Quirks

I am learning about hundreds of new types of students in this job. Please read on to see if any sound familiar....

Personal Space Invader: This student will stick his or her face right up against yours no matter what. Mine likes to see if I'm wearing eyeliner or not (slightly odd and disturbing at the same time). This student also likes to come up behind you and stick his or her face over your shoulder so when you turn your face, you smell his or her breathe. Usually needs to be reminded that he or she is invading your personal space.

The Rocker: This student enjoys rocking back and forth on his chair. Despite numerous reminders, he will continue to do this. Inevitably you will either become seasick from the rocking or, most likely, he will end up on the floor because you have taken his chair away.

Um.......: This student ALWAYS has a question. Unfortunately, he usually cannot remember the question that he has. Yet, it seems to be that he doesn't want to lose the teacher's attention or the "floor" because he will say "ummmmmmm" for about ten seconds before asking some random question. Usually this question has absolutely nothing to do with the actual lesson and is just another way to prolong his control of the floor. Every once in a while, he rises to the occasion and actually remembers his question.

The Silent Surprise: The kid who says absolutely nothing, always sits by himself, works better on his own, is so quiet that you dont' really remember what his voice sounds like. But when you're trying to get an answer out of the students and no one i responding and you fele like the world is ending, Silent Surprise not only surprises you by raising his hand but doubly surprises you when he answers the question correctly! Amazing.

The Adoring Girl: This student is always a girl. It doesn't matter what you look like, what you wear, how long it took you to do your hair in the morning, she will look at you adoringly and tell you that you look good or that she likes your hair/eyes/makeup/shoes/clothing/earrings/etc. Always good to have around on those bad days where nothing is going right. It's like your personal mood-upper.

The Expert: This students become smore common in high school but can be foudn in middle school as well. This students is an expert on something, be it Japanese samurais, The Five Pillars of Islam, the Incas, etc., either because of a personal interest or because of too many hours watching the History Channel. Whatever this person's expertises may be, they enjoy monopolizing the conversation when the class is studying the area of expertise. They will always raise their hand and when the other students realize that there is an expert in the class, they will clam up and force a conversation between the teacher and the so-called expert.

The Cupcake: This student is called the cupcake because he or she is so absolutely adorable that you just want to eat them up. Usually small, sometimes chubby with a cute round face, they usually are pretty hard-working, sometimes a little low on confidence but with the greatest smile ever. So cute that they put a smile on your face too and just make the day better.

The "Perfect Student": This student is just perfect. Hard-working, participative, works well with others, turns in his or her work, is inquisitive, enthusiastic, and always on-task. Abslutely a teacher's dream. Unforunately, tends to be picked on by the "less-perfect" students. Which then makes the teacher love him or her even more for having to put up with these less perfect kids. Truly a teacher's dream.

The Antagonizer: ALWAYS a larger student. This student enjoys driving the teacher up the wall and driving the other students up the wall. Sometimes just is obnoxious in class, sometimes doesn't know how to keep his hands to himself and ALWAYS thinks that he's the cat's pajamas. Inevitably, you and he/she end up having numerous talks outside one-on-one and numerous threats of detention is things do not shape up. Oftentimes, the Antagonizer is also a Rocker, which just is a recipe for disaster.

Well, it's late and I can't think of any more right now but this is a little taste of what I deal with on a regular basis. I'm sure more will come out of the wordworks as time goes on so stay tuned for more developments.

Stupid is as stupid does

My kids were just being dumb today. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Yes, dumb. In my eighth grade class, we were looking at primary source documents. As a veteran AP class taker and a recent graduate of the ACI history department, I know as well as the next person how hard it is to read primary source documents. The documents that we were looking at were either from the point of view from the British or the Colonists and they were discussing what happened at the Battle of Lexington. Before we even got started, we were talking about what a primary source document is and what a bias is. I was using questioning strategies and they were just bumps on a log. Not even bumps on a log. They were like slugs just starting blankly back at me. It was ridiculous! And so frustrating! The questions I was asking were NOT hard in the slightest. They were all connected and it was so annoying for them to just sit there and not answer. I think it was an off day for everyone though because first period was fine with it and then it was downhill. And I was slightly reassured because when I went into lunch, I said something like "Man, my kids were being stupid today" and Mark said "oh, yours too?" So it's not just me or the assignment because it's happening to everyone.

On a brighter note, my seventh graders did really well. AND I only have one lesson to plan for Thursday for my eighth graders before I'm done for the week. Thank goodness fo three-day long activities and long-term projects.

And seriously, there will be a smackdown if the kids are as dense tomorrow as they were today. But I nearly pulled my hair out. Hopefully these days will be IN-frequent. Man.

Parents

I DO NOT want to meet the parents of my students. During Back To School Night last year, I just was introduced but Charles pretty much took over and I was able to sit back and just listen. I am so afraid of the parents judging me because I'm a young teacher, because I may seem inexperiences, for hundreds of other reasons. I'm afraid that they won't agree with my way of doing things and get angry or blame me for their child not doing their work. I feel like I only have so much control over situations in my classroom and I can only do so much but will get blamed for what mistakes the students make. I can't force them to do their homework and if they get a U on their progress report or low grades because they haven't been studying, I have no control over that. I'm really glad that I only have ten minutes per period- I can introduce myself, let the parents see their kids' work on the walls, go through the standards and what we'll be covering the year/semester and hopefully the ten minutes will fly by. I know it cetainly doe when I'm teaching their kids.

On the upside, the nice thing about having parents that dont' speak English means that I am off the hook when calling home (which, by the way, I also absolutely despise). There is a community liason that speaks Spanish or Vietnamese and she will call home for you, talk to the parent in their native language, and then return a note to you with what was discussed. GENIUS! Now can I have someone do that for me with my English speaking parents???

Struggles and Confusion

"It is best to be both feared and loved, however, if one cannot be both it is better to be feared than loved." -Machiavelli

This is something that I've been struggling with lately. On the good side, I no longer have three classes that I like and three that I don't like. I'm liking more and more of my students and so far, by today, Wednesday September 19th, I have had three good days this week. Thank goodness. However, there are still some of those students who are driving me crazy. And this is where my struggle comes into play. Do I want to be feared or loved? Do I want my kids to like me and for me to be cool Miss Yadlin. Or do I want the kids to fear me. Not running away from me screaming but to know that I won't back down and that I won't take any crap from them. There are a few kids who I think need that slap on the wrist now because the behavior will continue to escalate if I don't nip it in the bud now. I talked with my vice principal about this and he gave me some recommendations but today in fifth period I just lost my patience and assigned two students detention. The weird thing was that one of the students became started to participate and give decently smart answers, as well as voluteered to do some helpful things in class. It was an amazing transformation in about three seconds. I don't knwo if this was a way to say "See, look I can be good, I shouldn't get detention" but there is NO way that I am backing down with this. I need him to still come in so that I'm not seen as someone that he can push around. For most of the other classes, I've foujnd that the idea of detention works, either for one student/group or for the entire class. By letting them know that I have to stay after class anyway and that I have no problem with them staying with me, then it usually helps settle things down.

Now for my confusion. I assigned a quiz to my 8th graders earlier this week on the Thirteen Colonies. This doesn't seem like a big deal but here is my confusion- the people that I thought would do well pretty much bombed it and those that I thought would bomb it did considerably better. What the heck am I supposed to do with this? It's very confusing. Although I guess it's better than if those who I had assumed would do poorly really did. That would just depress me. And in the scheme of things I'd rather be confused by a surprising turn of events than be depressed for a week.

Today

was a better day.....

Thank goodness, because Mondays are already bad :)

But no, it was a good day. My kids behaved pretty well, especially when compared to last Friday, and I felt really confident with what I was teaching and with what the kids were receiving. I tried a few new tactics when teaching and they seemed to work. My US kids had to work together using their textbook and their workbook sheets to match eleven different philosophers (OK, nine and then I added the Magna Carta and the 10 Commandements) to their beliefs. Some kids worked great, others would need some prompting to help get on track but then got to work and of course there were those few that just didn't want to do anything. But I guess that's to be expected. With those students, I just made sure that even if they weren't getting their answers done, they weren't distracting others and then used questions to try and guide them to the correct answer. Often i would leave them answering a question and then make my rounds to the other students and come back to lead them through more questions. So it worked.

In my World History class, we made a web on the board for Muhammad but because they had already read about him in the textbook, they had a little bit of background knowledge. The lesson ended up being a combination of me teaching and them sharing what they had remembered and I think it ended up being a good blend of my info and their info. As usual, with my sixth period class, there were students who were chatty or weren't always paying attention but i'm getting good enough with the names so that I can specifically talk to them by name. Also, the kids have picked up on my silent signals- usually a few kids will see that I'm silently standing at the whiteboard and the "shhhhs" will start going through the classroom. And the sixth period kids HATE it when I say that I have no problem keeping them after school so that usually zips their lips too.

I have one student in my sixth period who is VERY enthusiastic but sometimes a little distracting. He always wants to answer the questions but also can be disruptive, answer silly answers instead of thinking throuhg his thoughts, etc. He's a great kid but can drive me crazy! Today, for example, he kept poking and prodding one of his friends at the other table (who he shouldn't have been sitting next to in the first place) and then balancing on his chair, back and forth from four legs to two legs. At one point, I moved him to the front of the room and then sent him back to the other side of his table (away from his friend) but I got a better opportunity to talk to him after school. When the Vice-Principal or Couselor at JIIS holds detention, they do it in my classroom for some reason. So my student was in detention and I got a change to talk to him quickly, on-one-on, no other students around, just simply saying "hey, let's try and work on being a little calmer and more attentive in class and work on keeping all four legs of the chair on the ground". He was receptive and so we'll see what tomorrow brings...

The Lonely Road

In my first week of teaching, I've learned that sometimes it can be a lonely job. It's one thing to be able to talk to your lead teacher- you have a relationship with them, you deal with the same kids, you're working together with lesson planning and figuring things out, etc. I think even when you become a first year teacher at teh same place where you've been doing your student teaching, it's easier because you already have a foundation. You know the routine, you know all the teachers, you know most of the kids already, you feel like there are people who can help you out.

Now, don't get me wrong, I really an enjoying my job so far. I really like the other teachers in my department but I don't feel like I'm at that point yet where I can ask them things. For example, there are a lot of kids who haven't turned their homework in yet, despite their knowledge that they will be attending a program called Friday Follow-Up where they'll be required to stay after school on Friday to complete ALL missing assignments. I have no idea what to do with this. I don't feel like i'm the point hwre I can ask the other teachers what their homework turn-in rate is. What if I'm the only teacher whose kids don't think their homework in? Does that then make me a bad teacher? As Adrian pointed out today, it may jsut be their interest level- who really wants to do homework in seventh and eighth grade? It's nothing to do with me. On the other hand, it would be arelief to know that I'm not the only one who has kids who don't turn their homework in. At what point the do I have to try something new or try and new approach with the homework. I don't feel like I'm close enough to anyone at the school right now to ask them, especially because I feel there's alot of pressure on me as the new teacher. Will they think I'm just a dumb, unexperienced kid and just say "go figure" or will they help me out? I don't know, it sometimes feels like a catch-22. But in all in, it's felt like a very lonely road so far. Hopefully things will work themselves out...

Lesson Planning

I don't know how other teachers feel about this, but I really enjoy lesson planning. I don't necessarily like laying out what I will be doing over a long period of time but I like figuring out what I want to teach the next day and then going from there. Tonight, for example, I'm tryign to figure out the best type of worksheet to use for learning about the 13 Colonies. I like going online and seeing what's available and then creating my own worksheets and ideas. it lets me be creative but i also like seeing what other people have done. I think sharing is important (sharing is caring, as we told the kids today)- there's no point in recreating the wheel if it's already created. I don't understand teachers who hoard their material and have no desire in sharing. I'm the total opposite- I have no problem letting other teachers look at my material. And I'm really appreciative when others let me look at their information. So if you're a teacher out there hoarding material, I have one word for you-- SHARE!!!

:)

Some quotes

Student: Miss Yadlin, how old are you?
Me: How old do you think?
Student: Um, 32?
Me: (cringing) You're killin' me, smalls!
Student: 31, 25, 29, 23, 22?
Me: Yes, 22.
Student: Wow, my sister is older than you!
Me: (thinking) This conversation needs to end NOW.

"Slavery was bad."-- deep, man, deep

"MLK freed the slaves."-- well, sort of....

Me: How about we have a girl read?
Student #1: (in a high voice) I'll read!
Me: Changing the pitch of your voice will not make me pick you.
Student #2: (in a high voice) I'm Antonia!

"Does the Titanic count as US History?"

"So there was Daddy Bush and Baby Bush?"

More to come later, I'm sure. I'm certainly glad that my kids have a sense of humor. I don't know what I would do if they were bumps on a log.

Here's how is started....

I guess it all really began when I decided to stay an extra day in Irvine. The plan was origianlly to start driving back up on Tuesday because that was when the rest of the family minus Shiri were going to Colorado. But I ended up deciding to stay one more day and hang out with Shiri (which mostly included watching Start Wars Episode Three and then a lot of bad summer TV). Sometime during the afternoon, I went to go plug my phone in and found that I had a message from a woman at the Garden Grove School District. I called her back and was told that there was a position open at the GGUSD and did I want to come and interview?

I explained that I was on my way back to Idaho but we scheduled me in for an interview at 8:30. Wednesday morning, I packed up my car, including the cello and went to go interview. I met first with one of the HR women who, after what felt like a good interview, wanted to send me over to meet the principal of the school. I drove over to James Irvine Intermediate and met the principal and had what against felt like another good interview. Once leaving JIIS, I literally, got back on the road to head up to Idaho. I arrived in Caldwell Thursday afternoon, spent the evening hanging out with the guys in Boise and then sat down on Friday morning to start working on some thesis revision.

At this point, I'm really torn with what might happen. On the one hand, I really wanted a job. On the other hand, I would be abruptly leaving Idaho, I wouldn't get to sub for my Timberline kids, England would be out of the question.... Plus, there was that whole issue of having to move in about two days maximum and that was overwhelming to me.

But, around noon that day, I got the call from the woman who first interviewed me and was told that I got the job. Overwhelming literally was a understatement. I pushed my thesis aside and got to work. Not only did I have to be down in Irvine on Tuesday, I had to move as much of my things as possible. I started by packing up the things I really needed (to be honest, I didn't even unpack my suitcase... I figured it would save me an hour if I just lived out of it for a few days). This mostly included textbooks, my DVDs and videos, work clothes, the cello, etc. Then, since I still had time on my hands, I packed up most of my books, took everything off my walls, etc. Allie came over on Saturday to help me out and she was wonderful- really great support. I also had to do all the "housekeeping materials"- filing out the apartment paperwork, changing my address, etc. etc. As I said, overwhemling doesn't even begin to cover it.

On Sunday morning, I went to church to say goodbye, played a few special pieces (Amazing Grace, Blessed Assurance and Tis So Sweet- my oldies but goodies) and then took off towards Reno, Joey the cello hanging out in the front seat with me. I arrived in Reno around 6:00 PM, watched some TV and then went to sleep around 8:00. I woke up the next morning at 4:00 AM, getting myself onto the road half an hour later so I could try and avoid labor day traffic. I only stopped twice, once to fill up with gas and once to fill up with smoothies. On the upside, driving over the Sierra Nevadas in the dark was beautiful and I arrived back home at 1:30 having not hit any traffic at all. Whew.

Tuesday morning, bright and early, I arrived for my first staff meeting at Irvine Intermediate. I met some of the staff, including the department chair, Catherine, and then went to get my paperwork done at the district. I had to be fingerprinted, needed a physical that afternoon (which was literally a three hour process which included an eye-exam, urine test, x-rays and a three second conversation with the doctor), filled out a ton of paperwork and in the meantime, had to set up my classroom and start to plan my lessons. I "stole" a lot of stuff that was letfover, including some awesome posters which I started to put up and of course, called my family in for some much needed extra hands in setting up the class room. It wasn't until Wednesday when I received the textbooks and materials but luckily, the other three teachers in the department are really helpful and let me use their syllabus/parent letter and the letter that they wrote up for their textbook.

And then the students showed up. I was ready for them but was definitely still trying to adjust to my new surroundings. Because JIIS is in Garden Grove, it's a different socioeconomic class than Timberline or Woodbridge or most other schools- it's similar to a suburban Wilder. 90% of the students are Hispanic or Vietnamese but so far, I haven't found this a problem. My kids were SILENT the first day, execept for a few. I'm hoping that they'll start to talk more as we get into the material. Thursday and Friday were spent mostly getting to know the kids and doing the usual first day things- passing out textbooks, recapping some lessons learned in seventh grade with the eighth graders, introducing new concepts with the seventh graders, and then, on my part, starting to plan out my upcomings weeks.

So yes, that is how it happened. Never would I have expected that deciding to spend an extra day with my sister would turn into me getting a new job and moving back home. Oh yes, because I am living at home for awhile, which isn't a bad thing. It's letting me save some money, get a chance to start paying my loans back and free food is never a bad thing :). Hopefully you'll come back and check out this blog to continue to read about how things are going for me. Thanks for stopping by!