Day 9: Is It Bad to Tell My Beginning Teacher-Self to Run?

I can't be alone, can I? In thinking I would have told my teacher-self to chose another profession?

Don't get me wrong...I love teaching. I LOVE the moments when the light bulb comes on. When my students scream my name across the cafeteria like I am Katy Perry. When someone comes into my room at the beginning of the year not knowing their name and leaves reading. I love those moments.

What I don't love is the constantly changing hoops teachers jump through that I don't see other occupations doing. The holding back of much needed wage increases. The every decreasing amount of health care coverage. The anchoring of worth to student test scores.

Day 8: Throwing it Back to Day 4, iMatter

It was one of those days...you know the type.

I went to bed to late the night before...trying to keep up with this Blog-a-Day challenge. I then had a nightmare and tossed and turned the rest of the night.

I told my kiddos what a horrible night I had, and asked if anyone else had trouble sleeping, when 95% of the class raised their hand, I knew it would be a stellar day...and it was. One of those when you are wondering if anyone is listening...if any attention getter will ever work...if you will make it through to the end of the day and then it happened...

I was spray painting flower pots during the peace of recess time. I was down on the library rug, which the kids had picked at so relentlessly that it now looked horrendous. I figured I'd use it to catch the paint and then toss it...it was then I heard a knock on the door, then another, then another. Ugh! I thought to myself, I can't even get 15 minutes! I need alone time. The knocking continued, with periodic breaks. I decided to just wait it out...unwillingly to crawl off the floor into a standing position. Theoretically I could be in the office or the bathroom...I thought...

The bell rang and I assumed the position. As I opened the classroom door...it was then that I saw it...the reason for the knocking. Scrawled across the asphalt in front of my portable was this:

My former student, now a first grader, had written it during recess.

The stress, the exhaustion, the ruined rug all faded into the background...it no longer mattered. iMattered.

I had made such an impact on this kiddo that she chose to spend her recess time to let me know.

I was speechless.

Day 5 of Blog-A-Day: What Needs to End for Education to Begin: Over-testing

So I got an email...it was pertaining to our legislature and how they planned to tie our evaluation to student performance on tests.

It may sound familiar, it's happening all over, but my state, Washington, had actually declined to do it...because it wasn't RIGHT.

But since they lost the ability to use 40 million dollars the way they want to, due to losing the NCLB waiver, and thus propelling themselves into AYP, they have now backtracked citing it was "hard" on officials.

Let's talk about what really is, "hard." Hard is hearing your evaluation will be tied to state testing that you have no control over. It becomes "hard" to understand how legislators, who don't teach by the way, came up with tying student performance on a state test with teacher ability.

What is not hard is figuring out why this is a bad idea. In my day I had one test: the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. I was an anxious introvert and had no qualms whatsoever about taking it. It was one test...it didn't last long...and no one made a fuss over it (from a student standpoint).

Enter in today's world of testing: anxious students, anxious parents, anxious teachers trying to figure out what hoop has to be jumped through in the continuous, ongoing, weeks of assessments. Which now include, get this, third graders typing essays on computers!! Third graders with no keyboarding skills, mind you, are being asked to read, comprehend, analyze, and then produce an essay...on the computer. I can see no stress for them. They are still figuring out how to get along socially and emotionally with others, they are worried over who doesn't like them, they are nine, and we are asking them to perform well in situations that even some adults would fail at. And when they cannot "show what they know" not from a lack of trying, but due to anxiety, lack of keyboarding skills, lack of ability at age 9, etc. we will say, it was that teacher! Let's ding her on her evaluation, that will surely help. Really?

This is so wrong on so many levels. A student is successful when he or she shows growth. Period.

Want to know what will really impact Teacher performance? Pay that is sufficient and equivalent to the true time spent preparing. Training and advancement that is pertinent and paid for. Technology that is up to date and provided without request. Being respected as a professional for the years of education earned. Less testing. More teaching.

Day 7: You Really Don't Deserve this Top 10 Student Teacher Award...

OMG. I am behind by 5 days on this April, blog a day challenge, but who's counting...oh that's right. It's me. That person who cannot just jump forward but just spent 2 hours composing the day 5 post. Note to self: it's a blog, not a college class.

Moving on...to something that doesn't throw me into flashbacks of coursework and editing dilemma's.

And yet its about college. Oh the irony.

I was finishing student teaching when I found out I was receiving an award for being a, "Top 10 Student Teacher."

I was thrilled...

My field supervisor was not...

She said, "Well...even though I had others that were stronger teachers...you have the teaching AND the GPA...so you get it."

I felt so...worthy. I still can't believe the field supervisor just had to share that info. Apparently it peeved her that someone else didn't get it, and I did.

I was mentioning this story to another field supervisor, just out of happenstance, and she said, "you really should be proud of that. It wasn't just the GPA. That was only a small portion. It was truly your teaching too and what your mentor teacher saw and had to say."

It's been 10 years since I graduated college (late bloomer), the memory far from my mind, yet hearing that made my week. I was deserving. I did earn it. It is something to be proud of.

Thank you, Mrs. Saxton, for seeing a student teacher that deserved recognition...for championing for me at a time when I had doubt. And thank you field supervisor for taking the time to let me know that I was deserving of the award and earned it. You didn't have to, but by taking the time, and connecting with me, you made a world of difference.

And with that...I plan to see how I can pay it forward...

Day 2: Raise Your Hand if You Are Always Behind....

So...I started this once a day blog challenge for April. Motivation. I need motivation. What's better than just 30 days of blog writing? That should be easy, right?

Day 2: I failed.

I didn't mean to fail. In my true kindergarten teacher voice I can say I made choices that led to consequences. The consequence: no blog post for yesterday.

If you are at all like me, you realize the day is short and life is full of choices to make. Heck, life is short. So...you better make damn good choices.

So...when two options came up yesterday...visiting baby goats next door and making homemade Mac n' Cheese (that my daughter wanted) versus going to Jazzercise...the former won out. For no other reason than I can't be in two places at once.

Some of you might say, "Good excuse not to exercise." On the contrary I am loving Jazzercise since I joined in January and realized, unlike 1986, I no longer have to wear a leotard and tights to go.

But, life is truly short...and there is only so much time...and when life says, "Hey, don't you want to see those adorable, just born goats next door?" You go.

Isn't this the most adorable picture? I love goats!

 

So go ahead and join me on the road to failure...I mean, enjoyment.

 

If its one thing I can share with you this day it is this: life is too short to do anything that doesn't make you happy or grow you.

 

So Cheesy. So Easy to Say. But it's 100% true.

 

Because see...I know it now. I know it because my brother died from ALS last year...WAY too young... And I know it because the guy I thought I would spend the rest of my life with ended up convicted of manslaughter of my brother in law and therefore is now my Ex and in prison...how is that for the unexpected? I sound like a movie of the week.

 

No one knows when AWFUL will happen...but it will happen...trust me. So chose enjoyment above all else...stop and smell the flowers, really actually smell them, gaze up at the sky and enjoy the beauty nature provides, enjoy time with folks who matter, doing things that are fun...because when you die, you won't look back and say, "Gee, I really wish I wouldn't have spent that money going on a trip to Seattle, riding the Great Wheel, enjoying my life." Instead you'll say, "Damn, that was quick."

 

LOVE. LIFE. LIVE.

Day 1: Blog a Day in April? Sounds like an April Fool's Day Joke...

So...Twitter reached out to me yesterday. There was a post to sign up for a blog challenge. The challenge: Blog each day in April. "I can do this," I thought with no belief in myself what so ever. I mean there was a little set back when I couldn't even fill out the join form because I couldn't recall my blog name, nor locate it. But after numerous searches in Google (who didn't even add it to my search results, but did add a lot of PRIVATE info I would have preferred to leave PRIVATE--Thanks for NOTHING Google!), and some road blocks on our school blocked system, I found it and joined.

I'm here...blogging instead of showering as that's what this procrastinator does A LOT. Waits until the last minute.

I'm also here...to ask for help. I want to change my blog...customize it, but I get lost in the settings and have a hard time getting it to do what I want, not what it wants.

I also want it to be easier to find (obviously, since even I couldn't find it!)

So help me out peeps and help me stay on time as the clock waits for no one :)

A Flower Does Not Think of Competing. It just blooms.

I absolutely LOVE this quote. I truly do. It is one we should live by in our hearts and minds as teachers. Teaching is hard, laborious, full of stress, as well as joys. The stress we do not need is from competing with one another.

I think about things for my classroom and I look for ways to improve my craft, show my love for life, instill a love of learning within my kiddos, and yet, some teachers do not feel the same way. My motto has always been, "Don't reinvent the wheel" and "Do unto others as you would want done unto yourself." I believe in giving freely my ideas and being honest in my thoughts. We spend enough time in the classroom as teachers, says the bitter lady who was at the classroom until 7, on a Sunday, with a cranky preschooler in tow.

Life isn't about being voted the best teacher by what you have or use. Life is about remembering what matters most and doing the best for your family, your sanity,  as well as your students. We can't achieve it if we compete.

So next time the ugly green monster rears it's head, saying you are not doing enough, you won't be liked enough, you are not good enough. Remember, what matters is how YOU grew without the thought of another.

Learn it. Live it. Love it.