Tales from the Classroom

A couple of quotes from my students:

When talking about Benjamin Franklin:

Student 1:  "Didn't he get shot or something?"

Student 2: "No, you're talking about Tupac."

When looking at a slide of Enlightenment thinkers: 

A Day Class: "Those dudes all got long noses,"  say's one student.  "Yeah, they lookin' like Snoop Dogg." (points at Voltaire...)

B Day Class: "Dude, that guy looks like Snoop Dogg!" (Once again, looks like Snoop Dogg)

Back to the Grind

After a weekend in Boston, a night in Fenway Park, a flight home, a couple of days in New Orleans , a LONG DRIVE through Texas, a week in New Mexico, another LONG DRIVE through Texas, an overnight trip to Florida, and a couple more days in New Orleans, I am BACK.

I am in the BR for the homestretch, and am excited about what is to come of it all.  In less than a week, football season will be in full swing, and I will be in a day-in, day-out routine of getting up at 5am, getting home at 4, and enjoying 7th grade gifted students and all that entails.  

I'm pretty excited about this coming semester.  I found some old books from my US Colonial-1865 class, along with some history books I read for fun from that same period.  I FINALLY have my room set up, and, after numerous trips to the Apple store to drool, I got the new computer I've been dreaming of.  

This semester is going to be challenging.  In the week I've been in Baton Rouge, I've already faced some minor setbacks that lead me to believe the upcoming few months will be full of them.  I took a couple of weeks off of running when I got back into the South, and as soon as I started back, something odd happened with my foot (possibly a pulled muscle?) and I've been unable to do so since.  I think my foot is getting better, but I'm gonna stick with the bike until I know.  This has caused a "swelling" of my legs and waist to a point that I have not been familiar with for a LONG time.  

So tomorrow, it all starts, and Tuesday, I am in the classroom for good.  The future is here, and I'm pretty excited about it.  

Home Away From Home

Sunday night, I went to New York.

Bible Study was cancelled, and Mondays are pretty free, so I decided to drive the back-roads to New Haven and take the Metro-North into the city. Chelsea was kind enough to accomodate for me last minute by letting me stay on her couch, even though she already had a guest in town. I had the opportunity to have coffee and go shopping with Ema, my supervisor from last summer, at the same Starbucks where we parted ways last July. We then went to my pastor's house where my friend Ashley was housesitting. It was wonderful just sitting around the living room and catching up with two of my favorite people, and feeling so at home. Ashley and I then went to dinner at Max Brenner, and ordered the amazing tutti fruitti waffles (probably my favorite dinner in the world... if you can call it dinner). I felt like I had never left. This trip was a definite necessity. They almost convinced me to come back next week and help with the kid's program, which I willingly volunteered to do and very plausibly could have accomplished (with the help of people back home who would pay for my plane ticket back to New Orleans), but I decided it's definitely time to get back and get things settled in the BR. I will have many many more chances to help out at Graffiti in the future.

Yesterday I drove four youth up to Boston for the day. After some last minute changes of plans, we ended up having a successful day in the city. I absolutely adore Boston, and am looking forward to being there againt his weekend for debriefing (even though sadly it means I will be saying goodbye). The kids really seemed to enjoy it. I brought along someone from the church who goes to school up there to help us get around and show us some of the "insider" things in Boston, which he willingly did. It was great to see these kids enjoy things like their first subway ride, and their first taste of Indian food (mmmmm!), along with educating them in pop-culture history (two of them had never heard of Cheers!). Through this trip, God definitely showed me how things that dont necessarily go the way they were planned can still turn out to be a great experience.

While in Boston, I recieved an email telling me my student-teaching placement. I am going to be at Westdale Middle School teaching with Mrs. Davidson. From what I gathered, I think it will be the first half of US History (yay!). So walking around Boston, it was quite neat to be observing sites I was going to be teaching about in just a month or so! Though the EBR schools system's early start date may prevent me from going to New Mexico next week (I am working on getting another place to observe the first-day-of-school), I am thoroughly excited about going back at the end of August to be there full time for the next four months.

Pretty much, Wow

So this summer I have not been in "the city" much at all. Minus three days in Boston, a week in Providence, and a day-trip to my heart (aka, NY), I've spent most of my time in the suburbs, and in the country. Far cry from my normal "city girl" lifestyle, but fun and interesting nonetheless.

I am currently living in the basement room at a very cute old fashioned New England home, with a great family, in Hebron, CT. It's very different for me, but I'm loving it. We have a great youth group, and despite the fact that I'm only here for a short time, we've been having alot of fun throwing together events at the last minute to keep the kids occupied.

Last week we went to camp in Massachusetts, and I think I got just as much out of it (if not more) than my students did. We brought thirteen youth, and where I come from, that would fit into the smaller group category at camp. Because of the nature of New England, we were actually the average. There just aren't alot of Christians up here (approx. 1% of the population), and it's truly sad. I thoroughly enjoyed the company of the 444 people there, and the speaker was absolutely amazing. I hope to be a part of that camp again sometime. It is put on every year specifically for students in New England. They require a bit of a different focus than many of the typical Bible-belt camps students go to.

Over the next year of my life, I have many decisions to make. At camp I really felt like God was making some of those decisions clear to me, so I will be spending the next several months preparing to accomodate for said decisions. This is why I decided to start blogging again. I will also be student teaching, and then (hopefully) in January, being a teacher full-time, so I'm sure there will be many adventures to speak of and many prayers to request. I hope to keep up, because I have a habit of getting out of the habit...

This is why I need to do something with my life

Yesterday I took the Praxis II. Sitting through three tests in one day for a total of four hours of testing, and about three hours of waiting outside the building, is rough. Throughout my testing experience (which did NOT go as well as planned), I kept finding myself wondering how on Earth we can let the best and brighetest students in the EBR school system go to a school as run down as Baton Rouge Magnet?

In my observations in the past two years, I've gone to Woodlawn (which has a brand new building), McKinley Middle (also brand new building), U-High (which speaks for itself), and Broadmoor. From my experiences in those schools, I just assumed EBR was on top of its game with keeping the schools aesthetically pleasing for students. Boy was I ever wrong.

At Baton Rough High, I kept finding myself distracted from the test by the loud air conditioners and the numerous paint chips pointlessly hanging from the wall. I left absolutely miserable, not as much from the test, as from the dark lighting and poor overall aesthetic value of the environment. How can we expect our students to excel when this is what they have to sit through every single day? If BR High is where we are sending our BEST students, I can't imagine what the buildings for some of our "lesser-valued" schools are like. And we wonder why our school system isn't getting any better.

I realize now more than ever the importance of the Paint the Town project in NYC, and am very proud to have been a part of that, but I can't help but wonder what can be done about this problem in the schools here in Louisiana. Belle Chasse was no Taj Mahal, but at least we kept it clean and gave it a paint job every so often. I couldn't tell you from looking at it if Baton Rouge High has EVER had a makeover. Now I know they've talked of tearing this building down and starting from scratch, but it's not the building itself that's a problem. The building is an historic landmark which, just like all other landmarks, should be preserved, only I think with more urgency, considering its purpose.

My new goal for the next year of my life (before I move to another part of the country that is...) is to find a way to get involved with fixing up schools here in Louisiana. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.