Poof... a whole year?

I can hardly believe that I am almost officially half way through my first full year of teaching. This is a snowy Friday afternoon, and my last student just walked out of the door, so I thought I would revisit some of my highlights so far...

1.) Breaking up a wand dual?
Yes, I said wand dual. You probably read the first two words and thought perhaps I was going to say fight. Although we do have fights at our school, on occasion, I have certainly never found myself in the middle of one. Unless of course you consider two freshman, pens raised and pointed at one another, frozen in a death glare, hands shaking, muttering spells, a fight. My witty response? "Gentlemen, drop your wands. Take this up on the quidditch field, not in the classroom." Snape probably would have been meaner.

2.) Me: "This is going to be really hard for some of you." Student: "That's what she said."
Now truth be told, I was expecting this to happen at some point. I mean, I teach high school: let's be honest. I did, however, prepare a response in advance. Mostly I just tried to act upset that anyone would even interrupt our class with such inappropriate nonsense. Then I used my friend Jill's trick-giggle in your elbow when no one is looking.

3.) A struggling student not wanting to drop into lower classes because they would lose me as a teacher.
OK, I consider this one of my bigger victories of the year. This student was from another district, transferred to F-M at the end of October, and could really care less about school. On the other hand, as I got to know him, I learned that he was a perfectly capable student and just lacked the confidence to act like one. I offered him a comfortable place to read after school and he took advantage of it. He was able to catch up on homework, before he even left the building, and slowly began to raise his hand and participate in class discussion. He added depth to the conversations, and was able to connect with a lot of the characters. He was recently asked to move to the ILEX program, which deals with alternative students who may be in danger of not graduating, but I was later told that he hesitated to make the move because he didn't want to leave my class.

4.) Me:"This looks like an important meeting, perhaps you should all get back to work." Male Student: "Well someone is pregnant, it is important...but don't worry Ms. Redmond, it isn't me. My vagina is fine."
Something that they do NOT teach you in teacher school is how to deal with THAT statement. Sometimes I just can't help but laugh, and not worry about the small stuff. Perhaps I just took comfort in the fact that he was not, in fact, preparing to bring a child into this world.

5.) Student: Well, maybe sometimes you can be forgetful. Me: Cindy, I am not forgetful! I take offense to that! Student: My name is Sherry, Ms. Redmond.
Riiiight. Well, what can you say to that? Sometimes, even teachers need to be called out on stuff. Trust- students will be the first ones to let you know that they have noticed something. Whether it be the hair color you used to cover up your grays, or your gravity-fearing zipper- nothing is sacred.

So hard to believe that a year has gone by since I have graduated from my M.A.T. program at Cortland, but what a year it has been! This reflection has been a great opportunity for....

...wait... what was I talking about again?

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Burning calories? Sounds painful...

Now face it, us intellectual types are not the ones you typically find running around town in spandex or pumping iron in the gym. I have always been more fond of spending my time reading a good book, or sharing a cup of coffee and engaging conversation with a good friend.

This week, however, I found my workout. Zumba is NOT for the shy or faint-hearted individual. If you attend a class at the Y, you will find a room full of women of varying ages and sizes, and the occasional man. Under normal circumstances, I would wish death upon someone asking me to sweat that much, but the instructor was motivating at all the right moments. Her whoops, claps, hollers, and whistles seemed to keep me going when every muscle in my body was telling me to stop. Mostly, I would credit the mix of Latin, African, and Indian beats with adding enjoyment to the class. Old ladies, middle-agers, and under-30's alike, along with the token "dude", were swinging their hips, jumping up, waving their arms, and boogying down at a rapid pace. I truly feel sorry for the people who had to stand behind me and witness my intense workout. I wouldn't wish that "back view" on my worst enemy.

All-in-all I am excited that I made it through the entire class without being completely bored or passing out. Although I was pretty close to the latter during one song that required an excessive, in my honest opinion, amount of spinning. The beauty is that we had strength in numbers- no one was less or more coordinated than the person next to you.

I did, additionally, thoroughly enjoy attending the class with my mother. I have only ever seen her cut a rug when she has had two glasses of wine at a family wedding! I can see that I have inherited my dancing prowess from her. Oh well. ZUMBA!

Currently reading...EVERYTHING!

Now that I have finished my Masters of Arts in Teaching at SUNY Cortland, and local schools are currently on holiday break, I have had a significant amount of time on my hands. Sure, I have kept myself busy making sure I have all of my paperwork in for subbing, and trying to get my ducks in a row so that I can start my job at F-M High School in March, but mostly I have been catching up on sleep, playing our new Wii, and reading a TON!

Finally that pile of books I have accumulated in the "Must Read" pile are getting some much needed attention. I started with Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. If you read The Hunger Games- which you must- Catching Fire is the equally the you-won't-get-any-sleep-until-you-have-turned-the-very-last-page-suspense novel. Good stuff!

Next up, I finally got around to I Am The Messenger by Zusak. I had highly anticipated reading it, but it was well worth the wait! It is amazing to me that he also wrote The Book Thief, because the protagonists in each novel are so drastically different from each other. Very well-crafted.

Those of you who know me well, know that I am a sucker for a pre-sale book. I am constantly pre-ordering things from various online sources and ripping packages open in excitement when they arrive. Rarely, however, do I get to immediately open the book and begin to read. This was also the case with Dan Brown's (yea, I know- I'm a sucker for a conspiracy theory!) latest book- The Lost Symbol. I finally started it yesterday and I am already about halfway done.

I am excited tonight about meeting some friends out for dinner, but I just can't wait to get back home to put on my sweats and read my book!

Does this make me a bad person? ;)

Retro-blog on NCTE

Well it has been weeks since I returned from my first ever NCTE Convention, but I have been so busy getting myself organized with student teaching and finishing my MAT, that I haven't had time to really sit down and write about it.

My friend Joyce and I drove down early on Friday morning to try and make it to a luncheon where one of our favorite authors (Gene Yang) was going to speak. We wanted to make it earlier to support our friend Jen Kirchoff, but both of us were sick and we couldn't have left any earlier than we did. From the moment we arrived at the Philadelphia Convention Center we were awestruck. The immensity of the convention was not lost on these first time attendees. Just in time for the luncheon, we were able to see Gene Yang give an unbelievable presentation on graphic novels in our culture, and Joyce got her new book signed.

For the rest of the day on Friday, we tried to decipher the enormous book that referenced each workshop, lecture, session, and vendor that was available to us. I chose to attend a session on Social Justice, since it pertained to what we were going to present on Sunday. This session outlined several titles in Young Adult Literature that promote the teaching of multicultural perspectives, and I came away with several new ideas for classroom implementation.

I spent more time before bed on Friday night planning out which sessions I wanted to see on Saturday. Having my plan marked out, I went straight to my first session on Saturday morning (after grabbing a cup of java, of course). This session was of particular interest to me, because it was presented by teachers in the Fayetteville-Manlius school district, to which I had recently applied for an interim position. I was also interested because this session focused on analyzing film with critical theory, which is something I have always wanted to do. Seeing it in action, and experiencing the "light bulb" that often accompanies viewing new texts through a critical lens, really made me want to go home and scrap what I was doing in the classroom. I also had the opportunity, after the session, to meet some of the master teachers who had presented.

Saturday flew by, and I was on a mission to get as many books as I possibly could. I had several bags full of books, some purchased, some signed by authors, and some that were free.
FREE? FREE??? FREE!!
It was like Christmas for a little kid, seeing all of my fellow teachers line up at booths to meet and greet famous authors like Jay Asher, Walter Dean Myers, and John Green. It. Was. Awesome. As you can see by the picture above, my classroom library has grown tremendously thanks to my trip to Philly!

Saturday night we went to the Hard Rock with our friends from Cortland, but I was concerned about getting home early to prepare for the following morning's presentation. I spent all morning going over my part of the presentation, tweaking the website I had made for attendees to access my unit plan, and mentally preparing for one of the biggest moments of my soon-to-be-career. As an English teacher, I am supposed to hate cliches, but time really did fly by. Before I knew it, we were packed up (free books in tow) and headed back to the 'Cuse. Dr. Sarver did a great job introducing our topic, Joyce and Bri were on point as usual, and I didn't do so shabbily myself. Basically the experience has left us with the feeling that we can accomplish anything in this field, and we are ready to tackle our next obstacle- graduating and getting a job!

Case of the mondays...

On days like this, when the weather is less than stellar and my mood is blah, I make a list of things I am looking forward to. This is in no way related to the other list I have that dictates all of the things I need to clean in my apartment. Let's make lists to distract ourselves from other lists... this is healthy, right?

#1 NYC! In a few short weeks I will be headed to New York to shop and hang with ma dukes. I haven't been there in awhile, but going there always centers me. It's like being somewhere that big regenerates me, and puts the world into perspective.

#2 Philly! I love to travel, and although I have been to areas around Philly, I have never actually seen the city. The National Convention for NCTE is there, and I am a presenter. I hope to learn a lot from other teachers, authors, and teacher-educators. Plus I get to spend a weekend with Joyce, which is guaranteed to be fun and crazy.

#3 Graduation! This is bitersweet, but right now I could really use a paycheck (see previous blog). Class is my haven. Nothing beats a classroom of people who are as smart, or smarter, than me engaging in a juicy discussion. I miss this already, but I do really love being in the classroom. I'm ready to move on with the next stage of my life.

A bookshelf made of cinder blocks...

Recently our professor introduced me and my friends, as graduate students, to a retired teacher from a local district. Upon hearing that we were getting our Masters, the teacher remarked on the stereotype of a graduate student. He said, " Oh, you are grad students, which means you are so poor that you must have an array of furniture made out of cinder blocks." We all laughed... and laughed, but inside I was thinking how close that was to the truth. Of course, I don't have actual furniture made from cinder blocks, but I have been experiencing poverty in a variety of other ways.

Have you ever been so poor that you had to wait to turn on the heat until well after the first snowfall? Even when it is so cold in your house that you leap from the bathroom rugs into the warm shower to avoid having your bare feet touch the frigid floor? How about when said heat is turned on, it is set at a maximum temperature of 59 degrees? Yea, that is in Fahrenheit. As I sit here typing this blog, I think about days ahead when I will get my first job. Will I still need to sit in my own apartment wearing a winter hat for warmth, or have my nose so cold that I haven't noticed that it started to drip onto my laptop? I hope that, although a teacher's salary is not a wealth of riches by any means, I will someday be able to jack the heat without remorse or fear for the financial repercussions.

I have to say that despite the legitimate icicles forming on my eyelashes, I am thankful to finally be doing what I love to do. I have more books than dollars, and I'm ok with that. Being able to finally teach is worth vying for survival in the frozen tundra that is my little apartment.