Saw this and laughed!

via Post Secret

Teach Like a Rock Star

I feel like I start every post this way, but seriously. It sucks trying to blog without having the Internet at home. There’s always so much I want to blog about but by the time I finally get around to the Internet, I’ve forgotten most of it.

Anyways, my professional development on Monday was AMAZING. I can’t say I went from “wanting to quit this year” to “wanting to be a teacher forever and ever and ever”. But I did go away remembering that despite how hopeless I feel some days, my job is the most important in the world and I am making a difference. I also went away resolved to love my kids better, which I am having to do “one day at a time”. I also feel like I left with a better understanding of how my studends think and how they perceive school and teachers and all that kinda stuff. I laughed and I cried. I can’t recommend this professional development strongly enough! Click here and find out if he’s gonna be coming to a city near you and GO!

My “memorable moment” of the week: One of my students was in in-school suspension for two days. After the first day he came by my room and help me put butcher paper on my wall (which is now serving as a “word wall”). This is the conversation that followed:

Christian: Hey miss, look what I did in ISS. (gets out a drawing of Romeo and Juliet)
Me: Hey, that’s pretty good! I thought you told me you don’t draw!
Christian: Well, I do a little. I just copied it off the book cover. You can have it, if you want it.
Me:  Christian…. did you draw me a picture?
Christian: Naww… (shuffles feet and looks at the floor)
Me: Christian….. did you draw ME a picture?
Christian: Something like that. (goofy smile as I stapled the drawing to my wall)

I don’t have to go to work on Monday!

Hey y’all! So, it’s really hard to blog when you don’t have the internet at home. Some neat stuff happened this week but I can’t remember a ten seconds of it because I haven’t been writing it down. What I do remember?

1. I thought I was gonna be observed one day and then I wasn’t. Holla!
2. I said “holla!” in class and now my 4th period loves me and showers me with compliments regarding my appearance and personal style. Ooookaayyyy…..
3. My students have hated our poetry unit. HAAAATED it. Except for the last poem we studied. “The Flea” by John Donne. Apparently all you have to do as a high school teacher is mention sex and you will have a captive audience.
4. On Thursday my darlings had to recite “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost”. This is is something I was forced to do in sixth grade and subsequently took out on my ninth and tenth graders. They complained about it for two weeks but then actually stood up and did their damned best. And for that I am very, VERY proud of them!
5. A friend of mine is going to start subbing. The interview process revealed just how unprofessional my school is. And his first assignment is for me, tomorrow.

But Miss, why are you not going to work tomorrow?

Becuase I am going to professional development! And I am excited!

What? Excited about professional development? Ummm, Miss forgot to take her crazy pills.

No, because I am going to Hal Bowman’s Teach Like A Rock Star. My friend Rebecca said this will motivate me and possibly change my life. Or it will at least be hilariously funny and possibly make me cry. Either way, I’m super excited!

Why do I do this again?

I took Thursday off, and this is what I came back to. All the stuff in black was written by students. They are mimicking things that I say/have said.

Today I chipped a tooth. I was so angry when discussing this with other teachers that I gritted my teeth too hard and chipped a tooth.

Updates and such

I magically am able to connect to someone’s internet this morning if I sit at an awkward angle at my kitchen table so I figured I’d try to post on my blog before it goes away! It’s a new year and it is definitely weird to write 2010 on my whiteboard. So, here’s what new in the new decade (or does that start next year? discuss).

-New Year’s Eve at some crappy new bar in Pearland. Well, I say it was crappy, but honestly it was pretty nice. Not a place I would ever go to again unless my friends play another show there (the only reason I went to begin with). It’s probably the nicest place in Pearland! The weirdest part of the night was when they played “my song“. They never really used to play it in their set and now they do and I guess it’s a fan favorite because everyone was singing along to all the words, even when something happened to the mike and Jonny stopped singing for a little bit. It was just weird to be like, “this song was written about the deepest pain I’ve ever felt, and you are rocking out.”

-New Year’s Day party at Canyon Lake. My friend Josh has a lakehouse there (well, his parents do, but they let him live in it which is pretty nice of them). My friend Mark from the band drove up with me instead of riding back in the van and we had good talks and good music. The party was good and people who don’t normally drink at all got drunk and I watched them and said “no, thank you” about a dozen times. Then in the morning we fed some deer.

-School started again. I am now in the phase of first-year teaching Ellen Moir calls “rejuvination” and it is fantastic.  I have been waiting for this for a while and started to believe it was all just a myth but now it is here! I feel rested, strong and purposeful. I can and will change the world for these students! I can capture their hearts and get through to them! I can teach them! I may even be able to get them to pass the TAKS test while I’m at it! There’s a quiet little voice that tells me this won’t last too long and will probably begin to fade when we stop watching “West Side Story” and start reading “Romeo and Juliet”. I am nerding out on Shakespeare and couldn’t be more excited, so I’m hoping my students will catch my excitement a little bit.

-On the first day of school I got big hugs from two of my female students, and another student who I had for CMAP (a half-year course) said she would miss being in my class. Another student told me I looked like a rock star (probably because of my new bangs and my dark-purple-almost-black fingernail polish). And yesterday a student made me an oragami rose but I think I managed to lose it already.

-I’m going to a professional development called “Teach Like a Rock Star” later this month. A teacher friend told me it is amazing. This along with Shakespeare has me buzzing with excitement!

-It got REALLYREALLYREALLY cold in Houston! According to my MacBook it is currently 28 degress outside. They talked about cancelling school yesterday because it was going to be so cold (they didn’t).