I am not a big fan of Christmas.

The holiday season is very depressing. I have a lot to be thankful for, but not a lot to be happy about besides the obvious: my son, my very immediate family, my job. The rest, ehhh.

I no longer get holiday cards except from the dentist and others who want money. I tried sending out a lot of cards right after my divorce, but most did not reciprocate. The card count gets fewer each year.

Money is really tight.

It is supposed to be a time of vacation, but while the other teachers will have the time off, I will be busting my ass fixing all the things that don't work.

I don't have to worry about my school homework anymore.

I think I'll play a lot of video games over the next four weeks, especially World of Warcraft. I blame Mr. T for that great ad. I want to be a level 10 mohawk wearin' blood elf too.

The one good thing is that I can't feel any of this. The Prozac evens me right out, so I can write this dispassionately.

The holiday season sucks.

Don't anybody panic, I don't own a gun or intend to do anything dangerous, I'm just saying, I hate the holidays. Period.

I've allowed myself to be jammed up with work and life for quite a while, and I'm finally at a point where I can reflect, collect my thoughts, and organize them here.

I am at the 10 week reporting period, and have spent a fair bit of today entering grades. A large number of my studetns haven't completed their work, so most of the grades don't reflect their effort. The return on homework has been about 30% and some of my students are sliding a bit.

I had them answer 5 questions as a warm up the other day:

What have you learned in the last 10 weeks?
What do you like about the class?
What do you dislike about the class?
What do you want to learn in the next 20 weeks?
What suggestions do you have to improve the class?

And since they had to give their names, I am sure some of the sunshiny answers were for my benefit, but I did get some good honest feedback. Some find it boring, some too hard, some too fast, some too slow, many want to play more and work less, and most don't like reading and writing. Some students (about 10%) are really taking what I'm teaching and running with it; I've got about 5 really great artists and 5 with serious potential. Another 10% are really giving their best effort, and the rest are a bit lost or don't give a crap. I've tried teaching by direct instruction, by video taping, having them explore, used thinking maps and such, but the results are rather spotty.

I spent Saturday at a really amazing training given by Quantum Learning, which a couple of teachers at my school had attended and brought back some new techniques for managing student engagement (keeping them interested in what you are teaching). At first I was really skeptical, as I heard about having the students cross their arms to shift them into a learning mode, but some of the things the trainer demonstrated was really amazing. So, some of the ings I am going to try tomorrow are:

1. Greeting them at the door with a high 5 or a "whatsup"
2. Using Otis Reddings' "I Can See Clearly Now" or Katrina & the Waves' "Walking on Sunshine" as an entry song, to get them in their chairs and ready to go
3. Use the Mission Impossible theme to collect homework.
4. Teach the 8 Keys of Success over the next few weeks.
5. Use callbacks to seat vocabulary & concepts in their mind.
6. Use Aretha Franklin's "RESPECT" as my closeout & cleanup song.

The 8 Keys are:
Integrity
Commitment
Flexibility
Balance
This is It
Failure Leads to Success
Speak with Good Purpose
Ownership

The lesson for Ownership was really powerful, and I can't wait to teach it to my kids. It goes something like this:

Have the kids play SImon Says, very fast and in another laguage if possible. Watch how they play, don't correct or make judgements like "You're Out." Observe how students react to winning & losing. Then talk them through how some lay blame "you went too fast, you cheated, I don't speak !" Others justifty their quitting or cheating "he/she did it, I didn't do anything wrong", others deny "I wasn't out!" and others just quit, saying to those watching that they don't have what it takes to compete.

Those play the victim, and they are living Below the Line.

Others made choices to do their best, and from those choices they have freedom, power & respond-ability. They live Above the Line, where they take ownership of what happens to them.

So the question becomes: Where are You Living?

This paradigm shift was very powerful for me, and I hope & pray that I can convey this message to the kids. I'm going to start smaller, with a lesson on Integrity, but I am really excited that the Ownership lesson can help change what I perceive as a quitter's culture, an attitude that it is ok to fail, that I fell is pervasive among our students.

To do that, I have to take a hard look at myself and ask truthfully, am I living above the line?

No day but today, it's a good place to start.

School has begun, and we are back in the trenches, ducking and weaving, sticking and moving...

It has been a really weird summer. My head was just not screwed on right throughout July, and I don't know why. I think I was mentally exhausted from teaching, and really needed to take a fun vacation. Unfortunately, I scheduled a bunch of activities at the front end of July that really wore me out, and I had a crushing load of homework to do for my credential. These things gave my an excuse to kick in my lazy procrastinator gene, and I got very little done.

August was very full, due to all the trainings I had to do for work. I met all the new teachers from both schools, and we developed a camaraderie which will help us be quite a team this year. I am really looking forward to it.

My boy and I managed to get away for a road trip to see a bunch places like the O.K. Corral shootout at Tombstone, Arizona, the National Space Museum at Alamogordo, New Mexico, the National Scouting Museum in Irving, Texas, the Kennedy assassination exhibit in Dallas, and the Alamo in San Antonio. We spent a couple of days vegging in a motel while I attended online trainings for school (again!), and we got back in plenty of time to get ready for school.

My boy is off to a good start this year. He really didn't enjoy school last year, and was a bit nervous. However, he really likes his teacher and wants to impress her, so he is fired up and motivated.

I am teaching visual arts with technology (still trying to shake the tag of 'computer teacher') to our 7th grade, all kids I had last year who drove me up a wall. My technology failed me on Thursday, so that class was a disaster, and Friday's got a little out of hand as the students were more interested in chatting than working, so I am going to have to go over routine and discipline on Monday. Should be fun!

We also kicked off scouts last night, which was good for my son, but I got a bit aggravated by one of the other adult leaders letting his den run around like a bunch of hooligans. I didn't come to this pack to be the enforcer, and most of the kids are great, but this particular den of little snots runs the place ragged and sets bad examples for the rest of the kids. I had to leave because I didn't want to yell at kids. I do that enough in my day job, and I'm trying to quit anyway.

I've got an incredible amount of work to do this weekend, so I had better get to it. Toodles!

I've been alternately cleaning and relaxing, going through my paperwork and napping frequently, and I'm having trouble getting the important stuff done for all the details that are in the way. Every time I sit down to work on my homework, thoughts of next year's curriculum dance in my head. I'm resisting doing my homework, almost to the point of going into work on a Sunday during vacation! Very weird.

I watched a little t.v., but I can't really get into it. I've got three movies from Netflix that I have to watch and return, but of course I'm not watching those. I'd like to go see a movie, but I have too much laundry to do and no one to accompany me to the theater. And of course, I'm not doing laundry right now since every one in the apartment complex is fighting over the few working machines.

It's a lovely day outside, but I'm hiding inside with the A/C on full blast.

Gah....

I think I'll work on my website for a while.

I do have two seasons of Law&Order CI and two of House, M.D. to watch, plus a bunch of novels I've only read about three times... and all my back homework is due by next Sunday night....

Well, the school year is finally over. I've taught middle school technology for nine months, and I've successfully completed my first year as a teacher, which everyone says is the absolute worst year of your life.

The last week was crazy, as all of the projects were showing their work. I declined to show our project because it was not complete. I should have asked the kids, but I didn't want them embarrassed because we really didn't have anything to show. The students learned a bit about web design, but didn't get beyond the code examples I gave them. When I asked them to create something new, all I got back was mishmashed copies of the samples. I need to rethink how I teach this. Some kids got close and they got Bs. Those who screwed off got Ds and the rest got Cs.

Some of the projects really hit a home run, like the female gender studies project was awesome. They did a fashion show that explored female roles and perceptions of females in society, and I think it was exactly what these kids needed. The video classes did pretty well too. Some projects didn't really come together, they had something to show for themselves at the end of the week.

I finally completed the yearbook in time for kids to have their friends sign them, so I feel really good about that. I'm looking forward to having the students run it next year, this was way too much work for me. I wasn't as happy with the outcome, but this was the first year they had a yearbook, so I've set a standard to beat for next year.

The last day was rather tumultuous. There was a reading test for the first hour, a barbecue for the 8th graders, the rest of the grades were in each class for about 20 minutes, so everyone got a chance to say goodbye for the summer. School let out at 12:30pm, and all of us just at there, our brains stunned into submission with fatigue. There were a lot of last minute preparations for graduation, which included my designing a 5 foot wide check, the results of which I am very proud.

The graduation ceremony was very nice. The girls wore a lot of 50s style dresses, and the boys were more or less in basic black. All but three students got to walk in the ceremony, with three knuckleheads still wondering why they were excluded at the very end. Maybe because you haven't turned in any work for three years? Maybe because you have straight Fs? Maybe because you've been suspended multiple times? Any clue? No? Oh well.... When you shake your head, do you hear a bell? A crashing sound? A whistling sound?

The math teacher put together a great little video clip of all the kids playing around to the tune of "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves. He spent a ridiculous amount of time otherwise dedicated to sleep to completing the video, and it was awesome.

After the ceremony and reception, we had to clean up, which included getting down some runaway balloons that were stuck to the 30 foot high curved ceiling. There occurred an incident where I earned the nickname "Cowgirl" which is a story that requires drinking to be understood.

All in all, it was great to see the kids graduate, and I'll miss them. I hope I taught them something, and I'm worried about them getting lost in the system, but it's time for them to fly away on their own. Next year I'll deal exclusively with 7th graders, who were all the 6th graders who gave me a hard time this year. Should be fun!

The day after school we teachers and staff got together to "reflect" on things, which was not so much a retrospection but more of a looking forward, what worked and what didn't so we could do better next year. We finished up some more barbecue, and sat around decompressing from the long year. I couldn't think clearly in the morning, awash in fatigue, but by the afternoon I was a whole lot more coherent and a lot more relaxed.

Most of the staff is coming back, although there are a couple of exceptions. Luckily, the core team is staying, and I'll be a veteran when we bring on the 3 - 5 new teachers next year. I'm still attending the newbie training because I missed it last year. We have a great team, and it was very gratifying to see the love and respect that we have for each other, and how much we are valued by our bosses, our students and each other. There is something deeply satisfying being part of a team that works well. It reminds me of the synergy of competitive rowing. Nine guys pulling together in perfect harmony, making the boat flying across the water, no friction, all motion, it is one of the greatest sensations, and being a part of this team is a lot like that. We may not have won the race, but together we flew.

I've spent the last two days cleaning up my house, clearing away the layers of cruft and discarded chores, burrowing through to the things I need to get done this week, like six weeks of homework. July will be a somewhat relaxing month, with two weeks of scouting activities and a visit from a cousin from Texas. I might take a quick trip to the Boy Scout Museum, but otherwise my boy and I are swimming and playing video games. I have a bunch of trainings to attend in August, so it will feel like I am starting school a month early.

However, I look forward to doing a much better job in the coming year than I did this year. I know intellectually that I did the best I could, but now that I know my mistakes, I regret them deeply, as they affected students. I'm worried that one of my students will come back in 5 years and say "you yelled at me and I didn't learn anything." I hope that some of what I taught sank in, but I am not so sure. I'm fired up for next year, and have already started my planning. It should be a fun ride!

More ramblings to follow, as I avoid my homework load... :-)

Ok, the scouting outing went just ok. There were not many there, and everybody was late. I don't get it, when the time 10am, then show the heck at 10am! My scout pack has gotten into this habit of dragging their butts in late. Next time it will be 9am! Grrr, pet peeve exercised.

Anyway, it was a cleanup project at the beach, and the kids spent about 30 minutes picking up garbage in the sand and 3 hours in the 55 degree water. There was no stopping them! We had waaaay too much food, so the lifeguards got lunch courtesy of the cub scouts.

As for the rest...
I am going it to work to complete the yearbook layout, and then start copying it. At some point tomorrow I have to get a punch and a bunch of coil bindings so I can get it bound by Wednesday.

My project class technically finished last Friday, but all of my kids are running behind so I'm holding off giving grades until the middle of the week so they can try to get more done. This was quite a learning experience... One sad note, I had to bust a kid in my class who was about to fire up some adult flash games, and that kid wont have access to a computer to finish his project. Its too bad, because he was looking at an A, but now the best he can do is a C. Stupid mistake, but we have no tolerance for that stuff.

I'm holding off on homework for another week, and then I will try to jam 6 weeks of my teaching credential program into one week. Should be fun.

I think I'll wait on the installations & wiring till the middle of July, but I have to finish the service calls on the laptops on Monday, so they can get fixed by Friday.

I can't wait till Friday, when the kids will be on vacation, whew!

There is a boatload of planning to be done for next year, so best to get it done as early as possible.

My AnonyMom suggests I might be taking on too much. She is probably right, but if I didn't do this, who would? I've always had this quote in my head, but I can't find its origins: "Who will difficult things? He who can."

If that doesn't work for you, try this: “The impossible we do at once; the miraculous takes a little longer,” - U.S. Armed Forces, http://www.bartleby.com/73/1183.html

What a lousy night's sleep. My mind just would not stop going over all the things I have to do. I am coordinating a scouting outing this weekend at the beach, and I've left everything to the last minute. I have to go shopping at the local 24hr WalMart to get ready, pick up two 6ft sandwiches at my local subway, pick up my new Webelos I scout, and race out to the beach, all the while maintaining my composure. Last night a friend wanted to go out and catch a movie with me, but I just couldn't tear myself away. I spent the majority of yesterday afternoon working on my school's yearbook, which is presently a publishing disaster. I've got to get this thing laid out, printed and bound no later than Wednesday. Sheesh.

My faculty advisor came out to observe my teaching, but a reading test scrubbed my teaching time, so my observation was pencil-whipped, even though I was sweating that visit something fierce. It turned into a jawing session and a "see you next term!"

Gah.

I can't wait for this week to be done so I can take a break from work.

I am a mental and physical disaster area.

However, this is hope, as I did drag my lazy butt downstairs and worked the treadmill for the first time in a long while. Let's see if this becomes a habit...

Back on May 23rd, I took the CSET test, a three part, five hour survey of everthing I had ever forgotten. It was a $300 gamble, and it paid off, I passed all three sections. Wow. I sweated this thing something fierce, and only had a week to prepare. I did it, and now I can get my intern credential and be a real teacher instead of masquerading as one (NCLB certified, wheee!). It feels awesome.

Now, I just have to catch up to the rest of my class who had already taken it, and are on the normal schedule of assignments. I can't handle the slow schedule, I can't see how I'm going to get caught up. Oh well, time to quit complaining and do what Dora from "Finding Nemo" always says: "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."

Today I don't have to go into work, as we are getting back a holiday we had to work earlier in the year. I's so glad that this opportunity has come along, so I can spend today focused on homework and getting a lot done. My boy is still in school for four more days, so I am on my own, and I've got a list...

I had an easy weekend, but chose to relax instead of fight my way through my homework. Time to pay the piper!