Style Happens

I've never been particularly interested in pursuing the sweetest deals at 4:00 am on Black Friday, but yesterday, my sister Tiffany and I ventured out in the afternoon to see about finding me a pair of jeans. We wandered into Lane Bryant, but I was ready to leave in a few minutes. Seems they have completely revamped their traditional sizing. All pants now come in sizes 1 to 9 and in blue line, red line or yellow line. Too much for my head. I just knew I wanted a simple pair of jeans with straight legs. I've never been a fan of flaired or boot legs, but my sister insisted it was time for me to move my style into the 21st century. After the sales lady measured me, she insisted I try on a size 5 in the blue line. I was very conscious about the fit, but my sister and the saleslady didn't feel it fit tight enough, insisting I go to a size 4. "You want jeans to fit you tight and show off your booty," the sales lady kept insisting to which I replied, "Mam, if you haven't noticed, I don't have a 'booty' on my behind; mine is in front if you haven't noticed my belly." I was rather concerned that the jeans might be vulgar looking. Then, we shifted to another color. Another sales lady insisted I was not blue line at all but rather red line. So, somehow I ended up in a size 6 red line pair that were tighter than the blue line size 5. Go figure. And no, they are not straight line jeans. They are boot cut. Seems the good old straight line has gone out of style and is not available. Not that I care about this, but although I may come kicking and screaming, I am now a little more stylish in my red line jeans. Seems like there are a lot of shifts happening these days whether it's technology or style. I'm just trying to keep up, booty and all.

Shift Happens

Last week, a colleague/friend and I attended the NCTE National Convention in San Antonio, Texas. The focus of the convention was "Shift Happens." I went to a lot of sessions and heard a lot of speakers talk about the learning impact technology can and does indeed have on the 21st century student. As I've continued to chew on all I took in, a couple of moments of clarity have risen to the surface. One, the biggest shift is the mental one I as a teacher am and must continue to make. I have to change my attitude as that is the biggest obstacle sometimes to my teaching journey. I'm an immigrant to technology so there is always going to be that learning curve for me whether we are talking wikis, blogs, podcasts, googlelit trips. digital narratives, voicethread, etc. At my school, a lot of discussion has centered on technology. What's acceptable, what's not, how do we protect students from the dangers lurking on the net without completely censoring them, how do we get daily access to the tech in order to have students CREATE and PRODUCE learning instead of just having information delivered to them using technology. It can be overwhelming and yet I know I must dive in.

I told my friend Alisa that I feel I'm one of the teachers on the sideline of this great rapidly moving river. You know the ones. We're talking about whether or not technology is dehumanizing us and whether or not students need to have their ipods at school and why the devil they constantly want to text and shouldn't cell phones be banned completely from the school, yada, yada, yada. We're still questioning whether or not technology is right for us and meanwhile that river rages on by. It's going my friends, whether or not we're in it. At the conference, I realized I need to stop putting my feet in the river and instead just dive in, whole body and all. The only way I can hope to have an impact on my students is if I get in that river of technology with them and swim along beside them. Change my mindset. That truly is a paradigm shift. It's the biggest one. So, bring on the podcasting and the googlelit trips. I know I will have to rely on my students a lot to give me the lay of the land and orient me. But I hope that we will be learners together as we navigate our way down the constantly shifting river of technology.

The 12 Days of Christmas Grammar Challenge

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas music. I'm such a freak about it that yes, I confess, I've even secretly listened to it as early as August and sometimes into late January. But Thanksgiving signals the official okay that Christmas music is acceptable, so I've been uploading Christmas music onto my ipod. Thanks to Amanda, I've learned how to download songs from iTunes onto my computer and then to my ipod. (Hey, Amanda, I still need help putting the songs from cds I already have onto my ipod. Call me if you see this over the Thanksgiving weekend. :) As I sit here writing this, I'm listening to some of my favorites. My brother-in-law Greg is not a big fan of the "whiney Christmas songs" so he's given me his Bose headset to listen, sparing him from the music which is okay since I'm afterall a guest in my sister and his house this holiday. We arrived tonight to kick off our Thanksgiving with our annual roasted oysters. Yummy, nothing better on a cold November night than a fresh oyster on a saltine cracker topped with a jalapeno and some of my dad's delicious sauce. But I digress. Back to the grammar idea.

For several past years, I've had the idea of designing a mini unit on troublesome grammar issues using traditional Christmas carols and holiday songs. For instance, the rule about lie versus lay tangles up many a student, so why not design a game that features the carol "O, Little Town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie . . ." and use it during the month of December? I've decided to make this idea a reality this year, so I'm spending this weekend (at least a portion of it between the turkey meal, the family movie outing and the holiday shopping) working out the details of this unit so that I can start it next week with my students. I'm making a collection of the songs I'll use and figuring which grammatical concepts I'll teach/review with each one. If it turns out well, I'll post the results here. Happy Turkey Day, folks! Enjoy your time with families. And sing a few holiday tunes. It's good for you. :)

The Joy of Giving

Today students in my first bell and Beta Club students packed and wrapped shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Shoebox. I really enjoy seeing the generosity of these students who relished the opportunity to make a difference. By the end of the day, there were 50 shoeboxes, and I suspect there will be a few more turned in tomorrow. Thanks to a gracious Beta parent, the shoeboxes are on their way.

A Pizza in the Box and a Bag in the Hand

So today's mandatory faculty meeting was the ubiquitous one where the insurance guy comes and attempts to persuade us to buy more health insurance, his rhetoric peppered with expressions like "Folks. . ." and "My (insert family member here) is a teacher and I know how hard . . ." and "We send you a check directly" and "Now, I heard this is a stress-free school but . . ." and so on. This speech comes after he ironically serves us all free greasy pizza before citing all the scary statistics about heart attacks, diabetes and strokes. He ends with a drawing. He chooses one of the names out of his bag and that person wins $50.00. Why is it that I always get depressed, listening to the doom and gloom warning of these insurance folks? Why do the jokes and one-line platitudes sound so cliche? Why do I look around at the dull pepto bismo color on the walls and think thoughts like "Oh my gosh, I'm stuck in an institution" and "this is the future I can look foward to if I stay and retire in teaching?" Perhaps it's just me, but I feel like a cow being fattened for the slaughter as I'm herded into the corral, forced to listen to this used car salesman. I despise the annual insurance lecture. I just can't get past the idea that it's planning for the "glass is half-empty" scenario. I know I'm jaded but my faith in the insurance business is zilch.

Teaching The Teacher

As I read and pondered on Valerie's last few blog posts, I began to think of the ever-popular catch phrase that we have adopted in education of "Relevance, Rigor, and Relationship". This has become somewhat of a mantra in some educational institution. I remember the first time I heard this phrase during my student teaching experience. At the time I thought that I understood all three concepts. However, as time passes I see that relevance and rigor are still a gray area for me. When I began to think about why this is, it suddenly hit me when I looked at the picture in Valerie's last post.

The seniors pictured in Valerie's post are very important to me and are students that I will never forget. In January of 2007, I came to their class as a student myself who was trying to "learn how to teach" during my student teaching experience. It's hard to believe that they are seniors and that they will soon be college students just like I was when I met them. Though they were just high school students, I have found that they taught me so much about the importance of developing relationships.

As a new teacher, it can be very overwhelming to try and determine relevance and define rigor. I don't know how long it will take for me to fully understand relevance and the entire debate that surrounds it. However, I am making a conscious choice to not let my lack of understanding bother me. Years from now, I hope to look back on the class of 2009 and remember what they taught me about developing relationships. It is because of them that I am looking forward to future classes of students and what they will teach me. Who knows, perhaps a few years from now I will be able to look back and see how my students taught me about relevance and rigor.

Class Color Day at CCHS

This past week was our school's spirit week leading up to the homecoming game last night. I know how hard our SGO sponsor, a 2nd year teacher, and the SGO student reps worked in overseeing this week's activities, so big props to them. Friday was class color day with each grade wearing the designated color. Class color day has disconcerted faculty the last few years with some of the issues generated such as face painting, tagging, dress code violations and messes in the bathroom with the paint. I'm not sure what the answer is. I wonder what other schools do and if there is a solution that would satisfy the concerns and permit students the enjoyment they take in celebrating their class color? I look at the faces in this photograph and I see school pride, hope for the future and zest for life. I taught many of these folks as freshmen and some of them as sophomores. Their precious faces have frequented my classroom the past four years, and I know I'll miss seeing those faces when they graduate in June. I'm glad I was able to capture this rite of passage on film.