There is none like the God of Jeshurun, who rides the heavens to your help, and through the skies in His majesty. The eternal God is a dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms... Deuteronomy 33:26
I usually make a double batch of whole wheat bagels every two weeks. I use them to make an egg sandwich every morning so that I survive teaching 4 classes before lunch. In honor of it being the last week before first quarter exams, I decided to change it up.
Yep, those are caramel cinnamon rolls. They are honest-to-goodness healthy because I used whole wheat flour (andsugarandcornsyrupandmoresugarandchocolatechips). I never actually made cinnamon rolls before, but these were good. Next time I'll use a different yeast dough recipe because this one was a bit heavy.
Friday, July 29, 2011
"Good morning, Ms. Hofmaier. What did you bake for me today?"
That is the standard greeting of the Grade 3 math teacher every morning. Every time she brings in store-made bread or basically any form of food, she announces to the whole faculty room that she's better than Miss Hofmaier because she baked it or made it.
She knows it's my birthday next weekend and she said, "Please bring something in that you baked for real."
I said, "Excuse me, I'm not the one prone to lying about my baking."
Good thing she doesn't know that one of my classes is very close to getting their brownies.
This week was a bit of a crazy week due to the rain days. I was able to catch up the first two classes, but the third class is woefully behind. They are also the worst-behaved but the most conscious about their brownie reward. One of them turned around and yelled at his noisy classmates, "GUYS!!! WE ONLY NEED THREE MORE POINTS!!! JUST BE QUIET AND BEHAVE FOR THREE MORE DAYS!!!!!"
I accidentally left my camera at school because I was supposed to take pictures of the fables they wrote and pasted on a poster that they decorated. I forgot to take the picture AND I forgot to bring my camera home. Hopefully I'll remember on Monday.
I introduced present continuous tense yesterday. One of the classes had some extra time, so I told them to pretend they were reporting live for GMA News Network on an alien invasion. This girl missed the present continuous tense thing, but her writing is very creative:
Welcome to GMA news TV! I will tell you about a LIVE news happening in Fort Bonifacio. Tonight a “MYSTERIOUS” alien invation occurd……It was total bedlam! Just like “Cops vs. Aliens”! But here tonight we will te…….whoooooooh! eeeeeeeeeew! Goodevening earthlings we are the aliens….. Now surrender your planet…NOW! No? Then prepare to die! Pew pew pew….Bzzzz!
By Friday, the kids are ready for the week to end. Tempers are short and patience runs thin. One kid got mad at me and was screaming his head off in the faculty room. Another kid got mad at the screaming kid for cutting him in line and told him, "You're always trying to be first... like the Americans!" Ha.
A "hodge podge" story is a story where the story elements are all mixed up. My second class of the day was interrupted by kids leaving as their fetchers arrived. I was down to about 7 kids for the last 45 minutes, so I pulled out an activity I plan on using for academic club. I let the kids pull story element cards out of an envelope and then they had to put them together to make a story. Two girls did a pretty good job. Their story is below:
Once there was a talking zebra. He left his house and went to Animal Gym. He paid the cashier at first, then he accidentally left his wallet full of money. Some time in December, while buying gifts for his relatives, he realized that his wallet full of money was gone. So he went back to Animal Gym and found his wallet empty, not even a penny. He cried and cried buckets and buckets of tears, then finally his house flooded. He went to the bank then asked for money. But they said, "We are bankrupt!" Then the zebra said, "WHY OH WHY ARE YOU BANKRUPT!" They said, "A robber stole all the money!" He got so upset, that he shaved his hair of his head, then got bald. (Now he has a very very shiny head.) Then he never ever got his hair and money back.
This is the reason we had a half day today and the reason why I don't have to get up at 4:50am tomorrow to go to school:
I guess this makes up for last winter when I wasn't in college and didn't get the benefit of the many snow days during the season and instead had to dig my car out to get to the bank to serve the 4 customers that had to get to their money in the middle of a blizzard. One reason to not switch to college education next year: CHED isn't as prone to canceling class as DepEd. :P
Also, when I was uploading the above picture, I came across this picture:
Wow, college seems like a century ago. I was the most un-peppy person in the pep band. Good grief. I shake my head just thinking about it.
And as a random last thing, I grew up with plastic balloons. I miss them. I wonder if you can still buy them.
Eunice (the really little kid in the picture) is an incognito reader of this blog... I'd just like to dedicate this post to her and here's a lovely picture-memory just for you! :P See ya tomorrow! Hope you don't get sick!
I am sick and I blame it entirely on Prince Edward. I have him in my cell group and his prayer request was that his "sipon factory" (snot factory) would stop working and then he proceeded to blow his nose loudly and dramatically and spread his germs with the force of a miniature typhoon. He definitely suffers from a man cold, not to mention an arm injury that caused him to moan and groan in class and write with the air of a martyr.
"Oh it burns!!!!! Will you grade handwriting??? You should be thankful I'm even trying to write! Ooooooh!!!"
His mother called me to ask me why he got a low score on an ungraded worksheet because he didn't really understand it (it was a more complex topic that we're not going to cover in depth anyway so I'm not concerned about it) and essentially told me that if it's graded, I'd better explain it to him properly or I'd be hearing from her again. And I wonder where the Prince gets his drama...
Free Wifi! Webcam picture for Facebook during dinner...
How cool are we?!?
I discovered the secret to teacher heaven... bribe the little rascals! They'll do anything for a peso lollipop. I now have a supply of different candies to keep it interesting. They're more motivated by candy than merits. Teaching writing is so miserable, so I've started doing it in smaller groups with the incentive of group points based on how they help each other and how they participate. It works wonders. Hahahaha. They're in the process of writing fables and they want that candy. Plus, they learn both how to write AND how to take responsibility as a group. One class got mad because their classmate lost their class brownie point for the day by doing something foolish last minute before class ended. Peer pressure does wonders. :P
Teacher role models:
"Study hard, kids, so you can grow up, get a job, buy coffee and donuts!"
Last night I hung out with Joash, Cecile, and Sarah (from England). Sarah is going back to the UK next week, so we got together. I didn't want to go because I was sick, but Joash bullied me into going and said "You're not sick! Just believe..." even though I told him I'd get him sick. Well guess what, Smarty Pants, he's sick today. We ate in the food court and then walked High Street and stopped in to get donuts at Krispy Kreme. My mom told me I should hang out in the adult world... I think it was rather ironic that Joash was part of the supposed "adult" world. He was checking out the action figures while I checked out the book store.
Joash treated us to free water.
Crazy-good donut
The man with the cup.
Cheerful servant's hearts
Entertaining the church's baby...
Anyway, in other news, Happy Birthday to MCBC. We're almost the same age! That means I'm really almost 24?!?? And, as I saw on someone's Facebook status, "I'm 24 and still not married or dating! That must be a PBU record!" Annnnnnnd that's about it. Peace out!
Yup, that would be my title for a book if I ever wrote one. I have several drama kings and queens in my classes, but one of them tops all. Remember finger-in-the-electrical-socket-Ivan-the-Terrible from Student Teaching 1? I have one of those too. This one is different. When I think of this kid, I think of Prince Edward from "Enchanted."
Yep, that guy. Dramatic, enthusiastic, and emotional. From now on we shall call my third grade drama king "Prince Edward."
Prince Edward has a crisis about once or twenty times a day. His crises are generally real crises (unlike his crises over why I wouldn't add him on Facebook and why he couldn't even find me on Facebook), but he makes them a lot more dramatic than they need to be. You know the type... the one who plays the martyr, the "sacrificial" one, the "wounded-but-moves-on" type. I don't know why I seem to be his shrink, but whatever. One of his crises was on Thursday. I have cafeteria lunch duty on Thursdays and he makes sure that he gets to eat "by Teacher" (probably so he can have his shrinking session).
This is how Thursday's session went:
"So, Prince Edward, how did your theater club go last week?"
[Huge eyes, enthusiastic voice] "IT WAS FUN!"
"What did you do?"
He proceeds to tell the teacher what he did.
[Pause]
"But you know, M_____ didn't apologize to me so that kinda ruins my feelings towards theater right now," says Prince Edward the Dramatic.
[Teacher tries not to choke on rice]
"What happened?" asks the straight-faced teacher.
"We fought," he says with a sad sigh.
"Maybe she doesn't know how much she hurt you," says the positive teacher in that annoyingly-positive teacher fashion.
[Prince Edward's mind moves a mile a minute and soon he's on to something else and before you know it, he's not next to "Teacher" anymore.]
Ten minutes later... Prince Edward returns.
"Teacher, I know that M_______ knows how much she hurt me," he says smugly.
"Oh?" she says, naively expecting he had a nice, mature conversation with the girl.
"Yeah.. in science class today we were supposed to eliminate people from our group and I eliminated her even though she didn't need to be eliminated!!!" he says triumphantly.
And then "Teacher" delivered a lecture on revenge and getting even compared to a Christ-like response.
Friday's session went like this:
In the hallway during recess.
"Um, M______ owes me money," he says, clutching his snack container and a large fruit shake. (This is a boy M this time)
"What do you mean?"
"Well yesterday I bought M_____ a sandwich and he told me he'd pay me back, but he didn't and he said he didn't have the money. I had to use my lunch money to buy my snack and I only have ten pesos for lunch, so I don't know what I'll do, just drink juice?" He pauses. "And I just HATE to ask teachers for money."
"I think you should talk to your homeroom teacher about this."
A few minutes later in the faculty room, Teacher sees the money-owing child.
"M______, let me talk to you for a minute."
"Yes?"
"Do you owe Prince Edward money?"
"No..." he says with shifty eyes.
"Something about a sandwich?"
"He said it was for free," says M____ as he stares at the ceiling, the cabinet, the floor and anywhere but the teacher.
"Look me in the eyes. Did you tell Prince Edward you would pay him back?"
"....yes."
"And what are you going to do about that?"
"Pay him back..."
[Blah blah blah more teacher lecture about kindness, and honesty, etc.]
An hour later in English class
"Did you settle things with Prince Edward?"
"Recess was over. I'll do it at lunch."
Lunchtime...
"Prince Edward, did M______ give you the money?"
"Yes, but it was short 5 pesos so I GAVE it back to him and I will just...drink...water," he says in a feeble voice.
"Oh no you don't. I will get you 5 pesos but you cannot just have water for lunch, especially since you're in my class right after lunch!"
Anyway, this kid could win an award for best actor.
Other than that, the week went smoothly for the most part. Once Tuesday is over, I feel home-free since Tuesday is my 8-class day and Wednesday is my 3 class day. I had parents asking me to reconsider the grades of their kids who didn't follow directions and got questions wrong, but other than that, my drama was nothing compared to Prince Edward's perceived drama.
I am entirely too new a teacher and too inexperienced a teacher to offer teaching tips, but I learned something this week: A child in a class needs to feel like an individual. A child needs to feel that they are special in a class full of other children. I give one child a class a note every day. They're shuffled randomly, so the kids don't know who will get the next note. I usually sneak it in with their seatwork when I hand things back and some kids don't notice. One class has caught on and they are always on the look-out for who was "special" that day and they all have to read it and examine the sticker. (I don't understand kids and their obsession with stickers... seriously... it's a sticker.) Yesterday I gave one to a quiet girl in my third class and I happened to look at her as she unclipped it from her paper and turned it over. Her face lit up and a little smile spread out across her face as she read it several times. So yeah... letting a kid know that the teacher notices just HIM or HER in a class full of kids goes a long way. (It also takes a bit of creativity on the teacher's part if the kid is particularly difficult and you'd rather deliver a sermon on the note than give positive encouragement... hahaha)
Diligently checking papers while Joash watched rather than helped
This week did not involve:
1) Rain days
2) Day off
3) Crazy children
Sorry, I forgot what I do for a living! Crazy children remained crazy. I have reached the conclusion that I need to be stricter. The kids told me that I'm not as strict as the math teacher or many of the other teachers. I told them I'd work harder to be strict and give out demerits. I gave out 3 demerits on Friday for no homework. By now I could have given out about 10 no homework demerits and multiple behavior demerits. I prefer to motivate with positive rewards... like the much-liked "Brownie Points" that were introduced this past week.
I was just checking papers for an hour and a half and I got tired of it, so I'm taking a break. If you could see our primary faculty room at school, you would see the teacher desks separated by dividers and several long tables in the back of the room. The English teachers seem to made those two tables their personal property as extensions of their own desks. (Guilty as charged.) The math teacher asked for just a small space on the table the other day. We English teachers take over the entire two tables with books and notebooks. I have another pile of books on my own desk which means I don't have room for anything else. I don't even work at my desk at school! Sometimes I bring home the piles of notebooks and papers as you can see in the pictures of my desk at home.
The kids have two notebooks for English. The pink one is for writing practices. The exercises in there are not graded but I am training them to treat it as if it is graded and I have sentenced several boys to repeat exercises because their writing is worse than chicken scratch. The contents of these notebooks can be quite laughable. For example, here is the draft of a personal narrative letter:
I had a very fun time there. (I also ate corndog there) I swam in the beach. My brother was not so lucky because he got bitten by a tiny fish. I also caught lots of shells ther I saw a jellyfish near the shore. I tried to throw rocks on it but it keeps missing then the life guard brought it back to the dip part of the sea. Thats the place where I ate Mr. corn dog (lots of them infact to much in almost fainted). And the hotel was spectacular (then I ate corndog again) I hop I can do the same thing every day.
Just ignore the fact that he doesn't even have a proper beginning... AND I don't even know what place he's talking about! The boys in that class are obsessed with corn dogs!
The life of a red pen is very short. I bought this pen 7 school days ago. It is almost done! I wonder how many red pens I'll need per quarter!
Of course, markers are another necessity. One of my whiteboard markers is already fading. Good thing I use the PowerPoint so much! :P
Oh yeah, I have a really dramatic kid in one of my classes. He has a major temper problem. He hates school. He's very smart which makes it hard to keep him challenged. The other day I told them to answer some questions in their workbook in complete sentences. He didn't write in complete sentences and I told him to redo it. He got really mad about it and yelled, "WHY do we have to write in complete sentences?! This is SOOO stupid! I HATE writing!!! Why can't we live in a world where we start using computers and typing and JUST STOP KILLING THE TREES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Yep, that's my eco-friendly boy!
