Word of the Day: Reflection

This post is all about reflections.  No, not the kind of reflections that Christina Aguilera sings about in Mulan.  The Teach for America buzzword kind of reflection.  During Institute (TFA's summer training program,) we were constantly told to "reflect."  Reflect on your students scores.  Reflect on your lesson.  Reflect on Leslie's question.  Reflect on why your students are getting high in the bathroom during your lesson (true story!)  One day I was even told to, "reflect on your reflections."  That's the point where my lack of sleep and complete exhaustion set in and I lost it.  You get the point, lots of reflection.

I've been horrible about posting for the last 6 months.  Worse than I've ever been!  I'm hoping that will change next semester because one thing I love is writing and another thing I love is my job.  Somedays that's not true and that wasn't true for the first two months of school.  Institute was great and I was known as the "lesson planning queen," but once I got to T-Town and started teaching it was completely different.  I was reflecting on some reflections in my journal the other day and read an entry that mentioned the fact I had made it through the entire day without crying once.  That was about two and a half weeks into the school year.  It got worse after I went home for Brother's wedding and spent the next week sobbing about how much I hated my job.  I'll admit, I was even hoping for a minor accident that would require me to leave the school and go back to Utah (nothing too bad, just bad enough.)  My other half in New Orleans helped me through that rough patch and I managed to finish 1st quarter.

Now I've almost completed 1st semester!  All I have left is three, 3-hour days where the kiddos take finals and I wait for the results.  I can't believe how far I've come or how far my students have come.  I came into TFA thinking I was going to be "truly transformational" (buzzword), but after a few weeks I was hoping for "adequate" (not a buzzword.)  At my turning point where I went from hoping for a car accident to looking forward to tomorrow's lesson I realized that being transformational isn't about everyone scoring above 80% on the CRT.  Being transformational is something different for each individual student.  For R it meant hunting him down during lunch and pulling him away from his girlfriend so he could retake a quiz, working before and after school to bring his grade up from an F to a C in three weeks, and helping in his other classes so he can be eligible for soccer.  For E it meant listening to her talk about the problems at home during my prep and attempting to attend all her vocal performances.

In TFA we talk so much about the data.  How many of your kids have passed the AIMS?  What is their average score?  What does your tracker look like?  The data can be fun; we love looking at the charts on my wall to see which class scores the highest on an exam and who has the highest class average.  In TFA we also talk about building authentic relationships.  After reflecting on the last four and half months the most important part of my job is the relationships I've built.  I love these kids.  They absolutely drive me insane, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.  I don't think I'm transformational and I'm definitely not close to being "truly transformational," but hopefully I'll get there by the end of my two years with TFA.

Photo from here

Dreams of a Crazy Person

I think a decent percentage of my posts are about weird dreams I have.  Here's another one of those posts. I just had a dream that I was getting chased around this mansion by all these different spooky characters.  At one point I was running with Eddie Murphy and we were running from a ghost ( Haunted Mansion, anyone?)  After what felt like hours of running I found myself in a large open basement with a jungle gym in the middle of it.  The giant ghoulish figure was on one side and I was on the other.  I decided the only way I was going to survive was if I bargained with the creature.  I yelled to him to stop and we both got down on our knees.  I was asking what he wanted from me and he slowly started transforming to a high school boy.  He was one of my (future) students and all he wanted was to go to college.  I gave him my motivational speech that I've been practicing in my mind about how all of my students can go to college and he will go to college and the big goal we are going to set to get him there.  This is just a thought that I'm going to throw out there, but I'm thinking that the anxiety of Teach for America is sneaking up on me.  Six days until the big move!

Oh ya, and my best friend gets married today!  Congratulations Stacie and Patrick!!!!

Other Half

Tonight we had a bridal shower for my best friend Stacie and some people in the neighborhood and ward.  I'm going to take a minute to brag about Stacie.  She is seriously the best friend anyone could ask for.  She moved into the neighborhood when I was 3 years old.  We always had the same teachers in school starting with Mrs. Suchey in kindergarten and walked together at high school graduation.

When I was 5 years old Santa Claus brought me a power wheel Porsche.  Stacie and I set up our own little community all over the neighborhood and we'd spend all day, everyday, driving around in the Porsche until our legs were too long and we had to drive with one leg inside and the other hanging over the side.  There were multiple occasions when we were in elementary school where she let me borrow one of her bra's because my Mom hadn't bought me one and she didn't want me to feel left out.  Now that's a true friend.

Some of my favorite memories with Stacie include....

• Mud facials in her backyard
• Making salad for Hitler (we went through a serious WWII phase) with tree leaves and Pam's fresh tomatoes
• Running around the neighborhood playing "Charlie's Angels" 
• Choreographing dances in the basement
• Setting up restaurants, bridal stores, hair salons, and clothing stores
• Filming our own rendition of "Brigham City" in the backyard
• Speeding to school at 7:25 in hopes of making it to art by 7:30 
• Going for our nightly drives listening to Coldplay and Augustana
• Many concerts
• Torturing Sarah :)
• Going to Einsteins for a bagel and mudslide cookie every lunch Senior year 
• Crawling through the neighbors doggy door....

The list goes on and on.  Stacie also got accepted to Teach for America, but she's moving to New Orleans.  I am so excited for her to marry Patrick, but am dreading saying goodbye.  The longest we've been away from each other in almost 20 years was 5 months while I was living in China.  It looks like I'll be flying to New Orleans a couple times each year :)  I'll miss you best friend!

CA

What did you do last weekend?  I went to California.  My Rachel (yes, my Rachel) moved to California while I was in China so it had been almost a year since I last saw her.  Stacie and I bought tickets a couple months ago then called Rachel on Christmas and told her we were coming.  It was great.  Our trip included Laguna, LA, San Diego, finally meeting Andy, food, and more food.

Anyone going to San Diego should stop at Hash House.  It's breakfast worth the over an hour wait and feeling full for the rest of the day.

Hollywood from the Griffith Observatory

We love Andy