Here are some funny/cute things the students in my first grade class have said or done this week:
1. Look! I see Old McDonald! (a boy looking out the window of the bus on the way to the pumpkin patch. I think he just saw a farmer. He also told me that he wants to live in the woods.)
2. Look! The bus is driving itself! There's no one there! It's going by itself! (also on the way to the pumpkin patch - we were in the back and the driver was short).
3. A girl in my class used all of her allowance to buy everyone in our class candy for Halloween. She put it all in cute little bags and brought one for each person. She also brought everyone a book (short ones you can print off line). She comes from a very poor and needy family and I was truly humbled to see how unselfish she was even when she herself had so little. I need to follow her example. She is one of the sweetest students in my class.
One of these days I will write about how teaching is going, but for now...back to work!
Friday, October 30, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
"Man, my life has changed!"
I read an article this morning online about President Bush giving a motivational speech in Texas and he said he was recently walking his dog and carrying a bag on his hand for scooping up what the dog might leave behind and he realized, "Man my life has changed!" I too have been thinking about how my life has changed over the last few months. It really has changed dramatically in almost every way. Let me try and explain how much and in what ways my life has changed -- improved rather -- from the time Michelle and I lived in Syracuse, NY just a few months ago.
The first aspect is the time I wake up every day. In Syracuse, I had a relatively easy schedule only going to grad school classes. I only had class two days or three days a week almost the entire year; and since I had no job that meant that I stayed up really late and slept in ridiculosuly late most days. Boy oh boy have things changed in terms of what time I wake up! Michelle and I wake up at around 6:15 am each day. That is what time we need to get up to be able to get to get ready, eat breakfast, and travel to the respective school we teach at by 8:00. On Saturdays I usually wake up early to go running, sometimes even earlier than on weekdays. Our church starts at 8:00 am on Sunday so really I don't sleep in past 7 ever. I guess I am, by force, a morning person now. It actually feels great! Getting up early helps me make the most out of every day and be the most productive as I have ever been since my mission probably.
My exercise and eating habbits have also changed dramatically. In syracuse, I reached the most unhealthy and overweight point that I had ever been in my life. Its not rocket science why I got or why anyone else in the world ever gains weight: overeating and lack of exercise. I could go into more detail, but basically for those two simple reasons I put on a lot of weight. I will say one thing about my eating habbits in Syracuse though, just because it is so pathetic it is hillarious. My eating habbits were so bad that around Christmas my diet consisted of home made Christmas cookies and tater tots. 'Nuff said about that! A few months ago though, motivated by the fact that I was going to be the best man at my best friend's wedding, I started to eat right and exercise regularly. This has helped me lose 40 pounds (while gaining muscle so perhaps I have lost even more than 40 pounds of fat) and I think I am in the best shape of my life. I eat tons of fruit and vegetables now and I feel so much better. Michelle can wrap her arms around me easier now too :) I am training for long-distance races and lifting weights a couple days a week so I am really just on a completely different level now than a few months ago when we lived in NY.
My overall schedule and level of business has gone up as well. I work full-time and then take public transportation home (but Michelle picks me up from the Metro so its not too bad taking the metro home) so weekdays are just really busy, plain and simple. I have extra meetings, trainings, and lots of miscellanious little things like phone calls to make for work as well. I am also taking two grad school classes so I have class at American University one night a week and an online class that has assignments due one day a week. I also have professional development trainings one weekend a month. I have to find the time to run and train for my race as well. Our ward is incredible and there are always fun things going on. Add to all this the fact that you could live in DC forever and still not see and do everything that there is to do and see (even though our goal is to see and do everything, lol), there is never not anything exciting to do here. Add church responsibilities to the equation and weekends get pretty busy too.
Hopefulyl in describing how much things have changed I have been able to convey that everything that has changed has been a change for the better and one that has made me happier. We thought and prayed very hard about whether or not we should embark on this adventure to move to DC and do TFA because we knew it would be challenging so it is very humbling and gratifying to know that by doing what we felt was right and following our instincts things have worked out so well! I feel better about myself and I can tell I am so much more productive than I was before. Its kind of the old "the busier you are the more you do" type of thing. I can only imagine how much busier it could be with kids! One of these days Michelle will have to write about how busy she is because her schedule is much more hectic and stresful than mine! She teaches first grade and the planning she has to do for her class is just a totally different creature than what I have to do for teaching Spanish.
The first aspect is the time I wake up every day. In Syracuse, I had a relatively easy schedule only going to grad school classes. I only had class two days or three days a week almost the entire year; and since I had no job that meant that I stayed up really late and slept in ridiculosuly late most days. Boy oh boy have things changed in terms of what time I wake up! Michelle and I wake up at around 6:15 am each day. That is what time we need to get up to be able to get to get ready, eat breakfast, and travel to the respective school we teach at by 8:00. On Saturdays I usually wake up early to go running, sometimes even earlier than on weekdays. Our church starts at 8:00 am on Sunday so really I don't sleep in past 7 ever. I guess I am, by force, a morning person now. It actually feels great! Getting up early helps me make the most out of every day and be the most productive as I have ever been since my mission probably.
My exercise and eating habbits have also changed dramatically. In syracuse, I reached the most unhealthy and overweight point that I had ever been in my life. Its not rocket science why I got or why anyone else in the world ever gains weight: overeating and lack of exercise. I could go into more detail, but basically for those two simple reasons I put on a lot of weight. I will say one thing about my eating habbits in Syracuse though, just because it is so pathetic it is hillarious. My eating habbits were so bad that around Christmas my diet consisted of home made Christmas cookies and tater tots. 'Nuff said about that! A few months ago though, motivated by the fact that I was going to be the best man at my best friend's wedding, I started to eat right and exercise regularly. This has helped me lose 40 pounds (while gaining muscle so perhaps I have lost even more than 40 pounds of fat) and I think I am in the best shape of my life. I eat tons of fruit and vegetables now and I feel so much better. Michelle can wrap her arms around me easier now too :) I am training for long-distance races and lifting weights a couple days a week so I am really just on a completely different level now than a few months ago when we lived in NY.
My overall schedule and level of business has gone up as well. I work full-time and then take public transportation home (but Michelle picks me up from the Metro so its not too bad taking the metro home) so weekdays are just really busy, plain and simple. I have extra meetings, trainings, and lots of miscellanious little things like phone calls to make for work as well. I am also taking two grad school classes so I have class at American University one night a week and an online class that has assignments due one day a week. I also have professional development trainings one weekend a month. I have to find the time to run and train for my race as well. Our ward is incredible and there are always fun things going on. Add to all this the fact that you could live in DC forever and still not see and do everything that there is to do and see (even though our goal is to see and do everything, lol), there is never not anything exciting to do here. Add church responsibilities to the equation and weekends get pretty busy too.
Hopefulyl in describing how much things have changed I have been able to convey that everything that has changed has been a change for the better and one that has made me happier. We thought and prayed very hard about whether or not we should embark on this adventure to move to DC and do TFA because we knew it would be challenging so it is very humbling and gratifying to know that by doing what we felt was right and following our instincts things have worked out so well! I feel better about myself and I can tell I am so much more productive than I was before. Its kind of the old "the busier you are the more you do" type of thing. I can only imagine how much busier it could be with kids! One of these days Michelle will have to write about how busy she is because her schedule is much more hectic and stresful than mine! She teaches first grade and the planning she has to do for her class is just a totally different creature than what I have to do for teaching Spanish.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Tourists in Our Own City
Michelle and I continue to hit up all the tourist attractions here in DC. I feel like we are tourists in our own city. Our goal is to see and do everything in DC before we leave in a couple years. We have been two more tourist attractions. On our list of unique-to-DC things to do here I think these places would be numbers 6 and 7. The first place is the National Cathedral. What really sparked our interest in visiting the National Cathedral was reading about it in The Lost Symbol. Pretty much everything in the book is true: there is a moonrock in one of the stained glass windows, there are 10 rocks from Mt. Sinai, and they have a gargoyle of Darth Vader. I consider our visit to the National Cathedral one of those pleasant surprises when you don't really know what to expect but really enjoy the experience. It was pretty similar overall to the cathedral in Montreal that we visited earlier this year. The tomb looking picture is where President Woodrow Wilson is buried. His wife, the first and only acting female president, also remains at this cathedral.
The second place to visit is Freedom Plaza. Freedom Plaza is really more of a place that you visit when there is something planned there like a rally or a protest; although you could go there just to walk around and check it out. It is a really long story that deserves its own blog post, but in a nutshell, the union that Michelle and I belong to (you pretty much are automatically members by becoming teachers here in Washington) had a rally on Freedom Plaza to protest a number of things going on right now with the DCPS. I did not necessarily go to full on protest but more to observe and simply show unity with my fellow teachers at my school. It was a very interesting experience and I am glad that I got to participate in a protest that actually involved both me and michelle.
The second place to visit is Freedom Plaza. Freedom Plaza is really more of a place that you visit when there is something planned there like a rally or a protest; although you could go there just to walk around and check it out. It is a really long story that deserves its own blog post, but in a nutshell, the union that Michelle and I belong to (you pretty much are automatically members by becoming teachers here in Washington) had a rally on Freedom Plaza to protest a number of things going on right now with the DCPS. I did not necessarily go to full on protest but more to observe and simply show unity with my fellow teachers at my school. It was a very interesting experience and I am glad that I got to participate in a protest that actually involved both me and michelle.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
My 1st 7 Weeks of 1st Grade (Again)
It's been a really long time since I've been in first grade, and I have a lot to learn all over again...I have just finished my first 7 weeks of 1st grade. It has been a crazy 7 weeks. I really love teaching first grade. There have been a couple of days where the class is out of control and things aren't going well and I wonder what I got myself into, but most of the time I have a lot of fun. I really do love it! Due to a 40 million dollar budget deficit in D.C. public schools, over 300 teachers were laid off last week. Chad and I feel very blessed and excited to still have our teaching jobs. Because of the layoffs, my class and situation at my school has been changing quite a bit since school started. I started the year with an aid and 13 students. Then I got a different aid, and then a different one. Then I was told to combine my class with the first grade teacher next door. We were going to co-teach a total of 27 students together. That lasted 1 day and then she was told she was going to teach 2nd grade so the next day I had all 27 students by myself (my aid was moved to kindergarten). Then the next day they were split again and I had 20 by myself. Then the next day I had 20 with a co-teacher. I co-taught for about 2 weeks and then my co-teacher was just laid off this past week. So now...it is me teaching 18 students by myself. It has been really crazy with all of the changes and especially hard on the kids, but I think everything should be stable now. 18 is still a pretty good class size and while there are advantages to co-teaching, I think I prefer to do it by myself.
Anyway, like I said, teaching first grade is a lot of fun! The kids are really cute (most of the time) and make me laugh. They are always making me cards and giving me I love you notes. One boy in my class keeps telling me how fun school is which makes me feel good. Here are some highlights from the past couple of weeks:
1. Show 'n tell last Friday: One little boy sang the whole My Girl song to the class and it was the cutest thing ever. Another little boy sang I'm Proud to Be an American - again - so cute. These two boys made my week.
2. We learned about the bald eagle in social studies and now my students point it out everywhere we go on school signs. They really remember what they learned.
3. We learned about living and non-living things a few weeks ago and every time we go outside my class continues to show me what is living and what is not and how they know. It is great to see them continue to use what they have learned.
4. My class is doing really well in reading and math and really progressing. I have seen so much improvement in so many students throughout the 7 weeks!
5. There have been so many great days, cute things said, and fun experiences. I can't think of any right now, but there are always tons! I'll have to post on a more regular basis all of the cute things that happen.
6. I had a formal observation this past week by the vice principal and she said my lesson was exemplary and she was very proud! Yeah! (It's a good thing she didn't see my math lessson that day!)
Right now the big challenges are the behavior of 2 of my students who are out of control. They are slowly getting better, but really have problems. The next big challenge is the time commitment. I work about 70-80 hours a week planning lessons, grading papers, calling parents...Sometimes it gets really overwhelming, but Chad has been very supportive and helpful and is doing a great job keeping me sain! I had no idea how much work and energy it takes to be a teacher. I am truly grateful for all of my teachers and their hard work. I had no idea what it took. There are so many things to keep track of - grades for 6 different subjects, attendance, uniforms, behavior, contact with parents, who turns in what, who completes which centers, assessments...I have always considered myself a really organized person, but wow - I can't seem to get organized anymore!! The 3rd challenge is that my students cannot read, so it takes a lot of thought to figure out how to give them assignments they can do and especially how to test them. I have to do a lot orally, which takes a lot more time. They can't read directions and I find myself explaining how to do things over and over again. Part of that is my fault too. The 4th challenge is just learning how to break things down simple enough for a first grader to understand. Sometimes I think I am presenting something in the most basic way possible, but then I realize it still needs to be broken down more. I am still learning what a 1st grader is capable of and still practicing how to bring things down to their level.
Overall, I love teaching first grade and it is not as hard as I thought it would be. Hopefully I can continue to say that and it only gets easier.
Anyway, like I said, teaching first grade is a lot of fun! The kids are really cute (most of the time) and make me laugh. They are always making me cards and giving me I love you notes. One boy in my class keeps telling me how fun school is which makes me feel good. Here are some highlights from the past couple of weeks:
1. Show 'n tell last Friday: One little boy sang the whole My Girl song to the class and it was the cutest thing ever. Another little boy sang I'm Proud to Be an American - again - so cute. These two boys made my week.
2. We learned about the bald eagle in social studies and now my students point it out everywhere we go on school signs. They really remember what they learned.
3. We learned about living and non-living things a few weeks ago and every time we go outside my class continues to show me what is living and what is not and how they know. It is great to see them continue to use what they have learned.
4. My class is doing really well in reading and math and really progressing. I have seen so much improvement in so many students throughout the 7 weeks!
5. There have been so many great days, cute things said, and fun experiences. I can't think of any right now, but there are always tons! I'll have to post on a more regular basis all of the cute things that happen.
6. I had a formal observation this past week by the vice principal and she said my lesson was exemplary and she was very proud! Yeah! (It's a good thing she didn't see my math lessson that day!)
Right now the big challenges are the behavior of 2 of my students who are out of control. They are slowly getting better, but really have problems. The next big challenge is the time commitment. I work about 70-80 hours a week planning lessons, grading papers, calling parents...Sometimes it gets really overwhelming, but Chad has been very supportive and helpful and is doing a great job keeping me sain! I had no idea how much work and energy it takes to be a teacher. I am truly grateful for all of my teachers and their hard work. I had no idea what it took. There are so many things to keep track of - grades for 6 different subjects, attendance, uniforms, behavior, contact with parents, who turns in what, who completes which centers, assessments...I have always considered myself a really organized person, but wow - I can't seem to get organized anymore!! The 3rd challenge is that my students cannot read, so it takes a lot of thought to figure out how to give them assignments they can do and especially how to test them. I have to do a lot orally, which takes a lot more time. They can't read directions and I find myself explaining how to do things over and over again. Part of that is my fault too. The 4th challenge is just learning how to break things down simple enough for a first grader to understand. Sometimes I think I am presenting something in the most basic way possible, but then I realize it still needs to be broken down more. I am still learning what a 1st grader is capable of and still practicing how to bring things down to their level.
Overall, I love teaching first grade and it is not as hard as I thought it would be. Hopefully I can continue to say that and it only gets easier.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Runner's Rite of Passage
As I mentioned before, I signed up for a half marathon and the training I have been going through has been a huge part of me getting into shape and losing a lot of weight. Just for the record, I have lost (as of this morning) 40 pounds since I started running and eating right two and a half months ago. In the research and reading I have done about how to train for longer races I have noticed that a lot of people refer to a 'rite of passage' that every runner must go through, and that rite of passage is to run a 10 mile run. I fulfilled that rite of passage today. It was hard but it felt good to get through it. It was 2 miles further than I ran last Saturday, which is a little bit more of an increase to your 'long run' than is recommended but I knew that if I ran 9 miles I would not be able to stop there and would just want to do 10, so I just decided to do 10 miles today. There are some amazing running trails here is DC. Today I ran along the Potomac River here in VA and crossed over into DC at some point and then turned around and ran back. It is nice to see the beauty of this city as I run (it is way better than the treadmill). I could see the river and lots of trees most of the time, and across the river I could see the Washington Monument and the US Capitol. My half marathon is 36 days, so I still have a lot of training left to do to reach my goal, but I feel I am well on my way.
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