Teach for America Institute Weeks 1-4

For the past 4 weeks Chad and I have been in Philadelphia doing a very intense 5 week training program to teach us how to be teachers (we will be teachers in Washington D.C. for two years starting in the fall - see previous post). It has been the hardest thing by far that either of us has ever done. It has been very mentally, emotionally, and physically draining, especially the first part. We get up every morning by 5:30 a.m., quickly get ready to go, and then walk to the dining hall to get breakfast and make sack lunches. Then we get on the buses by 6:45 to go to our different schools. Chad is a high school Spanish teacher for the summer and I am a 4th grade teacher, so we go to different schools. We stay at our schools until 4:30 every day. At school, we each have a class that we teach with 1 or 2 other people. I have 2 other teachers in my group and the 3 of us rotate weekly teaching reading, writing, and math. Chad just teaches 1 hour of Spanish every day. Other than the hour or two when we are actually teaching our students, we are in back to back classes learning how to be teachers: manage classrooms, communicate with families, plan and execute lessons...We get home from school around 5:00 and go to the dining hall to eat dinner. Then we come back to the dorms and type up lesson plans, investment and classroom management plans, make copies, get supplies ready for the next day, finalize the next day's lesson plans... for the next 5 hours. We also sometimes have classes that we have to go to at night. We have absolutely no time to do anything other than teaching stuff all week long. We do have the weekends where we have a little bit of our own time, but we usually have to plan a lot on the weekend as well. It's been very tiring. The first 2 weeks we were getting about 4-5 hours of sleep a night. Teach for America has this program calculated very strategically to push you to your breaking point, but not quite over it (actually, a lot of people have quit, so I guess they didn't figure out everyone's breaking point). This is definitely not a sustainable life style, but we only have one week left so we can do it. As we have gotten better at learning how to plan lessons and manage our time we have been able to get to sleep earlier and things have gotten a little easier. This week has been a lot better and we have found time to work out and even relax (a little). It is still a lot of stress and pressure though to write and teach really good lessons. I think sometimes Teach for America forgets that as of today I have only taught in a classroom for 19 hours - that's about 4 days worth.

As hard as this is, we are both really enjoying teaching and we are learning a ton! My favorite part of the day is when I am teaching my students. There are 10 students in my 4th grade class. There are some behavioral problems, but for the most part they are pretty well behaved and classroom management has gone well. I love to teach them and see how excited they get when they learn how to do something. They all really want to learn. They are already progressing a lot. One of the big struggles I do have with them is building their confidence in themselves. The majority of them are in my class because they failed a subject in 4th grade and now they think they can't do it, but I know that they can if they work hard. They are all very bright. Sometimes it is frustrating and stressful when they are not understanding something and I can't figure out how to teach it differently so that they do understand and do well. If they are not understanding, it is my fault.

Here's some highlights from the first 4 week:

• They took a math test last week and then took the same one again this week and improved the class average by 20%.
  
• A girl in my class got a 0% on that same math test last week and 100% this week. Another student got a 25% and then a 75%
• One student wants so badly to learn and come to school that one morning she told me she almost couldn't make it because her mom wouldn't wake up, but then she kept splashing water on her face until she did wake up so her mom could take her to school. It's exciting to me to see her take so much initiative and have such a strong desire to do what she needs to do to get to school.
• The first week I taught reading and spelling and everyone in my class (except 1 student) got 100% on the spelling test. The girl that didn't get 100 doesn't know English well and hasn't learned to write at all. However, she did get 4 correct and even understood the difference between short and long a.
• My class has started to ask me to help them with math at lunch and before school and they have wanted me to read to them at lunch also. They are getting excited about what they are learning and really want to work hard.
• There is a student in my class who has hard a really hard time focusing and staying awake. It was a big struggle for the first 3 weeks, but this past week we came up with an individualized behavior plan for him and he is doing so much better and focusing almost all day long!
• My whole class got their "behavior clips" up to super superstar status yesterday and we did not have to give even 1 kid a warning.

Anyway, the past 4 weeks have been incredibly hard and stressful, but fun and rewarding as well. I hope that next week when we do all of the testing that my class is able to meet the goals we have set for each of them in reading, writing, and math.

Updates - Finally!

TEACH FOR AMERICA: NEW JOBS
This past February Chad and I applied for a program called Teach for America. It is an organization through Americorps that sends students with bachelor’s degrees who have excelled in academic and leadership areas to teach in low-income, under achieving, inner-city schools for two years. The goal of the program is to end educational inequality and make it possible for all children some day to have an excellent education. It was a pretty extensive application process. We had to write a letter of intent, resume, and essays and send our transcripts in. After we made it past the first stage we went to a day long interview where we had to teach a group a 5 minute test, participate in role plays and group discussions, take some written tests, and do an hour long personal interview. It took a lot of work to get this far and prepare for everything. In May we found out we were accepted into the program and placed in Las Vegas, NV. Unfortunately, there was training for teachers going to the Las Vegas area that started on June 24 (we did not know about this training when applying). Chad’s last day of school was June 25. His school would not let him leave even a day early and Las Vegas would not let us come late to the training (which was really just an introduction to the program and some classes that weren’t a big deal). Anyway, we decided to request to be transferred to another region where either the training started later or we would be able to get there late. A couple of weeks later we received an e-mail that we were transferred to Washington D.C. where induction (the training) started June 22 – still a date we could not attend. We called a few program directors for the area to see if we could come late and they said we absolutely could not. Again, Chad asked his school if he could leave early and they said absolutely not. After many attempts to find a compromise, it was just not possible and we had to turn down the offer to join the program. We were pretty disappointed, but at least we had tried everything. Chad just continued to look for a different job and we put Teach for America behind us. Then at the very beginning of June we got an e-mail asking us if we would like our offer back for D.C. It said we could come to induction late if we were willing to pay emergency fees to take the required certification tests late and get everything else done in the little over 3 weeks we had before we needed to be in D.C. After a lot of discussion and prayer, we decided it was the right thing to do and we got really excited. We had looked into Teach for America pretty thoroughly and we knew it would be a huge challenge and would probably be the hardest thing we have evern done, but we felt like it was right and we wanted to do it. Thus began a very crazy next 3 weeks with getting fingerprinting done, taking two certification (Praxis) tests (one in New Hampshire), filling out lots of paperwork, preparing to move, working, finishing grad work…all in the midst of hitting a deer and totaling our car (see previous posts). We are now doing training in Philadelphia (more about that later) and will then move to the D.C. in August.

CHAD’S PARENTS COME TO VISIT
Chad’s parents came to visit and help us move during our last week in Syracuse. We were so grateful for their help and had a lot of fun with them! Here are some highlights from their visit:

We all went to a Syracuse Skychiefs Game (minor league baseball) where I was chosen to compete in an ugly duckling contest (I don't know how I'm supposed to take that. lol.) I had to go out on the field and put on these flippers that were bent down in the front and a beak on my nose and race another girl to put a certain number of ducks in swimming pools. She started out winning, but then I was catching up and probably would have beat her, but on the last duck I lost my balance because of the flippers and missed grabbing the duck out of the pool on my first try, so she won. Too bad, but it was fun.


We also went to Lake Ontario, one of the great lakes, and walked around a little and took some pictures. It's huge! It looks like the ocean!

Syracuse's Dinosuar BBQ was recently voted the best BBQ restaurant in the United States, so we all went to dinner there one night. It was very good!

Baseball Hall of Fame

Baseball Hall of Fame

We went to get icecream at the most popular homemade icecream place in Syracuse - Gannon's.

We had a yummy dinner the first night Chad's parents arrived.

Stick Shift v Automatic

When I married Chad I had to give "my" car to my younger brother and Chad and I started sharing his car, which was stick shift, which I had never driven before. Chad starting teaching me to drive it and at first I really didn't like it. It took me a while to catch on. Even after I was perfectly comfortable driving stick shift, I couldn't see why everyone always said how awesome it was. Most everyone I know likes to drive stick shift better than automatic because you are more in control, there's more power, it's more fun...I thought I liked automatic better. It's just easier and you don't have to worry about anything. But...then Chad and I totaled our car. The loaner car we had was an automatic. It was so weird going back to driving that. To my surprise, I didn't like it and I missed our stick shift. It just felt weird to drive and like everyone has always said, you just don't feel as in control and it really does feel less powerful. Our new car is a stick shift and I am glad to have it back. I guess I needed to go back to automatic after driving stick before realizing what I really liked better.

Our New Car

It has been an insanely frustrating and annoying hassle, but we finally have a new car. Most of the hassle was working with our insurance because I refused to accept the initial offer they gave me for our old car that was totaled. Most people don't know you don't have to accept what they offer you and you can negotiate with them quite a bit. It took them forever to get back to me any time I tried to negotiate, I think maybe because they thought I would give in or something because we needed a car so badly. But no, Michelle and I held our ground and I am proud to say we won. We actually ended up getting $1,200 dollars more than the first offer he made us. We were finally able to get a check from our insurance, cash the check (which was really scary to have that much cash on hand even for just a couple days), arrange for the guy whose car we bought to bring the car down to Syracuse and have a mechanic check it out, register it at the DMV (I am proud to say that we successfully registered it and transferred the title in one trip to the DMV). Our new car is a 2004 Mazda 3. A testament to the Mazda 3 and how much we loved ours is that that is really the only car we looked for and once we found the right one we bought it. It is two years older than our old one but actually has less miles and is the top of the line model. It's got the bigger engine, a moon roof, 6 disk in dash changer, etc etc and comes in the color that you can only get in the top of the line model: 'winning blue.' We love it. Best of all, we made money off of the whole ordeal because I got more money from the insurance than the new car cost.

Play Him Off, keyboard Cat

There are these hilarious videos I have discovered on the internet that involve something funny or of bad luck happening and a cat that starts to play the keyboard in the middle of the video. I have no idea why but I find them to be very funny. So funny, in fact, that I want to share some of them with the rest of the world. You can google or look up on you tube "Play him off, keyboard cat" and find many of them. And just as a side note, I am only posting the ones with Vice President Cheney and Glen Beck because I think the cat is funny, this has nothing to do with politics...just humor that involves a cute cat playing a keyboard.

Update: pics of totaled car and other info.

We had to go to the body shop to pick up all the stuff that was in our car and this is what it looked like. It was really weird to see the car like this. We got our license plates and all the miscellaneous things that were in the car like our emergency kit. We also of course got all of my car audio stuff. They were nice enough to rip it all out, there really was a lot. There were two large amplifiers, a boat load of wires of all different types and sizes, the box with the two 12'' subwoofers, both 1 capacitors, our Play Station, and lots of other little things. They took all the stuff out and had it waiting in their little warehouse. I asked the guy if he had any idea where I might be able to sale all this stuff because I had no intention of putting it my new car. Lucky me, he told me that one of the guys who helped take out all the stuff of my car had commented that he knew this was a real hard-core system and had something about the fact that he wanted to buy a system. So that kid came up and I asked him if he wanted to buy the system. I had mentioned that I would sale it for like 7 or 8 hundred dollars but luckily the kid recognized that the system was hard core and I was able to get $900 from him. I had no need for the stuff and I wanted to sale it so it worked out really well for both of us because he was about to buy a system on ebay for more money and it wasn't as good as the one i sold him. Here We are still in the process of figuring out how much money we are going to get from our insurance for our acutal car, but so far, since I was able to sale my system this my end up being somewhat of a blessing in disguise. This is a picture of all the stuff we took out of our car.

Update on our car: it's totaled

Yes, that's right, our car is totaled. After we took it to a body shop to get work done and they were finally able to take things apart and find out the full extent of everything that was wrong, the damage continued to stack up and when it reached $10,000 they called us and let us know that it was going to be considered totaled. They are going to give us quite a bit of money though because it was still worth a lot (it was pretty new and had pretty low miles), and in the current economic climate we are hoping we might even be able to actually buy a brand new car from a dealer. I have heard it is a buyer's market wiht dealierships and you can haggle quite a bit. If we are willing to go out on a limb and buy a Chrysler or GM, I don't know if they still honor warranties or not but I bet the dealerships that are clsoing are trying to liquidate their inventory pretty fast! Our insurance is giving us an extra $500 on top of the value of the car for the GPS/DVD player I had in there and I will be able to take my system out and I will just sale it on craig's list as soon as possible because I am not going to bother with putting a system in our new car...I am over having a system. We would rather have a trunk :) So things are all still up in the air right now but that is pretty much where we stand.

Boston Pictures, Finally!

Here is a bunch of pictures from our amazing trip to Boston, in chronological order. Sorry there are so many, it was just too hard to try and eliminate which pictures to put in because we did so many cool things and saw so many amazing cites. The description of each picture is BELOW the picture.

This is the first stop on the Freedom Trail: Boston Commons.

Paul Revere's grave

"Stand in opposition"

Site of the Boston Massacre

This is the bench we were sitting in inside the chapel where the lamps were lit to let Paul Revere know the Red Coats were coming "by sea"

Another view of that same chapel: "One if by land, two if by sea."

Me firing a canon on the USS Constitution

Michelle going below on the USS Constitution, the oldest commisioned ship in the U.S.

Michelle after we ran up and ran down the 294 steps of the monument below...

Old Bunker Hill

The Green Monster (it's much bigger than it looks on TV and in this picture)

Me and Ken's seats at Fenway Park. I think these seats are originals.

Ground Level at Fenway Park, the Red Sox beat the Indians really bad so it was a good game

My red sox ticket

New England Aquarium, Michelle with Penguins

Me Picking up a starfish at the aquarium

Me checking out some Jelly Fish

Me having some New England Clam Chowda' at Legal Sea Foods

Some weird social experiment...i guess...at Harvard University. I went along with her little game and told her a truth in one ear and a lie in the other

Harvard's Memorial Hall

Us at Harvard

Boston Science Musuem

Boston Temple, very beautiful

Michelle, also very beautiful


A display at the JFK Presidential Museum and Library

Who would I have voted for?

Some of Jacky Kennedy's dresses.

JFK was a WWII hero. His ship got blown up, he swam and pulled several soldiers to safety on a remote island, and wrote a message on this coconut and sent it for help. We didn't beleive this story was true until we saw this display and read the actual military reports

JFK museum


I had heard this quote before, didn't know who it was from though

John Adams' presidential library. these books are really old

Plymouth Rock

The man who led the militia that stood up to the Red Coats and started the American Revolution

Cool monument in Lexington where the Revolution started

The North Bridge in Concord where the colonial Americans turned the Red Coats around and started to win us our freedom...

We hit a deer on the freeway last night

Last night, on our way home from Montreal, we hit a deer while we were driving on the freeway. It was one of the craziest and saddest things that has ever happened to me. We were about 17 mils away from home, and it was about 9:15 at night. It was totally dark and we were on a smaller highway in upstate New York so it was really dark and we were in a wooded area. The instant that I saw the deer was the same instant that it ran in front of my car and I immediately slammed on the breaks. I had maybe a half second or a third of a second to even process what I was seeing, so needless to say there was no time to avoid hitting it. It flew straight up when I hit it, and Michelle and I both saw the deer literally flying straight up, upside down. It landed in front of the car and sadly we ran over it. The whole ordeal was maybe a second. After it happened we immediately pulled over, called 911, and said a prayer of thanks that Michelle and I were both fine. Another car pulled over to make sure we were fine. When the guy in the other car found out we were fine he took off almost right away because the scene was so gross and already smelled awful. I could see the deer, it was right next to my side of the car when we were pulled over. It was one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen. I thought about taking a picture of it...but my better judgment convinced me that nobody would ever want to see it. I did take pictures of the car though. I got two estimates today, both were over $7,000. I guess that is why you have car insurance (we would be in big trouble if car insurance didn't exist). I guess this is also why you are supposed to keep an emergency fund saved in a savings account of somewhere like that. It is ironic that we had such a good time in Canada over Memorial Day weekend and finished it off with this experience. It is even more ironic that we went to such great lengths to save money while in Canada and then had this happen and will have to pay for our large deductible for our car insurance. We bought a bunch of food at Wal-Mart before we left to go to Canada and then took it all in an ice chest. I am proud to say that we did not spend a single penny on food on our entire trip in Canada. That was our goal. Little did we know this would happen. We had a great time in Canada, and I will write more about that in a later post. In the mean time, enjoy these pictures.

Thankful Thursday

Today I'm thankful for...

1. The beautiful tulips of all different colors planted all over Syracuse

2. The warm weather

3. My job so close to home with great hours so I can spend evenings with my wonderful husband

4. The prayers and support of all our family and friends

My First Plant

A few months again at a Relief Society activity I got a little tiny flower pot with a seed inside. I brought it home and set it in the kitchen window, without too much hope that it was going to grow. There wasn't much sun in Syracuse at that time. To my surprise though, it has grown so much! It finally got too big for the little pot and was starting to fall over, so Chad and I re-potted it yesterday. I've never had my own plant or re-potted one, so I didn't know if you were supposed to buy special soil or what exactly the best way to do it was. We decided to just go buy a bigger pot at the dollar store. We didn't want to buy soil, so we walked around our apartment complex for about 10 minutes looking for some "good dirt". We finally found a decent spot of dirt that some trees and flowers were growing in. We didn't have a shovel, so I dug it up with a big spoon and my hands. Then I just took the whole plant, soil and all, out of the old pot, put it in the new pot, and added more dirt to fill it up. I still don't know what this plant is, so if anyone else does, let me know. Someone else from relief society said it's some kind of flower, but I don't know what kind. I am excited that it has grown so well so far and am excited to see it bloom - hopefully soon. Here are some pictures:

This is my plant after a few weeks. It grew so much faster than I expected! It seemed like I just woke up one day and it was all of a sudden a few inches tall.
This is my plant the other day when it was WAY too big for it's pot. I had to put a pencil in there to hold it up straight.

Here is the plant in it's new pot - it looks much better!