My daughter is taking me out for breakfast!

Early this morning, my husband left with the two boys to spend the night at my parents' house. He'll be back, minus one boy, tomorrow. The other boy is spending the week with the grandparents as he and I have next week off. Today I was able to get a little more done on the work I needed to do and next week, I'll be able to get a whole lot accomplished, as everyone else either returns to work or school.

But, I digress.

My daughter came home early tonight so that I wouldn't be alone. She could have spent the night out with friends, but instead I heard a knock on the door around 7:30, answered it and was surprised to see her sans friends. "I didn't want you to be here all by yourself." she stated as she walked into the entryway. Then, she asked, "you want to go to breakfast tomorrow? My treat!"

As she matures into being a young woman, I can already tell that I'm going to enjoy our relationship. She is such a thoughtful, caring person. Tomorrow I'll be up to go to breakfast with my daughter. And, it'll be my treat in so many ways.



I watched Shakespeare in Love tonight for the first time and loved it.

Companies to Classrooms

In order to help teachers provide what's needed in the classroom, Cary Weatherby has come up with an innovative idea to help them out. She saw companies getting rid of supplies that she knew students and teachers could use, so she came up with an innovative idea - companies give their throw away items to her, she puts these items in a warehouse, and teachers and students are allowed to "shop" for free!

Curious? Then hop on over to Companies to Classrooms. Now, if only this concept would take hold in more places.

acommplished and still to do

okay, I was sitting here reading blogs when I'm supposed to be working on assignments, and I was feeling kind of guilty about my procrastination. However, I needed to remind myself that I did complete two assignments yesterday and actually heard back from an e-mail that I sent last week from an author of a research article that I'm using in my literature review for my thesis.

So, I've accomplished a couple of important tasks. Yay me!

Still to do:

1. complete exercise 5 and 7 (these are stumping me, so I've been putting them off). I finished exercise 7 today (Friday, 12/29). Still putting off exercise 5 - to be done tomorrow!
   
2. read two research articles and put pertinent information in my literature findings table (yay! I completed two articles - WOOT!) (I read two more today [12/29] and need to put the info. onto my lit. findings table).
   
3. look at blackboard and complete the assignment(s) there.
4. get started on my presentation for next Thursday (this is a biggie! I actually have to present what I'm doing for my thesis and defend it in front of a panel of VIP [very important professors])

In a bit, I am taking the youngest and his bff (my nephew) over to my sister's house and then, I'll start cracking the proverbial whip.

edited to add: As tasks are completed, I plan on coming back to this list and more than likely will change font colors. This just helps me to see that I'm actually accomplishing something as opposed to feeling like I'm not doing enough.

Thursday Thirteen #5

Thirteen Thoughts About Ms_Teacher's Holiday Season 1. Sleeping in feels really good. I wish there was some way I could convince my school district that starting later is not only better for adolescents, but for teachers as well. 2. My husband is a nut. I say that in the best way possible and really, who would want to be married to anyone without a sense of humor. There is a reason I say this about him. My daughter bought me a kitty for Christmas from the store "Build a Bear." The kitty looks like our orange tabby cat, Brickles. Dear husband has given the kitty a mischievious personality. So, far I've caught the kitty online, playing with the mouse (my husband said the kitty was looking for "kitty" porn - gah, he's bad!), holding an empty box of milk duds, holding the remote control to watch television, and wrapping up one of my other stuffed animals with toilet paper, while the kitty was holding the roll of tp. Either my husband's a nut or I have an insane stuffed kitty on my hands! 3. The fact I have really, really good kids. It's not the gifts they bought us, rather it's the fact that the two older ones have been home most of the time, spending the holidays with us, instead of choosing to be with their friends. Daughter and her friend (whose from Russia) are planning on fixing us dinner tomorrow night. Now, how cool is that? 4. My older brother has absolutely no common sense when it comes to women. He's getting married for the third time in June. As far as we know, his "fiance" doesn't have any family and we aren't even sure what her real name is. I hope he hasn't ended up with someone that's crazier than he is. 5. I didn't use my credit card for any Christmas purchases. That's a good thing, however, I think I may have to use it in January because teachers get paid once a month and my January paycheck was given to me last Friday. January is always my most broke month. I also paid all my bills today and all I can say is "where's the money?" 6. My youngest sings a mean Johnny Cash and is obsessed with him. Besides wanting a Nintendo Gamecube, he also wanted "Walk the Line" and Johnny Cash CD's. He ended up getting a compilation from me and another from my parents. You should hear him sing "Folsom Prison Blues." I think perhaps I'll have him sing it and I can record it to upload here later. Let me know if you'd like to hear it. 7. My mother-in-law has gotten better behaved over the years. I think she's starting to realize that her son and I are in this for the long term. Seriously. 8. On Friday, I'm having my thyroid checked out. When I swallow, it feels like something's stuck in my throat. It's not sore, just very annoying. My dad has thyroid issues as does many of my relatives on his side of the family. It wouldn't surprise me and I'll be glad to know regardless. 9. I'm not going to write anything about my masters. 10. I like the fact that my school district had our semester end on the 21st of December. This is the first time since I started teaching where I haven't brought stuff home to grade over the Christmas break. In the past, the semester ended a week or two after we got back from break, which meant I felt compelled to grade stuff. 11. The weather was crazy last night. The wind was blowing so hard that twice we were woken up when something slammed into our french doors. Luckily, none of it was big enough to break the glass in the doors. 12. I think my daughter is starting to understand how important education is after working retail for the Christmas season. 13. Even with all the dysfunction in my family, I wouldn't trade any of them. First, the unknown is a lot more scary than the known. Second, I have my own quirks and they love me anyway. Finally, even with the dysfunction, we still have a great time when we all get together.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Early Christmas Present

When I came downstairs on Christmas eve* morning, I was greeted with a very, very clean family room. Apparently, our fourteen year old took it upon himself to clean up the room. Since I've started this Master's program, I've had very little time to keep up with routine cleaning maintenance, so it was a rather nice suprise that he did this and did it without anyone asking him or helping him. This made it all the more special to me.

It's when my kids do stuff like this that helps me to realize even more, how blessed I am. (Just don't stop to look at the rest of the house or his bedroom - you might have the shock of your life!)

*edited to add: eve, which I only noticed that I ommitted it after California Teacher Guy commented on my post. And, I do agree him!

In which our state appointed administrator files an unfair labor practice against the union

In my school district, we were taken over by the state of California a couple of years ago. It wasn't due to poor test scores or anything else directly related to teaching, instead it was due to the mishandling of money and improper book-keeping. Nonetheless, our state-appointed administrator has bent over backwards to make it appear that everything bad, bad, bad in our district is the fault of the teachers.

One of his cost-cutting measures was to have classrooms cleaned every other day. In my district, "cleaning" consists of garbage cans being emptied and floors being swept. At no point in time were school sites given a schedule of what days specific classrooms would be cleaned. One would assume, of course, that sections of a school site would be cleaned on alternate nights, thus having a schedule would help make teachers aware of when their rooms were to be cleaned.

(The unfair labor practice is due to the fact that the union will not agree to this every other day cleaning schedule, even if it saves the district money. This is because rooms are not being cleaned and the district never provided anyone with a schedule as to when rooms would be cleaned.)

Cleaning of classrooms has been a rather contentious battle in my school district. Our contract actually had to have a MOU (memorandum of understanding) added because of the consistent problems that classroom teachers have faced with having classrooms inconsistently cleaned.

Last year, a teacher reported mice in her room. The district responded by placing those sticky traps down, but of course, never sent anyone back out to check them. Guess who got to have that job? The teacher. After the smell of death started emanating from her room did it occur to her that a mouse had been caught. Did the district offer her a new room to teach in while that horrendous smell dissipated or at the very least, buy air freshener to help make her room smell more pleasant? Of course not.

In the six years I've taught in my district, my student desks have never been wiped down. The only time my floor is mopped is during the summer months for "deep-cleaning". Classroom windows, whiteboards and the trays that I keep my whiteboard erasers and markers on are never cleaned. If a child had an allergy to dust, I'm not sure what I would do.

It gets better though. My room has been without heat since we got back from Thanksgiving break. The district has done nothing. It starts getting "comfortable" around 1:00 in the afternoon and when I say comfortable, I mean that the thermometer hits about 60 by then in my room. When I walk through the door in the morning, its a frosty 48 degrees. My students have been allowed to wear their coats, scarves, hats, and gloves because I'll be damned if I'm going to tell them they can't.

We talk all the time about having conducive learning environments. How can we expect children to learn when they are cold, the floor's dirty, and they see grime when they look out of the classroom windows? Perhaps students will start taking education more seriously if we make the environments in which they are learning a warm and friendly one.

I'm writing a letter to the editor and I'm going to encourage the public and parents of students to visit school sites to see how clean and warm the classrooms are in our district.

Thursday Thirteen #4

Thirteen things you might not know about Ms_Teacher 1. I've been married to my husband for twenty years and got married at the (very) young age of twenty. We got engaged about four months after we met each other, but I knew I would marry him about a month into the relationship. I've never regretted saying yes. 2. I have five tattoos and my nose is pierced. Generally, my students don't see my tattoos as I don't wear clothes that reveal them. I do have one on the outside of my left calf, which means that most of my skirts are long or I wear boots. The piercing in my nose is small and not very noticeable. 3. I absolutely love Altoids wintergreen mints. I've been known to eat the whole content of a tin in one sitting. That is why I try not to buy them too often. 4. Eating ice is something I've just recently started to do. From the research I've done online, chewing ice is not very good for your teeth. My dentist has yet to tell me to stop and he probably won't until I crack a tooth or something. 5. I used to aspire to be a professional singer. I miss singing and hope to one day get back to pursuing it, even if I don't get paid to do it. 6. My thesis for my master's is causing me to go batty. I'm even dreaming about it as it's become all-consuming. You want to know what it's going to be on? Parenting styles and its impact on academic achievement. 7. In 1998, I was involved in a roll-over accident. It was the scariest thing to happen to me, ever. Looking at my car afterwards, most people are amazed that I walked away relatively unscathed. Lasting damage has been short-term memory loss, which isn't a very good thing to have at all. 8. When I was going to the gym on a regular basis, I could bench press 130 lbs. One of these days I'll get serious about going to the gym again and hopefully beat that! 9. Teaching is what I was meant to do, even though I resisted its pull for a long, long time. I didn't want to do something that was so traditionally female. Once I made the decision to teach, I've never looked back, even on those days where I feel like I could have been a better teacher. 10. If you want to put a smile on my face, buy me a caramel macchiato from Starbucks. It's my favorite warm beverage. On a hot day, you can make it a margarita, blended with salt on the rim. 11. My peke is named after my favorite hot beverage, but we call him "Macchi." 12. When I was a teen-ager, I said I was never going to get married and the only way I would have children was by adoption. That was also the only time in my life where I felt like I knew everything and was never, ever wrong. 13. I try to do my Thursday Thirteen on the week-ends because my week is so crazy, busy. Then, I wait to post them and sometimes even re-read them to make sure there are no embarrassing typos because the last thing I would want is for anyone to say to themselves, "look at the way she writes and she calls herself a teacher?!" (note: I reread this right now and found 4 typos, 'nuff said.)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Thursday Thirteen #3

Thirteen Things Ms_Teacher's students' do that are annoying! 1. Coming to school without a pen, pencil or paper on a daily basis. I can understand if you lost it and I am very sympathetic the first couple of times. After that, I figure you are just trying to annoy me. 2. Whine about the grade I "gave" you. Okay, first off the grade you are given, you earned. You put in 13% of effort, guess what, that's what you get in return. Let's see how long you stay employed doing only 13% of a job (politicians notwithstanding!) 3. Smacking lips and rolling eyes. Seriously, sometimes I think you must have a muscle spasm, you do it so much! 4. Complaining that "it's too hard." Okay, maybe my memory is fuzzy or something, but when I was in school, we actually expected to work. We didn't expect the teacher to give us the answers three ways to Sunday and still not know what to put down. 5. Asking me if you can re-take a quiz or a test when you get an A-. My dear, talk to your fellow classmates who are thrilled when they barely pass with a D-. I'm sorry if it's crushing to your type A personality, but really, there is nothing wrong with something less than an A+! 6. Acting shocked when I ask if you did the work you missed when you were absent. I seriously think that some students believe that school completely stops when they are not present. It's like we are stuck in a time warp, waiting to move again when they grace us with their presence. 7. Complaining when I ask you to write a complete sentence with the proper capitalization and punctuation. Some students actually act as if this is the first time a teacher has ever asked for more than a one word answer. 8. Bitching and moaning when I take away an item you weren't supposed to have in the first place. Now, I know that you may think you'll die if you don't have your cell phone, MP3 players or camera or perhaps think your teeth will fall out if you don't have your grills, but seriously you'll live! 9. Asking me what page were on after I've not only said the page number at least 3 times, but also posting it on the board in bright purple so that everyone can see it. I actually think that some students not only expect me to take out their book for them, but they also think I'll actually do the work! 10. Asking me if you have to do the assignment just sounds, well, stupid. You don't have to do anything, but please see #2. 11. Saying something like, "this is boring." Y'know, I could have swore when I signed my teaching contract there was nothing that said I was here to entertain anyone. There are going to be days when I'm highly innovative and we do fun things so that you can understand a difficult concept. Then there are going to be other day where you actually have to apply what you know and work. And, believe it or not, some people do find learning and expanding their knowledge to be highly entertaining. Seriously! 12. Asking me if I give extra credit. Again, see #2, however in case you still don't get it, "extra" means more. You can't even do what's expected, so why should I give you more? Lest anyone think I'm being cold-hearted about this, students that ask for extra credit are usually the ones who do 13% of the work. 13. Forgetting to write your name on your paper. This one I really, really do not understand and it annoys me to no end. For the most part, it's the same student(s) time after time who "forget" to write their name on their paper. Usually prior to turning in their work, I remind students to make sure their name is on their paper, and yet, papers are still turned in nameless.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

When Teachers become Administrators

A former colleague of mine became an administrator at our school site a couple of years ago. When she came into this position, I was excited for her as most of us were at the time of her promotion. All of us liked and respected her and of course, being human, we thought, "this one will have our back."

At first everything was pretty rosy. She seemed to genuinely care about the struggles the teachers faced in the classroom and the lack of support many of us had felt with our prior vice principal. When a student was acting up, all it took was for me to call her on the phone and she would say, "send her/him up." Writing a referral* on a student is often my very last resort. As many teachers can attest, sometimes all it takes it to have the ability to send a student out for a bit of a breather and the problem is solved. You write a referral at every turn and you become labeled as someone who "lacks" classroom management. (At least at my school site.)

Something has changed with my colleague. All of a sudden, she's become one of "them." Case in point, one of our new teachers saw a student swinging a belt at another student. This was after school and thus, no other adults were present. The teacher asked the student to stop. The student refused, continually swinging the belt. The teacher went to the front of the student and grabbed the student's jacket and again, told the student to stop. It was only at this point that the student stopped the behavior and handed the belt to the teacher.

Yesterday the new teacher was called into the office and was reprimanded not only by our principal, but the vice principal and a few other school staff. The teacher was told that a complaint was filed by the parent through the police, a letter of reprimand was being placed in the teacher's file, and he was told that if there were any further incidences such as this, the administration would not back him up. (The last was told to him by my former colleague.)

When I heard the details of this meeting, I was floored. Of course, I told him to absolutely never, ever meet with any administrator at our school site without a union rep being present. (Believe me when I say, none of this would have been said to him had their been a union rep.)

After talking to him about this incident, I told the new teacher about what had transpired with me and my former colleague just yesterday. The teacher that is next door to me teaches 6th grade like me. We are the only two teachers in this area who teaches this grade level. Yesterday and today, the other teacher was out, so instead of bothering a sub with a student who simply needed to take a break from my room (per my orders) was sent to the "waiting" area of my former colleague. When I do this, I always try to call first to give a heads up.

The former colleague never picked up the phone, so I opted to leave a message. It takes two minutes at the most to get from my room to the office. About two minutes later, the student that had been sent back, returned to my classroom. He stated that my former colleague told him to return and my phone call was never returned.

So, I along with many of my fellow teachers are becomming disillusioned with the actions of our former colleague. We understand that she is probably overwhelmed, overworked, and counting the days until the next holiday break. It just kind of feels like she forgot what it was like when she was "one of us."

_____________________________________________________________________________________

*The idiocy of my school site is that we are instructed to drop everything we are doing in order to write the referral and call home right at that minute. It doesn't matter if there are 30+ students in the classroom. It doesn't matter that the student who is getting the referral has already interrupted the learning of other students and while I take the 5 to 10 minutes it takes to write the referral, along with the 5 to 10+ minutes it takes to make the phone call home, which may require an additional call to the office because we can't place long distance and/or cell phone calls from our classroom phone, further disrupting the learning environment of all the other students who know how to behave (on most days, anyway.)

Thursday Thirteen #2

Thirteen Things Ms_Teacher's loves about her Amazing Daughter 1. I admire her individuality. She has always possessed a strong-sense of self, more than I ever did. 2. She is artistic in a way that's not always conventional. 3. Her compassion towards others. She is in a child development class in school in which high school students work with area schools. Her teacher chose her to work in the special ed. class not knowing that her uncle is mentally retarded. When she shared this with her teacher, her teacher said she had a feeling that she had chosen the right placement for her. 4. Her awesome cakes. She bakes way better than I do! 5. Her big brown eyes and long, thick lashes. 6. The fact she was able to break up with a boy at the age of 15 because he was becomming possessive. 7. Her dry sense of humor. She's pretty quiet, but every once in a while, she'll come out with a real zinger! 8. The fact that she is talking to me more and (I think) not seeing me so much as the "enemy." 9. She's not driving yet, thus saving us an increase on our insurance. 10. She would rather get around on her skateboard. 11. She's much cooler than I ever was. 12. She doesn't wear clothes that would make me or her father blush. 13. Her nickname is "moozle muffin" and even at the age of 18, she doesn't mind when I call her that (just as long as it's not in front of her boyfriend).

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

GRRRR!

Just after I posted about the good phone call, I leave to pick up my son from his school. As he's walking towards my car, I can tell that he's upset. He opens the door, throws his backpack into the car, and slumps into his seat. "What's the matter?" I ask.

Apparently, a 4th grader (he's in 5th) came up to him after school and started teasing him. My son has had problems with this student in the past and I've talked to the school and the school day care, which he goes to in the morning prior to the start of the school day. I've talked to him about what he needs to do in order to avoid a confrontation.

My son told this boy to leave him alone and tried to walk away. The boy continued to tease him and then slapped my son in the face! My son then chased after the boy and pushed him by pushing his backpack and again told him to leave him alone. The boy then came back and smacked him again. My son then walked away and came out to my car because he didn't want to get into a fight.

Both of his cheeks were bright red where this kid slapped him. I was and am furious. When I've talked to the adults at the school, they've said that my son and this other kid need to try to get along, which I agree to an extent. They've also made reference to the fact that this kid is a 4th grader, whereas my son is a 5th grader. This is all fine and good, were it not for the fact that this kid is actually taller and bigger than my son.

I'm not a big believer in the idea that if your younger and/or female that it excuses you from your behavior. That is, I've never believed in the old adage "don't defend yourself if they are younger or if the person doing the bullying is female." I've had plenty of my female students harass boys and then cry foul when the boys' react. Of course, the first thing they want to say is something like, "you can't hit me because you can't hit girls," after they've just called the boy's momma the most vile thing you can think of!

I've tried to raise all three of my children to walk away and be the bigger person. However, I am not so sure that I would have walked away from this kid had it been me who had just gotten smacked twice in the face.

Good Phone Calls

I just got off the phone with a parent. It was a great phone call. Her kid is a very good kid with exceptional manners and a hard worker to boot. I was sure to share this information with her mom. She was so pleased.

She had called me to speak to me about a quiz, but it turned out she needed to speak to another teacher. Nonetheless, I'm glad I was able to speak to her to let her know what a great kid she has and what a good job she has done as a parent.

I wish I could have more conversations like this with parents!

Stupid Leaders

For the past 18 months or so, the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District has been battling with the teachers union on the renewal of their contract. Part of the problem stems from the fact that the Superintendent that the school district has hired is not very teacher friendly. As one who has been pretty active in her own teachers' union, I will be the first to admit that I'm not always a fan. Unions also do some pretty stupid things.

However, what Superintendent Carter did recently is in the simplest terms, stupid. Apparently, at a meeting that was attended by different school district staff (site administrators and other staff), Carter put up a picture of a swiss army knife for women as an "icebreaker". He thought it was and perhaps in a different context it would have been. Carter did not realize that this particular picture had as part of the swiss army knife, a small vibrator. Apparently, he didn't closely examine the picture before putting it up on the overhead.

Lest anyone think I'm a prude, I think that this would have been funny to see in the right situation. There are people out in our community who may not see the humor in this particular gadget. For a person in this position to not closely examine this "icebreaker" prior to putting it up is in my opinion, just plain stupid.

Of course, the teachers are running with it and are calling for his resignation. And, that's where I say, the union is being stupid as well.

Thursday Thirteen #1

Thirteen Things about the places Ms_Teacher has lived 1. Chula Vista, California is where I started school (back in 1971) and our classroom was an open classroom. 2. I remember Norfolk, Virginia for the floods we had. I was very young, but I remember watching the neighborhood kids playing in the flood waters and my mom refusing to let us join in the fun because of her fear of snakes. 3. My younger brother was born in Pennsylvania when I was three years old. 4. I hated Butte, Montana because our first winter there was the coldest they had experienced in decades (30 degrees below - not counting the windchill factor!) 5. I never thought I would be teaching in Vallejo when I was a student here in the late 70's. 6. I only lived in Dublin, California for about six months. When we moved into the house my parents bought, I remember my mom redoing the walls in the kitchen. The previous owners had wallpapered them with newspapers! 7. Alameda, California was the place I met my husband. 8. I started high school in Vallejo, California, then we moved to Benicia. 9. My dad retired from the Navy while we lived in Benicia, California. He decided to return to Coos Bay, Oregon and that was where I started my junior year of high school. 10. We moved back to Alameda halfway through my junior year, but my parents couldn't afford to buy a house, so instead they bought one in Benicia, California. I refused to start (or go back to) another high school. 11. When I lived on Mare Island, in Vallejo, California back when it was a military base, I never realized it would one day be closed, then re-opened and that people would actually buy houses there. 12. If someone would have told me that I would be attending college for my graduate courses on Mare Island when I lived there, I would have thought they were crazy. 13. The longest place I've lived has been in Fairfield, California, which has been for 17 years.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants