Why is it so hard to get out of bed in the summer?

Many Summers ago ....unfinished                                                                  post from 2010.

Get Ready...Get Set....Go

I never seem to have time to finish the "get set" portion of this process.  One day I was teaching Summer Enrichment...then I was entering a school year full of chaos and dysfunction.  In between there were some good family times.  It felt like I was learning to prioritize, but now that the school year has started, it feels like my family is sitting in the back of the bus again.

Between Summer Enrichment and the new year, I visited my sister.  Emily stayed behind and spent more time with them.  Then she went to camp and VBS, then she spent another week with my sister.  I think it was a good summer for her.  Sam and I hung out a lot and enjoyed some field trips together.  We also learned to appreciate the value of Netflix.  We went out during the day and watched MANY old movies in the afternoons. 


NOTE one March 7, 2016 - This blog is unfinished, but I am going to post it just to keep the thoughts and memories recorded.  It was written in 2011.

Feel a Change Comin' On

Seeking Change

I am in the second semester of my fourth year at J.C. Harmon High School.   For the past two years I have been teaching Strategic Reading and supporting my students and classroom teachers with literacy strategies in the content classrooms.   I was invited to propose a intervention process for struggling adolescent readers, someone listened, and for the past two years that curriculum and intervention process has been used in the 8 middle schools and 4 mainstream high schools in the district.   It has kept me busy, but also intellectually engaged with kids and adults.

During this same time, Emily has found success and connections in high school  This year she is the ads editor on the yearbook, she was in two productions in the drama department,  and she survived two marching bands seasons.   She took two trips this years.  With the yearbook, she traveled to Washington D.C.  With the marching band, she traveled to California to march in a parade, at the Holiday Bowl game, and in Disney Land.   She is now trying to decide if she wants to be involved in the AP or IB programs in her high school.  In order to make this decision, she has to have some future vision of where she wants to go to college and what she wants to commit her life to as an adult.  This is hard talk for a momma to hear.  She is talking about schools that are hours away from home.

Samuel is working his way through the purgatory of middle school.  He has done remarkably well, with only a couple of glitches.  His glitches tend to have more to do with adults who have too much too do or too little actual interest in students.  The lessons were good for Sam as a student and for me as a parent.  We are constantly learning how to navigate this world of public education with personal challenges.   Right now,  Sam is playing basketball for the first season of b-ball supported at the middle school level in his district for 29 years.   He made the B-team.  He was disappointed, for sure. He struggles with the try-out process.  I think he gets too anxious or nervous.  In the games he is much more impressive, but that is too late for making the team he wants.  I he is making the best of it.  There is growth needed.  He will be a better leader and stronger player in many ways.

My Ashley has been out on her own for 8 years.  Emily will be gone, for the most part, in another 2 1/2 , and Sam in 4 1/2.   It seems too soon.  I feel like the business of life, and most specifically of being at teacher, hasn't given me enough time with them.    This school year in particular I spent most of the weekend for the first four months of school in Iowa with my mom while she was in the hospital in Des Moines.   The rest of the time, I was trying to support this TLI (Targeted Literacy Instruction) program.    I am feeling the pull to moderate my existence more, spend more time making memories and living the moments.  I spend so much time checking off lists of things i need to do.    I am in a transitional place.  I "plan" to listen and reflect more as this school year winds down.  I am feeling a pull for change.    I have a difficult time believing God's will for me includes leaving students, but at the same time I am feeling some kind of needed shift.

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development - Model Presentation

Students were asked to present Google presentations of important theories to modern education.  This video shows the presentation Nathan Cushenbery-Andrews and I created to model the process.

Keyanna Tolon teaching about the Bill of Rights in Mr. Aguilar's class at Northwest Middle

This is one of my Teaching Academy students.  Keyanna was given some limited materials.  She was able to prepare an engaging lesson to introduce the students to the bill of rights and how it all it connect to them as adolescents.   She really did step up.  She engaged the students initially with a discussion/debate over whether or not children should have the same rights as adults.  She wrapped up the lesson about what rights they do have under the constitution.  Finally,  the students read case studies and assumed the role of judges in deciding each with their group case.    I was impressed with Keyana and several others high school students who boldly stood before classrooms full of middle schoolers in summer school.   I am impressed.  I would have struggled to do the same at 16 and 17.

Summer Experiences - Teachers Do Work in the Summer

Theory Presentations: LaPrincia, Me, and Destiny 

Each summer seems to offer me a new experience.  Lets see...when I came to this district in 2006, I spent the summer, before I ever started teaching here, writing benchmarks.  I had no idea what a benchmark test was really for or how they would be used in the district.  During my first year, I taught 91 benchmarks (standards) with the options of 4 tests for each standard.  So if the student didn't pass the  FOUR QUESTION benchmark test, they were to be retaught and retested up to three additional times.  Imagine what class time could turn into under that system.....not good.   We've moved on after 3 or 4 years of that.

In subsequent summers, I taught two years of summer school, I taught one summer of enrichment with 7th graders from Northwest Middle (detailed in this blog somewhere), and I spent a summer of rewriting standards and collecting resources as we transitioned to Common Core.   Last summer, I spent the summer with the Greater Kansas Writer's Project.   This summer, I fell into the opportunity to work with PrepKC and the Teaching Academy.   I never imagined the experience would be so enjoyable.  I love teaching students about teaching.   For four weeks we've taught students about the theories of development and classroom management,  the importance of our words, he issues of equity, and the challenges of the first year.   They have observed and taught in classes from preschool to middle school.   I have been impressed with many of them.  I think they have developed a strong sense of how much work it takes to be an excellent teacher.  Some will choose not to teach after this, but they will do so with awareness that good teachers offer an important contribution to society, even if teaching isn't for them.

I finished my reading specialist this past semester.  More and more I find I really want to contribute to helping others reach adolescent struggling readers.  This experience only re-enforced that desire.  I will work more with students and teachers in the coming year.  It is my sincere desire,  my prayer even, that my work will improve the lives of students who've been lost in the system for too long.  We've let too many kids down in this system.  I want to do my part to change that for the students in my little corner of the system.   I also hope to see some of these young people from the Teaching Academy come back and impact their communities with integrity and hard work.