That is far too much, and I’m really kicking myself for letting me do this to myself. Really, Miss Wren, you should have been doing work for the past two weeks. I shouldn’t have let it get pushed back so far. Now I have three projects due this week and I’ve only just started on them. Ah crud.

And I got all my travel vaccines today (and I didn’t have to get my tetanus after all!). But three vaccines in both arms plus lots of heavy books put my arms completely out of commission after I got home from the library. It was really quite pathetic. I had to ask my father to pull my bag and books out of the car because it felt like my muscles were going to tear themselves to shreds if I even moved my arms. It’ll be totally worth it when I’m in Xela though. I’ve got another 12 hours or so of work lined up for tomorrow, too. At least I got my girl Aurora on my back. We’re library hopping tomorrow.

I just have to make it through Wednesday. Wednesdays are my new night off, so I just need to finish my Thursday project on Wednesday and I’m golden. Never mind the huge Tuesday Project and huge Monday project and presentation. I might actually cry.

That’s right, I will be teaching ~25 youngsters in a public classroom and I will be paying a university for the privilege. Now I’m no stranger to the unpaid internship, I’ve had plenty coming from the entertainment industry. But student teaching is a little different. It’s not running coffee and giggling with professionals; it’s teaching. It’s accepting the full responsibilities of a teacher without compensation. This is the business of changing lives, people.

This is completely ridiculous. And also somewhat enraging. And the logistics of it for a non-undergraduate student are next to impossible. I’m among the lucky ones in my program; I don’t have children I need to support. I’ve got free room and board to help me float the five months of forced “unemployed employment.” I know a number of single moms in my classes. I can’t even comprehend how much in savings they’ll need to be able to survive that semester. I cringe as I discuss working tail evenings and weekends with the couple who are as lucky as me.

I’m angry. I love my job more than anything, and I’m angry that I have to leave it and it’s meager salary (let’s forget the fact that I’d be willing to do it for free). I’m angry that I have to leave my buddy for a minimum of 5 months, possibly after this year if that’s what his parents and the district think is best. I’m angry that there is no way I can do both. And I’m angry that I’m going to have fight high school students for minimum-wage part-time grunt work with evening and weekend hours. But that doesn’t compare to the anger that this havoc-wreaking institution is thrusting on my lives and those whom I work with. I could at least understand it a little easier if I didn’t have to pay out of my pocket for this “privilege.” I could at least justify it if I would receive some form of compensation beyond the promise of a degree in the future.

I don’t want to leave my job. My job is the whole reason I’m getting this degree. I just find it incredibly upsetting that the two are in conflict, a conflict that doesn’t make much sense.

As for the anecdotes…I somehow always get elected to be secretary of X, Y, & Z due to my compulsive organization. This leads me to reading much more of my classmates’ work than most others do. Today I had the pleasure of reading a summary that was twice as long as the text it was trying to summarize. I’m not even sure what to do with something like that. I’m not even sure how that works, period.

I’m still baffled.

This semester looks like it’s going to shape up to being Hell on earth. Someone in one of my classes actually asked if the class textbook was a scholarly source. Seriously? No, seriously? If you have to ask that question, what are you doing in graduate school? The lecture on using a variety of sources and the textbook and blahblahblah that ensued from this question was a major waste of time. And I know that person was here last semester, so really there’s no excuse.

Also, I think my Teaching P.E. professor was my P.E. teacher when I was in, like, 3rd grade or so. Awkward much?

Yeah, it’s a real super party. But, I figure, I have the time now. I don’t really have anything better to do with my time, so I might as well get ahead while I can. Having finally made some friends in the vicinity of my parents’ house means that I’d like to have more free time so I might have a more active social life this semester. You know, the semester where I’m taking four graduate courses.

I’m kind of bummed out though: I checked my credit card statements today and almost threw up. $479 on textbooks (and just textbooks). I even got several of them deeply discounted, (50% off or more). And I still need to buy school supplies. I need more binders and post-its. Tiny post-its. Expensive post-its.

It’s pretty rotten when your books cost more than 10% of your tuition costs. Even with a lot of them purchased for a more than fair price. My bank account is going to suffer so dearly this semester.

Hi Dr. Jackson!

Do our narrative defense and philosophy portion have to be two distinct sections? I can’t imagine defending my lesson plans without talking about my personal philosophy. This may be because I view lesson plans as a road map, not necessarily a rigid step-by-step manual to by followed to the T (and I think the way I wrote them reflects that). I loathe everything that scripted instruction stands for and the way I see my lesson plans actually happening in my theoretical classroom is directly influenced by research, my philosophy, and the way I see my class-at-large working beyond the lesson plans. I have so many things that are operating (in my head at this point, at least) that don’t belong in my lesson plans. I have thoughts about year-long portfolios for various things, I have reading passports that exist beyond the curriculum but involve the curriculum, etc.  The way I would implement the lesson plan instruction of “Have students draw what they see.” goes so far beyond just drawing and involves many opportunities for expression.

I don’t think I can separate a research-based defense from a philosophical approach because, to me, they are so interrelated. You can’t have one without the other. I, personally, think a lot of the problems we see in education today are caused by trying to isolate research from philosophy and attempting to only take one or the other into account. I think that’s fundamentally flawed and in some cases may actually be dangerous.

I mean, could I make them be two distinct sections? If I absolutely had to. But trying to force it into that structure feels entirely unnatural to me and might do a disservice to to my actual plan.

Please let me know.

Thanks!
Wren

My subjects are only five and six years old, and they have no idea that the interactions they have today will, in many ways, affect who they will become for the rest of their lives.  My inner anthropologist has reared its head and I can’t help but notice the subtle interactions of social hierarchy that my kindergartners display.  They are in an awkward position: they know nothing about what social power means, but somewhere deep in their subconscious, they know they want it.

Already conspicuous consumption is a big part of their lives.  It’s never more apparent than on Halloween.  It makes me cringe to see them so young already deciding what’s cool and what’s not and forming opinions of their peers based on this.  Especially when none of them really understand what it means to be Michael Jackson when they decide it’s not the hip thing.  It hurts me greatest when I realize I’m the most prized possession of all.

I am not a teacher and our kids know that.  Since it’s hard to explain to students so young what exactly I am and why, they just know me as my buddy’s special adult friend.  They know he is different, but they do not really understand why, nor why it demands so much attention from an adult.  They’re still young enough that they don’t see the ability gap.  They know he is different because we say he is, and because he doesn’t talk often and has so much modified furniture to help his tiny frame fit.  Bless them, they do not hold it against him.

They volley for my attention.  They ask me questions about lots of things, more so than our teacher.  I think they feel more comfortable asking me the random questions since I sit at tables with them, and am with them during carpet time.  I occupy this strange in-between place.  Not teacher, not student, but someone who acts as both depending on the situation.  And that is where my own status endowment comes in: I’m the coolest of the students because I’m not a student.

I don’t know how to deal with this.  My Classroom Dynamics class is also on the topic of social status and the influences it has on the classroom.  I made a status map of our classroom.  It broke my heart how easily I placed some at the top and some at the bottom.  They don’t know how in a few years time, the opinions they have formed of each other will determine everything about their school life.  They don’t know just how important being part of a clique will be.

I can’t stop it.  I can only help it by, somewhat uncomfortably, giving what power I can to the students on the bottom of my list.

That’s right. My master’s is cheaper than health care. I can’t even come up with anything to say about it.

I already mentioned the H1N1 vaccine disaster. Now they’ve canceled their other clinics due to running out. As I said: we’re all doomed.

I’m exhausted and stressed out about things. It hasn’t helped that my medications make it hard for me to sleep if I don’t do that weird skip-every-fourth-day regimen. Guess who forgot to skip the fourth day during such a busy week? Oh yeah, I totally loved waking up every hour or so last night and then being up for 20-30 minutes. It also hasn’t helped that the last twenty minutes of down-time I had at work were scheduled up with K-Leap interventions.

As I say all the time: I love my job, and I love my buddy, but having a few minutes to just hang out in Kindergarten when he’s with a specialist was a welcome pause. Today was kind of a grumpy day anyway. He was tired, and we had a run-in with projectile, goopy snot. And we painted our faces green.  God bless water-soluble paint. I don’t know how I would have explained that one.  At least he didn’t rub hand sanitizer in his eyes today.

I just wish I didn’t have to wake up early tomorrow for a checkup with my brain doctor. Sleep would be so welcome tonight, and being able to sleep in past 8:30 would be incredible. C’est la vie.