teaching

Tomorrow is my first day of teaching.

For the sake of organization, I have a new blog that will solely be a chronicle of my teaching experiences. If you're interested, please feel free to check out Taking on Teaching. It's linked over in the right-hand navigation if you'd like to keep up with my adventures. It might get updated more often than this for a while, since student teaching is going to take up a lot of my interests and energy for the next 10 weeks.

Kindergarten is hilarious, so I anticipate good stories.

panic attacks

Ok, so I'm trying to start job hunting, and I'm becoming completely overwhelmed by the whole aspect of it.

I have the same job pretty much my entire adult life. And I got it through a temp agency. I've never really had to do a full-scale job hunt. And now I'm starting over again, essentially "unexperienced." I might as well be a 22 year-old college graduate.

It's complicated further by the insane variety of possibilities. Public, charter? Suburban, city? How do I tell if a school has a good and supportive principal, or one that will leave you high and dry? How do I make myself stand out?

What if I don't find a job? Should I get a new roommate to help cover the bills, just in case? What if I can't pay my rent? How will I afford COBRA?

I have this sort of big, acidy pit in my stomach right now...

the best kind of peer pressure

A friend of mine was very aggravated by the fact that people were harrassing her to vote yesterday. She said she even saw people asking strangers on the train whether they'd voted yet, that she felt there was an intent to embarass those who hasn't voted.

I got numerous emails from friends reminding me to vote, and phone calls from the Illinois Education Association, the Democratic Party, and the Sierra Club (??) endorsing various candidates.

While I can understand why someone would be irritated to be bugged by strangers to vote, I personally think it's great. Never in my lifetime have I seen people this excited about an election, and we're only at the primaries! I think this kind of civic awareness is inspiring, and for me, it's hopefully a sign of good things to come. I cannot WAIT for November!

I also really excited that I'll be teaching in a classroom come November (hopefully!) so I'll be able to teach about the election process, which will be really fun!

teach your children well

I was having a discussion recently about whether or not a politician's religion affects how they make policy decisions. Should I really worry about Mike Huckabee, fundamentalist Baptist minister who believes in a 6000 year old Earth and disbelieves in evolution, becoming President? What impact might his religion have on MY life?

Let me give you a concrete example of how the religion of current governor of Texas (a state I do not live in) may soon affect my life.

The current governor of Texas is a fundamentalist who believes in creationism. He just appointed a creationist to head the Texas State School Board.

Next year, Texas is reevaluating its state science education standards.

Funnily enough, the Texas state science curriculum director just "resigned" (read was fired), because of an uproar created when she forwarded an email to her department announcing an author talk about how creationist politics are behind the push to teach ID in schools. According to those who fired her, this topic doesn't fall under her role of DIRECTOR OF SCIENCE. (read the whole linked article, there's interesting stuff there)

So, just in time to revise the science standards, we have a creationist heading the State School Board, and the anti-creationist science curriculum director is out the door. Handy, no?

Is it remotely possible that when the state science standards are revised, they're going to end up deemphasizing evolution and inflating the possibilities of ID? Most likely, especially since there is a board who works on the standards, but whose recommendations can be accepted or rejected by a single "facilitator" who makes the final decisions (no rules about his qualifications, or any information about how the faciliator is chosen).

Why does this matter, do you ask? Well, Texas and California, two of the most populous states, are unique in that they have State Boards who choose textbooks for the ENTIRE state. In most states, the local districts choose their own textbooks. The textbook publishers, therefore, REALLY want to sell their textbooks in Texas and California (since getting the greenlight from one of those states' boards guarantees huge sales), so the standards of those states are the ones that the textbook publishers most adhere to, in hopes of getting picked up there. So essentially, Texas's standards can affect what gets published in all textbooks.

Since I'm a soon-to-be teacher with a deep respect for the scientific method, who also wants the future generation to understand science, I think the religion of this one governor absolutely affects me.

(Big nod to the Bad Astronomy Blog, where the continuing exploits of Texas creationists and those in other states are fairly regularly tracked.)

victory!

I just got an email that I passed my "content area" test. Basically, it's one more step on my road to becoming a teacher. First you pass a "Basic Skills" test (which really is what it sounds like - can you read and write?).

The content area test varies, based on what you plan to teach. A high school history teacher takes a history/social studies test. A math teacher takes a math test.

An elementary teacher takes a test on everything. It's like a Trivial Pursuit test. It covers how to teach reading, as well as language arts, math, science, social studies, health, art, music and phys. ed general knowledge.

As I was taking it, there were parts that I really felt I didn't do very well on, so I was worrying about the results. that's one more stress off my back.

A good cause

My favorite blog, Tomato Nation, is participating in the DonorsChoose Blog Challenge, where bloggers challenge their readers to raise money to fund projects in low-income school districts.

The contest is supposed to last 31 days. The readers of Tomato Nation met their goal of $35,000 in less than 2 days (about $28,000 ahead of the next highest group), and are currently most of the way to their first bonus goal of $5000 (which leads to the blogger dancing the "Angela Dance" from "My So-Called Life" around 30 Rockerfeller Place in a giant tomato costume). Due to this bonus challenge, Claire Danes has already volunteered to donate $5000 additional if this group makes it to the $50,000 mark.

So, if you've got $10 or $50 laying around that you'd like to donate to needy school kids (and WHO DOESN'T?), head on over to the Challenge.

ETA: Those crazy people have already hit the $40,000, and $50,000 marks so they're on to the next challenge and the $75,000 mark.

If you do donate, let me know in the comments, so I can give you a big hug when I see you.

the more I seem to forget...

I did my first round of tutoring last night. I'm working with three kids in a family of four(!) one night a week, basically helping them with their homework. It went fairly well, and I think will go better in the future now that I know the kids a little bit, and especially know what distracts them and what motivates them.

I did have two mortifying moments, though. One was that I had to give the two oldest their French spelling words. I haven't learned any French since about 9th grade. The pronunciations are totally different from English and German, and so the kids were constantly correcting me. That's a great way to impress!

The other was while doing math with the oldest (5th grade), when I completely mentally blanked on how to convert fractions into decimals. It's easy when the denomenator is divisible by 5 (thus easily made into 100), but what about 3/8? To make it worse, her Dad was in the room listening in at the exact moment I blanked. I covered nicely, though, by saying "Let's do these easier ones first to get our brains warmed up." And by the end, I remembered - divide the numerator by the denomenator. Thank god.

Math was never really my thing.

and in conclusion, I am not so smart...

I'm kind of a dummy sometimes. I keep taking on more projects, despite the fact that I'm pretty much overloaded at this point. I just spent the last three days down with a cold that was at least partially due to stress-reduced immunity (and probably partially due to something called a "virus" - but, you know, I'm not a doctor).

All the things I'm doing, though, are really great projects, or else related to my future career. Most recently, I just agreed to start tutoring for a family with four(!) kids. It looks like I'll primarily be working with the oldest (fifth grade) on her homework, at least for the time being. I'll start on Wednesday, so we'll see how that goes. I'm also trying to start working on grant-writing for my theater companies, as teachers who can write grants are highly sought-after.

Soiree DADA is going really well - we had a great opening weekend, and we were just listed as Critic's Choice in this week's Chicago Reader, which is a huge boon.

Hugo Ball, whose Cabaret Voltaire birthed Dada during World War I, described it as "both buffoonery and a requiem mass." The latest in WNEP Theater's "Soiree Dada" series, whose subtitle means "Blind Donkey Hopscotch," gets that. Performed by nine clowns in whiteface and tramp costumes, the piece's anarchic games and strangely mesmerizing nonsense poems are ingeniously buffoonish while its half-giddy, half-terrified insistence on the cruel emptiness at the center of things becomes a kind of merry dirge. The original dadaists, with their oft-professed disdain for the artistic past, might have scorned the idea of attempting to re-create the spirit of a 90-year-old experiment, but WNEP's well-crafted chaos proves that Dada retains its power to tickle and prod. --Zac Thompson

TimeOut also put us in a list of 5 matinees to see while high, provided you aren't the paranoid type.

So, high or not, come check out the show. This weekend, wear one white sock and one black sock and get $5 off.

I'm also kind of a dummy because I'm currently nursing a slight impossible crush. But honestly, I haven't had a crush of any kind in a while, so despite knowing it's impossible, I'm going to just enjoy the tingly feeling for a while before turning it off entirely.

Social Security Fairness Act

This stuff just gets sneaked into law all the time. Thank god people who can actually read legislation are paying attention.

Did you know that the current Social Security Law is structured so that if you were eligible for both Social Security benefits, and certain kinds of pensions, your Social Security benefits would be canceled or reduced?

Let's take me, for example. I've worked for the last 13 years in various jobs, and I've paid into Social Security for those 13 years. Next year, I'll become a teacher. Rather than paying into Social Security, I'll be paying into a teacher's pension fund.

According to the current Social Security laws, that teacher's pension fund means that my Social Security benefits - the ones I've already earned - can be reduced "by an amount equal to two-thirds of the amount of any monthly periodic benefit payable to such individual for such month which is based upon such individual's earnings while in the service of the Federal Government or any State." (section 202, paragraph 5). This is known as the Government Pension Offset (GPO).

This applies to teachers, police, fire fighters, etc.

There's another part that I can't really quote because it's written in unintelligable legalise, but which breaks down to a similar thing - reducing earned Social Security benefits for those receiving other benefits or pensions (section 215) - known as the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). This includes pensions from spouses, not just personal pensions. Two men can pay into Social Security for 30 years and die in the same year. The one whose wife was a secretary in a corporation would receive all his Social Security benefits, plus her own. The one whose wife was a teacher would have the percentage of her husband's benefits reduced due to her teacher's pension.

Why do I bring this up? There is a bill, HR 82 and S 206, known as the Social Security Fairness Act, which will repeal these laws, so that we get all the benefits we have earned. The bill is currently sitting in committee, but support is starting to build up on it and Congress is hopefully going to bring it to a vote this fall.

The NEA has an online petition that you can sign to encourage your Congressional representatives to move on this bill. Please, please sign it, and if you could post it on your blog as well, that would be awesome.

the test of random knowledge

As part of my teacher preparation, I have to take what is called a "content-area" test. For secondary school teachers, this is a test in whatever they are planning to teach - math, science, etc. For elementary school teachers, it's basically a multiple choice game of Trival Pursuit. It's a test that is supposed to find out if you have a basic grasp on all the subjects. The thing is, you might have a decent grasp, but not know the particular questions that they provide. Some of them are obvious, but some of them can be tricky.

I just started looking at the practice test, and really, short of reading an entire set of elementary school text books for math, science, social studies, health, and language arts, there is no way to "study" for the test. I'm just going to have to hope for the best.

Here's a sample of the practice test.

Ashley, a second grader, is reading orally to her teacher. The teacher notices that Ashley is omitting words while reading. Afterward, the teacher asks Ashley to pronounce the omitted words, but she does not know them. Given these circumstances, it is most likely that Ashley is having difficulty with which of the following?
A. sight vocabulary
B. decoding skills
C. structural analysis
D. context cues


Read the word problem below; then answer the question that follows. In order to get an A in her math class, Alma must have an average of at least 90 for her test scores. Alma's scores on the first two tests were 85 and 92. To get an A in math, what scores can Alma get on her third test?
If y represents Alma's score on the third test, which of the
following expresses the inequality for the word problem stated
above?
A. 3(85 + 92) > 90y
B. (85 + 92 + y)/3 > 90
C. 85 + 92 + y > 90 ÷ 3
D. 3y/(85 + 92) > 90


When an automobile driver suddenly applies the vehicle's brakes, the passengers in the automobile will feel as though they are being flung forward in their seats. The passengers' sensation is due to the effects of which of the following?
A. friction
B. gravity
C. air resistance
D. inertia


The intervention of the United States in Central and South America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was largely motivated by a desire to:
A. support U.S. and European colonization in the region.
B. end the landed aristocracy's suppression of the poor.
C. prevent military dictators from coming to power.
D. maximize U.S. economic investment in the region.


In which of the following ways has geography affected the foreign relations
policy of Russia throughout history?
A. A lack of mineral resources led to a desire to gain control of southern lands.
B. Natural barriers along the western border alleviated concerns about potential invasions.
C. Unnavigable rivers limited the ability to engage in trade with east Asian nations.
D. A lack of warm-water ports led to a desire to achieve control of western lands.


Which of the following is the most common characteristic of the folk music
found in different cultures?
A. The songs were used to accompany dramatic performances.
B. People created songs by mimicking sounds they found in nature.
C. The songs were based on logical and mathematical principles.
D. People learned songs by hearing them rather than reading them.


The primary benefit for those who participate in aerobic exercise is improved:
A. muscular strength.
B. cardiovascular condition.
C. overall flexibility.
D. manual dexterity.

(Answers in the Comments, if you want them!)

expectations are blown

So, I'm pretty sure that D. is the only one who actually made it through that entire post about my trip. I apologize that my delight in seeing my REPUBLIC IN ACTION made me so long-winded. The short version is that it was very cool to sit in the gallery of the Senate, and I got to see most of the Senators. And also that the Capitol building is very pretty inside, but that the people who work there like to make you wander around and get lost, then yell at you for being lost.

In other news, I just received the notice about my student teaching assignement for next Spring. Good news, it's in the school that I wanted - one that is a CPS magnet school and more importantly, 10 minutes from my house. The other news, it's kindergarten.

I don't say this is good news or bad news. It's just... different than what I planned on. I had been informally invited to student teach with a second grade teacher at this school, and was really jazzed about it. Kindergarten is a whole different ball game. I'd hoped for something more... I don't want to say challenging, but maybe more structured? advanced? Teaching kindergarten is, I think just very from teaching second/third, which is kind of where I wanted to focus. In our appliations, we had to chose either K-2, 3-5, or 6-8. I chose K-2 because of the above mentioned second grade chance. I didn't expect to end up in kindergarten. The entire focus of what you're teaching is different, and it will be a different kind of hands-on education.

I'm not disappointed, exactly. It's just going to be a different experience.

How many times can I use "different" in one post?

the cause for rebels

Don Hall blogged this morning about the "blandization" of theater, asking where the outlaws willing to push the envelope have gone.

Try and name one "cool" character in history who was conformist and law abiding. Even Jesus Christ was a complete fringe rebel fighting the conformist dogma of the day, so don't hand me some right wing conservative nonsense about being a good, obedient Christian.

Where did that kid with all the self-respect and independence go?

The common picture is that he grew up and out of his child-like ways. That today's liberal progressive anti-government long hair just needs to get a job, make some money, have some kids and he will naturally become conservative in his thinking. This equates conformism and materialism with adulthood and wisdom but does not bear out empirically. Mahatma Gandhi was a rule-breaker; Churchill was a rebel; John Brown might have been insane but he was right.

Where DID they all go? Is the rebel slowly fading out of existance? Not just in theater, but everywhere? Why? What's happening?

Is our process of education to blame? It makes me think about what I've seen in CPS schools. Kids required to walk everywhere in striaght, silent lines. Teachers who work and work to break the rebels into compliance, forcing them to sit in corners and stare at walls, sending them to the principal instead of finding a way to challenge them or engage them.

Is our prescription drug culture to blame? Are all the rebels being Prozaced out of existance? Most of the artists and thinkers and rebels were a little crazy. Are we stunting that creativity and those outlaw personalities with drugs so that our children can "do well" in school and "fit in" and get a "good job"? (according to whose standards?)

Is the American Dream to blame? America is one of the few countries where we believe that everyone can "make it" if only they work hard enough. Nothing is ever good enough, and we're sold this idea that we have to work harder and get more, achieve some success that is always just out of reach. But that "success" that we're being sold - it's someone else's ideal, not our own. The skinny models, the muscular bodies, the yacht, the mansion, the corner office - it's a manufactured want, and for so many, it drowns out their real wants, and worse, causes them to judge the wants of others. People who want the simple, or the fringe, are made to feel like failures by friends and family and society, for not wanting what the masses can understand. Many give up, and they join in mocking the rebels, maybe partially out of jealousy that they aren't one any longer.

Putting on a good show isn't "success" in the eyes of the masses. It's not "how good was the show?" but "how much did you make?" that is the question on everyone's lips. It's not "how many students did you help this year?" but "how many days of vacation do you get?"

I can blame myself a little. I'm not much of a rebel. I chose not to pursue theater because I wanted health insurance and a steady paycheck. I wish I had more of Don's rebelliousness in me, didn't have this need for security. Instead, I rebel in small ways, I cheer for the rebels, do my best to make them feel less alone in a world that wants to put them in the corner and break them into compliance.

bringing light

As adults, it can be very, very tough to reach backwards and remember how difficult learning can be. Adults remember elementary school through a haze of nostaglia. When you're seven years old, second grade is work. It's hard, frustrating and confusing.

Yesterday, while observing in a second grade classroom, I got to spend some time working one-on-one with a little girl named Sara, who is having trouble undestanding the concept of place value. As adults who spend money and add three digit sums in our heads and do a multitude of other things, "place value" is something we understand in a way that seems almost instinctive - but it most assuredly is not. It's an abstract concept we had to learn. We forget the time we spent toiling to understand and apply the concept, label parts of a four digit number. We probably haven't used the phrase "tens place" in years.

When you stop and really think about the concept of place value in numbers, its a difficult, abstract concept to grasp. in the number 4,567, the "4" isn't a 4. It's 4000. the "6" isn't a 6 - it's 60. The location of the numbers changes what they mean, and based solely on location, they symbolize different numbers of zeroes that are left out.

Sara and I toiled for about a half hour. We wrote numbers, we counted blocks. Eventually I hit on this:

4,567 is the same as 4000 + 500 + 60 + 7 or:
4000
500
60
7

"But," I said, "that is so long to write, and would take forever, so we have a system to shorten it."

After Sara and I broke down a few more numbers this way, I could see a light starting to shine in her eyes. When I pointed to a number and said, "how many is this one", her pauses became shorter and shorter, and her answers more and more correct.

I'll check in with her tomorrow, and see if what we did stuck. I really hope so.

freedom of what?

I've been boiling mad about the situation with the teenager here in Illinois, arrested for writing a supposedly violent and disturbing essay in school.

The assignment was to: "write whatever comes to your mind. Do not judge or censor what you are writing."

The reports I've read of the essay say that it made no specific threats against anyone, which is illegal and a cause for arrest. Yet this student was arrested for "disorderly conduct" because teachers and administrators found his essay "disturbing." If we have to arrest people for writing distrurbing, violent, blood-soaked fantasies, I hope someone is at Quentin Tarantino's house and slapping him in cuffs right now.

I can understand the school recommending a psychological evaluation, to check the kid's understanding of reality vs. fantasy and overall psychological condition. But you cannot arrest him because you find his words "disturbing."

It's the First Amendment kids. Look it up. The Constitution is there for a reason, and when once again, it's being stepped on, we need to speak up.

o-h-i-o!

I'm insanely busy with work, school and life in general, which explains the whole 'not blogging' thing. So what's new?

Well, I did go home to visit the family this past weekend, which was quite nice. And my sister and I took a drive out to visit our alma mater. They're changing to many things there, it's kind of weird. Their bicentinnal is coming up in 2009, so they have this big initiative called First in 2009, which apparently involves spending lots and lots of money on new buildings. They built maybe one new building the entire four years I was at Miami, and in the past 3 years, they've built or rebuilt about 5 or 6. I know I sound like an old crank, but it seems like every bit of spare land was being built on. It's just kind of depressing. Though it was good to know that Mac And Joe's was still serving awesome burgers.

i'm sick. yes, me.

ugh. I'm sick. And so now I'm going to whine. I started feeling crappy last night during class. My throat hurt, and I developed a painful chest cough. I went to bed and barely slept all night (I emailed my boss at 5:30 am to say I was taking medicine and hopefully being knocked out, and thus was turning off my alarm). I've felt like total crap all day. The last few hours, I've started developing a fever. I'm sitting at my computer in thin cotton PJs and my shirt is wet from sweat. (ew, over sharing)

I'm not congested, so I don't think I have a cold. I think my sinuses are taking advantage of the sudden weather shift and draining. Very very fast. that doesn't really explain the fever. So I hope I don't have a sinus infection. 'cause that would be the suck.

and I have to get up tomorrow morning and teach a lesson to a bunch of apathetic 5th graders in the most depressing classroom in Chicago. I guess it'll be good practice for my future...

success!

I got my grade for the class with the paper I was freaking out about. I got an A in the class, so the paper must have been coherant, at least. I forgot how hard research papers are, especially in theory classes.

I prefer historical research. At least with history, there are facts. Educational theory is 50 different people with slightly different opinions on how to do something, and all of them saying "well, this is one idea you could use, but it's just an idea, and it doesn't always work, so you, know, do what you can." THANKS FOR THE HELP.

freedom!

At last, I am done with this quarter. I just finished my last paper, which I will turn in in a few hours. I now have four days ahead of me to myself (mostly). I'll have Thanksgiving with a few friends, work a couple of shifts at the Playground. Paint the stage at the Playground. Clean my house and do laundry. And spend a good deal of time laying around, watching TV and knitting.

Ah, sweet bliss.

yes, i am in fact a geek

I just ordered this for myself. I was going to post here that if anyone wanted to get me a Christmas present, they could get this. But then I decided I couldn't wait that long.

happy *cough* end of quarter!

i managed to get the huge paper done and turned in this morning, so that's one monkey off my back. I have one more for my other class due on Wednesday, but it's not quite as problematic, I don't think, so it should be no problem.

well, except for the fact that I'm teetering on the edge of a sinus infection, i think. it remains to be seen. i'm trying to get the meds in to open everything up before the infection starts. right now, my sinuses are so inflamed that my face is puffy and my teeth hurt. i had to look this one up, since I'd never had it before, but it turns out that when the sinus cavity in your cheek, under your eyes, build up pressure, it can put pressure on the roots of your upper molars, and cause tooth pain. i could hardly eat yesterday on account of the pain in my mouth, never mind the pain in my face. it's been coming and going today, so I guess I'll just hope for the best.