All posts tagged: A day in the life

Winter Break Blues

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I am sure I have said this before, but I’m going to say it again. I hate breaks. There is just something about losing your sense of routine whenever breaks come around that make me struggle with my own mental health and sit at work for hours on end until I absolutely need to leave. Today has been no different. I can really relate to kids who struggle with these times also. We have seen a large influx of negative behaviors and disruptive students all because internally they were dreading this change. For me, I think it mostly has to do with the transition between two mindsets. On the one side, I can be a homebody. I can sit at home all day and never care. I can also be alone for lengthy periods of time and be perfectly content. On the other side, being at school is the exact opposite of this. I am constantly around people and negotiating social situations. Moving from one extreme to the other is where I find it hardest …

The Things We Carry

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A long time ago, when I was a much younger man, I read a book called The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend doing so. But one of the things I took away from reading the text was as a reminder of the things that all veterans, myself included, carry with us; the memories, both good and bad, the emotions, etc. But one thing that I never thought I would ever do is relate my current job to the title in the book. As a child I never imagined my teacher as carrying burdens of their own like a sack of rocks slung on their backs. Nevermind the personal issues we all face, being a teacher means carrying burdens I never thought existed. Last week, I found out about the tragedy that one student is facing. Of course, I know that these tragedies occur every day. But with just as much naivety as I had when I was a young soldier and believed myself invincible, I never considered the …

Of Updates and Epiphanies

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Yesterday, I was frustrated. Today, I feel a bit better. I was able to connect with the student I was referencing and learned more information about the whole scenario. Then, I corroborated the information by talking with one of the trusted adults that the student talked with on the day when all of this occured. After discussing it with a few other colleagues, I think I have come to the proper decision. This needs to be addressed in a much bigger manner than I can handle alone. My colleagues agreed with me. Today in class, I had a major epiphany. My students need a swift boost of motivation. Some people call this a kick in the rear. As I was handing out the assignment, I realized that I have been babying my students far too much. They truly need to learn how to read instructions and learn for themselves. It’s not so much that they need to learn how to learn as much as it’s that they need to learn how to problem solve and trudge …

Disappointments

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Disappointments. Today was full of them. I’m usually not one to let issues marinate and linger for longer than they need to but today is different. I started my morning thinking that we were going to be holding our Equity meeting in spite of a conflicting meeting. That feel through because the presenters decided that it was in the best interest of staff not to hold the meeting and cause a conflict. Would this have caused conflict? Yes, of course. But equity is important. The conflicting meeting is not a necessary event for people to attend. It is important, don’t get me wrong. But how can we say that we care about the issues when we drop the meeting when something else comes up? I’m trying really hard here to remain optimistic. However, we haven’t held a district meeting in months. It feels like the organization is on it’s last leg. Another disappointment is that several of the students I work with are being dropped from classes due to attendance issues. I’m not upset by the …

Pop Quizzes

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I love giving pop quizzes. I know, you might be thinking to yourself, “You’re an A**hole!” But hear me out. First of all, when I give pop quizzes, I grade them on participation and personally track the official scores separately. There are a few reasons behind this. First, quizzing on a topic is good for your brain. It makes you think and gives a bit of stress, which in turn makes you remember more. Second, by informing the students that they are being graded on participation, they tend to do better and are less likely to cheat off a neighbor. This then gives me far more reliable data about how well the student retained the knowledge or skill we were working on. Third, even mentioning the idea of a quiz will make students more apt to pay attention to what they are doing. Especially with what I did today. Today’s pop quiz was a little different. Normally, I give a pop quiz after a day or so of doing something. Not today. Today, I introduce 8 new words …

Realizing What You Know

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The first time I had realized what I learned in college was when I took the MTLE content area test. The MTLE is the Minnesota Teacher Licensure Exam. Anyone who wanted to be a teacher in the state at that time needed to take the tests. Now it’s a little different, but you still need those exams to gain full licensure. Anyway, during that exam, I was able to confidently answer most of the questions. The experience made me feel really good about my education level. However, teaching is one of those jobs where you can study the theories, psychology, and laws for decades and still not be good at your job. I myself started out in that phase where I was arrogant enough to think that because I had a great GPA in college, I would do great in the classroom. Subtly, I have noticed this feeling other times in teaching. For instance, when I am writing a lesson from a curriculum and not looking at the teacher’s guide but later notice that I planned …

Long Weekends

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Long weekends are always a mix of emotions for me. I spend so much time around people that when it comes time to leave for longer periods of time, I tend to struggle. However, this time feels like it’s a bit different compared to previous weekends. It’s probably because I have quite a bit to look forward to coming up. Today was hilarious. I wish I had recorded some video of what happened during the mini bingo session the school hosted. One of my students got a bingo but was too afraid to go down to get a prize. She gave it to another student who screamed “yahoo” and ran out the door as fast as he could. We could hear him screaming as he flew down the stairs. It was far too funny not to record on here. Prior to this, we spent some time finishing our narratives. I did this in the hopes that we can begin the revision process on Monday. The students have not spent a lot of time doing this. In …

Writing Narratives

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Today was an amazing day, although it didn’t start that way. I spent most of the morning struggling through a medium level panic attack where I couldn’t even eat breakfast. Not exactly the way to start school in the morning when you have a ton of work to get done. Fortunately for myself, I have two amazing co-teachers who had already made the plans for each of the classes. In both classes, I didn’t have to do much except get them started. This afforded me time to focus on calming myself down. As the day wore on, I was able to regain a normal heart rate and get some work done in the process. Although, I can still feel the residual effects of being severely drained and completely unmotivated to finish work for tomorrow. While the work day was great, technology was not on my side. I spent about 15 minutes trying to get the tv up and running this morning during first block as it was not connecting to the correct channel for AirPlay. Effectively, this …

Grammar Lessons

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Today I am all out of sorts. The classes went great and I was able to get a lot of work done today, but I have other things on my mind at the moment that make thinking critically difficult to accomplish. This will probably be short. EL 200 went exactly according to plan. The students were engaged and worked hard. I wonder if this has something to do with the way that the grammatical lessons are structured from the textbook. They seem to be in a much more linear format compared to the other lessons from the text. I also think that the lessons are much more selective in how they work. Just when I think I have a great idea to tie in something else, I read that idea in the text as a recommendation or a next step. I think this also makes it easier for me to flow with the lesson. I was also able to come up with a game on the fly. I had already intended on doing some sort of …

Always Follow Your Own Rules.

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As I was writing the title for this post today, I realized that the sentence has some semantic ambiguity that should probably be clarified. Well, let me clarify the clarification first. If I put the emphasis of the sentence “Always follow your own rules” into the word “own” then one interpretation is to not follow the rules of other’s. However, that is not my intention. My emphasis is on the word “always.” When I make a rule for myself, I need to follow it. Here is why. If I am not following my own rules, I am not using what I have learned and being better. This is especially true in teaching. There are many things that I have learned over the years, and I’m sure that I will learn many more in the years to come. One rule that I set for myself a long time ago was to test every lesson plan before bringing it to students. Like a dry run or a field test. This is where you catch hiccups and problems and loose …