All names have been changed to protect the innocent.
If you want to know how someone's mind works, watch them take a vocabulary test.
Luke writes on the desk so hard that his pencil leaves a symphony of tick-tacking sound. His brow is furrowed. Every once in a while he will bang his head quietly on the desk.
Steve is also tense, so bothered by Luke's loud writing that he turns to glare at him. His breathing is fast, in tempo with his own pencil, which is shaking in his hand from intense concentration. He is the last to turn his test in, after having checked it over more than once.
Even with a cold, Leslie's face is serene and calm. Her breathing is soft and steady. She is the first to ask for clarification. She bunches her kleenex in neat little piles.
David is focused and thoughtful as he surveys the page. He is one of a few students who actually looks through the entire test before he starts it. I can see the same energy that he uses when stooping down to measure a putt on the golf course, careful, yet decisive.
Cindy's right leg shakes a mile a minute, bursting with the energy she uses on the field during a game.
Donald comments about losing his assignment sheet and that "he wouldn't have known the test was today if not for Facebook". He finishes in 20 minutes flat.
Suzy, as in class sometimes, works furiously and then, for a good five minutes straight, is distracted by her peeling fingernail polish.
No mystery here. The vocabulary test reveals all.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
Can I get some feedback? Student Meetings.
In the midst of final project conferences with my Women in Lit kids. Am loving the ideas they have: we're going to end up with children's books and videos and life-size paper mache Barbies.
What I'm loving most, however, is the ten or so minutes I get with each student. In talking to them about their projects I'm reaping the side benefit of getting to know each of them better. I wish I had done this sooner.
I'm getting amazing thoughts from students who are usually quiet. I'm having to cull down Ph.D. level goals for my overachievers. I'm learning even more deeply how each of my kids thinks--and figuring out different ways to deal with that.
I basically feel more connected with them all, and am considering ways to meet with all of my students in similar, quick, touch-base kind of ways from the very beginning. It takes up a lot of time on my part, but I feel so much better about both my relationship with each student and my ability to teach them in the best way possible.
Perhaps a quarter and mid quarter conference would work. The first meeting could be to lay it on the line: how are you as a student? What do I need to know about you? What are your strengths and weaknesses? We could also set concrete goals at that time, and put together a document for their folder. At mid quarter we'd check on those goals and add some progress notes on their goal sheet. Same for the rest of the meetings.
So that would be 4-5 meetings for semester courses and 8-10 for the year.
Teachers, what do you think? Or even non-teachers, for that matter--too much? Ideas?
What I'm loving most, however, is the ten or so minutes I get with each student. In talking to them about their projects I'm reaping the side benefit of getting to know each of them better. I wish I had done this sooner.
I'm getting amazing thoughts from students who are usually quiet. I'm having to cull down Ph.D. level goals for my overachievers. I'm learning even more deeply how each of my kids thinks--and figuring out different ways to deal with that.
I basically feel more connected with them all, and am considering ways to meet with all of my students in similar, quick, touch-base kind of ways from the very beginning. It takes up a lot of time on my part, but I feel so much better about both my relationship with each student and my ability to teach them in the best way possible.
Perhaps a quarter and mid quarter conference would work. The first meeting could be to lay it on the line: how are you as a student? What do I need to know about you? What are your strengths and weaknesses? We could also set concrete goals at that time, and put together a document for their folder. At mid quarter we'd check on those goals and add some progress notes on their goal sheet. Same for the rest of the meetings.
So that would be 4-5 meetings for semester courses and 8-10 for the year.
Teachers, what do you think? Or even non-teachers, for that matter--too much? Ideas?
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
It's all reciprocal.
It's days like these that I am simultaneously ecstatic and terrified to be a teacher.
I am tired. The pressure of keeping up with grading, attempting to lead and at times mediate 24 brilliant and strong-minded English teachers, nurturing and educating 41 teenagers in various stages of emotional chaos, all while making the effort to keep myself healthy, sane and fertile is sometimes more than I can take in a day. But I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Everyone is struggling right now: my 9th graders with public speaking and writing, my Women in Lit students with final projects and papers. They're all struggling with independent thinking and the challenge of balancing priorities and obligations. I ask them to be creative and they look at me with doubtful eyes: how can we find the time to do that? Just tell me what needs to be done.
What many of them do not understand is that we as teachers go through the same kinds of worry and doubt; we're balancing jobs and family and finances and friends. We think about lesson plans while cooking dinner. We worry about the very quiet student while we brush our teeth. We try to follow our own advice and take time out for exercise and movies and yoga, but sometimes these things fall by the wayside in favor of What Needs to Be Done.
I am inspired by my students every day. Right now my juniors and seniors are conferencing for their final projects; they're working incredibly hard to find a topic that both inspires and interests them. They need to make the final decisions on their own, and this is upsetting some of them to the point of physical expression: I have witnessed more than one teenager hold his head his his hands and literally try to squeeze out an idea, as if it's hiding somewhere in the back of their brain stem.
This both pains and excites me to watch. I tell them over and over: I know this is difficult, but you'll be prouder of an idea that you yourself engender. And some of them have engendered the most amazing projects--I can't wait to see how they turn out!
A lot of them are in some stage of sickness at the moment. There's a lot of Kleenex floating around. I point at the hand sanitizer on the way out the door every day. They are tired from studying, red-nosed and mussed. But they're fighting on, determined to get their work done, determined to do their best.
As much as I tell them to stay home, for goodness' sake, I so relate to everything they're going through-- not only because I was an Iolani student, but because I'm going through the same thing. They're stressed over Winterball. I'm stressed over getting all my Christmas cards addressed. They worry about college applications; I worry about future motherhood. Each of us is at some kind of cusp, waiting for the next phase of life to begin. And we're all working through it one day at a time.
I am ever thankful for my job, my colleagues and my students. They inspire me to do better, to hang tough, to have faith.
One of my students who promised to have his paper in to me by 3:30 just ran through my door. It's 3:30 on the nose. He just pumped his fist in the air as if he made a touchdown. We both laughed really hard about it.
He gave his all. I'll continue to give mine.
I am tired. The pressure of keeping up with grading, attempting to lead and at times mediate 24 brilliant and strong-minded English teachers, nurturing and educating 41 teenagers in various stages of emotional chaos, all while making the effort to keep myself healthy, sane and fertile is sometimes more than I can take in a day. But I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Everyone is struggling right now: my 9th graders with public speaking and writing, my Women in Lit students with final projects and papers. They're all struggling with independent thinking and the challenge of balancing priorities and obligations. I ask them to be creative and they look at me with doubtful eyes: how can we find the time to do that? Just tell me what needs to be done.
What many of them do not understand is that we as teachers go through the same kinds of worry and doubt; we're balancing jobs and family and finances and friends. We think about lesson plans while cooking dinner. We worry about the very quiet student while we brush our teeth. We try to follow our own advice and take time out for exercise and movies and yoga, but sometimes these things fall by the wayside in favor of What Needs to Be Done.
I am inspired by my students every day. Right now my juniors and seniors are conferencing for their final projects; they're working incredibly hard to find a topic that both inspires and interests them. They need to make the final decisions on their own, and this is upsetting some of them to the point of physical expression: I have witnessed more than one teenager hold his head his his hands and literally try to squeeze out an idea, as if it's hiding somewhere in the back of their brain stem.
This both pains and excites me to watch. I tell them over and over: I know this is difficult, but you'll be prouder of an idea that you yourself engender. And some of them have engendered the most amazing projects--I can't wait to see how they turn out!
A lot of them are in some stage of sickness at the moment. There's a lot of Kleenex floating around. I point at the hand sanitizer on the way out the door every day. They are tired from studying, red-nosed and mussed. But they're fighting on, determined to get their work done, determined to do their best.
As much as I tell them to stay home, for goodness' sake, I so relate to everything they're going through-- not only because I was an Iolani student, but because I'm going through the same thing. They're stressed over Winterball. I'm stressed over getting all my Christmas cards addressed. They worry about college applications; I worry about future motherhood. Each of us is at some kind of cusp, waiting for the next phase of life to begin. And we're all working through it one day at a time.
I am ever thankful for my job, my colleagues and my students. They inspire me to do better, to hang tough, to have faith.
One of my students who promised to have his paper in to me by 3:30 just ran through my door. It's 3:30 on the nose. He just pumped his fist in the air as if he made a touchdown. We both laughed really hard about it.
He gave his all. I'll continue to give mine.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
My New ToonDoo
This reflects how my Dad regretted teaching me to fight back. I started beating up boys left and right. He had no idea what he had created! Love you, Daddy!
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Feminism
Feminism came to me later life. I didn't really even know about the word until I was in graduate school and taking a Gender Studies course.
I knew that I was female, and I knew that I was independent, stubborn, and hated being told what I could and could not do. I didn't call it feminist: I just called it being me. My mother had a Tagalog word for it that I don't remember at the time, but I sure heard it a lot!
Being a feminist, for me, is about debunking what has become an evil word. I am sick and tired of hearing "I believe in equality of the sexes--BUT I'M NOT A FEMINIST."
Hooey.
People are afraid, and they shouldn't be. It's a word that has had very negative connotations (and I've been called a lot of names in connection with that), but in my opinion, if you claim to hold true to a belief, then you shouldn't hide it.
So yes, I am a feminist. And will continue to be.
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