The power of a paper mustache

It was Parent/ Teacher conference week at school. Which translates to a week of 12+ hour days and lots of hoping I look like an adult.

“Yes, I’m only 23. No, I have no children of my own… but really you should listen to me, I’m a professional!”

Needless to say it’s a week that takes its toll on a teacher. By Friday I was tired, worn out and my patience was running a little thin.

If you have ever worked with large groups of children you know that their attitude is directly affected by the one you bring into the classroom. If I start off the morning with a “Woo-Hoo! Reading and math are sooo much fun! I LOVE phonics!” kind of attitude we usually have a good day. Unfortunately kids are pretty perceptive and can tell when I’m really just thinking “How much longer until 20 minuets of glorious, peaceful, quiet lunch time?” Because of this lack of educational enjoyment on my part and the fact that it was Friday my students were pulling out all their best misbehavior moves.

By the time we rolled around to math I was being a pretty rotten teacher. I had yelled when I knew I shouldn’t have, had taken away ridicules amounts of recess, and even contemplated just putting on a “math movie” rather then teaching. But I decided push through with our math activity for symmetry- folding paper in half, cutting out designs and then finding/ drawing the line of symmetry. Of course all I could think about was the fact that my classroom was going to be covered in tiny pieces of paper, which lead me to grumble about the lack of vacuuming that takes place, which only deepened my sour mood. (Have I mentioned that I was being a pretty rotten teacher yet?)

I was taking deep breaths trying to keep my frustration in check while explaining to Diamond for the 100^th time that there was no right way to do this activity, just cut out some triangles in the paper and move on, when I heard “Teacher! Teacher!” being chanted behind me quickly followed by a pair of little fingers poking me in the side.

Now every teacher has pet peeves. Things that students do that really make you grind your teeth. The top two on my list just happen to be getting jabbed in the side and being lumped into the generic “Teacher” title.

I spun around ready to let those little 2^nd graders have a

taste of “Teacher’s” wrath and was face to face with this sight….

“Look Miss. Gates! We have mustaches!”

Teaching is hard. It brings all my imperfections to the surface just about everyday and shows me how far I still have to go. It challenges me with issues I never thought I would have to deal with. But it also gives me a classroom full of 7 and 8 year olds who make me smile with their silly mustaches.

So I’ll be back on Monday with renewed energy, new lesson plans and hopefully that “Woo-Hoo! Isn’t long E totally amazing” attitude again. And if that doesn’t work I just may have to make a mustache for myself….

A Dusting of Snow

Over all my move to Utah has been a pleasant experience. Sure there are something I don’t love about it (culture shock seems to happen on a regular basis) and there are many, many things I miss about my beloved Chattanooga. But days like today make me smile and I find myself thinking how hard it will be to leave here when the time comes.

Here’s one reason why:

The wind was cold when I left school today. It had rained most of the morning, which meant indoor recess, which translates to a class ready to bounce off the walls.

I was tired.

It can be hard work getting kids excited about blending words when they can barely sit still. As I got into my car and left the school I was thinking about a million different things at once: What am I going to do about Student A’s struggle with subtraction. I really don’t want to call Student B’s parents but I know I need to. I need to get the oil changed. Do I have anything for dinner in the fridge? And the list goes on.

But when I turned a corner it all went away.

I gasped.

Seriously, it was an audible “holy crap” kind of gasp. There, right in front of me, were the mountains that I see everyday, but while I was keeping kids contained someone had dusted them with soft powdery snow. It was beautiful. That same rain that had kept my kids inside had created this amazing picture. I almost felt a little guilty now for cursing it the way I had all morning. For the rest of my drive home my mind was quite, it seemed that everything would work out and get done.

I love the mountains here in Salt Lake. They turn me into a romantic, an optimist. Remind me that life is good and it’s going to be ok. And some days that’s just what I need.

Photo from: http://www.images.com/image/424154/skyline-of-salt-lake-city-ut-with-snow-capped-wasatch-mountains-in-background/?&results_per_page=1&detail=TRUE&page=51

The Wheels on the Bus or The week I abandoned my car

Yes, it’s true; I’m parking my car and going without for a week. My plan is to use my feet, bike and UTA (Salt Lake’s public transportation) to get around. I realize that for many this is nothing earth shattering, truly it’s something people do everyday. So why then am I doing it and further more why am I writing about it you may ask. Well, before I give you the answer allow me a moment of clarification.

When I mentioned this plan to a friend of mine a few days ago she enthusiastically praised my “greenness”. Let me squelch that assumption from the start. My lists of reasons for going without a car is long but I’m sorry to say that doing it to “go green” is pretty much on the bottom. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a wonderful result of this experiment but I feel I need to admit that it’s not my primary goal. And while I’m being honest the idea of blogging about my attempts to save the planet one bus trip at a time just seems cliché and … well… a little hokey. So with that confession off my chest here’s some insight into the real reasons.

The first is rather practical in nature. While I don’t consider myself to be of the Southerner variety, spending a majority of my youth in South Georgia did result in a few dispositions in that direction. One of which is my ardent love and yet intense dislike of snow. I found my first snowfall last year in Utah to be one of the most beautiful things I’d encountered… and then I had to drive home in it. Luckily I lived mere blocks from school so if the snow on the roads was to intimidating I could just walk to work. However, in the last few months I have moved downtown (which I adore!) but am now facing a 12 mile commute in potential blizzards! Not my idea of a good time. So here’s my thinking- on those fateful mornings when I wake up to a car covered in snow I can just hop on a bus and let someone else navigate the slick roads. And I figure what better way to be ready for the first snowfall then to practice for a week. Brilliant, no?!

The next reason is perhaps a bit less practical and actually has nothing to do with transportation. I’ve recently been struck by the importance of teaching my students to be not only good readers but good writers as well. As any teacher has no doubt heard over and over again “read to write and write to read”, the two go hand in hand! And while I feel that my ability to teach, model, and scaffold effective reading has greatly improved over my first year of teaching, my writing lessons are less then amazing. Therefore I have made it my goal to become a better writer. One can’t teach what you don’t know, right? So this experiment is really a springboard, a topic of interest, to get the pen to paper (er… fingers to keyboard?) in hopes of discovering more about my own writing process and take that back to the classroom to help my students.

The last reason is a simple one. I teach at a year round school and am currently on one of my three week breaks and…well… I’m kind of bored!

So here goes! Osgood (yes that’s my cars name, don’t mock him) has been parked along the curb for his week of rest. The bike tiers are pumped up, I’ve got my UTA TRAX and bus schedules printed and a new book to read in hand. Just missing one thing so, all together now, “The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round…..”