thursday! thursday! thursday!

first and foremost, i WILL start posting more interesting pictures here. well, once i start taking them at least.

Its been a long Thursday already, and im pretty sure I have at least 7 more hours until its over. Can I just publicly state how much I hate long division? I hate the fact that I had to teach it to kids who don’t even know their times tables, I hate the fact that im really dumb when it comes to make and I cant think of any good way to break it down for them, and I hate the fact that my kiddos are not mastering their objectives (or even getting to them for that matter). Long division, you totally ruined my day. If you couldn’t guess, I “taught” a lesson in two divisor long division. Teaching should not really be the term applied to what I did today. I tried to engage my students (and most of them were engaged, or just too frustrated to even act out) but the objective was just too hard. There are the 4 or 5 people who absolutely, 100% mastered the concept (they are my little superstars! And luckily I get to meet with them during academic intervention hour. Tomorrow, I am going to blow their minds with 4 digit quotients. They better be ready to dominate tomorrow!) It is incredible to see the wide range of abilities within my own classroom. I have a student who reads at a second grade level, but is doing math practically at grade level. I have students that don’t know their multiplication facts and I have students that could recite them to me in their sleep. Its incredible, especially because it seems that the current system has failed even the gifted children. I am so invested in my kids, my only complaint is about me, and how much more I need to be doing for them. I have one student (Anqwan) who is a little treasure. He regularly gets 100% on his assessments (class averages are in the low, low 70s usually) and has amazing behavior. He is stellar. And tomorrow, since he got 10 stamps in his “passport” (our behavior tracker- goes with our global theme) he will be the first person in our class to be a star on the wall, and get a cupcake. I think his mind is going to explode with happiness and pride. And that makes me feel fantastic. But anqwan deserves it. he wants it. and from what I’ve seen, he can do it. I am struggling with figuring out how to reach the students who don’t have the natural ability that he has. As a teacher, I am slowly realizing how absolutely frustrating students lives must be because they are forced to sit in a classroom (even one as cool as ours) and struggle. They struggle and struggle, and then, if they don’t get the attention and help they need, they act out. By some amazing grace, my kids don’t really act out, act out. But I know when they are absolutely disappointed in themselves. I asked one student how her math class had gone and she looked at me and said it was a bad day. And, in retrospect, I didn’t do enough to convince her that what she was doing was a huge step in the right direction, and that I was so proud of her. My time is stretched so thin that I feel that I can’t do much at all. And that is such a helpless feeling. And it gets worse for me because I am miss unobservant/totally unobservant and I focus on what I have to do and my peripheral vision gets shut off somehow. And that is no bueno as an educator. Im going to work on it in this next week, giving each kid what they need from me. Im going to be stretched a little thinner in the next short weeks. In other news (lets be honest- its all teacher news. My life does not exist outside of this program), I got to watch the bachelorette two nights ago, and in something a little more exciting and a little more cultural, I went to a BB King concert on campus. BB King is the proclaimed “king of the blues” and this style of music originated here in the Mississippi delta. King is 84 now, but still performs incredibly powerfully. His show last night was more of a communication rather than a mere performance. He seems like an amazing person. And ill admit it, I fell in love with the blues. There is so much emotion in every note, in every chord. I could feel it last night, practically tangibly. (when I was awake. I may have dozed off a couple times.) I am officially a blues fan and would love to play blues guitar. It felt so good to hear and feel real music like that, and to see a real legend. Oh and calling all celeb watchers- morgan freeman was totally there last night, and I saw him! Who would have thought that I would see a celeb in the delta? Loves it. yesterday afternoon was a real treat, because after a joke played by our administrators (they told us that we were going to have to move school sites because of a “problem” with no details) we were allowed to leave school early for a TFA day, Totally Free Afternoon day. But the ironic part is, they totally had a scheduled carnival with scheduled activities. Totally TFA and totally hilarious. It stressed me out that someone would schedule my free day, but regardless, it was so nice to see a Mississippi afternoon for once. i ended up working after about an hour and half of time wasting (story of my life methinks) and then had a meeting regarding my teaching observation that had happened earlier in the day. I was VIDEO TAPED teaching my students the "Division Chant" that i completely made up the night before. Here it is: "The number of steps in division are 4, let's practice them so we can master math more...First, Divide (hold up arm in a slash position) then Multiply (cross arms in front of you, like an X) Subtract (arm held out horizontally in front of you lengthwise), then Bring it down (index fingers pointing down and a little booty dance. the kids eat that part UP). my class behaved like ANGELS the entire time. silent, well behaved, i didnt even have to give any consequences whatsoever (although i probably should have, lets be honest.) yesterday, i was on top of the world. unfortunately, my assessment results were less than stellar, but another person that observed me told me that i had done some really beautiful things in my classroom and that i had created an amazing culture full of urgency about learning within my room. Ah! Gasp! happiness!
tonight has been better than today, ten fold! i got off the bus then went to hey joes for hamburgers (its my second one and its delicious! i ate lettuce, tomato and ONION on my burger. delicious) and then to walmart for our behavior prizes. i just got some mechanical pencils and a bag of sour gummy worms for anqwan. at the moment, im listening to daft punk and sitting in the lobby with some pretty chill peeps. i mean life is good. its hard, im exhausted, but its GOOD. so good. and tomorrow is friday, and that means getting squirrely. and then saturday, we are going to baton rouge in order to sign a lease for this house in the garden district. we are actually racing other guys in our corp to get to it before they do...i hope we get it because it has 5 bedrooms, and we need four to live in and then one extra for our smoking jackets. and cigarette holders with pixy sticks in them. and slippers with no backs. and overstuffed armchairs. and for some weird reason, i keep getting the vision of the March family attic from little women when i picture this 5th bedroom. i hope so much that we get it. im off to the printing lab...wish me luck! tired but HAPPY. and fulfilled.