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!

Christmas Break

Oh the joys of Christmas Break! I believe the teachers enjoy it just as much as (if not more than) the students!

We had exams Monday - Wednesday of last week, which were easy days for me. I had three classes taking exams on Monday but only one each of the other days. Unfortunately, I caught a cold right in the midst of that. Nothing like sitting in your room feeling miserable while you grade tests all day. Ugh.

But like I said, easy days. We went out to lunch the final day too, which was nice, and one of my teacher friends came over to work on a craft project/Christmas present and being the sick, I fell asleep while we were watching a movie!

But... None of this is why I decided to write a post tonight. It's time to tell another odd anecdote about my life as a young teacher in the small town in which I grew up...

I STILL have the cold I had during finals. Still. And so I decided to sleep in today. I woke up rather late and then decided to stay in bed and watch Netflix. At about 11 or 11:30, my doorbell rang. I got up to answer it. In my pajamas. My pink pajama pants with Christmas lights on them. And a dark green shirt from my uncle's pub. It was some high school kid offering to shovel my driveway! It was great, because I haven't yet bought a shovel for my new house, but seriously, I answered the door in my PJs! And my OLD glasses that are ugly and don't fit my face! (I left my good glasses at my parents' house after spending the night there Christmas Eve, oops!)

Anyway, I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas, and enjoy the time you have off! As for me, I'll be enjoying one very long date with my couch and Netflix until January 2nd!

14 Hour School Day

You just have to love a 14 hour workday! (Yes, I did say FOURTEEN!!)

Especially when it involves...
-being responsible for the mathematical education of about 90 kids
-advanced students who refuse to actually try reading their textbook
-keeping track of 20+ study hall students who always want to spend that 50 minutes somewhere other than your classroom, where they're supposed to be
-having to confiscate a cell phone from one of these students
(I totally snuck up on him by taking off my heels and tiptoeing up to him... hilarious!)
-having all 25 students in your class working at the boards at the same time and shouting your name from 3 different sides of the room wanting help/attention
-students who don't understand when it's appropriate to (not) talk
-make-up tests
-phone tag
-unloading about $400 worth of pop from the back of a pickup truck
-tutoring at night school
-broken power strip/safety issues
-selling pop at a wrestling match
-trying to find the motivation to grade papers (I found a little...)
-running over to the middle school in the middle of things to watch my little brother's basketball game
-running back to the high school to sell MORE pop
-printing and running off at test at 7:30 pm because you forgot to do it earlier
-restocking the pop coolers
and then...
-walking home in the dark
-counting fundraiser money $$$
-staying up way too late because you've just finally gotten the chance to relax at 9:30 pm
-showering in the basement due to a drain backup in your nice bathroom

Okay, but all sarcasm aside, there were some really fantastic things about my day:
-The two kids who sit right in front of my desk first thing in the morning are both really sweet, nice kids who always make me laugh about something. (This is part of the reason I haven't changed their seats that period... oops, guess I'm being selfish! Also, it's much easier to check off their homework this way.)
-The morning announcements on the TV did not make that awful squealing noise that they've been making for the last few weeks.
-The aforementioned cell phone confiscation... SO funny!
-Walking tacos for lunch and mom joining us!
-Getting the power strip/safety issue taken care of promptly!
-One of the night school teachers playing Mumford & Sons!
-The pop delivery was something of a class advising miracle... long story there too...
-Having enough water/pop/gatorade and quarters to get through the wrestling match!
-Talking to really great students who work concessions.
-Seeing my parents and grandparents at the basketball game.
-Seeing my little brother win his basketball game.
-My student who sparked my memory and made me realize that I forgot to copy the test.
-Making her and the others working happy by giving them their favorite flavor of Dum-Dums.
-Good conversations with the roommate. (You should read her blog.)
-My roommate made cookies!
-Realizing that throwing my towel and robe into the dryer before I shower is obviously the best idea I've ever had.

Oh, and I also discovered the most hilarious blog ever while trolling Facebook tonight! (Did I really just say "trolling"? Oh no, the teenagers are getting to me. Next thing you know, I'll be calling people "salty"... apparently this is what you say when someone is in a bad mood/has a bad attitude... or something like that. That was my take anyway, urbandictionary.com says it's being angry or upset.)

Anyway, it's VERY sarcastic, so if you're easily offended by sarcasm, just don't bother, but everyone else, seriously go read it now, you'll die of laughter! (Well, almost... I really don't want anyone to die due to my blog post!)

This started as a Facebook status (the original list), but it just kept getting longer and longer and longer,  so I decided that I should update my poor little blog. I should stop neglecting it! (Seriously. I just read my blog post to make sure it sounded okay before clicking "Publish" and I realized that I could have talked about so many things these last few days!)