In the school that I am at there is the eternal debate about whether you provide paper and pencils for the students or whether you make them bring their own or suffer. (The logic is that if you make them suffer then really *you* are the one suffering because they can't do any work.) So I, being the entergetic, naive, first year teacher that I am bought a box of golf pencils at the beginning of the year and told them to get a pencil anytime they didn't have one. The first box lasted 6 weeks, as did the second and third. Now I am halfway through the 5th six weeks and they have finished off the third box for the semester. That roughly comes to 43 pencils going missing every week. Now I will admit that many of my pencils leave with the students. But 43 a week! No complaints, I started it so I guess I'll go buy another box this weekend.
On to the reason why I posted this. . .I was going to point out to my students in what I thought was a shocking way that my pencils have repeatedly gone missing. So all day yesterday when they asked to have a pencil I told them that they had all been "jacked." 1st period I did this off the cuff to be funny. . .no one said anything or cracked a smile. All day long no one even made mention of the fact that I just said "jacked" in a sentence without even a cracked smile. Only last week when I explained "mistress" to mean "sancha/sancho" they had looks of shock and amazement. Usually I don't get that much street cred with my classes. It is slightly disturbing.
Friday, March 25
Monday, March 14
Where am i?
Borrowed from http://www.ahistoryteacher.com/blog/
Bold the states you have been to, italize the states you have lived in and underline the state you are in now.
Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /
Sunday, March 13
Getting Started
This is my spring break week off. Thus the beginning of my education blog. I have to tell you that I still don't think of myself as a teacher. My whole family was nothing but teachers, but the older I got, the more everything started to lean that way. So I teach high school English/ESL but I don't call myself a teacher, I own no apple decorations or Christmas ornaments that say "#1 Teacher" on them and I don't plan on buying any vests that represent the seasons any time soon. :) (No offense meant to those teachers who are very proud of these representations of their field.)
I am teaching English II (I am teaching myself not to say 10th grade English because maybe only half of my kids are actually in the 10th grade. This is simply the second of four years of high school English.) My school is about 94% hispanic, therefore the main issue is language learning. The research says that it takes 5-7 years to acquire an academic level in a language (reference children beginning school at the age of 5 or 6). However, in the state that I live in we transition students into a mainstream classroom and require them to take the state mandated test at 2 years.
Right now, since I am talking about language, I am teaching Julius Caesar. I would like to point out that this isn't in the curriculum, but I was told that I am expected to "fit it in." Personally, I am not a huge fan of Shakespeare. Give me a modern rendition and I'll appreciate the intricacy of the story, a sonnet and I'll appreciate the language, but to read the whole play and figure out what on earth they are saying every 3 lines. . . !!! Don't revoke my English teacher status for that. The English dept of my college should never have let me graduate. . .but then again I don't like Milton either, or Thoreau, or anyone from Concord except Louisa May Alcott. I love Dante and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and random Victorian writers. I even like Dickens. . . the teacher across the hall can't understand that one bit. But he loves American lit so we called a truce.
Back to Shakespeare. We are doing Caesar. They are bored. Incredibly bored. I got them interested in Portia referring to herself as a harlot (Act II, Sc i) and Brutus using the metaphor that Caesar is a serpant's egg (Act II, Sc i also - once he hatches it would be a lot harder to kill). One student even brought up that a baby snake venom is more dangerous than an adult snake. A fact that I was able to verify. Those are the days that make it worth it.
I am teaching English II (I am teaching myself not to say 10th grade English because maybe only half of my kids are actually in the 10th grade. This is simply the second of four years of high school English.) My school is about 94% hispanic, therefore the main issue is language learning. The research says that it takes 5-7 years to acquire an academic level in a language (reference children beginning school at the age of 5 or 6). However, in the state that I live in we transition students into a mainstream classroom and require them to take the state mandated test at 2 years.
Right now, since I am talking about language, I am teaching Julius Caesar. I would like to point out that this isn't in the curriculum, but I was told that I am expected to "fit it in." Personally, I am not a huge fan of Shakespeare. Give me a modern rendition and I'll appreciate the intricacy of the story, a sonnet and I'll appreciate the language, but to read the whole play and figure out what on earth they are saying every 3 lines. . . !!! Don't revoke my English teacher status for that. The English dept of my college should never have let me graduate. . .but then again I don't like Milton either, or Thoreau, or anyone from Concord except Louisa May Alcott. I love Dante and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and random Victorian writers. I even like Dickens. . . the teacher across the hall can't understand that one bit. But he loves American lit so we called a truce.
Back to Shakespeare. We are doing Caesar. They are bored. Incredibly bored. I got them interested in Portia referring to herself as a harlot (Act II, Sc i) and Brutus using the metaphor that Caesar is a serpant's egg (Act II, Sc i also - once he hatches it would be a lot harder to kill). One student even brought up that a baby snake venom is more dangerous than an adult snake. A fact that I was able to verify. Those are the days that make it worth it.
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