Oprah Obsession

I would call myself a fair-weather Oprah fan.

I have watched on and off over the 25 years (I was in college when she started with her show), but never religiously.  Typically, if the previews looked good, I'd start watching, but if the show didn't capture me or connect with me in the first 5 minutes, I turned the channel.  And in those 25 years, only two shows really stick out in my mind...

One...In 1987 (or thereabouts), she had a show where she wanted people to write in with their obsessions about sports figures.  My college roommate, Kim, had an ENORMOUS thing with KC Royals baseball player, George Brett.  Long story short, she got on the show and got to meet George. 

Two...in this season, when she reunited the cast of "The Sound of Music" last November - which is my all-time favorite movie and an obsession of mine.  I still have the episode TiVo'd and I do watch it occasionally.

So, intrigued with all the hoopla of her final episodes this week, I did sit down and watch her last show on Wednesday, May 25th.  It was a very nice show, entertaining, the messages were good, and I even wrote down a couple of quotes.  But, there was really just one thing that captured my attention throughout the entire show...

Her pink dress.

I loved it.  I wanted it.  I became obsessed with it.  I loved the color, the cut, the style, the funky sash...and I kept wondering if it was silk because she never sat down (I'm sure for fear of wrinkling it).  And I want one just like it.

Just as millions of fans are obsessed with Oprah, I am obsessed with that dress.




**And if anyone knows where I can find a dress like it (I'm sure I can't afford the designer dress) - let me know!! **





 

Day 5: How do you keep your classroom organized?

For starters, color is my friend.  Each class I teach is color coded (files, turn in bins, sticky notes, markers, etc.)

I received a label maker for Mother's Day a few years ago - wonderful for quick labels to files, filing cabinets, books, shoebox containers, cupboards...I know what's in it before I open it.

I have a bin, basket or container for most everything.  I have a separate bin for markers, colored pencils, glue sticks, rulers, calculators, note cards and activities I can use with my Advisory.  I have baskets for extra pencils, pens, bulletin board items and CDs.  I have a container in or on my desk for push pins, paper clips, sticky notes, note paper, etc.  If students need to use something in class, I have table containers where I 'measure' or place the items they will need on their tables.  This minimizes movement in my class.  (I have a very small classroom.)

My walls are spaced for different things - I have a certain area that is just for my Advisory.

I have a student area in my room where I keep extra paper, dictionaries, thesauruses, extra pens and pencils, kleenex...whatever they may need (or run out of)...this is an area where they do not need my permission to take - it is there for them if they need it.  In this area, I also have extra worksheets and a list of what we do each day in class, so a student can use this to reference what they have missed (and I'm not spending time in each class getting absent students caught up!).  Everything is there for them.

I am very fortunate that I have two very large whiteboards.  On my board in the back of my room is where I write down all assignments by unit (color coded, of course) and this stays up all semester.
On my front board, I have the daily schedule, date, month, and A/B day listed.

My desk has been at the front, but I'm going to move it to the back corner and more out of the way for next year.  (I was in a new room this year...so it's been a learning curve!)

What else do you want to know?  :)

Day 4: What were you most worried about as you approached your first day as a teacher?

The list is long!

Fortunately, the State of Iowa requires a mentor for the first two years of a teacher's career.  Without my mentor, I would have never been as successful as I was those first years.  However, even with my mentor safety net, I had some reservations going into that first day.

Here is a "brief" list of my worries going into that day...

1.  What if I can't keep the class under control?
2.  What if a student swears at me?
3.  What if I make a mistake in front of the class?
4.  What if I can't remember to take attendance?
5.  What if my seating chart doesn't work?
6.  What if I call a student by the wrong name?
7.  What am I doing three weeks from now in the curriculum?
8.  What if a student lost his/her schedule?
9.  Am I really going to be here in this room with 30 kids all by myself?
10.  Am I organized enough?
11.  Do I really know what I'm doing?
12.  What if they don't sit down?
13.  What if I haven't planned enough for the time we have?
14.  What if a parent calls me after the first day?
15.  Why did I take this job?

And you know what I found out?  The kids were great - and everyone sat.  And I did mess up a few names, but the world didn't come to an end, and the kids were very forgiving.  I had planned too much in the lesson and I knew what I was doing three weeks into the schedule.  All in all, I had planned for the worst and the best happened - and I had an amazing first day of teaching.

Most of all, I learned to relax, laugh and go with the flow.  When you teach eighth graders, surprises occur, things don't go as planned and mistakes happen.

It's just like life.

Day 3: In which area do you think you can improve the most?

The questions just keep getting tougher, don't they?  This one is tough because there are many areas to improve in - not that I'm doing a bad job - but you can always keep learning and honing your teaching craft.

I find that it takes me a couple times (ok, more than a couple of times) to do something to really 'get it' and execute it well.  It really can be anything - a change in classroom management practice, grading rubric, lesson planning and execution, or conferencing with parents through phone or email.  Honestly, I would like to shorten that learning curve.  I think in order to do that, several things must happen:

1.  Continue to be proactive in planning...anticipate as many bumps in the road and how to overcome those
2.  Ask more questions of colleagues in how they would handle/plan/anticipate situations and scenarios...use the multitude of experience around me.  (I think it is in this area alone, I could improve the most!)
3.  Reflect, reflect, reflect and document, document, document.
4.  Rinse and repeat.

Day 2: What Do You Believe is Your Greatest Strength as a Teacher?

This question is very tough for me because I am uncomfortable saying I'm good at something while others may not see that in me.

After thinking about this for almost the entire school day, I would have to say it is my ability to interact with students at the same level that they are.  For example, I do not feel that I am 'above' a student.  I like to have fun with them, joke with them and just accept them who and how they are...and this is so important at the 8th grade level when there is all this icky-ness surrounding them at this age.

And there is something that I like about EVERY student.  Even the ones that others don't.

Day 1: How Did You Decide to Become a Teacher?

From the age of 10, I knew that I wanted to teach.  I'm not sure if it was the 'glamour' of having a captive audience or if I just really connected with my teachers.  I'm thinking it was the latter.  My 4th grade teacher was amazing and I really remember a lot about that grade and what I learned (and the specific lessons and how they were presented).

Of course, the subject changed along the way - first, it was a band director, then a choir director, then an English teacher, and finally decided on majoring in secondary science education (because I was told that with a science teaching degree, I could get a job ANYWHERE).  (That was my 10 second career guidance I received my junior year in high school.)

So, I set my sights on the University of Northern Iowa (because if you want to teach, that's where you go...) despite my mother's pleading that I go to Luther College. (My bank account appreciated the state university decision!)

My decision to teach never wavered throughout college and after my student teaching at Marshalltown HS in 1989, I was ready to take on my own classroom.  Being engaged and my fiance' established in Des Moines, my job search was focused on Central Iowa - and very few science teaching jobs were available.

I started that fall as a substitute teacher for three districts, but being at the bottom of the sub list, I rarely got called.  Frustration set in and I stopped subbing and got a full-time retail job.  The next summer, I was applying again and I got one interview - but I did not get that job because the school also needed a head football coach.

Figuring that teaching was not in my future, I scrapped my dream and started looking for alternative employment.  I started at Norwest Banks in the fall of 1990 and spent the next 15 years climbing the corporate ladder in various companies (and the last 2/3rds in the training department) and obtained my MBA in Organizational Development in 2004.

The tides turned in early 2006, when looking for a job after being unemployed, I started subbing again to bring in some income.  I fell in love all over again with the teaching profession and realized that's what I needed to do.  I started applying for teaching jobs and was hired as an 8th grade science teacher at Waukee.

I was a first year teacher at 40 years of age.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Ok, I know I started this blog to help me grieve my dad's death.  And I fully expect that there will still be posts around my grieving process.

But...I've been given a challenge and I want to take it.

As many of you know, I teach.  This has been a particularly tough year for me for many reasons and I feel the need to figure out (I mean...REALLY figure out) what the issues were.  So, a fellow educator has created a 30 day challenge to reflect on teaching.  I have accepted that challenge.

So at least for awhile, I am going to post around my reflections on teaching.   I fully expect that my comments may be controversial and at the very least, entertaining.  And hopefully, this will also help me heal in other areas, as well.

Enjoy...

I Second That Emotion

I did something after my last blogpost that I think I can finally admit to now.  No, it wasn't an illegal act or even immoral one (get your mind out of the gutter, people...), but it was life-changing for me.

You know what I did?  I cried.

Before you stop reading this and think 'what's new?' Yes, I know that I probably need to be in a 12-step program for Criers Anonymous. ("Hello, my name is Karla and I am a crier.")  I know that I cry at everything - happy things, sad things, mad things, you name it, I can produce tears like no one else. 

But this cry was different.  It was emotional AND physical.

I will spare you the trivial thing that happened to me to set me off (the proverbial 'straw that broke the camel's back' type thing), but it sent me into a rage I'm not sure I have ever experienced.  And then all hell broke loose.  I sobbed uncontrollably and I could feel the sadness and anger double me over - right in my gut.  My muscles tensed all over and my body reacted like it does when you vomit.  Except I wailed - oh, how I wailed!  And I produced an incredible amount of tears (like drown a small animal, lots of tears) - and honestly, I'm not sure what was in those tears, but they made my eyes burn as I cried them.

And along with those tears flowed anger, rage, sadness, frustration and guilt.  All the pent up emotion, all the swallowed sorrow, all the regrets and remorse flowed from me as if a dam had burst releasing the surging river to consume the land downstream.

I cried like this for the better of 30 minutes.  Non stop. And then I had a dreamless sleep.  It was the first night in a long time.

The days since then have been easier, the sun seems to shine a little bit brighter and I'm thankful for the daily routines that once bogged me down.  While I know there are still sad moments to encounter and the tears will not stop for me, I feel that I've walked through the valley and the terrifying darkness is over.  I'm walking a new path now, one of healing and peace.