welcome to my classroom...

This is the door to my classroom.  I thought it was a nice way to show the books that we have been reading.

tis the season...

tis the season of volleyball which somewhat explains my being MIA.  i am the volleyball coach for my school and just to tell you how much volleyball experience i have had in my life let's discuss the rules of my team. 
rule #1 - don't hit ms. l with the ball
rule #2 - seriously don't hit ms. l with the ball

we started our season two weeks early which threw me for a loop because most of my girls had yet to get their physicals for the first game.  AWESOME way to start the season and what an awesome season it was.  here's some of the key moments.
       i had a parent want to help coach but their child wasn't allowed on my team this year due to her not attending my school. 
      i found out that i didn't have the correct coaching creditionals and had to take two more classes.
      i gained an assistant coach (which now means i have to assist with softball)
      i watched some shy girls come out of their shells
      i watched  few girls play like me (scared of the ball) only to become team leaders
      we had volleyballs donated by my grandfather (which was awesome!)
    
we ended the volleyball season this morning at the all-city tournament and while i am very happy to have my time back i will miss the girls.  after the tournament we eat lunch at mcdonalds and today while standing in line i watched a bunch of girls sitting at the tables laughing and having fun with each other not to mention a few of them getting excited for next season and those are the moments i will miss.  those are the moments it's okay that most of my girls broke the number 1 rule today at the tournament and hit me with the ball four times, it's okay that i never left work until 5:30 or later all month, it's okay that i rarely saw my husband for more than an hour each night, and it's definitely okay that i have lost my voice three times this month. 

i am truly blessed to love my job, to love my school, and love my students as my own and for that it's okay that i don't love volleyball, i don't love being a coach (i'm all about the fun factor not the winning factor.)

i promise to come back to blogging this month.  i have lots to share and want to start showing my classroom ideas off (finally!) thanks for being patient my lovely followers!

crazy, wonderful life...

we started school august 1 and haven't stopped running since.  my school is very short handed which means i am now the department head for english, still volleyball coach, the only returning english teacher, member of the leadership team, yearbook advisor, and of course returning vice president of a committee i never know the name of.  (great right?) let's start with my school being short handed, we lost quite a few teachers this school year due to people leaving, retiring, and the district not giving people contracts in time.  (i signed my contract the FRIDAY before school started.) we had all new administration and after the first week one of our new vice principals got a fantastic job offer as a head principal so she's gone.  new new vp will be starting after labor day hopefully.  fingers crossed! now we're moving to volleyball, everyone's favorite topic!   i have this rule that because i teach at a public school i won't cut a student (thank you remember the titans!) but it's true.  i coach middle school volleyball and rule #1 is don't hit me with the ball i think i should keep as many girls as possible.  with all that said that doesn't mean the other coaches don't give free, unwanted, unasked for, advice.  if you want to tell me what to do then please continue coaching my team but until you have to stay late every night to help me back off.  this has been happening since last year and while i would love "help" i don't love being told what i should be doing in front of the kids.  come coach a practice, come be my assistant coach but don't tell me what to do in the hallway.  i also dislike hearing how my volleyball girls are doing this, doing that in your class.  i can only do so much as i am one person!  they know the rules of being on my team (letter went out friday with a practice schedule - points for me!) i am so sick of people telling me how to do stuff because i'm young.  if you know how to do it all then do it!  i am not sure of some things but i know that i am an awesome teacher.  how do i know this? i know this because i love my job, i spend all my spare time working, grading, planning, thinking of ideas, etc.  i am at school at 8:30 most days for mornng meetings, to plan (we don't have to be there until 8:50) and leave around 6 depending on when my kids get picked up from practice, and what work i have left to do.  not to mention that i will ASK for your advice when i need it, or want it.  ok done sorry! apparently i have been bottling all that up for a few weeks.  i think that is enough of a post for this morning.  i will discuss the other stuff tomorrow.  (i will be posting again shocking i know!) hope everyone is having a safe and great weekend.  

in a few hours...

i will once again be standing in my classroom meeting my new students. i am very excited for this upcoming school year to begin but at the same time i am not ready for the summer to end.  this upcoming school year is going to be very interesting due to the following:

        1. new principal (again)

        2. new assistant principals

        3. at least six new teachers (we are still hiring!)

        4. three of the new teachers are english (my department)

        5. there are five of us in our department and the other returning teacher is out         

            recovering from surgery.   

        6. i am now teaching one on grade level english class

        7. i am the yearbook advisor

i am also coaching volleyball again and still recovering from foot surgery.  please understand that i am not complaining just expressing my concern, excitement, and a bazillion other feelings.  i have the first week planned but have to tweak a few ideas so that is what i will be doing tomorrow.  i have made sure all my school clothes are ready and hanging in my closet (due to the foot surgery i only have to worry about one shoe) and spent saturday getting my hair cut, nails did, and a little pre school clothes shopping.  i mean the teacher does have to look cute too right? i will also start blogging regularly since my blog is supposed to be about teaching.  what are you most looking forward to as the summer ends and the school days begin?  

seriously?

We are starting year round school this year which means.... school starts in 10 days! I am not ready.  I will write more later but I needed to share this...

An open letter to the Thunder - Jenifer Reynolds

Dear Thunder:

I know by now you must be asking yourselves, what's the deal with these people in Oklahoma City?  Can they not do Math?  Have they not figured out the rules? Did they not notice we threw away a fourth quarter lead in two consecutive games to lose the series 4 - 1? Should we tell them, or hope they never figure it out???

The truth is we couldn’t love you any more than we do now even if you had won the title.  I wanted you to know that, so you'll stop thinking you let us down.

It's odd that I would be writing this letter, since I don't even like NBA basketball, or at least I didn't before. By this time each year, my husband would be watching with the sound down because the endless squeak of basketball shoes during the interminable months of the pro season would have been driving me mad.

But not this year.  Throughout the playoffs, we were stitched to the set through every game we could watch, screeching and howling like breeding cats over every basket you hit, every one you missed, every bad call, every win and every loss.

And while we would have loved for you to win the title, here's what you have to understand - we wanted it for YOU, not for us. 

Why is that? Because you’ve helped us show the world who we are.

You guys never give up and we don't either.  We didn't quit after the Dust Bowl or the oil busts or the Murrah Bombing or the tornadoes that plowed through the heart of our community a decade ago.  We never looked up and said who's going to fix this?  Who's going to bring us trailers to live in or send our kids to college?  We just rolled up our sleeves and went to work. 

What you see downtown - Oklahomans did that.  Our leaders dreamed it up and we paid for it.  That building you play in? We built that, too. The names of the big energy companies may spin around the light board inside, but it was the sweat of ten thousand roughnecks that helped put their money in the bank. We know how to work hard and we respect that ethic in others.

After April 19, 1995 people kept asking us, "Will you ever be the same?" And I always thought, "Of course not!  The real question is, whether we'll be better or worse."  WE decided we'd be better, and we are.  In fact, sometimes when I look at all we've done since then, it's hard for me to believe - and I saw it all happen! But no matter what we do, we have a hard time convincing the rest of America we're not just a hump on the back of Texas.

You’re helping us change that, and we’d sure love it if eventually you’d beat those guys.  But we’re willing to wait.

Just like you, Oklahoma is a little on the young side – the fifth youngest state in the Union. In a way, we're still trying to create our place in America and we face some pretty heavy stereotypes.  We're the state (along with the Dakotas) that Rand McNally once left out of its portable atlas to save space.  We're the state that gets dismissed by national sports writers and coaches as a backwater or a "small town". That backhanded dis-not-so-cleverly-disguised-as-a-compliment by Nuggets Coach George Karl who called us the “Green Bay of the NBA” is just par on our course. Actually, I really don't mind being compared to the Cheeseheads, because most people in America don’t get them either.  WE do. They’re working people just like us who know how to support a team!

We're the people who set what is now called "The Oklahoma Standard" for community response to disaster.  We're the people who taught the world how to grieve in a public and positive way, how to turn disaster into opportunity.

We don't always win here, but nobody cares more, tries harder, or stays truer than Oklahomans. There's something strange and special about this place, but you have to stay here for a while to understand it. 

Today when somebody drove by with his Thunder flag still flying, while we were listening to Native Son Bryan White sing “Dust Bowl Dreams” about how Oklahomans “push on and persevere” I realized exactly why it is we love you guys:  In some odd way that defies explanation you GET us.

You get who we are and you've been able to give us a voice in the world by the way you play, by the way you persevere.  All of us Native Okies are here because somebody decided to stick it out through the bad times and keep working for better times.  When we watch you play, we see those beliefs rewarded. For us, whether you win or lose really is less important than how you play the game.

And that's why the crowd was still chanting "OKC! OKC!" even as you set a dubious new NBA record for a blown lead.  That's why they were waiting for you at oh-dark-30 this morning, chanting, "Thank you, Thunder!"  While you may think you owe US something, we know in our hearts that we really owe YOU.

So don’t hang your heads.  Just get ready for next year, because as Bryan White sings, “Quitting is something Okies just don’t do.”

Keep rolling, Thunder. We’re behind you all the way. 

i've been busy...

i've been super busy lately plus i've been going through a funk.  i'm overwhelmed by trying to pack up our house (we're moving in 10 days ahhh!), getting through two weeks of state testing, getting my first bad review, the overwhelming amount of thank you notes to write, plus the main reason for this post the craziness that is happening at work.

my school is a fantastic school that is closing in a few years to become an elementary school.  we have been told this for the past three years so who knows when this will really happen.  this year we had a new principal that i really had high hopes for, and today she let me down.  (that's another post soon i promise!) we have five people retiring from teaching, one of our counselors left to start a job at a another school, our tech ed guy left to take a job at the FAA, and our new principal is one of the people retiring.  awesome right?  to say that things are in turmoil is an understatement!  we have a new principal (our assistant principal, the one that isn't retiring) but he's taken some personal time off because his wife just had a new baby.  the students are out of control, the teacher's don't care, the students have spring fever, the principal isn't really there, and everyone is a bundle of nerves.  i was handling most of this okay because i was so busy trying to figure out my own life but i can't handle this anymore.  i have written a student up for 3 different things, the school secretary wrote him up the other day and we thought he was going home for the rest of the school year, but NO he was there today.  out of dress code too!  that just crushed my faith in our "amazing" principal because this student can't read, is about to go to high school but he's the principals pet, his teacher (who is a long-term sub) things he's amazing, and he's not.  he's trouble with a capital T who thinks he can get away with anything and he probably can.  we have 11 days left of school and i'm counting down.  it's so hard to get out of bed to go to my job and i used to love this job.  i still do but i'm disheartened because of the "politics" of it all, and how can you have politics in education? i know they are there but still the students shouldn't be in control. 

i'm done ranting for now because i'm watching the end of the crazy okc thunder game.  hope your end of days school year is going better!