Too good to be true December 23, 2007

It’s Sunday evening and I don’t have to go to school tomorrow. I can’t believe how good that feels. We had a brunch with friends today, and I didn’t feel stressed out because of lessonplans that needed to be written, books I wanted to read or papers that had to be graded. This break I will focus on relaxing, reloading my batteries and not feel guilty about it.

During the summer vacation, I felt guilty whenever I was sleeping or knitting in stead of reading on classroom management or preparing my lessonplans for the first semester. Not this time. I feel that my body and mind need to rest. Stephan Rechtschaffen’s book on time shifting taught me how important it is to live in the present. Not to think about all the work that I have left in my schoolbag and that I couldn’t do last week, and not to think about all the work that will be awaiting me when I get back to school. Just to lie on my back and enjoy doing the things I like.

I’ve selected only one book on classroom management that I plan to read. I might skip through some pages in my history books, but that will be it. No schoolwork ’til January. I hope you all enjoy this break as much as I do!

Time for winterbreak meme December 10, 2007

Sorry for my absence. These past days we celebrated Hanuka. It was nice to spend the evenings at home, with family and friends and to watch the lights of the menora. Tomorrow we will light the last candle and like every year I am sad that it’s almost over.

I have been dragging myself through the past days. It’s time for winter break, so my energy levels have dropped. Last week I was tagged by Speechteach, so I decided to make this post into a ‘time for winterbreak meme’. I will stick to the format, but in stead post 7 things about the past week. I’m not tagging anyone, so whoever feels like writing a meme: enjoy!

1. One of my students has an illegible handwriting. We can’t read his tests, and he can hardly read his own notes. So now he is allowed to take his laptop to class and write notes on his Mac. Unfortunately, a Macbook is not a typewriter, and it has way too many gadgets that make it not ideal for classroom use. And that’s an understatement.

2. Today I asked one of my students to stay after class for a little conversation. I was not happy at all (to say the least) with her performance in my class. She told me that she won’t be doing anything this semester, because it will be her last semester in school because she won’t pass this year (like last year). I somehow expected it. I didn’t ask her to stay in order to lecture her, but because I was really concerned and wanted to know how she was doing. But I am apalled that the administration didn’t bother telling me that one of my students will not be coming back after winter break. What if I hadn’t asked her?

3. Recently, the first Starbucks shop in the city (and country!) opened. I am thrilled. We had a gingerbread latte and a chai latte last Friday and it made me really happy. I feel really bad for capitulating to consumerism (especially after reading Naomi Klein’s No Logo), but I did enjoy the latte.

4. I made some really nice assignments for my students to work on. As I mentioned before, my class from hell is devided into three groups, and every Monday one third of the class gets to work at home. I made a computer assignment that has them watch a documentary online, read an article and read the material from the text book. I felt really modern and techonologically advanced when I sent them the e-mail with their assignment, and I hope they will enjoy the work.

5. Today I didn’t have time to eat lunch. My lunch break was consumed (how ironical) by students that dropped in for a talk. One student had been sick and wanted to catch up on the material she had missed, another student was struggeling with a research project. It was nice to be able to help her out. The usual break between 5th and 7th period was taken by a talk with the administration about my functioning in the school. They were pretty positive. I don’t like such talks though. We agreed that I will observe veteran teachers’ classes to get more classroom management tricks that I can use with my class from hell (and the other classes…). I look forward to it, but I wonder whether my authority will be challenged when my students see me sitting in the back of the classroom.

6. The school is one big mess. All teachers are packing their stuff into boxes, that will be moved out next week. After winter break, we will be moving into the trailers until the new school builing is finished (in about two years from now). I am happy that I keep most of my stuff at home, so I have nothing to pack.

7. I was really satisfied with today’s Classical history class. I taught about the Greek philosophers. I introduced my students to Socrates and Plato. I told Plato’s cave parable and the way Socrates would walk through the city of Athens and challenge its inhabitants. I loved reading into Greek philosophy last night in one of my favorite books: Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World.

First december post December 1, 2007

Today is the first day of December. I can’t believe the first part of the schoolyear is almost finished. This December will be special, because it’s the last month we will spend in our schoolbuilding. In about two weeks we will move into the trailors where we will spend at least two years. It’s not something to look forward to, and seeing the current building being demolished makes me a bit melancholic, but I guess I will just have to wait where it takes us.

We had a great shabbes and I am enjoying the weekend. A short roundup:

Hours of sleep (so far): 13

Books read: 2

Hot showers:2

Cups of tea: 8

Best of all, I decided not to spend even a minute yesterday working for school. I just couldn’t. In stead, I thoroughly cleaned the entire house, which was like a great gift before starting the weekend.

PS. Painting by Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947)

Drained November 29, 2007

These past days I wasn’t inspired to write. I don’t know. I guess the confrontation with that student really struck me. The past week was really tireing too. It can be so draining to work with teenagers. The talking back, the constant moving, the chewing, the cell phones, the desinterest in basically anything, the laughing, the childish jokes, the crankyness, sometimes it’s just too much.

I just want to inspire them and show them that learning can be fun. I prepared tons of assignments and handouts but they couldn’t care less. For Russian history class I printed pictures of the tsars, copied a chapter from Tolstoj’s Anna Karenina and even printed out the notes I wanted to give in class that day so that they could follow the story more easily. And they just didn’t care. All they did was laugh about their stupid jokes. They scored D’s and F’s on most of their subjects, but all they care about is the candy they pass around under the table or the little bottle of nail polish they carry in their backpack. On days like these, I hate teenagers, or more precisely, I hate what modern society has made this generation into.

I must admit not everything was negative this week. I had great support from the administration in dealing with the threatening student. They called me at home to see how I was doing. I decided to let the kid back in after he came back from suspension, and just wait and see how he’d behave. It went well, although I don’t expect to see a fundamental change in his behaviour. Also on Monday, I had quite a good lesson with my class from hell. Part of the group worked on an assignment at home. From the group that was left, three miserable students were missing because they were on strike (don’t ask) so the group that was left was really motivated to work. We had great discussions and I managed to cover all the material I wanted to cover.

Plans for tonight:

1. Take aspirin to supress cold symptoms

2. Drink lots of hot chai

3. Listen to a quiet cd and close my eyes

4. Watch Cosby Show and get all sentimental about the good old days when kids still knew how to behave themselves

PS. Image courtesy: Everyday people cartoons

Carnival of Education October 31, 2007

Make sure to visit this week’s Carnival of education in Halloween-style, composed and compiled by What’s it like on the inside. A great read and lots of interesting links!

I loved today’s Google image.

Weekend October 26, 2007

This morning I didn’t have to teach, so I had some time to finally knit a few needles. I am working on a scarf for a friend that will be moving to Budapest. Fortunately, her departure was postponed with a few months. This will allow me some more time to work on the scarf. Who knows, maybe I will even finish it before summer kicks in in Hungary… A photo update will follow this weekend.

This weekend I will also do some major reading for my history classes. I need to catch up on dekolonization, India and Pakistan, Korea and Vietnam, so I took out the books from Asian history class in college. I am also working on a really neat project on prophets, to work on with my freshmen these coming weeks.

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For my other freshmen I am reading into Egyptian mythology, something they really like. I’ve finished the myths on creation and am now reading about Isis and Osiris. Ancient Egypt is such a fascinating society. It is amazing how they built the pyramids without any advanced technologies. And did you know that plastic surgery was already pretty common at that time? I watched a Discovery channel documentary on DVD about mummification. The entire proces has been reconstructed. A team of scientists even traveled to Africa to get the coarse salt that the Egyptians used to dry the body. My freshmen will love the documentary (especially the part where the brains are removed through the nose…).

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Enjoy your weekend!

Sleep October 11, 2007

One week after fall break. It feels like a month. I don’t know how I worked myself through this day. Last night I was too tired to prepare my lessons, so I set the alarm clock early this morning. I never felt so unprepared before. The lessons were ok, I guess, but I feel that I am slightly loosing control. I don’t mean control of the classroom (although that is part of it), but control over the entire proces. Paperwork, meetings, promises to students, work to grade, all these different chores are chasing me and makes that this week the preparation for my lessons was restricted to the bare minimum.

To do list for the weekend

Sleep

Relax

Create binder for all schoolwork apart from teaching

Write weekly plans for the next three weeks

Read books on history and law

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Did I meantion sleep?

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This weekend I will update you on my class from hell and post on this shoe. Whom does it belong to?

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PS. The painting is ‘sleeping maid’ by Vermeer. I love its serenity.

Frumteacher in New York Observer September 5, 2007

The New York Observer posted a short article on back-to-school-blogging. It has some interesting links, and a nice drawing from NYC Educator’s blog. Frumteacher is one of the featured blogs. That’s fun!

The funniest thing August 28, 2007

I have absolutely no clue what this is all about, but I just stumbled accross one of my posts, translated into German. How weird!

The Friday night knitting club August 22, 2007

Yesterday I passed the theoretical part of my driving test. I guess it will take quite a few more months until I will have my licence, but in order to reward myself for passing the test I bought myself Kate Jacobs’ ‘The Friday night knitting club’.

It will be a wonderful treat for the new schoolyear, and I hope it will inspire me to pick up a new knitting project.

What I like about it is that I will read the book together with Lime, with whom I have been penpalling for 11 years. Plus there is a really nice website connected to the book. What book are you reading?