Faith, Hope, and Love

At the moment, my little sixth graders are in the throes of learning about economy. It's been going amazingly smooth so far... especially since I know very little about economy myself. I scrapped by with a low B in high school, made a 1 on the AP test (or did I even take it?), and completely avoided it in college. But here I am teaching kids about exporting and importing, goods and services, and a whole bunch of other complicated economic terms. The one lesson that was probably the hardest (and which I'm still not sure if the kids really understand) is Factors of Production. You know... land, labor and capital. Except we called them "human resources," "capital resources," and "natural resources." Somehow they don't seem to equate human to literally mean human (I'm still getting kids who think a car is a human resource since it's made by humans--that by the way, would make it a capital resource). And then let's not even get star...

Today my kids were taking their Writing TAKS test, and since I'm only the lowly student teacher I got to have the day off. I guess I could have gone and observed in the 5th grade class, or maybe helped out in the library. But since I've been sick over the last week, and just stressed and exhausted in general, my mentor teacher thought it'd be good for me to have a personal day. And did I need a personal day. For one, two weeks ago my mentor teacher went to a professional development workshop and was gone for the day. So, our 4th grade class had a substitute... who did nothing . I mean, I basically had a good handle of the class. I was teaching the spelling and grammar, and then guided them in their centers and stuff. And so I guess she didn't really need  to do anything. But this sub was on her phone a lot, and kept running off to the bathroom, and then would walk up to me WHILE I WAS TEACHING and start holding conversations with me and stuff. It was like, "oka...

All my Aggies can rest assured. I won't be becoming a Longhorn anytime soon. That's the easy way of saying that I got my decision from UT-Austin concerning my MFA application . And it was a 'no.' I'm honestly not really surprised. For one, UT is ranked #3 in the nation and it's ranked #1 when it came to selectivity. Only like 1 percent of applicants get admitted each year. Also, I think the short story I think was my best didn't make it into UT's packet since I wasn't done with it by the deadline. BUT... I still kind of hoped. My heart's in Texas. Big time. And while I had fun that one year living in Chicago, and I sort of (but vaguely) had fun that one year living in Missouri (mentioning the actual city is pointless; it was so small), and I think it'd be cool to live in other parts of the country for a while... Texas is my home. I really wanted to stay at home. Plus, I have the cutest  nephew who I hate the idea of being too far away...

I taught my first lesson today! And I was soooo nervous! My voice sounded silly in my ears. I felt like I was talking way too fast (although I guess that's not uncommon for me). But I think the kids actually learned something. We were working on the long 'a' sound. Later this week, we'll focus on the long 'e' and 'i' sounds. It sounds pretty elementary, but it might mean that a few of these kids might actually "crack the code" and be able to read and write English more fluently (my kids are all bilingual). I think that's probably been the most exciting thing about student teaching so far--I feel like these are all kids that really need me. They need me to give them that extra push, help them break through the language barrier that keeps a lot of them from succeeding, help them know that they can do it! They already have a great teacher, and she's worked really hard to get them to where they are now. But there's still a lot o...

That's probably a question I should have asked during orientation. Because if the chills, headache, fever, and aches and pain I'm experiencing are indication, I just got hit majorly with the flu. I blame it on two things: trying to be green and walking to school two days in a row (I think I'll wait till Spring officially hits before I do that again) and the horrible parking at my apartment (which often requires I walk a block or so if I happen to make it home after 9 p.m... which is often). When I started sneezing yesterday, I didn't attribute it to much. But then my sinuses and head started hurting, so I figured allergies (although I've NEVER had allergies, but you can develop them later in life. So I figured why not?). I took some sinus and cold stuff last night and this morning and they cleared me up briefly and then mid-day... it hit. All the lil' 4th graders kept staring at me in pity. Because if I looked anywhere close to how I felt then it was PATHE...

In 2006, I got my bachelor's degree. In 2008, I finished my master's. Two-thousand and nine? Spent three months in an alternative teaching certification course. And now in 2010, I'm thinking I went about this whole education thing the wrong way and need even more  school. To be fair, I don't think any of my degrees, or classes, have been useless. I believe ultimately they will all play a role in what I do long-term in life and each class was training to help me succeed. But I also feel like none of it has geared me for what I really want to do... especially since I'm feeling a little confused on that myself. Right now I'm on the fence about going after my MFA in Creative Writing or not. If you asked me what I wanted to be when I was five-year-old, I probably would have said Anne of Green Gables. Something about red hair, green-grey eyes, and being a quirky Canadian sounded ideal to me. I no longer want to be Anne--or at least not literally. I've always...