Journey to the Center of…ME!!! Part 2

Dear Readers,

I’m journeying to the center of ME. It’s a difficult journey. I won’t lie, it has not been pleasant, but I have to do this to be able to live the best life possible. This journey has been a long time in the making. As always, I will keep you apprised of my progress.

Journey 2 the Center of…ME!!!

I’ve been on a quest to conquer my laziness this summer. But, with a limited budget since I don’t get paid in the summer, I’ve been searching out free activities in the surrounding cities. Some of the activities I’ve found:

• free movies at the local Rave theaters. They’re old, but still relevant.
• LAPL has book clubs with free crafts on different days,
• LACMA’s Friday night Jazz,
• the Howard Hughes Promenade jazz on Saturday nights,
• Baldwin Hills Crenshaw plaza free concerts.

The Forest…

Dear Readers,

I am so mad at myself. Let me explain. The title of my post is The Forest. I titled it that because I didn’t see something that was right in face. You see I’ve been on a mission to battle my summer laziness, which is very similar to the summer slide for kids. So, I’ve been looking for free stuff to do for about 3 weeks now. In all that looking, I did not look to my go to source- Los Angeles Public Library. I cannot believe I totally forgot about signing up for the Summer Reading Club. I usually do it every year before school is even out. Why didn’t I see the forest for the trees?

Oh well, better late than never. I’ll sign up tomorrow!

L2 Acquisition

Just in case you didn’t know, the above title is read Second Language Acquisition. So, in my L2 Acquisition class with Dr. Marta Sanchez is fantastic. I’ve learned so much in such a short amount of time. I really enjoy going to LMU. The professors are nice and personable and the staff is so very helpful. I am really going to miss this place when I graduate in December.

So Behind…

Dear Readers,

I am so behind in regard to my summer reading. I’ve been taking it pretty easy in the two weeks I’ve been off. I’m still going to read, but I need to step it up. I also need to study for the C.S.E.T. Although I passed it five years ago, the scores only last for five years. So, I have to take it again next month. I am not looking forward to it. Wish me luck!

The Quickening, Part 4!

I’ve been learning so much lately. It’s like information coming at me from many different ways. Sometimes it can be overwhelming. It’s like the quickening in the movie Highlander. You can read about it here, here, and here.

During the school year, I am so inundated with workshops & training, report cards, etc., you get the picture, that I don’t have time to assimilate or process all the information. However, during my down time, information comes at me left and right. I have so many a-ha moments!

This year is no different. Once I relaxed, I started having my quickening experience. I have so many ideas for next year. I’ll share them with you as I go.

Lakeshore’s People Colored Crayons & Loving Yourself!

This is just a observation of mine I discovered regarding students who are insecure in themselves. I actually begin the school year using this as a test. It’s not foolproof though, since there are some students who aren’t aware of their skin tone, but I use it anyway. That’s one of the reasons I love, love, love Lakeshore’s people-colored-crayons and what they represent. It helps me know which students I need to work with on their self-esteem. At the beginning of the school year I make it a point to have my students pick the color closest to their skin color. The students who aren’t secure with themselves or who don’t like their color invariably pick a color nowhere near their own skin tone. It’ usually about two shades lighter than their actual skin tone. Imagine my surprise when the same thing happened with Hispanic students. I thought this was a phenomenon exclusive to black children. Has this happened in your class or with someone else you know? What say you?

Happy 4th of July!

Success with Writing!

Dear Readers,

I am so pumped & excited! I’ve been having so much success with my students this year, with their writing. Last year, I did not work on writing as much as I wanted to. So, this year I decided to rectify that. During the summer I read so many books on how to teach writing skills. Since I know myself, I knew that if I didn’t put it into practice right away, I probably wouldn’t. That’s why, when I thought of something new, I implemented it. Right before I passed the student’s work back, I looked back on my student’s writing journals and was pleasantly surprised with the results.  Some things I discontinued because the students didn’t like them or they were ineffective, but overall just going through the editing process and having the students write, really helped their writing immensely.

For the coming school year, I’m going to tweak a few things, but I am going to keep it pretty much the same. ‘Cause, hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

 

From Fantasy to Mastery!

According to Harry Wong’s First Day of School, there are four stages of Teaching. There’s:

•  Fantasy-Teachers are naïve and believe that being a good teacher means being friends with the students and not taking an authoritative stand

• Survival-Feel that teaching is a job, and it is only done for the paycheck and benefits

• Mastery- Perform and understand effective teaching and management strategies to improve student achievement

• Impact- Students learn best when teachers have an effect on a student’s life

This is my journey from Fantasy to Impact.

During my first year I went from Fantasy to Survival pretty quickly. Being hired after the school year began, in a high poverty, high crime, low income school next to housing projects will do that to you. But, it was all worth it. That’s where I honed my excellent classroom management skills, my ability to manage multiple grade levels in one class, my ability to differentiate one lesson and make it so that I can teach a student who doesn’t know multiplication and a student who knows them, up to the 9 times tables. It’s where I learned how to deal with a micro-managing dictator of a principal, how to read an I.E.P., how to write an effective I.E.P., how to implement an I.E.P. successfully, where I learned to shut my big mouth and stop complaining after speaking freely in my classroom around an assistant who would run back and tell the Principal everything I said and did. (Can you believe she tried to friend me on Facebook?)

My point is that I went from Fantasy to Survival pretty quickly. I’d say within the first two days. It’s really funny (not ha, ha! funny) when Survival mode kicks in. It’s a day by day struggle. I wish I would have had someone like me to teach me how to plan weekly and by the unit. I had a Master teacher (ha!) who asked me if I went into Special Education on purpose. Do you think she was any help?

After learning through serious trial and error, I did begin to plan for more than one day at a time. I did eventually learn how to plan by the unit, thanks to my Literacy coach who came in my second year. I’ve come a loooooooonggg way in regard to planning and knowing the material, I can’t say that I’ve reached Mastery because I still have lots to learn. But I am on my way. I can, however, say, without any doubt, that I’ve reached Impact.

I offer as an example a post I recently wrote about one of my current students this year, Binaca Blast, who thanked me for “getting her in trouble” because she learned how to be nice and keep friends. My other students talked with me and told me how I changed their lives.

When it’s warranted, I like to toot my own horn. Here’s one last example and I’ll be done. I promise. A male student was so angry last year. Because his mother didn’t tell him otherwise, he thought his father had been murdered. He would have such a look of anger and hurt on his face. I looked at him one day, stopped class, and called him to the back to speak with him because I could see and sense the hurt. That’s when he told me, through tears, that he thought his dad had been murdered and he was so angry. We talked for about ten minutes, during which time I told him to talk to his mother to clear up the nature of his father’s death.

I know this next sentence is going to sound funny, but just read ’til the end. He returned to school the next day smiling as he told me that his dad had a heart attack. I told him that he spent all this time being angry. For nothing. What are you going to do now? How are you going to use this information to benefit you?

“Smile, instead of frowning. Anytime you feel like frowning, smile. Be silly and tell jokes,” I told him.

He actually took my advice to heart. Although there were a few times when I had to stop him from being so silly because he was distracting other students, I enjoyed every minute of it. As I thought about the change in him, my eyes teared up!

I LOVE MAKING AN IMPACT IN MY STUDENT’S LIVES!