Persistence Pays

I had a rewarding teaching moment the other day. I have been working witht his girl in my class who has a pretty significant learning disability. As frustrating it is for me to try teaching her, I can't imagine what she has to go through trying to learn things in school. She is well behind her classmates despite the effort she puts into it. Over the last several years in school she has developed something called "learned helplessness". Either she has been told, or she has come to know through experience that no matter how hard she tries she isn't smart so she figures she just won't try since it yields the same result. Learned helpless is one of the most difficult things to deal with as a teacher. It's like pulling teeth. You push and push and push and the kid will not even give it an ounce of effort, they just won't budge.
Mr. Von was teaching a lesson on multiplying by 10. He was trying to teach students that if you break apart bigger numbers in multiplication that the equation becomes easier to solve. (For example, 3 x 40 you can just do 3 x4 then add the 0 after) He first wanted to show them though that any number multiplied by 10 is just the number with a 0 on the end of it. The class caught on pretty quickly; the student I was working with did not. No matter how many different ways I explained it she just did not get it. I would say things like "If 3 x 10 is 30, then 5 x 10 is?" and she would immediately respond with, "I don't know, I'm bad at math". After pushing and pushing and pushing (for about an hour) she finally got it. Although the other kids had caught on real fast, Mr. Von had her show the class how to solve 12 x 10. She couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the day. I have never, in the three weeks I have been there, seen her so happy. She came up to me later and said "Thank you for teaching me that today Miss Morris". It's moments like these that I remember why I want to be a teacher.

The troubled waters have calmed

Today went much smoother than yesterday. The kids were still bouncing of the walls, but not as much so that's good. And Emerson, my little eraser friend from yesterday, was much better. I told him at the beginning of the day that if he was on task and good for me then I would give him his eraser back later. It was great, everytime I looked at him he would straighten up and do his work. It's amazing what a little bribing will do. I don't care what all my BYU teachers said, rewards work. And there was one point where Jonathan got up to present his math strategy to the class and Mr. Von told him to call on somebody else to finish the problem. A lot of kids were shouting out at him (the usual with this class) so he said "I'm looking for someone who is quiet and has their hand raised" We both got a kick out of that because Laura and I are throwing that line out all flippin day long to try to get the kids to raise their hands and not shout out. So that's my bit for the day. I need to go study for a little thing called the Praxis...it's a test I have to take to teach, you know, no big deal.

Lesson gone wild

My first observation was today. I kind of don't know what to say about it. I got a good score, but I felt like the lesson was a disaster. These kids were bouncing off the walls. They were consistently disrespectful, off task, wandering around the room and talking while other students or the teacher is talking. They don't listen to me and it is very frustrating. I wish I could just teach and not have to manage and babysit the kids. When we were conferencing with our facilitator about it afterwards and he said that we had a good lesson and we got high scores but our management was low. He blamed a lot of it on the teacher for not setting up good enough routines. During the lesson I had to take an eraser away from a boy today because I had asked him repeatedly to stop playing with it. Later he came up to me and said "No offense teacher, but I don't like you". Then he gave me a cheesy grin and walked away. I kind of wanted to say "ok good, because I don't like you either :)"

Turns out I still love teaching. It was just a stressful day and I wanted too much for it to be perfect. It's funny because I think that the lesson will be easy to teach but then when I go to teach it, it turns out it's a lot harder than I think. It's kind of sad that people think teaching is easy, I would have to strongly disagree with that.

Goblin in the Closet

It all started halloween. The leaves fell lightly on the ground as the cool fall air stung my cheeks...just kidding, I'm not that cheesy. But it really did start halloween. I got to work late and Kyle pointed out that there was a cockroach on my desk. Turns out it was just a big fat fake cockroach but it was gross nevertheless. He actually hadn't left it on my desk but I decided to give it back to him anyway. Well that was a mistake because when I got home that evening I found the little critter in my backpack. I decided to get him back by leaving it on his pillow in his bedroom right before I headed on a plane for Oregon. I didn't realize at this point what I was getting myself into. When I arrived in Medford I had a voicemail from him that stated he had found the cockroach on his pillow and that I would have a surprise waiting for me when I got back.

I got back Sunday night and Bridget was on her cell phone and followed me into the bedroom. As I began to unpack I opened up my closet door to find this sick skull looking thing hanging in my closet. Needless to say I screamed really loud and stumbled backwards. I was mortified as anyone would be to find a skull hanigng in thier closet! It taught me not to pull pranks on guys who have scary looking things lying around thier house. Bridget was cracking up pretty hard at me. What was even funnier, is that later when I came back in the room I screamed again because I had forgotten it was there and gosh darn it, everytime I see that thing my natural reaction is to scream! As if that wasn't enough, when I went to make my lunch this morning the little cockroach critter was there to greet me on my peanut butter---thanks Kyle. I didn't scream ( luckily since only I am up at the crack of dawn), but it certainly made me gasp and got my heart pumping. So here are the pictures of this lovely creature for all of you to enjoy!

Ants always enjoy a good bowl of popcorn

One of my favorite things about teaching is working one on one with the students. I was reading with a boy named Tyler today. He can read pretty well but he reads so fast and skips a lot of words even if it doesn't make any sense to him. Today he was reading the grasshopper and ant fable and he got to the part where it talked about the ant working hard. The story described the ant dragging a large kernal of corn to store for winter. I could tell that Tyler didn't really know what a kernal was because of the way he said it. Afterwards I asked Tyler to describe to me what he had just read. When he got to the part about the ant working he said "so then the ant went and got himself a bowl of popcorn". I tried really hard not to laugh, I mean, what was this kid picturing in his mind? An ant propped up on a lazy boy with his bowl of popcorn? Tyler is one of my favorite kids, he just cracks me up.

Speaking of being a kid...sometimes I wonder about my good brother Dave. He sent me a text a little after 7 that said "Hey do you know of any good card games to play with 8 people"--since it was Monday night and he is the "dad" I knew that this must be for his FHE activity so I sent him a text back with a few options. He told me he didn't understand how to play a couple of them. I figured an explanation of a game would be a little too difficult through text so I decided to call him. He didn't answer his phone which I thought was a little weird since he was just texting me but then I got a text that said "can't talk right now, they're giving the lesson". I cracked up at this...oh Dave, oh Dave. He was asking me for a game to play after the lesson was finished...and I thought I was a procrastinator. Better yet, he was texting during the lesson! Hopefully he figured it out because I never heard from him again.

Oh, this is a picture of Aleni and I on halloween. This was the only candy we got. We went to a friend's house and watched a scary movie and when we got there we thought we'd take a shot in the dark and said "Trick or Treat" and Paul was kind enough to throw us a peanut butter cup each. We were so excited that we also made him take a picture of us...precious.

Le mariage

So I was lucky enough to fly home this weekend for Brittany's wedding. I was glad I ended up coming because it turns out I was pretty much a bride's maid they just didn't have a dress for me. She looked beautiful and her and Clay make a fabulous couple. The wedding was certainly a bonus for coming home, but it's all about the home cooked meal. I have been fed and overfed this weekend, it's been fabulous! Mom treated me to Senor Sam's on Friday then they treated me again at olive garden today...I'm cleanin out their pockets!

I got here Thursday night and mom and dad were there to greet me at the airport. It was really weird because when I was getting off the plane, the flight attendant said "Enjoy the wedding" but I never told her I was going to a wedding...crazy!!

Friday was pure bliss. I slept in for the first time in weeks, got up, ate some delicious french toast, showered at about 11 then went and met mom for lunch at noon. After our lunch we headed over to medford to help Sister Clason with the flowers for the wedding. We took a break and went shopping for a couple hours then headed back to the church to help decorate. After the decorating we headed home and were greated by a delicious salmon dinner that pops had made. Then I went back to medford for her "bachelorette" party...all it was was a bunch of girls sitting around eating junk food, I can't complain.

Saturday we went to the wedding and it was a beautiful day. Then we went to lunch at Olive Garden and I was offended because the waiter turned to mom and dad and said "Would either of you care to try a couple of our wine samples today?". He didn't even hesistate because he was so sure I wasn't 21...rude! We then took a great nap, also something I haven't had for several weeks, and watched the ducks game...which they won...go ducks!

Then it was back to medford for the reception. It was beautiful and they looked happy. Now I just need to get married.

Global Warming...is it real?

I'm back in the schools teaching! I always forget how much I love being in the Elementary schools until I'm back there again. I feel at home in the classroom. This semester is quite a bit different than my last experience teaching. My teacher is straight out of a movie; I haven't quite figured out what movie that is yet but he is a real character. The first couple days were a little rough just trying to work with his awkward personality and trying to not step on his toes. He has an incredibly loud voice, it kind of feels like he is always yelling; maybe he thinks that kids are deaf.

I need to start writing down the funny things that kids say because there are quite a few funny moments at school but by the time I get home I forget them all. I do remember one though. There is a boy named Joseph Morris, he has probably pointed out to me 15 times that he has the same last name as me. Well, yesterday there was a presenter from Planet Earth to come teach the kids about the water cycle. While the presenter was teaching the kids about precipitation and having them say it back to him, Joseph was waiting patiently with his hand raised. Finally the presenter gave in and called on Joseph. Joseph says "Is it true that Global Warming is real?" I just couldn't help myself and I busted out laughing, I mean half the kids in there don't know how to zip up their pants and Joseph is inquiring about Global Warming. Then the presenter asked if water that is underground is clean, and he showed a picture of water that was surrounded by dirt. My first thought was "heck no, look at all that dirt around there, how can that be clean"...sure enough Joseph had the answer: "Yes, the water is clean because the sand and the dirt act as a purifier for the water so as it trickles down it is being purified." He said a whole lot of other stuff too that was just all I could remember. The presenter was kind of speechless and just said "uhhh yeah, that's right". It was pretty funny, I'd like to see this kid's parents.

I haven't done any actual teaching yet but my teacher was telling me and the girl I work with that we will be doing pretty much all the teaching next week so it will be a dramatic shift. I'm really excited though, I love teaching...kids are so funny.