why is this job so exhausting?

Yes, I do work with little kids all day. But still, should I be this exhausted?

Last night, I was getting ready to go to bed at about 9:30. I was feeling good, just sitting on my balcony, watching the rain fall and humming a little song to myself. It was actually a song that I was thinking about writing down.

THEN

EXPLOSION. The transformer across the parking lot BLEW UP IN FRONT OF MY EYES. I thought I was going to die. It was so loud and caused by just a little drizzle. Seriously.

I went to bed and opened the windows but it was hot as all get up in my bedroom, so I couldn't fall asleep. I stayed awake until about 11, woke up at 6 am, and even though it was a pretty good day in the classroom, I am really feeling the exhaustion setting in right now at about 6 pm. And it's Monday, oh yes, it's Monday.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about this job is that I am putting in everything I have, all of my heart, time, and energy, but I am yet to see any results. Of the 11 kids who started out on the lowest reading level (aa), NONE moved up the last time I tested them. Their goal is to move like 6 or 7 levels by the end of the year, and none moved. Is this a fruitless effort? Will it one day just click and I will see some amazing significant gains out of the blue? Or will I just drive my body and my mind into the dirt, hoping for that day?

I'm going to go get a haircut, exercise, and clear my mind of such difficult questions until tomorrow at 6 am.

Bling Blang

One day one of my girls (who is adorable) came to school sporting the "bling on the teeth" look. Apparently it's the next big thing.

Do they do this in normal places too or is this just a ghetto-thing?

Cut me Mick!

The last few months have been really hard. You can probably tell that just from looking at my blog and realizing that August, September, and October only have one blog post each. I am pretty sure I fell into a deep pit somewhere along the way and am just now emerging out of it - finally being able to see things clearly and put first things first.

Teaching school has been a great experience for me so far. I really enjoy teaching these kids and we have some good times. In English, 11 of my 19 kids are reading at Pre-K levels. I once thought it was a little better than that, but after some further diagnostics, I see that none of them are any level higher than that. That is rough stuff, but I know that they are smart kids (at least in Spanish) and that if we really push it hard, they'll be able to pull ahead in English.

In Math we have our issues. The boys are really good at math, but the girls really struggle. I hate to break it up on gender lines like that, but so it goes.

I do enjoy actual teaching, but I also really enjoy the experiences we have day to day. Like yesterday for example, I was told that this one kid wouldn't be able to come in because his eye was shut closed and they would have to cut it. Some fight with his brother involving the bathtub apparently. So I was like "Oh, cool, just like Rocky." (Cut me Mick. Cut me!) When he showed up today, sure enough, he definitely looked like Rocky. I took a picture of him so that he can always remember the day that he looked like the greatest fighter there ever was.

Tonight we're going to the Houston Children's Museum and all of the kids are majorly pumped about that. I've never been so hopefully I'll snap some good photos. I'm also working on some media consent forms for the parents so I can post pictures on my blog. They're just too darn adorable to not let you guys see them now and again. At the same time, I don't want to get sued.

Illegals

I'm pretty sure that a good number of my students are illegal (as in, not born in this country). You can't be positive, but here's my quick count of probables: 8.

I used to hate illegal immigration (I still do hate the idea that people can cross), and I remember being very vocal about the issue during last year's campaign. That was Utah.

The other day, I was talking to one my girls, and I asked her if she lives with her mom and dad. She said that she just lives with her mom. Then she told me about how her dad was deported and now in Mexico. I asked what her mom does for work. She said her mom has a card that she uses to buy groceries. I asked her how her mom pays the rent. She said that sometimes her mom borrows money from people.

I met with her mom the next day (for a parent teacher conference) and her mom was telling about how her husband went out to do a job and got busted and deported. The woman then spent about 12,000 dollars on a lawyer who did nothing to help and kept their money. So now, their financial situation is pretty shaky (as if it wasn't before), they have no source of income (except for the government), and their family is separated.

Of course he shouldn't have been here in the first place, and I guess none of them should have been. But this story has led me to two conclusions:

1) There is no point in separating families through deportation. If you're going to deport one member of the family, deport them all. I would personally go for the "don't deport them if they haven't committed a crime" option.
2) I think that there is just as great a strain (if not greater) placed on the government when the breadwinner is deported as when the breadwinner stays and works illegaly.

I certainly don't support the continuation of illegal immigration, and I think the stream needs to stop. But is deportation of working illegals really the answer?

I have grown to love these children, whether they're illegal or not. And I would be traumatized if I were to lose one to a broken immigration system.

You vs. Joo

One of the funniest things about working with Bilingual kids has to be their pronunciation of words. Today, one of my worst behavors, a smart kid whom we shall call Gregorio, was working on saying his sight words correctly. He came across the word "you", which is a particularly hard one because they all say their y's with a hard j sound. It always results in "yes" sounding like "jes" and "you" of course sounding like "joo". So today as Gregorio was sounding out this word I was like no repeat after me, "you" and he would repeat "joo". So I tried "yes" but kept getting "jes". Eventually I went to the letter "y" and made the "yuh" "yuh" sound. But all I got back was "juh" "juh". I was sure he was messing with me and I'm still not sure he wasn't. The whole time I kept thinking about this clip from the Simpsons, namely the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiiKwNOIZT4

oh the joys of teaching.

The Ward Talent Show

I hope that Kate doesn't mind me posting our video from the ward talent show on my blog. I'm just so darn proud of how we did. There is always a lot of anxiety when it comes to performing in front of people, and I'm glad it turned out as well as it did. I think our next stop on our tour is playing in the street somewhere. That's our next gig, I guess you could almost say.

Please note the poor audio, video, and lack of microphone stands or amps. Such things happen at the church gym.

Joshua Radin - The Fear You Won't Fall.

some ideas for my room

I feel like the 24th is still light years away, as if my kids will never come to the classrom. It's a strong possibility that they won't and that they are just a little piece of my imagination. The 24th is the first day of school in case you didn't know. That's when my slated 19 students will come to school. One of the things I have found out since last time I talked about school is that last year was a particularly bad year for my school. There were just a lot of issues including the fact that one classrom was just divided by a barrier down the middle. That sounds kind of pitsy.

So this year that won't be an issue. We have tons of technology, including a personal laptop, document reader, and smart boards. We have our very own state of the art brand new classrooms. I'm extremely excited about that. I'm concerned about the experiences that the parents mightve had last year being an impediment on our level of trust but I do think that once they see that I'm serious, they'll follow me. Everything is coming together and I'm excited to get started.

I want everyone to be able to track the progress in my classroom, but don't forget that I'm not allowed to post any pictures or personal information on my blog. So here's the plan:

At the beginning I am going to create a "correlating name list" for the kids in my classroom. That way you can track the progress of individual students along with me. The students will be matched with a name that is not theirs, and hopefully that will solve some issues.

Early on, I will take a day for each student (or two a day) and post some basic information about them, along with their starting assessments for writing (I'll scan that) and their math and reading levels. I'll do that periodically throughout the year as well as progress reports and scores.

By the end of the year, hopefully we'll be able to all see just how much they progressed. I also have the idea to publish some of this information and maybe some of my own writings, though I would probably be the only one who bought it :)

Okay, so... Those are a few ideas I have about this blog. I think it will be good.

Now let's talk about my classroom. I've been trying to come up with some ideas for a theme and so far I have approximately one. Here it goes. We always learn about how the brain is a muscle, and how we need to exercise it to make it stronger. I would talk about that a lot in the beginning and then introduce the fitness theme to the group. Everyone would get sweatbands and we would take jogging breaks. I got this idea while watching a p90x video. That guy is so intense but he just makes you think you can do it too. Maybe my classroom wouldn't be exactly like those videos but that's the idea - we are going to pump you up, mentally. I would always remind the kids that being smart is hard work - it requires focus and dedication. By the end of the year, our brains are going to be HUGE because we'll be working out so hard.

Another thing that I've been thinking a lot about is a byu forum speech about positive psychology. I tried to find the speech but I don't think it's online. Anyway, the main idea is that students who actually do things for others and are taught to be kind to others perform better in school. I've been thinking about ways to implement that.

The last thing I will probably put up that I have thought about is a banner that says "cambiaremos el mundo". Or "we will change the world." and, hopefully we will.

Forgive me if this entry is incoherent at times, I wrote it on my iPhone.

i think one day i'll be okay

Hey everyone, so I just moved into my new apartment and I am trying out the new life-strategy of not having the Internet at home. It has been really nice in a few ways. In particular, I have read a ton. I'm enjoying that. I'm writing small essays as well.

Unfortunately, so far, I don't really have any really efficient method to update this blog and post pictures and what not. I am currently using the complex's computer/internet, which is... weak to say the least. I think that once the school year starts things will be a little better because I'll have Internet access at school. I'm also going to (probably) buy an iPhone next month. We're still checking the finances on that one.

Whatever the case, I want everyone to know that I am alive and learning a lot of great things. I've got about two more weeks until I start teacher inservice, and then the kids come on August 24th. Then, I get the feeling that I will have a lot to talk about.