Pointing Out the Owls

When people ask me if I miss teaching, my gut reaction is to say no.  But that's not really true.  The question I am really answering is do I miss my JOB.  And I do not.  The first things that pop into my mind when I think of my job are the negatives from last year-- the hours of grading and never catching up, the endless meetings, the overload of... everything. I guess the wound is still too fresh.

But of course I do miss teaching.  Teaching was what I loved, and there is evidence that I miss it all over my life.

For instance... 

Lately I've been reading a lot of books about the craft of writing, and-- I can't help myself-- I keep noting in the margins passages that would be good to use in the classroom.  Even when I am the student, studying articles for my own learning, I am still the teacher, wanting to pass that learning on.

Also, I've always loved recommending books to my husband, but now when he needs something new to read, I find myself getting a little carried away.  I thrive on the pleasure of scurrying from bookshelf to bookshelf collecting titles that I think he will enjoy and then presenting them to him.  This is not just a simple, "Honey, I left a couple of books on your nightstand."  No, no, no.  This is a sit-down-give-me-your-full-attention presentation of the books.

"Ok... this is the book I was reading when I kept laughing out loud last month.  Remember?  I think it would make you laugh too.  And this one was kind of weird, but honestly I think you would like it more than I did and I'd love to know your thoughts on the ending.  And this one I haven't read yet, but it's by the same author of that other book you liked.  And THIS one, I know it looks like a girly cover, just don't look at the cover, in fact-- here, I am taking the cover off-- this one is SO GOOD if you just give it a couple of chapters to get going."

The hubby is always so patient/slightly-patronizing/completely-silent during these ordeals.  When I finish, he points and says, "That one," making his choice.  Admittedly, he does not get as excited about these presentations as I do, but he DOES usually like the books.  (You can ask him.) 

Anyway, I know that my passion for supplying Mark with good reading material comes from how much I miss doing the same for students.  I absolutely loved getting the right book into the right hands.

But maybe the most glaring example of my longing for the classroom is in the owls.

Sharing the Owls

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, which is practically in my backyard, is a lovely place to spend an afternoon.  Last spring when I was there on a busy day, a small crowd had gathered at the archway leading into the central square.  The attraction?  In the planter in the corner where the stone walls meet, high above the heads of the visitors and well-protected from wind and weather, a great horned owl nested with her three fuzzy babies. 

I fell in love with them on sight.  I am a sucker for seeing animals of any kind in nature-- rabbits, deer, snakes, lizards, armadillos-- but I really love owls.  I love the screech owls that roost in our big oak tree in the spring and I love hearing the great horned owls hoot to each other behind the house at night, but I rarely ever see one.  And here they were, just fifteen feet above my head, calmly going about their owl business, content to let us gawkers down below point and photograph and ‘ooo’ and ‘ahh’.  A volunteer at the center told me that the mother comes back there every year to nest.  I thought it was so cool.

Mom and Baby - April 9, 2012

Since I live so close, I began walking over there weekly to watch the babies grow.  Sometimes I'd take a book and sit on the bench by the turtle pond and read, snapping a photo now and then or just enjoying the "company" of the owls.  But after that first day, I never saw a big crowd.  See, the thing is, unless you know they're there, the owls are really easy to miss.  It's not like there's a sign or anything.  And the more families that I saw walk past the arch, unaware, the more I wanted to show them the wonderful sight they were missing.  So I did.  

"Have you seen the owl?" 

Over and over again last spring, I pointed out the owls to people who were coming and going from the center.  And this year, now that the mama is back in her nest, I am doing it again.

People are always a little taken aback at first by the stranger woman suddenly accosting them about owls, but after they realize that I am harmless and they see the owl for themselves, they are almost always grateful.  Their eyes light up and they gasp in delight and often they mention how they can't believe they didn't see it before, how they almost missed it. 

And it makes me feel so good.

Baby - April 14, 2012

I’m not doing anything, really.  I’m only showing them something beautiful that was already there.  But it still makes me glow with pride because it reminds me of being in the classroom.   Teaching is like pointing out the owl.  There it is, right there above your head, not even a stretch really to see it, and yet if you don't know one is there, if you are walking, head down, not looking for owls, there is almost no way you can discover it on your own.  You need someone to guide you.

And so, the real answer is yes.  I do miss teaching.  I miss sharing the writing craft with my students.  I miss putting books they'll love into their hands.  And, above all, I miss pointing out the owls.  I miss watching students’ faces light up with the discovery that something so beautiful was right before their eyes and they’d never noticed it before.

Baby - April 18, 2012

 

 

Last First?

Me in Kindergarten - 1982

Here it is the first day of school… and it’s just another Monday for me.

I’m looking at all the first day photos on Facebook this morning.  My family had that tradition too.  My brother and I had to stand out on the front sidewalk in our first day clothes and hold up fingers to show what grade we were in.

My first time in 7th grade.
Yikes.

This is the first first-day-of-school that I have not participated in for 30 years.  I had my own first days from kindergarten through 12^th grade, then four years of firsts in college, then 13 more first days teaching the seventh grade.  (I continued the photo tradition for my dad, so there are a LOT of pictures of me holding up seven fingers for the camera.)

People keep asking me if I am ok, asking how I feel about not being in a classroom today.  I’m ok.  Maybe that’s the sad part.  I really am ok.  But still it’s on my mind today—all my friends, all my would-be students, all those bells telling me what to do.  I miss that.  I miss the bells.  They kept me organized, kept me on schedule.  My to-do list today is already far behind and no buzzer or alarm is getting me back on track.  I even had first-day-of-school stress dreams last night.  Something tells me it’s going to take awhile for those to go away.

I’m thinking about what I used to do during the first week of school.  I used to learn my students’ names, as quickly and as correctly as possible.  And sooner than you might expect, I’d know them all.  I’m pretty good at names and memorization anyway, but I also had some tricks that would help.

On the first day of school, I gave each student an info sheet to learn some personal things about them and get my first glance at their writing.  One of the spaces on that sheet asked them to fill in their birthday.  Then, for an evening or two during the first week (often the first night even if I was tired) I would read their information sheets, starring any interesting or disturbing or funny tid-bits, and copy each student’s name and birthday onto a little paper birthday cake or star to put on the “birthday board” during their month.  I’d also go through the info sheets again to copy each student’s name (first and last) to a notecard.  These notecards (color-coded by class) went into a box on my desk and became the “Fickle Finger of Fate”, a way for me to randomly select students for groups or answers or errands or anything else, and a great way to call on them until I knew all their names.

I got my Fickle Finger idea from
my amazing professor, Dr. Flowers.

Every student got a sticker and
a pencil on their special day.

Yes, these things would take time.  I’d often sit on my couch with a favorite movie on TV while I worked, usually a cat in my lap.  But it was the fun kind of time, the worthwhile kind.  No one was making me do that stuff, I chose to and I liked it.  I’ll miss that.  Then last year, my numbers tripled and it wasn’t so fun anymore.  It took two or three movies instead of one and gave me a hand cramp.  Half way through I wanted to stop, but I was already halfway done…  That was the first sign of how difficult the year was going to be.  Even learning my students’ names and writing down birthdays had the fun taken out of it by the sheer quantity of work. 

Me grading my LAST SET of papers last May.
No, I do not usually grade in a dress and heels, but we English teachers
grade whenever and wherever we can.  It was a Saturday morning at 9AM
and I got ready for the baby shower I was going to early.
So... time to grade five tests.  Yes, it is nuts.  But it is what we do. 

But this is not the time or place to complain about last year.  If you want to read about that go to the blog post about why I left teaching.  Right now I want to think about what I miss.

I miss coming home on that first day of school and, no matter how tired I was, writing in my journal—jotting down my first impressions of my students, listing a few names and why they stood out and what kind of person I thought they’d be, then going back months later to re-read and see how right (or wrong) I’d been.  I miss that.  I learned over the years that some of the most rambunctious kids on the first day are NOT your future behavior problems—they are the kids that love school, that are so excited to be back they can’t contain themselves.  Sometimes it’s the quiet ones you have to watch.

Often on the first day of school, former students would stick their heads in my room to say, Hi! and prove to me that they are not the mean, snobby 8^th graders that I swore they’d turn into.  (They realized that was reverse psychology, right?)  I’ll miss that.

I’ll miss choosing the quote of the week and writing the agenda on the board each day.  (Yes, that’s nerdy.  Don’t care.)  I’ll miss reading a poem to the class for the first time.  And teaching them how to write a “Where I’m From”.  And hearing the band play at the pep rallies.  And knowing my friends are just down the hall.

I’ll miss all that.

I don’t know if or when or in what capacity I will ever go back to teaching.  

I wonder if I’ve had my last first day of school?  

First day of school 2011

The Nature of Things

Though the title of this blog is The Black Cat Diaries, and there is in fact a rather persnickety black cat named Gink who resides here, there are several other furry creatures that live in our home as well, and one of them is a yellow dog named Uno.

So this is mainly an Uno story.

I have a small, old pillow that I wanted to throw away.  It was a homemade gift from a student a few years ago.  (Don't think me heartless—  This thing has been sat upon and laid upon and who-knows-what upon by teenagers for years.  It is old and dirty and smelly, and its time has come.  However, I did bring it home from school to dispose of because I didn’t want my current students to see me throw away a gift.) 

Instead of tossing it in the trash, I decided to give it to Uno to shred.  Uno’s a year and four months old now and he has gone through his share of toys.  There are a few “tough” ones out there that last a LITTLE longer (these Durable Dragons have been the best we’ve seen) but in general Uno reduces stuffed animals and plush toys to a pile of fluff in less than half an hour.  So I thought it would be a fun ten minutes for him to tear apart this pillow and I was willing to clean up the mess.  It already has a small hole in the side for “easy access”.

Well that backfired because Uno LOVES the pillow.  I gave it to him yesterday and it is still completely whole.  He carried it to his bed and is actually using it as a pillow.  Every time I walk by he hugs it and glares at me, as if to say, “I can’t BELIEVE you wanted me to DESTROY this wonderful thing!”

Sigh.  I guess I’ll be hanging on to the nasty pillow a little longer.

"Thank you for my pillow, Mom."

Hmm, maybe eventually I will learn my lesson.  When you try to “let nature take its course” it doesn’t always work out the way you think it will.  About twelve years ago, I decided to deal with a mouse situation “naturally” by letting Gink take care of it instead of using a trap.  He was young and spry then and, though inexperienced, I thought fully capable of taking care of business.  Another backfire.  That experiment ended with the mouse quite literally running over my ferocious black cat.  Twice.  

Gink was not available for comment.

ADDENDUM:  7/25/12

Uno is not so sentimental after all.  The love for the pillow only lasted three days.

Wait... this belonged to TEENAGERS?!?!

I'm on it!

That was exhausting... But it had to be done.

Subconscious Healing

Every night I dream of teaching.

I know it has only been one week since my last trip to campus to turn in my badge and say goodbye, but each night since has been filled with visions of the classroom, my students, me in the role of teacher.

In one dream, I was explaining an idea to my class and they were getting it, really getting it.  Eyes lit up with understanding.  In another, I sat with my coworker in her old, almost empty classroom.  (She had already moved most of her stuff into mine.)  We tried to figure out how to manage the room changes for the last week of school.  I didn’t know where I would teach.  And then we realized, blissfully, that this was the last day of school.  There was not another week.  The year was over.  There was no need to fret about rooms or space. 

In the dream that woke me up last night just before midnight, students were coming in to my class late.  Or almost late.  Or saying, “I’ll be right back, I just need to…” some excuse or other.  Some were students that I taught this year, but students from my past popped up too.  It’s been at least five years since I taught Aaron W. and yet there he was.  This tardiness had been going on all year from these kids and was getting worse and worse.  But last night, I was no longer tolerating it.  I got on to each and every one of them, saying, “No more.  This ends now.”  And they smiled at me.  Every one of them looked at me like they knew.  Those were the words in my head as I awoke.  The words I scribbled on a post-it note in the dark.  Smiling like they know.  And it was simply clear that this problem would be over. 

At first I thought the dreams symbolized me feeling displaced, regretful about leaving, anxious about losing my teacher identity.  After all, I am not going to settle into this life change over night.  It has definitely not sunk in yet.  This weekend, I saw an old friend who asked me, “Are you still at CRMS?”  And I said yes without even blinking, until my husband elbowed me and I remembered that the answer was and was not true.  The following day I renewed my yoga account.  The cashier asked me if I was still a teacher and when I nodded, he awarded me my 20% discount.  It took me a full three minutes to remember and wonder if I should feel guilty.

The thing is that I am on the cusp right now, at the border, in the land of in-between.  I will still be receiving a paycheck from LISD for two more months, my guest bedroom is filled with crates of files and binders from my classroom, and it was only fourteen days ago that I was reading “The Landlady” to my students for the last time.  But I’ve already handed in my keys, and my school login was deactivated the day after I left.  (Of all the things for the district’s technology to take care of quickly, they choose booting a 13-year teacher out of her email.)

I am no longer a teacher, but I am not yet anything else.  I tell myself I am on summer vacation, but vacation from what?

So at first, I thought the dreams were a sign of disorientation and loss.  I worried that they would plague me all summer long, maybe longer.  I worried maybe they meant I had made a mistake.  But I forgot, briefly, to trust in the capability of my subconscious because often it knows what it’s doing. 

Several years ago when my cat Lili passed away unexpectedly, I felt a lot of guilt mixed in with my grief.  Guilt that I was not with her when she died at the vet, that there might have been something I could have done to prevent her untimely death.  I began to dream about her.  In the dreams, her ghost inhabited my house—running to the food bowl at meal times, laying on her favorite purple chair.  Although the images were not disturbing, they were not comforting either.  They just left me with the sense that there was something I needed to do.   Then, in one of the dreams, Lili scooted past me out the front door, the way she often tried to do in life.  At first I panicked and started after her, afraid for her safety.  But then I realized—the dangers of the outside world were not a problem for my little cat anymore.  The weather, the cars, the other animals… nothing could hurt Lili now.  And so I let her out.  I let her spirit run outside where she’d always wanted to be, and I felt my heart lift with the peace of it.  I never dreamed about Lili after that.

Last night, after waking from my most recent teaching dream, I lay awake for several minutes, overcome with that same sense of peace.

Now I see that these are not representations of anxiety or regret.  They are images of me transitioning, healing, fixing.  In my subconscious, I am able to do, with confidence, the things that eluded me for the past several months.  Finally I have time to deal with all of these little problems, the things that got away from me all year, the things that ate away at the atmosphere of my classroom, tore my relationships with my students down.  The lessons are going well now.  The tardies have been addressed.  And it’s not just me being happy that they are fixed.  The students find comfort in it too.  They are being noticed, being cared for, feeling solace in the fact that someone is taking charge.  Smiling like they know. Like they know that things will be better now.

And I am beginning to know it too.

Letter From an Angry Parent

Thank you to everyone who participated in my Mad Lib experiment!  I enjoyed reading all the submissions and have decided to post two different versions of the story.  Thanks to Maggie W. and Sarah D. for your winning contributions.

[The following blog entry is a work of fiction.  Names, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or emails sent to me by parents is entirely coincidental.]

Letter From an Angry Parent

Dear Ms. Wit (or should I say grandiose idiot),

            As you are aware, my daughter Ima is a student in your 7^th grade language arts class, and I am writing to tell you that I am appalled by your teaching methods.

            First of all my subterranean child is obviously extremely dinky.  She writes lovingly and scrambles with such maturity and excitement that anyone should be proud to have her as a bottle.  When my good friend Denzel Washington read Ima’s poems, he said, “Racklefratz!  These should be tickled immediately!”  And yet you gave her a grade of 7 on those assignments.  It breaks my belly button to see Ima’s talent go unappreciated like that.

            And in regards to her behavior in class, I instantly became cerulean blue in the face when I received your email saying my cavernous little girl served a 13-minute detention for perambulating koalas in class and acting foppish to you.  She was simply expressing herself!   How dare you infringe upon her right to freedom of basket!  When my dear friend Meryl Streep heard of this, she said, “Oops!  That behavior simply shows she is creative and surly!”

            Ms. Wit, I graduated number 3 in my class from the University of the Mountains, and I will not tolerate my child being cavorted by such vigorous lips.  That is why I have created a petition to have you meandered.  I have already received 1 signature.  Expect to hear from my street sweeper soon.

Languorously,

Parent of a Perfect Child

Dear Ms. Bach (or should I say stinky idiot),

            As you are aware, my daughter Willow is a student in your 7^th grade language arts class, and I am writing to tell you that I am appalled by your teaching methods.

            First of all my shy child is obviously extremely hideous.  She writes perfectly and dances with such maturity and distress that anyone should be proud to have her as a squirrel.  When my good friend Prince read Willow’s poems, he said, “Cheese Pizza!  These should be swum immediately!”  And yet you gave her a grade of 4815162342 on those assignments.  It breaks my armpit to see Willow’s talent go unappreciated like that.

            And in regards to her behavior in class, I instantly became chartreuse in the face when I received your email saying my rotund little girl served a 7-minute detention for bouncing scissors in class and acting sticky to you.  She was simply expressing herself!   How dare you infringe upon her right to freedom of bookmark!  When my dear friend Zoey Deschanel heard of this, she said, “Geronimo!  That behavior simply shows she is creative and sweet!”

            Ms. Bach, I graduated number 806 in my class from the University of the Land, and I will not tolerate my child being smelled by such a shiny kneecap.  That is why I have created a petition to have you phoned.  I have already received eleventy signatures.  Expect to hear from my time lord soon.

Splendidly,

Parent of a Perfect Child

Fill in the ______

Who doesn’t love a good Mad Lib?  

To complete my next blog post, I need your help.  Fill in the missing words from my story and email them to cariejuettner@gmail.com.  On Tuesday, I will post my blog using the best set of words that I received.  Please remember that I’d like to keep my blog PG-13 and have fun!

1. Last Name ________________________

2. Adjective ________________________

3. Girl’s First Name ________________________

4. Adjective ________________________

5. Adjective ________________________

6. Adverb ________________________

7. Verb (present tense) ________________________

8. Emotion ________________________

9. Noun ________________________

10. Celebrity ________________________

11. (Same as #3)

12. Exclamation ________________________

13. Verb (past tense) ________________________

14. Number ________________________

15. Body Part ________________________

16. (Same as #3)

17. Color ________________________

18. Adjective ________________________

19. Number ________________________

20. Verb (ending in ing) ________________________

21. Plural Noun ________________________

22. Adjective ________________________

23. Noun ________________________

24. Celebrity ________________________

25. Exclamation ________________________

26. Adjective ________________________

27. (Same as #1)

28. Number ________________________

29. Place ________________________

30. Verb (past tense) ________________________

31. Adjective ________________________

32. Body Part ________________________

33. Verb (past tense) ________________________

34. Number ________________________

35. Profession ________________________

36. Adverb ________________________

Why I am Leaving Teaching

As most of you know, I am a teacher.  And as many of you know, I have decided to quit teaching.  This week, I officially declined my contract for next year.  The district then sent me an “Exit Survey” which amounted to about 10 multiple-choice questions and a small box which asked, “Do you have any additional comments?”  It turns out, I did.  Below you will find my “additional comments” to my district.

The System is Down

The easy answer to why I am leaving the district after 13 years of teaching 7^th grade Language Arts, the one everyone likes to hear, is that I am quitting my job to pursue a career as a writer.  It is true, and it is exciting and scary and inspiring and all those wonderful adjectives that people use when they hear it. 

                 It is true that I have always wanted to write.  It is true that I am at the right place in my life, personally and financially, to take a stab at my dream.  But the bigger truth lurking behind my decision is that I no longer love being a teacher.  And that makes me so sad. 

For 12 years, I loved my job.  I loved it DESPITE all of the craziness that comes with it.  I loved my students (well… most of them), and the few parent issues I faced were easy to laugh off later.  I talked about my students to anyone who’d listen, telling silly classroom stories and describing the antics of those select few every year that make themselves memorable in one way or another. 

I spent too much time during those 12 years working at home and grading wherever and whenever I could, but for the most part I loved that too.  I loved reading my students’ poems and essays and, especially, their memoirs.  I loved helping them to dig deep into their stories to find the real feelings and themes and life lessons stored there and seeing them emerge on the page.  I can still remember the cartoons that D.S. used to draw in the margins of his work in 1999, the story N.H. wrote in 2004 about accidentally hitting his brother in the head with a shovel, the poem about electrons that L.C. got published in 2009 and read in front of a large audience at Ruta Maya Coffee House.

I have so many wonderful memories of teaching at both of the middle schools where I was employed.  And in any other year, I would have never taken a break from loving it long enough to realize I wanted to do something else.

But this year… is different. 

This year, I went from teaching 56 students 90 minutes a day and getting to know each and every one of them as readers, writers, and people, to teaching 126 students 52 minutes a day and having almost no connection at all with any of them.  Believe it or not, I don’t know what books my Language Arts students are reading.  I can’t remember which ones have dogs or cats or little siblings at home.  I get mixed up about who is in choir and who is in cheer, and I am having trouble bringing to mind what most of them wrote for their personal narratives two months ago.

This year, all the “little things” that used to be easy to shrug off after a quick happy hour are staying with me, weighing me down.  Common assessment score due dates that I have missed yet again, standardized test rules and regulations that change (literally) every single day, 29 students that I am supposed to keep detailed documentation about weekly, a computer grading system that doesn’t allow me much control over my grades, writing that has to be condensed into 26 handwritten lines, pointless meetings held by people who are too out of touch to understand how much we are suffering and how valuable our time really is, and parents emailing to tell me that their son wouldn’t clean his room for weeks so finally his mom cleaned it for him and it made him really happy- oh by the way, how is he doing at school?  (Yes, that was a real email—you should see the whole thing.) 

This year, our school’s focus is student ownership of learning, but I don’t even have enough time to teach them to write a metaphor, much less teach them the valuable accountability and time management skills they so desperately need.

I know I sound like a complainer.  I know that other districts have been teaching more students than this in a tighter schedule than this for years.   I know (now) how very spoiled I have been.  But we were doing it RIGHT.  And those other teachers, in those other districts?  There is no way that they are using the same in-depth curriculum with authentic assessments that we are.  No way.  The only bubble test my students have taken this year is STAAR.

So, yes, I am quitting being a teacher so that I can try to be a writer.  And (fingers crossed) someday you may be able to buy my novel at Book People, and that would be awesome.  But the bottom line is, I wouldn’t be venturing out into this new endeavor if this school year had not been so terrible.   People have asked me, would you stay if things went back to the way they were last year?  No.  This year has damaged me.  I need a break.  Besides, my trust in the system has been shaken, and I wouldn’t believe in the perfect schedule even if they promised it.  People have asked me, are you just taking a year or two off, or are you quitting for good?  I don’t know what the future holds.  It’s possible that I’ll be back in the classroom in a couple of years.  But that is not my plan.  I know that I will miss teaching, but I do not believe that I will miss schools.  

For now at least, I am done.   Although part of me still can’t believe it, after forty-three readings of The Outsiders, I have survived my final rumble with the Socs, seen Dally crumple under the streetlight with a look of “grim triumph” for the last time, and will tell Ponyboy to “stay gold” no more.  And now, I leave the lives of S.E. Hinton’s gang, and the fate of my students in your hands.  Don’t let them down.

TEN IMPORTANT THINGS YOU DIDN’T ASK BUT NEED TO KNOW:

(And I have a hunch there are quite a few others out there who could say the same.)

1.  Most days, I use every single minute of my “off” periods and usually every minute of my lunch to work.  Then I work after school.  Then I work at home. 

2.   Here’s a math problem for you.  I have 126 students.  If they all turn in an essay and it takes me 3 minutes to grade each essay (which would actually be quite a fast time for me!) then it would take me 378 minutes, or 6 hours and 18 minutes to grade them all (assuming I did not have to eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom during that time).  If you add up all of the contract time that I have during the day that is not automatically taken up with teaching (i.e. before school, conference periods, lunch, and after school) you get 214 minutes, or 3 hours and 34 minutes.  So… in order to NOT have to grade that assignment at home, I would need TWO FULL work days where I did not have any meetings, ARDs, tutoring, or any other tasks to complete, in which I could spend EVERY SINGLE MINUTE THAT I WASN’T TEACHING to get those assignments graded.  Ok, I did the math for you, but I hope you can still see the problem.

3.  My stress is making me physically ill.  By 10:00AM on the Monday of spring break, my backache, constant indigestion, shortness of breath, and acne had all gone away.  By the Tuesday following spring break, most of it was back.

4. I believe in the standards-referenced grading system.  I think it works and, when it is properly administered, is the best thing for kids.  But I do not see HOW to properly administer it with our current schedule, student load, and curriculum demands.  I hope it can be saved, but it is going to take a lot of hard work and a lot of flexibility.

5.  The new APS class isn’t working.  And it never will.  I would hate to see teachers lose jobs, but you’ve got to give that time back to the core subjects. 

6. I firmly believe that it only takes 3 years out of the classroom to be out of touch with the reality of teaching.  Whether you just forget what it’s like day-to-day or whether the curriculum/technology/culture changes and passes you by, it happens to everybody.  I have seen it happen to principals, counselors, and facilitators, and I know it is going to happen to me, and I dread it.  Even though people have good intentions, after a few years out of the classroom they start too many sentences with, “Well, why don’t you just…” or “It only takes a few minutes to…” and we sigh and try not to roll our eyes.  A counselor at my school (an excellent counselor who is compassionate with the students and supportive of the staff) once asked the Language Arts teachers to complete a non-academic task with our classes to help with the upcoming open house.  When we politely grumbled later about how it took 20 minutes of our time, he was flabbergasted.  “Are you serious?!  I thought it would take about 5!”  No, sorry, but you’ve forgotten the speed of the 7^th grade animal.  To his credit, he did not ask us to do it again.

7. Following up on #6, I believe that every single person who works in the district should be required to spend at least three hours a year observing in classrooms.  I mean EVERYONE.  From the Document Production Center Employee to the Help Desk Person to the Facilitator of Facilitating, if that exists.  (And if it does, do we really need it?)  And I don’t mean a 5-minute snapshot either.  Sit, stay, listen, watch.  Note:  I did NOT say that they should schedule outside meetings with teachers to take up their time with random feedback.  Just go, just be, just observe.  No dog and pony show, no big ordeal.  Just get in the classrooms and be reminded what it’s like.

8. I have the utmost respect for my principal.  I admire and appreciate my assistant principals.  I adore my campus Language Arts department.  All of the adults I work with at my school are amazing and I will miss them dearly.

My door for the decorating contest last year

9.  My coworker J.S. is one of the most incredible people I have ever worked with.  She is a creative, dynamic, dedicated teacher who pushes her students to perform at high academic levels.  I am in awe of her as a person and as an educator.  She teaches 140 students this year, and she works ALL THE TIME for them.  Teachers like J need a break.  They need someone to listen to them and to give them the freedom and the time and the adequate technology they need to create their magic.  Be careful, because if you keep pushing our teachers to the brink, they will keep leaving.  And losing someone like her would be a much bigger loss than losing me.  Take care of her.

J.S.'s door for the decorating contest last year

(Yes, real steam came out of it.)

10. I have wanted to be a teacher since I was in the 9^th grade.   Until September of this year, I had never seriously pictured myself doing anything else.  I thought I would teach until I was dead and love every second of it.  I hope there are still plenty of others out there who feel that way.  I hope they are staying in this profession, not because they have to, but because they want to.