Friday, December 30, 2011

Goodbye 2011

2011...Eh, not a bad year.

It was a year that I got a new job. (But, that has been the norm for the last few years.)
I found a subject that I love to teach--engineering to middle schoolers. Thank you Project Lead the Way for making this possible.

We got a new car. (Love my Kia Sorento.)

I started a blog.

We traveled to Las Vegas twice (once for New Years and once for our anniversary) and decided that twice is one time too many.

I began visiting the library with regularity.

Those are the biggies that I can think of right now.

So, for 2012....

I am not one that is good at making New Year's Resolutions. But, I have a few things I would like to try to do.

1. Do a better job of keeping in touch with old friends. (Be it e-mail, facebook, letters/cards, or phone calls.)

2. Volunteer somewhere. (I don't know where, but somewhere and somehow.)

3. Blog at least 3 times a month.

I would add more but I want to actually do these things all year.

Yep, I am excited about 2012.

My mom and dad will be moving to Texas in the summer.

My husband will be graduating with his Masters Degree in Educational Leadership and he will be on his way to becoming an assistant principal.

I will take an additional training to learn part II of the engineering curriculum I teach.

You never know what can happen in the course of a year.

Hopefully I will be a better blogger, a volunteer, and a girl with a few more friends in 2012. :)

Thanks for reading.

Happy New Year. Be safe.














Saturday, December 10, 2011

First year teaching...I almost didn't make it!

Six years ago I almost quit my first year teaching.

Yep, it was almost Christmas break and I truly thought I could not make it any more.

I was working in a Behavior Unit with Emotionally Disturbed (ED) high schoolers. I had a caseload of almost 20 kids. I was in a dilapidated old trailer/portable and my doors to the outside didn’t lock. Besides what I could find on Google, I had received no training on how to deal with ED kids.

 On any given day I had 8 kids in my room. This doesn’t seem like a large number until you start factoring in their other issues.  

These kids were not your average group. I had several (if not all) kids that had P.O.’s (Parole Officers) and records.

They would think nothing of “cussing out” a teacher.

 I had a 9th grader that self medicated on drugs and alcohol before he came to school.

 I had a kid who would constantly make threats that he was going to kill someone—and his methods of killing were extremely descriptive and gruesome—like, “I am going to slice you up into little bits with a chainsaw and feed you to my pitbull.”

 I had kids who would think nothing of punching a wall.

 I had several “runners” who I had to be on the lookout for.  

I had a 16 year old ninth grader who over dosed on pain killers in October. His funeral was an open casket and the image of him lying in that coffin still haunts me to this day.  

All my kids in my portable had seen violence of some sort firsthand…rape, abuse, suicide, etc.

I didn’t get a conference period or a lunch. I was always in my portable.

I had a bow tie wearing principal that hated my guts and would send me emails that simply read, “See Me.” I dreaded those emails because they usually meant that I had messed up colossally—but I usually had no idea that I was messing up.

Oh, and I was the Girls Varsity Soccer Coach.

The worst part was, I had no idea how to make things any better. I didn’t know how to manage a group of kids with problems that I could never imagine.

So yeah, I almost quit my first year teaching. I simply could not deal with the drama and all the negativity that surrounded me.

But, I did stick it out and I really am glad that I did. 
I stayed for the kids—who, most of the time treated me with respect and kindness—even though they hated the world around them.

When people ask me about my first year teaching, sometimes I will tell them a short bit of the full story—but they usually think I am over exaggerating.

I wish I could make this stuff up.  

Friday, December 2, 2011

Semester Long Classes..TYJOW (Thank you Jesus! Or Whomever!)

Dear whomever decided it was a good idea to have semester long classes,

Thank you. I am very excited to get 3 new classes at semester.  I have a few students that I am kinda done with. I hope that my new kids will give me a few weeks of good behavior before I have to break out the big guns.

I wish you could do something about the subject matter that I teach. The title of the class is Interactive Media/Game Design, and the kids think they should just be able to play games all day.  In fact, when I told them they were going to write a research paper they almost revolted.  Sadly, that was only the second week of my class.

I am very glad to have a new group of kids, as this semester was a learning period for me, too. Not only was the subject matter new, I had to manage behaviors that I had never seen before. Now, I know what is, and is not allowed when it comes to the kinds of things middle schoolers will try to pull--especially, when they have access to a computer. 

I also like that our finals start on Wednesday--that means I only have 7 more instruction days with this group of Interactive Media kids...(when they start complaining I remind them, only X many more days.)

Please, only put good kids in my next semester of classes.

Thanks,

Me.
















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