Preparing For The New Year

 

Teachers in my district report to school next week. The students report a week after. I think we had all hoped that Covid-19 and all its' nastiness would be fading, but it seems the Delta variant has come back with a vengeance. I am vaccinated but will still be masking up as I have done since this began. Preparing for the students and what is sure to come.

I teach World History and this year will begin teaching a single class in Journalism. I am excited about the opportunity to resurrect the school newspaper and develop the writing and editing skills of my students, who I don't know at this time. 

I am lucky enough to have a classroom for journalism which is across campus from my history classroom. I wanted them to be separated. I wanted them to have a spot where they could be open and safe. A place where they could work without the annoyances of students walking by and peeking in the windows. A spot where the students would not be continually trying to distract one another and avoid work and actually looked forward to what they were doing. I believe this will be the case. 

Right now, the journalism room is filled with the flotsam and jetsam from the previous teacher. I stopped by yesterday and it was still filled with math stuff. Books and charts and T-squares, calculators and Algebra worksheets. Ugh. Talk about opposites. Seeing all that math stuff made my hands shake and my face break out in a cold sweat. I have my antique typewriter which will transition from my history classroom; I have some T-shirts from the Washington Post and the New York Times that will hang, along with several posters, on the walls. I have lots of table and chairs. Computers will go in this week and I am repotting some plants to make it look homey. The blinds will be open to let in the natural light and I am hoping the students will be ready to learn when they come back. 

My history classroom was not stripped from last year so I don't have as much to do there. I will take down and rearrange wall posters, set up my boards, print out the syllabus, which will also go in the online platform. My desk needs to be put back together and all my cabinets which were missing those little shelf thingys to hold the shelves have been bought, ready to fix the shelves.

My classroom plants need to be hung and the tables and chairs need to be set up in the way the classroom will work. I like circles, but much will depend on who my students are and how many of them I have. 

We have Professional Development next week and all kinds of meetings. Our Open House for parents, which we did not have last year due to Covid-19, will be on Thursday. Do high schoolers come to Open House? Do parents? 

Thanks to my friends and family and the supporters in my area, I have plenty of class supplies that I will not have to purchase but right now it is all in boxes and must be organized. 

I know many people believe that teachers have an easy job, summers off, and are set on teaching their children weird things that don't matter. I can tell you, my job is easy only because I love what I do. My summers are a little more relaxed but I still managed almost 40 hours of professional development in my area. I teach facts. Some are not comfortable, but the truth will always win out in the end. That is what we teach our children. 

I still have work to do but by the time my new students walk in to my classroom in 6 days, I will be ready. I know it.  

Teachers supporting teachers

 

I chose to become a teacher after my career in the media came to a sudden end after 35 years. Although I had a Bachelor's degree in Political Science, Florida requires you to complete a teacher's certification program. Mine took seven months and several hundred dollars, but I became more and more excited about the possibilities. 

The support I experienced then was wonderful. From the professors to the other students, we were always available to work with each other or answer questions. Most had already decided what they wanted to teach. For me, it was history. I was advised not to do history. History jobs were few and far between. High school history jobs were held by coaches. History teachers stayed for years. The list goes on and on. 

I didn't take their advice, most thought I should become an English teacher, and two weeks after I completed my courses in education, I had a job teaching middle school U.S. History.  

My career in teaching is relatively new, only 8 years, but during those years I have become certified and endorsed in other areas: journalism 6-12, ESE K-12, Reading and ESOL. I have attended too many professional developments to count and every summer you can find me taking more to maintain my skills. 

The strongest support I have received in eight years have been from other teachers. In the schools I have been in, I have worked with some awesome administrators who supported their teachers and went to bat for them. I always try to remember that their bosses are sometimes not on the same page. Unfortunately, districts are answerable to school boards which are answerable to parents and politicians. Teachers that have administrators like that are lucky because then teachers can support other teachers. 

I have been lucky with parents. I have only had a couple who yelled or removed students from my class. Some parents don't like for you to punish their children for things like plagiarism. They are very worried about what impact this will have on their child's future. Perhaps they could teach their children that stealing, whether from the internet or from a store, is still stealing. The teachers I work with tend to agree. 

I have been lucky with students. Every year my students make gains. Sometimes they are small; sometimes they are big, and sometimes they outshine even my expectations, which are very high. Most teachers do set a high bar and expect the best from their students. Most students will strive to meet that goal. The trick is to not set the goal higher than the student is capable of. I have never met a teacher who did not know the difference. 

Teachers are always there to lend an ear or a helping hand. Many times they don't even know the other teacher's name. They only know they need help with something, whether it is a lesson plan or pencils. 

Yesterday, how I feel about teachers came through loud and clear. It began early in the morning when I helped a teacher move in to her new classroom. I have worked with her for years. She is an excellent teacher and I have a truck so we moved boxes of stuff upstairs in her new classroom. We are going to love having her there. 

From the time we entered the building, the others we ran in to were friendly and welcoming. They introduced themselves and offered any help she might need. What a breath of fresh air. 

In the afternoon I began my teacher stuff, checking email, answering, checking on wish lists for supplies, etc. I had helped a brand new teacher with an idea to use Donor's Choose for her gym supplies because I had such luck at my first school helping the coaches and students get things as diverse as tumbling mats and blocking dummies. I shared her project on our district teachers' page and then checked on the teachers from my school. Our chorus teacher was looking for a few things so I made a small donation to her. 

Then I got a note from a different person in the district offering to complete my wish list for composition books. Wow. Before I could celebrate that, I received notice the first year teacher I helped with her Donor's Choose had her project funded. 

To top off the day, another friend whose is an artist, posted a small, original painting of Shakespeare for the first comment agreeing to commit 3 acts of kindness in the next 30 days. I won and will gift my friend, the new English teacher, for her classroom.

The sense of family and closeness that most teachers feel for each other is unlike any other relationship I have known. I think they understand each other because they are all faced with the same issues on a daily basis. Even though most of us come from different backgrounds and different life experiences; some are just beginning their journey and some are reaching an end; we all want the same thing. 

We want our students to flourish and grow. We want them to have the opportunities available to them. We want them to ask questions and offer solutions to problems. Sometimes we succeed; sometimes we struggle. Luckily, we have the support of so many others in our community. This is what teachers do.

If you would like to help support teachers, please visit Donor's Choose where your can choose a project you like or my district's page on Facebook: Adopt a Manatee County Teacher. You can also check in your area for classrooms that need a little help with supplies. I appreciate your support and they will as well. 

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Confused about the world today? Read this book

 

As a teacher, I am always hunting for material to read and help me understand the world as we know it. I am pretty educated in political science and international relations and my BA in in both. I am also a student of history, employed for much of my life at a newspaper owned by the New York Times, who absorbed headlines like candy. 

Every year when I walk in to my new classroom, regardless of the subject, be it world history or United States history, I am amazed the the ignorance of students and what is going on in the world. Because I grew up in a family that had discussions about daily events, had parents who might not agree with my thought process or even shake their heads when I spouted off some illogical theory to them, they allowed me to grow in to my curiosity. They never demanded I think like them. They gave me the tools to grow. I am grateful to them.

That is not the case for many people today. They did not grow up in that kind of household. They were pushed to take classes they had no interest in and they sure were not allowed to discuss them. 

The journey to write this book began, according to the author, on a summer's day fishing with a friend whose nephew decided to join them on the boat. 

                "I asked him where he went to school. "Stanford", he told me. He was a computer science major, soon to begin his senior year. I went on to ask him a number of specific questions about what else he was studying beyond coding. Anything in economics? History? Politics? His answers revealed he had taken the minimum number of courses outside his major and those he did take had little to do with the basics. What was clear was that this intelligent young man would soon graduate from one of the best universities in the country with little to no understanding of his own country or the world. And he would do so at a moment when the fate of his country and the world were inextricably linked and  more was influx than at any time since World War II and the years just after."

This says a lot. The author goes on to list statistics about requirements of colleges and to a lesser degree, high school. 

As someone who has questioned what on earth these people are thinking and making the decisions they are making, this book explains more that I thought possible. To blame many of our issues on social media and what is being read is really not the first issue. 

If you like information and want to see what the author feels in one of the most neglected areas for our students to grow in to thinking adults or are an adult, who did not get an education in these subjects but would like to broaden your perspective, read this book. Have your high school or college students read this book. You might lose some of the confusion you are experiencing today. 

                    

The salesman in all of us

 In the past week, I have been inundated with teacher wish lists and requests for supplies. If you visit any county, including mine, you can find a social media page for teachers who are requesting supplies for their classrooms. These supplies range from notebooks and paper to flexible seating and rugs for the floors. 

Donor's Choose, a non-profit created by a teacher, has oodles of projects submitted by teachers who are trying to get their classrooms organized, provide books for the little ones, furnish a depleted gym locker with equipment or, as in my case, find the money to print my new, revamped school newspaper.

This time, more than any during the school year, teachers become salesman. How do you entice people to donate their hard earned money to help you created a classroom or fund a project that is all for someone else's child? What words can you use that will make your request tug at the heartstrings of enough people so you can get what you think you need to make your year run smoothly?

One thing I learned from being in the newspaper business is a little about marketing. Don't post your request and think the money is going to come rolling in. It doesn't happen that way. You have to be consistent in keeping what you need out there in front of friends and family. Keep sharing your needs, if not every day, every other day. I have posted 18 projects to Donor's Choose. I have had them all funded, sometimes by people I did not even know. 

Ask for help in obtaining what you need. If your friends and family don't know you need something, they cannot help provide it. They want to help. Let them. Don't ask for dream items. Make sure they are things to benefit your students in some way. See if you can get what you need from another teacher before you try and purchase it brand new. 

I am not a crafty person but I know crafty people who love to help. I had two globes donated to my classroom so I bought the insides for a lamp and a wonderful friend created hanging lights for the globes. My students have outlined the continents with pin holes and they look awesome in my class. 

Last year I had boxes of books from my reading class that I knew would simply sit in my spare room and gather dust so I donated them to other classrooms to help those teachers out. I didn't ask for money because I would rather they help a student than put a dollar in my pocket. 

Do I like that there is not an endless supply of money for classroom necessities? No, especially when we cannot even get computers for each child. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is as a teacher to receive a little over $200 from the state for classroom supplies and then the list that follows of acceptable things for purchase. 

These are a list of a few things I requested this year. Things which will be necessary for my classroom, maybe not someone else's. I have received most everything I asked for except composition books for history journals. You can order them for me from Amazon. I can never have too many. This is my wish list here. 

People, most who are strangers, have supplied me with reporter notebooks and newspaper print cost, 11x17 paper to pull proofs for our revamped paper, pencils, lined paper, erasers, clips, and a classroom set of books, I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World  for my World History students to read. 

So if you want to help out a teacher, please be on the lookout for those who need your help. Even a $5 donation can help fund a Donor's Choose project or a box a pencils can keep students writing. We really don't want to be salesman, but we have it in us for our kids. 

When sadness creeps in

I am a Florida girl, through and through. I come from a long line of Florida people and was lucky enough to grow up in the state when it really was still a paradise. I am also the daughter of a career military father. This allowed me to experience so much of the world that most young people never have the chance to do. I had the best of both worlds.

I set out to visit places that were totally opposite from Florida and years ago, it doesn't seem like that long ago but it is, I went to Colorado with a woman from work to visit a guest ranch. I fell in love with the state then, and I still go there in my mind sometimes, for the calm and beauty. 

In my mind, it is my comfort place. When I first visited, my goal was to visit a dude ranch. I did that and experienced things like sleeping on the ground on Coulter Mesa, freezing my butt off but viewing stars that felt so close you could reach out and touch them. Drinking cowboy coffee and eating breakfast at daybreak and then saddling up my trust steed, to head back to the ranch. Just kidding, the wranglers, including one named Hoss and one named Justin, did all the work.

 I made several trips out there. No season was safe and I even braved winter, cold, snow and other things I swore I would never do. I rode a snowmobile; tried on snowshoes, threw snowballs and sat around a fire and drank adult beverages while telling tall tails.

I was in a dark place in my personal life during these trips and would sit on the side of a mountain and think. Contemplate, make lists in my mind and try to come to some decisions about my life. It became my special place in a way Florida could not do. No one knew me. I could ride horses or hike by myself. I could stay on my cabin's front porch and take in the view or wander down to the lodge and socialize with the other guests. 

I ended up making some good friends and sharing the space with some good friends. My dark period was fading and new memories were being made. Some of these wonderful people are still in my life and brought such happiness to me during this time. 

It has always been in the back of my mind to go back for a visit. I knew all the people had changed and it would be different but it would still be my beautiful space, filled with nature and calmness. Every year I had a reason not to go. The ranch changed hands. A new family bought it and it became more geared towards families and probably not as geared toward wayward people, searching for something. I couldn't leave my job or I didn't want to spend the money. I should have gone.

This morning, I happened to be cruising online and did a search. Coulter Lake Guest Ranch is not operating. I found this story that talks about the lake drying up and the cabins being empty. Permits have expired. Their website is down along with their Facebook page. Tripadvisor has several very negative review from people who never got their money back.

Like many things, the state will probably take over the property. They will turn it in to a recreation area for tourists. My mountain sanctuary will probably close for good. I feel sadness that like so many other places from my memories, this special spot may soon be gone. 

"The times, they are a-changin'"

 There have been many periods of time in my life where I simply stood back, shook my head, and continued to tell myself what had just transpired could not possibly be what was really happening in my world. I guess I have reached an age where nothing surprises me any longer. 

People are not nice in the world today. Many people believe that their rights as individuals override the rights of the many. I did not grow up in a generation that believed that. If the truth be told, I don't know where this generation of naysayers and angry individualists have come from. I can say this with certainty, I am glad they did not show up until I became old. 

Since the advent of the internet, there is a lot more disinformation and false claims which circle around and around ad nauseum. Most of us have become immune to this crap, but sometimes it hits very close to home.  Another propensity of internet cruising is the petition. There are petitions for everything in the alphabet from A-Z. I read them all the time and if they are something I think is important, I will sign it. You see, I was brought up to believe that was my right to do. I had a right to petition; I had right to speak my mind; I had a right to disagree with others, as long as I did no harm to them. I have always tried to follow that. No harm. 

Yesterday, I found out that a petition I had signed about history, or the teaching of history, was the subject of some kind of news article screaming about bad teachers who were wilingl to break the law to teach Critical Race Theory. There was a "hit list" of sorts, of teachers all over the country who were "willing to break the law to teach CRT". See, this is not what I signed. I signed a petition to teach the truth of history, which is what is so irritating to people right now. What is wrong with the truth? We don't teach CRT in high school. The concepts included in it are what could be determined to be higher order thinking concepts, which most high school students have not conquered yet. They may get pieces of CRT during college, but most, unless they are majoring in history, the law, or perhaps sociology, won't hear much of it. 

Why is it so important for these people to use teachers to try and continue to perpetuate their personal thoughts on history? I remember when I was a kid growing up and the discussion of prayer in the classroom was the hot button ticket. My father, who always insisted we attend church and Sunday School, yelled at the television to these protestors to enroll their children in private school and pay for it. That way, they could be indoctrinated in the way the adults wanted. 

I have news for those who are opposed to the truth of history from my point of view. I don't teach U.S. History any longer. I teach World History. I like teaching it. I love history. I love to see the light go off in a student's eyes when they understand a concept. I like showing them how to get from point A to point B. What does Africa have to do with the Cold War or why did tensions with Cuba continue to escalate between the West and the East?

I learn more every day. I hope to continue to learn every day so my students will have access to as much true information as I have, but the ability to understand the differences in propaganda and opinion. What they need to study concepts, whatever those concepts are. We need to come back to having the ability to have an educated discourse; to have those necessary discussions about hard topics that people are uncomfortable talking about. 

Bob Dylan, when he wrote "The Times They Are A-Changing" in 1963 probably had no idea this song would continue to be used past the Civil Rights Movement, past Vietnam, past the sexual revolution and carry on in the 21st century to the issues facing our country today. I had always believed they were changing for the better. Time has shown me that might not be the case.