Soooo what a week.. all in all i'd say it actually went well.. Kids learned, kids paid attention, kids didn't talk too much, lessons went smoothly, was observed and all was good.
I mean i did have to call 911 one day b/c a girl thought it was a great idea to stick her finger in her desk in a little hole.. and let it get stuck. Only took, the principal, vice principal, art teacher, other third grade teacher, 2 custodians, vaseline, lotion, dishwashing liquid, 10 firefighters and a HUGE saw thingy to get her out.... haha no teaching went on THAT afternoon!
i did find some kinda scary news out today though. So thanks to president Bush all public schools are requiered to make no child left behind laws, which means basically that children are screwed, but every public school has to make something called AYP... what it stands for.. i don't really know, annoying yucky problems? awful yearly prognostics? i'm not really sure. But every school in KC has to take a test called hte MAP at the end of the year and score "proficient" to meet ayp. At the beginning of this year i was assured by my principal there was NO pressure for me and my other third grade teacher to make AYP b/c our kids were "too low to make it"
Fastforward to january.. principal meeting with me, other third grade teacher, principal, vice principal, and instructional coach... "So our only hope of making AYP this year is with third grade. They have made the most improvement throughout the year. They are the closest to getting AYP and if you really push kids a, b, c, d, e, f, and g you will make it.
WHICH A.
Is great.. our kids are learning! means something for us as teachers to see kids excel!
b. They only think some kids will excel and so we should forget about the rest
c. the next 3 months will consist of nothing but prepping my kids for a stupid standardized test taht in the long run will not teach them as much as my other plans would have
d. THE CLOSING OF MY SCHOOl rests on me and the other third grade teachers hands.....
e. DID I MENTION I"M A FIRST YEAR TEACHER!??
so that's a little overwhelming.. and honestly this public school system really goes against mine (and many people's) grain b/c it's teaching for a test.... which i'm going to try and not do the most i can.. while still doing, b/c if i don't... my kids wont have a school, and they will be sent to a much more dangerous /inconvenient school, and that would break my heart...
so that is all for now.. loong post, i do apologize.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
no time to teach
So it's the first week back since break (thanks to our 1 week snow week! Snow week 2010! :)
And yesterday went well! the kids remembered things, they knew their spanish, behaved well and things went smoothly.
This morning i find out taht i have to teach "Map Prep" AKA get those kids to get higher scores on a stupid fing test. I HAVE TO TEACH TWO 45 MINUTE BLOCKS. Which means out of the 4 hrs i actually have to teach my kids i will only have them for 2.5 hrs now... HOW IN THE WORLD AM I GOING TO TEACH THEM ANYTHING!?!?!? Not to mention map prep is in ENGLISH.... and i'm trying to teach my kids spanish.. HOW IN THE WORLD ARE THEY GOING TO LEARN SPANISH.... OOOOOO this district/countries education system REALLY frustrates me
And yesterday went well! the kids remembered things, they knew their spanish, behaved well and things went smoothly.
This morning i find out taht i have to teach "Map Prep" AKA get those kids to get higher scores on a stupid fing test. I HAVE TO TEACH TWO 45 MINUTE BLOCKS. Which means out of the 4 hrs i actually have to teach my kids i will only have them for 2.5 hrs now... HOW IN THE WORLD AM I GOING TO TEACH THEM ANYTHING!?!?!? Not to mention map prep is in ENGLISH.... and i'm trying to teach my kids spanish.. HOW IN THE WORLD ARE THEY GOING TO LEARN SPANISH.... OOOOOO this district/countries education system REALLY frustrates me
Monday, December 7, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
end of semester = no fun
i'm at the point where there's so much to do/ so uch stress, that i've just stopped getting stressed.. haven't decided if that's good or bad. For my health good.. haha for my students and grad grades, not the best. BUT i'm getting everything done, somehow.
I literally worked from the time i woke up to just now on stuff and i'm not even done, but i don't have the motivation/energy/strenght to do ne thing else right now.
The only thing keeping me going is the fact that this is the LAST week of grad school classes this semester! It's not even school that's stressing me now, it's GRAD School.. that's dumb.
i just got back from my 2nd professional development in Chicago which was awesome! We got a lot of good tips, learned how we shoudl re-vamp our program and what we need to become a strong dual langauge school, and got to see a couple dual language schools in the chicago area that are running very well! and it snowed... which is apparently nothing there but it made me excited :)
i've gone from highs to lows lows to highs, and right now i'm feeling pretty good about things, school is still stressful, and hard, but i just have to stop taking things peronsally.. i'm a little worried b/c of stupid paper work and "certification"" requirments that are just political and stupid and are probably going to get me fired in the end for forgetting to fill out some ambigious form that says the same thing that 500 other forms said, BUT my principal said that she wants to keep me and she doesn't care if i'm certified or not... so that makes me feel good, as long as she keeps her position.
i've had a few great things happen at school and some really sad things.
1st i found out one of my students is being VERY severely abused at home, and many people know about it and have done nothing.. my principal is going to take measures thank goodness, but it's super sad no one has before.
2nd a good thing, i had one of my english speaking students tell me yesterday that he is speaking/reading/understnading spanish! and granted not as much as he might think but he is doing loads better, as is a good majority of my class, AND the fact he's excited about it is a HUGE step!!!!!
3rd good thing-we raised our MAP predictor test scores by 15% (Map is the test we have to take to meet AYP because of no child left behind laws...) Granted we're still not close to meeting what we need yet, but a 15% jump in a semester is good! We're going to try to keep brining it up!
IT was great to go home for Thanksgiving but it felt like a whirlwind, and almost like it wasn't real because it was soo difffernt from what im doing here, so relaxing so doing nothing, and just nice o see family and some friends.
I look forward to having christmas though which is coming up soon, though i have a lot i aspire to achieve during break so we'll see how that goes!
this is long enough.. but it had been a while :) Until next time
I literally worked from the time i woke up to just now on stuff and i'm not even done, but i don't have the motivation/energy/strenght to do ne thing else right now.
The only thing keeping me going is the fact that this is the LAST week of grad school classes this semester! It's not even school that's stressing me now, it's GRAD School.. that's dumb.
i just got back from my 2nd professional development in Chicago which was awesome! We got a lot of good tips, learned how we shoudl re-vamp our program and what we need to become a strong dual langauge school, and got to see a couple dual language schools in the chicago area that are running very well! and it snowed... which is apparently nothing there but it made me excited :)
i've gone from highs to lows lows to highs, and right now i'm feeling pretty good about things, school is still stressful, and hard, but i just have to stop taking things peronsally.. i'm a little worried b/c of stupid paper work and "certification"" requirments that are just political and stupid and are probably going to get me fired in the end for forgetting to fill out some ambigious form that says the same thing that 500 other forms said, BUT my principal said that she wants to keep me and she doesn't care if i'm certified or not... so that makes me feel good, as long as she keeps her position.
i've had a few great things happen at school and some really sad things.
1st i found out one of my students is being VERY severely abused at home, and many people know about it and have done nothing.. my principal is going to take measures thank goodness, but it's super sad no one has before.
2nd a good thing, i had one of my english speaking students tell me yesterday that he is speaking/reading/understnading spanish! and granted not as much as he might think but he is doing loads better, as is a good majority of my class, AND the fact he's excited about it is a HUGE step!!!!!
3rd good thing-we raised our MAP predictor test scores by 15% (Map is the test we have to take to meet AYP because of no child left behind laws...) Granted we're still not close to meeting what we need yet, but a 15% jump in a semester is good! We're going to try to keep brining it up!
IT was great to go home for Thanksgiving but it felt like a whirlwind, and almost like it wasn't real because it was soo difffernt from what im doing here, so relaxing so doing nothing, and just nice o see family and some friends.
I look forward to having christmas though which is coming up soon, though i have a lot i aspire to achieve during break so we'll see how that goes!
this is long enough.. but it had been a while :) Until next time
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
soo cold
can i just say... that it's my lunch break and i'm freezing..
A. it's snowed today.. SNOWED and we had school.. that blows my mind. big snow, def not, but in NC, this would have been no school, AT LEAST a 2 hr delay.. i had to shovel snow off my car! :) haha
b. the heat in our building has been broken the last two days. today i was asked by a student if i have a cold b/c my nose is so red.. no it's just freezing, literally.
think that would happen in a suburban schooL? i think not.
A. it's snowed today.. SNOWED and we had school.. that blows my mind. big snow, def not, but in NC, this would have been no school, AT LEAST a 2 hr delay.. i had to shovel snow off my car! :) haha
b. the heat in our building has been broken the last two days. today i was asked by a student if i have a cold b/c my nose is so red.. no it's just freezing, literally.
think that would happen in a suburban schooL? i think not.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Thanksgiving
Can i just add how surprised i am to have learned this past week that
a. my kids have no idea what thanksgiving is
b. they barely know what a pilgrim and indian are
c. never heard of the mayflower (aka. my joke about it... would have flopped)
d. they have no idea why thanks should be given... even though it is a day called THANKSgiving.... hmmmm
a. my kids have no idea what thanksgiving is
b. they barely know what a pilgrim and indian are
c. never heard of the mayflower (aka. my joke about it... would have flopped)
d. they have no idea why thanks should be given... even though it is a day called THANKSgiving.... hmmmm
starting over
today i took a step back.. cause i'd been getting really annoyed w/ my kids lately and feeling like they were just doing stuff to drive me crazy. HOWEVER today i didn't take it personally.... and today was a mUCH bettter day... can blame it on the fact that i was missing 4 kids... but i think it was my attitude change :)
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