Focusing on the POSITIVE

Second week down for 2010-2011, and we're focusing on the positive.  I am finally not behind.  I worked 12-15 hours a day for two weeks, but my grades are in and my planning is on track.  Mr. Goering, who teaches one block of reading, is completely unneedy, which is nice.  He doesn't know the content, but he knows instruction.  Real teachers can teach anything.  That must mean I am not a real teacher, because I don't think ANYONE would learn if I taught science.  Gratefully, Mr. Vasquez is doing that.  He's very upbeat ans seems to be confortable.  Chmids is teaching math. She has a very different perspective on things, but she is solid and I love her.  Although I MISS Bobbitt and Mesa so much it is painful somedays, it is nice to have a team that where everyone trying to be effective and collaborative.  I know as we move along, I will further appreciate this team and realize more deeply that Mesa and Bobbitt are serving better where they are. I still have Mr. Smith here and he reaffirms my belief in character and integrity everyday.  It will be nice to get together with the guys and not have our jobs in common.  I was a very different teacher.  Although they were always so supportive of my "giftings,"  there were days that it brought hard feelings (mostly unspoken, but not always).   In my heart, I believe we have a group of cools human beings in our building;  they just need solid leadership and TRUE vision, not just one that sounds good and looks impressive on the wall.  Northwest kids must not continue to suffer under the legacy of NW mismanagement.   We have a chance, I hope we take it.

On the home front,  I am trying to find my house.  My kids are tired from undersleeping every night.  I hope to get them back on track this week.  They tend to stay awake until I can read with them or tuck them in.  Sometimes, I find that pressure overwhelming when I got a million work things to do, but it would be more overwhelming if they stopped wanting me in their lives that way.  Emily has been riding with me.  That is fun.  I can't go as fast, but it is nice to have the company.  I bought her and Emily those super nice bikes, and they have hardly used them.  I am going to sneak over and steal Ashley's because it cost twice as much as mine and she doesn't use it.  I am going to ride the Tour de Shawnee tomorrow and the MS 150 in two more weeks.  After that, I hope Em and I will keep riding, but once the pressure of training is over, I tend to get lazy and put on my winter 15.   I would love to avoid that this year.  I take my shoes to school so I can run the stairs, but I never have time to do that.  I'll figure it out because it sure has been nice to get back to better shape.  It got a lot harder to do once I gave up youth ministries: no more mountain climbing or building houses in the 115 degree Mexican heat.  Those were the days. 

Well, I am off to meet with Susan Hodges about backward design.   I am sure I will learn more than I can give her.   Later.

Get Ready...Get Set...Go

That's about how quickly this year got off and running.  Unfortunately, the planning for 20 new staff members was not very thorough.  Lots of wholes in planning, communication and follow through have the building feeling very scattered and half-baked.  That is too bad since this school has this second chance at making a positive impact on the community through restructuring, the race to the top grant, and a 4.5 million dollar grant from some other source.  This should mean that we can get things done.  Unfortunately, this has not been an encouraging start.  Nepitism and maybe even a little ethnocentrism have replaced effective human resource choices and critical thinking.  These are people I truly like, but I can see the same process repeating itself in our middle school.  Favors and good intentions unwisely implemented are going to wear down the people who are here to make a difference.  I am devoted to my students.  This is the third year with them and I am love being here with them.  However, after 4 years of being here with some variation on ineffectiveness every year, I will move on when they are gone.  I don't have the energy nor the time to spend doing double duty for folks who can't do single duty.  It makes my efforts ineffective too. My family has been patient enough.  I am hoping God either makes huge glasses of lemonade out of human lemons or shows me what is His plan is for me here.  My growing bitterness will need lots of sugar, and the friends who used to be the sugar are no longer here.    I don't want to be an angry finger pointer, and I don't want to keep trying to fill in the holes of others' shortcomings.  It steals from my efforts to grow through some of my own shortcomings, maybe even adds to the list.  I go home every night wondering how many times I misrepresented Christ with my growing frustration.  

So those are the ravings of a already frustrated urban teacher, who loves kids and distrusts most adults.   That isn't who I was when I came into this job.  As frustrated as I am with people, I can only blame myself for letting it get to me.  My biggest goal for this year has to be to return to the much more positive person I think I was when I started this gig.  If I can't do that...... well, I don't know what's next.  It has turned into a spiritual battle.  I am sorry about that. 

Em and Sam started a new school.  They seem to be doing well, but this is a hard time for Emily to enter an entirely new environment.  It is hard to be new when you are starting the adolescent journey to define yourself.  It is much easier to feel safe in your identity in Christ when you attend a Christian school.  Sam, on the other hand, seems to breathe easier.  He doesn't complain about going to school, and he can already name a few friends.  I just need to get some of their friends over to the house.  I want them to feel a part of their new community and comfortable just being themselves.  I know God has a plan for my kids.  I know He loves them more than I do.  God has always been faithful, from my perspective, to fill in the holes of my shortcomings.  Look at Ashley.  She had every reason to be a mess, and she's fabulous.  That wasn't because of me. 

After all this talk of an exhausting career and desperate parenting, I must say, that I am starting the Urban Leadership Ed.S program at UMKC in Janaury.  I even find it hard to believe that I am doing that while teaching and when my kids most need me.  However, one of the additional legacies of working in my school is the thousands of dollars of my family's money that I spent in my classroom to supplement what the school/district did not provide.  Now, I need to fix the bind I put my family in.  I can only do that with education because we haven't gotten a raise for year in the district for two years, and I don't forsee that changing soon.  Mike's options for making more money are limited in a city that is saturated with I.T. people looking for jobs.  It should be interesting if not useful for my particular career goals.


In future posts, I will be more positive and get some good pics up of the kids.  They both grew so much this summer.  We went on a couple of trips, and we are going on a cruise in November.  I am going to put my family in the place they deserve in my life, and I am going to enjoy it.  NO MORE WHINING.