How to know if you are a teacher...

I've been a real live teacher for three weeks now, and I can't lie and tell you that I'm not tired. I am...but I'm also loving the world of teaching. Though my time so far has been short I feel like I'm falling comfortably into the role of teacher. My arm is covered with marker from the posters I made for my students. Most books I read are on a third grade level. I interchange terminology such as differentiated instruction, guided reading, and IEP like I know what I'm talking about. Most importantly, I have the bags.

I do not refer to bags under my eyes, but literal bags of supplies, posters, and activities that follow me around day to day. As I walked down the hallway to my classroom last week a veteran teacher poked her head out and saw me wobbling down the hall backpack filled tight and bags on each arm. 

She exclaimed, "I can already tell you are a teacher by the amount of things you are carrying." She laughed and returned to her room. I know it was funny, but in a strange way it was a sentimental moment to me. I am a teacher, and while I might be fresh from the farm, I'm as ready as all of them. 

Don't Sniff the Smelly Markers

My hands are covered with marker and I can smell a lingering Mr. Sketch fragrance dancing about my room. I'm warm, followed by periods of blasting air conditioning. At the end of the work day I have more work to do, and a desperate need to hydrate. I think day in and day out about how to help my students. I guess I've become a teacher.

My absence from this blog is not an indicator for the future, I will continue to write. If anything, it is an indicator of my need to perfect the art of teaching before I return to the art of blogging. Obviously, I am not a perfect teacher yet, but I return momentarily to reflect. I sit back, sigh, and think, did I really just grade something? It's a little scary to think that the future of these children has been laid into my hands. I think I might be ready. 

Consequently, this is also my hundredth post. Happy hundredth post as I continue to think about how to teach rounding to the hundredth place. 

What now?...maybe a book review...

Ann Patchett is an excellent writer who has won many awards for her fiction and non-fiction. Did I mention that we attended the same undergraduate institution? While I have never read her fiction, her book Truth & Beauty chronicling her friendship with poet Lucy Grealy, was a book that I drank up the summer before I began Sarah Lawrence college. I stood at the front of the movie theater taking tickets and in the lulls I would pick up the book and read. A patron approached one day and commented on how much she loved the book, and I proudly told her I was about to attend the author's Alma Mater. I was ready to go.

Four years later, at graduation rehearsal, I received a copy of her essay, What Now?, an extension of her graduation speech. I was not the same person I had been four years ago, and as I continue to traverse the maze I surprise myself every day. I don't know where or what the maze ends with but her essay soothes my growing fears. I recommend this book to anyone who has hit a dead end, a fork in the road, or even those who seemingly have it together. 

"Even if you have it all together you can't know where you're going to end up. There are too many forces, as deep and invisible as tides, that keep us bouncing into places where we never thought we'd wind up. Sometimes the best we can hope for is to be graceful and brave in the face of all of the changes that will surely come."

I think I'm ready to be swept away.

Hitting the ground running

There is nothing more terrifying than the landing at Laguardia airport. Every time I look out the window, into the vast water the plane is slowly inching towards I think, "Is this plane going to crash?" Fortunately, the plane lands just inches away from the water onto the landing slip of Laguardia airport. My most recent flight to New York was different, where the plane usually avoids the water by a mere inch or so I felt safe this time with the water a good 20 feet back. Then the thought occurred to me, what if we landed to late? We were fine, as we always are, but I knew that this trip was for good. The college days of traveling back and forth no more. This time, I wasn't coming for a few months until I went home, I was home. 

Those few inches that separated me from the water were scary, but an inevitable part of flying. I knew they were coming every time I landed, but I always looked to make sure I survived. I have been told by many that my first year teaching will often feel like I am about to fail, crash, and burn (out), but I think there is a strength in knowing this. I am about to enter teaching ready to cry, worry, and look out at those few inches separating me and my students from failure and think, "We can do this, we can land safely and get to the next destination." 

I obviously don't want to just "survive" my first year of teaching. I want to succeed, excel, and blossom into an excellent teacher, but I'm trying my best to be realistic. And I truly believe that this understanding, of how close I will be to danger, will push me to be a better and stronger teacher.

I don't know the next time I will board an airplane. But when I do I'll be ready to face that danger zone head on, whether on a plane or in a classroom.

(PS, you should all be impressed that I did not talk about 'soaring like an airplane' when I teach next year.)

The Power of the Power Couple

Power couples have become a trend in Hollywood. Between Angelina and Brad, Jay-Z and Beyonce, and David and Victoria Beckham the power couple gives individuals with high levels of solo power a backer, a partner, and more power. Like the kids in Captain Planet, when strong forces combine strong results can occur. I had known for a while that the creator of KIPP schools was a TFA alum, but I had yet to realize that he was the wife of founder Wendy Kopp. 

An education power couple...I think that is knew. Or at least it's new to me. I've heard people in education talk about how a lot of people in education end up married. They have the same schedules, same ideals, and so on and so forth. The likes of an education power couple can have tremendous results. Unfortunately, education ends up being a lot about politics, power, and connections. These are things that both Wendy Kopp and Richard Barth have. 

Education power couples are perhaps less powerful than the power couples in Hollywood, but where they work and what they do is so much more meaningful for the future of our children. 

(Found on This Week in Education)

What to wear...

As I get ready to become a teacher, and spending the last few weeks on my parents' dime, I question...what to wear? As a teacher leading a convoy of small children towards learning excellence I don't think I can wear my college wardrobe. Time for big girl clothing.

Also, my shopping adventures today many me think of this NYC Educator post. 

Reviews I've been meaning to write...

Autism the musical- an HBO movie

I had been meaning to watch this since it came out, but the lack of cable while I was away at school prevented me. Luckily I arrived home a few weeks ago with the tivo ready and watched this heart warming (and breaking) HBO documentary about a theater company that was created to work with Autistic children and their families. The movie documents the creator and her son and a few of the families in the group, with children ranging in their abilities. While the end product was a musical the improv and acting seemed to me like a form of play therapy in hiding. Children learn to act out social interactions and a child who is bullied takes on the role of the bully. What is more striking than the development and struggles of the children is the emotional roller coaster the parents seem to have been on since their children's diagnosis. Between divorce, separation (over the course of the movie), and fights with each other and other adults galore you really feel the pain of the parents who will do everything to help their children. There are no answers in the documentary, only truth. A truth everybody should know. 

John and Kate Plus 8

I spent one summer nannying for a family of four. Between shuffling the older children off to camp, tending to all of their different needs, and making sure the baby was taken care of I left every day exhausted. How is it possible to take care of 8 children? I'm honestly not sure as I sat watching a marathon on John and Kate Plus 8 one afternoon. Do they have funding from the television show? Are their parents rich? Or is there an immense amount of product placement that I was missing. Besides from money I wonder about the children's safety, and oh yea, their development. These are not answers I can realistically seek from a television show that I'm pretty sure is usually coupled with Little People, Big World. But as a teacher to be and psychology major I have started to think about these children a lot. They all seem typical, I'm not saying the parents are doing anything wrong, but I just want to get in there and see the kids live, not from the editors eye, and analyze the interactions of such a huge family. Piaget argues about the strength of moral development in large families. The younger children look to the older children as a star to follow after. But what about when the children are multiples. I have a lot of questions that John and Kate Plus 8 does not have the answers to. I can't really say I recommend this show as a piece of developmental material, but to look at children and say, "aww, isn't that cute," sure.