What's New... Part 1

For a while I forgot I had a blog and how much I loved to write in it. Like a 10 yr old and her diary...

In saying that, I had forgotten my g-mail and password so those had to be reset and also my back-up e-mail address had to be changed.

Yay. Those are fun things to do.

After fixing that, I sat down and tried to figure out what I haven't informed everyone about lately...

Lots.

Since I last posted (which is embarrassingly long ago and I hope to keep it not so long from now on) we had just become farm owners and Piper wasn't quite a year old.

Things that have happened since then are....
1. We are farm owners.
2. Piper turned 1.
3. I did my student teaching and learned things.
4. I got a job.
5. I did not work or go to school during the summer for the first time in 6 years.
6. Husband still works at Albemarle.
7. Piper can use words.
8. Piper can use several words...including no, noooooo, and no no.
9. We got another dog.
10. I got another car.
11. I started said job.

That's a strangely odd number, but I like odd numbers. I like groupings of 3's to be exact.

Since I have started my new teaching job that I love so very much at my alma mater, I have learned 3 odd things.

1. Kids are funny. This isn't odd when I write it out, and it doesn't sound like an odd statement seeing as parents say all the time "their kid did the funniest thing" and on and on. When coming from a teaching point of view, I like to know my kids. I want them to talk to me and know I'm here to help them and not seeking to just pass them on. They're funny. Extremely funny in how they will explain concepts to each other, to myself, and how they will try to discreetly ask trick questions to get the answers out of someone else or myself.
For example... this week I am having our first test. To prepare for it the students expected me to make and print their study guides for them- ie. them not do the work. So in taking an unconventional approach and hopefully teaching educational responsibility I taught them how to make their own on their own notebook paper and we discussed what terms and concepts would be ideal to know for their test. I got the typical eye-rolls, huffing and puffing, and "omg I have to write all this."

Yes. Yes you do. Do you not take notes or write in any other class...
If your hand isn't hurting you're not doing it right.
Those were my responses. I tend to get funny looks when they can't tell if I'm being sarcastic or serious. Some on the other hand have figured out that I'm 99% sarcastically serious.

They're funny. After making their own study guides, they had to make up their own practice problems. In making their own practice problems they had to know what the answer had to be and from there work backwards ultimately making them know the concept they were exemplifying both forwards and backwards.
In doing so the conversations started on how their problems were different, and then they began correcting each other.
It became a competition of who was right. Every single one was determined they were right.
Have you ever seen 23 high school juniors compete to see who could have the "most right" practice problem written?
It's funny.
I have often wonder in these 4 weeks I have been teaching if my former teachers found my graduating class this funny.

2. Teachers have 2 sides.... at the very least.
I'm getting to work beside some of my former teachers, and it makes me giggle at times. When I was here I saw the education/teacher side, and now I get to see the coworker or for lack of better words "real person" side of my former teachers. I get to have real conversations not about my vocab or grades, but about what's going on in their lives and about what is going on in mine. It's pretty cool honestly, and looking back on being their student, it makes me appreciate them even more for taking time to care. I have students that I babysat or just know me personally from when I was a student and always ask me when they see me outside of school if I'm teacher Hannah or normal Hannah. It makes me laugh. They're funny.

3. I need to record happenings in my classroom. My mother had stories like no other, and I swear she should have written a book. I've decided I need to do the same seeing as my kids are so funny, or at least I think they are. When kids come in and ask to just sit in my room and they have different conversations in front of me- it makes me laugh. Almost hysterically. When they ask my opinion on high school drama that I so desperately tried to distance myself from when I was here as a student, I smile and giggle to myself and say I don't have one. When they ask if they can call momma because they don't like what was packed for their lunch and would rather have McDonald's brought to them... No. When a student tells me she can't do work today because she can't focus. No. When I watch a student eat a complete apple and spit out the seeds. No.
I've learned sometimes it's fun to say No.
It's like Tim Hawkins says... there are an abundance of ways to say no. Sometimes I can just look at them and they get the point.
For example,
"Mrs. Hurley can I....um that's no."
It's great, but what's even greater is they understand I don't mean it ugly or because I want to be mean. I always try to give a reason, and I either get silent eye rolls that then roll off my back into my pile of not hurt feelings or they say "oh ok" and get on with what we are doing for the day.

High school was fun enough when I was here, but teaching it is even more fun and ten times more enjoyable.
Cross my heart. Promise. Scout's honor.

In a nut shell, I love my job and it's the one I've always wanted since I was convinced to switch to secondary education.

Once a panther, always a panther.