Last BLog

The blog system we are on has updated itself and I am not going to remember how to get back on. I have started working on one of my life goals of writing a childrens book series. I am developing my characters and formulating story ideas. I also am trying to figure out what I want to do after teacher corps. This has been my safe haven for the past 2 years of my life. It seems like yesterday I was walking across the yard with my friends on my cell phone with Ben asking if I could still apply. It seems like yesterday I was with my parents and BEn eating at Newks, which was just the beginning of my journey. I have really grown since Summer 2005 and I thank Ben a lot for allowing me this opportunity. I am probably going to stay in the south and teach another year. I do miss MD, but I do not want to back track on life and fall into my old safe haven. I am growing here and do no want to stop it.

April Blog I

This month seems short. Let me just break down my calendar for you
Week One: Calendar Math project and Wizdom teeth removal
Week two: Daddy having surgery and I am taking two days off of work
Week three: Math project
Week four: Mississippi state tested subjects and MTC class where portfolios will be due

This month will hopefully go by fast as to enter the final month of this school year. I am doing two projects so the kids can have a change of pace of math environment. I find that they are getting bored with just teaching and lecturing and I am getting bored as well. Prom was moved from APril 21 to the first week in May. I was going to chaperone but I plan on going out that Friday night. I REALLY wanted to go see my 10th graders from last year go to their first prom. I found out in March that one of my 9th grade students from last year who was pregnant and had her baby in July is pregnant again. WTW (what the world)??? How does this happen. Why does this happen? I asked her if she wanted it to happen and she replied, "No it just happened." This girl is 16, where is her momma???

March Blog II

I am meeting some classmates in Jackson the last weekend of MArch so we can get started and motivate each other on our portfolios. Parent conferences are in March and so that is one day of no work. I plan on giving many quizzes and tests in the last 2 weeks of March because APril I will be out getting my wisdom teeth pulled. Then my dad is having surgery and I am going home for 2 days and then state tested subjects and I do not want get kids behind by doing work then. I have found through talking, that some of my older kids 16-17 who are behind still come to school because simply put, "there is nothing else to do". I find this fascinating because if I had nothing to do at that age I most certainly didn't want to hang out with younger people.

March Blog I

My principal is the most lazy excuse for a man. I have asked to go on workshops this year and he never gets back to me. I write memos, email and ask in person and he forgets. I ask for items for my room and he also forgets. As a teacher this is really disheartening. This makes me not want to teach, not want to come to the school and if I do...again...NOT teach. I am getting tired of NPHS and tired of the environment and the atmosphere. I seem to be enjoying my kids more and more everday. I am so glad Spring is almost here because I am going to start working out again to keep my sanity and fit back into some of my clothes. Spring break is finally here and I am happy. One more 9-week to go until summertime fun!!!

Feb Blog II: SNOW DAY

WE had a snow day on February 2nd. It was exciting!! I still woke up around 7am and drove to Batesville with 3 friends to eat breakfast. There was nothing on the road and we really could have gone to school, but we didn't. I was SUPPOSED to get work done this day but I got NOTHING done. WE went to Memphis to shop and on my way back I stopped at my school to get some papers to grade. Last year we had to come back the day after Memorial weekend to make up a snow day we had. I really hope that is not the case this year, because I have vacation plans already made. The flu is also going around my school and I Lysol my room everyday to keep germs away. I finally did catch something around the middle of February and it lasted 1.5 weeks and I was at work everyday. This is a great accomplishment for me.

Feb Blog I

This year we did not have a Black History Program. I have always been told that "You don't know where you are going if you do not know where you have come from". These black kids in the Delta need to know their roots. They need to know about the heritage and they need the people they see for 8 hours a day to teach it to them. I really wanted to have one because I enjoy black history a whole lot. In fact, I should have majored in it and minored in math. I told my students we would watch some videos on it in class and I would tell them some facts daily and I did. They enjoyed this in the end and I did as well.

How do you feel about blogging?

I think my attitude is the same towards blogging as it was when we first started in the summer of 2005. It gives you a chance to sit down and reflect and write out your thoughts so that others who are going to be in your position (i.e. teach or join the MTC) can get a feel for what you go through day to day. I do know that sometime I forget to do them at a specific deadline, but I do get them done during that month. MY internet does not work all the time at my apartment and I can not blog at school. I think the reason why some people have some apprehension towards blogging is because we have yet to see a grade for them since Mrs. Monroe's class. And the same people keep showing up in Ben's email...so we just let them continue to blog.

So Far this year....

I feel unmovtived and it is always a struggle to get out of bed. I never make it to work on time and I am constantly feeling tired throughout the day. I feel like I am driving and get stuck in the same pothole daily until a truck comes and picks me up (the 3 o'clock bell) and carries me away. That is until I have to drive again. I am bored with teaching Pre-Algebra and would like to move to a higher math. A few of the staff members at my school gossip too much and are always running to me with "information". I choose not to be a part of this because I have WAY BETTER THINGS TO DO IN MY DAY AND TOO MANY THINGS ON MY AGENDA. I have not started working on my portfolio yet, but this weekend is my weekend of BEGINNINGS! I do like my kids and look forward to what the future has for me.

Lesson Plans

I don't know if this is just an issue that I struggle with or not but I do not like do lesson plans. They just seem tedious and I feel like sometime they are a time wasted. A time wasted in the sense that they sometime take to long to do or I do not like really doing in the format that is given. At my school we have to do ours online and the computer program we use is very very detailed. Also you have those days when the lesson gets cut in half because of an emergency or the students are picking up on the topic very very slowly. So now you have to go back and change all these lesson plans that you spend hours on end working on to "become a better distributor of instruction" to your students. On the other hand, I do see why lesson plans are necessary. I have come up with a way of keeping up with what I do from day-to-day but writing it on my personal math calendar.

What are my plans for next year?

At the beginning of this year I was gung-ho about staying a third year to teach and even become certified in Gifted Education. I wanted to stay to see the sophomores I had last year graduate and to get more experience, maybe move up a math level. As small tribulations have happened in my life this year, I have had a change of heart. YES...I love my sophomore class from last year (Transition to Algebra), but I am starting to get very homesick again and I do not particular like my administration this year. My District is some B.S. on so many levels and I am just glad my 2nd year here is almost up. I am probably going to go home for one year and teach at a Charter School in Baltimore or DC and then go and get my Phd. I have enjoyed the program and the experiences I have gotten this year and last year. I do like teaching...but maybe closer to home. I feel by myself down here even though I have meet many many people.

HOMESICK AND TIRED

I have been very tired lately and longing to go HOME!!! I am very close to my parents and love my hometown area and my way of life at home. I am thinking about going back there after the program is over and taking that year to apply for my Phd. I am on the other hand falling in love with the south. The way of life, the church and the cost of living. I would like to bring my parents to the south and that would make my life complete, but they are VERY contempt in the North.
I need to pray about it and what till God gives me an answer that I can understand.

Did I ever think of quitting after the first year?

Yes I thought of quitting my first year. My principal and I last year had a love-hate relationship. She made the beginning half of my school year miserable by putting me (a first year teacher) on the TST team, making me the Freshman council sponsor and giving me things at 3pm that she needed done or typed by tomorrow, but an item that could not leave the building. She made it hard for me to leave my class and warm up my lunch (because I was leaving my students unattended) and always always did random class room observations of me. About 2 weeks before Christmas break I wrote up the grandchild of one of the Board members and my principal came and talked to me personnally about the situation. We ended up having a verbal and heated argument and I walked out of her office eventually after this went on for about 30 minutes and and eventually sent the VP to come and get me to bring me back. That is when I realized that me and this woman were not going to work out and I was seriously considering leaving after the 2nd nine weeks. I did not. She ended making me an after school tutor starting in January and she was never really in the building that much, because she become the Asst Superintendent.

So we have a new principal who seems like he is full of crap and is there for a paycheck. He is too happy-go-lucky and takes nothing seriously. The vice-principal has never even been a real teacher. If you wanna call study hall and drivers education real teaching. He seems illerate at speech and thought. The school seems like the kids are just taking over this year. He sucks at discipline. We are not striving for level 5, instead we are striving for level FUN and MAINTAINING. A lot of my old students are very unhappy with some of their new teachers who are not teaching anything!!! Just bookwork and a test of Friday. Yeah, I give bookwork sometime because the problems are in the book, but I teach at the beginning of class and walk around and help my students. I interact with them. I have been on football game duty for the lat 4 home games...WHAT???? Also shows who lazy the VP is....does not even know how to rotate duties. He also gives us our duty the Thursday before the game on Friday. This is not enough notice and it pitiful on his part. As a teacher, you do not know who to take your concern too- if you take it to the administration they think you are against them or a big complainer, if you take it to the superintedent or the board your administration will think you are trying to get them fired, if you take it to MTC they will just say "yeah that is how things are. Just deal with it". So I will just blog about it and do what I have to do...don't go to duty when I get 24 hour notice and strive as far as the other teachers are striving at my school, since it seems to be ok with the principal.

First Fight in my Class

On Wednesday, Oct 4 I had the first fight in my class of the year. I little light-skin curly hair boy named C.W. (who thinks he is a thug but looks really really boysish and young) got into a fight in the cafeteria. I heard him talking "stuff" the entire morning in the hallway and when he got into my class 4th period he turned to a student and said he was going to whip his cousin's tail. The funny thing is C.W. is only 5'6 and 120 pds and has a dimple when he smiles. Well we get to lunch and about 15 minutes into lunch I see him stand up and start yelling at the boy and the boy came toward him and they started fighting and the VP and our "school security guard" broke it up 5 minutes later. My students of course got up and some edged them on and many of the girls ran to get out of the way of harm. I got up and told my students to dump their tray and walk out to the hall and get in line. They did and of course I was just thinking fast and moving fast because I didn't know what to do. I got back to the classroom to calm them down and give them their nine-week exam. Later on that day I found out that C.W. ran away from the school after they VP let go of him and that he also has been to jail before and is on probation. I don't know what is going to happen with him, but he is probably getting the attention and "street credit" he wants. It is very sad and I am getting sick of the whol situation at my school this year.

Motivating Students

Even as a second year teacher there are many things that I do not know. I still have not found my teaching style or know how to deal with kids who ultimately in the end will not graduate from college but are staying in school to eat breakfast and lunch and come for the social party. I don't know how to deal with or talk to administration or even how to get students to understand to bring paper and pencil to class. As far as motivation...last year I had a class (Transition to Algebra) of 12 sophomores who knew that they would pass my class for some reason and eventually go to Algebra I next year. It was very tough in the beginning because most of them had an I don't care attitude. Soon I started giving pop quizzes and REALLY averaging them into their grade. I also started bringing candy sometimes and during the spring we started walking around the school twice if they were good at lunch and did their work in class the day before. But this year (due to extra expenses...a car note) I am doing motivation through grades and walking outside (only for my smaller classes).

August Blog Two- School Impressions

We have new Administration this year. The discipline seems a little more lacks than last year and we do not have ISS anymore. The principal has also informed us that there will not be a whole lot of suspensions because we have to raise or test scores and the students need to be in school all day everyday to learn. He informed us to try to deal with our kids as best as we knew how. The Algebra I scores were great this year, so the district is know longer going to have JBHM tutoring. I guess the extra money was good when it was good. I think I am getting bored on my job. I want to move on to teach higher level math next year or Gifted and Talented or something else. I am going to add some endoresments like Journalism to my certificate. The school hired a new Head Football Coach and like 4 new coaches in order to have a winning year and the season thus far is still a LOSING one (0-3). It also appears to me that coaches get it a little bit easier than other teachers and there is obvious favoritism going on. I really don't know if I like it or want to go back to it next year. I wanted to stay a third year to see my sophomore class I had last year (my favorite class) graduate from high school in 2008.

August Blog One- 1st week

My first week this year was very easy going. I knew the rules of school and I knew how to handle the students better. I still don't really know what to do when we have down time. I teach freshman and they are sometime hard to manage. Last year I wasn't given the bell schedule until the day before school and I had no gradebook, no markers for my class, no intercom in my room and of course no computer!!! This year lunch was moved up one period to 4th which is at 10:3o instead of 11:30 and so now I have to take 25 kids to lunch instead of 12 kids. I still feel tired after school, but I am more prepared for my class lessons this time around.