...On coming to the end.

Well, here it is. The end of student teaching. The end of the hardest 7 months of my life. I've failed, succeeded, lost relationships, made new ones (hell, strengthened old ones), and through it all I have held my head high and forged ahead to this point.

This week, I am saying goodbye to the 150 young people who have taught me how to be a teacher. 150 young people who somehow managed to get me to open my heart up to myself again. 150 young people who showed me what respect really is, and what culture really is. 150 young people that I will never be able to forget.

I am saying goodbye to two fabulous people that I have lived with for almost 3 years now (I'm only saying goodbye as roommates, but it's still sad!). I am saying goodbye to the staff at this school, who have taught me more than I thought I could ever learn about teaching for social justice, teaching for learning, teaching for kids. I am saying goodbye to my teaching cohort, who went through this hurricane with me, and will likely never all be in the same room again. And, of course, I am saying goodbye to my comfort, as I break out on a month long solo-ish adventure to Central America.

All of these changes are resonating with me deeply right now. As I move towards Monday, I move towards a day when everything is going to change for me, permanently. When I come back from this trip, I will not be the same - that's the point.

As I read the notes that students have written me, I am realizing how many kids I really did reach. I always said that for me, teaching was about making an impact - at least one. If I made an impact in even one kid's life, I would be happy. Today, I'm realizing that I can set my goals a little higher than that. I have made a difference in so many kids' lives, and even if the only thing they remember is that they like science - mission accomplished, that's an impact.

There are lots of things that I want to write here. But I think I'll leave all 3 of the people who will read this a rather extensive sample of quotes from my students, regarding me leaving...
*****************

"I only came to class because of you."

"OMG! I'm gonna miss you soooo much!"

"Damn class feels super weird without you and boring!"

"If the chicken don't fly on Saturday, then it's probably gonna fly on Sunday."

"Remember the chicken taste its best fried."

"When you are here, I had a lot of time funny! I don't know how to say with you, but I'm so sad when you leave...I wish you have happy time in the new place. And we always welcome you back in this school. Miss you!!"

"Your a pretty KOOL chick and I hope you seriously find some doode whos lucky enough to have you and totally make some cute babies [LOL] haha sorry talk about random."

"I am gonna miss you because you are one of that best teacher that I had in my life. I want to thank you because you always help me when I have questions."

"Your style of teaching is very helpful to me."

"You are a great teacher because you really cares about us and you don't want anybody to get hurt during the lab."

"I loved learning from you and your cool ways."

"We all created a bond with you as a class."

"Stay safe!"

"God bless you!"

"You have been a great teacher to me and I'm sad that your leaving but I know thats how life goes people that you love or you like come and go. I think that you have made me a better student."

"Being a TA for you guys was fun. Even though you guys didn't have much for me to do."

"It's a very good thing for me to know you, and you be my teacher...So now I know that you will lelf use soon, and I think it's really bad between us. But I hope that you have a lot of fun when you gonna travel and take care of yourself, be back soon."

"To be honest, I really disliked you in the beginning of the year but at the same time that was cause I didnt know u...but you did what other student teachers couldn't do, that was steping up, we put you threw alot of crap but hey were lovable...Your mean for leaving us by the way"

"Don't forget me!"

"Don't get arrested stealing Mexican sand for me!"

"Have fun without us...but not too much."

"You have been wonderful and you have been there for me when I needed you...I love the way you teach!"

"Come visit, and maybe I'll come visit you too!"

"Come see us play next year we going to state come support the football team first game in september"

"Smile, pat yourself on the back, be happy, cause your officially cut out to do this stuff, yeah teaching. There are very few adults or teachers that are accepted by these students including myself. It's typical for kids to disrespect and often act in bad manners towards someone that is not the real teacher and has not been around long enough to demand kids but that someone isn't you. Somehow you have really connected w/the students and they don't want you gone. That's a big deal and a huge success"

"I know how kids can be but you've proven that they can all be more than they sometimes make themselves out to be. I thank you for teaching the greatest and most rare skill to these students, which is how to be GREATFUL..they give more effort, want to try harder, and actually care for education due to your guidance. I speak of only some but I have witnessed this myself. It's a good change to see in my classmates and friends."

"Once again, grin, smile, or something cause you have accomplished something many people don't. You have gain, earned, and deserve the respect of young youth b/c you gave it first and returned it when it was ever given - RESPECT."

"Thank you for being here. Thank you for stamping my entry task. Thank you for having a last name that reminds me of my favorite show Seinfeld. LOL :)"

Coming to the end...

Here it comes...the end of student teaching. I have two more weeks...that's it! I can't believe it!

I have realized this week that March is when students really begin to trust you. They begin to buy into the fact that maybe you are here for them, for awhile (or for good). This is both amazing and problematic: I love these relationships I have built, but I have to leave them.

My current plan is to come back to visit and/or volunteer in the classroom during the month of May/June, when I return from my trip. Oh, I'm going on a trip. I'm going to Mexico, Guatemala, and Costa Rica for a month. Exciting! One of my students is making a list of places to see when I visit Oaxaca, because that's where she is from. I love this job. I love the things that it allows me to do, and the connections I get to make with people.

My students this round are people that I will remember all my life, I think. They have impacted me a lot....

More later....

:) Big smiles today!

the Knowles Teaching Fellowship

I applied for this fellowship awhile ago, and recently (read: ten minutes ago) received an email letting me know that I have made it to the in-person interview portion of the selection process. There were about 200 applications, and 72 people have made it to this stage. Approximately half of these will actually receive the award, but that includes three subject areas (math, physical science, and biological science). So, my actually number of "competitors" is smaller (about 23 or so).

I am super excited about this - not only is it an exciting weekend in Philadelphia, meeting people and having the potential of receiving a great fellowship at the end - it is also a really great acknowledgment of my accomplishments so far. This is definitely something I needed right now!

I am feeling good! :)

Here's a screen shot of the email I got (hope you can see it!):

My Recent Life in a Paragraph

Life is a funny thing. About two weeks ago (three weeks ago? not sure...) I got hit with a terrible stomach flu bug, couldn't make it out of my car, but ended up on the side of a busy street in Seattle throwing up and crying. This was Friday night. I got some pretty bad news the following day, and my life has been on mend ever since.

That weekend really threw off my teaching for awhile, mostly because I couldn't plan for anything while I was vomiting and trying to reintroduce food into my life. I'm really proud of myself, though, because I've bounced back from such a "non-Anna" scenario (not prepared, etc.). And, I don't think my teaching or my students really truly suffered in the meantime. I think in a way, even though they didn't know it, my students helped me through all that. Because of the relationships I've built with them, they were patient with me when I had my moments of "bad" teaching, they were helpful when they could see that I needed it, and they were kind when they could tell I was frustrated with myself for not being as ready for the day as I usually am. One student asked me if I was okay, and I told her that I was, I had just received some bad news. She told me, "Wow, Ms. Kramer, you must be really strong to be here with us after all of that." That one little statement has really carried me through. I am strong, aren't I? :)

All of this came right in the middle of what's called my PPA+ unit. It's basically a unit I teach that will get super judged/evaluated to assess whether I deserve a teaching certificate or not. Poor timing, hm? Yeah. But guess what? It's turning out really well. I think I really have a knack for this teaching thing. Even in the midst of a personal/organization upheaval, I'm able to be here for these kids, and actually use it to help me figure my stuff out. It's incredible!

I also went to our boys' last basketball game last night: phenomenal! They only beat the other team by 2 points in the last 18 seconds. There were some awesome dunks involved, a missed dunk that could have made the game, and some amazing basketball. Loved every second of it! I am really going to miss this school...I'm trying to think of something I can do for the students when I leave, because they have already done so much for me...

Ideas???? Anyone?

So far I have:
1) Write something nice about each kid, and read it aloud on the last day.
2) Have the students work as a class to make scientific posters for an experiment we are doing soon (write up the purpose, the methods, etc.) and put all of our names on it and then print it up for them

Give me ideas!

EDIT: Just realized the title implies that this post would be a paragraph. Sorry about that, definitely not a paragraph.

...On subbing a whole day by myself & ARTS NIGHT!

This would be a long post if it weren't limited by my need for sleep. Here is the excitement that has happened in the past week, during which I believe I have taken a huge step toward becoming a "REAL" TEACHER:

Subbing: My mentor teacher was unexpectedly really ill, and at the last minute I found out that I was going to be in charge of our entire 1 - Biology, 3 - Biology, 5 - Chemistry day myself, which is really intense. I ended up having about 4 people come in to observe me that day, too. But I rocked it. Seriously, it was great! Of course, I will post photos later, but I managed to do some really cool stuff in my chemistry class, thanks to the advice of a certain genius mentor Melissa. I'm going to post that this weekend though, because it's 11 and I HAVE to write about Arts Night before I go to sleep. The moral of this paragraph, though, is that I can totally handle being by myself, even if I'm still shaky and a little bit unprepared, still, for TWO different preps (classes). Feeling good...

So, on to the really exciting stuff: ARTS NIGHT!
This was basically a night for all of our Arts Core students to show off the skills they had learned this semester in their Arts Core classes. Since we're an arts themed school, this is a big deal. There were yoga demonstrations, break dancing sessions, choreographed dancing, band performances (one by students who had only played for 5 weeks!) and short skits performed. The entire event lasted about 1.5 hours, and was accompanied by an academic display of student work at the back of the gymnasium. Families were invited ----- and the gym was FULL. People had to stand. It was, in a word, inspiring!

I hear so much about how our students' families "don't care" and "aren't there" but they were there in full force tonight to support their students. Watching the kids perform with big smiles and, quite honestly, the passion in their hearts for what they were doing showing through on those smiles - it really gave me quite a start. I realized that this school has really become a part of me, and with only 5/6 weeks to go, I'm going to have to start letting it go a little. I've really put my whole self into this student teaching internship...and by doing that I've fully invested in these kids. I realized that I have to start talking soon about when I leave, so that I'm not abandoning them...because I really feel that I have become a part of their schedules, their routines, even maybe their lives. They have certainly become a solid part of mine.

Tonight, I really realized the power of the community my students come from. It's the type of community that I've always craved: a bunch of people who are SO different from each other, but united by SOMETHING. They're not always united, but the possibility exists, and tonight I saw that. There were no fights, no teasing, not even any drunk kids showing up (that I saw). This was a night relatively devoid of high school debauchery. These students took PRIDE in their work. Like I said, I was inspired....

On the other hand, it really made me sad to think that I won't get to see these particular students through their high school years. I won't be able to teach at this school, but I can hope for a community like this one. I'm really going to miss these kids, but I know that I will carry a lot of them in my heart and mind for a long time, since they are the ones who have really been teaching me how to teach (along with my mentor teacher, of course). These are the people who are shaping how I do things as an educator, and these are the students that I will think back on and be motivated by for quite some time.

In other words, I love my experience thus far, and it really floors me that things are this great. I want to bottle up this enthusiasm for the hard times that I'm sure are to come in my remaining weeks here...but I know now that the highs and lows are part of the job, for me. Tonight, I'm floating high high high, and I am so proud of both the work my students have done and the pride they are taking in it.

They have SO MUCH to be proud of!

Signing off....it's past 11 now....must sleep!

Photos...

Here are some photos you can enjoy.

1. The type of vitamins I have to take now, sitting on top of a pile of grading that is beginning to require its own "INBOX" on my desk.


2. The attempt I made to explain "atomic radius" to my chemistry students. They hated it. "Ms. Kramer, no offense, but that's.....well it's just weird. It doesn't have anything to do with chemistry!" Bad representation....bad analogy....but I got to use the school copier to print a worksheet that said, "rollin' on dubs" :)...


I've been sick, and barely getting by with planning and such. So I'm going to go and keep working on that...

...On never writing on your blog

Well, I guess I should start by apologizing to the 3 people that read this blog since I haven't updated it since....well, it's been awhile.

I go back to school tomorrow, and I only have 2 1/2 months left.
In the spirit of the new year, let's run through the good and bad stuff that's happened since I left you hanging (all 3 of you).

Here we go:

We got to do some cool experiments in biology with eggs. Basically, Devin (the other science teacher candidate) and I put eggs in vinegar and let them sit for a few days, then rubbed the shells off. This leaves only the membrane behind, and provides a really cool model of a cell for showing diffusion and osmosis. Of course, this makes the rooms smell like vinegar and eggs, so there's that. Devin and I had a great 2 hour session of rubbing shells off eggs and just catching up; it was quite a treat in the climax of last quarter (the quarter from HELL). The students thought the eggs were totally nasty (they were RIGHT) but they had such awesome ideas about what was happening to them, and got really into designing experiments and talking science. It was great.

I bonded rather strongly with one of our biggest "troubled" students in our biology class. He informed me (this is the conversation in which we bonded) that he has 2 assault convictions, 1 residential burglary conviction, and 1 theft conviction. He is currently facing 2 more assault charges. Doesn't sound like the nicest guy, does he? But.....he really is quite a cool kid. He left for winter break, however, declaring he couldn't wait for the "party at his house tonight". After a few warnings from me about being safe and smart, he said, "Don't worry, Ms. Kramer, it's in an apartment complex. No one gets caught having parties in apartment complexes." Uhhhhh, yeah, kid, you have a lot to learn. :)

Major highlight: A student who normally sits back and feels intimidated by other students totally took charge of his lab group, "Well, we aren't going to get anything done unless we do what we need to do. So you have to listen to me now." It was amazing to see him take charge like that. Go, little science leader, go! :)

I have only been in our 5th period chemistry class on Fridays, since my fall class schedule (UW) didn't allow me to be there M-Th. The last week before break, I was able to go full-time to my school. On Monday, when I walked into 5th period, one student said, "Ms. Kramer? MS. KRAMER'S HERE, GUYS!" and EVERYONE in the class cheered for me. It had been a particularly hard day, and I had to fight from crying it made me so happy. Ahhhh, juniors and seniors. So much NICER than freshmen and sophomores......

The week before break unfortunately resulted in several suspensions and some expulsions for our students. Apparently this is normal in, at least, our school, to have chaos right before the breaks. One student attacked another in the hall, seemingly unprovoked and kept hitting her even though she wasn't fighting back. Another robbed a student before school of his backpack, iPod, wallet, and WINTER COAT. It was probably about 25 degrees that morning. Those two have been expelled, and it's really too bad because even though they obviously have trouble making good choices, they both had lots of potential. Especially the boy who robbed another student. He was so good at science, but just didn't see it as something that was worthwhile to him. These are the students who motivate me to teach. :)

A student came up to me after our last class before break and whispered, "Ms. Kramer, when are you going to teach us again? I really like when you teach."

An ELL student who I speak Spanish to the most (and badly) gave me a Christmas card. He wrote in Spanish AND translated it to English, and there might be a little "Spanglish" (Naviday). SO cute, and warmed my heart just in time for winter break because I have been working hard to encourage him to use English in class.

In my "non-teaching life" (which, let's face it, doesn't really exist), I have been snowshoeing, visiting, relaxing, enjoying local jazz shows, concerts, and just spending time with the lovely people in my life that I never get to see (read: my boyfriend and my roommates......pathetic, right?).

Things are starting up again, and I'm heading into the new quarter (UW) teaching chemistry this time. More on that later..... :)