weekend

Well I made it to the weekend. I enjoyed sleeping 12 hours last night and I am now ready to conquer my massive amounts of homework. I really want to get caught up with my class so I can reduce some of my stress. I am so close to graduating, I need to finish so that I can have more time with my family.
My job is wild. My students are awesome, and frustrating. I learn more compassion every day from them. They are dealing with things I still as an adult have a hard time imagining. I have several 8th grade girls that have baby's at home. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have a baby at 12 or 13. Another student lost his only brother to violence a couple weeks ago and does none of his school work now. I have tried calling home about another student that walks out of my class, only to hear the disconnect message. I asked his homeroom teacher if she has been able to contact anyone. She said she just found out his family is homeless. How can we expect these students to come to school and learn the same way all other students in the state are learning. We can't, which is why I am so glad to be at a school where creativity in the classroom is encouraged.

tired

Is it really only Wednesday? A teachers job is exhausting. I didn't eat my protein bar (my lunch) until 5:15pm as I was hooking up some computers I found stashed in unused classrooms. The computers all work and the Internet hookups work! My classroom now has 4 imacs, 1 emac, and one apple G3. They are old and slow, but my students can use them to research an artist or create digital art. Yea!
I am tired, and now I have to write a paper for my class tomorrow. I am very sick of grad school, I hope I can pull through and be done with it. If I wasn't so close, 2 classes, I would probably drop out. I have a family, 2 kids and a husband, and I work an extended school day, 8-4. When I get home I am tired and need to cook dinner, wash dishes, do laundry, check homework, put the kids to bed, write lessons, do more dishes, wash more laundry, feed the dogs, etc. So when am I supposed to write a research paper?

Student's and Paper

I love working at my new school.
I was at a horrible school last year. When students were difficult everyone would just complain about them, and tell you not to stress about it. Administrators would tell the teachers that they were being selfish and accuse us of hording paper. Each teacher was given 2 reams of copy paper at the beginning of each month. If we ran out we were told we were dittoing the students to death. I have heard this year there is no paper given to teachers, they have to bring their own.
This year (at my fabulous new school) one grade level was having a lot of behavior problems. The grade level team and the Instructional Support Teachers (this school has fantastic IST's, I never knew they could actually be so helpful!) came up with a positive behavior reinforcement system. Everyone is working together to make changes, for the benefit of the students and teachers! When teachers need to make copies, we just go make them! There is paper in the machine and when you run out there are drawers full of it in the same room.
This situation may sound strange, a school without paper? A teacher so excited about paper being in the copy machine when ever she goes to use it? It still amazes me how a simple thing like working with a positive staff and not having to worry about paper can make my job so much more enjoyable.

Well I did practice my sign language this morning. I was trying to say good morning, but forgot the dominant hand needs to come from above and then go down on the other palm. So instead of saying good morning I was saying money morning. We all giggled and I learned a new word.

I am very excited to announce that I will be receiving a ceramics grant. The grant will provide my students and I with a kiln, all the necessary tools, clay, glaze, and even training for me if I need it. This is very exciting since buying all the above mentioned would cost thousands of dollars, which of course when you work in a city school is not available.

Today was my first sign language class. At the school where I teach we have a hearing impaired program. These students use sign language and come to my class with an interpreter. I have been wanting to communicate better with these students and feel bad when I have to turn to the interpreter for help. Today I learned mother, father, sister, brother, feelings/emotions, weather, how, you, me, friendship, and good morning. I am so grateful to the wonderful teachers that offered to teach any willing staff member at our school. I can't wait until tomorrow morning when I can great them in sign language and say good morning, how are you feeling, and talk about the sunny, windy weather we have been having here in Baltimore.

The Tooth Fairy

I can not believe I forgot to write about little blue yesterday.
Little Blue, my daughter is in Kindergarten. Yesterday she lost her first tooth. She was very excited to show us the tooth in a little manila envelope and to put it under her pillow last night. This morning she discovered two shinny quarters under her pillow. She was so excited. She kept them on the table while she was eating her cereal, looking at them, turning them, and then she said, "They are so shinny!" too cute.


Hear is a picture of her missing tooth smile,

Monday

I survived Monday. I had a couple students tell me to leave them alone, but not that nicely, because I asked them to stop talking while I was instructing. I am tired.


I took new pics of my classroom which shows the nice white paint. :)

Now I need to grade 200 hand drawings.

Back to School

I have not been writing for awhile because so many other things took importance. I was on vacation and then since I am a teacher I had to set up my classroom. I spend on the average 2 weeks setting up my classroom before the students arrive. This year, I was only able to spend about 4 days because I am at a new school (old building, new staff). When I arrived two weeks early, I asked if my room could have a fresh coast of paint. Let me back up, I work in Baltimore City Public School System and the first three years I never knew anyone to have their room painted. If you wanted it painted you did it yourself. When I went to check out my new school there were tons of people, cleaning, painting, fixing everything! I had never seen anything like it in BCPSS. So I asked if my room could get painted, and my principal said sure! I was quite excited since it is a large room and had horrible colors, yes many colors.

Days went by and no painters appeared. This made me quite nervous since I had a lot of work to do after the paint dried. I inquired every day and was told they are coming. Finally, my principal made a request that my room was next and it got done, the Saturday before school started. That meant I had Sunday to set up my entire room. I was a bit stressed, but got enough up to feel ready to begin.

The students arrived Monday and then the real work began. I had been teaching elementary visual art to grades K-5. Now I am teaching art to grades 6, 8, and 9. Big change in attitude. So to say the least I have had my hands full typing up new lessons, trying to motivate, and inspire. I think I have motivated a couple students but I still have a lot of work to do.