I'm feelin the stress...

You know when you were in high school and you never gave a second thought to what your teacher's did before, after, or outside of school. Well, let me tell you what they do.

1. Grade lots and lots of papers, with horrible grammar.
2. Keep track of late and missing assignments, with all sorts of different highlighter colors.
3. Putting in your grades on the computer, and making sure every number you punched in is right.
4. Make up hand-outs so that you don't have to write everything on lined paper, and so that you can keep your things more neat and organized.
5. Make multiple trips to the copy center a day, so that you can have copies of these glorious handouts that took hours to make.
6. Sweat, Cry and Worry about confronting one of you about Plagarizing within the first week of the term.
7. Sweat, Cry and Worry about all of you who have 1/2 of your assignments missing and late, and it's only the 2nd week of the term.
8. Sweat, Cry and Worry about the two students in a class that speak maybe 5 words of English and definitely don't write any...In your English Class, by the way.
9. Sweat, Cry and Worry about how the hell they're going to teach you Grammar in a way that you get it and aren't out of your mind bored! (If anyone needs a test and handout on how to use commas...I'm your gal!)
10. Come home, and try to beg, borrow, and steal lesson plans so that you don't have to spend hours making it up all yourself.
11. And last but not least, Spending hours making up your own lesson plans, because no one else's work seems quite the way that you want to teach it.

It's seriously a hard job, and I never thought or imagined my teachers put in this much work, but someone's gotta do it. So far, I can say that I'm glad it's me. Is anyone else feelin the heat???

I Survived My First Day--How are you all doing?

I met 90 seventh graders today. They did not inflict any permanent damage. In fact they were pretty fun. I have one class that has a lot of "chemistry" in it. Three boys will probably be moved within the week.

I have a "day off" tomorrow because the 8th & 9th graders will be the only ones on campus. I'll be doing my third revamp of lesson plans as I adjust to the ever changing schedule at school. My kids will take the DRP next Friday--my first standardized test!

I'll be thinking of you all tomorrow. You are amazing professionals!

The Sanity is Slipping Away

OK--so does anyone else feel overwhelmed? I've had a real roller coaster day. Up at 4:30 cause I couldn't sleep. Long faculty meeting. Even longer department meeting. I'm using a grading scale I hate (department policy). I've had my brain crammed full of policies and procedures. Still trying to get my bulletin boards hung on the wall (hubby is bringing drill tomorrow). I can tell now who I'm going to get along with and who I will try to avoid. Yikes!! I'm feeling like all the horror stories are true.

:(

Why Can't it Stay July Forever

I can't believe it's already August. I'm not feeling the pressure as much as my fellow interns are (because I have two extra weeks of vacation), but I'm still feeling it. I want it to freeze on July 31 forever. (But then I thought of all the Twilight fans, who would be so miserable waiting in-line for midnight to come so they can by the conclusion to the Bella-Edward-Jacob saga, but I am getting off track). Honestly, I am dreading August because it means that I need to get my butt in gear, start making lesson plans, make a plan of attack, and finish reading The Scarlet Letter (which I've been reading all summer). I still don't have very many ideas for it, or for Beowulf, Huck Finn, and everything else. My creative juices stopped flowing once methods ended because I was like a vampire and sucking the ideas/life from you guys. Those were good times, and I wish we were back there, but it's time to do what our UVU/UVSC superior training has prepared us for, and take that giant leap and hope we land on the other side without any broken bones. (I can handle bruises, and cuts, and scrapes because we need some bodily damage coming out of this, right?!)

Good luck to everyone! And just breathe!
Kerri

p.s. sorry about the horrible Twilight puns, but I just finished reading it and it's fresh on my mind. Which I think might be helpful considering 99.9% of the girls in my class have read it!

NCTE Blog--Check it out

The NCTE has a blog called:

NCTE inbox

I was just looking at their article on thinking maps. The author provides a bunch of links to sites designed to help teachers create various thinking maps for their students. I've been making them using MS Publisher, but sometimes I wish I could just download something. Or I run low on ideas and wish I could look at what others are using. This looks like a good place to start.