Today we were eating a special lunch to celebrate my daughter’s kindergarten promotion and a young lady approached me.
Young lady: Hey! Aren’t you Mrs. F.?
Me: Yes, I am.
Young Lady: You are my sister’s favorite teacher. She talks about you all the time.
The catch? I taught her in 6th grade. She will be a senior next year.
Who says teachers don’t make an impact? Crazy people, that’s who.
As summer approaches, there is a feeling of anticipation and frustration. Students and teachers are counting the days until the sweet, sweet release of the last day of school. We are occupying the same space, but there is a tenuous truce, an air of tolerance, safe in the knowledge that we only have a few days left until the end of school.
Everyone is sick of each other.
This sick is not a simple cold; it is a festering buboe of yuck that is about to pop. Kids are tired of the “blah, blah” they hear when we talk. We are tired of seeing their lovely faces. Even the good kids start to grind on the last nerve. It is nothing personal. The beginning of the next year will bring a return of the fond feelings that arrive with the hope that a new year brings. Right now, however, there is a gritting of teeth as we all keep up the facade that we are not tired of each other.
As we wrap up the year, there are some mannerisms of theirs that are making me nuts. The fact that they lose focus every three minutes (okay, that might be an exaggeration but some days it feels that way) makes me hang my head in frustration. When they start cleaning up five minutes before the bell rings –even when I am closing up the lesson and still talking — it screams disrespect. Unfortunately, at this time of year, it is something that increases in frequency. I know this but it still irritates me.
They are also tired of my mannerisms. Okay, maybe this is not true. I asked my kids what irritated them the most about me and they gave me nothing. Seriously! The only thing that they could give me was that sometimes I’m too nice and they are worried that I will be taken advantage of. Silly kids. I told them that I could try to be meaner, but they didn’t think that was a good idea.
I tried new things this year. Some were successful– integrating even more technology in my classroom. Other things bombed like the movie Battleship (my attempt to get a classroom blog going). The one thing that seemed to affect my students the most was when I arranged my classroom to a completely non-teacher centered classroom.
How do you make kids squirm?
I’ve found the answer.
My kiddos got positively twitchy. I didn’t realize that switching it around like this would freak them out so much. I have to admit that I took twisted pleasure out of their discomfort. The amazing thing, though, is that most grew to like it. It gave them a feeling of freedom that they didn’t have when they were stuck facing the board. I also noticed something else. They stopped asking me questions and started working more on their own. My goal has always been to make myself unnecessary in my classroom. Achievement unlocked!
I am quite fond of my students. I will be even fonder of them when they are no longer with me every day.
Four days and counting…
I’m BAAAAAAACK.
After a long absence from the blogosphere, I am returning. I hope. My classes for this semester are done and summer is approaching. I have missed writing very much.
There are many half completed posts that I plan on working on and posting. My blog will seem tangential, but at least I will be writing.
Wish me luck!
2011 has been a very action packed year. There has been good and there has been not so good. I started my Masters degree, then changed it to a different one that I feel will give me tons of opportunities that I never had before. My husband and I grew closer after nine years of marriage. I lost my father-in-law who I never realized how much I loved. My daughter started kindergarten and I didn’t cry (much). I’ve gotten closer to my family. My father actually learned how to text! I’m working on a post about that. There is so much more, but I didn’t intend this post to be a recollection of the occurrences of the year. Moving on.
This New Year’s Eve, I will be sitting safely at home and snuggling with the love of my life. There will be no wild party, no alcohol, no excess. Well, maybe we will eat a bag of Cheetos– best way to ring in the new year as far as I’m concerned. This year, we might even make it to midnight. No, probably not. We are an “old” married couple that figure it’s the new year somewhere and sleep is sacred, especially when you know your five-year old daughter will be up at the crack of dawn the next morning. This is how I love to spend my New Year’s Eve.
As everyone knows, this is the time for people to make resolutions. It is a fresh new year to undo all of the things you did the year before. I have always made resolutions. I can honestly say that I did not stick with any of my resolutions from the beginning of the year. When I was younger, I made crazy ones that were unattainable. As I grew older, I tempered them. Still, I often fell short of the goal that I set. I blamed it on myself. I would beat myself up over my perceived failures and then feel guilty about not being good enough/strong enough/smart enough to follow through. I don’t want to do that to myself this year.
This year I have one resolution: I will do things that give me happiness.
I believe that is the only resolution I need and I am pretty sure that I will be able to keep up with it.
Happy New Year, my friends. May your resolutions be attainable and may you find all that you seek in the new year.
This morning I decided to take my daughter to our local McDonalds to have a “nutritious” breakfast (They wanted $1.92 for a teeny bag of sliced apples. Robbery, I tell ya.). They have a pretty neat play area and a free wifi connection so it makes us both happy. This is the first time we have come on a weekday.
I knew that coming on a Tuesday at 8 o’clock in the morning would prove to have a dearth of children for my daughter to play with. That’s okay. She’s an only child and really does like to play by herself. Plus, there are these little touch to play video games that she loves to entertain herself with. She just likes to hang out and run around. This play is WAY more fun than our house.
Let me tell you, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when I got there. It is winter and we live in an area where the winter visitors proliferate, partaking in the enjoyable 70 degree weather. Who wouldn’t want to be able to wear shorts in December? I know that I enjoy it. It is one of the rewards for surviving the stifling heat during the summer. But I digress.
As we entered the playground area, it was full of people. Real people with white hair and magnificent stories. I had stumbled upon the morning meeting place for a local trailer park. Apparently Tuesday morning is free Senior coffee day. The play room was filled. Both of the touch to play games were taken up by seniors playing them. It looked exactly like they were at the casino, playing video poker. The intensity was tangible. I kept on expecting tokens to come pouring out.
When I was younger, I was freaked out by older people. To me they were a signal of impending death and the end of it all. I don’t know where I got that notion. Probably because my grandmother was ancient and the youngest in her family. It seemed as if everyone around her was dying. Luckily, I’ve outgrown that and I’ve come to realize exactly how wonderful so many of them are.
Their stories amaze me. This group has seen so much in their lives. When they were born, there was no Internet. Gasp. Choke. Sob. I don’t know how they managed! They’ve seen beta tapes, vhs tapes, laser discs. 8-tracks. 8-tracks! I remember listening to the audio version of Star Wars on the 8-track player on our van sized stereo. Darth Vader’s voice clicking in the middle as the tracks changed. I used to know exactly where the clicks were.
As my daughter was playing and I was attempting to blog, I was listening to some of the conversations that they were having. They were telling somewhat dirty jokes (Oh.Em.Gee.) and talking about things that my friends and I would talk about. It made me sort of wish that I could come every Tuesday morning to get to know them. Maybe they could teach me a lesson about life. Maybe they could sneak me a free coffee. I bet some of them would be willing.
One thing I figured out though… there is more life experience in that place on Tuesday mornings than possibly anywhere else in good ol’ AJ.
Welcome to my first Christmas post. I know. It is a very exciting moment for me. Not only is it my Christmas post, it is also going to be my 30th post on my blog. Apparently WordPress thinks that is a big deal because it has been counting down for the past three or four posts. It must be a sort of a milestone. Maybe if you make it past 30 posts, you are a blogger for life. Kinda like when they say if you make it past your third year of teaching, you become a lifer? Sounds so positive, doesn’t it? But that is fodder for another post. Let’s get on with this one, shall we?
It seems like every time I get a break from teaching, my body betrays me. I spent Christmas in a cold medicine induced fog that was not pleasant. It wasn’t unpleasant either. Just foggy. So here are my sappy and (hopefully) coherent thoughts about this Christmas.
For the first time in a long time, I got to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day with my mom, brother, niece, and nephew. We usually go down to my mother-in-law’s house and spend it down there because my brother doesn’t always have his kids with him. I missed our normal visit with my mother-in-law, but it was so very, very nice to be able to see my family. Even if they were sort of blurry because of all the cold medicine I was hopped up on.
It is so hard having two families that you actually want to be with during the holidays. My brother- and sister-in-law with their two children were at my mil’s house. I rarely get to see them, especially my brother-in-law (he’s a surgeon–inorite??) and so is often not available when they come to visit from Denver. Their children are such neat kids. My niece is so smart and so very creative. My nephew is the cutest thing. My husband’s best friend/brother is also there from Idaho. I know it makes hubs so very happy to spend time with him and talk about all the ham radio/Star Trek/Chess things they talk about. Knowing that my mother-in-law had so many people there on this first Christmas after my father-in-law passed really helped, but it was still hard for us to not be there.
Spending this time with my family, however, made me realize some things about them. My brother is an amazing father. I knew that he was a good one, but this visit bumped him up to amazing. It is hard being a parent and he sometimes gives himself grief about it, but I would have loved to have him as my father– not in the inbred, warped way. I also realized that my niece and nephew are growing up faster than I would like them to. I don’t know what I am going to do when my Natter starts doing the same.
My ninth-grade nephew is stronger than he thinks he is. That’s enough said about that. When I look at him, I see a little bit of me when I was his age. He’s also totally and completely hilarious when it comes to playing the game Balderdash. It didn’t move him forward on the game board, but it sure did have us laughing so hard. If there was milk involved, it would have been flying out of noses. Let’s just say that the figurative milk was EVERYWHERE.
My eighth-grade niece has turned into this confident, caring young lady with a dry wit and a practicality that I’ve not seen in an eighth grader. My baby girl was connected to her at the hip. Oh, did I mention that she’s patient, as well? Having a five-year old worship the ground you walk on can be very tiring, especially if she wants to play princess and bad guy and she always gets to be the princess and you always have to be the bad guy, never mind the fact that you’ve been the bad guy the last five times you’ve played and you just want to be the princess ONCE because it sounds like fun. Err…. yeah. exactly.
My mom is awesome. She is so generous with her time and her love. Plus, she actually cooks! Crazy right? We had ham and beans and roast beef and mashed potatoes and gravy and veggies and pies (from the store, but that’s okay). The only thing I missed were the Christmas cinnamon rolls that she mentioned she might make. (HINT: Mom, if you’re reading this, that was a hint. :-P)
I am pretty sure everyone got what they hoped for. I know I did. Being able to spend the time with my family for this holiday was splendid. I hope your Christmas was as pleasant as mine was, minus the cold, of course.
Oh, and if you thought this was going to be about an actual COLD Christmas, well… sorry. I live in Phoenix. Ain’t no such thing! It was a nice 60 degrees out.
Today my daughter and I drove by a cardiac care facility. Natalie right away saw the heart next to the sign and knew exactly what it was. She said, “Momma, is that a place where people go when their hearts hurt?” I replied in the affirmative. She said, “If their hearts hurt, they get in their cars really fast and drive here. Then they lay down and the people fix it so they won’t die.”
“Is that the way it works?” I asked.
“Yes, Momma,” and she paused. “Why didn’t Grandpa come here when his heart hurt? That way they could have fixed him so he wouldn’t have died. I miss him.”
I wanted to run right in to the care facility and have them fix my heart hurt.
This week has been a very hard week for my family. My father-in-law lost his battle with cancer and was laid to rest.
I realized today that, since he was diagnosed in August, we’ve been living our lives in a daze, knowing that the end was coming soon. We spent as much time as we could with him. Up to the end, he still kept his sense of humor and his mind sharp.
Bill was a man who lived with a purpose. He was shy and took a while to open up to me. When he finally did, though, I was blown away. He had a wicked sense of humor– he made me blush on many an occasion. I can see where my husband learned humor and I am thankful for it.
Bill was an unapologetic conservative, but it suited him. I remember the chuckle that I got when I looked at some of the books he would read. I remember one being about how to talk to liberals (if you are forced to) or something like that. Needless to say, we didn’t talk politics that much.
There wasn’t a time when I visited that we didn’t watch sports. He watched everything from college sports to professional sports. It was fun to watch him give up the television so his grandchildren could watch their shows. He acted as if he was doing it begrudgingly, but you could see his joy in watching them.
My daughter loves him so much. She is taking this like a five-year old would, but I can definitely tell that the loss is hard for her. It hurts my heart, but I knwo that she will be fine.
One of the things that really struck me was the way he made sure that my mother-in-law was taken care of. He always took such good care of Peggy. This didn’t end with his passing. Because he knew that his time here was almost up, he arranged so many things to help her. Instead of succumbing to despair because of his illness, he faced it head on and with dignity. I hope I can be that strong.
Bill truly loved my mother-in-law. It was apparent in the way that he looked at her and spoke to her. Thirty-seven years didn’t diminish their relationship. I know it wasn’t all sunny, but they took the adversity and made it into a stronger relationship.
Jason learned how to be a husband by watching his father. He takes such good care of me, always making sure that I have everything I need. He supports me in everything. I know that Jason learned this from watching his father interact with his mother. I am so thankful to Bill for being a good model for my husband.
I know that this post is a bit rambling, but I really needed to say these things.
As I am sitting here in front of BORDERS, waiting to meet my family, I am struck with a sudden sense of longing. This store has been a part of my life for many years. I’ve bought books I loved and some I hated. I’ve had countless cups of tea while writing in the coffee shop. It has been a refuge for me when I needed to get away from everything.
Now I sit in the empty parking lot. It is humbling to know that things can disappear so completely. In retrospect, I’ve seen it dwindle. First the music left. Next, the video section. It was so gradual, though, I didn’t realize the ramifications of the slow disintegration. A part of me thought it would be there forever.
I was a part of their demise. Buying online is less expensive and more convenient. However, BORDERS did not help themselves by becoming more innovative about the way they interacted with their customers. Their online presence was spotty and difficult to navigate. They didn’t change with the times.
As educators, we are all at risk for “going out of business.” If we don’t stay innovative in our approach, our students will stop paying attention. Meeting the needs of our customers while maintaining high quality product is essential. If we can’t keep up, we’ll fade, just like BORDERS did.
So, farewell, my favorite bookstore. I miss sitting in you and being surrounded by books. I hope I can learn a lesson from your closing.
The great thing is that I have had quite a few of these students before as seventh graders. When I check my rosters, there are little pictures of them. There are so many of their little faces that I recognize and it fills my heart with happiness. I can’t wait to reacquaint myselves with them and to get to know the others whose faces are unfamiliar.
My summer has been filled with so much professional development. ISTE, Anita Archer, Teach like a Champion, posts from my PLN on Twitter and Google+. Honestly, I sometimes feel overwhelmed by all of the new ways that I have to reach my students. I decided that this is the perfect time to reflect on what I’ve learned and set goals for myself.
I am going to keep my goals SMART this year. If I do so, I will be able to develop a good plan to achieve them. So, here goes:
These are my goals for this year. I will revisit these and see how I’m doing.
What about you? Do you have any goals that you want to focus on for this upcoming school year?
Quietly Askew 