If I get a comment...

...it may or may not matter. I appreciate that this blog has 11 followers. If you may still be following, I have no idea. It would be cool if you were, but why should you? I haven't written in almost a year, and I make no guarantees about writing in the future. But I may.

Check out silerquest.com for sure, because that is all related to our China trip and the most exciting things going on in our life. This blog is for whatever else. I may share my music here, or thoughts on God. Who knows? Just another side of me.

Closing of Summer

After three interviews this summer, it looks like I won't be working as a full-time teacher this year. It would seem that my objective this year will be learning how to live on daily bread while following a cloud. I will learn discipline and grace when I fail, knowing that I have a lot more going for me than the children of Israel. By that I mean the full delight and pleasure of God through Christ Jesus. Awesome.

I want to begin song writing. I've had a lot of ideas floating around and I am viewing them as "talents" that have too long remained buried.

Two bits of scripture that have always had particular relevance to me are the parable of the servants and the talents, and the story of Peter walking on the water with Jesus. I will go into detail in later posts.

Thanks for checking in.

Middle of the Night

I don't know about you, but every time I see this page I get the sinking feeling of stagnation–an awful word really.

It's late. I've felt the itch to write something.

A friend from long ago came by the house today, a friend from a time when "friend" and "heathen" were simultaneously developing concepts. He was that friend. I suppose I taught him about argumentative religious people.

His first words to me on at the front of my house today were, "I still haven't found Jesus yet, didn't even find him in prison, and I thought everybody found him there." There was a girl with him. She seemed nice in a patched together kind of way with blond hair and thick brown dreadlocks. I didn't look close enough to figure out exactly what was going on with that.

My front step has had a lot of visitors: Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Baptist... I must have a front door that begs for a religious discussion. Maybe I've just been home more. Anyway, the gist of the conversation leads me to believe that the old friend on my doorstep is in some way searching. For my part, he's at the top of a long list of evangelistic failures. The first thing I told him was that I was sorry for having been so arrogant when we were kids. I think he had explained me to his girlfriend as the "really religious one."

We talked a little bit about Jesus and how someone across the street from him told him that his Mom was in hell but it wasn't too late for him. We agreed that was messed up. I asked him if he still played guitar. We had a little jam session. He wants to borrow my guitar. I'm not sure I completely trust him to return it. I told him I'd like a few more visits first. He's pretty darn interested. We'll see where this goes.

UPDATE: Lady Maphet guessed his initials. She remembers my friends better than I do.

Now that that's over...

Not sure what to do with this space.

Job searching and time management need to happen again. It is so weird not being at school...

Morning Poem:

In the morning I turn on the light
At an ungodly hour that hurts my eyes.
I brew coffee.
Toast bread.
Cook oatmeal.
Well, I don't;
A dead dinosaur does.
But that's beside the point.

Reflection Work Sample Thing

I've been working, with the help of my lovely wife, on something called a teacher work sample and it has not been fun.

I'd thought I'd share with you what I've written so far in my reflection which is the somewhat fun part:

I have been very pleased with my students and will always be grateful to them and my supervising teachers for letting me learn so much on any given day. I know that the work we’ve done doesn’t translate well into this format without names or faces, but this was the student teaching experience I wanted. I’m not a scientist, I’m an English major, and, granted, I believe the two should work more often together, but I wanted to teach something I knew, and something that mattered. The opportunity came up when I saw A Connecticut… was on the curriculum. I knew the thing would be a bear. I had a pretty good idea what I was getting into. And I also knew I would learn a lot more if I was fighting for my life over something that mattered, than I would if I played it safe and followed the Unit book. I wanted to tell them a story worth telling, and it wasn’t an easy story to tell.

I was also fully supported by my supervising instructors, Sharon Crossen and Ian MacDonald. I believe that they both understood it would be a difficult experience for me, but that my intentions were good, and I had the interest of the students at heart. So let me talk about them.

Overall they are a remarkable group of kids, and there isn’t one I wouldn’t like to know better if only to solve the mystery. Many are challenging and talk too much and don’t really listen half the time; they don’t “get” the book. But sometimes they’ll shock me in a good way. I wish I had more time.

A few are brilliant in a variety of ways and I ache for them because I fear they’ll feel stifled and give up on their education. But they’ve surprised me too with their generosity toward their peers. In an instant, I can think of four that have helped their friends who are struggling with the material without even thinking about it, without asking for extra credit. One in particular realized early that I was setting a high bar and couldn’t wait to leap for it. I don’t think he’d had to leap in a long time.

I’ve also found a handful of students that have not been so gifted academically, and I’m relieved to find that we are not at war over this book, or my expectations. I have been careful to not allow anyone to fail in a public way unless it was due to complete disregard for instruction or something of that nature. Nor will I let a student fail who is willing to try. When I sent a student home with her failed test to show and work through with her Mom, I’m glad she understood that it was out of concern and hope without judgment.

The group/individual projects I also count as a success with the main failure being on my part. I recorded the presentations and enjoyed the majority of them with only a few disappointments, but I have yet to really grade them and give the students their direct feedback. I plan to make a DVD, but it is certainly a case where time and others projects have interfered with my doing what I know I ought to do. The projects were worth it for the sake of one student who blew his classmates away, not only with the outstanding professionalism of his presentation, but also a style and charisma that no one (including me) had ever expected.

Day 17: So much to do, so little time.

So this is the life of a teacher. You've missed a lot haven't you? Thanks for checking back in. I guess to catch you up I'll start with today and work my way backwards. Today was a good day, a work day, but a good day. I have something called the Teacher Work Sample due on Friday, and it is a confusing bear and a half. To meet some of its requirements, I had to do things a little differently today. The oddest thing was administering a pre-evaluation which is supposed to be replicated in post-evaluation. I may simply not understand it, but it seems silly–especially when working things like reading comprehension: Read this paragraph and tell me what it means. Wrong! Read it again. I'm a great teacher! I don't get it, or I'm just too miffed to care.

Today I also met with a lady that has dragged me into some sort of dissertation of hers. I can't tell if it's dissertation or a research and marketing project, though. She's had me train on an online classroom simulator that is supposed to help teachers recognize and effectively manage students with different abilities and characteristics. It demands a lot more time than I thought and I wanted out of the program entirely, but I think she's trying to keep me on because of how effectively I can articulate what a waste of time the damn thing is. I'd do it here, but I really don't have time.

Last thing about today: I had student (really sweet and quiet kid) come in after school about a test he needed to finish and some missing work. I really felt like a teacher and encouraged him to take it home and do is best. I spend so much time in a day putting up with knuckle heads. Overall, God really gave me a number of breaks today. I needed them.

Yesterday (Day 16) was a nightmare. I spent an absurd amount of time over the weekend grading a paper I had designed for Friday. I put the test together to as both a review of the main points from the book so far, but mostly it was designed as a reading comprehension and critical thinking assessment. The thing that I'm proud of, is that I think the test worked. "Good" students didn't necessary breeze right through it and "bad" students with good reading skills were able to demonstrate their ability when the chips are down. It really revealed to me just how diverse my classroom is was enlightening and frustrating. The hardest thing about it was that for a few students, it revealed how significantly below grade level they actually function.

But all that is just back story. Yesterday was the day I gave them their tests back, and had hoped that those who didn't finish would take advantage of the time to do so, and those who did would be interested in who got what right and what the answers were. No such luck, and I was sad about this because there were a number of outstanding performers that I wanted to recognize and I didn't know how, and, even worse, I didn't really have a place for the students who were done to go. It felt like a homeroom. I think I would have come up with a plan had I the time. It isn't that I completely failed to anticipate the problem, so I guess I feel alright about that. I still had to live with it, though.

The Friday they took the test doesn't actually count as one of my days because I had to go to a seminar. I stayed up late getting the test ready and dropped it off during homeroom and explained the test to the first class so my supervising teacher could explain it to the following class. In some ways it was nice because I expect the students took the test more seriously knowing that their "real" teacher was administering it. I spent the day and Seminar wondering how in the world I'm going to have everything ready for them next week.

Day 15 was a Thursday. It was a modification from the day before which I'll get to later. I decided that I needed to take a larger role in guiding the review and modeling what it means to skim a chapter. First I had the kids read a play that covered the material we read so far and then I distributed a sheet with chapter titles and page numbers on them, directing them to write the main ideas or actions from each chapter. To do this I modeled skimming by "thinking out-loud," searching for main ideas and recalling events from the chapter. I tried to alternate with the students chapter to chapter with varying degrees of success. All in all, it took a lot longer than I thought it would and we didn't get a change to watch the clip from the Charlie Chaplin movie which is just as well.

Day 14 is when I dropped the bomb on them in the middle of class that we would be having a test. I did this after having read a chapter and without really warning them. My plan was to have them write, as a class, one set of notes that they could all use for the test, and that it was all they would be able to use. I also kept track of class participation. I don't think the idea was bad, but (same old story) time wouldn't allow it.

Take a break from this! Are you still reading? Seriously, there is much more internet out there!