I’ve got a post on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep over at the places I go.
And a link that Kelly posted inspired me to muse a bit over at Educating Erin.
🙂
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Category Archives: teaching
A little bit of…
My weeks get so busy sometimes that I don’t have a chance to write everything I think about writing. And this past week, I’ve been kept *very* busy while subbing. Extra classes and little free time, and so forth. So here are a few random and unconnected things I read about, thought about, saw or heard last week:
1. I’ve not been to the Washington Market downtown, and I’ve heard nothing but good things about it. However, their dreadful radio commercials make me want to tear my hair out. The copy is bad, the readings are bad, everything about them is BAD.
2. I saw this post at livejournal that really, really struck a chord with me. The basic gist of the post is that we as a culture and women in particular have a tendency to constantly measure our worth against the people around us. I know it’s something I’m guilty of…that instead of taking pride in my own accomplishments, feeling good about where I am and what I’ve done and what I can do, I compare myself to people I know. Friends and acquaintances and relatives and strangers alike. Women, I think, have a strong tendency to do this in terms of time. As in, I’m 30, and I don’t have X, Y and Z. All these other people have X, Y and Z, therefore, there must be something wrong with me.
I’ve gotten way better at this than I used to be, by the way. But every once in a while…
3. Does anyone out there have a teenage daughter? If so, please talk to me about how you deal with the teenage girl fashions. Oh, and by the way, I think I’ve figured out the sandals/flip-flops in winter phenomenon. Someone has failed to tell these children that Buffalo is not, in fact, located in southern California. 😉
I guess that’ll do it for now. Have a good one!
English teacher humor
(today’s Foxtrot, by Bill Amend)
I laughed out loud.
🙂
This should be interesting…
I’m an art teacher today. Look for details on how that goes later. 🙂
Oh, and I’m very excited about an online purchase I made last night. Go here to read about it.
Happy day, all!
Tired
7th graders wear me out.
I’ll be updating the reading/writing blog over the weekend sometime.
And that’s really all I have to say at the moment.
My brain hurts.
What teachers make
A friend of mine just sent this to me, and it reminded me of something I wanted to post about anyway…
WHAT TEACHERS MAKE
The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life. One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, “What’s a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?”
He reminded the other dinner guests what they say about teachers: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”
To stress his point he said to another guest; “You’re a teacher, Susan. Be honest. What do you make?”
Susan, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied, “You want to know what I make?
“I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could. I make a C+ feel like the winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor. I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall in absolute silence.
“You want to know what I make?
I make kids wonder.
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write.
I make them read, read, read.
I make them show all their work in math and perfect their final drafts in English.
I make them understand that if you have the brains, and follow your heart, and if someone ever tries to judge you by what you make, you must pay no attention because they just didn’t learn.”
Susan paused and then continued. “You want to know what I make? ‘I MAKE A DIFFERENCE.’ What do you make?”
When I was in fifth grade, I had a teacher that I absolutely adored. She was interesting and fun and everything that a great fifth grade teacher should be. One day, I got some catalogs in the mail that were clearly “teacher” material. I brought them in to show my teacher.
“Maybe it means I’m supposed to be a teacher when I grow up,” I beamed.
She laughed. “You’re too smart to be a teacher.”
And that little throwaway comment might have squashed a dream…might have…but instead, it just put it on hold.
After I graduated from college with my communication arts degree, I went back home and worked for a daily paper. I liked being a reporter okay, but I never felt like I belonged there. I never felt like it was what I was *supposed* to be doing. I didn’t have the drive, the hunger. I was (and still am, I think) a good writer, but never a great journalist. I just didn’t have it in me.
One day, when I was in the high school, I bumped into my most favorite teacher ever, Mrs. L. She asked me what I was doing and what my plans were, and I told her that I was thinking about back to school for teaching certification.
“Oh, you’d make a wonderful teacher,” she said.
So thank you, Mrs. L, for being a wonderful teacher and a wonderful friend. Thank you for making a difference.
Back to school again
So on my first day as a substitute teacher, I got a call. Yay!
Pluses…actually working in my field, getting back into the classroom, networking.
Minuses…a lot less computer time. 😉 Postings will probably be fewer and farther between, as I am now a busy, busy girl.
(Hilary, I haven’t forgotten about your tag…I swear. I’m working on it!)
My first day wasn’t bad. A few seniors with attitude problems, but that’s to be expected. Here’s hoping I get called tomorrow!
I finished Bird by Bird (#47 in the 50-book challenge, by Anne Lamott) last night. This was a great book about writing, and I found Lamott’s writing to be honest, funny and touching. She gives great advice, her personal insights are fantastic, and reading this made me want to check out some of her fiction. I need to go back through and find some of my favorite quotes. I kept reading things to R aloud. I definitely give this one a thumbs up.
I need to finish Moonshadow (#46), but I’ve also started:
45. The Dominant Blonde (chick lit)
44. Passionate Hearts (poetry)
I was kind of confused when R gave me The Dominant Blonde to read, but when I read the “about the author” blurb, I learned that Alisa Kwitney was “a former comic book editor for the Vertigo impirnt of DC Comics.” Ahhh…it all makes sense now. Heehee.
I’m enjoying both very much.
Also on my “to read” list:
100 Years of Solitude
Dave Barry is Not Taking This Sitting Down
The Joy Luck Club
Kiss Her Goodbye
Sense and Sensibility
Breakfast of Champions
Maus (I somehow missed this when the rest of the known universe read it in college…)
Books 1 and 2 of A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Sandman (series…how many books should that count as? 😉 )
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
I saw Finding Neverland Friday night with R and his friend John (I sometimes think I should abandon the “R” thing, as I’m sure that everyone reading this knows his name by now…hmmm…), and I really, really enjoyed it. I don’t know if it’s “Best Picture” material, but I did enjoy it. I got all weepy and stuff…
And get this, Lost fans, John gave me my *very own copy* of the comic featured on the show! It’s not in Spanish, but it is the very same comic. It’s an issue of Green Lantern/Flash: Faster Friends, for anyone keeping track of that sort of thing.
“I wouldn’t recommend reading it,” John said. “There’s way better comics out there.”
But still, way cool. 🙂
On Sunday, we watched Dodgeball…lots of fun. I thought the best parts of the movie were the clips…the Globo Gym commercial, the Dodgeball video, the ESPN 8 stuff. (Oh, and Gary Cole and Jason Bateman were an absolute riot as the commentators.)
I do have more to say, but I’m going to stop here for now…happy almost-February, everyone!
Do you hear the people sing?
I saw a fantastic high school production of Les Mis this weekend. Truly, I kid you not. When I heard that Ridgway High School (one town over from where I grew up)was putting it on, I said “No way. How are they going to pull that off?”
Well, they did. It was by no means perfect, but wow. I was stunned. Eponine was amazing. She’s going to be something. I guarantee it. And the little boy who played Gavroche? Unbelievable. I don’t know where they found him, but wow. He was better than this one kid that I saw in an professional (traveling) production in Buffalo a couple of years ago. The kid was so bad that, when he was dying on the barricade, I felt like screaming “Just shut up and die already!” Yeah, it was that bad. This kid, though? Tears.
So, kudos to Ridgway High School and director Jason Phipps. It makes me want to get into the classroom already, so I can be a part of things like this!