Hey, Look! We're in the News!

Wow. My high school (where I work, not where I went) has been recognized by US News and World Reports. We were bronze medal, considering our population and student progress. (Too bad NCLB doesn't give any recognition to our population statistics. So what if 30% of our students are learning English? They should pass the ISTEP!) Only 29 schools in Indiana were recognized.

http://www.usnews.com/listings/high-schools/indiana/west_noble_high_school

Only When You're Pregnant....

...are you not offended when a student says, "Ah, miss, mira más gorda ahora."

My First Day Back to School

So technically, yesterday was my first day back at work, but this was the first student day, so listen to my sob story:

First, Jeff's car didn't start last night, so he took my car to work and I carpooled. One teacher picked me up in his truck and we drove to the other teacher's house, where his car didn't start. So the first person had to drive back to his house to pick up his van (since we didn't all fit in his truck.) So I made it to my classroom about 3 minutes before the beginning of the first class.

Then, I found out during second period that two of my favorite students are moving back to Mexico. Tomorrow. So they were doing all their withdrawal things, and it was very sad. They are both kind and considerate and bright. They were planning on moving, but not for a few months, but some family things came up. They didn't know until today either so they were also pretty sad. I felt like crying most of the day. Happy New Year!

Of Socialism, Communism, and Terrorism (Ah, the -isms!)

Today was the last day of summer school, so now I have about 6 weeks until school starts up again that are pretty much work free! (I have a half-day training in Rosetta Stone in July, and a full day Leadership Retreat in August, and I will be doing some reading, decorating, and planning in the meantime, especially in early August, but quite little compared with how much I normally work. And I can have lots of days with no working at all if I want.) Not to say summer school wasn't fun. But I kind of wished it would have started an hour later so I could have slept more. Oh well.

Yesterday, after the first hour of class, I ended up talking to one of the ENL students relating to the essay he'd done on his test about foreign policy and the military. He asked in particular why the US and Venezuela have such relationship problems now. (For those of the uninformed, Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, recently called George W. the devil, and Bush, while not so colorful in his language, has been very strongly disapproving of Chavez.) I tried to explain it the best I could, because I do have what I believe is a pretty good theory, though I'm sure my explanation came across much less articulately in Spanish than it will as I try to explain it in English here:

As I see it, the main problem is that Venezuela, in contrast to the US, is very socialist. Chavez is a socialist. Most news outlets refer to Venezuela or the Chavez government at some time or another as "leftist". I don't think the problem is really a left/right one, though it seems slightly suspicious that Bush ("right wing") is anti-Chavez ("left wing") and vice versa, and in contrast, I'm more progressive (read "leftist") and am much more approving of Venezuela's policies, though I don't consider myself informed enough to really speak specifically to any of them.

Actually, I think the real issue is the leftover ethos of the Cold War. As I tried to explain to my student, adults just a bit older than me grew up in the Cold War, with fallout drills and this desperate fear of communism. Rather than being just an alternate political system, or even a bad alternate system, it was taught as a monster, a bogeyman of sorts, the demon that could destroy the world if we didn't "contain" it. While communism and socialism are not the same thing, they are deeply linked in people's minds, and this primitive childhood fear overrides a lot of adult reason. And the majority of adults today lived through the Cold War; a very significant portion of adults today were in their formative childhood years during the Cold War. I think this leads to a deep, innate, illogical distrust of all things socialist in a large percentage of the population. My student made the logical jump to how today we fear terrorists. That is the communism, the "bogeyman" for today's children.

In contrast, I grew up in the 80's, in the "detente", when the tension was beginning to cool off. We didn't have fallout drills; there wasn't the same fear of nuclear annihilation. It's true I did somehow or another still absorb some of that attitude. I don't even know who or what taught it to me, but I remember being deeply shocked learning about communism in 7th grade social studies. The basic tenet of communism is equality of all and that no one should lack basic necessities? Where's the evil part? However, I'm sure my indoctrination was much less intense, and I was able to think more logically about communism than my older counterparts. I don't particularly want our country to become communist, but I would like it to be more socialized.

In many ways I feel I am in a lucky in-between generation. Not old enough to be indoctrinated into anti-communist thought, but old enough by 2001 to not become perpetually afraid of terrorists. My formative years were relatively calm and relatively free of those sorts propaganda. Of course, it may just be my individual attitude and deliberate attempt not to be manipulated by the fear-mongering our politicians and media seem to push on us today. I was talking to a teacher at school recently who is older than me but was deeply affected in the bias kind of way by 9-11. I personally resent how politicians try to control us through fear. It doesn't make us a better people. I believe it makes us worse.

That's my sermon for now. It was an interesting thing to think about, one reason I enjoyed teaching the class this summer.

Still Alive...but of questionable mental capacities

Apparently I could use a little more sleep. Today was a fairly uneventful day at school, and I didn't seem to be particularly stressed out or tired. But by the time I got to my last class, my brain seemed to have slowed to a crawl. Then while writing on the overhead, I could think of how to spell the word "experiment". So after wavering between e and i and e and i (after the p), my class told me. This is particularly embarrassing since it was my level 1/2 class. (For those of you uninitiated in ENL culture, these are the lowest levels of English.) Sigh. Of course, philosophically, I believe that it is ok, and actually important for teachers to make mistakes and model how to think through them and accept correction graciously, so it didn't actually bother me on a gut level. Just a little ironic that the English teacher has to ask how to spell things.

Simon decided that I am not paying enough attention to him, so he jumped up onto the computer chair and attacked my arm. Then I had to take a break because he walked over my lap to push his head under my hand on the keyboard so I would pet him. Yes, Simon is the master of don't-pet-me-don't-pet-me-don't-pet-me-don't-pet-me-
don't-pet-me-don't-pet-me-don't-pet-me-don't-pet-me-don't-pet-me-
don't-pet-me-PET-ME-NOW!!!!!!!-don't-pet-me-don't-pet-me!

Happy Christmas and Merry New Year!

Last week at school, a couple of my students asked me why we say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Christmas" and not "merry" any other holiday.

I didn't know and I was about to say that it must be some obscure British-ism, when I realized that in England now they say "Happy Christmas". (This thanks to Harry Potter, who has increased my knowledge of British-isms tenfold. Anyone want to go snog under some mistletoe?)

After much searching on the internet, I found the most coherent answer on Wikipedia.

"Merry," derived from the Old English myrige, originally meant merely "pleasant" rather than joyous or jolly (as in the phrase "merry month of May").
Though Christmas has been celebrated since the 4th century AD, the first known usage of any Christmastime greeting, "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year" (thus incorporating two greetings) was in an informal letter written by an English admiral in 1699. The same phrase appeared in the first Christmas card, produced in England in 1843.
The then relatively new term "Merry Christmas" figured prominently in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol in 1843. The cynical Ebenezer Scrooge rudely deflects the friendly greeting and broods on the foolishness of those who utter it. "If I could work my will," says Scrooge, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding." After the Spirits of Christmas effect his transformation, he is able to heartily exchange the wish with all he meets. The continued popularity of A Christmas Carol and the Victorian era Christmas traditions it typifies have led some to credit Dickens with popularizing, or even originating, the phrase "Merry Christmas"^[3].
The alternative "Happy Christmas" gained wide usage in the late 19th century, and is still common in the United Kingdom and Ireland. One reason may be the alternative meaning, still current there, of "merry" as "tipsy" or "drunk." Queen Elizabeth II is said to prefer "Happy Christmas" for this reason^[4]. In American poet Clement Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (1823), the final line, originally written as "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night," has been changed in many editions to "Merry Christmas to all", perhaps indicating the relative popularity of the phrases in the United States."

So, should we say "Happy Christmas" too? I guess we North Americans are just drunken fools.....

Teaching has its perks....

So, I've found that I tend to like teaching at the high school level better than at the middle school level. I like middle school more than I thought I would, but it's still a weird in-between time.

However, in high school, you don't get the cute pictures from kids to hang on your wall and cute notes like the one I got yesterday. It reads:
"Mrs. Martin I think que somos muy malos con usted pero yo la quiero mucho...."
"I think we behave very bad for you but I love you very much...."

Of course, predictably, this is from a 5th grade girl who behaves perfectly fine but just feels bad because she happens to be stuck in my worst-behaved class.

Also, yesterday, I had the best idea all year....About 10 minutes before class started, I decided that for Friday's Preferred Activity Time, I'd have my two middle school classes make a Christmas/winter bulletin board. It was awesome, because they loved doing it, they did a really good job, and....I hate making bulletin boards! Goodbye to ever doing that job myself again!

TESTING!

I'm in the middle (actually, nearing the end - hallelujah!) of a week of testing all the Limited English Profiecient (LEP) students in the school. It's sort of interesting to do something different with my time for a while, but standardized testing is also mindnumbing to me after a while. Too much reading the same directions over and over. I'll spare you my testing rant. For now, anyway.