New Goal

I made a decision today. I have spent way too much time in the past few days going through OTHER PEOPLE's lesson plans. I've dug through the other teacher's old stuff. I've gone through listservs and internet resources. I've been trying to find the perfect lesson plan. (I'm trying to be perfect at week 2...) But the catch is--there is no perfect lesson plan. And I think that internet and physical resources are great at what they are...RESOURCES. But they shouldn't be a replacement. I think after I've gone through my curriculum once or twice, I'll be able to use them to supplement what I have--but right now, I need to know what I'm doing and where I'm going in order to be able to understand what I can and can't use. So, my new goal for the remainder of the quarter is to START FROM SCRATCH. And as I defined to my sixth grade students recently: "scratch" means from the raw ingredients.
I went to college for 5 years. I got a 187 on the Praxis. I'm pretty sure that I know my material. I just need to think harder instead of trying to steal harder.
(and not that there is anything wrong with stealing your lessons....that's the greatest invention ever.... but I'm using it as a cop out, so I'm not going to do it anymore.)

Today was hard. I have all sorts of computer problems and I feel like I'm being annoying in trying to get them fixed. That's not the goal. I hope that I'm not being a problem. It's also hard because I wasn't prepared as well as I should have been. I found myself with TEN minutes of downtime at the end of class. (And for a 40 minute class....that's saying something.) I felt bad for that. I need to try a little harder. AND, I said that I was going to leave school at 5:30. It's 9:30 now, and I have yet to go home....

Good luck to me tomorrow.
~The Teacher

One week down

Oh. Dear. Goodness. This is hard to do.

Students came on Monday. The first two days were fantastic. Then it got hard. I'm sorry that I haven't posted in the middle, but I've just had so much to do. That, and I might have some Adult ADHD, so it just takes me longer to get stuff done...

I've done some great lessons in the past week, and had some terrible lessons in the past week. I keep planning lessons with the thought of "this needs to be the best lesson ever. I have to plan the greatest plans and have a great class." Yes, there's a lot of pressure on me---FACS is something that many schools and districts don't really care for, and if you aren't important they'll cut you (why doesn't anyone get how important this is!!) But I keep telling myself--it's only the first year, you don't have to be perfect yet. I'm learning, learning, learning.

I love my students. When I student taught, I was in a 9-12 high school and a 7-9 Jr High, but the youngest I taught was 9th grade. Now my classes are 6-8. They are HILARIOUS. I love junior high kids. They talk alot--I'm going to have to learn alot about management and I'm going to have to be better at enforcing my limits, but I sure love to teach them.

I have some book recommendations. They've saved my hide during the first week.

The First Days of School by Harry and Rosemary Wong

Survival Kit for New Secondary Educators (I don't know who it's by. I don't have my copy handy...)

The Adult ADHD is kicking in again and I've wasted WAY too much time on a Saturday. Thus, I'm going to log off and sit at one of my classroom tables to work. I will do my best to write next week. Two times. At least. Once on Wednesday and once on the weekend.

~The Teacher

three keys for any teacher

Oh! I totally forgot. Last night when I was at my brother's Eagle award thing, I was talking to a teacher friend of mine. And when I say "teacher friend," I mean, she was actually my third grade teacher, but has since become a great family friend who we love and adore. Anyways, we were discussing teaching and she told me three keys to being a good teacher.

1) Make friends with the custodial staff and secretaries. They will help you get things done.
2) Get every flu shot and immunization available. Otherwise you'll end up sick as a dog.
3) Make very few rules, but make sure that they're important and enforce them.

It was a great conversation and it got me pumped up to teach. It will sure be a learning experience for the students and for me. Have I mentioned that yet?

~The Teacher

just cut the apron strings already...

Three things:

1) Yesterday I took the purchasing card and went to Walmart to buy supplies for my class. That was a thrill. And a little nerve-wracking. I mean, we're supposed to be frugal, and I kept thinking "not my money, not my money...has to last all year, has to last all year." But I bought some good stuff. And some maybe not good stuff (opening activity for child development...could be a bust.)

2) Yesterday, the teacher who retired came back to help me with some stuff that has been really confusing, but that I have to use because the district said so. She was trying to walk me through it, and first of all, SHE had no idea what she was talking about, so she couldn't teach me, and I just thought to myself "really? How did you teach this? I bet your kids were bored silly." And then the custodian came in and I asked her about my disposals and the former teacher said "What?! No! You need those disposals! They throw away a lot of stuff!" And I said "yeah, but 6th graders are springy, so they can just take the trash out for me." She looked horrified and she looked like what she really wanted to say was "This is my kitchen! Don't you dare change my program! Leave the !#)%(& disposals!" But she didn't say that. Instead she said "Well, that's a hard decision to make, but I'm not the one who has to make them anymore." At that point, I just wanted her out of my classroom. That may be terrible of me, but I realized that I am the teacher now, and I have the choice to do what I want to with my students. And I don't need it to be approved by her.


3) I went back to my parent's house yesterday because my little brother received his eagle scout award (Yay little brother!) and spent the night. Today I stuck around doing laundry and running errands. When it was time for me to come back, I just put it off and put it off. It was hard to come back today. I was dreading all the work that I have to do in my room. I was dreading the fear and terror that I know is inevitable. I was dreading the feeling of inadequacy. I just wanted to be in college again and not really having responsibility. This being-a-teacher thing is hard work. But I have chosen this life and I have to do it. I will do it--I will work in my room, and I will work to help my students. And I will enjoy myself while I do it. (And if I don't, I'm going to be miserable and wish that I had dropped out of college to work at McDonalds, because you don't have to think critically there.)

~The Teacher

Back to school

And Oh Yeah...
Back-to-school night was tonight. I met a lot of students and a lot of parents. I had a 6th grade girl come in with a pierced nose. That was a little crazy. But I was excited for my class, and I hope that will be contagious to my students. Being a FACS teacher automatically makes you cooler than the other teachers, because you get to do really neat things that other classes can't. Like eat food and make clothes. And take home mechanical babies. And learn about human sexuality. And plan parties. And decorate gingerbread houses.

Yeah, you bet your britches you won't be doing THAT in a math class.
~The Teacher

More training?

I feel like I've been in so many meetings for the last few days. Today was school inservice. The Principal had scheduled today and tomorrow for it, but lucky for me, we got through it all today, so tomorrow is a teacher work day. More time to work in my room!!

I finally got through all of the dishes and things that the last teacher left. I threw away so many spices. I called the McCormick people and asked them how to read the codes and how long the spices were good for. She said, "That's easy. We've been putting 'best by' dates on our bottles since 2004, and we only guarantee them for 2-3 years." Spices don't really expire, they just lose some of their punch. We kept talking and it turns out that some of those spices were at least 20 years old. I think I'm going to have to clean out my mom's spice cabinet sometime soon. **Note: If you have any spices in the McCormick TINS...they were made in the 80s. Chuck them.** So I finally put my room back together. It was a many day project. And I still have to label my cupboards, but at least everything is off the tables. Next week I am going to have the students take a piece of butcher paper and draw outlines for everything that should be on each shelf. Then I will have it laminated and we will use it for inventory so I can check people out after labs. It's a brilliant idea (not mine...definitely stolen from another teacher.) It's all going to come together....

Yesterday I also started planning for a bulletin board that is right outside of my room. I have the creative energy of a dead animal. I've always said, "Ask me to design a project and we're toast. If you tell me what to do and give me the tools to do it, I will come up with a brilliantly constructed item for you." Let's just say--google is my friend. I looked up "bulletin boards" and there are oodles and oodles of sites. My bulletin board says "Pencil Us in For a Great Year!" And there is a pencil that says "Family and Consumer Sciences" and then a clipboard with a piece of paper that says "Welcome to class! Tips for Success:" And then it lists my class rules. Blasted brilliant. And it looks dang good. I was so excited about it last night, I couldn't sleep. Either that, or it was the 20 oz coke that I had with dinner. (I'm usually not a soda drinker, so when I drink soda--especially with caffeine--it makes me pretty wired.)

I also read a great book yesterday. It is by Harry and Rosemary Wong called "The First Days of School." And dang. It was a great book. It was my textbook for one of my education classes in college and I never really read through it then. I read about half of it last night. So, so, so helpful.

You see, I'm so terrified about the first few days. I can't even think about curriculum because I'm so terrified about what to do in introducing my class and rules and procedures. It's overwhelming--especially as a first year teacher, because everyone says that classroom management is the most challenging aspect of teaching. But the Wong book laid it all out. Step by step. I am going to do the following things:
1) Post my rules at the FRONT of my class (I recently discovered that they're actually hanging in my room already. At the back of the room in a random corner. Yes, that will be changing.)
2) Greet my students when they come to my room on Monday.
3) Set them right to work as soon as they come in. I am going to give each student a half-sheet of paper with a few questions on it so they are working at the beginning.
4) I will not be giving my students assigned seating on Monday. Wong says to do it. But I'm going to try this time without doing it. If it blows up in my face, I will change it next term when I get new kiddies.
5) I'm going to smile. A lot. And be excited for what I do.

Did I mention that I COULDN'T FALL ASLEEP yesterday because I was so excited? Because I totally couldn't. I was so excited. I just had to tell myself, "fall asleep now so you can wake up and go to school tomorrow!!"

Love it. I love it. Yay for teachers!!

~The Teacher

fighting for FACS

Good news!! I graduated on Friday. That's me--a diploma carrying, funny hat wearing FAMILY AND CONSUMER SCIENCES EDUCATION GRADUATE. I spent the Friday night with my old roommates, and then went to my last day at my college job on Saturday. They threw me a party and bought me some signs for my classroom. It was very nice. Saturday night, my parents drove me back with the van AND the truck crazy-full of furniture and stuff that I'd been storing at their house. Good news--it's all organized and I'm not sleeping on the floor. I don't have any living room furniture, but that's ok---I don't spend much time at home. I have two bookshelves against one wall, and in between those, I have two end-tables that my grandmother gave me, and in between those, I have one folding chair that my parents loaned me. I like that chair. One day I'll get a couch. Yes. My life is exciting. I'm saving up for a couch. (But a kitchenaid stand mixer comes first!!)

Anyways, I came back to school on Monday and had district in-service all day. It was super boring--because we'd gone over ALL the same information last week in new-teacher orientation. After it was over, I came back to my classroom which was STILL a mess from when I'd unloaded all the cupboards and I only had an hour or so to work in my room before we had the district picnic. I got a lot of free food yesterday. That was exciting. I also talked to my counterpart at the other middle school. We spent a good two hours talking about what we do in our classes. She's trained as a health teacher and got the FACS job by chance. We were talking about how the superintendent feels about the FACS program. Apparently, he pretty much wants it out of the schools. He's all about technology and getting students to be on the cutting edge of things. I'm in a district that has a lot of money--and that's good, it enables us to do cutting edge sorts of things. But as a FACS teacher, I feel like there are things that are important that AREN'T technology. Teaching them can be enhanced by technology, and even the act of doing these things can be enhanced by technology. But the subjects taught in Family and Consumer Sciences are LIFE SKILLS that will help my students get through every day--not just get to college. College students have to eat. Non-college students have to eat. We all have to wear clothes. We have families and need to know appropriate and inappropriate ways to interact. We used to live in a world where these skills would have been passed on from parent-to-child (mother to daughter, typically). But that is no longer the case. We have to learn it SOMEWHERE. I think a big part of the reason that we have a crazy society with more abusive families, overweight people, people in debt, etc is that we don't know these BASIC skills. We've overlooked them in favor of technology and advancing ourselves in careers.

Sigh. It's rough. I feel like I'm going to have to stand up for Home Economics during my time here. And in order to have any credibility, I need to have a good program. I have a lot to learn.

~The Teacher

FINALLY working in my room

Even though I've been in my classroom for the last three days, today is the first day that I'm actually able to work in it. Which I'm really regretting, now that I see how much there is to do (and how little time I have to do it in--I have to drive two hours to graduate from college tomorrow, and my family is coming back up with me the next day to bring my furniture up SO I DON'T HAVE TO SLEEP ON THE FLOOR....so I don't have a whole lot of time for working on classroom things...). But, I'm glad to finally be working on it.

I walked into my room today and the entire custodial staff was sitting at my tables eating lunch. Which I think is great--I have no problem with that. Everyone has told me that FACS teachers especially need to make good friends with the custodians and maintenance--because WE NEED THEM. So I said hi to everyone and then asked the main custodian for a little help whenever she was done eating because I had some questions for her. I asked her what I should do about my nasty-smelling sink because I thought it was the disposal. She said "If I had my way, I'd get rid of them entirely!" I said "Me too!! I see no reason to have them! I want to ask the Principal what my budget is and put in an order to have them taken out." And then she said, "Oh, if that's alright with you, I'll put in a work order today and have them changed out as soon as possible." AND IT WON'T EVEN HAVE TO COME OUT OF MY BUDGET. Angel. She's an angel. I'm super happy about that.

I cleaned my sinks today. First I used comet. Then I found some stainless steel cleaner--hello! Why didn't I start with that? It's good stuff. So if you need to clean a stainless steel sink...go straight for the steel cleaner. Then I emptied ALL of my cupboards out. The teacher who just retired has been here for 20+ years and has accumulated SO MUCH stuff. I have 4 kitchens, and found 11 sets of measuring cups in those kitchens. That's a lot. My task now is to decide what I want in each kitchen and then put the rest in storage (and throw it away at the end of the year!!!). I'm really lucky because I worked in the foods lab in college for a year, so I'm really familiar with what each kitchen needs. (Not 11 sets of measuring cups). When I finalize my list tonight or tomorrow, I'll post it, in hopes that it will be helpful to someone else.

I also spoke with the Principal today. He's really great. He expressed a lot of confidence in me and my ability to do good things here. Every day I'm becoming more and more confident that I will be able to be a good teacher. My first term will be terribly rough, I'm sure. But I will succeed. Anyways, if you're a teacher, your Principal should be one of the first people you talk to for help. I told him "I'm sure I'm about to have a lot of stupid questions, bear with me," but now we're on the same page.

I'm excited. This is going to be good. I'm doing the right thing. Countdown to school: a week and a half. Tomorrow I'm heading to my COLLEGE GRADUATION!!! After 5 years, it's about time. And in this economy, I count myself very lucky to be graduating with a job. And a good job at that.

~The Teacher

DONE

Ok. I'm officially done with my paper. It's 4:15 and the paper had to be emailed to her by 4:30.
Yes, I may have scraped through college by the skin of my teeth, but I'm DONE. I graduate in TWO DAYS.

Now I just have to make sure that I can get all of my paperwork from the university so I can turn it into the state licensure board so I can get licensed and *paid*. (Which is NOT why I'm a teacher...but it will be nice to not be a college student anymore. I love macaroni and cheese, but after five years...)

And I still have time this evening to start working on my classroom. It's huge. I think I'm going to go clean the sinks.

~The Teacher

Webpage

So today we had more new teacher orientation stuff. We went over the online grading system and we made a website for our classes. It was actually pretty fun. I have a lot of energy today--probably because I'm an hour shy of sleep and am still antsy about my paper that is due in THREE HOURS--so I was all over the place. One of the other new teachers looked at me and said "What are you doing?!" and I said "I teach Junior High!!!!" His response? "Yeah, I teach Junior High too, but I'm not going to do *that*." It was pretty funny.

I'm always amazed at how many resources there are for teachers. This district is really amazing. There is lots of stuff available to help me be an effective teacher. I remember right before I did student teaching last fall and was so overwhelmed by everything, and then I went to the fall conference for teachers and saw the resources--state and district people, companies like Staples, museums, universities that have curriculum that you can use--I felt so much better after that. I feel the same way today. Yes, I'm terribly overwhelmed. I haven't really even started LOOKING at my classroom. I don't really know what my first week of lesson plans are going to be. But I know there's help out there for me, and that makes me feel a million times better.

I'm embarking on a great adventure! Bring me minds for the molding! I'm ready!!

Ok, I'm not ready. I still have to finish my paper.

~The Teacher

Overwhelmed

So I'm here in my GIGANTIC new classroom with no idea where to start. Part of me keeps thinking (hoping?) that this is all just a dream and I'll wake up and be back in college with no life again. But I know that isn't going to happen, so I just need to get started. I've been in new teacher orientation for the last few days. We have meetings in the morning, and in the afternoon we get to go work in our classrooms. Yesterday, the cold that I've been running from caught up with me, and I couldn't function. So I went to wal-mart and bought some drugs and went to sleep. But today I've been sitting in my classroom for 7 hours and just contemplating. Well, people keep coming in to talk to me, and I've been working on some curriculum things, but then I've been getting a little distracted. (I have this dang final to write that is due tomorrow at 5 pm---it's the LAST thing that I have to do for college... but I don't want to write it. Probably why I'm starting a new blog?) I need to buckle down and get started. But where to begin? Do I work on curriculum? Do I work on my discipline plan? What do I have to organize? What do I have to decorate? The last teacher left me a lot of things and I'm excited to go through it and make it my own.

My classroom is HUGE. I'm a FACS teacher--we do a lot of stuff. I have 4 kitchens, some computer stations, and 20+ sewing machines. Not to mention the desks and the SMART BOARD. Which is cool...except I don't know how to work it.

Ok. I just made a decision. I'm done posting tonight. I have to start this paper. That way I will be able to dedicate ALL my attention to my classroom tomorrow. Because I don't even get to work on my room on Friday--I have to go to my college graduation. Ah! If I think about it I stress. Time for me to just get to work.

~The Teacher

Hello. It's me. The teacher.

Hi. I'm a new teacher. I just graduated from college (wait, that's actually a lie--I graduate in two days) and I got a new job teaching at a middle school in what feels like the middle of nowhere (but that's just because I'm from a big city...). I'm excited, but terrified at the same time.

I'm teaching Family and Consumer Sciences Education to 6-8 graders. I love family and consumer sciences. It used to be called Home Economics--but now we have a new fancy title so that people won't think we're outdated and unnecessary. Because I assure you, home economics is necessary.

I'm starting this blog as an opportunity to share lesson plans, vent, cry, rejoice, and learn. I'm keeping it pretty anonymous (if you didn't notice from my opening paragraph)--that way if someone stumbles upon it, I can't get sued. So don't go saying "Hey Mrs. so-and-so, how's teaching at such-and-such school in blank-blank city." Because that would totally mess up the anonymity part of my blog. If you want to get in touch with me, just leave a comment. I'll track you down from there...

~The Teacher