It's St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Due to the fact that I am still in college, I get to make observations and opinions based not just on teaching, but on college life too!  And what I learned today is that you can tell some students' priorities just based on the way they react to holidays.

For example, we take today, St. Patrick's Day.  A holiday that is commonly associated with drinking a lot.  So it's a no brainer that it'd be a big deal on college campuses, right?

Correct.  I always notice that whenever there's a holiday, a cause (wear red for drug free week for example), or anything else where everyone is encouraged to wear the same color on a certain day, there's always about half the population that participates while the other does not.  But this morning while eating in the dining hall, I saw a total of maybe 5 people who didn't have green on.  Even people who you could tell rolled out of bed and went to breakfast already had their green on or were insisting to friends that the green lettering on their shirt of a different color totally counts.  This is one of those days where almost anyone will call someone else out on not wearing the approved color, regardless of whether they know each other or not!

What I got out of this whole scenario is that it just goes to show, theme a day around drinking and you'll get twice as much college student participation!

(Disclaimer: I am in no way trying to prove or state that all college students to is get drunk and party; I myself am on a dry campus and have friends that don't drink or rarely go out.  I'm just poking fun at the situation, I promise!)

And on a lighter note...

My students are taking graduation tests, meaning for the first 2 hours they're sitting in exam classrooms and then the school moves on to a schedule as if they'd had a 2 hour delay (classes are shortened to 30 minutes all week).  I was bummed because this meant I could only see my first period class.  We (my friend and I are placed at the same school) had the option of going later but we have class so I had to stick to my regular, 7:30 to 10:30 field schedule.

They were working on a word puzzle activity, so I was going around the room, helping out students who were struggling, answering questions, etc, when one of my more chatty students (who chose Alejandro as his Spanish name) called me over.

"Señorita, I have to ask you a question but you have to promise your opinion of me won't change."

I was automatically suspicious, because these are teenage boys and he had a little smile on his face.  I never know what they're going to say anyway, and Alejandro especially always has something creative or off the wall to contribute.

So I cautiously agreed and asked what was up.  He very seriously looked at me and said, "do you have any hand lotion?"

I couldn't help the smile (although I did, thank goodness, hold in the surprised chuckle) and sadly informed him that I didn't.  He of course couldn't believe that I, a female, didn't have any lotion on me.

Just the fact that he got so serious about this made sitting through two hours of testing worth it, and I made sure to put a bottle in my bag for tomorrow when I got back to the dorm...just in case...

My five minute soap box

I'm going to use this post to have an I'm an Idealistic College Student and This Is How I Think These Things Should Be moment.

One of the assignments I have in connection to this field experience is to interview two of my students.  We weren't given questions, only the very broad guideline that it should be 10-15 minutes long and that we'd have to write a reflection on it.  I gave fairly basic questions, but the answers I got were anything but simple.

Two of my questions involved the students' opinions about the school: "Do you feel that your teachers care about/support you?"  and "If you could change one thing about your school, what would it be?"  And these questions led to comments indicating that many teachers these students have play favorites, don't seem to care about the education of their students (isn't that kind of the point??), blow students off, yell past the point of being constructive, and don't fairly enforce school rules.

One student's response was that she'd change the disciplinary system.  When I asked her to explain, she said that students tend to get away with big things (like being caught with drugs and being punished with a day of suspension) and little things being blown out of proportion.  She also alluded to the fact that students with money tend to have their disciplinary problems go away a lot more easily.  This is ridiculous to me; what are we teaching these students?  Basically that being responsible for your actions is something of the past, and that if you have a little money or are buddies with administration then consequences don't matter.

The other student named the way some teachers treat students as his change.  He told me that he hates his English class, not because of the content, but because the teacher doesn't seem to care and likes to yell and "get in students' faces" all the time.  He told me that he's had teachers tell him they were too busy or didn't have time to help him when he asked a question.  He then told me that his Spanish teacher (my mentor teacher) would stop grading or whatever she was doing to just have conversations with him in Spanish after school if he asked, and he spoke about this like it was the most monumental and amazing thing in the world.

This made me so sad.  A teacher taking time to talk to a student or answer a question should be the norn, not the exception.  I know that sometimes grading or meetings take priority, but the students should never feel like they are being blown off or ignored.  To me that's one of the main principles of teaching: investing our time in the education and betterment of our students.

And this is a good school.  Excellent ratings over the last several years, not hurting for money, with a very good variety of classes and extracurricular activities for the students.  Which makes me wonder how schools that aren't as well off are faring?

The tough stuff

Today, I read about a school shooting that took place in Chardon, Ohio.  Apparently (I apologize if my information is off, the articles are constantly being updated) someone who I'm assuming was a student stood up in the cafeteria and started shooting.  When I saw the reports this morning, 5 students had been injured, but as of now two have passed away as a result.  And to make it even more real, one of my friends at school is from that area; her brother is a senior at the affected school (he's alright by the way).

This is the type of situation that no one can prepare you for.  I read that two teachers chased the gunman out of the school, and I have no doubts that their reactions prevented more injuries/casualties.  I don't know what the other faculty did, but I'm sure each member of that school community tried to do what they could, whether it was keeping students safe in lock down or evacuating them to a nearby elementary school.

No matter what events have happened in the past, no one is ready to deal with a school shooting when it happens.  And even if the situation is dissolved with as little physical damage is possible, there's still the emotional scars that are left behind.  This is one of those events that scares me not only because it can happen anywhere, but because it's something that you can't predict no matter what you read, learn, or study in school.

I'm not saying that I'm afraid to teach because of what might happen; that's life.  But I can't help but wonder what could have happened to set this person off?

I honestly don't know who reads this blog, but I'm asking that anyone who does keep this community in your thoughts and prayers.

Review woes

Since my students have a chapter test next week, they started review today after their quiz.  And, because we're always trying to keep things interesting, we had them playing charades with the vocabulary words.  And, as expected, a few got into it and most wanted nothing to do with it (heaven forbid, they might look silly in from of their peers).

I was surprised, however, to see how many teenage girls were willing to lay on a dirty classroom floor once they were dragged to the front of the room in order to portray the word for "sunbathing."  They were some the funniest because the motivation (total embarrassment and uncoolness) for not acting out the word at all became the motivation for doing the most accurate charade they could so that someone would guess more quickly, thus ending their uncoolness.

But there still were those who refused to participate.  They got up to the front of the room, whined, and said they didn't know what to do, thinking that would get them out of the game.  You can imagine their disappointment when they discovered they had to stand up there pouting until they participated.

All in all once they got into it (and discovered that we only had time for about 5 minutes) it ended up being good for them, and they were even spitting out words they learned the previous year which is always a good thing.

And the slacker award goes to...

Once again, I find myself apologizing for not posting in a while.  I'm torn between thinking that my schedule is really that hectic, or thinking that my time management needs tweaking.  Since this is a crazy semester for me, I'm going to say the former even though I'm sure it's a combination of the two.

Moving along, today is my first official day off from teaching!  It's Presidents' Day which means the High School is off today (us college kids didn't come out so well since we still had classes, but luckily I came out on the good side and didn't have any other classes today).  So although I most definitely can't use today to do nothing but catch up on napping and Youtube videos, it's infinitely better because the alarm wasn't going off at 5am.

I sincerely hope my students used their long weekend to sleep and blow off steam, however.  I don't know if I was oversensitive, stressed, or what when I taught on Friday, but a lot of the students were in fine form by way of giving the student teacher a hard time.  I had one try to tell me how to teach, another making a snide remark about my being a magician when I erased the SMARTBoard, and the rest either wanted to just sit and stare at me or not stop chatting for five seconds.  One little Judy Attitudy, upon my asking why he wasn't writing, told me that he didn't need to take notes; he memorized them.

I also gave them their grades on presentations I had them do.  They were out of 12 points, and if they followed my directions (they each had to say 3 commands for example), it would have been simple to get full credit.  I didn't even make them memorize it, all they had to do was read their papers (which I had given them time to work on the day before they presented).  And boy were they upset.  But the odd thing was, the students I expected to get mad (the ones who got 8 or less) didn't say anything and those who got 10 or 11 out of 12 were on me like rockets, demanding to know why they got points off.

And they were incredibly rude about it.

There were no, "can I ask you about my grade?" or "I don't understand why..."Nothing like that.  I was prepared after first period for the reactions but that first class took me by surprise.  One boy was so outraged that he stomped out of the room ripping up his rubric (he was also one of the boys who refused to work when I gave them the opportunity, blew off the presentation, and received the grade he had earned).  But my co-op did tell me later that grades like these are tough and the students almost always react this way, justified or not.  She also reminded me that these are the types of situations that I have to just roll off my back, since many students are still under the impression that doing little or no work should still warrant an A.

I'm hoping that, like me, the students just needed a day to breathe.  And maybe this means that they're more comfortable around me, since they're willing to come up to me now for pretty much anything instead of just wondering who I am and why I'm there every day.  Either way, I hope I figure it out soon...

They're having a substitute on Friday, and I'm teaching.

Short blog is short.

I'm soo sorry I haven't posted in a while, these two weeks are pretty much my busiest so far.  So instead of a big post about my lesson today (fantastic) or the Valentine's Day activity they did (also fantastic, will come at a later date), I'm just going to pose a question.

I have a methods night class once a week, the theory equivalent to the methods class I took last year.  Is it wrong that I leave there frustrated and questioning what I'm being taught?  I mean, a seasoned professional with a whole lot of experience and research to back it up is teaching us, shouldn't I be tripping over myself to try and learn everything I can instead of wondering about the legitimacy of the data?