Uhaul

I am attending a three week writing institute with my new school district. To sum up a typical day, we write, we share, and we write some more. It has absolutely been the best training I have received in my teaching career, and I know that I have grown as a writer and educator.

I wrote this free-association poem on the first day of the class. Enjoy!

Uhaul

The Uhaul carries my boxes
The boxes store my memories,
The memories of people I have left
and the places I will not again see.
Those people are now like stars,
burning brightly in the distant night.
The night holds the faces and artifacts of my past,
then reflects them into the brilliant darkness.
The boxes are dark, full of obscure objects
that fill my tightly packed Uhaul
and pull into my new day.


...more to come over the next few weeks!

Lessons from Room 16

I have a confession to make. Unbeknownst to my students, this was my first year as a classroom teacher. When asked where I taught prior to Gunter High School, I would reply by telling students the name of the school where I completed my student teaching. I simply wanted to pretend that I wasn’t an amateur, that I knew what I was doing. Although many, many days I felt that it was extremely apparent that I was completely and utterly lost!

I asked my students to give me advice as I continue my career in education next year. (I will be teaching at a magnet high school in San Antonio). Their advice was interesting, encouraging and honest. Some said I need to “relax” and some said that I need to be stricter—and these students were from the same class period! A few boosted my ego by saying that I was the best English teacher they had ever had.

I enjoyed their comments, good and bad, because I am all about self-evaluation and honesty, so all year I have kept a running list titled “Notes for Next Year” on my desktop. Here are a few of the pertinent lessons that I have learned during my year spent as a Gunter Tiger:

• Be fair and consistent. Build a classroom culture based on mutual respect.
• Never argue or rationalize with a student. It gets you nowhere. I am the adult and the one in charge.
• Next year there will be a “NO putting on makeup in class” rule—My classroom is not a “Mary Kay” party! It just gets on my nerves!
• Give A LOT of freedom to write about whatever. Have students tape a suggested journal topics list in the back of their journals along with meaningful quotes and pictures. This will give instant value to their journals.
• Teach basic grammar skills first—fragments, run-on sentences, phrases and clauses, punctuation,even if they "should have" covered basic grammar skills previously. Then take off points for every MAJOR sentence error in their papers. This will force them to write correctly
• Teach them and make them accountable for doing it right from the very beginning of the
  year.
• NEVER allow students to bully other students. Make an example of the first one that tries
• When a group of students cheat, they ALL get the same punishment regardless of who actually did the work. (If one goes down, they all go down together).
• It is SO cliche but true, so I’ll just say it: I don’t GIVE grades, but students EARN them.
  If I believe this, then I can’t feel the weight and burden of a student when they choose to fail by refusing to work or by cheating. Although I care deeply about my students, my failure isn’t always equivalent to their failure.
• MAKE A HUGE DEAL OVER CHEATING –make an example out of the first student to cheat by giving him a zero (or ripping the paper up in front of the rest of the class and making a big dramatic performance out of the ordeal)! The old adage "winners never cheat and cheaters never win" will always be true in Mrs. Henderson's class.
• Don’t read The Scarlet Letter with regular ENG III classes; teach Hawthorne short
  stories instead. It was a beating!
• Every student matters. Each has a story to tell and an opinion to give. Most of them just want to opportunity to do that and want someone interested enough to listen. I can learn as much from them as they can from me if I remember this.

There were days when I crawled into my little VW Bug and literally felt that I didn't have the strength to make the 30 minute drive home, and then there were those days when I knew that I was exactly where I should be doing exactly what I should be doing. On those days I received a jolt of energy from seeing the flash in a student’s eyes because she finally understood the difference between a phrase and a clause. I passed back a paper with a big read “A” at the top to “C” student and saw the triumphant beam. Some days students came into room 16 to confide in me or request advice. These are the kind of days that gave me hope. These are the type of days that I would cling to on the Fridays when thinking about coming back on Monday could make me certifiably insane. I hope that with each year I reflect, learn, and then grow into a better teacher and even a better version of me. I will take away many lessons from room 16 and from the 78 students that I taught at Gunter High School.

Cute as a Button

I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit. As a pastor’s kid growing up, I would color pictures and sell them to the elderly and the teenagers in the church. I also took the balloons that were used as decorations from a banquet and tried to sell them to people as they left; I think it worked. I was very creative about finding ways to make a few bucks. One time during the summer I even made a “rock zoo” and charged admission. The main attraction of the zoo—a rock that closely resembled an elephant! In 5th grade I made lanyard key chains and sold them to my classmates at recess. (I must note that this scheme was the only thing that ever landed me a trip to the principal’s office--apparently Richland Elementary frowned upon selling key chains on the playground!)

My most recent money making plot has included wire, glass jars and vases, buttons, and many trips to Hobby Lobby. I have sold over 20 button bouquets over the past few weeks. It is amazing how people will buy something if it is unique. I love to create and craft, so when I first started making the bouquets, I just never stopped. I had over five in my house in different corners and counters, so Seth told me to get rid of them before I bought more button stuff. I kept one and sold the rest, and three weeks and $200 later I wonder if I should “button” all through the summer as a little side job.

I would love to find a cute, girly gift shop that would let me sell “my products.”

My next endeavor: figuring out how to use the sewing machine at the rent house! Who knows…maybe pillows, headbands, curtains, pot holders? The sky is the limit for the entrepreneur.

A Few of My Comfortable Things

There is something very comforting about the sound of crickets late at night. I feel less alone when I take my dog Scout out at 3:00am if I hear the quiet chirps of the little bugs. I don’t know what it is that brings comfort from that noise. It is the same comfort and peace that comes from sharing the road with mini-vans. In theory, if I had a wreck or car trouble, the soccer mom driving the mini-van wouldn’t hesitate to pull over to provide her assistance. It is also the same comfort of wearing a flip flop that was almost made for my foot. Because the Old Navy sandal has been worn so many times, the toe imprints are there even when my foot is not.

Sometimes I wish that life could be full of comfortable things. Things like pot-roast and well worn flip-flops. I want to know that I will have enough money to buy a house at the end of the year and that the perfect job is waiting for me in San Antonio. I want to know that nothing bad will ever happen to the people that I love, that every light will be green, that every door will be unlocked. But knowing those things wouldn’t require any faith or trust in God on my end.

I know that God is taking me through a time where I am a little nervous and uncomfortable so that I will trust him. I know that I need to learn to gain the same comfort in his Word that I receive from mini-vans and crickets. It is hard to be uncomfortable, but I have found that during those times God can stretch and grow me in a way that is almost impossible in the warmth and comfort found in routinely going through life with all of the nice “amenities” that comfortable living brings.

San Antonio or Bust

The UHAUL will be pulling out of 8083 Stonebrook Parkway and heading down to San Antonio, TX on June 2.  So much has to work out before we are ready for the move: new friends, new jobs, and new place to call home! 

I had an interview last Friday, and it went well. I am learning that patience truly is a virtue, but I do believe that God is in this and He is working out the piece behind the scenes.