A Glimmer of Hope

I haven't given much information about my new teaching situation but a little understanding is necessary to understand the significance of today's small victory. I always thought classroom management came easily to me. I was born with the "teacher voice" and I already have kids so I'm past the "how strict is too strict?" mess. I know children aren't going to break from me being a little hard on them, and sometimes they need that. Last year, I felt like I was mean some days. Like I could not have fun with the kids because they would take advantage and get out of control... some days (maybe just a few). This year I have come home crying too many days because I feel like a drill sergeant. There is no letting up without losing control. Or at least there hasn't been. Not to mention that my students come from less than "perfect" family lives and many have grown up being told to stand up for themselves no matter what. "Watch out for number one." If I don't have my eye open and my class in order at all times, a fight will break out over somebody "stealing" a pencil (which has probably rolled on the floor) and the WHOLE class gets quickly involved. This has been my life for the last two months. Not to mention, I feel like I'm under constant scrutiny and am surely the only one with this lack of behavior management. AND, I've spent SO much time trying to adjust behavior that I feel like I've hardly TAUGHT anything! Not for lack of trying! Trust me, I've planned and planned and cut paper and cut paper and planned and planned some more. So anyway, this week I put the students in new groups (after rearranging my classroom yet again to try to find the right fit). I called their groups families and we had a long chat about how families all look a little different and all of the members are better at some things than others. We also talked about how once you're in a family, you have to learn to get along - There's no going back and asking the Big Guy in the Sky to make some rearrangements. You just find a way to make your family work. Likewise, there would be no asking Mrs. Hicks to move your seat either. So today, after they realized they were stuck, they started settling in and we actually were getting some work done! Yay! All of a sudden, mid-teaching, I hear "The Ultimate Problem Child" congratulate "Constantly Playing with 7 Pencils Child" for getting an answer right. He even offered him a High Five! If you can picture a popularity spectrum, these two students were on the farthest ends possible from each other! I was SOOOO proud!!!!! So of course I made a HUGE deal about how families encourage one another and how they were being such great family members, and lo and behold, the rest of the class starts "high five-ing" each other whenever they answer questions right, too! It was amazing! And (though it was not long lived) I for once had the feeling that I was the type of teacher I always wanted to be, the kind who can instill classroom community and caring among one another. The kind where students are compassionate toward one another, celebrating the victories together and working together to fix the problems. Today was a small step for sure, but certainly one that I will grasp tight to until I can find some more!

Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore...

Okay, so my dog is named Baby, and instead of being a miniature whatcha-call-it, she's more of a mastiff. And instead of Kansas, I'm talking about the teeny tiny farm town I student taught in back in Ohio. I had originally started this blog intending to write about my first year of student teaching. As everybody told me I would, I got super overwhelmed and haven't written since I moved in July. I am not going to try and backtrack all of my experiences since then, as amusing, heartbreaking, and/or unbelievable as some may be. But I will try to get to them along the way. In the meantime, here's the rundown: We're in a great little neighborhood with amazing neighbors. My kids are in a fabulous school! The school I teach at is 4 miles down the road and a whole world away. Amazing that things can transition so dramatically in just 4 miles. I'm working with a level of poverty I've never known before. The kind where you don't have pencils and paper in your classroom unless you buy them yourself. So there's your teaser. I promise to write more later, but it's 6:17 and I'm the only one awake and we all need to be gone in the next 45 minutes. Ahhh!

On the road!

I'll try to write this as best as possible since I am now having to blog from my cell phone (with great difficulty I might add). Just thought I would let everybody know we hit the road and we're halfway to our new home! okay that's all I can handle writing right now. sorry! more to come later. Seriously its really hard to blog on this tiny phone !

Warning: Geek Zone

So I was showing my kids our new home (as of this Thursday) on the satellite version of google maps and noticed that the water on the coast is really, really blue. I'm thinking: What beautiful crystal clear waters we'll get to swim in! Well my geekiness got the best of me and I really just HAD to know why it was so blue so I did what any educated researcher would do... I googled it. :)

This is probably common knowledge for everybody else, but I didn't pay much attention to science in school (ironically it's one of my FAVORITE things to teach now). So here's what I learned: Apparently the Mississippi River carries all sorts of pesticides and animal waste down from farms and dumps it into the Gulf right there on the coast of Mississippi and Louisiana. That all makes sense - I guess I just hadn't thought about it much. Well the effect of this is a Dead Zone in which there is an overgrowth of algae and little oxygen so it kills off a lot of the gulf's ecosystem. This seems like one of those issues to teach kids about and maybe when they grow up they'll seek out a way to fix it, changing the world one fish at a time! I know I'm an optimistic, dorky teacher, but that's the kind of stuff that makes me excited about teaching! I found a pretty cool website for kids about it. Click here for the link.

I'm gonna be honest - I'm pretty excited to know something about Mississippi to teach these kids! I could give them all sorts of Ohio history but I'm not sure the administrators would go for that...

Ketchup and Pickles

I have to share this ADORABLE idea I found in the hours...oops, I mean short amount of time between cleaning and packing, that I've spent on other teacher blogs. It's called "Ketchup and Pickles." The idea is that you post the two pictures (below) on the wall on Friday and if students have to catch up on their work they get their name listed under the ketchup bottle, but if students are all caught up they get to "pick" a fun activity and their name goes under the pickle. You can click here to download the picture. I think this is so cute! I can't wait to use it in my classroom!

Blind Organization

I never thought I would be so excited to get a letter in the mail that says "Dear Colleague." Silly, I know, but at least I know I've not been forgotten... or worse, replaced. Yikes! But the worry is now 90% alleviated. At least if the kind people of the school have forgotten me, some computer data system at the school knows I exist.

I have been able to get my head a little organized despite the little information I have to get my classroom organized. I found this FANTABULOUS teacher binder (pictured below) from The Organized Classroom blog (click here for link) which has everything you forgot you ever needed as far as paperwork (sub plans, gradebook stuff, contact info and so much more that I can't even think of!). AND, it's all in this super adorable black and white theme. I also got from the same website a Core Concepts organizer which will help me keep track of all these new standards. It also helps the students keep track of what they have learned! AWESOME!!!

I also found a huge amount of resources from this other AMAZING teacher blog, The Clutter-Free Classroom (click here for link). I only hope I can be as organized as these amazing women seem to be! What I loved from the Clutter-Free Classroom (among the many, many things I have downloaded) was this Classroom Procedures and Routines Workbook (click for link). I am so glad that somebody out there was thinking of how to get ME organized! I did have to pay for those few things I mentioned but I think they will be TOTALLY worth it. The Clutter-Free Classroom has TONS of other downloads which are FREE!!! And I do love me some free!

So... despite the itty bitty amount of communication I've had with the school, I figure most of this is universal(ish) and so I now feel a bit more organized than I did. A little bit less panicky. I'm sure it'll be okay. Why isn't my Ohio teaching license here yet...? Grrr.

Teacher Blog Insomnia

Okay. It's one in the morning and I should not still be awake but here's the thing. I have become obsessed with teacher blogs! I don't know if its my worry about not being prepared for the new school year as a new (first time ever) teacher or maybe my need to be overly prepared with very little information except what grade I'm teaching and that I think they use Common Core standards, but it seems that the minute I click on a new blog, they have a link for another one that sounds super fun! Then after I've been sucked in, I get further sucked in by "freebies," and for a new teacher, "beg, steal, and borrow" is kinda my motto at the moment. How cool is it that all of these seasoned teachers give me their ideas for FREE?! I have downloaded more things than I know what to do with right now, but one day when I have them all organized into their own little folders inside other slightly larger folders on my flash drive, I will look back and think how smart I was for staying up past one in the morning being sucked in by (I mean, professionally researching) teacher blogs. Currently, I just remembered that I have to throw my sister's baby shower tomorrow and I probably should do so after having had some sleep. Geeze Louise, these days are flying by too quickly!

Is this a dream?

I really have nothing to say, but for the sake of consistency and not wanting to go a month without writing again I'm going to ramble on about unimportant details anyway. To be honest, I wish I had something to say because then I would feel as though things were progressing and this weren't all some big figment of my imagination I'd dreamed up.

So here's the update, as short as it is. My Nana and I went to Mississippi to visit and, with much frustration and A LOT of my grandmother's gas, found me a place to live. Apparently there's some big power plant being built and it's brought in tons of people and eaten up all the rental homes and apartments (seriously, NO APARTMENTS!). We found three places. The first one was a house in a decent school district, but we didn't really think it was worth how much they were asking (aren't things supposed to be cheaper in the south???). The second was a single wide mobile home in a really good school district. Here's how that went: we drove miles and miles and miles into the backwoods country, turned at a bunch of broken down vehicles/dump yard, and finally found four trailers parked behind a row of trees. Three other trailers rented by single men in close proximity to my family out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by miles of trees and nothing else was not really the sense of security I was seeking for my family. Also, the place was a dump and again, outrageously priced. Okay, third place. Also a single wide mobile home in a great school district, but this one was in a trailer park close to town. Not too shabby and much safer feeling. It wasn't too nice looking from the outside but when we got in it was actually quite large and live-in-able (it seemed) despite a slight weird odor that I figured could be taken care of with some fresh air and candles. Until we looked down and saw little black pepper-sized bugs all over our legs and feet. Seriously, ALL OVER our legs. EWWWW!!!! Apparently, the previous owner had a lot of cats and they had been battling cat fleas for months with no such luck. The owner was convinced that they could have them gone by the time we moved down so I (don't judge me, I was desperate) told him I would take it if the fleas were gone with a 6 month lease (as opposed to the year he was asking) and $300 less a month. He basically laughed at me and told me some plant workers would take it with the flea problem for the (very high) price he was asking. We went back to our hotel and I cried my eyes out and in pathetic desperation called my husband and told him we were not moving to "that dreadful place" and I would just substitute in Ohio until the job market changed. He sensitively told me he worked too hard to get me through school, he had already quit his job, and we WERE moving. I went back the next day and took the first place we looked at, which quite honestly seemed like a mansion after the others. 

Also, while in Mississippi, I visited the school I would be working at. I planned on seeing my classroom and leaving all my things but nobody could tell me where it was going to be and, in the midst of all the "where are we going to live" craziness, I was kind of afraid to leave anything in Mississippi as I was not too sure I ever wanted to return. So the school is an inner-city, old school (definitely a stark contrast to the farming school I student taught in last year) but that much I expected. Since being there, I have heard very little from anybody in the district. I gave them my email and they said they would be forwarding messages to me regarding meetings and important info but I having heard anything yet. I'm trying to keep in mind that it is summer, but again I'm feeling a little bit like I dreamed all of this up... 

So here's my current perspective. I will be happy when I have friends and students. People make you love a place and I love people. If nothing else, I'll drag my family to my Aunt's house every weekend to spend time with them. I already love those people. :)

By the way, we leave in 12 days. I start work in 18 days. 

Goals...

I started this blog June 10th and saved it. I was conflicted as you will see. I summed it up and finished it today...

If you had asked me what my goals were when I was 18, I would have said (in fact, I did say) that by the time I'm 27 I want to have gotten my degree, have a teaching job, be married and have 2 kids. I think God laughs when we tell Him our plans, but thankfully He also listens. My goals were certainly not reached in the order I predicted when I was 18, but they were reached. I'm 27, have an amazing husband, who is an amazing father to our two quirky, intelligent, hilarious, adorably rotten children (ages 5 and 7) . I graduated with my bachelor's yesterday and I accepted a teaching position last week.

So, the big question I've been asked a hundred times in the last few days, "How do you feel now?" I've had trouble answering this question because I feel like I cannot feel proud without feeling a lot of humility. Nobody accomplishes anything huge without a lot of support. And I cannot even begin to explain my support system. Let's just say that my real life "circles" include that amazing hubby I mentioned earlier, the best parents, brothers, sisters, and in-laws anybody could ever ask for, grandparents that have truly saved me from drowning more times than I care to admit, and a plethora of friends who have served as last minute babysitters, cheerleaders, or shoulders to cry on regularly in the last 9 years. I feel that few people in my circumstances would have been able to accomplish completing a college degree without such a support system and I am so grateful God gave me the one He did.

So I guess my point is that I have to give credit where credit is due. It would be easy to go on about having reached my goals, but the truth is that this has been a combined effort. We've all gotten me through college and I owe my family big time for that. Unfortunately, I am now leaving them all to move 700 miles away. Maybe they'll see this as me repaying them with a break! Who knows? But I'm sure going to miss everybody. But, God wouldn't have brought my family through all of this, given me that amazing support system and a vision and passion for teaching children, if He didn't have big plans in mind. He's sending us to Mississippi so that's where we'll go.

Paper Chain

383 days ago my children and I cut out 386 strips of paper and created a super-duper long paper chain. The links alternated between black and white and every 50th link was yellow so I could keep track of where I was in my countdown to graduation. We draped it around the house like garland (which my husband just LOVED by the way - yes I'm being totally sarcastic) and it wrapped from my dining room, all the way around my living room, down and back up the hallway and to the edge of the kitchen (I'll try to find the pictures to post). Trust me, when you are looking at that long of a paper chain, it makes you think you may never graduate! But my kids and I took one off every day and now here I am with three links left: one white, one black, and a final yellow one with the words "Graduation Day!" written on it. It's become a regular topic of conversation in the family now. "How many days do you have left?" or "How long is the chain?" are questions I have answered with excitement every day for the last year and some odd days.

Now with all the excitement about moving to Mississippi and getting a job, I feel like I've forgotten that the day I've been waiting for for NINE YEARS is finally here! So I think, unless somebody calls me, I'm putting away all of the crazy house hunting and planning and such until after Saturday. I've worked so hard and I want to relish this next few days before the next exciting chapter begins. YAY! THREE MORE DAYS 'TIL GRADUATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Control freak

As some may know, I get a bit hasty at times when it comes to getting things done. I try to make things fall into place immediately, making plans before I even get an idea out of my head. I'm definitely a whole picture person. So, not knowing where I'm going to live, what my paychecks are going to look like, where my hubby's going to find a job, where my kids are going to go school, when they will start school, their school supply list, how much utilities are going to cost, how we're going to get furniture, etc., etc., etc. is driving me bonkers. Like I said, I know God will take care of us, but I really wish He would let me in on the plans. I know He's in the driver seat, but sometimes I'm not even sure I'm in the same car! And for a backseat driver, that makes it really hard to control things. Maybe in God's image of this analogy He has me strapped to the top with all the luggage so He doesn't have to listen to me telling Him where to go. Hmmm...

Phone interview

So yesterday I had my first phone interview. Talk about nerve-wracking! I knew there were 4 people listening to me on the conference call, but only one was talking. I felt like a babbling idiot since I couldn't see anybody's faces. But wouldn't you just figure that an hour later, the principal of a school in my hubby's home town in Mississippi calls me up to offer me a third grade teaching position. Oh, and I'm taking it because it's a job and it might be the only one I can find.

So now... I'm drastically overwhelmed! I haven't even graduated yet! Okay, so technically I'm finished with everything. Student teaching ended last week and I didn't have to worry about finals (Praise the Lord!), but graduation is Saturday (and grad party). Oh, and might I add that school in said district starts August 1st. The Lord has taken care of us thus far, and I know he will continue, but the poor fella has his hands full with this one. I'm sure He already has this to-do list, but here is my rendition.

1. Find a place to live in a good school district at a school where I am not teaching (whole different soapbox - ask me later).
2. Find Sean a job.
3. Make money appear out of thin air.
4. Get the kids enrolled in a school.
5. Get school supplies.
6. Get school clothes for myself and the kids.
7. Get a classroom ready (and be willing to stick with whatever I choose to do).
8. Attend teacher meetings.
9. Get furniture.
10. Move.
11. Get my MS teaching license (oh, after I get my OH teaching license...)

Okay Lord, there's my rendition. I'm sure there is more. I know you're sitting up there laughing at my panicky state because you've already got all of this figured out, so I'm handing it over. You're the God of miracles... and I think I'm in need of one.

Love,

Tam