Day 74!

I AM FULL OF EMOTIONS OF JOY AND EXCITEMENT!

That was seriously the most intense hockey game I have seen in a long while and seeing the Bruins win was a special kind of HELL YEAH. It capped off my night.

Other highlights: there is a DUNKINS coming to my town (OMG DUNKINS), my day was productive, my night class was fun, and the day was beautiful.

My happy moment of today actually happened first thing.

My view walking the 1.8 miles to work. I will never tire of it.

It just got more gorgeous:

Today was stunning.

It was just one good freaking day, man. It was an early release and my kids were focused. My meetings went really well and my mentor and I got a lot done.

Also, my family is the freaking best. All four of a had a thread going troughout the game with reactions and jokes and EMOTIONS. It was beautiful. I'm glad I made die hard hockey converts out of the lot of them.

Now it's Go Kings Go, but mostly Go Bed Go because zzzzzz. 

Day 73!

Today was definitely less good. It was busy and there were just a few attitude issues that surprised me. Actually, most of today was perfectly fine; I am just getting hung up on a few moments.

I suck at the don't take things personally and move on part of teaching.

I do have one awesome thing to report from the exam stress side of my world:

I am confident they're as ready as possible!

Today I saw the average correct multiple choice answers raise from 17/55 to 45/55! I was blown away by their confidence and improvement. I am very proud and hope they sensed that and feel like they can kick the exam's tush.

I'm still stressed about it, though. Empathetic stress, man! 

Day 65!

One thing that makes me happy as a teacher is when a lesson sparks a lot of discussion. It creates energy in the room and is fun to be involved in.

My Picasso lesson did that yesterday. Some students really liked his works and others did not, but they all had things to say about the pieces and found them very rich in detail. Even if he's not your style, there's definitely talent and messages in his paintings.

Guernica, one of the main large prints in our exhibit.

The twisted limbs and odd angles generated a lot of curiosity and theories. I'm excited to see what they will write tomorrow.

Otherwise, yesterday actually made me very tired. These allergies are killing me and when I got home, I was mentally and physically tired. Hopefully the weather settles soon and my allergies will leave!

Day 64!

I am freaking out a little bit here! There are only 7 weeks left of school and THE AP EXAM IS NEXT FRIDAY!

The end of the school year is a freight train and I'm a damsel tied to the tracks.

See that metaphor? Pyscho English teacher alert.

Nonetheless, I have found a positive!

I came up with two exciting lessons this week for my AP students that combine exam prep, check-in and work time for their projects, and Picasso!

Yep, I said Picasso! The AP Language exam is all about non-fiction and that includes being able to write about art/monuments/media/ads. The freshman English teach won a grant to bring a Picasso exhibit to our school and I'm very happy to have found a cool way to incorporate it into our curriculum.

Yay fun lesson ideas!

Day 45!

Today had it's challenges.

The morning was pretty good and productive. It was quite busy, but the work was being done. I was pretty happy until last period.

Crickets chirped in response to my questions expect for a tiny handful of students.

To obvious questions.

That told me one thing: they hadn't done the reading of the book they all chose.

I do not believe in lecturing on the novel. You need to read and think. I base much of my teaching on discussion questions and inquisition. It was very hard to have to just stop and tell them to sit and read. I am more disappointed than anything.

My bright spot was my mentor meeting.

As a teacher, I really value working with and getting advice from other teachers.

My mentor is really helpful and supportive. She told me, students have said that they never read because the teacher tells them everything they need to know; I don't do that. They should know this...so we were able to talk strategy and the like.

I hope to get even more out of a 6-12 English teacher meeting tomorrow. It should be an interesting meeting, to say the least, on standards.

Day 44!

In yesterday's whirlwind of working and being wicked tired thanks to the Bruins game, I imagined posting before falling asleep but apparently didn't.

My Tuesday happy event was getting organized and helping my students see what they're learning.

I added in my unit Essential Questions for our new units!

They are on display with the essay due dates and prompts.

I hope by having goals and filled out EQ's (with what we're studying added in) that students will pay attention to it and learn more. I've used it a bit before but I added in things to expect to be more effective.

My board also has a reference link to SAT practice and SAT vocab updated every other day. I am nervous at how quick the SATs are coming up!

Fingers crossed the visuals help keep focus!

Day 37!

This one day, Grading Paper Mountain began to slowly disappear. It was a good day in Teacher Land.

Down to two small folders with less than 20 sheets!

I can see the light!

Perhaps I am close to having my shit at least temporarily together? Maybe? Let's get a little ahead in lesson planning and I'll really be over the moon...but I'm not so much feeling like I'm drowning at this second and that's a nice thing.

Day 29!

To be honest, today was really rather awful. I just want my students to listen and realize they need to start writing advanced literary essays which means formal language and quotes. There was just a lot of disrespect and trying to push responsibility away.

Don't get me wrong, I had some students working really hard, even ones that normally don't, but it was the group in one class and the student after school that threw my day. I've been upset, I've felt like I wasn't any good, and I have been anxious. I have almost never been mad until today. You want to know how to write essays for the SATs? LISTEN. They want junior level, formal essays like we are doing. Also, the website practice is bought by the state for you. You want to argue that practice is summative? Please try to define a core of my degree. Just do your work on time and you won't fail. It's not complicated. If you put the effort into work that you put into complaining you would have an A.

And you know what? I WANT YOU TO BE ABLE TO GET AN A.

That just kind of sucked the wind out of my sails and tonight's hockey game is also stressful. So, what made me happy? This article titled "30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself," that my brother's roommate posted. Like 90% of it is my life.

 "Stop acting like everything is fine, when it isn't" and "Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others" were my favorite.

I always feel like I have to constantly justify myself, especially at work. And you know what? I don't. My room, my rules, now sit down and listen. If you listen and are nice, I will bend over backwards to do anything to help you at any time. I will stay after, I will read a hundred drafts, I'll read paragraphs on Sunday night for an essay due Monday in another class. I will do anything if you are simply nice. I also need to not say things are good if they aren't. Change isn't going to happen if I act like it's peachy. So I am going to keep calm and carry on. It's helping some get better, now everyone else can catch on.

'Cause let me tell you, ain't nothing I love more than getting to tell a student who has always struggled, "That's perfect, a really good idea!" Their look and "really?!" makes even my bad days a little bit better. [That story happened today, too, it was adorable.]