point before the activity is started and I stick to it almost vehemently for the duration of the class period. Perhaps most powerful is my cheap method of usually keeping a score in some way and having a variety of edible rewards for the winning group. That usually seems to entice them to work though the expenditures keep me from trying group work very often.

I remember my team teacher telling me this summer that I should not try group work until around late-October or November.  Naturally, I didn’t listen and tried it when the second year teacher across the hall from me suggested it in mid-September. Suffice it to say that the team teacher was pretty spot on with her suggestion (I still don’t think they can figure out multi-step equations by hand). However, through trial and tribulation I  have figured out a sufficiently acceptable formula for conducting group work. Who knows... maybe it’ll even get easy one day.

Thanksgiving in Florida

Thanksgiving in Florida

            This past Thanksgiving I spent my time with an old friend from high school since my family wasn’t having our usual big get-together. Another high school friend of mine that still lives in Oxford came with me and we had a nice little drive. The notion of leaving Mississippi for the first time since July was enough of a hook, but going to see EA was a big added bonus.

            EA is an incredible person. He was always one of the smartest kids in my grade. He did all of the honors and advanced classes and played sports. He’s very enlightened and can talk intelligently about almost anything. Even having lost his father in middle school and his Mom just this past summer, he’s still never changed who he was and he’s someone that I look up to. Oh, and did I also mention that he’s freakin’ hilarious. He’s full of witty/nerdy/awkward humor and we always seem to be on the same page whenever he’s making a joke... even if it’s about me.

            Anyway, the drive was fine. NN and I both love Arby’s and since we are deprived of it in Oxford, we both jump at any chance we get to eat there. Yeah, yeah, make fun of us for perpetuating the Mississippi stereotype. We just can’t help ourselves when it comes to Arby’s. That sweet, succulent roast beef piled high with lettuce, tomato, bacon, and melted cheddar cheese between two buttered and toasted sourdough buns is undeniably delicious. Well, we stopped at one of those old fashioned ones on the way is Podunk, Alabama. Everything on the inside was contemporary, but the sign was the old fashioned type. Being that we were in Alabama, I wasn’t surprised to see a bunch of wife beaters, mullets, and possibly inbred children running around. Nah, just kidding. It wasn’t THAT bad, but it WAS kind of bad. Once again, though, not surprising given our geographic orientation (sorry Alabama MTC’ers, I’m just a messenger).

            After making fun of the people in Arby’s, we eventually made it Florida. While there, we watched football, went to different sites and shops around Gainesville, had an incredible Thanksgiving dinner with everything you could possibly hope for, and went to Tallahassee to see the Florida Gators get stomped by the Florida State Seminoles.

            All in all, the trip was so much fun and such a great escape from school. Now, of course, it’s almost Christmas and EA will be making his way back into Oxford, so it will be nice seeing him again.

A typical day in the life

A typical day in the life

            Ok, so my alarm goes off at 5:20, then I hit the snooze button. 5:30, hit snooze again. 5:40, hit snooze again, 5:50, one more snooze. 6:00, very reluctantly get out of bed. Lately, I’ve gotten into the habit of getting a shower sometime after I get home from school (usually after a workout of some sort). Thus, by 6 in the morning all I need to do is stick my head under the sink with some cold water running, lather up some shampoo, and I’m good to go. While the hair’s drying, I brush my teeth and shave. Finally, I throw my clothes on and head up the street to my favorite gas station. There, I pick up a Luvel’s 2% milk (I know, I’m a fatty) and a breakfast biscuit with 1000% of my daily recommended sodium, and I’m off to Neverland

            I do enjoy my rides to and from school. They’re relaxing, just long enough, and I have the pleasure of listening to either Drake and Zeke’s country boy interpretations of happenings around the world or how everything in the world is going badly courtesy of NPR. Once I get to school, I adjust some desks in my room, turn on my computer and printer, and prepare my soul for my intervention period.

            Most of the students in my intervention class are notoriously bad students. It’s really a chore just to get them to take the work seriously enough to do more than two or three problems. Things have gotten progressively better, but they definitely keep me sharp. My first period class has recently become a bit of a thorn in my side. There are plenty of talkers who will get to work when I tell them, but won’t stay on task. Over half of them have IEP’s and my inclusion teacher is substituting in another room 90% of the time, so it can be a struggle sometimes. But that’s not to say that we don’t have our really good days too. I love my third period class because it’s one student who doesn’t show up about 40% of the time. My fourth period class has either been hit or miss all year. I’ve got three popular football players, one guy who’s been suspended at least twice for fighting, and one very obnoxious little girl. However, the ones I just listed are also among the smartest students in all my classes. My fifth period class has been my big challenge all year and, even though I’ve gotten much better at controlling them, they remain so today. Sixth period is still good. They’re my smartest class as a whole by far, but they are also talkative, which makes them just annoying in my book. Seventh period is a class where I either want to choke the kids or give them all $100. The way they approach my class changes every single day.

            After classes are over, if we don’t have a staff meeting, I get in my car and enjoy my ride back as much as my ride there. Afterwards, i work out and/or lesson plan, then go to my favorite place in the whole world... my warm bed.

Rinse, wash, and repeat                                           

Thanksgiving in Florida

This past Thanksgiving I spent my time with an old friend from high school since my family wasn’t having our usual big get-together. Another high school friend of mine that still lives in Oxford came with me and we had a nice little drive. The notion of leaving Mississippi for the first time since July was enough of a hook, but going to see EA was a big added bonus.

            EA is an incredible person. He was always one of the smartest kids in my grade. He did all of the honors and advanced classes and played sports. He’s very enlightened and can talk intelligently about almost anything. Even having lost his father in middle school and his Mom just this past summer, he’s still never changed who he was and he’s someone that I look up to. Oh, and did I also mention that he’s freakin’ hilarious. He’s full of witty/nerdy/awkward humor and we always seem to be on the same page whenever he’s making a joke... even if it’s about me.

            Anyway, the drive was fine. NN and I both love Arby’s and since we are deprived of it in Oxford, we both jump at any chance we get to eat there. Yeah, yeah, make fun of us for perpetuating the Mississippi stereotype. We just can’t help ourselves when it comes to Arby’s. That sweet, succulent roast beef piled high with lettuce, tomato, bacon, and melted cheddar cheese between two buttered and toasted sourdough buns is undeniably delicious. Well, we stopped at one of those old fashioned ones on the way is Podunk, Alabama. Everything on the inside was contemporary, but the sign was the old fashioned type. Being that we were in Alabama, I wasn’t surprised to see a bunch of wife beaters, mullets, and possibly inbred children running around. Nah, just kidding. It wasn’t THAT bad, but it WAS kind of bad. Once again, though, not surprising given our geographic orientation (sorry Alabama MTC’ers, I’m just a messenger).

            After making fun of the people in Arby’s, we eventually made it Florida. While there, we watched football, went to different sites and shops around Gainesville, had an incredible Thanksgiving dinner with everything you could possibly hope for, and went to Tallahassee to see the Florida Gators get stomped by the Florida State Seminoles.

            All in all, the trip was so much fun and such a great escape from school. Now, of course, it’s almost Christmas and EA will be making his way back into Oxford, so it will be nice seeing him again.