So, we've established that I unashamedly possess a love affair with words. I think that one of God's greatest gifts to man was language. It's a living, breathing organism with its own moods, growth spurts, and life cycle. I love that I can read Milton, Faulkner, and Louise Rennison all in one day and understand exactly what is going on in all three of those vastly different styles of language because of the natural cohesion of the English system. It's delightful. So, in the spirit of language love and my own personal craftiness, I would like to introduce you to a beautiful creation that my friend Rob told me about the other day.
Blogdom, I'd like you to meet Wordle.
This is a site you may access at wordle.net. You can copy and paste text into a box or enter a URL and it will take all of the words and arrange them artistically according to how many times each is used. It's not only artistic, which I adore, this one --that's a representation of this blog--shows me where my heart is by giving me an inventory of how often I use certain words. I love this idea. As soon as I've got access to a really good printer and the time to do it, I'm going to print some of these and use them as artwork in my apartment. Don't you just love that idea? I love words used as art anyway, but I am not the most artsy gal you've ever met. I'm crafty and often creative, but I have fewer actual art skills than dog's hind leg. This way I can have the words I love surround me all the time and display an original art piece without the skills. It's the perfect way for my art of language to become actual visual art with the click of a mouse.
I commend Wordle's creators, and I hope that you are able to enjoy this tool as much as I do. Just in case you needed another view, here's one I created from the text of Milton's Paradise Lost Book 12.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Incompetent Hand-holders
Disclaimer: I, by no means, wish to convey by the bitterness and frustration of this post that I dislike my chosen profession. I love teaching. I love kids. But God never said I always had to like them.
I ask myself (and my cooperating teacher) every day: "What is wrong with people?" "Why don't my students think they have to do anything?" "Why are there no real consequences, either at home or at school, for refusing to put forth any effort?" Like that gum you stepped in last Tuesday and still can't manage to get off of your shoe, so are the questions of our lives.
My greatest frustration thus far as a teacher has been that my students simply believe that they do not have to do anything. Detention is not a motivator. F's are not motivators. Calling their parents or sending them to the office is a joke because everyone knows neither of these options are going to make any difference anyhow. There are no consequences. Refuse to turn in your work for weeks on end and find yourself failing the class during the last week of the semester? No worries. The principal will force your teachers to allow you to turn in late work for full credit, so you'll pass regardless. Actually show up for school fewer than 50% of the school days required by State Law? No worries. You'll be able to make up all your work when you finally return, and your teachers will catch all the heat when you do poorly on the Benchmark.
I've spent a considerable amount of time pondering this situation in my last 8 weeks or so of student teaching. I'm convinced that it is a generational issue. OK, before you get all "people everywhere and for all time are lazy and stupid" on me, let me clarify. My theory of generational laziness comes from the fact that it isn't just a handful of students I struggle with daily to get them to turn in work. It's a handful of students who I don't have to fight. The overwhelming majority of my students have this attitude, and I would like to take this space to point the finger at the parents. If you spend your entire lives coddling your children and never allowing them to do anything for themselves, they are going to assume that their teachers (and God forbid! their employers) will do the same. This Just IN: They won't. Holding your child's hand through everything, laying out his clothes every morning (until he's 35) and calling/emailing his teachers every time his homework is too hard for you to do for him is not doing him a favor.
So, this is to you parents: Whether your child is an adult, a toddler, or an glimmer of hope in the future, please let go of his bicycle once in a while and give him the chance to fall. He'll thank you for it in the long run, when he learns to get back up on his own. And so will his educators. And his employers. And his future wife.
I ask myself (and my cooperating teacher) every day: "What is wrong with people?" "Why don't my students think they have to do anything?" "Why are there no real consequences, either at home or at school, for refusing to put forth any effort?" Like that gum you stepped in last Tuesday and still can't manage to get off of your shoe, so are the questions of our lives.
My greatest frustration thus far as a teacher has been that my students simply believe that they do not have to do anything. Detention is not a motivator. F's are not motivators. Calling their parents or sending them to the office is a joke because everyone knows neither of these options are going to make any difference anyhow. There are no consequences. Refuse to turn in your work for weeks on end and find yourself failing the class during the last week of the semester? No worries. The principal will force your teachers to allow you to turn in late work for full credit, so you'll pass regardless. Actually show up for school fewer than 50% of the school days required by State Law? No worries. You'll be able to make up all your work when you finally return, and your teachers will catch all the heat when you do poorly on the Benchmark.
I've spent a considerable amount of time pondering this situation in my last 8 weeks or so of student teaching. I'm convinced that it is a generational issue. OK, before you get all "people everywhere and for all time are lazy and stupid" on me, let me clarify. My theory of generational laziness comes from the fact that it isn't just a handful of students I struggle with daily to get them to turn in work. It's a handful of students who I don't have to fight. The overwhelming majority of my students have this attitude, and I would like to take this space to point the finger at the parents. If you spend your entire lives coddling your children and never allowing them to do anything for themselves, they are going to assume that their teachers (and God forbid! their employers) will do the same. This Just IN: They won't. Holding your child's hand through everything, laying out his clothes every morning (until he's 35) and calling/emailing his teachers every time his homework is too hard for you to do for him is not doing him a favor.
So, this is to you parents: Whether your child is an adult, a toddler, or an glimmer of hope in the future, please let go of his bicycle once in a while and give him the chance to fall. He'll thank you for it in the long run, when he learns to get back up on his own. And so will his educators. And his employers. And his future wife.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Evening the playing field
This post is a collection (loosely defined) of thoughts that emerged from our Sunday morning class discussion and flared up again during the reading of Ellen's latest post. There has been a lot of talk in my social circles lately about the unchanging nature of God in light of the seemingly contradictory nature of the Old and New Testaments. Because you can read some interesting thoughts on that specific topic at the link above, I'm choosing to ramble on about the implications of this discussion. I like to spend time thinking about what it is I truly believe and how those beliefs ought to affect my everyday life. I'm often pretty terrible at blending all the compartments of my life together, so it's good for me to think about how my life would look if God seamlessly flowed through all the cubicle walls. I'm getting to the point sometime soon, I promise.
So, if I am to truly believe that God is the same "yesterday, today, and forever," what does that mean for my life? Well, I think that there are several important implications, but the one that I keep thinking about is an increase in humility and tolerance. If the God of the Old Testament is still the same God who I serve today, then His Law is and was perfect. It was not the spiritual Articles of Confederation, but rather it was the keyhole view of God's heart that he was working on revealing a little at a time.
If I believe that His Law is perfect, I will have more respect, not only for those words, but also for the people they were written for. As a body of believers, we generally see modern-day Jews as those poor people who missed the boat. Their religion was abolished with the death and resurrection of the savior we worship, and -- all too often we think that-- they were just too narrow-minded to realize it.
The Jewish people are the generations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They are the people who God set his heart on and spend hundreds of years yearning for, receiving unto himself, losing to idols, punishing, and reconciling with. Our perfect, gracious, and merciful God first bestowed His grace and mercy on the people of Israel.
I am by no means saying that we, as Christians, should embrace Judaism. I wholeheartedly believe in the resurrected Son of God and choose to be loyal to him always. (Besides, the Jerusalem Council decided I didn't have to in Acts 15.) I am only asserting that we realize the special place our own loving God gave to Israel and learn to be more tolerant and loving toward them as the beloved people of God.
What do you think? How is your life different when you live as though you serve an unchanging God?
So, if I am to truly believe that God is the same "yesterday, today, and forever," what does that mean for my life? Well, I think that there are several important implications, but the one that I keep thinking about is an increase in humility and tolerance. If the God of the Old Testament is still the same God who I serve today, then His Law is and was perfect. It was not the spiritual Articles of Confederation, but rather it was the keyhole view of God's heart that he was working on revealing a little at a time.
If I believe that His Law is perfect, I will have more respect, not only for those words, but also for the people they were written for. As a body of believers, we generally see modern-day Jews as those poor people who missed the boat. Their religion was abolished with the death and resurrection of the savior we worship, and -- all too often we think that-- they were just too narrow-minded to realize it.
The Jewish people are the generations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They are the people who God set his heart on and spend hundreds of years yearning for, receiving unto himself, losing to idols, punishing, and reconciling with. Our perfect, gracious, and merciful God first bestowed His grace and mercy on the people of Israel.
I am by no means saying that we, as Christians, should embrace Judaism. I wholeheartedly believe in the resurrected Son of God and choose to be loyal to him always. (Besides, the Jerusalem Council decided I didn't have to in Acts 15.) I am only asserting that we realize the special place our own loving God gave to Israel and learn to be more tolerant and loving toward them as the beloved people of God.
What do you think? How is your life different when you live as though you serve an unchanging God?
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Things about teaching that I never expected
This is a list of several lessons I've learned, either through my own mistakes or from the anecdotes of other teachers, while student-teaching. They are things that, although I grew up with a teacher in my house and have gone to school all my life and have friends who are teachers as well, I never thought about having to deal with. It just goes to show that no matter how educated you are, you don't always know everything. Sometimes there's a whole basket of muffins.
1. Writing on the board is hard.
Unless you have some sort of super powers, actual eyes in the back of your head, or a special mode of contortion that allows you to face the students and write on the board at the same time, you'll most likely have your back to something like 25 young people who are always looking for the opportunity to do something stupid like remove their prosthetic legs and hit others with them, light fires inside desks, or crawl out of windows. So you spend all of your time actually writing on the board doing everything you can to listen to what's going on behind you and make sure that they are all still present, intact, and paying attention. As you can imagine, all of that pressure makes the actual writing process rather difficult. Forget trying to write in straight lines on a giant blank white board. You'll most likely be more concerned with actually spelling everything correctly. The first time you spell "shirt" without the "r," you might as well just forget the rest of the lesson because you may never get their attention back.
2. You will know more about other people's bodily fluids than doctors do on a daily basis.
I cannot count how many times in a day students ask to leave class to go to the restroom or to step into the hall to blow their noses. But that is a legitimate need that I expected to have to deal with, and, honestly, it's not a big deal. I never expected, however, to have students announce that they "need to pee" in the middle of class with nothing like a question attached. I never thought about how many times I'd have to open a window because someone in the back row passed gas that was so foul no one else could concentrate. I can honestly say that the need to spit sunflower seeds into the trash in the middle of class was not something I considered having to deal with. Perhaps some of these things have something to do with the school district. I'm afraid that most of them have to do with teenagers.
3. Technology is wonderful, but incredibly unreliable.
Always have a back-up plan. Computers, smart boards, classroom televisions, projectors. All of these things, and many more resources, are wonderful and helpful in the classroom setting. They help make teaching and planning easier and more convenient and provide teachers for a wide range of outlets for their creativity. However, the first time you plan a whole lesson around a Powerpoint presentation in which you need, not only the presentation to load, but also the projector and the Smartboard to cooperate, at least one of those technological advances will fail you, and you'll be left with nothing. Always have a back-up plan.
4. Make friends with the custodians. They know all the secrets.
Custodians know where all of the extra hidden supplies are. They tend to be some of the first to find out about things that are happening in the district. Sometimes it's just gossip, but often times there are things that would be nice to know before the district deems it necessary to tell teachers. Custodians can be some of your best friends. Additionally, they are also the people you generally get the least respect in the building. If you treat them like Jesus would treat them, you'll not only be shining your light, you'll also get your room cleaned and your trash taken out more often than anyone else.
5. You may think that, as an English teacher, you'll never need to use math again.
Until there's a stack of essays you have to grade based on a rubric you must create and then assign points to and then calculate the percentage of. Consider yourself warned.
6. Your supervisor/principal/etc. will always come into your classroom when you least expect him. All too often it's the one minute you've sat down in your chair all class period.
1. Writing on the board is hard.
Unless you have some sort of super powers, actual eyes in the back of your head, or a special mode of contortion that allows you to face the students and write on the board at the same time, you'll most likely have your back to something like 25 young people who are always looking for the opportunity to do something stupid like remove their prosthetic legs and hit others with them, light fires inside desks, or crawl out of windows. So you spend all of your time actually writing on the board doing everything you can to listen to what's going on behind you and make sure that they are all still present, intact, and paying attention. As you can imagine, all of that pressure makes the actual writing process rather difficult. Forget trying to write in straight lines on a giant blank white board. You'll most likely be more concerned with actually spelling everything correctly. The first time you spell "shirt" without the "r," you might as well just forget the rest of the lesson because you may never get their attention back.
2. You will know more about other people's bodily fluids than doctors do on a daily basis.
I cannot count how many times in a day students ask to leave class to go to the restroom or to step into the hall to blow their noses. But that is a legitimate need that I expected to have to deal with, and, honestly, it's not a big deal. I never expected, however, to have students announce that they "need to pee" in the middle of class with nothing like a question attached. I never thought about how many times I'd have to open a window because someone in the back row passed gas that was so foul no one else could concentrate. I can honestly say that the need to spit sunflower seeds into the trash in the middle of class was not something I considered having to deal with. Perhaps some of these things have something to do with the school district. I'm afraid that most of them have to do with teenagers.
3. Technology is wonderful, but incredibly unreliable.
Always have a back-up plan. Computers, smart boards, classroom televisions, projectors. All of these things, and many more resources, are wonderful and helpful in the classroom setting. They help make teaching and planning easier and more convenient and provide teachers for a wide range of outlets for their creativity. However, the first time you plan a whole lesson around a Powerpoint presentation in which you need, not only the presentation to load, but also the projector and the Smartboard to cooperate, at least one of those technological advances will fail you, and you'll be left with nothing. Always have a back-up plan.
4. Make friends with the custodians. They know all the secrets.
Custodians know where all of the extra hidden supplies are. They tend to be some of the first to find out about things that are happening in the district. Sometimes it's just gossip, but often times there are things that would be nice to know before the district deems it necessary to tell teachers. Custodians can be some of your best friends. Additionally, they are also the people you generally get the least respect in the building. If you treat them like Jesus would treat them, you'll not only be shining your light, you'll also get your room cleaned and your trash taken out more often than anyone else.
5. You may think that, as an English teacher, you'll never need to use math again.
Until there's a stack of essays you have to grade based on a rubric you must create and then assign points to and then calculate the percentage of. Consider yourself warned.
6. Your supervisor/principal/etc. will always come into your classroom when you least expect him. All too often it's the one minute you've sat down in your chair all class period.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)