never let them see you cry...

i know that wanting to cry means i love my job.  the reason i know this is because i want to cry because i feel like i am failing my kids.  i teach a program i despise and the first benchmark of the year is coming up in a week and am beyond stressed out.  why am i already stressed out after almost two weeks of school you ask?  well, the first day was the rules, getting to know you, mumbo jumbo and then i realized that most of my students had already had my class.  how is that?  well i teach a class that is used as an intervention for 6th graders but because some schools keep their 6th graders so our former  curriculum specialist told our principal and counselor that it's okay to let the kids who failed the class retake it.  NO!  it's the exact same course in 7th grade since i am not supposed to have the same kids.  so now we are going onto week three of school and i am stuck with half a class of kids who have already had this class and won't want to read the same exact stories twice.  i have told the principal, i have told the counselor but let's be honest this isn't high on their to do list so now i am stuck.  did i mention these classes are 90 minutes long?  i have spent time on figurative language, genre, and now what do i do?  i need to get started but i know the kids aren't going to enjoy rereading a book they read last year.  i am also stressed because our librarian managed to get a new job in the district so she was able to leave before we had textbooks checked out, books checked out.  i was able to help a few teachers check out books but that meant i spent a day of  my class time in the library.  we also had a power outage last week and spent part of the day at the local high school hanging out in their auditorium.  i don't want to fail my kids but i don't know what to do.  i have no one to really turn to because our administration isn't so approachable, they are also in closed door meetings and to be honest they listen but don't listen listen.  i also seem to be behind the other teachers and i don't want that to happen this year but it is already happening.  i am frustrated and just want someone to tell me it will be okay.  we have great new language arts teachers but the ones that aren't new, are okay.  i have one teacher who wants me to hold her hand (she's been teaching longer than i have a been alive), my former mentor teacher who keeps trying to remind us she is a great teacher.  (she was but now she's not as focused so they have placed her our department but not a core english class) and oh the pe teacher who likes to attend our meetings but told me that and i quote "am not a real english teacher because i teach ramp up." i am a real english teacher, i chose to teach my remedial classes and i also have one on grade level class so let's not get started there.  so my question to all you teachers out there is what would you do? friday i had my students take an old benchmark (which i took too and it was super hard) so i think we will spend tomorrow going over it and discussing the things we don't know but how do i blend two separate curriculum's together? 

two days....

I have typed and retyped this post a few times now but honestly the only recurring part of the post is that I return to school in TWO days.  That's right people TWO days.  

I have been up to school a few times to "work" on my room.  I put work in captions because I am not quite sure what I am truly doing but sometimes I am not sure it's work.  I have so much that I need to do and so much that I won't want to do so mostly I stare at all the stuff I have.  Anyone else have that issue?  I am going with a new color scheme in my room this year so that will be fun.  I used to have EVERYTHING pink but that got old.  I kept trying to change it up but my old students (and their siblings) enjoyed the pink and hey if it's not broken why fix it?  This year I am bringing in some blue.  I brought in blue last year but this year I am even changing my borders to bring in the blue.  I will hopefully upload photos soon.  Anyone else changing things up this year?  

Anyone else starting in a few days?

let the chaos begin...

state testing starts tomorrow!  (cue scary music here) i will be watching my kids test for three hours starting wednesday and when that is done i will be having a staring contest with those not testing for three hours.

we have to play educational games if we are not teaching and honestly sometimes my kids need a break.  what would you do?  any suggestions?

well hello again...

I teach at a year-round school which meant that I had a two week spring break!  I spent part of week one teaching intersession and then the rest of the week taking care of myself.  I found myself starting to burn out mentally and I decided that wasn't going to help my kids so I took the rest of the week off.  I felt bad not finishing intersession but we had more than enough teachers and not enough students so I did it and to be honest it felt nice.  I spent the second week of spring break with my husbands family in San Antonio, Texas.  I had a blast!  My husband is the youngest of three and his brother and sister both have two children.  I MELT when I hear the words "Aunt Jen" Prior to marrying my husband I had one nephew (and it was because I have known Parker's mom my ENTIRE life.) A week of hearing "Aunt Jen" and I still melt.  This was my first family vacation with my new family and it was great.  I loved  getting to know my new family since we are all so spread out.  What did you do for spring break this year?

One of the problems with a two week spring break was that the kids came back on Monday crazy, crazy, and crazy.  We had beautiful weather (no air conditioning because that doesn't come on until the 15th!) and no one wanted to pay attention or review things we had previously discussed.  Not to mention just like last year the America's Choice people showed up on the day we got back from Spring Break.  I love our new America's Choice rep but seriously?  Why would you show up then?  I have been teaching for three years and have received two bad reports as a teacher and both occured last year from our old AC rep.   The first one was the week after spring break and I had been gone the week prior to spring break for oh my wedding in South Carolina.  The sub(s) had not done any of the work I had assigned so I had to come back to "make up" work with my kids.  Strike One against me!  The next bad review was the week after state testing.  I hadn't seen my first/second hour kids (I teach 90 minutes) in probably over a week and right before the rep comes in my kids were telling me they didn't have to learn anymore because we were done with testing.  Obviously I had a discussion explaining why that was wrong, blah, blah, well then I tried to take my kids on a virtual field trip and of course NONE of the computers were working.  I had done this field trip with my other students and they had liked it, the computers had work, and now while I'm being observed nothing worked.  It was horrible because I could see everything blowing up in my face but couldn't stop it.  Not to mention the woman kept leaving the room so she would miss my having to discipline the kids and she wanted to know why all of the sudden the assistant principal had shown up in my room. I had called her to come down because I had warned the kids if they didn't start behaving she would be down to take some kids to ISS.  Can you tell I'm bitter?  These reviews didn't hurt me professionally but they hurt me personally because I put my heart and soul into teaching and well just like in the real world things happen to derail us. 

Have you ever had that happen to you? 

Wow this is a long post and please excuse the run ons, spelling errors, etc.  I am not going to double check things because if I do I'll probably end up deleting things, writing more, you know the curse of being long winded. 

I hope you have had a good weekend....

happy anniversary to me!

in honor of our anniversary here are a few pictures from the wedding. 

spring break, what is that?

Friday at 4:25 i started Spring Break. What are my big spring break plans?  I will be spending the next week teaching intersession from 9 - 3, then having softball practice.  I will also be celebrating my one year wedding aniversary with my husband.  The second week of spring break I will be outside of San Antonio with my husband and his family.  I can't wait!

Are you on spring break? Do you have big plans? 

my feelings exactly!

Kim at Finding JOY in 6th grade ( http://joyin6th.blogspot.com/2012/03/to-blog-or-not-to-blog-blogdentity.html ) recently wrote an amazing post about blogging and I am going to use her post as a template today. 

Author's Purpose -
   I began blogging a few years ago for a few different reasons, my friends were blogging and I liked what I was reading, I had moved back to South Carolina and this was a great way to keep in touch with family and friends, I couldn't get on facebook at work (and I had a lame job) are the main reasons. 

  I have kept blogging because I have moved back to Oklahoma and this is still a great way to family and friends to know what I'm up to.  I have found amazing resources in the blogger community not to mention the fact that it helps knowing there are other teachers out there who care as much as I do.  Who let me know it's okay to have a bad day and that it doesn't mean you aren't a good teacher plus I am starting to "make friends" via blogger. 

What can I share? -
   This one is a big one for me because my lesson plans are EXTREMELY rigid as to what I can and can't do.  If you don't teach the program I teach then I can't help you but if you do then I'm an okay resource for you.  I don't follow the rules exactly because I can't.  Why can't I? I have big plans for myself and my future role in the education world (time will tell if i succeed) but it has a lot to do with helping with education reform and one of my BIGGEST convictions is that there is not one program perfect for every student.  YOU the teacher have to have the ability to tweak things to work for you and not get in trouble for it.  As a teacher we have a responsiblity to our students to help them succeed in life and for that I can't do something that I know will help my kids fail.  I have spent quite a few sleepless nights with that issue and finally after a good talk with my admistration I know I am doing the right thing for my kids. 
  I can share my thoughts, ideas, excitement and I hope I can make you laugh.  I think I am funny but then again I am crazy enough to teach 7th grade English where the word ain't is so common I tell strangers to  not say ain't.   oops! 
  I can also share my love of teaching!  I was the student that no one thought would graduate high school (reasons being another blog post in the near future) and now I have a Masters degree from an amazing school in the South.  (where they are beginning to get a fantastic football team!)


Options -
  I will continue to blog and hope that my rambling, rants, and raves are read by at least one person that understands, or cares.  I will also continue to blog because it makes me feel better.  I know that teachers are underappreciated, underpaid, overworked, but I want to share about the good things too.  Don't get me wrong I still will rant, but I will also make an effort to rave. 

So as my first rave thank you Kim for reminding me why I blog!