Did I mention...

I PASSED that god-awful social sciences: political science test from early October?

HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA *draws breath*

OH my gawd. I can't believe I passed it, but I did. There were maybe five genuine poli sci questions on it, I swear. I got something like 30 more points than needed, which I think is pretty good.

I will be able to pull the trifecta people: English, history AND government. Right-wingers everywhere, lock up your kids! Because I's a gonna edumacate your chillen!

On a complete aside, the sheer number of parents who don't - you know - actually PARENT astounds me. Every week I hear of something stupid a parent does. The parent that claims education, values, whatever is important. Trust me, folks, your kids aren't going to know or appreciate the value of hard-work, dedication, integrity, accountability, etc., if all they have to look at is your pitiful example. I've got parents pulling kids out of classes for a week or more to go on some fancy pants cruise, vacation or attend a wedding. Better yet, a parent whose real concern in DEMANDING a make up exam well past the deadline is not because the are concerned about the child's education. No, no, no. It's because if little Joe or Mary doesn't get that good G.P.A., the car insurance (for the brand new car mummy and daddy bought their darling) will be higher.

YOU PEOPLE ARE PATHETIC.

Also: still hate sitting through 90 minute masses. Please send booze. I'm telling you, halfway through I wanted nachos, a beer and several chasers.

I did nothing today. That was bad. Because now I have waaay too much grading to get done tomorrow. Egads. I just needed a day OFF though.

Not a fantastic start...

Talk about staying one step ahead here, and flying by the seat of your pants.

 

Today, I did the briefest of brief cruises about Expository writing. I know what it is (duh), but teaching it is another matter. I was re-reading my info over it last night.

 

So I was already feeling shakey about that, and then I could NOT sleep. I kept flailing in my sleep. Then, around 2am, I got a horrific case of cramps. Damn it all. I managed to swallow down some advil and then I just squirmed in pain for about an hour until I was finally able to fall asleep.

 

Unsure of material, crampy, sleepless and cranky. What a fantastic way to attempt to teach. I was SO CLOSE to throwing in the towel and calling in sick. Kept having to give myself a pep talk this morning: fake it till you make it.

 

And then, the mother of one of my students emailed questioning her daughter's score on the essay. Good student, really, but she handed it in LATE. Per my C.T.'s already long established procedures, late material is only worth 1/2 the possible points. So, thankfully, my C.T. was able to quickly and effectively counter the parent on that, but it still sucks. These parents would be better off telling their kids to do their work ON TIME. Believe me, when you get to college, your professors are going to laugh in your face.

Sad and Pathetic

It's terribly pathetic that mid-way through my
semester of STUDENT TEACHING (as in, not fully
fledged) I am already dreading and procrastinating at
grading these damn paragraphs of my students.

I know, I know. I don't mark them down over what I
haven't taught them. But the writing is ATROCIOUS. I
think I could run out of ink in my red pen.

No. Not going to run out of ink. Will resist. Will
only mark up one or two examples of things they did
wrong on their respective paragraphs, then tell them
to be on the lookout.

If they're ever to write well, they need to WRITE AND
WRITE AND WRITE MORE.

Realizations

I teach by the seat of my pants. It's a good thing I kissed the Blarney Stone again last year.

 

AND

 

If I have to tell one more kid to tuck in their damn shirt today to be in dress code, I'm going to HURL.

Bad Day

I had to bear witness to the "dog and pony" show today.

 

I'm going to be in a foul mood for the rest of the day.

Weekly Journal

     The day and night difference between my two morning classes continues. The first class makes me feel like the whole week has been frustrating. The second class makes me feel that I might actually belong in a classroom.

            The students had a quiz over the first half of our grammar unit on the parts of the sentence on Monday. I started grading them right away after the classes, and was just shocked. The average for Period B was a D+/C-. Period D was a little better at a C. Honestly, there were a lot of careless mistakes. In the diagramming, some of the students had the right content, but did not diagram correctly (crooked lines, or modifier lines going in the wrong direction). I think what was very clear was that the majority of the students did NOT study, nor did they take notes in class. They didn't even use the study guide I gave them at the start of the unit. A study guide, I must point out, that essentially GAVE them many of the answers. I can't even tell you how many students could not tell me the four types of sentences and that was on my study sheet! Front and center!

            I had at least two students tell me "But I did [x,y,z]…," and I had to tell them, "but is that what the instructions told you?" Not to mention, what they did do didn't answer the questions I was asking. I might have been lenient had they just come to a correct answer via an alternate method, but that wasn't what they were doing.

            Tuesday I had to lay the hammer down about taking notes in class and cutting down on careless mistakes. I pointed out the study guide again as well, and told them there was really no excuse to have missed things like the four types of sentences considering it was on there directly. When I asked if anyone studied, most said they hadn't. Today (Wednesday) I gave back the quizzes and I think the lights finally went on about how important it is to ask questions and take notes in class, especially for the B group. The D group, immediately after my Tuesday talk, really stepped up and started asking lots of good questions about the content. [Whereas I still feel B wasn't taking me seriously and/or giving me the "screw you" kind of attitude on Tuesday.]

            Like I said: NIGHT and DAY difference.

It was a bad day

For the students, really, but I don't feel so hot either! So, I administered my first quiz today. It was on the first half of our parts of the sentence schtick. It's a darn good thing my C.T. told me to make it worth a lot less. If not, these kids would all be failing.

I guess now I get to tell these kids that this is what happens when you don't take notes like you're supposed to. They were all "lah de dah" half the time. And they were like "you're not going to have the diagram models up on the wall????!!!!" Uh, no. The point is for you to KNOW this stuff, Einsteins.

I don't know how many times I've told them, you will NEVER EVER EVER infinity find your subject in a prepositional phrase. So, I put in what I thought was a "gimmee" question on the quiz. "True or False: You can find a subject in a prepositional phrase. " The second class all go it right, but my first class? It's like I never even taught them. Half the time they're not awake anyway.

A lot of the diagrams were atrocious, too. I'm going to have to inundate them with diagramming homework for the next four days. I know diagramming is the ass-end of exciting, but come on. When did I ever show you diagram models with crooked lines? YES, it DOES matter if your line for an adjective or adverb is straight or if you make it "L" shaped because the L shape means something completely different! Like: indirect object!

My C.T. was astounded when I showed her some of the quizzes. I told her I felt so bad and was wondering was it me? She told me to go over the stuff again, assign more diagramming, but that she thought I gave them every opportunity to ask questions and they were the ones not taking notes. Hell, I practically begged them to ask me questions.

Today, I told them that if I wrote it up on the board, then they'd better be taking notes. They grudgingly took out their notebooks. (Don't even get me started on this one kid who habitually doesn't bring a freaking pencil or pen to class. Seriously, I'm going to start keeping tabs on how often he does this in the next week. If it gets insane, I will forbid him from asking someone else for a pen, and then I'll tell him he's got a choice. He will either serve a detention for habitually coming to class unprepared, or he can take a detention and either get a pen from someone or from his locker.) Tomorrow, when they get their quizzes back, especially the first class, I am going to tell them again: 1) TAKE NOTES and 2)ASK QUESTIONS.

Redundancy

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I have to question the purpose of essentially handing in the same work TWICE.

I already have to fill out a weekly report sheet; why do I have to have another weekly journal? It's just going to be the same material.

This irks me. Severely.

GAAAH!

This completely sucks! I SUCK!

I am totally jumping all over the place for parts of
sentence and diagramming. I had to totally overhaul my
gameplan for tomorrow and the rest of the week.

*whimpers*

First Lesson

Well, it wasn't horrible. But I didn't exactly *like* it either. Straight grammar is never going to be a barn burner of a lesson for students, is it?!

 

I had some students I love already really make an effort to contribute, bless 'em. Somehow I wound up with a group of boys (did group work) who were chatting about anything but what I was doing in class. Guh.

 

One boy who I suspected would not bring in his homework - did not bring in his homework. Not a surprise. That kid is totally dialling it in. If he's still in this school by next semester I'd be shocked. Does he dislike it here that much? He should just tell his parents to stop wasting the tuition money and send him off to public. Of course, his parents' whole point may be that this institution may be the only place he's got a hope of doing well in because of the tight discipline. Well, it only works so far you know. Then the kid and the parents have to kick in.

 

Planning period now. Have to go on stage again in about thirty minutes. I hope this class is more lively than the first one. Need to make some adjustments - have kids do definition of subject and predicate first before underlining and circling them.

 

I think I am dreading my supervisor's visit this Thursday, though. Seriously, this grammar is B O R I N G.

Today is the Day

I take over my first two classes. Nervous. I worry
about my plans either having too little or too much
time. You just can't tell how fast the students are
going to go through this until...you start!

Well, I should know how good or how bad by 11:34
today!

Nightmares, Veterans and Being Discreetly Truthful

I had a nightmare last night. I completely cocked up
my lesson plan and my faceless cooperating teacher or
supervisor (my actual CTs and supervisor didn't
appear, it was just a "generic" person) just GRILLED
me. I woke up stressed. Not a very restful night!

RIDDLE ME THIS: Why is it that the 25 year veteran
teacher that I just observed today is the one who
seems the most "current"? This dude is great from what
I saw today. He gets the kids into reading circles,
discussion circles, and pairs! And most miraculous of
all, he makes grammar PART OF the daily lesson instead
of just skill and drilling it to death. He told me
he's still got to do a discreet lesson on grammar, but
he likes incorporating bits of it in as they go.
HELLO! Someone give the man a medal!

He also stresses personal accountability. He had a
great story to tell the kids today. He received a
phone call from a concerned mother of a student in one
of his other classes. That mother was working with her
student to help her get through The Scarlett Letter.
That class, like the one I observed, does a lot of
group work. Apparently the student must have mentioned
to her mother that some people in her group weren't
doing the reading or contributing. The mother wanted
to know from the teacher, "What are you going to do
about it? This isn't fair."

I practically laughed when I heard the teacher say
that and his reply: "Well, what do you want me to? I
can hold a gun to their head and tell them to do it,
but if they're not going to do it, they're not going
to do it." And again the mom is like "that's not
fair." Well, of course it's not, but chill out. I
would have been biting my tongue trying not to tell
the woman she should just mind her own business. Great
- I applaud her efforts at being involved and
providing scholastic support for her child. EVERY
parent should do that. But like the teacher said, if a
kid wants to screw around, they're going to. They have
to be responsible for their own actions. If you're not
going to do your homework, fine, but your grades are
going to suffer for it and eventually you will face
the consequences of your actions. That was the big
point he made: choices and consequences...karma. He
went on to say to the class that he knew well enough
that some of them weren't keeping up, but it was going
to be their problem eventually when they had to catch
up or when they received the grades. He left it at
that. Later, as the kids worked on discussing the book
chapter, I heard some of them talking about it and
niggling each other for not keeping up. They took him
seriously. Good.

Most hilarious was when I caught one boy go to his
mates, "Haven't I been contributing since I failed
that last test?!" His groups mates replied, "Hmmm.
Yeah." I had to walk away so I wouldn't laugh.

Finally, being discreetly truthful. This is mostly for
my supervisor to read. I filled out the Weekly Report,
but what I really want to write about for the
"experience that had particular significance" for me
would be the whole grammar thing and, now, this
veteran teacher being the most "with it". I've written
about it here already and in emails to you. Since the
CT has to sign off on the sheet, it obviously wouldn't
be a good idea to rag on how I perceive the grammar
instruction to be less than ideal!

I am an English Geek (and proud of it)

Okay, I'm not so hot or confident about the sentence diagramming I'm going to have to do, but then....then I found this website: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/diagrams/diagrams.htm

 

It is majesty. It is awesome. Check out the diagram of the freaking Preamble to the Constitution. I think I may tell the freshmen that it's their homework for the night, wait for them to freak out, and then go "JUST KIDDING!!"

 

Ha!

 

This is also majesty: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/ SO FREAKING COOL. Except you have to pay (I think) for full access. Not so cool.

 

Also, I am hanging around the French and Spanish teachers and it is hysterical. The printer ran out of paper and I went "Profesora! Yo necessito papel y yo no se donde esta."

 

Yes. Things are cool.

 

Just ask me if that's still the case after I start teaching next week. I already know which classes are going to be the hard ones. Period B (those kids are still zombies at that hour) and Period H (last period, no one wants to be there).

30, Teaching like you're 60

D'oh! In search of suggestions...

I've worked it out when I'm going to start teaching
classes - next week. I'll be doing grammar.

I understand the obvious need for grammar, but I'm
frustrated with how I'm going to have to do it.
Everyone here has been taught time and again that we
should "teach grammar in context" right? Right.

Both women, who are right around our ages, teach it
OUT of context and separate. They've both already
started the first half (parts of speech), which kind
of places the burden on me to finish my part (parts of
the sentence and DIAGRAMMING) in a similar manner.
They want to go straight through grammar. I want to
weep. (Well, not really. I'm just aggravated.)
Seriously. They sit in class and DO WORKSHEETS.

Come on! The NCTE website has a freaking POSITION
statement on not using exercises to teach grammar!
Which is exactly what my school is doing! "This
resolution was prompted by the continuing use of
repetitive grammar drills and exercises in the
teaching of English in many schools. Proposers pointed
out that ample evidence from 50 years of research has
shown the teaching of grammar in isolation does not
lead to improvement in students' speaking and writing,
and that in fact, it hinders development of students'
oral and written language."

I was trying to think of what to do: 1) do the grammar
exercises on the texts we'll be reading 2)use old
issues of the school newspaper or 3) use professional
newspaper articles covering the school. At least with
2 and 3 it's stuff that might be interesting to them
as it's about their community, but it doesn't get rid
of the fact that it's completely out of context.

Does anyone have a better idea?

No wonder kids hate grammar.

Frustration

So it's settled: next week I will take over the two
morning classes. And I will be teaching grammar. The
parts of the sentence. As diagramming and all that.
Ew. I completely understand the necessity of grammar,
but the way I sort of have to do it is completely out
of context. That's the way they have already started
it (they're doing parts of speech now); it's
completely unrelated to any meaningful text or
situations.

I mean, crap, do the kids already KNOW any of this? Is
there part of this they could skip? Parts they need
MORE help in? Rote memorization of grammar skills and
concepts is just NOT the best practice and yet people
persist in doing it.

I'll do my best to bring in literature, authentic
texts, or even write short paragraphs of their own,
but this sucks.

Pulling Things Out of the Air

I've got an idea brewing regarding using tangrams (instead of lousy worksheets) for parts of speech.

I've been meaning to write about my first two days, but I've been crazy busy. Things that must be covered:

• 30 y.o. going on 60 in educational years
• you only think you're "interactive"
• instructional hours vs. prayer

Sayings and ideas:

• Between true friends, even water drunk together is good enough. (Zimbabwean proverb on a Celestial Seasonings tea box.)
• Go big or go home

And this one goes out to my seminar's resident Grecian Goddess: (use Cartman voice) "Dear God, thank you for not giving me Afrodite's commute." ;)

Thursday the FIRST

It's just after 6am. I'm UP. I slept well. Time to do
an asana or two to get the blood flowing.

Time to get ready.

FIRST DAY!

Training

I just came back from three hours' worth of the most
inane "training" on abuse prevention in the Catholic
diocese. Seriously.

I'm not exactly the most unbiased person, either, when
it comes to the heirarchy. I had to bite my tongue
during parts of the training video where the church
official was like "to tell the truth, we have made
mistakes in the past..."

NO. REALLY? That's your stellar day-late-dollar-short
remark. I'm sure that makes abuse victims feel better,
especially considering there are still ongoing cases
of things being covered up.

Still, it was one of those things to just go to, get
through, and just file. *rolls eyes*

PLACED! It's official!

FINALLY, and due to the diligence of my wunderbar
supervisor (no love to placement office X[), I am
placed. My home for the term will be a local Catholic
high school.

This is not the place I would have ever thought myself
landing, but HEY! Good school. IN TOWN. CAN WALK TO
IT!! I actually walked there this morning to time
myself. I can make it in 40 minutes. I can't walk
there tomorrow though, because I have to go to seminar
right after in Chicago.

Very excited, VERY RELIEVED. I think my two
cooperating teachers are going to be awesome. They
seem like the type of people who are really going to
be "cooperative" and "mentoring". Not "you're a sucky
student teacher, eat it!" like I've known some of my
friends to have. Yeesh.

I have to finish running around like crazy - gotta
fill out more background check stuff for the
archdiocese and go to some "don't abuse the kids"
training tonight in a neighboring town.

And then I have to figure out what to wear
tomorrow...pack a lunch. The usual.

I'm probably not going to sleep a wink tonight. GAH!

Oh my GAWD

No pun intended...I may yet wind up at a local Catholic high school.

 

*laughs*

 

For those of you who know me, this is the ultimate irony....*proceeds to laugh self sick*

Another Day of Freaking Out

Woke up today wondering what to do. I should have gone to the gym. Actually, I could still do that, and I think I will as soon as I'm done here. Just have to be home by 7pm to watch DOCTOR WHO *happy screams*.

 

I popped in to the office for a little bit today. NOTHING going on there, which is quite strange. I made several phone calls beseeching help for my placement. A former boss of mine whose wife is/was a teacher around here. Left a voicemail. My current boss actually called me after I left the office (she wasn't there when I stopped in), and once I told her the situation I was in, she said she'd call a few people as she used to work in the offices for a school district up here.

 

Called my friend, Kathy, just to talk and she has clients who work in districts (albeit in McHenry). Don't care at this point! JUST WANT A SCHOOL!! She made a phone call and got back to me with someone who said to have NEIU send in my file. YAY - some headway at least! I called the placement office and left a VM saying pretty please to do that asap.

 

MHS called me back today and said they had my file and were trying to see if anyone would be interested. Their policy is to team up STs with TWO teachers, not just one. Another thing that ticked me off though: MHS guy was surprised that I was trying to get placed for THIS semester. You could tell. So again, NEIU is the school known in the area for dropping the ball: all the other schools have had their student teachers placed ages ago!!

 

God. Please let something happen and SOON.

 

 

 

Really Need Help

Seriously, people, if you could send all positive vibes my way for getting a student teaching placement, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

I AM SERIOUSLY FREAKING OUT.

 

It is TWO weeks in and still nothing. Okay, when the placement guy shuts the door and tells me (even though it's not standard practice) to start calling any contacts *I* have, that's a BIG RED FLAG.

 

He's talking of placing me in a middle school. NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. I need a HIGH SCHOOL experience.

 

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE send good vibes. Needing them, and badly!

Post-Labor Day News

STILL NOT PLACED

[insert string of fun words here]

One would think the life of leisure to be exciting, except it's not. Especially when you don't have a lot of money.

So, great, sitting at home, earning half-pay for NOTHING. No placement. No nothing.

Excuse me while I go to Bally's to work off my anger at the CEST office.

Weekend? What Weekend?

Holy WOW, dude. I am sitting in Panera working (both corporate stuff and school stuff), and I swear to you Pedro (VOTE FOR PEDRO!!!) just walked in and is sitting in front of me. I had to quickly avert my eyes (although I think my smirk just gave me away) when he noticed I was staring.

God, that is AWESOME.

In other news:

I always knew this, but some days the extent to which this is true is just frightening: I have an extremely low tolerance for "Baloney Slicing". (That's me, striving to keep the PG rating on this blog.)

Oh, AND STILL NOT PLACED. V. V. VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV ANNOYED.

Strengths (and weaknesses)

I was typing out my answers to the questionnaire we have for our seminar class. There was the typical "what's your strength" question. I was sitting and thinking about it, and I thought about the Myers-Briggs personality traits. Heh. I saved mine from when I took it for another class (maybe it was EDFN 405 or 406). I am an INTJ (Mastermind Rational - oooh, sounds very authoritative, doesn't it?), and boy, does it really nail me.

I emailed my classmates to see if anyone would be interested in seeing how well their own M-B traits match up with what they perceive to be their strengths. Our questionnaire also asked what we thought our peers' strengths were (if we've known them from other classes). Could be muy interesante. Wikipedia also has entries for each of the types; just punch in what your letters are.

For more detailed description on INTJ, try here or here. The second link has a particularly good description. "INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don't know." The intuitive shouldn't surprise anyone who knows me and some of my other pursuits. Here's mine for the curious:

Introverted	Intuitive	Thinking	Judging
Strength of the preferences %
33	62	1	56

Qualitative analysis of your type formula
You are:

• moderately expressed introvert
  
• distinctively expressed intuitive personality
  
• slightly expressed thinking personality
  
• moderately expressed judging personality

Another fun, but less technical quiz is the "Animal in You" test. Retook mine and got the same result as I did before: Wolf. That one also fairly accurate, but I take huge offense at you-know-who being considered a "wolf". WHAT-ever. These are the parts that crack me up, but are true:

Friendly and generous with those they consider to be peers, they have a tendency to show scant regard to those beneath them on the food chain...The wolf pulls no punches when communicating with its peers, for there is nothing that a wolf detests more than a yes-man. The truth must be told and damn the consequences. Those unable to handle its steely straightforward style are quickly relegated to the rear of the pack, while those who demonstrate courage are allowed to run alongside.

Guess Who's Still Not Placed?

ME, that's who. (And AC, which surprises me. Thought she was placed already.)

This sucks.

Still No Placement

You can't see me, but I'm freaking out about this. Called one of my advisors to ask "Should I be as freaked out about this as I currently am?" That indirect way of me saying "Haaaay, I'm really freaked out and I'm about to start repeat-dialling X, Y and Z until I do get a placement."

The advisor is going to check up on it for me, and she reassured me I'm not in any dire straits at this point. We talked about placement location. Apparently, she knows someone in a high school up here, so that may be something pursued. It would be an "urban environment". Fine with me; at this point I just want a real school with real, live kids!

Off to go to Staples. Not that I need to, but I'm bored.

WEIRD THOUGHT: Anybody ever play "Magic" or the Buffy CCG (see also btvsccg)? I randomly thought today about making a Shakespeare CCG. How funky would that be? Yes, I know I have forever branded myself as a mega-geek, but who cares? Heh. I know a couple people who could make the mechanics of that work quite well...!

I think I might be sick...

I can't locate my final-final version of my research
proposal from last summer. I need to include it in my
final portfolio, and I was hoping to link it here in
my blog.

AND I NEVER GOT BACK MY PAPER FROM THE PROFESSOR WITH
COMMENTS. GRRR! Says he mailed it...yeah right. That's
one thing I never want to do to students. Don't just
take their work and have it disappear down a black
hole: GIVE FEEDBACK.

EDIT: Oh, thank god. I think I found the file on my jump drive. Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!

Graveyard Humor

I saw this on a friend's blog and I spent the next five minutes laughing until I cried. I'm tempted to use it on an unruly student, but that's probably not such a good idea. I should save it for when one of my lesson plans goes completely down the toilet.

Maybe I'll print it out in color, and if I have a bad day on the day my supervisor asks me how my lesson plans went I can just whip it out.

Oh man, that picture still makes me snort with laughter...

Teaching Skills, not Beliefs

Harking back to that "dirty liberal" reference from my second post.

When I was in undergrad, I went to a small liberal arts school in the middle of Iowa. It's pretty much what you expect in a small Iowa town. Very conservative and straight laced. I don't know if that's changed since the late 90s. Probably not too much.

To this day, I don't know why I chose that school. While I got a fantastic education, and there were some great programs, especially the study abroad program, that place was so wrong for me mentally and emotionally. I am fairly liberal, although I do have some conversative leanings (hey, like maybe a balanced budget would be nice?).

Anyway, the reason for the whole idea of "teaching skills, not beliefs" is Professor R. I signed up to take an American Politics course of his. I must have stayed in through the first paper and then I promptly dropped. I don't remember what my grade was, but it wasn't good. It wasn't the grade, it was how I was graded, and his teaching that aggravated me. You see, you could "write" an "essay" test with bullet points and get an "A". As in, completely no need for sentence structure, segues...nothing. What mattered was you had to spout back R's uber-conservative beliefs in toto. You could not disagree with the man and get a good grade.

So.Wrong.

Education, learning and the pursuit of knowledge is a dangerous business. To me, education is about questioning and challenging. If you never question anything you're told, you're a mental slave. Disagreement and debate are the building blocks of a civilized society. If students of mine accept everything I say, I'd seriously question if they learned anything. You don't have to agree with me. I may not like your opinion, but you're entitled to it. Provide evidence to support your claims; let's have a discussion. Let's both learn something.

Like I said, I may be liberal in my own views, but I'm not going to shove it down anyone's throat. There's been far too much of that for the past eight years of the Bush administration. Questioning your government is not unpatriotic. If you don't question, you lose your freedom and you get despots.

So here's a promise I need to make to any student I may have:

I will strive to never be a "Professor R". You are entitled to your beliefs. All I want is to give you the skills and tools to be critical thinkers: to be able to look at the information and messages society is bombarding you with and to decide for yourself their value and their accuracy. Be educated consumers of knowledge! There's an excellent article I read that relates to this. I'll have to dig it up and provide the link to it soon.

Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. --Thomas Jefferson (Now, I admit that this quote is taken entirely out of context. I think TJ was referring to religion with this, but it does have its uses as far as developing critical thinkers is concerned. I don't mean to touch religion with a ten foot pole as far as education is concerned.)

New Term Kickoff

I haven't bothered to update this in a while, but I think I've found the perfect use for this blog now that the new term has started.

This is the semester I student teach and I have to keep a journal, so why not here? Mandatory workshops were this past Wednesday-Friday. I wasn't feeling too keen on them at first, but they wound up going very well. My school actually has some decent services they offer, but you would never know because they don't publicize them very well! We had a meeting on developing a credential file and the placement office at our school will keep one for us. SO USEFUL. They totally should have told us about this before our first clinicals, though. I can't very well go back to my first clinical place and ask them for a reference. 1) The guy retired (thank god, because he was really down on his kids and should not have been teaching anymore) and 2) even if he wasn't, I doubt he'd remember me after two or three years. I may ask the woman at my middle clinical; she was nice and she may remember me. She seemed to think I was decent (always a help!).

Second day of workshops, we had team building activities with the PE crew. Dude, that was actually very fun. The only bad thing was how stinking hot it was that day. I was sweating just standing. Oh, and that was Thursday; the day that Chicago almost blew away in the storm from hell. I'm telling you, I got out of workshops, made it to Touhy Ave, and then...You know the saying "come hell or high water"? I think I experienced that literally. It got pitch black and the wind came roaring out of nowhere. WGN was like, "Uh, yeah, tornado warnings!" NO, REALLY. I think I see Toto flying by.

But back to workshops: I think there were some really good ideas for team building activities. One, the channels, I've done through team building at work. I hope our facilitator, Eric, emails us the activities like he said he would.

I think my seminar group is going to be pretty tight. Two of them I've known through previous classes. Met our supervisor yesterday and that went well. I've got some reading and prep work to do for next Thursday's meeting.

The one mega-bad thing: STILL NOT PLACED AT A SCHOOL. I am getting beyond frustrated with this. I'm sorry, but we have to hand in our application for student teaching one year in advance. There is no reason why we shouldn't be placed well before the term starts. I acknowledge that the CEST office has made tremendous strides in improving the process, but this is driving me insane. (Don't even get me started on the evil harpy that used to run that office; she still makes my blood boil.)

I am one of seven students still without a placement at this point. At least the director is trying to find me a place in the 'burbs instead of having to drive into the city. Honest to god, an extra $70/week in gas money is just not something I can swing to do a city school. Keeping my fingers crossed that I will get placed no later than Monday. I shouldn't complain too much, yet; I don't have some of the ridiculous commutes I've heard from other students. Some city folk got placed up here in the 'burbs; poor AS lives in Skokie, doesn't even drive and got stuck with going to Cicero. That's at least a two hour commute on public transport! Powers that be, spare me from that! Although if I don't get placed by Tuesday, I think I may cave and tell them they can place me in Chicago, so long as it's within walking distance of the Metra line. (And believe me, I will take them a map and circle the exact area so there is no confusion.)

Buddy-A called me today to check up. She just had her first week of her new teaching gig and so far, so good. I hope I land with as much good fortune as she did as far as getting a job goes. That storm from Thursday really socked her neighborhood in Chicago, though. She's still without power. (ComEd won't even give an estimate of when the power will be back, definitely not a good sign.) She said the trees were just ripped out. Joan Cusack's old house has a huge tree on top of it; guess she won't be selling it too quickly now! So A and the hub are at his parents' house in Barrington for the time being.

In other testing and professional development news:

• Signed up to take the Social Sciences: Political Science test in October. If I pass, that will be one more subject I'll be endorsed to teach. (Just think: I could pull a trifecta of English, history and political science. I will be the "dirty liberal" my family fears. But that's another post.) That was $86 down the drain, though. Ouch.
  
• Finally signed up for membership in the National Council of Teachers of English. I should have done this a while ago (and gone to conferences), but never got around to it. I admit that a big impetus to do it now is the fact that I need to put something in my professional development slot for my final program portfolio!
• Also spent the dosh to join the IRA. Ha ha, no, not that IRA. I mean the International Reading Association. I also bought a subscription to the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. I did a review on an excellent article from that journal about a year ago.
  

Oooh, the chick here in the coffee shop is playing guitar and singing "Closer to Fine" (?) by the Indigo Girls and she's not half bad...

Greetings and Salutations

Instead of constantly whining about wanting to be in Europe and "OMG, how do I get a teaching job over there?", I have decided to do something constructive. I'm going to gather whatever information I can find and put it all down in this little blog.

I want to teach in Europe. England would be great, but I don't think I'll be too entirely picky if someone will give me a decent salary and good working conditions.

After almost FOUR years, I am getting close to finishing my degree and will FINALLY be able to teach. I went to a small, private four year college in Iowa for my undergrad degrees. I graduated cum laude with a double major in English (literature) and Western European Civilization (equivalent to history, more or less). I believe my minors are Spanish and political science (sorry, don't remember those too well!). That was in 1999. You can't do too much with either unless you're a teacher.

I farted about in the corporate world for a while. After I got laid off twice within a calendar year, I decided that the universe was telling me to go back to school like I always said I was going to. I've been attending Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago since 2003 (while working full time). I'm going to earn my Masters in Teaching, Secondary Education/Language Arts this coming December (2007). I will actually be student teaching this fall. I'm alternately scared and relieved. Scared because OMG I finally have to put everything I've learned to use; relieved because I am sick to death of getting the runaround at school. (How many hoops can you be told to jump through? I've lost count.) Seriously, for someone who has been working and paying the bills for years now, it can get extremely annoying when the school you attend doesn't treat you like an adult. (I think they're too used to the snot-nosed undergrads who still have mommy doing their laundry at home.)

Anyhow, I have passed all the tests so far: Illinois Basic Skills exam (seriously, if you actually have to study to pass this, you should not be teaching), the English content area exam, and the pedagogy test. I'm going to take the history content exam next Saturday, actually. I don't need that one to graduate, but I do want it so I can be qualified to teach history in addition to English; it's all about marketability!

Some days I suffer from the "WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?" syndrome combined with a side helping of "AM I ANY GOOD?", but then I discover I may actually have a clue after all. Case in point: my research proposal that I made for my master's thesis class was actually put into use by a friend/peer of mine this semester and she said it worked a treat. So YAY for me.

What's the plan?
Once I graduate I will begin searching for a teaching position around home. But in three-five years, I want to teach overseas. Most of the places I've been researching want that much experience at least.

Meanwhile, I think I'll spend that time teaching (duh) and possibly earning another qualification or degree. Current darling: Latin. I miss Latin from high school. I want to be able to teach that as well!