I've always been a fan of creative writing. I was the kid who delighted at the idea of writing anything other than an essay. I loved the way that we could spill our brains onto the paper without confines. If we wanted to splash some color outside the lines, we can. But, as I've gone through all of my schooling, I've seen some people balk at the idea of no rules. I've seen people fall into the comfort of a structured essay like they would a fraying blanket.

While this has been a mystery to me, I understand the need for structure. Sometimes it can be good thing. I know that I've had my moments where someone says write and I say, what do you want me to write. They say anything. I say what? A part of that is social conditioning, but a part of that is wiring.

Though I may not be wired that way, I have to acknowledge the people that are. As a teacher, I could terrify someone with the thought of creative writing while simultaneously bore someone to tears at the prospect of yet another essay. So what's the balance?

Recently I've been doing a project (a unit on Ender's Game) that requires reading strategies and group activities (both large and small). I want to integrate blogging, videos, and podcasts. I want to talk about war and right and wrong and politics. But what if I have students who don't like speaking? Or being on film? Or writing a creative piece from a different point of view?

The way I solved this little issue was to give alternate assignments. I know that it creates more work for me, but it also lets me utilize this project as a resource. If they don't want to write a creative piece from a different POV, those students can use the alternate project of writing an essay on the differences in character and how that shaped the story. If another person besides the main character had been the commander in charge, would the same out come have occurred? Why? What are the fundamental differences that define the characters? While this is inherently covered in a creative writing piece, an essay can accomplish the same thing through explanation.

I want all of my students to feel comfortable so they can learn the way they need to. It may be a little more work for me, but I'm not the important one here am I?

I had this terrifying moment today of, "I don't want to be a role model." It's such a concerning term. To think that someone will look at you as an ideal of... something. In this case, I have issues with being an ideal adult.

I don't have my life anywhere close to being together. I think that we forget that adults are just making it up as they go along. I know I am. I recently received my horizontal ID in the mail and I still don't feel adultish. I'm having problems adulting.

So how am I supposed to walk into a classroom and be like, "Hello children I am an adult follow my adulting examples!"

Seriously?

I question my decisions about my lunch, and you want me to be a role model? What?

The question of the year is this: How do I pretend I am a proper adult?

Answer: You don't.

Pretending to be all knowing is one of the biggest mistakes a teacher can make. Showing humanity is one of the main conclusions I've come to about connection and relationship.

Whenever I tell people I'm going to be a teacher, I get one of two responses. Oh! I love English. Or Oh, I hated my English teacher. It's amazing the perceptions that people carry with them far after high school is over. I always ask why they hated or loved a certain teacher, and it didn't come from pretending to be all knowing with this fancy degree.

The teachers that were the most loved were those who cared. They were the teachers who enjoyed teaching their subject, even when they knew the students didn't like it so much. They were the ones who had strange quirks. Who drank coffee and admitted mornings weren't meant for them. They were the teachers who admitted their faults but tried to get beyond them. They were the teachers who made class interesting, who weren't jerks, who went to football games, who nerded out, who didn't hate on the trouble makers, who tried to teach them something by talking to them, not at them.

All of these things are easier said than done. I realize that not all of my students will leave my class liking me. But I do know that they're never going to learn if I keep pretending that I'm Miss perfect.

Recently I had the opportunity to talk with teachers and principals from charter, alternative, and private schools, and to be honest, I'm sold.

I think one of my biggest fears as a teacher, and more importantly as a person, is to end up stuck in middle class suburbia. Now, don't get me wrong. Do middle class suburbia kids need good teachers, yes. Is that something that I would enjoy doing? Less so. I have always wanted adventure. I grew up in middle class suburbia and it's not my particular idea of adventure, especially when it comes to teaching. I want to travel to a different country and teach at an American School. I want to go to a big city and teach inner city. I want to see all different walks of life, and oddly enough, the one that I never considered was the lives of the well off.

I want to clarify that going to a private school doesn't make you rich. A lot of charter schools and private schools run off of scholarship or lottery. But, to be honest, my mom and I weren't exactly middle class when I was a kid. We got by well enough and I never went hungry, but we did happen to live in a place where we needed an exterminator once a month and neither of us EVER went out at night. It wasn't until I was reunited with my dad that things started to get better for us fiscally.

Thus, private school was always an enigma.

After talking to said teachers and principals from these different types of schools, I've been successfully enticed. I think that their curriculum is sometimes more successful because they think outside the box. Often times there is more flexibility within the classroom, or they have a proven method that prepares their 7th graders to successfully read Twelfth Night with a high capacity for comprehension (true story). I think that it's a beautiful way to run a school.

Do I have experience in these schools? Goodness no, but you know what? I'm willing to try it and see what happens.

I've been at a loss of what to write lately. I've been over worked and overwhelmed. I keep trying to think on if high school was this bad, and you know what? It was in its own way. I remember being overwhelmed by emotions and self doubt. I remember feeling like each day was a battle that would never end.

So what's so different now? I pay bills and work a job and do more homework, but I'm also more sure of myself, more confident in who I am, and I feel attractive.

Being a teenager is hard. Sometimes I want to look back and shake myself or maybe imbue my younger self with just a sliver of my current confidence in who I am. I want to tell her that she just needs to brush her hair and stop wearing the same damn hoodie every day and she'll be okay. That she's beautiful.

I think as adults we miss the subtle signs that might seem obvious to a teenager. Yes, they are dramatic, but at the time it's not drama at all, it's very real. So why would I want, especially as a teacher, to look down on them for their problems because they aren't mine? It's ridiculous.

As a teacher, I don't want to be that all knowing adult that will tell them, "This will pass," or "Right now it seems like its the end of the world, but its not."

I find it demeaning to teens who are just trying to get through the best they can. Being overwhelmed isn't a bad thing.

I recently went to an Easter christian church service with my mother. I haven't been to church since I left for college because organized religion terrifies me and tends to rub me the wrong way. Now, as a disclaimer, I'm not an atheist nor am I insulting Christianity, I merely want to touch on it's relevance to my life.

I never pictured myself as an intimidating person. I'd always thought of myself as very approachable and fairly friendly. As a student in high school myself, I was liked fairly well, but I don't think I was ever disliked. I just kept to myself.

I never realized how intimidating I might be to people younger than me until I stepped into a classroom. Some treated me as a wall flower, some as a challenge, and some as a monster to be avoided at all cost.

I'd never pictured myself as a potential fire breathing dragon up until that point.

When I was a kid, I never saw teachers as scary. Being an only child up until the age of 13 meant that the people that I hung out with as a kid were all adults. I had no true fear of authority, so I couldn't understand why other kids were so afraid to ask for help. I became the knight that could confront the fire breathing dragon while my fellow classmates cowered in their huts.

I never thought of myself as one of these mysterious creatures. I'm not saying that all kids have a fear of authority, or even a fear of asking for help. I have just had to accept that there are some kids who only see me as a dragon, and not as a person that can help them. I am not the queen in my classroom to most of my kids. To most of my kids I am the dragon crouching atop my desk waiting for the unread traveler to be caught in my jaws of doom.

Relationships with kids are so much more than a classroom management tactic. Relationships, and paying attention to the way your are viewed as a teacher, can take you from a dragon, to a queen, and that makes all the difference.

I knew when I entered the teaching program at my university that I wanted to one day get my masters degree. It's no secret that a masters degree can easily bump you 10,000 a year in pay. I love college. I love the pursuit of knowledge and the thrill of learning something new. It is the reason I get A's and B's; I don't have anyone to disappoint but myself.

So when I realized that I have the opportunity to get my masters at NYU on scholarship and fellowship means, I was extremely excited. But here's the problem. How do I live in New York? While it's possible to teach in New York Public Schools and get my masters at the same time, this limits me financially. I would barely make enough for rent, food, and utilities. I would have virtually no money for much more.

It got me thinking. Teaching is one of the lowest paying professions out there that is of value to society. How sad is that?

One of the first things that I was told entering the teaching program was, "I hope you're not in this for the money."

We're told that our job is valuable.

We're told that our job is extremely rewarding.

We're told that no matter how bad it gets, it is always going to be worth it.

We're told we're doing something amazing.

Yet so many teachers leave the profession. So many realize that they can get a less stressful job AND be payed more.

How messed up is that?

I REALLY want to be that crazy English teacher. It's one of my life goals to get consistent looks of exasperation from my students. I don't anger easily and I don't respond to subtle forms of distraction. Actually, quite the opposite, I react to them.

For example, when I did one of my practicums we had a group discussion. The class was split to either side  and I took one half and the actual 8th grade teacher took the other side. I started out with basic questions about plot. Then we moved into the real questions. We were reading Night by Elie Weisel.

"Ms? Why didn't they just leave when the Nazi's moved into town?"
"Yeah, they knew they were dangerous."
"My family and I would have been three shades of gone."

I listened to them all start to agree.

"Well," I started. They all lapsed into silence. "This is assuming that we all know the ending. These people didn't."

A few nodded, some looked confused, and others were set in their convictions.

"Okay. Story time kiddos. I work in a kitchen in a restaurant, and I've learned a lot of fun ways to cook things. I had Lobster explained to me. Does anyone know how to cook a lobster?"

One girl raised her hand, but still looked lost at the comparison I was trying to make.


"Lobsters are cooked alive." A few gasps from some of the group. "In order to not have them freak out, you start them off in cold water and slowly bring the pot to a boil. Even as the water gets hotter and hotter, the lobster won't move because it isn't aware of what is happening. Now, in the terms of the Nazi's and the Jewish, who is the lobster and who is the cook?"

There was mass amounts of dawning comprehension and they were all too stunned to speak. I couldn't decide whether I'd traumatized them with the idea of killing a lobster or the idea of the Nazi's killing the Jews.

Finally, one girl goes, "Poor lobster."

Chaos ensued as people argued about lobster, life and death, and the humane way to kill a lobster/Jew. I was able to steer the conversation into the Jews being slowly cooked. We discussed whether they would be aware that they were being cooked. At what point? We talked about the idea of teachers walking in there, gathering you all up and saying they were taking you somewhere safe. Most of them said they would have gone because they were teachers and they were trusted figures of authority. Some said that they would refuse to go.

Overall, it was an amazing discussion and the other half of the class couldn't figure out why we were having this great debate about lobster. I was later pulled aside by my teacher and asked what we discussed and why it got them in such an uproar.

"I told them how to cook a lobster because many of them couldn't understand why the Jews didn't just leave when the Nazi's rolled into town. They started off with cold water and slowly increased the heat."

She nodded her head. "That's a really good comparison; I never thought about that."

Needless to say, I'm not a teacher that requires a deadly quiet classroom. I am not opposed to the expression of opinion. I have the ability to wade into a sea of chaos and come out the other side without a scratch. I am not of the opinion that kids learn just by being told what is right. I think the best way to learn is to have them come to the conclusion for themselves.


Side Note: I also hate when teachers answer a question with a question. (eg. "Why didn't the Jews just leave when the Nazis rolled into town?" "Why do you think they didn't leave when the Nazis rolled into town?") Don't be that teacher.

I've been asked so many times where I want to work as a teacher. And to be honest, I have no clue. I'm not married, I don't have kids, and I really don't have too many attachments other than my family to Colorado (though they're extremely supportive of exploration).

So where do I want to go?

Recently we've had to draw up an assessment portfolio for one of my education classes. Part of the assignment is to draw up a demographic and some context to your lesson plans based on the school, district, and area that you work in. I chose downtown San Francisco. I've only been there once in my life and kinda fell in love.


Though I've never lived in a city that large in my life I want to live in many different places. I want to backpack Europe. I want to international teach in South America, I want to live in New York, I want to meet all sorts of strange and amazing people. I love the idea of teaching because I get summers and breaks to do these things. If I want to take my summer to the Himalayan Mountains, I can.


But where do I want to start? I'm not entirely sure. Do I want to work in inner city San Francisco? Yes. Is that the best place to make all of my mistakes? I'm not sure. Do I want to international teach? Yes. Should I throw myself into not only a new job but a new country at the same time? I don't know.

I think sometimes in life we have so many opportunities that it seems impossible to make a decision.

I think I'll just have to see when graduation gets closer. I know I want to teach, but the question will always be where.

I didn't always love books. In fact, I didn't read much at all in middle school. I also didn't read too many of the assigned books in high school. Don't get me wrong, I love to read, but assigned reading was what always bit me in the ass. I think coasting through literature is one of the biggest epidemics in schools today.

Usually it occurs when students don't understand a text. I remember having a class called Literary Criticism. It is EXACTLY as horrible as it sounds. We had a book called A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. It was paired with a textbook-ish explanation of criticism and philosophy. Philosophy in itself is vaguely confusing and pair it with large words and complex literature and you have Slacker Soup.

We were supposed to read a few chapters of Joyce's book a week and then they were explained in class. That was the theory. I don't remember much from that class. I remember reading the chapters, giving up halfway through, then coming to class. I remember sitting near the front and I would scribble half a page of notes because I couldn't comprehend what he was trying to explain. I left the class with more questions than I started with. The explanations of the reading only led to more and more confusion. I was vaguely aware of the topic and about half the year I was eating Slacker Soup every day in that class.

I stopped doing the readings because I didn't understand them anyways. I doodled in my notebook and played on my computer and because I was always typing, the professor would continue to drone about Freud and Plato and Joyce. We had two essays and three quizzes that semester. I did okay on the quizzes, but it was the papers I excelled at. I'm not sure how to this day. I did a paper on Nietzsche and I think it had something to do with literature?

Sigmund Freud

I remember that Freud was saying that we constantly repressed the Id, or the child in ourselves ("I want"), and sometimes that emerged and upset society. I think I would have loved to have seen Freud against a feminist.

Regardless, you can see I didn't learn much in that class. Here's the magical part, I passed that class with a B. I'm not sure how that happened because I barely knew the names of these dinosaurs let alone their rambling theories of the human consciousness.

That happens a lot in school. I still have the amazing ability to not read and contribute to the conversation based off of context. Some teachers try to combat this in classrooms by creating impossibly specific tests and activities as if to punish the non-reader. As a teacher I want to do the opposite. I want to encourage kids to read with texts that they find interesting. I want to discuss what they're passionate about, because Slacker Soup does nothing for kids in the long run.

Content storage cannot emerge from difficulty and punishment.

The one thing I can't stand to hear people say to me is: I want to do this thing so badly, but...

Tony Stark does SCIENCE. Bruce Banner does SCIENCE. I... I do not do SCIENCE. I do ohgodwhatisthismybrainhurtsSTAHP. This is what I did tonight during my Chemistry test.

I want to clarify. I do not follow the stereotype of English majors who hate math. I do not hate math or science. I was actually pretty good at math in high school. By a miracle of unknown origins, I managed to walk into my university with 9 credits of math and haven't taken a math class since high school. I recently decided that I wanted a little bit of a challenge in my life and
decided to use my last required science credit for General Chemistry I.

This was a mistake.

I recently sat in a lecture hall with a hundred other college students as we were told to leave bags, jackets, wallets, cell phones, and even the covers to our calculators along the walls of the lecture room. For 30 questions we were given two hours. There were instructions in bold about cheating. We had to alternate pink tests and yellow tests down the rows. We were only allowed the clothing we were wearing with no visible papers in pockets, a pencil, and one of two very specific calculators. When I finished I had to turn in a cover letter with a signature on it saying I hadn't cheated as well as my scantron. They had to check both my cover letter and my scantron against my college ID.

I'm fairly certain I signed away my soul.

You see, despite the fact that I may have given my soul to my chemistry professor, I don't hate chemistry. If I get a C or a D, I will still not hate chemistry.

I have this belief that hatred cannot occur with a specific intellectual subject until you've tried your hardest to understand and to make yourself better at it.

Did I study as much as I should have? No. Will I do all the homework when it is assigned instead of the day before its due? Yes. Have I really tried to understand? No. Have I gone to get help for the concepts that stumped me? No.

I have not tried my hardest to master chemistry despite what I'd promised myself when I'd signed up for the class. While I've done all of the assigned homework, I have not done the extra practice problems, and that bit me it the ass today.

You can't hate something because you don't understand it. You can't hate something until you've mastered it. The same thing applies to reading. I hear it constantly from not just kids, but adults too.

"Oh, I hate reading."
"I always fall asleep when I read."
"Reading is so boring."
"It takes me months to read a book."

I always respond with different variations of the same thing: "I'm going to tell you a fact then I'm going to ask you a question. Reading is not programmed into our brains. It is an unnatural thing for our brains to do because we are better equipped at birth for math than we are words. So when you say you hate reading, is it because you aren't good at it yet or because you've mastered it and still discovered a dislike for it?"

Some stay silent. Some only nod in agreement, refusing to answer my question. And some answer. They usually tell me they aren't good at it. Reading is slow going for them and the words don't form pictures in their heads. They often don't understand the vocabulary, or they cannot connect the ideas from passage to passage in their heads.

I recently read the book When Kids Can't Read by Kayleen Beers. There are ways to identify dependent readers and this is often the category that people who say they hate to read fall under.

I genuinely believe that as a teacher or a person, you have to identify the problem and then do everything you can to fix it before you can make such a harsh declaration of hatred.

So no, I don't hate chemistry because I haven't mastered it. I haven't given it my best shot and practiced and practiced at something that I'm not good at.

After you've tried your absolute best and mastered the skill, only then do you have the right to say, "I definitely know the difference between an ionic and covalent bond, and it makes me vomit in my mouth a little bit. I hate chemistry."

What are we teaching to our kids?

There are a ridiculous amount of required readings throughout school that involve history and emotion and science. We preach of diversity in our classrooms: of race, of gender, of history, etc. But what conversations are being had about those topics?

Written by Arthur Miller (1949)

When I was in 10th grade we read Death of a Salesman. Probably one of my favorite projects in that class as half of the class had to preform Act 1 and half of the class had to preform Act 2. We were separated into actors, set design, directors, musicians, etc, and I loved this because it meant that no matter if you were introvert or extrovert, you had a place and a job to do. Looking back, it was a great way to force the class to read the play in a short amount of time with enthusiasm. It was filmed and preformed during class after a week or two of preparation. It was the most fun I've had reading a play that I typically would have deemed boring.

But here's the thing I don't remember.

I don't remember being asked to interpret the character's motivations. I don't remember analyzing the gender relationship between the salesman and his wife. I don't remember addressing the relationship between the son and the salesman. I don't remember discussing gender roles, insanity, or suicide.

Plays are great to teach; they add a creative element that a novel can't. It allows students to get up and move. Yet so many things could have been covered. I don't remember analyzing how the characters should be portrayed. Was there misogyny in the play? Was there abuse in the play? How would that be portrayed on stage?

I think as teachers we need to incorporate entertainment and learning. Plays are a great way to get the students to think about sensitive topics without triggering something delicate. So many times topics like feminism, misogyny, and abuse are glossed over because we think adolescents are too sensitive to handle said topics. So in what way can we teach these problems without upsetting multiple parties?

It's an age old question, but I think the teaching of plays in an English classroom is a great way to talk about these things. I think we have an opportunity to open up these topics in a classroom in a safe way, and I plan on trying to incorporate plays into my classroom because of it.

Dana Goldstien (2011)

After finishing the book The Teacher Wars by Dana Goldstien I realized that so many people aren't educated on the history of education. This lead to Goldstien's point in the epilogue. What are we going to do with this information? Why aren't we changing?

I can't read.

This is a phrase I hear frequently in the classrooms I've observed. It is usually mumbled and their ears start to turn bright red, the blush working their way across their face as their classmates stare.

My first experience in a classroom was an 8th grade Read 180 classroom. For those of you that aren't aware of what Read 180 is, it is a program designed to help kids get closer to their grade level of reading through small groups and a computer program. The class can consist of general education students or special education students, though usually it is the latter.

In this class of about 12 there was a student, let's call him Andy, that didn't like me very much. He was a social kid with lots of friends and had plenty of girls to flirt with. When ever he would get on the computer to do the module for the day he would constantly distract his partner. I would inevitably kneel down between the two and look at Andy.

"Can you work on the assignment for the day? You haven't even read the passage."

His ears turned red and it rushed across the back of his neck. "I can't read."

Now if he truly couldn't read he would have been placed in a lower level Intervention class, so I knew that that statement wasn't quite true.

I had no idea what to tell him. I was never sure what to tell him actually, and I'm still formulating a proper response.

Further through the semester he and I got into our share of battles. He, at one point, shouted at me in front of the whole class while the teacher was out of the classroom.

He had yelled, "You're not my teacher!"

We had to have a talk, me, Andy, and the Read 180 teacher. He mumbled an apology. The teacher looked him straight in the face and said, "Don't treat her like you treated me the first few weeks."

I had two more weeks left in the classroom and Andy and I had been getting along surprisingly well. He had finally warmed towards me a little bit. He did what I asked during our small groups most of the time, grudgingly I might add.

On my last day we were joking around with a few of the other boys going over literary elements for their poems. I told them that knowing these things are important.

Andy said something that I'll never forget. "Why? It's not like we are going to finish high school anyways."

We, as teachers, all are taught that education is the pinnacle of society and at the age of 14, they already decided that their future had nothing to do with school. Some of the boys agreed with Andy's statement, others didn't.

I wish I'd had the courage to stow the smile and tell them, "Reading is a learned skill. It is not something that is supposed to occur naturally in your brain. Reading is like any other learned skill, you have to practice. If you chose to goof off and not try and say you hate reading, you will continue to hate it and think yourself more stupid for not knowing.

"You are not stupid. You're just a rookie. If you never practice, you'll never be varsity."

Not saying anything is one of my biggest regrets. My not speaking up probably confirmed exactly what he thought about himself, and that's something that I can never fix.

I recently started reading the book The Teacher Wars by Dana Goldstein. I think the most disturbing thing about the first five chapters of the book was how much I could see the old stigmas surrounding the teaching profession gnawing at the edges of our own modern system of education in the United States. In this overview of the history of teaching, there were mass amounts of debates about the teachers themselves. There were debates of gender, race, and quality. Many teachers for too many decades were under qualified, under paid, and overworked. Here's the scary part: we still are.

The world has always found issues with the idea of women as teachers. I wouldn't consider myself a radical feminist or even a radical libral, but I do believe in equality. Teaching is dominated by women because it is thought that we care more. That isn't true. I've seen men more excited to teach 5th graders than women to teach 6th graders. I've seen the passion that can come from a man when he talked about taking care of the kids in his class. I've also seen the same from women, but this is considered normal because we give birth.

Race was constantly brought up because freed black slaves could, in no way, be any smarter than white people. To be a black woman? Forget it. Teachers can be great no matter their color. The best teachers are the best because of the way they care about kids and the way they show them how great they can be.

Schools are still not properly funded in places and we have the same social stigmas against us but this time it isn't race or gender, or even our intellect. For many schools, they are discriminated for their economic class. In what way does it make sense for the poor schools to get less funding, less supplies, and less attention because they don't have as many AP students? Shouldn't they be getting more funding so they can improve their scores? In what way is this fair the kids that are so smart, but so bored because their needs can't be met due to lack of funding?

We are still fighting the federal government to teach kids what they are completely capable of knowing. Walking into a sixth grade classroom, one can be astonished what those kids are capable of despite their lack of math textbooks. Kids can be surprisingly compassionate, understanding, and intelligent if just given the right resources and teacher who cares.

The other issue that has been an issue since the 1800's is that of teacher pay. Teachers are still paid less than that of an office worker in a cubical doing HR and payroll. Many teachers live in low income housing and yet these are the people that are supposed to inspire kids to cure cancer. The great literary minds of the world, the great mathematicians, and the great businessmen are being taught by someone with a Bachelors getting underpaid because as a culture we cannot rise above the history of our past.

Reading Goldstein's book hurt me a lot as a future teacher to see how much Americans have refused to progress.

Want to check out more about this? The Teacher Wars is available at most bookstores and on Amazon.

I started my vague obsession with writing when I was around 15; short stories and daydreams mostly. They were an entertaining way to get through class. I would constantly be imagining a scenario where ninjas would fall through the ceiling and attack the math teacher, or a portal to another universe would open wide and spill out a blood soaked warrior. Writing was never an issue for me personally because I wrote so many stories and read so many books. I was self taught in grammar, in sentence structure, and in essay writing. By the time I was sixteen I had already scrapped the traditional form of essay writing. I started to integrate my ideas and weave an essay versus write an essay. Very few teachers gave me below a B, and when I actually made an effort in an essay, I rarely received anything below an A.

I think this was the exact reason I chose to become an English teacher. The way other kids struggled was always a mystery to me because I was always so good at it. The more I looked into this, the more I realized the difference in mentality. I loved it because I was good at it. The same way people love math, or playing music, or creating art. Writing took practice and concentration. Many people dismissed it because they assumed they were too dumb to catch on. I started reading when I was in 7th grade and that was what induced the writing. I read and learned how to write. The more I wrote the better I got. The better I got the more I loved writing.

In short, practice makes perfect. We aren't naturally programmed to know how to read and write. It is a learned skill that our brain must perfect just like playing guitar or throwing a football. Muscle memory and practice.

I love writing because it comes easy now after so many years of doing it. I want to show students that they can accomplish the same, if not an appreciation for writing and reading, if they only just practice.

I always loved English, it came naturally for me so class was naturally boring (pun intended). I don't think I ever got anything below a B on a paper until I reached my sophomore year of high school. I re-wrote that paper three times for that woman until she determined it good enough to warrant an A. Keep in mind, I didn't care about the A, she did. Those were the most in depth comments I ever got on an essay and ever would. So far, even the best of my writing has few comments. I wasn't sure was this is due to, laziness, time constrictions, or other issues either personal or professional, but I've learned the real value of thorough comments on an essay.

I've learned how to B.S. my way through many papers, so I know what it looks like. Working with middle school kids who are just learning how to write a thesis really rips away that veil. As a middle school teacher, you have to look past the grammar and the sentence structure to get to their ideas. They often have really great ideas, some of them really understand what they're supposed to do, but genius comes in simple sentences.

This challenged me to reassess my B.S.

As an aspiring English teacher, I write a lot of papers. This semester they have ranged from 2-15 pages in length and had varying levels of complexity. I have read over 1000 pages of material, skimmed probably another 500, and disregarded another 200. I have discovered the true meanings of the word "migraine" and the words "contemplative murder." I've had a few meltdowns and more than enough stress to kill coral.* But a few simple revelations alleviated most of that.

Write simply.

Over complication is what has killed my writing in the past. Take a concept, map it out, and write down your ideas and edit. The fancy language can come in later if at all.

I think the best part of being a teacher is learning all over again.

*Fun fact: If coral get too stressed, they die. What do coral get stressed about? I have no clue... OMG, they get stressed about currant events...

A flipped classroom is probably one of the more unique lesson plans that a teacher could build. It integrates technology, individual learning, pace setting, and a bunch of other great ideas that are hard to integrate into an English classroom. Shoot. It's hard to stuff all those ideals into any classroom. We decided to experiment on each other and paired up to try a flipped classroom.

What is a flipped classroom you say? Come, listen children. It's story time.

A flipped classroom is exactly what it implies. The lesson is taught at home and the homework is done in class. Teachers create videos for the kids to watch for homework. They watch said video and we attached a note catcher to our lesson that our "students" had to bring in. Our math majors watched a video on Plot Diagrams and filled out their work sheet to bring into class. We, on the flip side (haha get it, flipped! No, just me? Okay...), watched a video on fractions and took a Google Forms quiz attached in the description of the YouTube video. It was pretty cool. Once the students reconvene in class, the class is spent doing an activity. Our resident math majors had to create their own plot diagram for a scary story (since it is almost Halloween after all), and fill in things like conflict, setting, rising action, etc. We on the other hand did a fraction worksheet in class.

This had its pros and its cons. On one hand, it was really handy having the teacher's sitting next to us as we did our activity. When we had questions we only had to turn around and ask and they were able to show us pretty easily. When they had questions, the same was available. What I really liked about the math side of this was that I could go through the video, pause, and repeat what I didn't understand the first time through. I've never been bad at math, but I also haven't taken a math class in a very long time. It was nice to have someone walk it through step by step and still have the ability to rewind or fast forward through what I did or didn't understand.

For English, this type of lesson plan cuts your lessons in half time-wise. Usually a class is spent on a lecture then a planning session then in class writing then in class editing and so on. This can eat up a whole week's worth of classes. The lessons themselves can be watched for homework. Plot diagrams, writing, editing (verb choice, grammar, sentence structure, adjectives, etc); all of this can be taught at home. Then the kids get to come into class and get right to it. If they have questions, the teacher is right there when they get stuck and frustrated in their writing. For higher grade levels, English teachers often have the kids write their essays at home. While this is fine and dandy, some kids need that teacher there to help them when they hit a wall.

There are cons to this though. The big one is internet access. If the kids don't have access to a computer or internet at home, a YouTube video may become a real problem. It's also difficult to assess whether the kids watched the video or not which is why we created a note catcher and our math majors created a quiz. It's something that can be quickly graded for participation points or as a part of the whole unit. It also might be a good idea to have a place for them to ask questions if they were confused at any point in the video. Those should be addressed first before the activity has them in over their heads.

Overall, I loved the flipped classroom. As an English teacher it makes the writing portion of a unit that much easier to facilitate though some things should certainly be addressed in class. The flipped classroom places a lot of trust in the students as well, so make sure you get a good feel for your classroom before you try it.

Good luck and have fun!

Here's the links in case you're interested in what we created:

http://klorraineportfolio.weebly.com/flipped-classroom.html

I think the coolest thing in the world as a teacher is when someone is dead honest with you about what's okay in a classroom and what isn't. I actually never thought I was going to be a teacher because it sounded like defeat. You failed at being a writer, so you might as well teach kids some grammar. I didn't realized how much I wanted to teach until I realized that teaching isn't those who have failed in their passion. Teaching is being so excited about what you love that you want to infect others with it.

Teaching is a zombie apocalypse.

Photo by Yo Mostro

Though awesomely infectious, I've had very little experience in a classroom full of students that aren't as interested as you'd hoped. I'm still going through that process and that makes it all still seem pretty magical. But there are some things that college classes can't teach you. So I decided to go to a source.

In the blog, Cult of Pedagogy, Jennifer Gonzalez writes about various experiences she had in her eight years of middle school Language Arts. I think it is probably one of the most honest blogs to not only teachers, but parents as well. She discusses a variety of topics that really pinch that massive splinter most teachers avoid talking about. She tells stories about how she messed up, what she's seen teachers do wrong, and why it's completely valid in the long run.

For example, one of her posts revolved around humiliation in the classroom. She used the example surrounding a TV chef named Joe Bastianich.

Photo by Zagat Buzz

I've never personally watched him, but she gave a great description of why this man bothered her so much. He wasn't exactly a supportive person. He beat people down all the time throughout his show. She compared it to teaching. Many teachers use humiliation as a behavior control tool which isn't the best idea. It takes the focus from learning as well as telling the student that they are always going to be stupid and wrong.

In case you want to check it out yourself, here's the link to the blog post:

http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/joe-bastianich-teaching/

So much of her blog is filled with helpful advice and stories and examples that a new teacher wouldn't know yet. I highly recommend this blog if you are looking for a bit of honest advice whether you're new to teaching or just need some well thought out advice.

http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/