Okay, so let's get this out of the way... I'm a terrible person who's bad at scheduling and keeping up with my own personal life (or lack there of) and this blog got pushed to the back burner... for 8 months. I've been a little disenchanted with teaching for awhile and I've been avoiding thinking about it while I'm off the clock.
So basically this school year I've just been going home and scrolling Pinterest on my phone (because the mobile app is so much better than their browser version), and I have developed an addiction to Cool Math games (who really needs to get more thinking outside the box games). But recently I've found a reason to dive back in (thanks Ms. Barber)!
I'm not going to share this post on my other social media accounts, so if you're reading this that means that you either are really into my blog (hey Shirley!) or are just one of the random traffic. Either way I'm cool with it and I'm going to start my rant now.
This year my district is dissolving the Intermediate School system. They are moving 5th grade back down to Elementary School and moving 6th grade up to Middle School. In order to fit the new grades coming in, and to keep up with community growth they decided to open 3 new Middle Schools. Then their plan was to pick 1 person per subject per grade level from every campus and reassign them to the new schools. For the most part it seems like they went with the "last in, first out" rule. EXCEPT FOR MY CASE! I'm not the last 8th grade Math teacher hired, but the other teacher is also the Algebra teacher so they don't want to move her *pout face* (plus the old Algebra teacher is trying to move back here also...)
I have been assigned to a school that is twice as far from my house, and is two stories. A two-story Middle School. It looks like the grabbed the plans for a high school and then changed their minds last minute. It's massive, and I'm scared. On top of that the administrative staff is all coming from an Intermediate School. That means that they're used to dealing with 5th and 6th graders, and I'm not sure if they're going to be able to handle all the fun and games that comes with 7th and 8th graders. I'm sure they behavior isn't going to be all that different; the kids are still going to fight and cuss and throw things, but in 7th and 8th grade they're stronger so they can punch harder and throw heavier stuff! And other people are worried about the 8th grade boys preying on the 6th grade girls. I had my first pregnant student this year and I have no idea how this 14 year old is going to get through High school. I can't even imagine an 11 or 12 year old trying to survive that.
Obviously I'm not the only person who isn't happy with the way that things are turning out, so my district decided to have a special job fair for the people who got reconfigured. And I went because I want to stay at my current school, plus I interviewed at a couple other schools. And I never heard back from any of them. Schools are only allowed to fill positions once the current teacher has vacated the position. This means that most of the schools that were at the job fair had no open positions, or they were holding some in hopes that they could keep some of the teachers that were taken from their school (which is what my principal is trying to do for me).
After that job fair we were supposed to have to district wide transfer fair, but because of the earlier job fair disaster they decided to cancel the fair and told people to just contact the school you want to transfer to and set up an interview outside of school hours. To top it all off, the district how now implemented a hiring freeze. Turns out that not everyone who was pulled from a school was given a new placement. Everyone is under contract so they have to put them somewhere, where they are certified to to teach. So until they place all of those new people my current principal won't know if she will have an opening for me next year.
Oh my God it feels good to get that all off my chest! Now I remember why I used to post so often, because this is waaaaaaaay cheaper than going therapy lol. Thank you to all the 12 people who are going to read this, and if you're a teacher out there who's frustrated and feels like you're struggling, you can leave a ranting comment, it feels amazing to vent. See you guys next time!
Thursday, April 26, 2018
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
I'm sorry I lied....
Ok so I lied, I said that the next post was going to be about Promethean's ClassFlow software, but I've since found that there's a metric crap ton of things that you can do with the program so I'm still playing around with it. And also I haven't spoken to ANYBODY about a possible interview (I've told you guys I'm a lazy introvert right?). I will be talking to some people today about my next project, Remind.com (used to be Remind101).
Plus if you've noticed my blog is kind of going through an identity crisis so I'm still trying to figure out all the things that I can do on Blogger and whether or not I should connect this with a Google Site (I'm probably going to do that). So in the next few weeks, months and years to come I'll be solidifying what I want my digital presence to look like.
Or maybe things won't go according to plan and you'll still be able to read about me here. Only time will tell LOL.
Plus if you've noticed my blog is kind of going through an identity crisis so I'm still trying to figure out all the things that I can do on Blogger and whether or not I should connect this with a Google Site (I'm probably going to do that). So in the next few weeks, months and years to come I'll be solidifying what I want my digital presence to look like.
Or maybe things won't go according to plan and you'll still be able to read about me here. Only time will tell LOL.
Thursday, October 19, 2017
I Haven't Forgotten You
This year has been a blur so far. It's already the 2nd 9 weeks, I've been having to deal with grades, benchmark exams, LEP accommodation folders, and sooooooo much more.
This is just a little up date to tell you guys that I haven't forgotten about my blog, and that I'm still playing around with the new technology stuff I learned at TCCA this year. I've got some good stuff coming up to tell you guys about!
Also something that I've been kind of wanting to do is to interview some different teachers I know and work with to try and get their take on the different technology they use, and to offer some new perspectives since it's normally just me that you guys (all 3 of you lol) are used to reading from. So I've got a goal for myself that I'm going to reach out to some people and see if they're interested in collaborating on something in the future. Or at least I hope they do :)
Oh and before I forget I just wanted to let you guys know that I've gotten to experience something as a 'veteran' teacher! Since this is my 3rd year teaching I've started to hear back from some of my old students. It's an awesome feeling that I wanted to share with you guys. So first off they remembered me, two they took time out of their day to let me know they were thinking about me, and three it always seems that they days you hear from old students are the days when you need the pick-me-up the most.
So thank you to my babies from years past who have come to see me or emailed me. It meant so much to me and I'm glad I made a lasting dent in your mind.
Up Next: ClassFlow the Promethean software!!!!!
This is just a little up date to tell you guys that I haven't forgotten about my blog, and that I'm still playing around with the new technology stuff I learned at TCCA this year. I've got some good stuff coming up to tell you guys about!
Also something that I've been kind of wanting to do is to interview some different teachers I know and work with to try and get their take on the different technology they use, and to offer some new perspectives since it's normally just me that you guys (all 3 of you lol) are used to reading from. So I've got a goal for myself that I'm going to reach out to some people and see if they're interested in collaborating on something in the future. Or at least I hope they do :)
Oh and before I forget I just wanted to let you guys know that I've gotten to experience something as a 'veteran' teacher! Since this is my 3rd year teaching I've started to hear back from some of my old students. It's an awesome feeling that I wanted to share with you guys. So first off they remembered me, two they took time out of their day to let me know they were thinking about me, and three it always seems that they days you hear from old students are the days when you need the pick-me-up the most.
So thank you to my babies from years past who have come to see me or emailed me. It meant so much to me and I'm glad I made a lasting dent in your mind.
Up Next: ClassFlow the Promethean software!!!!!
Monday, October 9, 2017
TCCA 2017
First off, Happy Columbus Day! Luckily I have today off of work, and I've realized I haven't posted since Hurricane Harvey. A few things have happened since then so I'm gonna take a minute to catch you up on what's been going on in my life:
- My house did not flood in Harvey- my grandmother's house on Lake Houston flooded but we managed to salvage all the old family photos and some of the heirlooms from the property
- My school did not get flooded- we did have some water leak in through the roof, but no major damage; some students lost everything and I had a former student email me checking up on us and his house flooded
- I finally managed to get back into the swing of things with my students and the 1st 9 weeks will be over soon
- I went to a staff development on Friday and that wasn't so exciting
- Saturday I went to a technology conference and that's what has me so excited today!!!!
It was such an amazing conference and I learned plenty of new things that I'm going to have to play around with so I can let you guys know about them.
The conference I went to was TCCA which is Technology and Curriculum Conference of Aldine ISD its a partnership Aldine has with TECA. They put this FREE conference every year and it's open to the public. There were people there from Aldine, New Caney, Tomball, Klien, Alief, Humble and so many other places.
The keynote was given by Rafranz Davis who is the Director for Professional and Digital Learning for Lufkin ISD. I did miss the first part of her speaking, but the rest of her talk was very interesting. My favorite part was when she talked about how technology was creates equal access for people. We don't all have the same opportunities to get to places, but we all have access to the same internet. You can connect and learn more about Ms. Davis on twitter at @rafranzdavis.
After the keynote there were 5 different sessions that you could attend. The first one that I went to was Kid's Deserve It with Todd Nesloney @techninjatodd. I'd heard him talk before when I was in college, because A&M asked him to come and talk to all of us teachers before we headed out for student teaching, and that was before he published his book. He talked a lot about how he integrates technology into his elementary school. The main idea that I walked away with was that we can't teach kids the way we were taught. Just because it was good enough for us doesn't mean it's good enough for them. If we want to get them ready for the future then we have to train them differently than we were trained. I really liked his presentation and I would recommend reading his book. I did take a selfie with him, but it was on the fly for a scavenger hunt (which I'll talk about later) and so it didn't turn out so great so I shall not be posting it again.
My next session was with Sandra Menxueiro @menxueiro who is the Lead Learner (or principal in layman's terms) at Dogan Elementary. Her session was about Twitter, which I promise I will write a post about eventually, it's on my to do list! I loved her enthusiasm. She's the new Lead Learner at Dogan and it's her job to turn around the school this year. One of the changes she's implemented is having all staff use Twitter. She was very honest with us and she told us about the resistance that she's had with some of her teachers, and how she's powering through with them. One of the things she said that stuck with me is that Twitter is a fire hose, and it really is. There is so much information out there on Twitter that you can get lost for days just trying to find something specific. Which is why she stressed the importance of using hashtags (which I'll get into at a later date). But I have to give a shout out to #DoganNation
Session 3 I found a little group talking about ways to use technology to communicate with parents. Now this really appealed to me, because I hate calling parents. I have no shame in saying that. Also I feel bad because there is a large percentage of my parents who don't speak English, and I hate having to ask the ladies in the front office to translate a phone call for me because they have other things they could be doing. SOOO the lady (who's name I should have written down but I did not :/) talked about Remind (which is also on my to do list) and Seesaw (which I have already written about!). Most people know about Remind, but I didn't know that they have a translate feature, which I'm really excited about! I'm definitely going to be getting parents to sign up for my new Remind class at Open House this week! An update to my Seesaw post is that they have a parent connect feature that allows parents to see their child's work which can also allow you to communicate with parents, so another plus for Seesaw!
I know I haven't talked about it yet, but Aldine has started to put in Promethean Boards in their classrooms. My school is already set up and ready to go. I've played around with mine a little, but one of the sessions was about the basics of how to use the board, so I made sure I got there! The presenter (who I can only remember his first name of Paul) was using the latest version of the software so of course he was able to do the coolest things with it, but even still there's plenty of cool things I want to share with you guys! So Promethean's software used to be Activinspire, but they have since done away with that and now they use Classflow. There are two ways to use Classflow, online or download the desktop version. I still have to play around with these two, but rest assured that they will be included in later blog posts! Oh, BTW completely free to use!!!!
Last session was kind of thrown together at the last minute because the presenter cancelled 20 minutes before the session started so the Technology Specialists from Aldine had to rush to get a session together and they really did a great job! It was a mix of Google Classroom and Schoology. Now I've used Schoology as a 'student' because that's the site that they use for all of our online professional developments, but I've never used it as a teacher. I have no experience with Google Classroom, so I'm going to have to play around with both of these before I'm able to make a definitive statement on which one I want to use in the future (but I can tell you I'm leaning towards Schoology because they will let you integrate Google Docs into your assigned lessons).
Of course it wouldn't be a conference without the vendor floor. This year they did things a little differently. If you were able to get 10 different vendors to sign off on a special sheet that they gave you, you could earn a bonus Professional Development hour! That's right, instead of only getting 6 hours, I was able to earn 7 (1 for keynote, 5 sessions, and 1 for visiting vendors)!!!! Plus it's always fun to go and talk to the people to get your yearly supply of pens and sticky notes lol!
One thing that they did to keep the fun going in between sessions was to start a scavenger hunt. I've used a few different scavenger hunt apps, but the one that they had us use was GooseChase. I love this app! You can lock the different hunts with passwords to keep out people you don't want joining in. Instead of just having hunters go to locations and answer questions, this app lets you take pictures or videos of certain tasks that you want them to complete. You can also take those photos and videos and upload them straight to Twitter and Facebook (which I did). If you're using it as a teacher, make sure you do GooseChase EDU for better deals and pricing. I am a little sore about the results of the scavenger hunt, because I didn't win :( but there were just soooooooo many things that you had to do that were not introvert friendly! I had to go up to so many people I've never met before and get them to high five me, connect on social media, get interviewed on Aldine Broadcast, and a lot of other things. Even with all that though, it was still a great idea to incorporate into the conference.
Overall I had such a great time and I can't wait to go back next year! I highly recommend this conference to any teacher who wants to learn more about the different technologies that are available to them. Plus the $17,000 in door prizes they give away make it even better!
The keynote was given by Rafranz Davis who is the Director for Professional and Digital Learning for Lufkin ISD. I did miss the first part of her speaking, but the rest of her talk was very interesting. My favorite part was when she talked about how technology was creates equal access for people. We don't all have the same opportunities to get to places, but we all have access to the same internet. You can connect and learn more about Ms. Davis on twitter at @rafranzdavis.After the keynote there were 5 different sessions that you could attend. The first one that I went to was Kid's Deserve It with Todd Nesloney @techninjatodd. I'd heard him talk before when I was in college, because A&M asked him to come and talk to all of us teachers before we headed out for student teaching, and that was before he published his book. He talked a lot about how he integrates technology into his elementary school. The main idea that I walked away with was that we can't teach kids the way we were taught. Just because it was good enough for us doesn't mean it's good enough for them. If we want to get them ready for the future then we have to train them differently than we were trained. I really liked his presentation and I would recommend reading his book. I did take a selfie with him, but it was on the fly for a scavenger hunt (which I'll talk about later) and so it didn't turn out so great so I shall not be posting it again.
My next session was with Sandra Menxueiro @menxueiro who is the Lead Learner (or principal in layman's terms) at Dogan Elementary. Her session was about Twitter, which I promise I will write a post about eventually, it's on my to do list! I loved her enthusiasm. She's the new Lead Learner at Dogan and it's her job to turn around the school this year. One of the changes she's implemented is having all staff use Twitter. She was very honest with us and she told us about the resistance that she's had with some of her teachers, and how she's powering through with them. One of the things she said that stuck with me is that Twitter is a fire hose, and it really is. There is so much information out there on Twitter that you can get lost for days just trying to find something specific. Which is why she stressed the importance of using hashtags (which I'll get into at a later date). But I have to give a shout out to #DoganNation
Session 3 I found a little group talking about ways to use technology to communicate with parents. Now this really appealed to me, because I hate calling parents. I have no shame in saying that. Also I feel bad because there is a large percentage of my parents who don't speak English, and I hate having to ask the ladies in the front office to translate a phone call for me because they have other things they could be doing. SOOO the lady (who's name I should have written down but I did not :/) talked about Remind (which is also on my to do list) and Seesaw (which I have already written about!). Most people know about Remind, but I didn't know that they have a translate feature, which I'm really excited about! I'm definitely going to be getting parents to sign up for my new Remind class at Open House this week! An update to my Seesaw post is that they have a parent connect feature that allows parents to see their child's work which can also allow you to communicate with parents, so another plus for Seesaw!
I know I haven't talked about it yet, but Aldine has started to put in Promethean Boards in their classrooms. My school is already set up and ready to go. I've played around with mine a little, but one of the sessions was about the basics of how to use the board, so I made sure I got there! The presenter (who I can only remember his first name of Paul) was using the latest version of the software so of course he was able to do the coolest things with it, but even still there's plenty of cool things I want to share with you guys! So Promethean's software used to be Activinspire, but they have since done away with that and now they use Classflow. There are two ways to use Classflow, online or download the desktop version. I still have to play around with these two, but rest assured that they will be included in later blog posts! Oh, BTW completely free to use!!!!
Last session was kind of thrown together at the last minute because the presenter cancelled 20 minutes before the session started so the Technology Specialists from Aldine had to rush to get a session together and they really did a great job! It was a mix of Google Classroom and Schoology. Now I've used Schoology as a 'student' because that's the site that they use for all of our online professional developments, but I've never used it as a teacher. I have no experience with Google Classroom, so I'm going to have to play around with both of these before I'm able to make a definitive statement on which one I want to use in the future (but I can tell you I'm leaning towards Schoology because they will let you integrate Google Docs into your assigned lessons).
Of course it wouldn't be a conference without the vendor floor. This year they did things a little differently. If you were able to get 10 different vendors to sign off on a special sheet that they gave you, you could earn a bonus Professional Development hour! That's right, instead of only getting 6 hours, I was able to earn 7 (1 for keynote, 5 sessions, and 1 for visiting vendors)!!!! Plus it's always fun to go and talk to the people to get your yearly supply of pens and sticky notes lol!
One thing that they did to keep the fun going in between sessions was to start a scavenger hunt. I've used a few different scavenger hunt apps, but the one that they had us use was GooseChase. I love this app! You can lock the different hunts with passwords to keep out people you don't want joining in. Instead of just having hunters go to locations and answer questions, this app lets you take pictures or videos of certain tasks that you want them to complete. You can also take those photos and videos and upload them straight to Twitter and Facebook (which I did). If you're using it as a teacher, make sure you do GooseChase EDU for better deals and pricing. I am a little sore about the results of the scavenger hunt, because I didn't win :( but there were just soooooooo many things that you had to do that were not introvert friendly! I had to go up to so many people I've never met before and get them to high five me, connect on social media, get interviewed on Aldine Broadcast, and a lot of other things. Even with all that though, it was still a great idea to incorporate into the conference.
Overall I had such a great time and I can't wait to go back next year! I highly recommend this conference to any teacher who wants to learn more about the different technologies that are available to them. Plus the $17,000 in door prizes they give away make it even better!
Saturday, August 26, 2017
First Week of Year 3
Oh hey! I haven't seen you in a few months. I guess that's mostly my fault... I was supposed to be posting and reviewing some stuff, but I decided to go dark this summer. In fact I didn't even touch my laptop all summer long. I didn't go to any staff developments, which I'm sure I will regret once the school year gets on and I'll have to scramble to get the necessary hours. This summer it was just me and Netflix.
Monday was pretty good, I got to see a solar eclipse which I can now cross off my bucket list. Met most of my students and had a pretty decent day. Got to talk about summer with my students and what all they did. Did the first day of school ritual and talked about rules and expectations.
- Oh hey, important side note, if you're going to do rules and expectations with your students I suggest you have the students come up with the rules. Now don't do the thing where they are in charge of coming up with everything, because they will take advantage of that. How I do it is I tell them I have 3 rules: Respect me as the teacher, Respect your fellow classmates, and Respect the classroom. Then instead of them coming up with rules that favor them I ask the question "What does it look like to respect me/each other/the classroom? and then turn their statements into things that they should and shouldn't do. They still technically come up with the rules, but it's all things that you're in control of. Then you need to post it somewhere in the room, and refer back to it when they need reminders. If you want to see how I did it check the link below
Tuesday I started my classwork and was glad to see that students brought most of their materials and even brought their homework back from the day before. If you expect them to do homework every night you gotta start from day one. It doesn't have to be much, mine was literally one addition and one subtraction problem. AND YOU HAVE TO CHECK IT!!!! If they think you won't check it, they won't do it. Gotta set the precedent early.
Wednesday was decent. Students started to bring in their "Extra Credit Supplies". I gave them a list of things that they needed to have with them everyday: folder, journal, paper, pencil, the usual stuff. Then for extra credit they could bring in a pack of printer paper, tissues, hand sanitizer or dry erase markers. They really responded to that and I'm off to a good start so far, I don't think I'll need dry erase markers until I decide to retire at this point! The students were fine, but you could tell with the adults that something weird was going on. Living on the gulf coast for all your life you kind of get a feeling of when we're due for a storm. I made the stupid mistake of saying at the end of the school year that we hadn't had a storm since Ike in 2008 and that we'd probably get a storm this summer. Too bad Harvey didn't listen and decided to wait until school started to make an appearance.
Thursday was awash in uncertainty. Students still didn't know anything about the storm, and the unspoken rule is if they don't know DON'T TELL THEM! Was a pretty normal day, except we're all talking about the school districts around us that are cancelling school for Friday and Monday and how we're still scheduled to come in tomorrow and how we have to watch the news to find out more. Well on one of the 6 o'clock news casts they announce accidentally that Aldine ISD will be closed on Friday. The superintendent sent out an email saying to ignore the newscast and that school will occur as scheduled. Fast forward to 9:30 when they decide to actually cancel school... for the students. Teachers still have to show up to "secure materials" woohoo...
Friday morning rolls around and everyone kind of had the same idea to completely abandon the spirit dress reserved for Fridays. I personally decided to rebel (LOL) by wearing flip flops which is considered a big no-no . But hey it was special circumstances and thankfully no one was going to enforce the dress code. We had to unplug all electronics and get everything up off the floor in case of flooding, which took all of 30 minutes for the whole school to do. We were supposed to be there until noon, but our administrators graciously let us go at 9:30. Quick shout out to my classroom neighbor who undoubtedly had the worst first week, because as she was getting ready for a hurricane, she also had to wait to see if her son's wedding was going to be canceled/rescheduled because they decided on a beach wedding in the path of the storm :(
Currently I'm just chilling in my pjs on a Saturday night waiting to hear if I have to get up for school on Monday or not. Either way I think I'm gonna be just fine.
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
End of School Blues
So STAAR Testing is finally over (for me anyway because there's no way I'm doing Summer School this year), the school year is winding down, students are restless for summer vacation, I'm restless for summer vacation, but we're all stuck here for another 2 weeks. I'm trying my hardest to keep it together, but it's been a real struggle!
Currently I'm battling the worst case of allergies I've ever had, and yes that is saying something because I am the queen of allergy attacks! I'm medicated, my nose is running, my eyes are watering, and I have to keep my secret stash of tissues hidden because my students keep trying to steal them. Yesterday my nose was so red one of my students asked if it was bleeding. But today I have found the right combination of allergy medicine, nose spray and decongestants to get at least half of my nose working!
When I was a student the end of the year was always a time for hugs and goodbyes. We made tie dye shirts for sports day, we had pizza parties, lots of movies were watched, but that was all in elementary school. I live in the world of the middle school. I have 4 different classes that I see, so there's really no way to get them together for a pizza party. They just finally got concerned about their grades so they're trying to do extra work to avoid summer school so there's no time to watch a movie (not that we would be allowed to do that anyway). We don't even have yearbooks!
But many of my kids have been bringing their own little journals that have become autograph books of sorts. I think its a cool idea, because there's more room to write per person, and if they're friends on social media then you don't really need a photo of them. I decided to pass around my own little journal, because I'm quite the narcissistic and I want to know what people think about me, aaaaaaaand because I'm genuinely curious about what they have to say.
For the most part it's been very sweet. Of course I've been selective about who I pass it out to, but I haven't given them any instructions on what to write. I had one kid do the stereotypical "Here's my signature for when I become famous". Some people just put "Have a great summer" which is so very lame, what is this middle school?!?! (LOL) One kid put that he didn't learn anything in my class, but he passed the STAAR test so I must be doing something right! Several kids shared memories they had in my class. A few kids actually apologized for their behavior in my class which was very mature.
I plan on keeping this little booklet somewhere safe so that way next year (and the years that follow) when I'm dying and trying to decide if my entire life plan of becoming a teacher was a mistake I'll have some little rays of sunshine to look back on and hopefully that will get me through the struggles that will come. Because the struggles will come. This is not an easy profession we have chosen. If it was easy, then everyone would be doing it.
I haven't even talked about all the things that I dealt with this year, I think that's going to be my next post, or maybe next three posts because a metric crap ton of crap happened this year. Some of it was hilarious, some of it was maddening, some of it was heartbreaking. But we all survived it, and we're all going to have to survive it again next year, and the next year, until one day we die...
I need a nap...
Currently I'm battling the worst case of allergies I've ever had, and yes that is saying something because I am the queen of allergy attacks! I'm medicated, my nose is running, my eyes are watering, and I have to keep my secret stash of tissues hidden because my students keep trying to steal them. Yesterday my nose was so red one of my students asked if it was bleeding. But today I have found the right combination of allergy medicine, nose spray and decongestants to get at least half of my nose working!
When I was a student the end of the year was always a time for hugs and goodbyes. We made tie dye shirts for sports day, we had pizza parties, lots of movies were watched, but that was all in elementary school. I live in the world of the middle school. I have 4 different classes that I see, so there's really no way to get them together for a pizza party. They just finally got concerned about their grades so they're trying to do extra work to avoid summer school so there's no time to watch a movie (not that we would be allowed to do that anyway). We don't even have yearbooks!
But many of my kids have been bringing their own little journals that have become autograph books of sorts. I think its a cool idea, because there's more room to write per person, and if they're friends on social media then you don't really need a photo of them. I decided to pass around my own little journal, because I'm quite the narcissistic and I want to know what people think about me, aaaaaaaand because I'm genuinely curious about what they have to say.
For the most part it's been very sweet. Of course I've been selective about who I pass it out to, but I haven't given them any instructions on what to write. I had one kid do the stereotypical "Here's my signature for when I become famous". Some people just put "Have a great summer" which is so very lame, what is this middle school?!?! (LOL) One kid put that he didn't learn anything in my class, but he passed the STAAR test so I must be doing something right! Several kids shared memories they had in my class. A few kids actually apologized for their behavior in my class which was very mature.
I plan on keeping this little booklet somewhere safe so that way next year (and the years that follow) when I'm dying and trying to decide if my entire life plan of becoming a teacher was a mistake I'll have some little rays of sunshine to look back on and hopefully that will get me through the struggles that will come. Because the struggles will come. This is not an easy profession we have chosen. If it was easy, then everyone would be doing it.
I haven't even talked about all the things that I dealt with this year, I think that's going to be my next post, or maybe next three posts because a metric crap ton of crap happened this year. Some of it was hilarious, some of it was maddening, some of it was heartbreaking. But we all survived it, and we're all going to have to survive it again next year, and the next year, until one day we die...
I need a nap...
Friday, May 5, 2017
High School Appreciation
My high school career was spent at New Caney High School. I know there's no way that I will remember everyone who taught me there, but I will pay homage to all those who made a lasting impression. I had band all four years of high school, so Mr. Aiken and Mr. Wimberly left a lasting impression. There were lots of life lessons learned in the band hall, thank you both for giving me a chance to practice my leadership skills. Also sorry about Atlanta... That wasn't the best idea ever, and I know that it put the two of you in a difficult position.
All of my Freshman teachers were really excellent. I remember them all fondly and I like to think that I got some of my teaching style from them.
Let's start off with Ms. Lemke. She was my English teacher, and she definitely knew how to deal with immature freshmen. I liked her laid back teaching style (also a really sarcastic person), she had the coolest room set up with Christmas lights and colored lamps set up everywhere. I remember we won the Christmas Door Decorating contest that year, or we at least came in second place. It was Santa hanging out on the beach with flamingos (because everything in her room was pink and flamingos). I remember Romeo and Juliet, The Odyssey, and The Secret Life of Bees. She also cared on a personal level about her students (maybe because I was friends with her daughter). Not sorry for staking all the things on your desk!!!!!!
Ms. Williford was my World Geography teacher. She was an Aggie, Whoop! and every time we were learning about a new country or continent she made sure she had cultural music to play everyday. We would also spend one day learning about the dancing styles from each place we were studying. Great job getting students engaged. I also remember that on your birthday she would have the class sing and you would have to wear the birthday hat (OMG she also had a hat for every random history day!!) and she would take your picture and put it up on the wall!
Coach Storms the elder (there were two of them) was my Geometry teacher. I remember that this was his first year teaching geometry and he wasn't all that familiar with the content. We watched a lot of the book tutorial from Edward Burger, who is still in charge of writing the math textbooks... It was fun trying to learn along with him, and he tried his best to make it engaging.
My Biology teacher was Ms. Stephenson. I also had her again as one of the coaches for Academic Decathlon. She was one of the best science teachers I've had. She made the content fun, we got to do experiments, and discovery labs. I remember this is when we started to do dissections. We did a squid and she brought in her fryer and she made us calamari after we finished with our specimen. Good job Ms. Stephenson, also congrats of being the Dean of Instruction, you deserve it!
Sophomore year I had Ms. Tussie for English. She was really cool, she made songs, we got to act out the plays (Julius Caesar almost actually died because she almost fell of the screwdriver we were fake stabbing her with). Fahrenheit 451 turned into a research project and that was a cool way to dig in to dystopian societies. Also she was the debate coach and I was on the team that year. It was fun getting to work with her after school!
The OCS (Other Coach Storms) was Algebra 2. He was okay, not as funny as his brother, but he was a good teacher. I remember one time he was absent and the office didn't send down a substitute and we didn't want to get in trouble so we all passed out the papers and just sat and talked quietly. If any adults walked by we just pretended to be working. We were nerds.
When I was a Junior the school was starting to split into New Caney and Porter High Schools so it was a bit chaotic. This is also the time that I started taking Dual Credit courses (I was taking college classes in high school). That's the first year I had Mr. Moore. He had my older brother Patrick so he was familiar with the last name. My brother is currently an engineer so needless to say he understood Physics much better than I did. Mr. Moore was an amazing teacher. We didn't just watch movies or just do book work and long complicated math problems, even though it was a Physics class. He made some jokes and that's what made him relateable. He was also an Aggie, Whoop! and when I was in college I even met up with him after a football game. One thing I remember was his end of the year projects. We made a mousetrap powered car, and to get a 100 you had to get it to hit the far side of the gym wall. Our car was 3 inches away... He said that's the closet he's ever seen one come without hitting it. We also did a soldering project that was cool.
My US History teacher was Ms. Crawford. It was a dual credit class and she made it more of a college lecture than a high school course. She really prepared us for what college was going to be like. She was also one of the most technologically proficient people I've ever seen. She had her own wifi in her classroom, she made all these interactive PowerPoint, the class had its own website where we could all post in our study groups, she had it going on.
Ms. Pipes was my College Algebra and Trig "professor". She was also the National Honor Society sponsor so I spent a lot of time with her because I was an officer. She saved us all lots of money because we didn't have to buy the textbook that was over $200, and she spent her own money copying pages of notes for us. She wanted to make education accessible to everyone, and she's awesome for doing that. You rock Ms. Pipes.
My Senior year was hectic because we moved to block scheduling which is the worst idea in human history... I had some good teachers who's names I can't remember, and some bad ones I will not mention.
I think my English teacher was Ms. Sutton, but I'm totally not sure on that. We did a lot of writing in her class and she was very constructive about her critiquing of our assignments. She read one of my papers to the class, and she said that I had a strong voice, the only reason I got a C on the assignment was because I used the word "you" and that's a no-no... She also said I'm too young to be that cynical, if only she could see me now lol!
I'll talk about Mr. Moore again because I had him two years in a row (AP Physics) plus he was also the head coach for Academic Decathlon. Maaaaaaaany a life lesson was learned on the team. We went to State that year and it was a fun trip to San Antonio. He treated us like adults, and helped shape us into the people we are today. He really influenced me into becoming a teacher, and thank you Mr. Moore for all that you've done for education over the years. I hope retirement is treating you well, you've earned it!
All of my Freshman teachers were really excellent. I remember them all fondly and I like to think that I got some of my teaching style from them.
Let's start off with Ms. Lemke. She was my English teacher, and she definitely knew how to deal with immature freshmen. I liked her laid back teaching style (also a really sarcastic person), she had the coolest room set up with Christmas lights and colored lamps set up everywhere. I remember we won the Christmas Door Decorating contest that year, or we at least came in second place. It was Santa hanging out on the beach with flamingos (because everything in her room was pink and flamingos). I remember Romeo and Juliet, The Odyssey, and The Secret Life of Bees. She also cared on a personal level about her students (maybe because I was friends with her daughter). Not sorry for staking all the things on your desk!!!!!!
Ms. Williford was my World Geography teacher. She was an Aggie, Whoop! and every time we were learning about a new country or continent she made sure she had cultural music to play everyday. We would also spend one day learning about the dancing styles from each place we were studying. Great job getting students engaged. I also remember that on your birthday she would have the class sing and you would have to wear the birthday hat (OMG she also had a hat for every random history day!!) and she would take your picture and put it up on the wall!
Coach Storms the elder (there were two of them) was my Geometry teacher. I remember that this was his first year teaching geometry and he wasn't all that familiar with the content. We watched a lot of the book tutorial from Edward Burger, who is still in charge of writing the math textbooks... It was fun trying to learn along with him, and he tried his best to make it engaging.
My Biology teacher was Ms. Stephenson. I also had her again as one of the coaches for Academic Decathlon. She was one of the best science teachers I've had. She made the content fun, we got to do experiments, and discovery labs. I remember this is when we started to do dissections. We did a squid and she brought in her fryer and she made us calamari after we finished with our specimen. Good job Ms. Stephenson, also congrats of being the Dean of Instruction, you deserve it!
Sophomore year I had Ms. Tussie for English. She was really cool, she made songs, we got to act out the plays (Julius Caesar almost actually died because she almost fell of the screwdriver we were fake stabbing her with). Fahrenheit 451 turned into a research project and that was a cool way to dig in to dystopian societies. Also she was the debate coach and I was on the team that year. It was fun getting to work with her after school!
The OCS (Other Coach Storms) was Algebra 2. He was okay, not as funny as his brother, but he was a good teacher. I remember one time he was absent and the office didn't send down a substitute and we didn't want to get in trouble so we all passed out the papers and just sat and talked quietly. If any adults walked by we just pretended to be working. We were nerds.
When I was a Junior the school was starting to split into New Caney and Porter High Schools so it was a bit chaotic. This is also the time that I started taking Dual Credit courses (I was taking college classes in high school). That's the first year I had Mr. Moore. He had my older brother Patrick so he was familiar with the last name. My brother is currently an engineer so needless to say he understood Physics much better than I did. Mr. Moore was an amazing teacher. We didn't just watch movies or just do book work and long complicated math problems, even though it was a Physics class. He made some jokes and that's what made him relateable. He was also an Aggie, Whoop! and when I was in college I even met up with him after a football game. One thing I remember was his end of the year projects. We made a mousetrap powered car, and to get a 100 you had to get it to hit the far side of the gym wall. Our car was 3 inches away... He said that's the closet he's ever seen one come without hitting it. We also did a soldering project that was cool.
My US History teacher was Ms. Crawford. It was a dual credit class and she made it more of a college lecture than a high school course. She really prepared us for what college was going to be like. She was also one of the most technologically proficient people I've ever seen. She had her own wifi in her classroom, she made all these interactive PowerPoint, the class had its own website where we could all post in our study groups, she had it going on.
Ms. Pipes was my College Algebra and Trig "professor". She was also the National Honor Society sponsor so I spent a lot of time with her because I was an officer. She saved us all lots of money because we didn't have to buy the textbook that was over $200, and she spent her own money copying pages of notes for us. She wanted to make education accessible to everyone, and she's awesome for doing that. You rock Ms. Pipes.
My Senior year was hectic because we moved to block scheduling which is the worst idea in human history... I had some good teachers who's names I can't remember, and some bad ones I will not mention.
I think my English teacher was Ms. Sutton, but I'm totally not sure on that. We did a lot of writing in her class and she was very constructive about her critiquing of our assignments. She read one of my papers to the class, and she said that I had a strong voice, the only reason I got a C on the assignment was because I used the word "you" and that's a no-no... She also said I'm too young to be that cynical, if only she could see me now lol!
I'll talk about Mr. Moore again because I had him two years in a row (AP Physics) plus he was also the head coach for Academic Decathlon. Maaaaaaaany a life lesson was learned on the team. We went to State that year and it was a fun trip to San Antonio. He treated us like adults, and helped shape us into the people we are today. He really influenced me into becoming a teacher, and thank you Mr. Moore for all that you've done for education over the years. I hope retirement is treating you well, you've earned it!
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