80 Days

Have you ever seen the show, Phineas and Ferb? I have a brother who is ten years younger than me, so I watched Disney channel for much longer than most! Anyway, their theme song goes like this,

"There's 104 days of summer vacation
And school comes along just to end it
So the annual problem for our generation 
Is finding a good way to spend it"

Well, that's crazy. There is absolutely no way anyone has 104 days of summer vacation. I did some quick math, and I guess it's possible, but think about it:

School days:       180
Summer:             104
36 weekends:       72
Total:                   356

So you'd have 9 days left for Christmas and Spring Break. THAT'S RIDICULOUS.

My summer break is 80 days long, I counted! But they did get something right... the 4. Because for students, it's 84. But seriously, where did those extra 20 days come from?! Anyway, here's how I'll be spending my 80:

Days 2 is my cousin's wedding shower.
Day 3 my friend who is going to house sit while we're gone is moving in after church.
Days 4-7 will be spent planning an epic road trip to Skagway, Alaska and packing.
Days 8-10 are for going to camp with middle schoolers.
Day 10 is also when my friend is getting married.
Day 11 is for REST!
Days 12-19 will be spent on the road trip.
Day 19 is also take a ferry to Juneau day!
Day 22 is when we will meet the college students we will be leading this summer.
Day 66 will be the day we take a ferry back to Skagway and start the long trek home.
Day 79 my brother graduates from nursing school!
Day 80 I will whine about going to bed early.

Lots of excitement in the midst of all that, but those are the starting and ending points!

Laziness

Yes, LAZY seems to be the theme as of late. My students don't want to do ANYTHING. Thank goodness tomorrow is the last regular day of classes. We'll just be going over their final review packet in every class.

It's gotten really hot in my un-airconditioned building these last few days, but the lazy kicked in about a week ago. Last Thursday I gave my freshmen a test, and after grading the larger of the two classes, the majority failed. They knew it was difficult, but instead of giving it 110%, my students decided that they just didn't care anymore.

There are a few A's floating in the sea of F's.

Oh well. There's not really any time left to do any remediation or corrections, so I'm going to be nice and curve it, but for some, they still won't pass this test. And those few A tests... they're going to be getting LOTS of bonus points. :)

It's frustrating.

Just 15 tests to finish grading, and then I can go to bed!

Apple v. Windows

Yes, this is an age old debate, I know. And really, I don't care what you use. Use whatever works for you. There are definitely situations in which one is better than another for doing some particular thing. But I'm a Apple person. I have a MacBook Pro. I have an iPhone. I want an iPad (someday!). So yeah, I'm going to suggest the Apple products over an alternative.

But I wasn't always a Mac user! (gasp!)

I used to not even like Apple products! (Shocker, I know!)

But I've been totally converted.

So... why? Why do I think Apple Products are superior? Well, there are a ton of reasons, but since this is my blog about teaching, I'll start with a story about school today.

We'll call this, "One More Reason I Hate Windows."

My work email is through Office 365. So yeah, it's Outlook Web Mail. Online. It's actually pretty good. Before I discovered my love for Apple, I had a love for all things Google. And I still like Google (hello Blogger), but my Mac love has replaced some of my Google love. But, I digress.

My work email. Yes, back to the topic. Over the weekend sometime, Microsoft decided to upgrade our email server. You see, Microsoft has two forms of email. There's Outlook Live (@outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com), and then there's Outlook through Office 365. What's the difference? Well, Outlook Live is free to anyone. They've been advertising it like crazy lately and it seems pretty good. But my email NEVER looked like those commercials. :( Up until today, I went to live.outlook.com and I would log into my email. Well today when I tried to do that, BIG FAT ERROR MESSAGE.

Being the tech savvy person that I am, I was able to read the error message, realize that I needed office 365, google it, find the new login page, and login. No big deal. But to some of the less tech savvy teachers, they just thought our email was lost forever. Or temporarily down. Or something. I had it bookmarked, so I just needed to change my bookmark, then no big deal. But most of the teachers in our district go to the school district's webpage and then find the link to their email via the "for staff" menu. Our tech guy at school changed the link pretty quickly, but he had NO WARNING from Microsoft that this was going to happen, so he couldn't do anything until angry mobs began to scream at this morning (okay, so maybe it wasn't quite that dramatic, but I imagine it was close).

So now you're probably asking yourself, "if it's fixed now and wasn't really a big deal, why is she being so dramatic about this?"

Yeah, it's fixed. Yes, our email is PRETTY MUCH the same. Supposedly it's even an upgrade. But I'm still further annoyed. Why? Well about a month or two ago, I discovered SkyDrive. It's Microsoft's version of dropbox. And you know what, I actually like it. Yeah, I know. Again with the crazy talk from the self-proclaimed Mac girl. But here's the thing. For my school files, which are pretty much all Word documents or PowerPoint presentations, it's the most seamless thing to use. No worries about file types and I can edit anywhere, even if I for some reason would find myself working on a computer that doesn't have Word. And here's the biggest thing...

Until today, there was a link to my SkyDrive right in my email. And today, yeah, it's GONE.

Yes, I did find my documents. In a couple of places. But the convenience factor that got me using SkyDrive in the first place has been completely lost. So now I need a separate bookmark for SkyDrive. And I had to log in again because it's back over on the outlook live server that doesn't like my login for email. And now when I'm in SkyDrive and click on mail it doesn't work. So basically the whole point in using SkyDrive was to seamlessly put all of my school stuff together, and now it's a royal mess. And while my SkyDrive looks exactly like all those fancy Outlook commercials you've been seeing every time you watch Hulu, my "fancy" paid version of Outlook email doesn't have that great new look, nor does it have the seamless functionality they brag about.

Basically, Outlook sucks.

But it's what I have to use for school, so I use it, and in just 3 weeks I can just forget about Outlook for 2+ months!

We'll talk more about why I like Apple some other time since you're probably sick of this rant by now.

Pet Peeves

Got my papers out to grade a few minutes ago, and started through the first page of a test. It was fill-in-the-blank and matching (just the first page). I told them EXACTLY what would be on this section. So I made each blank worth 2 points, so this whole easy part of the test ends up being 30 points, or 30% of the test. I feel like that's generous, since I told them exactly what was going to be on it. I'm being completely honest here. I told them.

And yet even though I still have 5 that I haven't even looked at, already there was more than one person that did not get a perfect score on this part. And it's not like I told them about it the day before. I told them in advance. 

But this isn't even the thing that prompted this post. Oh no, it's something much worse. And as a disclaimer, this test is not the first time this has happened. It's not just a particular student, or even a particular class. There's always going to be kids that do this...

What is it you ask? Is the anticipation killing you yet??

Well...

Okay fine. I'll tell you.

My Biggest Pet Peeve:

When students write, "I don't know how to do any of this" on a test, quiz, or anything really.

WAS I TALKING TO THE BRICK WALL IN THE BACK OF THE ROOM FOR THE LAST 2-3 WEEKS?!

That's just so unacceptable. Do students really think I'm going to feel bad? If you don't get something, then you're aware of it. And you're aware of it before test day. So ask questions. Come in and get help before or after school. Ask your friend who is really good at math, and a huge sweetheart to boot, to help you! OH MY.

Teenagers.

And no, I don't think this makes me a bad teacher. I offer help before and after school. I stay until five freaking o'clock two days a week for night school and I'm available to help them during that time. I'll come early if someone asks me to. I have a study hall and a prep period, which I've been known to give up to offer some assistance. I've introduced students to awesome websites Khan Academy that are great for extra help if the times that I'm available are not convenient for their schedules. And there's often time to ask questions either during a lesson or at the end (I give them time to start their homework for this very reason!)

I'm done. I still have these tests to grade. I could have sworn they went smoothly last year, but maybe I was wrong...

Hiccups

I get the hiccups ALL THE TIME. Really. And they're terrible. And usually loud. Luckily, they tend to go away quickly, but they usually come back.

Why post about this on my blog? Well, because I often get them at school. Never while I'm standing up and teaching, because the excessive talking seems to scare them away. But at the beginning and end of class? Yes. And during tests and quizzes. Definitely.

That's the worst. Having hiccups and having your students just sit and giggle at you. Or if you have a good sense of humor, it's entertaining and something you laugh about later.

But still. Hiccups. Seriously?!

Monday, just go away already!

Posted the following on my Facebook a while ago. If your Mondays are anything like mine, you may find this to be awesome. You also might need to be a foodie and a total geek...

How to cure the Mondays in 3 easy steps:
1. Walk home on a gorgeous day, sit on the porch playing Fruit Ninja for a while, then when you get too cold go inside and do the same until you fall asleep.
2. Order tons of cheap but delicious sushi.
3. Watch 3 episodes of Dr. Who.

In other news, I'm finding a hard time finding motivation to grade things. I've got spring fever worse than my students!

Ideas

I have been a terrible blogger lately and not updated at all. But I want to do better. The thing is, I worked at night school tonight, came home, had dinner, then went to the musical at our rival high school (don't worry, I'm going to my school's on Saturday). We (my roomie and her cousin went too) got home at 10. Needless to say, I'm extremely tired and when I finish typing this, I'm going to bed.

So why bother updating right now?

Well, I was thinking about blogging a lot lately, and I have lots of ideas. I'm looking for opinions on whether you'd be interested in reading about any of them...

First, since my blog is called "Adventures of a Second Year Math Teacher," I thought I should right more about my adventures.
Past Adventures like working at a summer camp, numerous mission trips to Chicago, and a summer project in Rome, Italy.
Current Adventures like teaching math (obviously), planning next year's prom, owning a home, raising support for a mission trip, and volunteering with 6th grade girls. ...and...
Future Adventures like driving across the country and then taking a ferry to Alaska, then another ferry to a little island to spend my summer living on a Tlingit reservation!

And then there's other things.

One thing I'm oddly passionate about is teaching teenagers social media/internet responsibility. I think that's a pretty hot topic in education, right? I have a Twitter page I use exclusively for school and our student council advisor had this great idea: #sweettweetfriday.

And more random things, like...

• Khan Academy (not only can you practice your math skills, but you can learn computer science!)
• "Survivor Algebra" (Check it out at coolmath.com) 
• XKCD (I've blogged about this before, but it never ceases to be awesome)
• The Oatmeal (because sarcasm is awesome... and grammar... and Tesla)
• Settlers of Catan (because I really am a nerd)
• The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (A modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice... math teachers can love literature too!)
• Appropriate use of cell phones as an educational tool
• How I hate when people use Facebook like it's Pinterest (Pinterest exists for a reason, people! Maybe you should sign up!)

There's probably more, but do you remember the beginning of this post when I said I was tired? 

Conference Night

I hate parent-teacher conference night. Not necessarily because of the conferences. I dislike these nights because they are very long evenings. I had two scheduled meetings and one that stopped by and they went quite well.

After mine were finished I met with my mentor for the resident educator program. That turned into an hour long conversation. Then my mom and brother stopped by the school to get a ticket for a basketball game and I walked them to the athletic office and talked to them for a few minutes. Then I finalized some things for tomorrow. I'm trying something new tomorrow so I had to make some modifications to my PowerPoint. After that I printed some materials for preparing for the OGT. Then I finished the PowerPoint that I had been distracted from earlier.

During my prep period today I took inventory of our Pepsi products and placed my final order.

Point of all of this? I typed this on my way home (I walk) and now I'm at my front door at 8:55 pm and those papers that needed graded wont be returned tomorrow because they're not even close to being done. *sigh*

Clothes, Twitter, and Other Musings

Wow! It's been quite a while since I've said anything here. I'm just not the greatest at blogging, which is funny, because I always have plenty to say. I have a bunch of things in my head, but never know which ones to spend the time typing about. And sometimes I think of things that should definitely go on my blog but then I don't actually write about them. And then I'm not sure what I should say. I write as if I'm this anonymous person, yet most of my readers are my friends. And those who aren't won't care who I am, so I could probably blog about all kinds of things. But then there's always the chance that a student will stumble upon this. Or a parent. Or worse, a parent who doesn't like me. (There's always one or two.)

So, I'll blog away about something kind of generic while I contemplate all that word vomit above.

One of the things I like about my job (most days) is my wardrobe. I'm one of those weird people who loves to dress up. And I like wearing heels (again, most days). Today I wore a new skirt I bought this weekend. It was from The Limited (my favorite). It was originally over $69, but I found it on the final clearance rack for $16.99. And if you didn't already know this, The Limited offers student, teacher, and military discounts, so if you qualify for any of those, take some kind of ID and take advantage of the extra 15% off everything! In the end it was $15 something, even after tax. It's a plain grey, high waisted skirt with a couple of pleats in the front and super cute.

With it, I wore a black tank top that has little off-white polka dots and my favorite dark purple sweater (both also from Limited). I finished off my outfit with my amazing purple shoes and an awesome silk scarf given to me by my friend from China!

In other news, I created a twitter page that I'm going to try to use to inform my students of things like when tests and quizzes are. I've only told one class about it so far, but we'll see how that goes.

Another cool thing... the student council at our school is doing this awesome thing called "Sweet Tweet Friday." On Fridays, students are encouraged to tweet something nice about someone else with the hashtag #sweettweetfriday. They have even been encouraged to say something nice about someone outside of their typical friend group. This is one of the main reasons I created a twitter that I could use to communicate with students. This way I can interact with them and not care if they follow me. I also have a personal Twitter. It's still public, because that's the best way to get the most out of twitter, but I'm blocking any student who tries to follow me on that one.

I'll keep you posted on the status of that, if I remember. So... more to come, I guess! I'll try to be a better blogger. And try searching #sweettweetfriday this weekend. It will only be the third week though, and understand that teenagers are weird, so they may say some interesting things...


One more random thought... the best thing about midterms is that they force me to get caught up on all the grading I've been neglecting! Yay!

Being a "Resident Educator"

Part of Ohio's new guidelines for getting your 5-year teaching license is for new teachers to go through something called the "Ohio Resident Educator Program." The program is 4 years long, but it's currently only in it's second year, because last year is when this program began. Being in my second year of teaching, I am now in the second year of this program. Once a month, all of the second year "REs" meet with their mentors to discuss things like the "Standards of the Teaching Profession," best practices, the Common Core, and other such education topics. We also have to do various tasks such as setting goals and evaluating our progress (with evidence) and creating and evaluating lessons (don't forget the evidence) and other looking at trends of student data.

But now I'm going to rant about it, so if you don't like that, maybe it's time to stop reading, but scroll down to see the picture at the end if you really want to understand my frustration!

I teach math at the high school level. These meetings contain elementary, middle school, and high school teachers. We all teach different subjects and different levels, but we're trying to have meaningful discussions, which usually goes relatively well. But then we get into discussions of things that are coming and how much work we're going to need to do in the future as OTES comes our way (that's Ohio Teacher Evaluation System for all you non-education folks) and we talk a lot about collaboration. But you see, we're not very good at collaborating at the high school level. And a lot of this stuff that's going to happen will need to be done together. So eventually it will probably get better but as of right now, it's just not all going to happen.

But here's the really crazy part... as much as I hate these meetings, if it weren't for them, I'd have no idea what I need to be preparing myself for because it isn't really discussed much at the high school. Some people are going to be in for a rude awaking in the next year or so. Some things are really going to have to change. And we really need new textbooks. They would be an excellent resource in making this whole process much easier.

But I can't force people to change. And I can't magically come up with thousands of dollars for new books.

So I go to these meetings once a month, I get really annoyed and stressed out and want to go home and cry at the end, and then I go back to work and it's like it never happened. What's wrong with this picture?

I hate being the only high school RE in my district. :(

Anyone else dealing with these things as they progress through the Resident Educator program?

Oh, and one last thing... What exactly are we working toward? Well, it's some kind of long, complicated, detailed assessment at the end, but no one knows for sure. Ohio hasn't released any "year 3" information yet! UGH!!!!

Friday Night

So, I was back to school Wednesday. Terrible idea, going back on the 2nd. Especially when your birthday is New Year's Eve and you have 15 people over and stay up until 4 am...

But anyway, living in a small town, weekends can be boring! So my roommate and I left our small town for a slightly larger town and spent the evening a Books-A-Million and the accompanying coffee shop. I got a great book about math and a watered down apple cider. Unfortunately, they closed at 10. The joys of small town life. So we went to Starbucks! Unfortunately, we had just had bad drinks so we didn't really want another. But we've got overpriced pastries! So in the end it wasn't all bad. Books and blogging. Good night. I also colored a picture and wrote a note on the back to send to my friend.

Want to know more about our coffee shop adventure? Check out dorothylynn.wordpress.com!