IDK What to Title This Thing

That's honest; I really don't know what to title this post. I just know that I need to write, and here's my avenue:

• I survived? I think? I don't know. Probably. Towards the end of the semester, I got better at recognizing that my Teacher/Personal/Life To-Do List will never have all the items crossed off on it, so why fight it? Some things are more important today than others. Sleep is always important. Maintaining physical and mental health comes first. I have successfully maintained both, so let's say that I have survived!

• Graduate school is still BS. Even though I squeaked out good grades in both of my classes this semester, my opinion on the institution has not changed. In fact, it may have declined. The sad part? I've come to terms with the fact that grad school will be a part of my life through the Ph.D program I will inevitably complete. While I have time during this break, I may go back and explain my problems with my M.A.T. program at GSU as they go deep and wide. I promise though, not tonight.

• Maintaining a "personal life" and teaching is hard. Right now, it seems downright impossible, as all I see in my future are cats and balls of yarn. Internet dating, anyone? (I'm joking!) Seriously though, is internet dating in my imminent future? :O 

•  I'm super thankful for my job, the brilliant colleagues of mine who are directly responsible for keeping me from teetering over the proverbial mental edge, graduate school (grudgingly), and my wonderful family and friends who have supported me in this whirlwind year. To recap my year:
• November 2010: Accepted into grad school
• December 2010: Graduated with my undergrad degree/ Quit my part-time job of five years at the daycare
• January 2011: Began grad school
• February 2011: Started applying for teaching jobs
• April 2011: Hired as a science teacher in my beloved charter school :)
• May-July 2011: The ridiculous summer of 21 grad hour credits
• July/August 2011: Orientation at my beloved charter school
• August 16, 2011: First day of as an actual teacher at my beloved charter school
• December 16, 2011: End of first semester as an actual teacher at my beloved charter school

As much as I bitch about my life, I couldn't be more blessed. I asked for all of this, and I got it! While it is way more than I bargained for, I'm actually happy. Sure, some things and people have gotten left behind in this whirlwind, but I'm starting to see that it's for the better. 

Until 2012 (or sooner if I actually do the right thing and write)! Have a Happy Whatever-You-Celebrate (or Not). In my case, Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

- Insane Teacher

I need a bottle of fine whine...

Let's open this bottle of fine whine:

• Parents are crazy. From the "outside" looking in, perfectly reasonable (I'm assuming) people go absolutely nuts over their kids, whether it's necessary or not. Time to reevaluate the sanity of mine. Surely, they weren't this kooky? Right?

• Field trips are crazy. And tiring. And time consuming. 



At least, I got to come back with this. 

• Testing sucks. Developing a test or compiling test questions is the most soul-sucking task I've had yet as a teacher. Test days themselves suck. It takes all I have to not say after 10 minutes, "All right! 100s for participation. Let's talk about the energy transformation in explosions!"

• Graduate school and being a first-year teacher is the one of the worst situations I've ever put myself into. Seriously. 

Honestly, it would all be easier without this "Theory and Pedagogy in Middle Childhood Science and Math" class in my life. Or maybe it is the self-congratulating professor I could do without. Normally, I don't like calling specifics out in my life, so I don't. However, this class will be an exception. Excuse me for a moment while I go all "Inception" on my fine whines.

• Assigned readings that are 30 pages are a waste of time, especially when we don't discuss it or we discuss it at a superficial level. Why the hell are we wasting time figuring out how cells can relate to students? Let's talk about the variety of research on inquiry-based teaching methods. No? We're seriously going to talk about dude in the back and his adventure with an unruly student (which is the same "adventure" every teacher deals with at some point in time)? Yup. Wasted afternoon. 

• By the way, discussing the definition of the word does not a deep conversation make. No joke, an entire session was dedicated to what does the word "inquiry" mean. Did this lead to a conversation on what makes a good inquiry-based lesson or lab versus a bad one? No, it did not. Yet another Tuesday afternoon wasted. 

• Oh. I take the last bullet back (partially). We did discuss what some other dude who reported on another dude's research said made a good inquiry-based lab. However, I've got a question. When exactly do we let the students come up with their own instructions on how to do the lab (open-question inquiry lab, BTW)? I know we are all "constructivist" and stuff, but should I really let them "construct" their own labs without anything else beforehand? How reasonable is this? When in the "learning cycle" should we try to implement this? No discussion? No. Okay. And we're back to another wasted Tuesday afternoon. 

• Please stop telling us how awesome your lesson was unless we are about to deconstruct it to figure out why it was good, especially if you are not going to share what you did. You're wasting class time. 

My bottle of fine whine is empty, so I'll end on positive notes about my original three bullets. 

• If I were a parent, I would go just as hard for my kid. While it is annoying sometimes juggling parents, I try to keep in mind that (a) these crazy parents kept the doors of my school open, and (b) these parents actually respect me and my word enough that they ask me the 1,987,378,432 questions that they do. 

• Field trips are crazy. And tiring. And time consuming. But hell of a lot of fun. I had a good time experiencing the wonders of life with them, and more importantly, they had a good time and learned a lot!

•  Testing is still a drag, but it's a necessary evil that I'll learn to live with. Besides, it is a good feeling when they do well. 

If it is not obvious, let me state it: I love teaching. I love my school and my kids (though I don't say it enough to them). I hate graduate school :)

Five Minutes of Reflection #1

Nothing with be titled "...of the week" anymore, as it makes me a liar. My last post was on the 31st of last month, and it is now the 13th. Boo.

I'm feeling reflective between the 900 visitors in my classroom throughout the week and grad class this evening, so here's 5 minutes' worth of thoughts.

• The Director of our network/district visited my classroom. With a visitor. While I was standing on a desk. Shoeless. I didn't get fired, so yay? In all seriousness, it's how I roll in my classroom. I leave hoarse everyday and tired as crap, but they can't help but be engaged in the insanity of "Insane" teacher's class. I think I'm that teacher. Similar to that kid, except in adult form and much more appropriate. 
• First official evaluation this week from two sides: Principal and University Supervisor. On the same day. At the same time. Both went well! I'm happy to saw the the principal actually commented me on my tables (these pictures of my room will happen one day) and boards. The US said my lesson was "wonderful". Though I never thought of myself as a person who needs praise, it felt freaking great to hear the positive feedback on my teaching. While I get this from the kids through assignments and assessments, it's nice to hear knowledgeable and respectable superiors say that I'm doing a pretty good job. This is especially important in light of the days where I ask myself if they are actually learning. 

I've gone over 5 minutes. It's been 7 minutes, so here's where I stop. Until next time. 

Teaching Fails of the Week #1

I think as a way to commiserate with other teachers, and hopefully, make other new teachers feel better, I will share my fails so far. What they don't tell you in teacher education classes is that it is 100% guaranteed that:

- You will not be efficient.
- Your to-do list will NEVER empty.
- You will feel like you are running in place.
- You will NOT be an awesome teacher your first few weeks (months?).

Without further ado, I present Insane Teacher's fails of the week:

- I fried my kids' brains. I thought teaching independent variables and dependent variables would be easy, especially because I had them set up an experiment on Friday with the intent to refer to it as a live example. Nope. Twenty minutes into 1st period, I knew that I would have to scrap my lesson plans. 2 weeks into the school year, 2 lesson plans altered by Wednesday.

- I learned to never to labs and hands-on activities without at least a day's worth of prep beforehand. Friday was hectic, and it was all because I didn't think my lab set-up through. I'm about to commit the same faux pas tomorrow, it seems, as I have scrapped tomorrow's activity in favor of another.

- If you are doing a lab with fire, please know what you are doing. I'll post the picture later on what happened. Let's just say that I'm happy that the incident happened on the weekend and out of sight of the students.

- Grad school + full-time teaching + being a first year = INSANITY. This is all caused by idiocy on my part. I'm now questioning my decision-making skills :)

There are more fails I'm missing here, but these are the biggest ones I've made. Despite my fails, I'm learning from them. Theoretically, the number of fails will decrease each week. However, as I've learned in my first two weeks of teaching, the theoretical rarely matches to the actual. 

Student-teacher or teacher-teacher?

As some of you may know, I am in a master's degree/certification program, meaning that at the end of this shindig, I will leave with full teaching credentials in my fields along with a master's degree. In my cohort, most of everyone is a career switcher and has never taught before in a classroom. There are a small handful of people already teaching on provisional credentials. And then there's me, never taught before but has a job for the fall. 

[For those who have read my previous posts, yes, I was a fellow at a charter, but riding a bike with training wheels is different from riding one without the training wheels. Just saying.]

I'm in the weird in-between space. The "non-teachers" will be student-teaching for the year, while the "teacher" will use their classroom as their "student-teaching" experience. Technically, I'm considered as the latter, yet I feel like I should be considered as the prior. As I was emailing a friend, I said something along the lines of "...you will be a great asset to your students, be it as a student-teacher or a teacher-teacher".

How ridiculous was that! What does that mean? While I'm getting more comfortable with the fact that, hey, I will have my own classroom in the few weeks, I still feel like I have much to learn about teaching, curriculum, instruction, and the list continues. I know that I can be at least a good teacher for my students this year, but I won't be the best, precisely because I am still a student of teaching, curriculum, instruction, etc. I don't know everything or even a lot, right now. 

Officially, we are teachers, bur aren't we all student-teachers? Don't we have to continue to learn about teaching and everything that it is loaded with it? Do "teacher-teachers" even exist? If so, can you contact me, because I've got some brain-picking to do?

 Update: I just found out that some schools call teachers in training "preservice" and practicing teachers "inservice". I like this delineation much better. 

I Stand Corrected: 1st Edition

"If you are going home fried because your kids were nutso, you shouldn't be thinking about what rules were broken or what you'er are going to do to the kids. You should be thinking about your lesson and what you did. Good teaching is your best defense." - Professor S.

I stand corrected about this graduate school thing. If hear nothing else helpful during graduate school, this statement was what I needed. To recall, my last post "What's the point?" has an answer...Good teaching.

Cue Mr. Freeman....

"What's the point of this?"

More and more, I find myself thinking this in my grad classes this summer. Admittedly, this is partly due to fatigue, boredom, frustration, et cetera. The other reason why may be more justifiable.

In these education classes, I've already heard, "Make sure your instructional decisions are beneficial to your students," a million times. Got it, professors. Now, you sure your instructional decisions are beneficial to your students, especially because you teach in a college of education and should know better. 

To be fair, this is not an attack on them. They are all smart people with good-intentions in training teachers. However, some of them are guilty of making us do extraneous/cutesy/redundant/pointless/redundant assignments. How many reflections does each professor need? Why are we not learning or reviewing middle school math content in a content class? Why are we doing math puzzles in a content class? Are five chapters in five different books with the same perspective of the same subject necessary to discuss? While we, the future teachers, are supposed to be thinking about the purpose of homework or notes and why a hands-on might be better than direct instruction, it seems that some professors are sleeping at the wheel and not thinking about their craft. 

"Ms. 'Insane' Teacher? Ms. 'Insane' Teacher"

I have no problem with reflecting upon what we discuss.  Nor do I have a problem with reading a bunch of chapters every night as long as there is some sort of larger point to them all and it is not repetitive! In fact, I welcome the reflections and readings; it forces me to think critically about the decisions I make in the classroom and why I make them. I do have a problem with hypocrisy. If you are going to teach about good teaching, you must practice what you teach.

If only Magic Squares and Sudoku were a part of the curriculum.