Time flies! No, but really...

The sophomores in my high school had standardized testing this morning, so I ended up with a solid hour and a half to get work done this morning before second period began and I had to teach (they kept the rest of the students in their first period classes until testing was over).  So I used the time to plan the rest of my week for my two classes, Spanish 1 and Spanish 3.  And as I was planning, I realized that March starts this week.  I couldn’t believe it, I actually checked twice to make sure I was on the correct page in my planner.  Where did February go??

So of course I had to go back and count how long I’ve been here so far, and I’m three days into my fifth week in Florida.  Fifth!  Everyone told me that this time would fly but let’s be serious here, we hear that about everything.  “Enjoy high school because the time flies!”  “It seems like a long time for this assignment, but before you know it the deadline will be here so start it now!”  “Student teaching goes by so fast, just keep your head up!”  So we all nod and agree and convince ourselves that we have plenty of time and count down what seem like the endless days or minutes.

But oh man, this time really is flying!  I think part of what’s making it pass by so quickly is that I’m constantly going.  Throughout the week all I do is go to school, write lesson plans, and sleep, and then on the weekends my friends and I pack our time with all the touristy adventures and trips we want to make sure we get to before they leave in a few weeks (some interns are only spending half the semester in Florida for student teaching).  So the constant moving makes the time seem to go by even faster.

In other news, we also watched part of Shrek during first period to use up some of the 2 hours after the students finished their work.  Overall, I definitely didn’t mind standardized testing today; it definitely worked in my favor!

Sunday's train of thought

This past weekend, my host family took the other student teacher staying here and me with them to visit their two college-aged kids on Sunday at the University of Florida.  While we there, we hung out at their son's apartment and went to a girls’ lacrosse game (the Gators crushed the other team, by the way).  It was a blast; the weather was nice enough for me to get a little sunburned, the game was great, I loved hanging out with the other kids in the family and every time the Gators scored they did a free tee shirt toss!  But looking around, seeing all the UF colors and the boys hanging on the rail with their orange and blue wigs and body paint (no joke) made my friend and I realize how weird it is not to be on a college campus.  I mean, it’s basically like we’ve already graduated, which is both cool and strange at the same time.

It didn’t hit me until I was actually on a university campus, but I do miss the college atmosphere a little bit.  Don’t get me wrong, I love where I am now and am still so glad I did this program.  It’s just so different living with a family and going to a high school every day as opposed to being around all my peers in an apartment or in campus buildings.  Friends aren’t a 3 minute walk across a parking lot or through the student center, and I can’t exactly go to campus events like sports games and CAB events.  It's a completely different environment.  I don't feel like I'm missing out by being here or wish I was there (honestly, all that university togetherness probably would have driven me nuts!), but I also didn't realize how bizarre it felt not being on a college campus, since that's where I spent the last 3 and a half years of my life.  It makes me wonder if it will feel this strange when I graduate?  It's an interesting thought that I don't really have an answer to.  

Of course, while I'm here, I can distract myself from musings about my future and what-ifs with sun, endless writing of lesson plans, and weekend adventures, and it's all good from there!

The Case of the Missing Table

Yesterday was one of those rough days where it’s totally acceptable to go home and pout for an hour to recover.  I mean, when the phrase “and the cockroach was the highlight,” comes out of your mouth, it's a pretty safe bet that you don't want to sit through the rest.  But (apparently) one of the biggest issues from yesterday was: the missing table.

First, you’ll need some background.  Last Thursday, before the long weekend (we had off Friday instead of President’s Day), we had a substitute teacher in for my mentor teacher.  So when we were ready to leave for the day a custodian came and locked the door for us since neither of us get keys, and everything was present and accounted for in the room.  This includes a long table in front of the white board that holds a (broken) stereo and some tape recorders.  I've never seen anyone actively use this table, save for the one time I put my computer on it during a lesson.  I'm pretty sure we all just forget it's there.

So imagine my confusion when I walk yesterday morning and the first thing my mentor teacher says to me is, “Hi, where is my table?”

It was a Monday morning, I was tired from not sleeping well the night before, and hadn’t had an ounce of caffeine yet, so not only had I walked past that section of the room without even noticing the table was gone, but it took me a good thirty seconds to realize she was accusing me of taking her table out of the room.

You might be thinking hey, accuse is a little harsh, it sounds like she was just asking!  But then she asked me twice more, even after I explained to her several times that everything had been in the room when I left on Thursday and I had no idea where her table was.  She told me that she wanted to yell at me when she first came in, and was waiting and waiting for me to walk in so she could jump on me about it.

We then proceeded to wonder and lament about the missing table.  All.  Day.  After school, she hunted down the custodian and left almost an hour later than she had planned because she was trying to track it down.

My question was, what’s the big deal?  Yeah, it’s weird that it’s gone and rude that someone would just take it.  But was it really that pressing?  It’s not like it had much of a purpose, I’ve never seen her actually use it.  We had students yelling over each other, kids not doing projects or turning in homework, and no functioning Internet, but by George we were going to find that table!

And in case you’re wondering (because let’s be honest, I know you’re all just dying of curiosity), it is now Tuesday and there’s still no table.

Some more perks!

Living in Florida definitely has a lot of benefits: sun, no snow, nice people, and the close proximity to really awesome places like Disney and Universal!

I went to Universal yesterday (for the low low price of practically nothing, everyone here seems to have connections...) for the first time.  We went to the Islands of Adventure half (there are 2 parks for Universal, who knew?), where the Harry Potter park is!  I was like a kid in a candy store there, the vast majority of the pictures I took were of this section of the park.  I drank butterbeer, watched a little boy choose his wand (or, in true Harry Potter fashion, watched the wand choose him) at Ollivanders, and travelled through the movies on a ride through the castle.  Seriously.  So.  Cool.

The rest was fun too, there were sections for Dr. Seuss, Marvel superheroes, Jurassic Park, classic cartoons like Blondie and Popeye, and Atlantis.  We ended the day at Margaritaville at City Walk, and overall it was definitely a fantastic day off (schools here had Friday off).

Last week was also the first full week of my taking over Spanish 1.  It went pretty well, although my students seem to have a real issue with the whole, "you need to do the homework" aspect of being in school.  I had to threaten them with extra homework and a quiz, and half of them still didn't do it...

All in all it was a pretty good start, though.  I'm having fun, getting to know all my classes (even the ones I'm not teaching yet) and on multiple occasions I've been asked where I'm from after speaking Spanish.  According to them I sound like I wasn't born in the US, which is always a confidence booster!

How do I respond?

Do you remember that show, Kids say the darndest things?  Well they probably could have added a high school edition.  Over the last few days I’ve overheard some really interesting comments, or been asked things that seemed to come out of left field. 

For instance, my Spanish 1 kids are obsessed with knowing how old I am.  Every day there’s another question trying to get me to tell them my age (quite frankly I don’t care all that much if they know how old I am, but my mentor teacher is big on them knowing and respecting those questions you just don’t ask people older than you).  Two of them decided that I must be either eighteen years old and therefore way too young to be here, or thirty and trying to hide my age.  The latter comment was quickly followed by, “well, you can’t be thirty because you just look way too young, so you must be twenty or something.”  I finally told them I was a senior in college, and they didn’t believe me!  They are determined to get me to finally admit that I’m still a teenager regardless of how many times I’ve told them I’m older than that.  I’m pretty sure I’d have to show them my license for them to finally get it (although knowing them, they’d probably accuse me of having a fake ID).

They also want to know my first name.  Now that I’m okay with them not knowing that, because that’s just part of that really important line between the teacher and the students.  But one student has made it his mission to find out my first name.  I didn’t point out that my visitor’s sticker (which I don’t wear anymore so I supposed it doesn’t matter) had my full name on it, nor did he seem to notice.  I finally told him that once they all manage to remember and call me by my last name, maybe I’ll tell them my first.  Maybe being the operative word.

I’ve also been asked:

“How much are they paying you to do this?” 

“Are you a dancer for Disney?  You look like one.”

“How do you know Spanish if you’re not Hispanic?”

(to other teachers) “Does she speak English?”
                                    “Does she speak Spanish?”

“Wait, so why are you here again?”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Do you speak English?  Say something!  I want to hear you speak in English!!”

“Why would you learn Spanish if you already know English?”

“Are you married?”

“Will you bring me food every day?  I won’t do anything if you don’t bring me food every day.”

“Are you going to be boring?”

“So…are you going to be here every day?”

I have a feeling the questions are going to get better (or worse, depending on how you look at it) as time goes by and the students get more comfortable with my being here.  At least I know they’re going to keep me on my toes.

In other news, a girl accidentally stabbed herself in the thumb with a staple today.  A staple, might I add, that had originally been attached to her quiz.  Funny, I thought that kind of stuff stopped after middle school…

Just a normal, every day Saturday

This was my first full weekend in Celebration, and so we (a couple other interns and I) decided that we needed to totally take advantage of our location and that meant we were going to Disney!  We spent all day yesterday at the parks.  We left the house around 10:15, and didn't leave the last park until after 11, which led to getting to the car by almost midnight.

But let me tell you, it was awesome!  We hit 3 parks (EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Magic Kingdom) and as many major attractions as we could which I thought was pretty impressive.  We pulled that off by power walking everywhere, and I'm pretty sure the only time we sat down was to eat lunch in the car.  Of course by the end of the day I wanted to trade in my feet for new ones, but it was totally worth it.

Throughout the day I:

                                             saw a Mariachi band in Mexico...

                                                       saw some more Mexico...

                                       checked out a phone booth in the United Kingdom...

                                                          saw Beauty and the Beast...

                                                                  visited Mater...

and about a million other things.  Obviously this isn't 12 hours worth of pictures, but it's a start!

Clouds: The new form of classroom management

I know I haven't written a post about my school yet, and it's coming, I promise!  But I want to get past the "I'm a visitor" stage so I can really let you know what the school is like from the teacher's perspective!

I will tell you that my mentor teacher has been really nice so far, and I can tell I'm going to be extremely busy.  I'm going to (eventually) be teaching four different levels of Spanish: Spanish 1, 3, Spanish Speakers 2, and AP Spanish for 6 straight periods except for a lunch break, since my planning period is the last one of the day.  Out of the 6 classes I will be teaching, 3 of them are made up entirely of native Spanish speakers.  I haven't quite decided if this is one of those situations that will start intimidating and get easier, or stay intimidating but be one of those experiences that's beneficial in the long run.  I guess we'll have to wait and see!

But that has nothing to do with what I wanted to share about today, so here goes...

Obviously, the weather has been great in Florida so far.  Yesterday was cloudy, but other than that it's been sunny, clear, hot, the whole enchilada.  So my classroom, even though it only has 2 fairly small windows, gets a lot of natural light.  So much that we ended up partially closing the blinds today because students were complaining about the sun in their eyes.

So later this morning we were in the middle of Spanish 1, and my mentor teacher had to keep shushing the students, bringing their attention back in, etc because they were talking over each other, getting distracted, not listening, basically doing everything they shouldn't have.  But then, a huge cloud must have rolled in because suddenly it was as if we had closed blackout shades over the windows; the room went from bright to almost completely dark, save for the one classroom light we still had on, in an instant.  Every single voice stopped and their heads turned toward the windows so in sync that you'd have thought we choreographed it.

I couldn't help but laugh to myself, since apparently Mother Nature knows how to silence a class better than the rest of us.  But of course, even Mother Nature only managed to keep them quiet for a few moments...

I have arrived!

Now I have to be honest with you, I actually arrived in Florida 4 days ago so this post is just a tad overdue, but everything started basically the moment I got here so I haven't gotten a chance to write it until now (I know, excuses, excuses...).

But anyway!  The flight down was really easy except for the whole getting up at 4 am part.  But it was on time, there was very little turbulence, and in spite of all the families with small children (no doubt headed for Disney), I had at least 4 seats in every direction between me and all the yelling energetic little darlings, which I considered pretty good.

My host family came and picked me up, and we stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts on the way to there house which delivered some much-needed caffeine.  I'm pretty sure they thought I was a little off my rocker, because I was acting like I'd never seen sun before.  Seriously, every 3 seconds I made some comment in awe of the 75 degree weather, the sun, etc.  Then it was back to unpack, take a much needed nap, and get ready to go to a dinner with all the other interns and host families.

All in all everything in the "settling in" period went really well; the weather is phenomenal (I'm typing this outside in the sun!), my host family is extremely nice, and I'm getting along great with the other intern staying in the same house as me.  All in all, if the rest of my time here goes like the first couple days it will be fantastic!

Benefit #43 of going to Florida

Cloudy.  8 degrees.  Feels like -7.

Mostly cloudy.  62 degrees.  Feels like 62.

Now, the top one is the weather in my current location.  It's the dark, dreary, freeze-your-face-don't-take-your-hands-out-of-your-pockets off kind of cold.  There are a lot of things about Ohio that I'm going to miss, but the weather is most definitely not one of them...

The second description is the current weather in Celebration, where I'm going to be in less than a week.  See the difference?  I am definitely getting really excited!

I'm back!!

Hello again!  After a really long absence, I'm busting open the blog once again!  I haven't been posting because I've been on summer break, getting through my first semester of my senior year, etc etc.  But as I was filling out my application to student teach, I realized that I'm going to have more teacher education stuff to post about soon!  So I thought I'd start with a little overview of what my next semester of student teaching (like, the real deal student teaching; not just a field experience!).

As you may or may not know, I go to school in a small town in Ohio, and always assumed that I'd be doing my student teaching in one of the schools around here.  But then I got a phone call from the man in charge of student teaching placements, asking me to please consider a different student teaching program they offer here at the university.  And long story short, after a lot of debate, I will be student teaching in (drumroll please)...

Florida!  I'll be teaching in the town that Disney built, and I couldn't be more excited!  I'm still doing paperwork and figuring out logistics so nothing is set in stone (other than the fact that I'm going!), but I'm in the process of making it happen!

I'll update with information as I have it, although as of now all I know is the town name and whose couch I'm crashing on as school before I leave for Florida.  But hey, it's a start!

I can't believe it's over!

Yesterday marked my last day in my junior field experience, and it was definitely bittersweet.  All 3 periods had a party/chill day; they were allowed to bring in food and we watched the last two episodes of an online Spanish-speaking drama/educational video (Mi Vida Loca.  Look it, up it's fantastic!).  My co-op was using it as a party for me, and I have to say, I loved having a party thrown for me!  Even second period, the ones who seemed to like me the least as a class, got into it and brought in food.

First period really started the day off right, though.  When I arrived, my co-op and a few students were blowing up balloons.  I was then promptly kicked out of the room because one of the boys (Alejandro, you may remember him as the lotion boy from On a lighter note...) wanted it to be a surprise.  So I wandered off to the copy room/faculty room with strict orders not to come back until the bell.  After about 10 minutes of studying for an exam, the warning bell rang.  I figured that I should head back, but I didn't immediately walk in because I knew it was really important to them that I didn't walk in early.  So while I waited for the second bell one of my other boys, Nicolás, walked to the classroom.

First thing out of his mouth was a laugh and, "so did they kick you out of the room?"

I nodded as he walked in, before adding "find out if I can come in yet!"

After a few seconds he came back out and confirmed that I wasn't supposed to come in yet.  I could hear Alejandro directing people before I saw the door be pulled shut and the lights turned out.  He then opened the door, walked out, and said "Oh hello Señorita, are you here to teach us something today?"

I chuckled and played along, saying that yes I was there to teach them.  And when I walked in the whole class yelled sorpresa!, and two other boys jumped out from either side of the door (which really did startle me).  The had hung balloons on the chalkboard, there were streamers, and the whole back table had food. It was great!

I was really sad to see my time there come to the end.  I got lots of hugs and students making me promise to come visit, and my co-op got me a really great little bucket with Vitamin Water (to get me through finals), colored permanent markers (which I love), and a thank you card.

I'm so grateful that I got the opportunity to spend my semester at this high school with these people; as crazy as the students made me I'll really miss seeing them every day and my co-op was a huge asset.  I know that because of them I'll go far!

Want a nugget?

Today, I learned a new activity students do to make each other crazy; it seems as though "pantsing" and knocking a kid's books on the floor have been left behind for good.

Before first period one of my students was talking about "nuggeting."  I must have looked confused because he asked me if I knew what it meant (that was a big negative, all my classmates used to do was tell people that their socks were untied...).  Of course then they started talking amongst themselves about how maybe they should give me a little introduction to nuggeting.

Once they got distracted, my co-op explained to me that nuggeting is when a student takes everything out of another student's backpack, turns it inside out, and then puts everything back in.  Obviously when the bell rings the student then comes back to grab their things only to find this "nugget" of a bookbag.  Since they can't just pick it up now that the straps are inside, they're stuck hulking this big clunky sack around school until they get a chance to turn it right side out.

Now I have to admit, I did chuckle a little; the mental picture was just too funny.  But I guess students got really fast at it and it became a huge problem at the school.  It was bad enough where a student could walk across the room, come back 30 seconds later and they'd have a nugget.

Like every high school fad, this one eventually died down.  But I can't help but wonder what the students will come up with by the time I have a classroom!

Down to the wire!

Since I'm getting to the end of the semester insanity, this one is going to be short and sweet!  I can't believe I only have a week left with my students...my co-op said today that it was bittersweet, but I have to say I'm seeing it as a little more bitter.  The students make me nuts and I whined a lot about making up lessons while doing other class work, but it really has been a blast!

That being said, I got to see "imitation is the highest form of flattery" acted out today in class.  Last week, my friend and I attempted a manicure where you paint your nails one color and then use straws to paint different colored circles on them (it's harder than it sounds...or maybe it's just as hard as it sounds, depending on your level of craftiness.  I'm at level -12 so it was tough for me).  But they ended up looking really cool, so I left them for school.  So today when I went to class, I noticed one of the girls who asked me about them had tried it!

Now, I know this is something very small, but I got really excited that she tried it after seeing me do it!  Hers looked about a million times better, but it was still awesome!

Oh hello there, spring break!

This week, I get one of those extra perks of being an education student: my students' spring break.  I already had my university's spring break a couple weeks ago, and now the high school I'm teaching at has theirs.  Now, while this doesn't mean I have the whole week off (I still have those pesky college courses), it does mean that I get a whole week of being able to sleep until it's actually light outside!  For example, today I got to sleep until 9 am, which is a whole 4 extra hours of shut eye!

So all this being said, any posts for the next few days will be a little different, i.e. probably having nothing to do with teaching at all.  However, I did make this blog with the intention of having a college student's point of view, so it still works!

What do you mean there's no water?!

Since between classes and teaching this semester is absolute madness, it's the simple things that really make a difference: getting a chance to paint my nails, a movie night with friends, my favorite food in the dining hall to name a few.  But there's one that should have been at the top of the list: a hot shower.  You see, a hot shower is one of those things that I always enjoyed, but never realized how much I loved them until they were unceremoniously stolen from me.

It all started Sunday, when my roommate left to shower, only to come back 30 seconds later and inform me that I might want to reevaluate whether or not I needed a shower since there was no hot water.  I was going to hear a band at a restaurant later, so I decided that I could suck it up and take a cold shower for a day.  After the coldest (and fastest) shower ever, I hoped it would never happen again and put the incident out of my mind.

The next day, I got in the shower to discover that the water was taking a ridiculously long time to warm up.  After 5 minutes of standing there and waiting for the water to go past barely tepid to some semblance of warm, I realized that that was as hot as my water was planning to get.  After another short shower (and a whole lot of angry cursing) I discovered that almost lukewarm showers are significantly worse than ice cold ones, which is not something you'd expect.  But trust me, they are.

On to yesterday morning, which was Tuesday.  I got up for teaching as usual at 5:15 to go shower, crossing my fingers and praying that I'd be able to take a hot shower.  But alas, still ice cold.  It seems even lukewarm was too much of a trial for the water heater at this point.  I then stomped back to my room, announced to my roommate that there was no point in showering (she and I get up to teach at the same time, I swear I'm not a bad roommate who wakes up the other at 5 in the morning) and that she might as well not get up.  This just showed my frustration, since I'm one of those people who hates going to breakfast on the weekend without showering, let alone teaching.

Finally last night I'd had enough.  For the 3rd time I bugged my RA with no luck (she had about as much information as I did, which was practically nothing).  But later, around 10:30, she knocked on the door and asked if I had planned to shower that night, to which I said "no, usually the morning."

"Okay good, because there's no water in the showers and I don't know when we're getting it back."

My annoyance peaked at that moment.  I very politely asked her if she had any clue if it was something that'd be fixed by morning, or if I should go find somewhere else to shower because so help me God I was not going another day without a shower.  As you probably guessed, I ended up calling friends in another dorm and asking to stash my things in their room while I showered in their building.

And to end this ridiculously long and tedious story, I tell you that it is now 12:43 pm on Wednesday, and there's still no hot water.

 We do, however, at least have actual water now which I guess is a step in the right direction...


EDIT: It is now 4:25 pm on Wednesday and I've been informed that the water is back to working the way it should.  Step 1: Fix water - check.  Step 2: Make sure it stays working - fingers crossed.

Music to my ears!

I started my unit yesterday, which means that for the next two weeks of school (thank goodness I get their spring break as a breather in between) I'm teaching the first three periods of the day, every day, with lessons and a unit I planned.  I love it, but it is a little stressful since I feel like I'm not putting as much into the planning and execution as I should be (thank you whoever decided a full class load and this field experience was a good idea).  I'm always wondering if I timed things correctly, if I planned enough, and second guessing my activities.

But today, while they were playing Memory with new vocab, I got to hear one of a teacher's favorite phrases out of a student: "I'm learning so much!"

Now I have to say, that my pessimistic side reared it's ugly head when I first heard it (since he'd said it rather loudly when I was on the other side of the room, which generally indicates sarcasm.  Especially out of this boy).  So I walked over and joked, "Oh, I hope you weren't being sarcastic!"  to which he responded, "No I mean it!"  He then went on to explain to me that every time he didn't know a word he had to look it up on his list, and that made him remember it.

"See, I didn't know festejar, so I looked it up, and now I know it means to celebrate!"

Of course he forgot the meaning of the word 15 minutes later when he read it in the textbook, but I'll still take it!  Baby steps people, baby steps....

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.