The ride of a first year teacher

Maybe I wouldn't be considered a "first year" teacher, but this is my first whole year, with students that came into sixth grade with me and will leave sixth grade with me.  It was liberating to be able to set up my classroom how I wanted it, both the physical space and laying out my classroom expectations.  Being a firsty, I get a mentor, who also works in the school, to guide me through the ups and downs of teaching :)  She presented me with this graph:

As you can see, I've labeled where I'm at right now.  "Disillusionment; "a feeling of disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be." isn't exactly how I would describe myself right now.    

I wouldn't say that I'm disappointed at all, I'm still quite happy :)  My students are awesome, my coworkers are awesome and the spirit squad I co-coach (both cheer and dance team) are awesomesauce.  Honestly, I couldn't imagine a better situation.  I would describe myself now as perhaps lazy, uninspired, sluggish... and I don't blame this on the fact that I'm a first year teacher, but rather the weather.  I'm only hoping that the rest of this year will follow the path of this graph, as in, going nothing but up.

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What I'm reading


I just finished reading this book, the follow up to Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight.  It's been filling in more and more details about Rhodesian Civil war--something I hadn't heard of until I had stumbled over Fuller's first book.  It makes me long for Africa; the Africa I know today, and also this strange Africa that Fuller describes to be quaint and colonial.  I know it's awful to think of what was regarded by the rest of the world as apartheid to be "quaint," but if this other version of Africa could have existed without the racial separation and marginalization, it would have been just that.

I just started this today, but it sucked me into the same world of dust, sweltering afternoons, frangipangi, tea,  msasa trees, the cacophony of  African life and again, the backdrop of the Rhodesian war (told by a woman who was at the time a young child).  It's interesting trying to decipher what really happened based on the retelling by little girl.  Being knee-deep in this story, and having read both of Fuller's books, I feel so familiar with Zimbabwe, it's as if it was my childhood as well.  I can only hope to write something this addictive, so as to make my readers wish they had such a rich, rural Wisconsin upbringing.











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Books I couldn't help myself from buying at B&N:

WRITE

We had one of those awesome short-short weeks recently (professional development Thursday, no school Friday).  This gave me the entire day of Halloween free...I collected items from Goodwill to design an 1830's-esque woman's dress, to get in the scene for the haunted establishment in the local big-city, which gives ghost tours...Although I had no paranormal experiences, I did have a frighteningly great time...  I went online to find a meme about how I felt about our professional development day.  I realize that most schools do not entertain and inspire their teachers quite like our district does, and so no meme was truly fitting to how I felt.
    The first half hour of our morning was "community building" where we had to sit next to teachers we don't work with and complain about the coffee.  I found this entertaining because even at workshops in Uganda, the first thing teachers would bond over would be how unsatisfactory the tea was.   I loved this.  Our community building was followed by a presentation by Smokey Daniels:

He has written several books, one being:

This is probably one of my favorite teaching books because it's mostly pictures :)  It's full of ideas to turn any lesson where you'd originally have some kind of oral discussion into a written conversation.  This technique made me think of how my friend Taryn started the "Spiral" when we were in middle school.  We would always be writing notes back and forth to each other, and folding them in the cutest little packages.  We decided that it would be more efficient to just keep an ongoing notebook conversation.  

My students have requested that I bring in this artifact to share :P  I can only imagine.  It's probably filled with, "So I have a huge crush on so-and-so..."  "Oh my god, Social Studies was so boring today, all we did was take notes..."  yadda yadda yadda.  It'd be great if there were some factoids that would illuminate our early millenium pop culture.  :) "I can't wait to see 'Center Stage' in theaters!"  "Have you heard the new Christina Aguilera song?" "OMG N*Sync!"  

Since having this presentation and reading some snippets from the book, I've done the following activities in my class; I've had them write responses to prompts, then pass their papers and have a friend write a response to their response, and so on and so forth.  I also did larger-topic written responses in reaction to the CNN Student News of last Friday (November 7th).  The topics were; cytology and the latest cancer research, the NC Basketball Free-throw challenge, bipolar disorder, Syria and robotic exoskeletons.  After watching the episode, I titled a piece of chart paper with the topic and they were to go around with different colored markers and write comments/questions/connections to the topic.  I found this fascinating, especially when students would ask really deep thinking questions--specifically about the questions behind what we're doing in Syria.  

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What I'm reading for fun:

Cocktail Hour under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller

This is the sequel to Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight; a book about Fuller's childhood growing up in the then-named Rhodesia.  Her writing just sucks you right in and makes you forget about any commitment you may have or that you're not in Africa at that moment.  When I get so deep into her reading, I half expect to look up and see my green nylon mosquito net again, encasing me while I read myself to sleep.  I can faintly hear goats crying in the background, and Bantu languages being exchanged in the distance.  I recall that feeling of exhilaration and adventure of living in a foreign country. I forget that I'm now on American soil with a steady job and a predictable future.  The grass is always greener it seems; when I was in Peace Corps, I wanted all the comforts and predictability of America, and now that I'm home, I want nothing but red dirt, equatorial sun and the daily adrenaline that comes with facing lingual, cultural, logistical and ideological challenges.  This book helps me escape to a corner of my memory where mosquitoes and dust were daily battles.  And I love it.  

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To end, a most recent, most entertaining story.  This was the journal prompt:

Have you ever formed an opinion about someone too quickly, and then found out you were incorrect?  

One student shared his piece.  He explained that at first, he thought his now-best friend was going to be a jerk but then, after a few days of hanging out and talking to him, he realized his friend was hilarious and fun to hang out with.  I asked, "What made you think that he was going to be a jerk?  Just by how he looked?"

"Yeah, pretty much." He replied. 

Another student then chimed in, "I'm concerned for when you start meeting girls, James; you can't just judge girls on their looks.  You really have to get to know their personality!"  

I was speechless.  I began a slow clap, and the class joined in.  

...or so the story went in my mind.  I definitely applauded...