Getting back to my 'teacher' life (as opposed to my life as a Reading Specialist grad student).
It is 3:36 in the morning. I am awake, with my lunch packed and my morning coffee in hand, ready to start my day. This is normal.
I was always that kid who couldn't be persuaded to do my homework at night. I would much rather wake up early and finish. As we have seen, I am a slacker. Unless I'm down to the wire and something is due, let's say, in 3 hours, it is hard for me to motivate myself to do it. Hence, I've been getting up well before the sun all year.
It started at 5am (a standard time from my youth) and gradually edged back to 3am. Typically, I'll take anything after midnight, meaning if I roll over at 1:30am, I've just bought myself an extra hour and half hour of work time. 4:30 is now considered "sleeping in".
This all stems from a general philosophy I stumbled upon in my 1st first year of teaching. I was 24, fresh out of grad school and thoroughly overwhelmed. I was not ready to be a teacher. I wanted to put my feet up and relax a bit. While discussing this with a friend, I mentioned that to do this whole thing right it seemed like you had to "live the job". At the time, as you may recall, I had other interests and wasn't even sure I wanted to BE a teacher. Thinking about my job and my kids every waking moment of the day was not an option.
It is, however, how I have lived my life this whole school year. I'm typically up between 3 and 4am. I'm one of the first people at school by 6am. Our regular school day runs form 7:25 and 2:30. After school there's faculty and new teacher meetings, activities, or additional help for my kids. After that I grade papers, work on lesson plans or do some of my certification work. I try to make a point of being home by 7pm. My folk's and I watch The Daily Show and Colbert Report together. This is our family bonding time (I live with my parents, which means I don't have to worry about trivial things like paying utility bills or feeding myself). Then, it's to bed between 8 and 9pm, where I set multiple alarms so I can get up and do the whole thing over again.
I know I am headed for burn out. I often get frustrated when I spend my whole day working and still don't get everything on my to-do list done. As cheesy as it sounds, I take solace in the fact that I am doing the best I can. There will be no, "if I had just cared a little more..." guilt when/ if I come up short again at the end of this second time around.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Video: Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography - Language
I do realize that this "new" trend in this limited blog is toward my academic pursuits as a Reading Specialist and less toward my actual classroom activities or teaching experiences. Sorry. I am *hoping* to amend this in the future.
That being said, I found this through a Facebook friend today. Having studied language use and grammar extensively this year, it caught my interest, as did the task of keeping up visually with the print words as they appear- a decent work out for my fluency skills.
That being said, I found this through a Facebook friend today. Having studied language use and grammar extensively this year, it caught my interest, as did the task of keeping up visually with the print words as they appear- a decent work out for my fluency skills.
Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography - Language from Matthew Rogers on Vimeo.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Sticky Note
As a follow up to last week's post, this is what happens when one tries to study while intoxicated:
I have a sticky note still stuck to my laptop that reads,
"How the 'f' did Fredrick Douglas learn to read? Project idea: Interview non-traditionally trained readers. Have them describe their learning process or how they faked reading."
I had spent hours (days? the last 7 months of my life?) reading about the complex nature of reading, the 5 key elements that make up reading (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and text comprehension- for those of you keeping score at home), and the myriad of cognitive and social issues that can keep an individual illiterate. I remembered a few key snippets from Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass- specifically that he had taught himself to read by studying feed bags. I then spent the next two hours researching this story.
Did I learn? Yes.
Did I get anything done on my portfolio? No.
Even though it was off topic, I liked the research question and potential project, just not the lingering sticky note. Now that I've recorded the idea elsewhere, I feel okay throwing it away.
By the way, yes, it is almost 6:30 on a Sunday night and I do need to do some lesson planning for next week. And yes, I did just successfully put it off for a few more minutes while I needlessly updated my blog.
I have a sticky note still stuck to my laptop that reads,
"How the 'f' did Fredrick Douglas learn to read? Project idea: Interview non-traditionally trained readers. Have them describe their learning process or how they faked reading."
I had spent hours (days? the last 7 months of my life?) reading about the complex nature of reading, the 5 key elements that make up reading (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and text comprehension- for those of you keeping score at home), and the myriad of cognitive and social issues that can keep an individual illiterate. I remembered a few key snippets from Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass- specifically that he had taught himself to read by studying feed bags. I then spent the next two hours researching this story.
Did I learn? Yes.
Did I get anything done on my portfolio? No.
Even though it was off topic, I liked the research question and potential project, just not the lingering sticky note. Now that I've recorded the idea elsewhere, I feel okay throwing it away.
By the way, yes, it is almost 6:30 on a Sunday night and I do need to do some lesson planning for next week. And yes, I did just successfully put it off for a few more minutes while I needlessly updated my blog.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Discovering new venues in Procrastination
I wrote an email yesterday that opened this way:
"I am currently reading up on the 6+1 Traits of Writing for my reading specialist course (please, try to contain your jealousy, as I am sure you are bogged down with some sort of ski trip or another midweek "get away" which keeps you from enjoying some professional development reading over vacation) AND I think I have a solution for our mutual, "What the F do I do tomorrow?" problem."
I'm on winter break. I am also weeks behind on my Reading Specialist certification course. These two facts, when put side by side, led to the obvious conclusion that I should not be off engaging in recreational activities as my students and colleagues may be. Rather, I have chosen to spend my week holed up in my fiance's basement apartment on Long Island with TWO milk crates full of material on literacy, educational theory, teaching strategies, specific programs and all the reading and writing instruction a soul could ask for. (While Nick is at school, I'm here with my work, then at night we get to hang out like a normal couple, imagine that....)
I have a hard time classifying my current use of time as either "super productive" or "barely productive". For the most part, this course only calls upon me to be reading and responding two text books. However, it does ask that I collect some outside sources occasionally, and every time I have met with my advisor, she has loaded me up with at least 3 additional books per meeting. Some of them I have glanced at, others I've read through quickly, and some I have gone out an bought so I can delight in the pleasure of underlining and adding my own running commentary in the margins. (writer shakes head at own overly gleeful admission of dorkiness)
Which brings us to the two milk crates which are accompanying me over this break. I have spent the majority of my "work day" reading about reading. Yet, the progress I have made on my actual portfolio for my course is limited.
This morning for example; I crack open one of my text books, take a few notes, see something that had reminded me of something else I've read, then go to go double check it. I'm now on book 2 of the day. Book 2 is an anthology, and I recognize one of the author's names, so I find the book I have from him or her and we're all the sudden on to book 3. OR, my original text book references a study or an article in an academic journal that I want to learn more about, so I look it up on the computer and maybe 40 minutes later I am signing up for a membership to the National Council of Teachers of English. OR, I am done with my lunch break and decided that I'm just going to relax for a bit by pawing through that Nancie Atwell book that has been on my "to-read" list for years. And maybe after all that, I decide I'm still not ready to work on the 1 page essay I could have finished in 90 minutes, and turn my attention instead to the blog I haven't looked at in 3 months and begin to write reflection on my own study habits, that ends up being chalked full of run on sentences.
Is there a moral here? No, sorry. Just ramblings. If I were hard pressed to draw out a few key lessons, they would be these:
1) I am still a horrible student when it comes to focusing.
2) Just because I am not answering the assigned questions, does not mean I am not thinking about the topic.
3) *
*(This is where I describe how this lesson lends itself to the way I should look at my own students. It's on the tip of my tongue. Unfortunately, I have a long-neglected text book I need to get back to)
"I am currently reading up on the 6+1 Traits of Writing for my reading specialist course (please, try to contain your jealousy, as I am sure you are bogged down with some sort of ski trip or another midweek "get away" which keeps you from enjoying some professional development reading over vacation) AND I think I have a solution for our mutual, "What the F do I do tomorrow?" problem."
I'm on winter break. I am also weeks behind on my Reading Specialist certification course. These two facts, when put side by side, led to the obvious conclusion that I should not be off engaging in recreational activities as my students and colleagues may be. Rather, I have chosen to spend my week holed up in my fiance's basement apartment on Long Island with TWO milk crates full of material on literacy, educational theory, teaching strategies, specific programs and all the reading and writing instruction a soul could ask for. (While Nick is at school, I'm here with my work, then at night we get to hang out like a normal couple, imagine that....)
I have a hard time classifying my current use of time as either "super productive" or "barely productive". For the most part, this course only calls upon me to be reading and responding two text books. However, it does ask that I collect some outside sources occasionally, and every time I have met with my advisor, she has loaded me up with at least 3 additional books per meeting. Some of them I have glanced at, others I've read through quickly, and some I have gone out an bought so I can delight in the pleasure of underlining and adding my own running commentary in the margins. (writer shakes head at own overly gleeful admission of dorkiness)
Which brings us to the two milk crates which are accompanying me over this break. I have spent the majority of my "work day" reading about reading. Yet, the progress I have made on my actual portfolio for my course is limited.
This morning for example; I crack open one of my text books, take a few notes, see something that had reminded me of something else I've read, then go to go double check it. I'm now on book 2 of the day. Book 2 is an anthology, and I recognize one of the author's names, so I find the book I have from him or her and we're all the sudden on to book 3. OR, my original text book references a study or an article in an academic journal that I want to learn more about, so I look it up on the computer and maybe 40 minutes later I am signing up for a membership to the National Council of Teachers of English. OR, I am done with my lunch break and decided that I'm just going to relax for a bit by pawing through that Nancie Atwell book that has been on my "to-read" list for years. And maybe after all that, I decide I'm still not ready to work on the 1 page essay I could have finished in 90 minutes, and turn my attention instead to the blog I haven't looked at in 3 months and begin to write reflection on my own study habits, that ends up being chalked full of run on sentences.
Is there a moral here? No, sorry. Just ramblings. If I were hard pressed to draw out a few key lessons, they would be these:
1) I am still a horrible student when it comes to focusing.
2) Just because I am not answering the assigned questions, does not mean I am not thinking about the topic.
3) *
*(This is where I describe how this lesson lends itself to the way I should look at my own students. It's on the tip of my tongue. Unfortunately, I have a long-neglected text book I need to get back to)
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