Friday, March 30, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
Saturday, March 3, 2012
A rant for a rainy Saturday.
This will probably be a ranting post touching on a number of topics....I can't seem to foucs on any one thing lately, so might as well have the post reflect that!
First, The Hunger Games. Why did it take me so long to find out about this series? I just finished the first book and in the past two hours have read the first half of the second book. The movie comes out in a couple of weeks--I might have to go see it! The books are so dark and disturbing, but I don't want to put them down. I bet I'll finish the second one tomorrow. And then I'll curse myself because I have so much work for school to do....
Second, I now officially feel really old. I must also look old. Mr. Wonderful and I went to a retirement party last night for a fire chief he knows ("Hey Chief! Hi Chief! How ya doin' Chief?"--no lie, they all call each other that. The room was absolutely full of chiefs and deputy chiefs, also know as "Dep". Surreal.) It was open seating, and we ended up at a table of 10. The other 8 were all 20-somethings, and all the girls were wearing teeny tiny black dresses. The one directly across from me needed a tank top to cover up the girls, but her date looked happy. What struck me about the group was their nonstop chatter and use of their smartphones during all the speeches honoring the retiree. Now, I admit it's about as exciting as watching paint dry for most of the speeches, although some of them can be quite funny. But, this poor guy gave 47 years of his life to his town--he worked in the same town his entire career--and these twits couldn't stop talking or texting long enough to listen and give the guy some respect? The speeches only lasted for about 90 mintues. It almost made me go into teacher mode, but I really couldn't take their phones away, could I? I'm used to seeing individuals act like this in public, but this was the entire group. I don't think one of the girls put her phone down at all, even while eating. It makes me wonder where society is going. It was just sad. I tried making small talk with one of the girls as Mr. Wonderful was off talking to one of his chief buddies, but she couldn't or wouldn't keep the conversation going. I even asked her about her own kids and she kept glancing at her phone. I wasn't wearing a tiny black dress though, so maybe she wrote me off as being too old.
So I feel old. And even though I just slammed a group of smartphone users, I'd still like an iPhone someday. I haven't convinced myself that I need one, nor do I want to become like the pack I had to sit with last night.
Third, I have to have bloodwork done. But I'm procrastinating, because I haven't done any exercising lately to balance off my poptarts from my stressful week. Should I go tomorrow and just get it over with? Otherwise I'll have to wait till next weekend because I have to fast, and it's much easier to sleep all night and go with an empty stomach in the morning. But my stress level won't bottom out until at least next Friday. Keep reading.
Fourth, this upcoming week is National Foreign Langauge Week! Woo hoo! And I have managed to convince my department that we should do stuff to promote it, and now it's upon me. Thankfully everyone (or almost everyone) has jumped on board to either show a film or do something cultural, but kids have to show up. If I can get through Friday relatively unscathed I'll be ecstatic. To quote a colleague from earlier in the year when she saw the cart I use because as lead teacher I had to give up my classroom, "So you brought this all on yourself, huh? Silly girl!" Lol. Friday is the big end of the week event--Public Declamation. It's a longstanding tradition--kids get up on the stage in our cavernous auditorium without a mike and declaim poetry or prose from memory in each of the 5 langauges we teach, plus Latin. There are 22 kids scheduled to go, and over 100 tried out. I'm always amazed when I watch them do this in front of about 600 people, mostly other students. When I was a student at this same school, I used to watch my classmates up there with a sense of awe, thinking I could never be up there. Joke's on me--on Friday, I get to be the one sitting on stage introducing each student. I think I'd rather be dealing with a discipline issue!
Fifth, I had to try really hard not to throw things this Friday afternoon when about half my AP class blew off homework--kid after kid told me "I didn't do it", or "I don't have it"....it was assigned over vacation, so they had almost an extra week to catch up. It was vocab matching from a story they read in the lit book, meant to get them to look at differences in meaning due to context and they didn't do it. I wouldn't have assigned it if they had a clue about vocab, but they don't, so I did. It didn't help that the twitter teacher discussion group the night before was about ways to deal with apathetic students, and multiple teachers posted things like, "I am the only factor in my students' success" and "I am responsible if a student fails". WTF? Again, made me feel old. I spend so much damn time reflecting on what I do that I'm always questioning what could have been done differently or better, or if a kid didn't get something how could I reteach it, or if an activity fell flat, why....but why should all the blame fall to me if they can't be bothered for whatever reason to actually do the work that is supposed to make them better???? I'm seeing this line of thought--teacher is the only factor in student success--all over the place and I'm really starting to resent it. I actually closed my book and walked away for the last 15 minutes of class I was so angry and disappointed by the time the 8th or 9th kid told me they didn't do it. I'm not holding out much hope for this year's AP scores after watching that mess unfold, and yet there are many out there who will use the scores to measure my ability as a teacher. This should probably be a post all by itself....
Sixth, on a happier note, a student I had last year in my Spanish 4 class stopped to talk to me in the hall. Last year he never seemed particularly thrilled to have to spend 45 minutes with me every day reading literature in Spanish, and while I could joke with him every now and then, more often than not he'd roll his eyes and snarl in my direction when I tried to keep him on task. The dynamics of his class was awful, one of the worst I've had in a long time, and I think that out of the 25 kids in the group, about 8 gave a shit and actually did the work. There were a few more who tried, but the majority was still saying things like "Yo gusto" in June. Anyway, this kid told me that he wrote his senior research paper on Federico Garcia Lorca! I almost fell over. We did Lorca's "Romance de la luna, luna" near the end of the year, and I usually do a lot of background stuff about the Spanish Civil War, los gitanos and flamenco so the romance makes sense. He told me that he actually loved my class last year, and that along with Lorca, he has also fallen in love with another author we did, Isabel Allende. I guess you never really know what's going on in those little heads.
Seventh, Mr. Wonderful and I did our cultural event for February and saw Solas in concert. Awesome show!!!! They sounded so good....they are working on a project about the Irish in Butte, Montana and played some music from that. Haunting and gorgeous.
Tomorrow, I'll have to fight the urge to lose myself in my book and sit and correct stuff instead.
Off to bed. Thanks for reading my rants this evening...
First, The Hunger Games. Why did it take me so long to find out about this series? I just finished the first book and in the past two hours have read the first half of the second book. The movie comes out in a couple of weeks--I might have to go see it! The books are so dark and disturbing, but I don't want to put them down. I bet I'll finish the second one tomorrow. And then I'll curse myself because I have so much work for school to do....
Second, I now officially feel really old. I must also look old. Mr. Wonderful and I went to a retirement party last night for a fire chief he knows ("Hey Chief! Hi Chief! How ya doin' Chief?"--no lie, they all call each other that. The room was absolutely full of chiefs and deputy chiefs, also know as "Dep". Surreal.) It was open seating, and we ended up at a table of 10. The other 8 were all 20-somethings, and all the girls were wearing teeny tiny black dresses. The one directly across from me needed a tank top to cover up the girls, but her date looked happy. What struck me about the group was their nonstop chatter and use of their smartphones during all the speeches honoring the retiree. Now, I admit it's about as exciting as watching paint dry for most of the speeches, although some of them can be quite funny. But, this poor guy gave 47 years of his life to his town--he worked in the same town his entire career--and these twits couldn't stop talking or texting long enough to listen and give the guy some respect? The speeches only lasted for about 90 mintues. It almost made me go into teacher mode, but I really couldn't take their phones away, could I? I'm used to seeing individuals act like this in public, but this was the entire group. I don't think one of the girls put her phone down at all, even while eating. It makes me wonder where society is going. It was just sad. I tried making small talk with one of the girls as Mr. Wonderful was off talking to one of his chief buddies, but she couldn't or wouldn't keep the conversation going. I even asked her about her own kids and she kept glancing at her phone. I wasn't wearing a tiny black dress though, so maybe she wrote me off as being too old.
So I feel old. And even though I just slammed a group of smartphone users, I'd still like an iPhone someday. I haven't convinced myself that I need one, nor do I want to become like the pack I had to sit with last night.
Third, I have to have bloodwork done. But I'm procrastinating, because I haven't done any exercising lately to balance off my poptarts from my stressful week. Should I go tomorrow and just get it over with? Otherwise I'll have to wait till next weekend because I have to fast, and it's much easier to sleep all night and go with an empty stomach in the morning. But my stress level won't bottom out until at least next Friday. Keep reading.
Fourth, this upcoming week is National Foreign Langauge Week! Woo hoo! And I have managed to convince my department that we should do stuff to promote it, and now it's upon me. Thankfully everyone (or almost everyone) has jumped on board to either show a film or do something cultural, but kids have to show up. If I can get through Friday relatively unscathed I'll be ecstatic. To quote a colleague from earlier in the year when she saw the cart I use because as lead teacher I had to give up my classroom, "So you brought this all on yourself, huh? Silly girl!" Lol. Friday is the big end of the week event--Public Declamation. It's a longstanding tradition--kids get up on the stage in our cavernous auditorium without a mike and declaim poetry or prose from memory in each of the 5 langauges we teach, plus Latin. There are 22 kids scheduled to go, and over 100 tried out. I'm always amazed when I watch them do this in front of about 600 people, mostly other students. When I was a student at this same school, I used to watch my classmates up there with a sense of awe, thinking I could never be up there. Joke's on me--on Friday, I get to be the one sitting on stage introducing each student. I think I'd rather be dealing with a discipline issue!
Fifth, I had to try really hard not to throw things this Friday afternoon when about half my AP class blew off homework--kid after kid told me "I didn't do it", or "I don't have it"....it was assigned over vacation, so they had almost an extra week to catch up. It was vocab matching from a story they read in the lit book, meant to get them to look at differences in meaning due to context and they didn't do it. I wouldn't have assigned it if they had a clue about vocab, but they don't, so I did. It didn't help that the twitter teacher discussion group the night before was about ways to deal with apathetic students, and multiple teachers posted things like, "I am the only factor in my students' success" and "I am responsible if a student fails". WTF? Again, made me feel old. I spend so much damn time reflecting on what I do that I'm always questioning what could have been done differently or better, or if a kid didn't get something how could I reteach it, or if an activity fell flat, why....but why should all the blame fall to me if they can't be bothered for whatever reason to actually do the work that is supposed to make them better???? I'm seeing this line of thought--teacher is the only factor in student success--all over the place and I'm really starting to resent it. I actually closed my book and walked away for the last 15 minutes of class I was so angry and disappointed by the time the 8th or 9th kid told me they didn't do it. I'm not holding out much hope for this year's AP scores after watching that mess unfold, and yet there are many out there who will use the scores to measure my ability as a teacher. This should probably be a post all by itself....
Sixth, on a happier note, a student I had last year in my Spanish 4 class stopped to talk to me in the hall. Last year he never seemed particularly thrilled to have to spend 45 minutes with me every day reading literature in Spanish, and while I could joke with him every now and then, more often than not he'd roll his eyes and snarl in my direction when I tried to keep him on task. The dynamics of his class was awful, one of the worst I've had in a long time, and I think that out of the 25 kids in the group, about 8 gave a shit and actually did the work. There were a few more who tried, but the majority was still saying things like "Yo gusto" in June. Anyway, this kid told me that he wrote his senior research paper on Federico Garcia Lorca! I almost fell over. We did Lorca's "Romance de la luna, luna" near the end of the year, and I usually do a lot of background stuff about the Spanish Civil War, los gitanos and flamenco so the romance makes sense. He told me that he actually loved my class last year, and that along with Lorca, he has also fallen in love with another author we did, Isabel Allende. I guess you never really know what's going on in those little heads.
Seventh, Mr. Wonderful and I did our cultural event for February and saw Solas in concert. Awesome show!!!! They sounded so good....they are working on a project about the Irish in Butte, Montana and played some music from that. Haunting and gorgeous.
Tomorrow, I'll have to fight the urge to lose myself in my book and sit and correct stuff instead.
Off to bed. Thanks for reading my rants this evening...
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