Teach What You Love

I feel horrible saying this but I am so glad that we're done with China and Japan. There's nothing wrong with those subjects, but I just don't feel connected to them. I haven't been there, I don't have any stories, any anecdotes, any pictures, anything. The Chinese and Japanese were awesome, don't get me wrong. I mean, who doesn't love a good reenactment of how samurai committed hari-kari? I know my kids do.


But Europe man.... Europe is my bread and butter! I love this stuff, I eat it up, I'm consumed with it. I love telling my stories and showing my pictures and getting the kids excited about this. I get to bring in my pictures of Dover Castle and Canterbury and Southwark Cathedral and the Globe and the statue of David and Oxford and Cambridge and all these places that I'm teaching about that I've been to! I get to tell stories that I've heard myself a hundred times. I had the kids in sixth period eating of the palm of my hand this afternoon when i was telling them the story of "Why One Should Only Have One Child If One Does Not Want to Fragment Their Empire." They loved hearing about how Charlemagne's grandchildren split up his empire and then divided it again.... and again.... and again.... and again... until finally the king had to make sure all the lords were loyal so they didn't rise up against him!



They asked a ton of questions about what it was like to be a knight or a lord and lady or the king or a peasant and a serf. They even now are trying to act as good as possible because they know that next week, one of them might be king and the others will be serfs and peasants. Sean even went so far as to "propose"! He was on the ground having come up to sit nearer to the board and stated: "I know how to be king!"and then got on one knee in front of me and mimed opening a ring box! The class cracked up but it was so clever since I had dubbed myself queen of the room earlier and had gone around promising certain people that they could rule their table as long as they didn't cause me any trouble (fealty at its best).

Man oh man, I hope they continue to enjoy Europe because I know that I'm going to have a blast teaching it again.

Lesson Learned

I know, I know, you've never supposed to touch a kid. I thought that i had the relationship with most of my kids where we could joke around but apparently I got involved with the wrong kid. yesterday, I tapped a kid with a pencil to get him to pay attention and the extent that this incident got blown out of proportion was out of control! During 4th period, Mr. Presby came by to find out what happened and I told him, because the kid had claimed that i had thrown the pencil at him. The pencil did slip out of my hand when I tapped him but there was definitely no throwing. Presby asked for some names of kids in the area pretty much for "witnesses" but apparently this kid has a mom (who I met at Open House and seemed very nice) who also likes to blame everyone but the kid.

So the next day, Presby came in before school and said the mom had called and could I apologize? I said absolutely, and I don't mind saying it in front of the class because it's no big deal. He thanked me and said that's all I needed to do and if she still had a problem and wanted the kid out of the class, I probably wouldn't have a problem with that. I replied that i certainly wouldn't shed any tears.

The funniest part of the entire thing: Third period rolls around and a few kids come in. One of them comes up to me and says "MIss Yadlin, did you get in trouble for Gabe and the pencil?" And i replied, "No, but I'll apologize to him today." She says, "Well, if you have any trouble with him, then let me know. I'll take care of it." I cracked up. Then two more kids, the two quiet, sweet Vietnamese kids who sit at his table, tell me that they were called up to the office and said that it was a tap and Gabriel was totally blowing things out of proportion. I felt so bad for those kids and they were just pissed that he had to be called up to the office for something so ridiculous (for those good kids, getting a note to come see the VP is terrifying!) Even Gaby, a friend of Gabriels' was called up to the office and said that he had blown it out of proportion. It was really funny to see all those kids ganging up on the kid and pretty much all on my side. Very interesting!

Anyway, at the end of the period, I apologized and s aid I hope that we could put this all behind me. He claimed that the only reason that he said anything was because Presby came by and asked him why he was outside. Note: he was outside because he failed to do his homework again and I was sick of it, not because he was tapped with a pencil.

At least I know now that Christina has my back... good to know. :)

Surrounding Support

On my way to school this morning, a red light went on on my dashboard around the temperature guage. When I got to school, the engine seemed to me smoking a little but I really couldn't deal with it until after school. I had called Abba and he told me to get one of teh guys to help me out. Of course, what is the first thing that Mark tells me when I ask him if he knows anything about cars?

"No."

Brilliant. I didn't even try to ask Hau but instead ended up asking Irv Abrams, our lovaeble, incredibly un-PC but totally funny woodshop (and apparently life skills next year) teacher. I explained what had happened and he gave me some suggestions and said that he'd come check it out after school. So after school, Irv, dressed in his seriously bright lime-green polo (awesomest shirt ever!) and brown pants, comes out to the car with a bucket of water and proceeds to spend about twenty minutes looking at the car, trying to fill the correct compartments with water, etc. He got wet and his hands were filthy but he was so incredibly helpful! I was blown away by how well he was taking care of me. He came to the conclusion that I probably shouldn't drive home so I then sat outside on a kind of three-way conversation betewen Mom, Abba and myself and Wendy walked by. She offered to take me home even though I didn't need it but again, it was nice to have that support. The lovely ladies in the office found me a god place for me to take the car that was in Garden Grove so I wouldn't have to tow it all the way down to Lake Forest. Later that afternoon, when I was getting the car towed, both Sharlene and Steve made sure that everything was OK and that I had someone meeting me at the garage and picking me up.

Even though I don't get around to much of the staff because I'm mostly with the history department, it's nice to know that I've seemed firnedly enough for others to care. I definitely think that I have more friends on campus than the rest of the department (mostly because I'm too scared to outrightly hate anyone anyway!). I've been volunteering for things lately and that's gotten me involved witho ther people and it's nice to know that if the entire history department left (please God, don't let that happen) there would be other people around that i can be friendly with and that I know will help me out.

It's a nice feeling.... :)

Oh Idaho

Things I miss and love about Idaho:
1. Downtown Boise
2. Pita Pit
3. Old Chicago
4. The HAPENNY!
5. My kids at Timberline
6. The apparetly nonexistant elk farm
7. Being able to gather around the table with eight people who kind of know each other and still be able to chat and have fun for over an hour.
8. CAMPUS- with the clocktown, memorial garden, buildlings filled with memorials, fountains, oh man I miss ACI
9. Sitting behind the 100+ car train at very specific times of day
10. The feeling that it takes longer to get from the Franklin exit to Caldwell than it does to get from Boise to Caldwell
11. the Capitol buildling, despite its reconstruction
12. the Anne Frank Human Rights memorial
13. random coffee shots like Thomas Hammer, Flying M, Java, Moxie and of course the needed Starbucks through in every once in awhile
14. Ralph Smeed's gems
15. driving past the empty hops fields on the way to church
16. church
17. my professors- history, english, ed and music, plus the admissions folk
18. driving through the center of the Activities parking lot, ala Megan
19. the random track around, but not really around, the soccer field
20. people playing golf the day after it snowed
21. 96.9 the Eagle! Best classic rock station ever!
22. Brooke's house
23. Mary's cooking
24. freeways with two lanes
25. traffic being bad if you sit for about ten minutes
26. my small group
27. all my friends
28. Idaho in general

But, because my life is not horrible down in California, here is a list of what I love about California.
1. my family
2. my friends- especially Amanda, Megan, Kristina, and Maya
3. my kids, except a few ..... :)
4. my department
5. my bed
6. the weather
7. Junior high group and staff
8. college and young adult group and staff
9. voyagers
10. Legacy
11. freeways with more than 2 lanes
12. driving against traffic both ways
13. the beach
14. San Diego
15. Elephant Bar's drinks, especially Strawberry Cyclone :)
16. walking around the lake
17. my car with the ipod connector that my rental car didn't have
18. the ability to wear tank tops nearly 365 days a year
19. palm trees
20. parks

So yeah, I totally miss Idaho but I don't have much to complain about down here either. :)

Long Overdue Update

So yes, I know that it's been weeks since I've updated. Not because I've not had anything going on but mostly because too much has been going on. A lot has happened since I last posted. So let's start at the beginning.

So I didn't receive a pink slip (California's going through some pretty intense budget cuts right now) but I come back from Winter Camp to have a meeting with the principal. She told me the previous week that she wants to talk about "instructional issues" so I'm like "that's fine, let's do this". So in the meeting, she discusses some "instructional issues" that she would like to see in the classroom, like engagement (aka making Popsicle sticks with everyone's name on them to call on them in class) and "checking for understanding" (which is the new "big thing" in the district right now). Those were under issue number one and there was an issue number two that said curriculum issues or or something like that but she said absolutely nothing about that. So after the meeting I go over to Catherine and she's like "this is a Form D! She can't give you this after the deadline." She immediately gets on the phone to GGEA, the union and sends me over to go see them immediately. Apparently, a Form D basically is what you get if they're maybe thinking of not having you back next year. If she didn't want me back at the end of the year, she would have had to previously given me a Form D. This doesn't mean that I'm done for and I'm not getting my job back next year, but basically I'm on the chopping block. Anyway, I go over to GGEA and talk to the president and he tells me that she can give me a Form D whenever she wants but to give me one with no warning and having only been in my classroom twice in the last two months (one of those times being a day they specifically told us to not teach new material since half the kid would be out for the Spanish language test) is pretty shady.

Now what does this mean for me now? Well, basically it's Suck-Up City time. I basically need to show her in as many ways possible that I'm trying to be the teacher that she wants me to be. If that means making note cards with my kids' names on them to useto call on them in class, do it (check). If that means going to observe Mark and his questioning strategies, do it (check). If that means going to visit another off-site teacher to observe, do it (will be checked after Spring Break). If that means meeting with a TOSA after I'm observed, do it (check). If that means attending optional meetings, no matter how inane, do it (I will be attending probably every single upcoming advisement meeting for the year of my life). And this sucks. Not the extra stuff that I have to do per say but really the sucking up to someone that i don't really like and respect. I really don't have confidence in my principal. I have watched her around the students and they can walk all over her. You can't have that in an administrator of a middle school, especially a middle school with some pretty tough kids. They should not be saying that Friday Follow Through (Friday detention for not doing homework during the week) is fun when she's there because they know that they can talk. It's very very frustrating. I realized that there is no way in hell that i can ever present my thesis to the school without cutting out a lot because everything that I discovered about what makes a good school with a strong culture is missing from my school right now. It's out of control!

Thank goodness for my department though. From minute one of getting the Form D, they have been behind me, giving me whatever I've needed, from support to humor to a letter to the ACLU asking if we have a lawsuit on our hands since both Jimmy (the teacher who was fired last year) and I are Jewish. I'm so grateful and lucky to have such a great department and also support of people outside of the department who have been on my side with this. So that's where my saga ends for the moment. Who knows what will happen as things go on. Tomorrow my kids take their benchmark and then I'm off for Spring Break. Thank goodness- it cannot come soon enough!