HILARIOUS

This is too damn funny.

Please listen. To the whole thing.

This definitely defines my sense of humor. If you don't laugh, we're probably not friends. Or at least, not good ones.

Changing my habits

Everyone I have encountered in this school system has a smartphone.

Most have I-Phones, the rest have Blackberry's.

Apparently, teachers ARE important enough to have these communication devices.

What am I going to do?

Rock and a Hard Place

I have to make the most painful decision of my life right now. (so far)

It all boils down to this one question: am I willing to make this career choice my life? Because, if I leave, and go where great things are happening, this is what I become.
1) I have to work much more than I do now. Much more. 5 pm more. Saturdays more. Running clubs more. Higher expectations more. Resource creation more.
2) I'd get friends via the job. This was honestly told. Your job is your life, your friends are the ones at your job. These are your people. These are great people, but they are your people.
3) I'd leave my subject that I love dearly. And that is hard. Because the math teachers here are not in the same place I am. They are at the point of teaching procedural fluency and no conceptual understanding and problem solving. "Problem solving" is the the term they use for word problems. Conceptual understanding is lacking.
4)The math that I love is lacking. And the work that the school is doing is so great, but it is not the work that I love. I love curriculum. I LOVE IT. And the curriculum priorities here are not the priorities that I have.
5) But have I told you about the discipline and culture? I AM DYING OF LOVE. So successful. So supportive. So much love for the culture of the school.
6) Autonomy from political problems. (Cough cough public schools cough).

There are so many AMAZING things about this job. About this life. But is this the right career path? As a 22 year old, these priorities wouldn't matter. I would have taken this job in a second. But I am no longer 22. So now I have to make a decision. There are so many factors. Some I haven't even tried to articulate.

I don't like being grown up sometimes. Now is one of those times.

I want to move to Bali and run a fish taco stand.

Middle School Lessons

So my kiddos were extraordinarily mean to each other this week, and I just went off my rocker. One of my classes had a sit down lecture/turned into a heart to heart conversation about not being so MEAN to each other.

So the discussion evolved into me invoking my memories of some stuff in middle school by saying that the reason I still had my girl friends from middle school is because we were not mean to each other.

The kiddos then got a hold of the picture I keep on my desk of 6 of us from one of the girl's weddings a few years ago. (We look so much better now than we did in middle school).

Well, my point was not hitting so hard with the kids because they are convinced I was also mean in middle school and it is just a rite of passage. (Not that they use the words rite of passage....that would mean they have to LEARN something in reading class).

So I emailed all my girls and asked them for advice on what we learned or wished we had learned in middle school. They wrote back with some beautiful words, but one of our friends had to remind us what ACTUALLY happened when we were that young.

"in middle school, allow all of your girlfriends to date the same guy for two weeks at a time...he will get married to a Hooters waitress and have children before any of you...so it's all just for fun!"

Okay kids, do as we say, not as we did.

Thoughts on the babies

So I have heard two interesting things about young children in the last few days.

First, one of my brilliant colleagues told me that one of her professors said that a child's vocabulary when they are 5 years old dictates what their reading level will be when they are students and adults.

Great. Awesome. Before they are in school, or in their first year of school. So basically, what happens at home before you get to school dictates how you learn in school. Shocker.

Then, what about THIS article. The more TV you watch, the worse you do in school. And not, like, tv when you are 12. TV when you are a toddler.

So the moral of this story: apparently early childhood is the time where you DEVELOP THE MOST!

So parents, read to your kids. Thanks.

Turning into my mother

So my mother always sends me news articles from the various news media things we get at home. She's been doing this since I left for college. (That was 7 years ago, by the way). I used to read the paper every day and go on a tirade about something in one of the papers.

The tirade probably happened because I was forced to read one of the most ridiculously conservative newspapers I have ever experienced. This has also shaped my preferences for reading the NY Times on a daily basis since I went to college.

Okay, so the point is that my mother is obsessed with sending clippings.

Well, the other day, I got an email from my older sister, and it said, "I thought you would like this. I guess I'm turning into mom!" Now this is crazy for a few reasons. 1) Sometimes I think my sister can't read. 2) She gets her news from yahoo.com 3) She would never think of me at work...

So I'm proud my big sister is turning into my mother. Because my dad and her fiancee are like two strange peas in a very absurd pod....

Is that the maths?

I would have never considered this a mathematical question.

But I guess it is.

Obviously I need to begin to think of math outside of the concrete realm of number sense and into the useful realm of...oh i don't know...anything else.