The secret to growing a beautiful garden almost effortlessly...

First, you must start by planting sunflower seeds, the world's easiest plant to grow, in your gravel. Be sure to mix the gravel with soil mixture. Enjoy neighbor's appreciation of your gorgeous flowers.  Do this a year before this year's garden.

Second, you must let the sunflowers run their course, dry out, become horrible eyesores, ignore glares and pointed comments from neighbors. Let the birds pick at their carcasses. Only remove the stalks when the park manager starts discussing 14 day notices. Do nothing else.

The following year, notice that seedlings are starting to come up, throw a little water their way every once in a while.

One energetic weekend while a friend is visiting, purchase some tomatoes, and potted annuals. Recruit the friend to do half the work of planting. Water sporadically, because life is chaotic, and you like playing garden success roulette.

Wait for the fairies to come.  Leave often, stay away for long extents of time.

You will know they have been there because the hose might be coiled properly, or uncoiled from its last position.

You may also notice some quality irrigation work appear, or that someone has picked your ripe strawberries and placed them in your fridge.

  

 Sometimes, they will rearrange your tomato plants so that they rest properly against their cages.

















 Also, a good sign that the fairies have been visiting is that the earth is no longer crackled and dusty  like you left it.

 As it turns out, the trick to a beautiful garden is easy: leave it to the fairies.

Where they come from, I am not exactly certain. I have my suspicions that they have something to do with the family tooth fairy and friends. What I do know is, when I mentioned that I had figured out who the Big Hairy Tooth Fairy was, the tooth fairy stopped coming...so... if anyone asks, I am ABSOLUTELY bewildered as to where these garden fairies come from. Completely clueless.  Baffled.

All I know is that I sure think garden fairies are great.

Lessons learned so far: Teaching, entry 3

41. Junior high students will do nearly anything for an ink stamp on their paper! Tell them you will give them extra credit for turning in their homework on time, nothing. Give them a stamp on their pages to mark their extra credit, and suddenly every student is clamoring, "Where's my stamp? How do I get a stamp?" and homework turn in rate increases by 60%.

42. Buy cheap stamps. Certain junior high students will steal your stamper no matter where you put it. Especially if it was expensive. Twice.

43. Returning after spring break is like going to the zoo and finding out it's your job to potty train 20 monkeys all at once with time limit of 50 minutes. Expect to be pelted by lots of poop.

44. They grow up. Right in front of you. Not just height, either. Sure, sometimes, you'll turn around and say, "Hey, wait a minute, weren't we the same height yesterday?" Other times you'll look at them and see the eager, bright eyed, quick to please children, desperate for all the attention you can give. Most of the time you'll look at them and see the surly teenagers they intend to be for the next 2-12 years. But, every rare once in a while, you'll see them make a selfless decision, use common sense, deal with a frustrating situation with maturity, use integrity, or show great responsibility, and for that moment you are privileged to see what fantastic adults they might someday be. That's a beautiful moment.

45. You should brag on them. Especially in front of them. Every chance you get. To other students, other teachers, their parents, other kids' parents, your parents. Some students don't have many people in their lives who brag on them for anything, let alone education. Some students have parents who brag on them, but you know kids at their age: what do their parents really know?

46. Even though you'll despise yourself for it every time you do it, tie the current ridiculous heart throb boy bands(currently OneDirection/Justin Bieber) into every concept possible. Something with that much passion behind it, whether loved or hated, will be remembered.

47. Notice every little change for the better, even if it's not yet enough.

48. Learn a long list of positive adjectives and use them often. "You put the erasers away? Have I mentioned how fantastic you are, today? Oh, well then, you're stinking fantastic, thank you! I really appreciate that!"

49. Don't let them get away with stuff. Just because you're being all warm and fuzzy doesn't mean they get to disrupt the class or ignore procedures. Demand perfection, at least then they might achieve acceptable.

50. KEEP TRACK OF EVERYTHING! Did you ask that student to stop clicking his pen 3 times today? How many times did you ask him yesterday? Last week? It seems frivolous, but it matters.

51. Come up with a system that works with your brain. You can try everyone else's systems, but if you don't adapt them to your brain, you won't use them, and then you'll just be disorganized and ticked off. It may be a perfect system for Mr. So and So, but if it doesn't work for you and you can't adapt it, it's crap, get rid of it.

52. Try stuff. It doesn't matter if it's the middle of the semester, quarter, week, or day. If something could use improvement and you come up with or hear an idea you think has merit, don't save it for next year. Plan a little, find the perfect moment, explain what's going to happen, and then do it. If it works, dance for joy. If it doesn't work, try it again. If it doesn't work again, adapt it a little, try it again. After that, maybe set it aside for more tinkering at a later date.

53. Stick with new things. Don't just try it once and then throw it out if it went bad. If you introduce something new, the students will balk because "we've never done this before!" Explain it clearly and confidently. Give it a week. Let them understand classroom=ship, students=crew, teacher=captain, mutiny is not an option, plank walking and keelhauling are, though. Usually, they catch on and even appreciate it, after they have learned that no amount of kicking and screaming will be rewarded.

54. They have to try the kicking and screaming thing every time just to make sure it won't work this time.

55. Remember to love them. This may sound funny, but honestly, sometimes they will drive you to the brink of insanity, and if you forget that you love them, you'll start to hate them. You knew when you signed up that junior high students are crazy people. If you love the crazy people, they're easier to tolerate when they're about to push you over the edge.

56. Always, always, always, always, always, ALWAYS have your OBJECTIVE, subject specific vocabulary, standards, and EL standards in prime condition, posted visibly and ready for superintendent inspection. The day you don't have one of those items in prime condition will be the day 5 people from the superintendents' office will decide to sit in your room for 2.5 periods and take lots of notes.

57. Bring Cadbury Cream eggs to the office ladies. Office ladies control a lot. They have many opportunities to giveth and taketh away. They like chocolate. And Cadbury eggs are only 4 weight watcher points, so they won't hate you for bringing a treat they can't have.

58. Don't leave your Cadbury's in the car. If you do, though, the office ladies will still appreciate them, lopsided and all.
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60. When the maintenance people back their golf cart into its parking spot 12 feet from the classroom door, it sounds like the distant ring of the fire alarm (which, if you recall from entry 1, can barely be heard in this classroom). Even though they know it's the golf cart, they'll still protest multiple times: "We're all going to burn to a crisp while everyone else is out standing in the soccer field talking to each other!!!!"  The scary thing is, they're actually more upset that other students might be socializing without them than they are about the idea of being burnt "to a crisp." Oh, the junior high mindset... Be glad you are only surrounded by it, and no long have to live in it!

I don't have time to shower.

Send Febreeze.

Hopefully, most of you haven't noticed the smell(which might be solely because I haven't been around often enough for you to sniff). 

TMI statement aside, just felt the need to spend a little bit of my procrastination time updating my blog. "I don't have time to shower!" is actually a thought I caught myself thinking recently. It stopped me in my tracks. What did I just think? Ridiculous! I love hot showers!

But, in reality, it's the truth. Between running from teaching, to running to credentialing classes, to doing homework, to mad dashes to the grocery store to find food for lunch, to grading homework, to doing homework, lessons plans, to observations, observation meetings, PLCs, CSTs, IEPs, SATs, CFAs, COIs, SOS!

My life has become such that I've found myself having to schedule my shower late into the wee hours of the morning, and having to force myself to actually maintain the appointment, rather than crawling directly into bed. That is the kind of life I'm leading. Not only am I spending 40 hours a week with junior highers, I may be beginning to smell like them as well.

All in all, though, I would have to say I am surviving pretty well. While I am so crazy busy that my dishes could get the CPS called on me if I had kids, my laundry tempts me to order new clothes on Amazon, and other such absurdities, there is not the nauseating, meltdowning, hyperventilating panic that I have experienced in the past due to high stress. I know my students. I have a feel for the school works. I'm comfortable in my classroom, the school disciplinary measures, and in my teacher self. My students are usually improving, and when they aren't, they aren't far from the other 8th grade students' performances.

Suggest that I am not making enough time for something, should be doing something better, paying more attention to this or that, or that I should devote more time to something else, and rest assured, I will cease to speak to you until at least summer, but the balance, while precarious and exhausted to it's full capabilities, is not currently a death defying act. I sleep without stress induced terrors, I wake without nerve induced nausea, I usually eat lunch every day... I am surviving with my soul in tact.

So, just in case you were wondering. That's how life's going right now. Good. Busy. I miss my friends and my hobbies, and nap time, but the blessings are bountiful, the learning overfloweth, and someday, I will again have time to stand in the shower until the hot water runs completely out. Until then, I'll pay close attention to my schedule so as not to forget such important appointments, and increase my stores of deodorant and baby wipes just in case.

If you're praying for me, thanks. It helps.

Lessons learned so far: Teaching, entry 2

21. Take all drills seriously. Really, really.

22. You can't please everybody, when you're working on practicing academic skills,  someone will whine about not doing enough labs. When you get a really cool lab going, someone will whine for worksheets. (Worksheets?!)

23.They'll call every single bluff you make, so you have to make every single bluff they call. Be cool with that.

24. You can get tired of chilli beans for lunch. If you assign lunch detention though, odds are you won't wind up eating the chilli, and then you can pack chilli 3 days in a row, and only actually have to eat it once. Problem solved... ish?

25. Student aides are still great.

26. Shower wall paneling is not the same material as whiteboard. It just looks like it. It writes like it, too. However, it does NOT erase like it. (This is mainly the reason student aides are great)

27. When you make the students do classwork during a drill while they sit under their desks, your reputation as a mean teacher grows rapidly. Own it.

28. Paper is evil. When you need to print on it, it will not be there. When you need to use your desk, it will hold the desk hostage in large masses until you file it.

29. It is easy to get total participation in a "Thumbs Up" question, if the question is either "Thumbs up if you hate Mondays"  "Thumbs up if you didn't want to get out of bed this morning" or "Thumbs up if you are happy it's Friday."

30. #29, though started somewhat in a goofy mood actually works really well for jump starting a halfhearted class or focusing an overly energetic class. Go figure.

31. Candy works if #30 fails.

32. If you ask students if they brought you homework as they walk through the door daily and incessantly, eventually some of them will crack and bring it in. Go figure.

33. If you tell students that every time you see a mechanical pencil "a little part of my soul dies" you'll notice more mechanical pencils appear in the days to come. You will also notice students raise their mechanical pencils, look you in the eye, and click it with a maniacal eyebrow wiggle. Learn to love maniacs, and replenish your soul often.

34. Always review your seating chart. There are some that will never give up trying to sit in the worst partnership combo possible, so you should never give up checking that chart vindictively.

35. Whether or not they know, every public schooled student wants to be homeschooled in some way. They want you to stop at their desk, lean over, smile, and ask them how they are doing. They want to be able to mold their lessons into something that intrigues them individually. They want to be trusted to be responsible with their work, while being offered occasional support/nagging. They want to be given choices in their learning. While they are comfortable with the ease of worksheets, they really want to to be forced to think, even if it takes a lot of force to get them there. They want someone to look them in the eyes and say, "You struggle with this? There's nothing wrong with you, it just means you need a new angle of approach, try this one." They want someone to be intentionally proud of their achievements based on who they are, not how they compare to their class. In relation to that, they want you to be individually aware of when they do not succeed, and they want you to expect better of them, individually. That's a lot of work. It's worth it, though.

36. Any lab you bring in that the students can eat in the end will ensure full enthusiasm and participation from the students.

37. Any lab that should not be eaten at the end will probably end up in their mouths anyway.

38. In a lab involving icing, you do not need to worry about spills, or sticky surfaces. Junior high students have ways to insure not a lick of it goes to waste.

39. Something to consider: If a drop of icing falls on the floor, a junior high student may actually lick the floor. Use this information however it may sway you.

40. Students who understand your lesson quickly at the first exposure make your job easy. Students who completely don't get it, get frustrated to tears, need the concept explained seven different ways, make you give up so many minutes and meals of your "student-free" time explaining it one more time, and then, one day, finally get it, make your job rewarding.

Lessons learned so far: Teaching

1. Always have handfuls of activity ideas that can be applied to practically any subject. Because standing there on a day when the assembly is canceled, with 15-30 minutes to spare and no actual activity planned for this slot of time is really awkward. (Bonus tidbit: "Quiz, Quiz, Trade" is an almost entirely fool proof back-up trick)

2. No plan is fool proof.

3. Put homework instructions at the beginning of  class. Fire alarms go off frequently

4. You can't hear the fire alarm. They're working on that. It makes you look really bad, though.

5. Junior high students are generally incapable of thinking of cause and effect if it extends beyond the next 30 seconds. You have to put a pair of consequences in place for them, one that happens in the next 30 seconds, and the real one.

6. Junior high students do not believe there are consequences for anything. And if there are, they are for other people. Especially other junior high students.

7. If a junior high student was told that he must stop talking, or his dominant hand would be cut off, there would be a lot of new lefties in the world, and a few new righties. (Please refer to lessons 5 and 6)

8. You don't have to read every piece of homework.

9. You cannot be a private tutor to every student in the class, during class. You have to make it worth their while to take instruction as a group, partly by stepping up the entertainment value, and partly by letting them learn the hard lessons a few times.

10. Junior high students have extremely short memories. It means that when things didn't go right in a lesson, the next day is nearly entirely a clean slate.

11. There are 2 kinds of trouble-makers: The attention-seekers and the power seekers.

12. Catch the attention seekers doing right, give them special jobs so that you can praise them.
Give the power seekers duties. If that doesn't work, get them out of the room long enough for you to get the rest of the class in the right rhythm so power isn't as easy to seize.

13. Don't underestimate the power of choices. "You have the option to work cooperatively with your teammates, or be sent out and work on the same project alone. Please make the best decision." works WAAAAAY better than "Work with your team now."

14. Don't sit on chocolate chips. They melt.

15. Get a student aide. It's great.

16. Call parents. Early and often.

17. Never forget yard duty week.

18. Very few lessons will actually be able to be completed during Red Ribbon Week.

19. Ask a lot of questions, in class and out.

20. Don't tell the kids there are dead bodies in the filing room that connects your room to 2 other classrooms. It really bothers them when the lights go on in there and silhouettes start moving around silently behind the frosted window.

Gluten free: Elephant Bar Update

I have noticed that many people are searching on Google for "Gluten Free Elephant Bar" and they keep finding my old post. Elephant Bar is a place that changes their menu and dishes often, so my old post is out dated.

More recently, the Elephant Bar has placed 2 gluten free options on their regular menu: Fire-Grilled Lemon Garlic Chicken Breast, and Fire-Grilled Rainbow Trout. These are found somewhere near the back of the menu. I had the chicken last time. It was very good. You'll have to ask someone else about the fish, as I really do not like fish.

As they state on their  menu, you should definitely let them know about your sensitivity so that they can take special precautions.

Also, make sure your information is up to date. What is gluten free at the Elephant Bar today (January 4, 2013) may not be gluten free tomorrow, and I am in no way affiliated with Elephant Bar, I don't have the inside track, and I am not a doctor. Make sure you are doing what is best for you.

Proverbs 14:1

The wise woman builds her house,

but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.

Happy New Year.