Spring break!!!

Pics from the Dominican Republic! Ahh, seven days of lazing on the beach.


You can check out http://flickr.com/photos/jesstchr/130196573/ for more pictures.

I demand a recount!

I don't get 57%! Ok, so I'm upset by this...why? Explain to me - I don't even know what the score even means. This would be what we in the ed biz call a "bad assessment."


The Completely Pointless Personality Quiz

Seven brides for seven brothers…

Seven Things to do before I die

1. Get a PhD in history
2. Travel to India and explore
3. See Machu Picchu
4. Perform a complete shoulder stand in yoga without breaking my neck
5. Go hiking on a portion of the Appalachian Trail – preferably not the incredibly dangerous bits. :)
6. Live in London
7. Find the man of my dreams


Seven Things I can’t do

1. Perform a shoulder stand in yoga without breaking my neck
2. Drive a car with a manual transmission
3. Sleep on airplanes
4. Turn down queso dip when offered
5. Speak fluent French – just “restaurant” French (I know enough not to order the cow brains)
6. Run
7. Focus on grading papers at home

Seven Things that attract me to Europe

1. My family living in England
2. My family connections in Austria and the Czech republic
3. History (natch)
4. The beautiful architecture
5. The beautiful landscape
6. The diversity of cultures
7. I feel at home there

Seven Good Books

1. Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
2. Harry Potter
3. Nearly everything by Steinbeck
4. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
5. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
6. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
7. Oxford Children's History: Earliest Times to the Stuarts

Seven Good Films

1. Singing in the Rain
2. Back to the Future
3. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
4. Ghostbusters ("Nobody steps on a church in my town!")
5. Arsenic and Old Lace
6. Charade
7. Sabrina (the one with Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn, not the remake, even though it did have Harrison Ford)

Seven Things I Say

1. “Ladies and Gentlemen…”
2. “Chill out, yo”
3. “Like, oh my gawd!” (in an ironic Valley Girl way, thank you)
4. “If we can focus, please”
5. “Sweet Georgia Brown!” (don’t ask me why, I just do)
6. “Right, so where was I?”
7. “Ooh! Shiny object!”

Seven Blogs to Tag

Gawd. Seven??

1. Sarcasmo’s Corner
2. dreams and bones
3. I’m a novelist
4. Denmother2525
5. Intellectuals Inc.
6. dietgirl
7. Pound

Tag! You're it!

After weeks of wondering what the heck “being tagged” was, or even what a “meme” was, I have been tagged not once, but twice! The first one is from Leslie, which I will tackle today. I’ll tackle the second one later this week.

And we’re off!

1. Name five of your favorite books

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
A Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

You realize of course, if you were to ask me this same question tomorrow, next week or in a month’s time, this list would be entirely different.

2. What was the last book you bought (or brought home from the library)?

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

3. What was the last book you read?

A Wild Sheep Chase I finished it last night. An odd book, and I’m not quite certain what the heck was going on in the end. I was also very taken aback by the fact that very few characters had names, and those that did were named things like “The Boss” and “The Sheep Professor”. No women had names, they were all “she” and “her”. I’m trying to decide whether that’s hiding misogynist tendencies, or what.

4. List five books that have been particularly meaningful to you.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov - This actually is not so much because of the book itself, the writing or the story, but the experience I had while reading it. I was the sponsor of the student book club at my old school, and last year the students chose to read Reading Lolita in Tehran, and then chose to read Lolita itself. I was impressed by the fact that they not only chose to read the book, but then actually stuck through it, and had thoughtful things to say about the book at the meeting. For me that was a great teaching moment. I was able to help guide the students into taking on a scary challenge, and they rose to it. I felt very proud of the students at that moment.

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Doesn’t everyone read this in high school? I know all of my friends did, in fact I remember several of us torturing our 11th grade English teacher with the relationship between Guinevere, Lancelot and Arthur. Zimmer Bradley’s particularly interesting take on it was quite the shock for Mrs. Douglas. By the way, Mrs. Douglas: Sorry!!! You were a good teacher; I didn’t mean to behave so badly in class. Although I really did hate reading The Scarlet Letter.

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O’Brien – I read this in fourth grade. The teacher asked us to begin reading the first chapter, and she would let us know when to stop reading. I just read and read and read, and the next thing I knew, my teacher was telling us to stop reading, and I had completed almost four chapters. I loved this book, and it made me realize that I loved reading, too. I was quite sad when I saw the movie, because it was so different from the book (my first experience with bad film adaptations! I’ve yet to be fully satisfied by those…another reason this book is significant, I suppose!).


The Roosevelts: An American Saga by Peter Collier – This is one of the first books of history (ok, technically it’s biography) that I read for pleasure. Ironic that it’s American history, given that I actually don’t really enjoy much about American history, and really like European and Global history the best. I’ve always been fascinated by Teddy Roosevelt, partly because we used to live on Long Island, near his house on Sagamore Hill, and we’d visit pretty frequently. I have a great many happy childhood memories of wandering around his house and the beautiful grounds. This book also gave me a healthy respect for FDR as well. I put it here because it also began my foray into reading history JFF (just for fun, something we crazy history teachers do!).

Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne – Does this really need explanation? Winnie-the-Pooh is such a lovely, lovely character, and the writing is so appealing. Just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Besides, isn’t it time for elevenses?

5. Name three books you’ve been dying to read, but haven’t gotten around to.

Here’s what I have on hold at the library (I’m waiting for them to become available):

PostSecret : Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives by Frank Warren
Anyone But You by Jennifer Crusie
The Cell by Stephen King

I shall tag Ann and Sheila.

If you can make it there...

Thanks to NPR for having an item about this site on Morning Edition (Bob Edwards, I miss you!). My new favorite blog is Overheard in New York. Each of these snippets of actual conversation brings me back to the city that never sleeps - and it is so typically New York, it's wonderful. Peruse, enjoy, some of them are not really suitable for work, but they're all wonderful.

Panda-monium!

In case you hadn't heard, DC is in the midst of panda-mania. Tai Shan was born this summer to great excitment (make sure you check out the slide show of photos). I'll admit I was one of those very excited people - not out of any particular panda love, but because baby animals are cute (although the baby porcupine (who was quite adorable, but not cuddly) born last week got considerably less press than Tai Shan). On Sunday, Tai Shan got to his enjoy his very first snow. After a reluctant beginning, he apparently enjoyed frolicking in the snow with his mom. All at once now: "Awwwwwwwwwwwww..."

Amateur meteorologist

Whenever there is snow in the forecast, most teachers become amateur meteorologists. We avidly watch the Weather Channel, or the local news, whichever is the preference, and make all kinds of proclamations that most of us are completely and totally unqualified to make.

"Oh, the snow will pass off to the west - we won't get much precipitation at all."
"It'll sock us in, we won't be in school for days. Better stock up on bread, toilet paper and milk."

One thing I have noticed: every school has a Weather Guy. Or at least, in my vast experience of two schools, they each have had the "Weather Guy". The Weather Guy is the one who makes weather his hobby. He talks about it with extensive background knowledge - he may even be a science teacher. He is the guy that people go to when there is the threat of impending snowy weather (because frankly, much as we love our jobs, teachers are often even more excited about snow days than students are), and he will hold forth on the subject.

The Weather Guy at my previous school was a really nice guy. He taught science, and actually taught something called "Geosystems", which actually teaches weather systems. I figure this actually qualifies him to make pronouncements about the weather. He was also a very calming presence, and always had a smile on his face when I went to the coffee club in the mornings, and as far as I know, despite the sometimes raucous nature of the morning coffee club, he never had a bad word to say about anyone, even people he didn't like. He loved students, and loved teaching. This was a Weather Guy you could go to with confidence. And he was frequently more correct than the official weathermen that the local networks hire.

The Weather Guy at this school is a social studies teacher, and he's also a nice guy, but I'm just not sure why he's the Weather Guy here. He is actually a self-appointed Weather Guy, whereas the Weather Guy at my previous school had Weather Guy-ness thrust upon him. The WG here is on some kind of e-mail list that sends him weather alerts from the National Weather Service - so we will open our e-mail in the mornings, and there in our inboxes will be an e-mail from WG saying "Fog alert for the county" or "strong wind alert" or something like that. For every single weather event WG has sent us some kind of alert or warning. Even weather events that were non-events. What's that all about?

My question is this: What is it that compels someone to become a WG? Is it truly an obsession with wind patterns and pressure change and precipitation? Is it a need to be desired as a source of knowledge? Is it a sense of self-importance? I am currently under the impression that with the WG at this school he just wants to help - he likes being able to inform people of the world around him, which is only natural - he's a teacher. We like to tell people stuff. We like to share interesting pieces of information, it's what we do. (In fact, at a social gathering last night, I brought out the teacher mode, much to my horror. I began to give a mini-lecture on the design of Washington, DC. Something in which I am not even remotely qualified, except that I think I read a book somewhere once. I watched, horrified, as I took up "teacher stance" and used "teacher voice" and began blathering away about L'Enfant and the diagonal streets. They may never ask me to come back. I did have the good sense to apologize, but the damage may already be done. Nobody likes a know-it-all, and teachers are the worst...and best!) Hey, is there such a thing as too long for a parenthesis? I may have pushed the boundaries on that one.

So with Weather Guy, I suppose one will never really know what drives one to become a WG, but suffice it to say that as long as there will be snow days, there will always be Weather Guys, and teachers who remain glued to the tv or the internet, watching the progress of a storm eagerly.

By the way, I heard this on the Weather Channel on Saturday while I was watching for the storm: "Today, periods of wet rain." Um, what? Is there another kind of rain I need to worry about? Is there dry rain? Should I worry about that? Will it damage my car's tires?

Enough babbling, I have lessons to plan.

I love it when a good plan comes together!

One of the cool things about starting a school from the ground up (ha ha! Literally! Whee I'm punchy today), is that you can make all sorts of wonderful grand statements about how you WANT it to be.

• "I want this to be the kind of place where all students are respectful to each other and to their teachers."
• "I want this to be the kind of place where academics take precedence, but we acknowledge that high school is also about a total curriculum, not just math, science and English."
• "Let's make English and Social Studies a partnership, so students are learning humanities, not just English and Social Studies in a vacuum."

It is this last one that I would like to address today. (Hmm, that was very speech-y. I don't mean it to sound that way, but since I've gone that direction, perhaps it's best to stay the course, what what?)

I truly believe that I am actually an English teacher in disguise. This drives my history students crazy. I love history, and I love teaching it, but I also think that I would love teaching English as well. It is as important to me that my students have good content knowledge when they leave my classroom as it is that they can express themselves through writing in a clear, concise and eloquent manner. They hate that. "But Ms. H, this isn't English class!!" is a popular complaint in my classroom. The idea of teaming with the English department to teach a humanities, or civilization course, as we're calling it (we will not be offering English 10 and World History 2 next year, it will be World Civilization 2), was a very exciting prospect for me, and frankly it was one of the (many) reasons that I decided to come to this school. We're not quite at the "Humanities" place yet, but we're definitely getting there.

This week I started teaching "The New Imperialism", and we started talking about "The White Man's Burden", a poem by Rudyard Kipling about one of the causes of Imperialism. And this is what I heard from many, many of my students in each class throughout the day. "Oh! We were talking about this in English!" Now seriously, how cool is that?!!?!?!?!?!!! Yay for the English teachers in our school! This, my little friends, is exactly what the whole civ program is all about - using English class to support content in history and using history class to support reading in English. I was so excited - SO excited!! - to hear the students make that connection. I think I may have scared the kids a little bit, but that's ok, they already think I'm completely nuts, so it's all good.

Boggles the mind...

A) the fact that someone took the time to do this
B) that there are so many interesting connections
C) that while they list Mahler, Shostakovich and Stravinsky, they have neglected Bartok and Prokoviev, and a host of other 20th century composers.
D) My aunt and uncle live near the Run-DMC stop. I'm sure they'd be thrilled beyond belief to know this.
However, that's not going to change the fact that it's WAY cool, and it's SO going up on my wall in my classroom.

You can read the full article by going here.

Yes, I am procrastinating, by the way. I have whiled away my planning period by not doing much of anything. But it's a Friday. And it's raining. And I was here until 5:30 last night. Did I mention that it's raining?

Ok, this is hilarious

Even though this requires listening to a Backstreet Boys song (although you can turn the sound off), it is worth the time. These guys crack me up!

A word of advice to middle school students everywhere...

Dropping an entire bottle of cologne in the hallway is not funny. Spilling an entire bottle of aforementioned cologne in your friend's locker is also not funny. Spraying yourself with half a bottle of cologne will not make up for the fact that you have not taken a shower in a week. Take a shower. Please. For the love of all that is beautiful in this world, take a shower. Really. If there was ever a time in your life that you should, nay, MUST take a shower, it would be every day during your puberty years. Perhaps twice a day would not be asking too much.

This has been a public service announcement. Your friends, family, peers and teachers will thank you.

Oh, and use soap.

There's a whale in the Thames

Really. Thanks to the Londonist for bringing this piece of information to our attention (and thanks also for some wonderfully amusing prose about it as well). You can also go here to see what the BBC has to say about it. The Londonist also has a link for some wonderful photos, if you're interested. So is the whale just sightseeing? Perhaps he was interested in see the Houses of Parliament, or perhaps the Tate Modern. I mean, London really is one of the greatest cities in the world, and I believe it was Pepys who said that the man who can't find anything to do in London isn't alive (although it could have been anyone, it was quoted to me by my father) or something along those lines. I'm quite certain I'm horribly mashing up the quote, so don't quote me on that (ha ha ha), but you get the idea.

You mean she STILL hasn't updated it?

Don't you just hate it when you go to your favorite blog (or even the blog you occasionally visit just to see what's up), and you find that it hasn't been updated yet...and it's been months? I know I certainly do. Drives me nuts. Makes me want to e-mail the person and give them the ole e-mail throttle. Or something.

It's called irony. I know, I know, I'm awful about writing here. And it's not for lack of things that I want to write about. Here's a sampling of the things that have popped into my head as of late:

Why my gym needs an F-chip (instead of a V-chip).
Sharing the classroom with another teacher
Sharing students with another teacher (two separate topics, really)
Why putting 2400 children into one building is a bad idea during a full moon on Friday the 13th.

I'm sure there's more. Anyway, I promise to be better from now on. I really do want to write about that stuff, so I'll be along shortly with a post or two.


Really.

My least favorite question...

I know that they probably don't mean it the way it sounds when they ask "Are we doing anything today?". Or, even better "Are we doing anything important today?" Now, granted, not every single minute of every single one of my classes holds equal importance (one could argue that in a progression of increased knowledge, excellent planning and fabulous teaching, each moment is more important than the last, but that would require a hell of a lot of ego, so we won't argue that, now will we?), but given that I work hard to plan meaningful lessons and I take the time to research the content, the question "Are we doing anything (important) today?" is vastly insulting. Most of the time I get the question when the student has to leave class for some reason (doctor's appointment, choir/band/orchestra concert, field trip for another class, press conference), and they are trying to assess what it is they are going to miss while they are out of class. With my AP students, frequently the question means that the student is weighing whether or not they really want to miss class in favor of whatever it is that they have been offered as an alternative. If it's going to be a lot of new material, the student will opt to stay in class rather than miss out. With my World history students, who are younger, and frequently less mature, they seem to mean the question a bit more. And usually the question comes not in advance of the missed class, as it does with the AP student, but the day after the missed class ("I was sick, Ms. H, really!"). "Did we do anything yesterday?" Oh gosh, no, I'm sorry, we sat around twiddling our thumbs for 95 minutes. You didn't miss a thing. Thank goodness you're here, I was worried that we would never finish the French Revolution at this rate.

I know, I know. They don't really mean it the way it sounds. They are, after all, only 15 or 16 years old. And they really do mean "What do I/will I need to make up?" It's just such thoughtless phrasing that bugs the crap out of me, ok?

Please oh please...

Can I tell my students about James II of England's nickname, Séamus á Chaca?

Timing is everything

One of the things that was a challenge for me when I was in "teacher school" was timing. How much time should a particular activity take? How many different activities can I fit into a given class period? Our school is on a block schedule, so that means that over a two day period, you will see each one of your classes twice, except for one class that is an "embedded" period, which means you see them for less time every day. For example, on one day (Green days, here) I would teach 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th. 1st, 3rd, and 5th periods are each approximately 90 minutes. 7th period is 50 minutes. Then on the second day (blue days), I would teach 2nd, 4th, 6th, and then see 7th again. Actually, I don't teach all of those periods, each day I have one period that is set aside for planning, contacting parents, meetings, and whatever else I might want to get done (Cough cough, like writing in my blog, cough cough). But the planning period is a story for another day.

Anyway, I was talking about timing your instruction. During my student teaching, on the day I was being observed by my university supervisor (basically, the person giving me the grade for that course), I stuck to my plan's times, which were WAAAAAAY off, and ended up with about 45 extra minutes. So we did the last activity for 45 verrrrry long minutes. Those were some of the longest minutes of my life, I gotta say. Anyway, since then I've always made sure that I have extra stuff planned so that doesn't happen. In fact, more often than not, I have so much planned for each 90 minute block of time that I'm often pushing one activity into the next block. So you can see that timing is still an issue for me.

Today was a strange schedule to begin with. We had a three hour delayed opening - instead of students reporting to school at 7:30, they came at 11am, and we had mini parent conferences. Basically we sat in the gym at tables all around the outer edge of the gym, and parents could come up to us and talk to us for five minutes about their individual student and how they were doing in our class. After that activity, we had 6th period, and now we're in the middle of my 4th period (planning, see above). For the students it was almost like a half day in reverse. In fact, no almost like, that's exactly what it was. I teach AP Psychology to 2nd and 6th period, but there was no 2nd period today, so I didn't want my 6th period to get ahead of 2nd period, so what I did was plan a lesson where students could be in essay workshop groups with their peers and they could work on their essays.

They were done with nearly 40 minutes to spare at the end of the period.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A. Hasn't happened to me in seven years
B. I didn't really have anything else for them to work on, and I didn't want to move into the next unit.
C. I hate being one of those teachers who just show movies to kids when they're too lazy to come up with a plan. It's not good teaching, and that's not who I am as a teacher.

But D. That's what I had to do (only I wasn't lazy, it's not laziness, it's much worse, it's poor planning on my part).

I had an old NOVA program: Brain Transplant that I whipped out of my cabinet and showed the kids for the remainder of the period. I was embarrassed and angry with myself. On the plus side, there was a ton of good information in the video, and I am now considering finding time to show the portion that I just showed to 6th period to my 2nd period, especially before I show them Awakenings (which is an excellent film, by the way), because it explains several concepts that are in that movie quite well. And I suppose in the end it was worthwhile because it talks about L-DOPA, and Parkinson's disease, etc., etc., etc., but it still doesn't change the fact that I was caught with my pants down.

Well, not literally. That would get me fired. But you get the point. And that's the note that I'm leaving with for the weekend. Yay. Talk about feeling like Worse Teacher Ever.

Check this out!

Now this is cool. Thanks Google! You can search the full text of books, although it seems mostly for books in the public domain. Here is what Google has to say about the topic.

In over my head

No no no, don't panic, this is not a teaching post. I'm not in over my head at school - I'm actually ahead!!! My grades are DONE DONE DONE and they aren't due until tomorrow morning, 8am. In fact, I've been pretty much done since last week. LAST WEEK! Whatever it is that I did, I must remember to lather, rinse and most importantly...repeat. I'm hoping that in the future I will be so organized. Except in all seriousness folks I have no idea what on earth I did to be ahead like this. Ok, so the project was due three weeks before the end of the quarter, and I managed to get it graded relatively quickly. The essays that I held onto for a wee bit too long I finished last Wednesday night (staying up way past my bedtime to do it, but I had promised I'd have them back to the students by Thursday). The unit test is tomorrow, so I can't possibly fit it onto this quarter. Heck, even the World history journals are graded (it helps that I'm teaching with another teacher - together we knocked out 85 journals in a couple of hours).

So why is it that I'm "in over my head," I hear you cry? Well, it's this page, actually. For some odd reason, my formatting has gone a little bit kablooey - or at least, it looks that way when I look at the page. My sidebar with all the previous posts and my profile is way down there towards the bottom of the page, and I have no idea why. I'd been hoping to add in a few links to other blogs from this page, plus a nifty NaNoWriMo participant icon to the page as well. I've got the code, I've got the downloaded info, I just can't seem to get it to work properly. I have met my match, and it is html. Or at least it is for today. Anyone out there have any suggestions/hints/ideas? Or just a readable "html for complete and total idiots"?

And while I'm soliciting help, has my Tivo gone completely barking mad, or is it ABC? Two weeks ago, my Tivo didn't record Lost, and my assumption was that it wasn't a new episode (although frankly after last weeks' issue, which I'll get to in a second, I don't believe). I didn't get around to watching the episode that my Tivo had recorded from last week until last night. When I started watching, I realized I'd seen the episode before. So is it my Tivo, or is it ABC?

Couldn't resist

Discovered this quiz through Sarcasmo's site ... Thanks much! Not sure how I feel about the whole Elmo thing. Was kind of hoping for Grover.

Elmo You scored 66% Organization, 76% abstract, and 54% extroverted!

This test measured 3 variables. First, this test measured how organized you are. Some muppets like Cookie Monster make big messes, while others like Bert are quite anal about things being clean. Second, this test measured if you prefer a concrete or an abstract viewpoint. For the purposes of this test, concrete people are considered to gravitate more to mathematical and logical approaches, whereas abstract people are more the dreamers and artistic type. Third, this test measured if you are more of an introvert or an extrovert. By definition, an introvert concentrates more on herself and an extrovert focuses more on others. In this test an introvert was somebody that either tends to spend more time alone or thinks more about herself. You are mostly organized, more abstract, and both introverted and extroverted. Most people either love or hate Elmo. I hope you love Elmo, because that's who you are. You are both somewhat organized. You have a good idea where you put things and you probably keep your place reasonably clean. You aren't totally obsessed with neatness though. Elmo has the same basic approach. His place is pretty tidy, but he doesn't spend all of his time cleaning it up. You both are abstract thinkers. You definitely are not afraid to take chances in life. You only live once. You may notice others around you playing it safe, but you are more concerned with not compromising your desires, and getting everything you can out of life. This is a very romantic approach to life, but hopefully you are also grounded enough to get by. Elmo's whole life is based on fantasy and his imagination. In the beginning he was a regular character, but now he spends most of his time in this fantasy world. You are both somewhat extroverts. Like Elmo, you probably like to have some time to yourself, but you do appreciate spending time with your friends, and you aren't scared of social situations. Elmo spends some of his time with real friends, but he also needs some time just to chat it up with his goldfish. The other possible characters are Oscar the Grouch Big Bird Cookie Monster Ernie Snuffleupagus Kermit the Frog Grover The Count Guy Smiley Bert If you enjoyed this test, I would love the feedback! Also if you want to tell me your favorite Sesame Street character, I can total them up and post them here. Perhaps your choice will win!

Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages...Presenting....

The scantron machine!!!