Looking Up...

Hug...?

Hug hug hug hug hug

You’re my favorite teacher

No, no please don’t leave!

Seventh Classroom…

It was mostly in the library at first…

A pull out situation for English Language Learners…

Three and a half weeks were spent on ACCESS testing…

Two weeks were spent in the classroom…

Then BOOM: Pandemic…

There was no reason for me to stay at the Grad House so I left…

Well, I picked up UDairy Ice Cream and Ramen from Kumamoto in Newark, DE…

THEN I left…

So really, my seventh classroom was mostly on Zoom…

I did not end up doing the edTPA…

But I have a lesson, materials, and assessments set up to do so…

I’m a magpie...

You can become a child’s hero in surprising ways…

While I was waiting for names to be called at Parent Pick up, a little boy named Dell dropped the shiny silver bead he had found.

He became really upset…  

It was going to be yet another surprise gift for his mom!  Dell usually tends to pick her (and his teachers) flowers and draw pictures full of hearts.  So when he lost his bead Dell began to panic and crawl around on the floor.

I make beaded jewelry for fun…

It took me 3 seconds to find what he was looking for.  I picked it up and gave it to him…

I got the biggest smile…

And since that day, I’ve gotten a couple of hugs as well…

Erase the stigma and ignore inaccurate depictions in the media.  I’ve said it a couple of times now.

The sweetest boys have Autism!

Irish Yums!

Golden chocolates.

Foil wrapped Leprechaun coins.

Mouth melting goodness.

Oops!

Background check needed before certification can go through…

Guess what I forgot to do during winter break?

Yup.

So my K-6 general education certification is pending until the background check I had done last week is cleared.

This, sadly, has cost me a couple of job opportunities…

But hey, as long as parents continue to act worse than their children in my state, I should be in a position in no time!  Seriously.  ‘I can’t stand to see my kid in my mask’ is just code for ‘I’m tired of hearing my kid whine about masks and I don’t want to wear one myself so here I am protesting my family’s right to get terminally ill.

The fact that America ever made it to become a first-world country much less a world power is still a mystery to me…

I love my country but I hate the spineless, cowardly, selfish, greedy people who run it.

Second Classroom...

My second classroom…

I taught Japanese studies.

I was twelve-years-old.

I had a whole classroom full of peers that hated me.

I was the ‘weird’ kid who was friends with all the teachers.

Many of my peers left my speech on Japan wanting to visit the country.

It was nerve wracking but wonderful.

Ninth Classroom...

I bounced from school-to-school for a while before landing…

I was placed in a pull-out position where I would work with English Language Learners…

They were new to the country and new to the school…

A lot of the students were true beginners unable to associate phoneme to letter…

It was a lot of work, considering I only see them twice a week for half an hour at most…

Hybrid classes…come to school two days…go virtual three…

Except they don’t show up and do no work…

Fortunately, I’m not a ‘real’ teacher yet…

They only get some additional language support from me…completely homework free.

Of if they needed to talk…I was always willing to listen.

The Pandemic is hard on all of us…

Forget your standards and your deadlines…

Let children be children…

Depressed Again...

Depression hits hard

What if it never leaves me

Will I be trapped here?

Distracted...

I have a tight schedule that has grown even tighter…

There is no wiggle room…

So I find it where I can…

Last night I found too much, got too into it, and forgot to post…

Oops.

Tree Genocide...

Shadows forest love.

Verdant protection from light.

Stop killing them please.