It has been a ridiculously long time since I wrote.
I'm sorry if this is just an explosion of words and emotions. I have a lot to get out.
At the same time, I'm holding in a lot that I don't feel would be professionally appropriate to divulge.
Let it be said that I have been having an INCREDIBLY difficult time this year. I know last year was tough because I was new and everything was an experiment. This year, I'm in a new school again, everything is still and experiment, and now, to top it all off, I'm having some difficulties working with my grade level team.
It really is amazing how important a common understanding of something is. I have my definition of collaboration and what is expected of a team; they have a completely different understanding of what we should be doing as a team. So, needless to say, it has made my job sooooo much harder.
Today was an especially terrible day because of this. We had a meeting this morning and I honestly said my opinion and felt attacked afterwards. :( I wanted to cry. Instead, I went to the bathroom, gave myself a little peptalk in the mirror, and went into my classroom to start teaching. It was a tough day, no doubt about that. Some of my other coworkers (the ones in my interdisciplinary team; the ones I have really connected with; the ones who give me the encouragement and support I need).. yeah, those ones, they knew I was having a rough time. During 7th period, my last class of the day, all of a sudden both the History teacher's class and the Science teacher's class come in with all the kids I teach in the afternoon. They sang me "Happy Birthday" and (I can't believe I am admitting this) I totally teared up. I know my kids saw my tears, but I think that's ok for them to see me emotional sometimes over a good things. I was just so touched. As they left, the history teacher hugged me and whispered, "This is what we do it for." Oh man, I'm crying right now as I write this. It was such an incredible way to end a day that really could have gotten me down.
Yes, I still have plenty of battles to face with my 8th grade English team. Oh boy, I don't even want to think about all the things I am going to have to deal with in the next few months with them. But I know if I keep it in perspective, it I remember the real "why" of why I chose this profession, if I keep the supportive administrators and teachers close by, then I will be able to survive this year and feel successful at the end of it all.
One thing's for sure, I am NOT going to back down on what I know is right!
Friday, December 6, 2013
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Caught Ya!
Alright people, I'll be honest. I didn't write a blog post last week because I just felt like there was nothing to write about. My week was boring, just filled with pretests and boring beyond boring lessons. You know it's bad when the teacher says those things; I can't imagine how those students felt. But....this week...now there is a different story.
This week I warned my students that they would have a quiz on all of things we have learned up to this point. We didn't have time for a review before the quiz, but I wrote down everything that they would see on the test and made them write it down. I told them day after day to study. Yeah...well I think teens are really great at hearing something in one ear and then letting it go straight through to exit through the other ear. Well, hopefully they will study from now on since they have seen the kinds of quizes we give in 8th grade English. 50 points, fill-in, no multiple choice. If they studied (and I could definitely tell when they did), they did a perfectly fine job on the quiz.
While they were taking the quiz, I walked around and made sure students read directions clearly and did all that the quiz required. One girl raised her hand to ask a question and I walked over to help her out. The boy sitting next to her had his quiz turned over to show that he was finished and he was drawing. While I bent over to help the girl, I see this boy look at her test, flip over his paper, and write in an answer. "No you don't," I said loudly. "I just saw you take an answer from her paper. That is cheating and you will get no points for that question." He looked at me in stunned silence. "Turn your test over. You are done." And I walked away.
Rule number one of common sense: "If you are going to cheat, DON'T DO IT RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE TEACHER!" Seriously!?!? I couldn't believe it. This is only the second time I have caught someone in straight out cheating mode. (The other time was when I graded two papers on Huck Finn that were exactly,word-for-word the same. It was my first year in the English Teaching program and I was observing a high school class. The teacher had me grading essays, and the only reason I caught them was because the essay was memorably terrible. For being in an honors class, these sophomore girls were not terribly smart.) Anyway, I could see this boy crying softly after I caught him. When he regained composure, he raised his hand to call me over.
"I'm really sorry, Ms. Mayans," he apologized softly.
"Alright, thank you for the apology. We will talk about this later." I then informed him that I would be calling his mom during lunch to tell her about the incident.
"Don't call my mom," he pleaded. "I'll get grounded!"
This almost made me laugh out loud. Haha...that's not my fault, kid.
The phone call with mom went well, and I was happy to hear her support. In the moment this all happened, I definitely reacted instictually, so I'm happy to report that my instinct was fair and showed strictness with boundaries while also being kind. I could have given him a zero on the test, but I felt like that would be over kill in this situation so I only took the points off of that one questions. It all ended well, and I think the kid learned a lesson.
Well, the stories continue for this week. On Friday we went to the computer lab so that my students could take the SRI (it is a reading test that tells them their lexile level). There were these three boys sitting in the front who I had my eye on. One of them, near the end of the test, looked at his two friends to get their attention. He then proceeded to flip off the computer screen in a display of annoyance to the test. I was standing one row back looking at this whole thing, and so I just said, " 'student'. Not appropriate." He just slunk down in his seat and mumbled, "Sorry." haha. The truth is, I laughed at how ridiculous these teens were. (I didn't laugh in front of them, of course.) I am actually shocked that I caught all these kids doing this stuff because usually I am oblivious to those things.
I, myself, was also caught doing something. I have tried teaching vocabulary, commonly confused words, and affixes they way the other 8th grade English teachers do, but I have found that it is sooo boring and not very interactive. I talked with my co-teacher, Lindsay, and we brainstormed some ideas for how to better teach the material. We came up with a great idea to do centers on Monday to teach all three things (vocab, commonly confused words, and affixes) with more student-centered strategies. This would also help us remember to reinforce throughout the week instead of just teaching in once and then forgetting about it. Well, this was all great, but I wasn't sure how to tell the rest of my team about my change. In the end, I chickened out and decided I would just do it without telling them. That was a great idea until one of them saw me at the printer with the worksheets for the learning centers and asked me to explain to her what I was planning. I quickly gave her the condensed version of my idea and she said, "That sounds really interesting. Print out 3 more copies to bring to the meeting, and we can discuss it then." I was scared...but it all turned out fine. Come to find out that these other teachers had also talked about some of the weaknesses in the way they were currently teaching the material. They liked my idea (some more than others) and helped me smooth out some of the rougher ideas. I was so happy to receive their support and ideas. Now all three of us are trying it out on Monday and hopefully it will work out well. For the first few weeks, I think it will be a lot of work on our part, but hopefully after a few weeks of practice our students will be able to self-monitor their learning a bit more.
When I told my mom about this weekend, she simply said, "You had a very adult week." There were lots of fears and uncomfortable situations to face, but I feel stronger and better prepared after all of it.
This week I warned my students that they would have a quiz on all of things we have learned up to this point. We didn't have time for a review before the quiz, but I wrote down everything that they would see on the test and made them write it down. I told them day after day to study. Yeah...well I think teens are really great at hearing something in one ear and then letting it go straight through to exit through the other ear. Well, hopefully they will study from now on since they have seen the kinds of quizes we give in 8th grade English. 50 points, fill-in, no multiple choice. If they studied (and I could definitely tell when they did), they did a perfectly fine job on the quiz.
While they were taking the quiz, I walked around and made sure students read directions clearly and did all that the quiz required. One girl raised her hand to ask a question and I walked over to help her out. The boy sitting next to her had his quiz turned over to show that he was finished and he was drawing. While I bent over to help the girl, I see this boy look at her test, flip over his paper, and write in an answer. "No you don't," I said loudly. "I just saw you take an answer from her paper. That is cheating and you will get no points for that question." He looked at me in stunned silence. "Turn your test over. You are done." And I walked away.
Rule number one of common sense: "If you are going to cheat, DON'T DO IT RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE TEACHER!" Seriously!?!? I couldn't believe it. This is only the second time I have caught someone in straight out cheating mode. (The other time was when I graded two papers on Huck Finn that were exactly,word-for-word the same. It was my first year in the English Teaching program and I was observing a high school class. The teacher had me grading essays, and the only reason I caught them was because the essay was memorably terrible. For being in an honors class, these sophomore girls were not terribly smart.) Anyway, I could see this boy crying softly after I caught him. When he regained composure, he raised his hand to call me over.
"I'm really sorry, Ms. Mayans," he apologized softly.
"Alright, thank you for the apology. We will talk about this later." I then informed him that I would be calling his mom during lunch to tell her about the incident.
"Don't call my mom," he pleaded. "I'll get grounded!"
This almost made me laugh out loud. Haha...that's not my fault, kid.
The phone call with mom went well, and I was happy to hear her support. In the moment this all happened, I definitely reacted instictually, so I'm happy to report that my instinct was fair and showed strictness with boundaries while also being kind. I could have given him a zero on the test, but I felt like that would be over kill in this situation so I only took the points off of that one questions. It all ended well, and I think the kid learned a lesson.
Well, the stories continue for this week. On Friday we went to the computer lab so that my students could take the SRI (it is a reading test that tells them their lexile level). There were these three boys sitting in the front who I had my eye on. One of them, near the end of the test, looked at his two friends to get their attention. He then proceeded to flip off the computer screen in a display of annoyance to the test. I was standing one row back looking at this whole thing, and so I just said, " 'student'. Not appropriate." He just slunk down in his seat and mumbled, "Sorry." haha. The truth is, I laughed at how ridiculous these teens were. (I didn't laugh in front of them, of course.) I am actually shocked that I caught all these kids doing this stuff because usually I am oblivious to those things.
I, myself, was also caught doing something. I have tried teaching vocabulary, commonly confused words, and affixes they way the other 8th grade English teachers do, but I have found that it is sooo boring and not very interactive. I talked with my co-teacher, Lindsay, and we brainstormed some ideas for how to better teach the material. We came up with a great idea to do centers on Monday to teach all three things (vocab, commonly confused words, and affixes) with more student-centered strategies. This would also help us remember to reinforce throughout the week instead of just teaching in once and then forgetting about it. Well, this was all great, but I wasn't sure how to tell the rest of my team about my change. In the end, I chickened out and decided I would just do it without telling them. That was a great idea until one of them saw me at the printer with the worksheets for the learning centers and asked me to explain to her what I was planning. I quickly gave her the condensed version of my idea and she said, "That sounds really interesting. Print out 3 more copies to bring to the meeting, and we can discuss it then." I was scared...but it all turned out fine. Come to find out that these other teachers had also talked about some of the weaknesses in the way they were currently teaching the material. They liked my idea (some more than others) and helped me smooth out some of the rougher ideas. I was so happy to receive their support and ideas. Now all three of us are trying it out on Monday and hopefully it will work out well. For the first few weeks, I think it will be a lot of work on our part, but hopefully after a few weeks of practice our students will be able to self-monitor their learning a bit more.
When I told my mom about this weekend, she simply said, "You had a very adult week." There were lots of fears and uncomfortable situations to face, but I feel stronger and better prepared after all of it.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
First Week at Sunset Ridge
Well folks, I'm back after a much-too-short summer break, and this time I'm at Sunset Ridge Middle School in West Jordan. We are going to keep this "First Year Blog" because I figure, I'm experiencing a new "first year" at a new school. This school is so different from my last one, and with both experiences there are pros and cons. Let me tell you about some of them:
You might remember that last year I didn't get the support I was expecting as an intern. I bounced ideas off of other teachers at my school, but I felt like I really didn't get any concrete help from the people in my school. This of course forced me to be resourceful and I was able to pick and choose great ideas from other schools, the internet, and my own creative mind. In case you are thinking it was perfect, let me just tell you how stressful it was. I of course have to teach the core standards and see my students' test scores at the end of the year to tell me how much they did or didn't learn. I worried that I wasn't teaching the tested standards. Well, even with all that stress, I survived and LOVED teaching. It was so fun and I really enjoyed coming up with creative and meaningful unit plans and projects.
This year, I am at a school that believes strongly in collaboration, PLC (professional learning communities), and teams. I basically have planned out every day from now until January, and I have supportive teachers who help me know what I need to teach and how I should do it. It's very helpful. It also, unfortunately, makes me feel like I'm being stripped of my creativity as a teacher. I'm not going to lie, my first cry of the school year was after a planning meeting, before school had even started, when I felt so overwhelmed and so uninvolved in my own classroom planning. I yearned to feel some sort of ownership over my classroom and the things I would be teaching. This first week has been alright and I already really my students (most of them, anyway. haha), but I am going to have to once again be creative and find a way to include my style/personality into my classroom teaching.
So, every school year brings new challenges. I am excited to face those challenges and to see myself, as well as my students, grow and progress. I will keep you updated weekly on this blog, so please visit often :)
You might remember that last year I didn't get the support I was expecting as an intern. I bounced ideas off of other teachers at my school, but I felt like I really didn't get any concrete help from the people in my school. This of course forced me to be resourceful and I was able to pick and choose great ideas from other schools, the internet, and my own creative mind. In case you are thinking it was perfect, let me just tell you how stressful it was. I of course have to teach the core standards and see my students' test scores at the end of the year to tell me how much they did or didn't learn. I worried that I wasn't teaching the tested standards. Well, even with all that stress, I survived and LOVED teaching. It was so fun and I really enjoyed coming up with creative and meaningful unit plans and projects.
This year, I am at a school that believes strongly in collaboration, PLC (professional learning communities), and teams. I basically have planned out every day from now until January, and I have supportive teachers who help me know what I need to teach and how I should do it. It's very helpful. It also, unfortunately, makes me feel like I'm being stripped of my creativity as a teacher. I'm not going to lie, my first cry of the school year was after a planning meeting, before school had even started, when I felt so overwhelmed and so uninvolved in my own classroom planning. I yearned to feel some sort of ownership over my classroom and the things I would be teaching. This first week has been alright and I already really my students (most of them, anyway. haha), but I am going to have to once again be creative and find a way to include my style/personality into my classroom teaching.
So, every school year brings new challenges. I am excited to face those challenges and to see myself, as well as my students, grow and progress. I will keep you updated weekly on this blog, so please visit often :)
Thursday, May 2, 2013
NCTE
Are we ready for some good news yet?
Well, here it is. A few months ago, my BYU professor, Dr. Dawan Coombs, invited me to send in a proposal (along with a few other new teachers) to present at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) conference. The conference is in Boston in November 2013...and guess who will be going to the east coast this year?... Yup, ME!!!
I am still in awe that we were chosen to present. Here is a part of the email we received:
Well, here it is. A few months ago, my BYU professor, Dr. Dawan Coombs, invited me to send in a proposal (along with a few other new teachers) to present at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) conference. The conference is in Boston in November 2013...and guess who will be going to the east coast this year?... Yup, ME!!!
I am still in awe that we were chosen to present. Here is a part of the email we received:
Dear Maichael Mayans:
Congratulations! As President-Elect and Program Chair, I am pleased to invite you to participate in the 2013 Annual Convention of the National Council of Teachers of English to be held November 21-24 in Boston, Massachusetts. Your proposal was selected from more than 2,000 submitted for this year’s convention.
It's official. :)
It's also daunting..and nerve-wrecking...and an honor...and so many other emotions that I can't even name.
Now I need to apply to their diversity grant. The provide a few grants of up to $500 to first-time multicultural presenters. (Thanks Dad for that Cuban blood!). I'm also going to try and see if my district and/or school will help pay for some of the expenses. I have the flight, hotel, food, and frivolities to think about.
And if you want some more information on what exactly I will be presenting, here is our proposal write-up for you to enjoy:
And if you want some more information on what exactly I will be presenting, here is our proposal write-up for you to enjoy:
Description:
What can new teachers contribute to the teaching of
classical texts? This presentation highlights ways four new career teachers
have re-invented traditional approaches to texts that are classroom staples in
most schools. These teachers explore how pop culture, simulations, technology,
and real-life connections to controversy help students see why these texts matter
so much to us and why these texts should matter to them.
Kate Goodwin, a high school teacher in an urban
district in Virginia, will explore how applying Web 2.0 principles makes
studying Julius Caesar and Othello dynamic, interactive, and
accessible to students fluent in new technologies. By demonstrating strategies
used in her own classroom, such as remediation of the texts through social
media and interactive reenactments, Kate shows how ideas behind the latest
technology can guide and transform the way students read and interact with
classic texts.
Kristen Lofton, a second-year teacher at a growing
suburban high school in Georgia, will showcase strategies she used to make the
plot of Harper Lee’s classic To Kill A
Mockingbird relevant to students over 50 years after its first
publication. By making connections
between the modern world of her students and the world of this text, both the
plot and the themes of took on new life in her classroom.
Maichael Mayans, a first-year middle school teacher
in a rural district in Utah, will showcase how simulations and experiential
learning helped her bring The Outsiders
to life for another generation of tweens.
She will demonstrate and discuss how these hands-on experiences helped
her students consider what it means to be an "outsider" and an
"insider," as well as what happened when students pushed social norms
in their community.
Lea Rackley, a high school teacher at an
alternative school in Tennessee, exposes thematic connections between Romeo & Juliet and The Hunger Games that hooked her most
disengaged students. By teaching Romeo & Juliet alongside portions of
the Hunger Games film, as well as
through the use of theme-tracking charts, her class discuss the theme of
star-crossed lovers, made connections between these stories, and analyzed the
tools each medium used to communicate this theme.
The presentation will involve audience
participation and hands-on experience with the activities. Participants will
leave with specific lesson ideas and handouts to help them apply these ideas in
their own classrooms as well as new ways of thinking about the teaching of
classical texts.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Payson teen dies after weekend auto-pedestrian crash
News report: Teen hit by car in rural area
Yesterday was a really hard day to be at school. The halls have never been so silent.
As my students walked into my classroom, I invited them to write in their writer's notebooks about their feelings/experiences. Whenever I am going through hard times, I know that I am able to order my thoughts a little more and calm down as I write. Similarly, I think my students appreciated the time just to reflect privately and unload all their emotions onto the blank page. Those who wanted to share afterwards were given that opportunity to do so.
Unfortunately, even though our world seems to stop when we experience tragedy, the world and people around us keep going. I explained to my students that it seemed like a cruel joke that we still had to do state testing, but that is simply the truth. So, today we have testing...and who knows how that will go.
During this whole things, I have shed many tears. I hurt for my students. Some of them were at the party that night and one of my students did CPR on the girl while waiting for help to arrive. I can't even imagine how horrific that experience would be, and I hope that I can be a caring and understanding adult in their lives right now.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Sad News
I opened up my email tonight to find a message from the principal. She grievously informed us that 4 students had been in a car accident over the weekend. One student died; the others went to the hospital. I knew that girl who died. She worked as my teacher's assistant in first period and was a lovely girl. Honestly, when I first heard the news I was in shock and couldn't react. Afterwards, I shed some tears in thinking of her and her family. My heart is truly broken for them. It is hard to now think of this young lady and know that she will no longer light up my classroom during first period.
I am struck with how much love I have for my students. I really didn't know this girl for very long, only a few months. Still, I see every one of my students and imagine a long and beautiful future for all of them. I imagine friends, high school dance, college acceptance letters, jobs, dates, marriages, families, and futures where the things they have learned in my class will impact how they see the world and how they communicate their opinions and values. I see happiness when I look at my students. I see hardships as well as victories when I look at my students.
This news of the accident will obviously effect us for the rest of the school year. This week we have state testing (whelp, I'm thinking quite a few students aren't going to do very well because they will be mentally preoccupied with other emotions). I just pray that I can be a caring and understanding teacher to those students who were especially close to this girl. I want to be able to discern how to best help them through this time of sadness and mourning. I guess we will all just take it one day at a time.
I am struck with how much love I have for my students. I really didn't know this girl for very long, only a few months. Still, I see every one of my students and imagine a long and beautiful future for all of them. I imagine friends, high school dance, college acceptance letters, jobs, dates, marriages, families, and futures where the things they have learned in my class will impact how they see the world and how they communicate their opinions and values. I see happiness when I look at my students. I see hardships as well as victories when I look at my students.
This news of the accident will obviously effect us for the rest of the school year. This week we have state testing (whelp, I'm thinking quite a few students aren't going to do very well because they will be mentally preoccupied with other emotions). I just pray that I can be a caring and understanding teacher to those students who were especially close to this girl. I want to be able to discern how to best help them through this time of sadness and mourning. I guess we will all just take it one day at a time.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Laughter Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
What a roller coaster of a week. There have been so many tragedies this week, what with the Boston Marathon bombing and a few people who have gone missing in the last few days. Scary times.
Luckily, I laughed a lot this week. I actually find this pretty ironic since this week was actually very boring as far as lesson plans and assignments go. We are currently preparing for the end of year testing, and this means we have a lot of boring reviews and practices. But, amidst all the annoyed students and national tragedies, I found plenty of things to bring a smile to my face.
First of all, it's amusing to hear what students think of you as a teach. As I passed out another review worksheet, one student commented, "Sheesh, teachers have it easy. All they do is make worksheets and then watch other people do them." HAHAHA. So that's what I've been doing with all those early and late hours at school...just making worksheets, eh?
Then we have the kids who are falling asleep in my class because they can't seem to practice self discipline at home and go to bed early. When I saw one of my students at the back of the class obviously asleep, I told another student to smack him awake. He lifted his head and I saw that the whole left side of his face was bright red and dented with imprints of his jacket. I had to work really hard to keep in my laughter. He just looked so out of it, and I felt his pain. By that time of day, I just want a nap too!
And then of course there are funny/cute things that I see on students' assignments. Every week I give them an article to read and answer questions. During this, I have also taught them how to anotate a text (and can I just brag for a second? They are doing so so so well at annotating! They really get it! At the beginning, I think they were confused why anyone would write their comments, questions, and connections in the margins, but now they are actually writing thoughtful things and coming to really good conclusions. I love it!). Anyway, so this article talks about tips some of the most successful college students suggest. On the section entitled "Pursue passion, not A's", one hard-working-straight-A student wrote, "My whole life is a lie!" I laughed.
On another paper, I found a very sweet note from a student. What a perfect way to bring a smile. I think this is one of the perks of teaching junior high. Do you honestly think I would get notes like this from high schoolers? Here it is.
Then there are always those annoying, talkative, happiness-sucking classes that just turn me into a Disney witch. Yeah, I told my 5th and 6th period classes at the beginning of the week that they were on probation. If they got 5 tallies in the week, they would have to do "Behavior Bootcamp" (what I did with my 7th and 8th period class last semester). The kids who experienced Behavior Bootcamp from before urgently told the other students that they DID NOT want to experience it. I also arranged with them a reward system. If they get 10 positive points, they get to watch a movie (yes, I plan to strategically time that movie to be the last week of school). The best day was Thursday. Students started filing into the classroom. Some students decided to take an active role in reminding their peers to be quiet; they would shush the people walking in the door and then tell them to start working. I was so please to see them all come in, start the bell work quietly and on their own, and continue being attentive as I called out for people to share what they had written. Honestly, it was such a simple pleasure, but it was exactly what I needed for the day. They were working so hard to impress me. I realized that it is important to find the right type of motivation for each class. Finally I have found it for this period! :)
And lastly there is the ever-crazy, ever-worrisom job search. I wont go into all the craziness, but I am happy to report that I have two job interviews lined up for next Wednesday. I can only hope and pray for the best. Surprisingly, I am confident that everything really will turn out fine and that I should just be myself. While I am far from a perfect teacher, I feel like I have worked really had this year to be a good, fun, effective teacher. And I think, for the most part, that I have succeeded in that endeavor. It is so wonderful to have so many friends and family rooting for me and helping me along the way. Thank you!
Luckily, I laughed a lot this week. I actually find this pretty ironic since this week was actually very boring as far as lesson plans and assignments go. We are currently preparing for the end of year testing, and this means we have a lot of boring reviews and practices. But, amidst all the annoyed students and national tragedies, I found plenty of things to bring a smile to my face.
First of all, it's amusing to hear what students think of you as a teach. As I passed out another review worksheet, one student commented, "Sheesh, teachers have it easy. All they do is make worksheets and then watch other people do them." HAHAHA. So that's what I've been doing with all those early and late hours at school...just making worksheets, eh?
Then we have the kids who are falling asleep in my class because they can't seem to practice self discipline at home and go to bed early. When I saw one of my students at the back of the class obviously asleep, I told another student to smack him awake. He lifted his head and I saw that the whole left side of his face was bright red and dented with imprints of his jacket. I had to work really hard to keep in my laughter. He just looked so out of it, and I felt his pain. By that time of day, I just want a nap too!
And then of course there are funny/cute things that I see on students' assignments. Every week I give them an article to read and answer questions. During this, I have also taught them how to anotate a text (and can I just brag for a second? They are doing so so so well at annotating! They really get it! At the beginning, I think they were confused why anyone would write their comments, questions, and connections in the margins, but now they are actually writing thoughtful things and coming to really good conclusions. I love it!). Anyway, so this article talks about tips some of the most successful college students suggest. On the section entitled "Pursue passion, not A's", one hard-working-straight-A student wrote, "My whole life is a lie!" I laughed.
On another paper, I found a very sweet note from a student. What a perfect way to bring a smile. I think this is one of the perks of teaching junior high. Do you honestly think I would get notes like this from high schoolers? Here it is.
Then there are always those annoying, talkative, happiness-sucking classes that just turn me into a Disney witch. Yeah, I told my 5th and 6th period classes at the beginning of the week that they were on probation. If they got 5 tallies in the week, they would have to do "Behavior Bootcamp" (what I did with my 7th and 8th period class last semester). The kids who experienced Behavior Bootcamp from before urgently told the other students that they DID NOT want to experience it. I also arranged with them a reward system. If they get 10 positive points, they get to watch a movie (yes, I plan to strategically time that movie to be the last week of school). The best day was Thursday. Students started filing into the classroom. Some students decided to take an active role in reminding their peers to be quiet; they would shush the people walking in the door and then tell them to start working. I was so please to see them all come in, start the bell work quietly and on their own, and continue being attentive as I called out for people to share what they had written. Honestly, it was such a simple pleasure, but it was exactly what I needed for the day. They were working so hard to impress me. I realized that it is important to find the right type of motivation for each class. Finally I have found it for this period! :)
And lastly there is the ever-crazy, ever-worrisom job search. I wont go into all the craziness, but I am happy to report that I have two job interviews lined up for next Wednesday. I can only hope and pray for the best. Surprisingly, I am confident that everything really will turn out fine and that I should just be myself. While I am far from a perfect teacher, I feel like I have worked really had this year to be a good, fun, effective teacher. And I think, for the most part, that I have succeeded in that endeavor. It is so wonderful to have so many friends and family rooting for me and helping me along the way. Thank you!
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