miércoles, mayo 18, 2005
clarification*
i'm going crazy with the posts tonight, aren't i? this week i created an email address for the handful of you that might want to communicate for the purposes of surveys, interviews, etc. i got a very lengthy message today from a reader who had quite a bit to say, and i feel the need to clarify a few things for those of you who don't know me personally. here we go:
1) as stated in the title bar, this is my first year teaching. this blog exists as an outlet for me to destress and share the ups and downs of life as a newbie. sometimes it's great, but sometimes it sucks. yadda yadda yadda.
2) i am a sarcastic person. i curse quite heavily when i'm not around children. if you're LITERATE, this should not be news to you, but this is my personality and i have no intention of apologizing for it.
3) sorry to state the obvious here, but i love kids. i love teaching them. the harder the situation, the more dedicated i am. i deliberately chose to pursue a career in bilingual education rather than in "regular ed" because i knew an extreme need existed for qualified and caring teachers. i didn't take a single spanish class before switching my major to education and spent an extra year and a half in college just to get to the point where i could honestly be considered fluent in the language. no matter how bitchy or annoyed i may sound at times, i have zero regrets about what i'm doing and why i'm doing it.
4) that said, i am not a puppies/kitties/rainbows/flowers/yay-happiness kind of person. i'm not going to fill this blog with successful lesson plans, photos of my students' gifts and work, and curriculum information. if you're a teacher, you know the rewards already. you know that's why you stay in the game. strangely, i'm content sharing my joys and successes with people in real life, but the anxieties must be made available to as many people as possible. tell me, internet, are you going to be more entertained by the story of crazy mothers going at it at track & field day or by juan carlos finally writing a sentence with a period at the end? my kids kick ass, but it's been a rough semester and i'm not going to play down a single second of it.
5) almost done... my sense of professionalism was brought up, specifically my "bragging about how many movies i'm going to show this week". dude. like i said, SARCASM. do i want to waste these last five days with mindless nonsense? of course i don't. but when i'm responsible for giving two tests to 30 children in less than a week, i'm not left with a whole lot of options when all textbooks have already been turned in and the tests require me to focus on individual students thus drastically minimizing my ability to interact with anyone else at the same time. if you're a teacher, you should understand this, i don't know why i have to spell it out. some people make busy work out of necessity, others out of convenience. i am definitely not the latter.
6) want to hear more about lesson and activity development for bilingual students? email me. i see lesson plans all day, the last thing i want to do is outline them at night. i'm happy to share ideas to help others, and i'll certainly post about something that's particularly successful or useful, but like i said, that's not the point of this blog.
the beauty of the internet is its self-censorship. you don't like my blog, don't read it. don't link it. there are plenty of fuzzy, feel-good teachers out there, and there are lots of us that like a little room to vent.
last but not least, how sweet that my "spanglish" is "unique and fun" to at least one of you out there. that's exactly the response i was trying to elicit! buenas nachos!
*i'm pms'ing, can you tell?
1) as stated in the title bar, this is my first year teaching. this blog exists as an outlet for me to destress and share the ups and downs of life as a newbie. sometimes it's great, but sometimes it sucks. yadda yadda yadda.
2) i am a sarcastic person. i curse quite heavily when i'm not around children. if you're LITERATE, this should not be news to you, but this is my personality and i have no intention of apologizing for it.
3) sorry to state the obvious here, but i love kids. i love teaching them. the harder the situation, the more dedicated i am. i deliberately chose to pursue a career in bilingual education rather than in "regular ed" because i knew an extreme need existed for qualified and caring teachers. i didn't take a single spanish class before switching my major to education and spent an extra year and a half in college just to get to the point where i could honestly be considered fluent in the language. no matter how bitchy or annoyed i may sound at times, i have zero regrets about what i'm doing and why i'm doing it.
4) that said, i am not a puppies/kitties/rainbows/flowers/yay-happiness kind of person. i'm not going to fill this blog with successful lesson plans, photos of my students' gifts and work, and curriculum information. if you're a teacher, you know the rewards already. you know that's why you stay in the game. strangely, i'm content sharing my joys and successes with people in real life, but the anxieties must be made available to as many people as possible. tell me, internet, are you going to be more entertained by the story of crazy mothers going at it at track & field day or by juan carlos finally writing a sentence with a period at the end? my kids kick ass, but it's been a rough semester and i'm not going to play down a single second of it.
5) almost done... my sense of professionalism was brought up, specifically my "bragging about how many movies i'm going to show this week". dude. like i said, SARCASM. do i want to waste these last five days with mindless nonsense? of course i don't. but when i'm responsible for giving two tests to 30 children in less than a week, i'm not left with a whole lot of options when all textbooks have already been turned in and the tests require me to focus on individual students thus drastically minimizing my ability to interact with anyone else at the same time. if you're a teacher, you should understand this, i don't know why i have to spell it out. some people make busy work out of necessity, others out of convenience. i am definitely not the latter.
6) want to hear more about lesson and activity development for bilingual students? email me. i see lesson plans all day, the last thing i want to do is outline them at night. i'm happy to share ideas to help others, and i'll certainly post about something that's particularly successful or useful, but like i said, that's not the point of this blog.
the beauty of the internet is its self-censorship. you don't like my blog, don't read it. don't link it. there are plenty of fuzzy, feel-good teachers out there, and there are lots of us that like a little room to vent.
last but not least, how sweet that my "spanglish" is "unique and fun" to at least one of you out there. that's exactly the response i was trying to elicit! buenas nachos!
*i'm pms'ing, can you tell?
