What’s been happening?

For those of you dear Readers who have been along on this journey, you know that for the past seven months I have been teaching first and second grade Sunday School. This is after a hiatus of nearly 20 years from the church classroom. When I finally decided to go back into the classroom, it had to be on my terms. I offered to teach EVERY Sunday from September to May. I would take the second hour of the day and would be a consistent presence in these children’s lives. For the past few years, every Sunday there was a different teacher in the room (and it is still that way in the other grades), and the kids were running the show. Not much was getting done, the kids played most of the morning, and many had quit coming because there was so much chaos.

When I stepped into the fray, I was blessed to have a remodeled classroom. A group of elderly ladies who meet every Friday to pray for the church, had made over the room with cleaning, paint, and decoration. They had bought new Bibles for the kids to use, but not much had been done with those books. After I started in September, the numbers started increasing, and the ladies bought more Bibles so that each student would have one. They bought a new rug. I started adding decorations for each season.

 

And the numbers kept increasing. Three weeks ago we got a new children’s minister and there was talk of changing the way we are doing Sunday School and church. We were to have two worship services which meant Sunday School must change. Classes were to be moved and added. Moved? yes, mine was one of the classes that would have to move. I would leave that nicely decorated room and move into a room that has been neglected for years. It was once the nap room for a daycare center we had in the children’s wing. The windows had been blacked out, the furniture removed. There was no decoration and it all had an inch of grime. I learned of this move two weeks before I needed to be in the room, but with only one week to make the change and it was the week I would have our grandchildren here. So, this was not going to be easy.

 

 

There were supplies to move, bulletin boards to change out, and finally the furniture was brought in. I have worked very hard on this room, and it still looks pretty sad, but with the kids in the room, it livens up. I’m hoping that just getting light and air into the room will make for better feng shui.

 

This was the second session of the morning. First session I had 16 students; second had 21 students. This pretty much maxes out the table space I have so if we continue to grow, I’ll need more tables. Another problem with the room, it doesn’t have any linoleum so I know the floor will be a mess since most of my lessons involve glue, paint, glitter, and sundry jetsam and flotsam of small children.

…early to bed

When teaching I was always so exhausted by the time I finished dinner that I was ready for bed by 7:30. The days were long and arduous with heavy demands on my mental and physical energies. There were some Fridays, after a seriously long week, that I would just flop on the couch when I got home and even decline Terry’s offer to go out for dinner. It was too much effort.

I go back to those early blog posts and wonder how I managed to do all that I did. And, what is even more mind-boggling, those days were less demanding than the ones during the mid-90s when we were not only teaching our classes, but traveling all over to give presentations about the innovative work we were doing. I finally put my foot down on the traveling show and said that if people wanted to know what we did, they could come watch us in action. Our students deserved our time and energy in the classroom, not on the conference circuit.

Coming back to now, our days are not very demanding, except when we are taking care of tiny grandchildren. I  get to pick and choose the tasks, and if I fail to accomplish them all, there is always tomorrow. Or the next day. As I wrote in the previous post, I try to get the major work done by noon, or thereabouts. My afternoons are reserved for things that take little to no effort. Like reading. Or doing some yard work. Or sorting photos. Then fixing dinner and watching some of our taped TV shows.  By 9 p.m. I am ready for bed. Even when we travel, I want to end my day early and relax in the hotel room rather than running around to night spots. A good book, or a chance to catch up on blogs, makes a perfect end to the day.

Some of my Sunday School history

Going through boxes of pictures, clippings, files, and all sorts of historical pieces for the church history project, I have found a photo of one of my Sunday School classes from years ago. For almost 20 years, I taught second, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade Sunday School classes. Not all at the same time, but different ages, scattered over the years.

One time I quit teaching second grade because two little boys, who were too energetic for my style, were going to be in the class. I could have handled one but not two. I was very young at that time, and now with years of teaching experience, I could easily handle them, but back then they terrified me.

A few years passed and I was asked to take on fourth grade. We had lots of fun putting on plays of Bible stories and doing the big project of the year–building Jerusalem. I would take the kids to the church library to look at books with pictures and maps of Jerusalem during Bible times. We talked about all the things that went into a city–the buildings, the people, the animals, the temple, and the wall. Different students were interested in different things, some wanting to make the people, others wanting to build houses. We would collect cardboard boxes, paper tubes, popsicle sticks, and plastic plants and animals. For a few weeks, each Sunday, the class would work on the various parts of Jerusalem until we thought it was good enough. Then we would invite parents in to see the finished product. Here is one class’s interpretation:

I think I did this for four years. My friends could probably tell me for sure because I always bugged them for boxes and other such supplies. Then I went on to teach fifth and sixth grade, and many of those students had already done the Jerusalem project so I let it lapse. No one else picked up the idea. It was just easier to do the lesson in the book.

Clever infographic

I like this infographic. Not only is it cleverly done, but it’s got some good information. I would love to have students present their research finings in such a manner.

It’s that time of the year

And I’m not participating. I’m talking about back-to-school. Today is actually the first day of school for a neighboring school district just a few blocks to the west of me. The large urban school district for whom I taught all those years returns in another week and a half as does the state college here in town. Teachers every where are heading back to their offices and classrooms to prepare for the net onslaught.

Yesterday I had lunch with a young teacher whose friendship I made through her blog.  We learned, over the years, that we had much in common. She had another life before becoming a teacher, similar to me; she is a fairly new teacher, just up the highway a piece, and somehow we discovered that she and my son-in-law had grown up together.  She likes to write, and she likes to use technology in her classroom. Although young enough to be my daughter, we had a good time chatting about teaching, students, hair, and all the other stuff that makes up a life. She returns to school tomorrow. I hope she has a great year. She deserves it.

As do so many of my teacher friends who are working so hard to make this teaching thing  a success for their students. They have started to prepare for those students even while the summer heat lingers and the days are still long. My old teaching buddy is coming by on Friday to get a brief lesson on PhotoShop as she will this year teach one period of multimedia, a class I taught the last two years of my career. It’s all about photography, document layout, web design, and video. Lots of equipment involved. More software than I care to remember. Juggling so many projects, students, and flash drives!

My last day in the multimedia classroom.

“Do you have a card?”

When I taught, I had business cards–actually a second printing was made after we got email addresses back in the 90s. Handed them out at conferences, after presentations, to visitors who came to watch me actually work with kids, to parents, any time someone wanted my info. The cards were handy.

When the teaching career ended, I tossed out the remaining 50 or so cards. By that time the email address needed to be updated. And, of course, the title of teacher no longer applied to me.

With no job, no title, no workplace, I saw no need for a business card. But, people still asked for my card. At meetings, at social events, even at places where I did business and they needed information so as to notify me when a part, piece, or whatever had arrived. I had to apologize and found myself saying, “Oh, I’m retired, so I’m not anything any more.” Then I would tear off a scrap of paper and scribble my name, number, email, etc. My former students would be rolling their eyes about now.

“How unprofessional, Mrs. Zody.”

I can hear them reprimanding me, just as I did them when they didn’t quite measure up to my strict standards of business etiquette, and, they would be right. I needed a business card, but what would I put on one? I have no job or title, beyond my volunteer, grandma, and caretaking duties.

I opened up my word processing application and immediately found a card template I liked. It spoke to me. I take pictures, so why not put my photo on my card? As for a title, I write stories and take pictures so I made my title just that–stories & photos, then I added my address, phone, email, Twitter, and blog.

So far, I’ve only printed one page’s worth of cards, and given out only one card, but now when someone asks for my card, I will be ready. No more unprofessional scraps of paper.

I took this with my Mac so it's a mirror image. You get the idea, though, of the card's layout.

It’s not getting any better out there in education land

I have spent this Saturday morning reading teacher blogs, hoping to find some ray of hope, a glimmer of a brighter future, a sense of improvement. Instead, I found lots of hopelessness, dark days, and abandonment.

An Urban Teacher’s Education writes of deteriorating health and a sense of loss. He’s giving up his New York dream and returning to the West Coast. I wish him well.

On the West Coast, I read about a school librarian in Los Angeles who is being RIF’d (reduction in force) and not allowed to return to the classroom with her teaching credential because she has been out of the classroom for too long. She gives grueling, detailed evidence of what is wrong with these RIF hearings. I went through something similar in 2003, but then the district acquiesced and let us have our jobs. I knew then the end was coming. This year, the district RIF’d all of the consumer home ec teachers. They are not even allowed to apply for other jobs in the district.

Another New York teacher, this time an 8-year veteran, was told she is not good enough for tenure, yet her record seems to show just the opposite. So much political hammering.

One bit of news, different from all the rest, is coming out of the heartland, Ohio. The community college in Dayton is NOT raising tuition, but is giving out tenure and merit pay, costing the college $1.5 million. Guess that is the place to be a teacher right now.

Why not go traditional?

A favorite teacher blog of mine, Mr. Blogush, just posted an interesting list of things he COULD do that would make his life much easier. However, he doesn’t think it would bring him or his students much joy. Here is the list of things he COULD do:

My days could look like this:
Read text with kids
Do questions in text
Take Quiz
Do worksheet
Memorize vocabualry
Take Test
Repeat

Please take a look at the post to see what he thinks he should be doing, the things an excellent teacher does. And, if you can, leave a few encouraging words for Mr. Blogush. Teachers need all the encouragement they can get right now.

Hard to go back

Just read this over at Dangerously Irrelevant:

For a kid who spent a year with a teacher that valued collaborative hands-on, inquiry-based, and problem-based learning, it’s tough to go back the next year to a teacher that has more of a lecture-based, isolated-seatwork-oriented approach.

But why can’t all teachers teach what I called project-based learning where the students do the hard work? I do feel bad for the students who have to go back to the other way of learning. It’s time to move the sage off the stage and let the teacher be the guide on the side.

Another great business partner

Marketing is a little theory and a whole lot of application, and that’s how I always taught it. I gave as few lectures as possible, and used textbooks only when absolutely necessary. Instead of paper-pencil tests, my students had to actually DO something to get a grade. I called it project-based curriculum.

One of the units I taught in Marketing I was sales, and after a few weeks of learning about selling, the students had to actually “sell” an item of their choosing. In the weeks leading up to the actual sales presentation students learned how to approach a customer, question the customer about their needs, make a features-benefit sales pitch, get the customer involved with the product, ask for the sale, and reassure the customer after the purchase and invite them back. Once I felt the students were ready, I brought in REAL customers, and I just sat back and watched the action.

One particular business partner, Bennett Frost Personnel Services, always came through with a number of “customers” who would come to the classroom and go through the 40 or more sales presentations over a three day period. Cathy Frost, the owner of Bennett Frost, came onboard with the Marketing Academy just about the time she started her business and we were starting the Academy. She offered great advice, listening with sympathy to our pleas for help and always coming through with assistance like sending her employees to be customers. Some of our students got to intern in her office, and she gave guest lectures about job seeking.

When Cathy moved into bigger offices with a conference room she invited our department to meet there for planning days. She often popped in with advice and ideas for our classrooms. It helped make us better teachers. And, I hope it made our students better learners. My former students still remember those sales presentations I “made” them do.