Introversion

I have one student that frequently eats in my classroom and he frequently points out things about me that he finds strange and unusual.  Today lunch started with him telling me I'm unusually happy most of the time.  I just can't think of any reason not to be happy (other than the fact that my 30 minutes of peace and quiet are being interrupted).  He continued to tell me that I am a strange person.  Apparently, young people are supposed to go out and be the life of the party and center of attention all the time.  He views me as a person that is alone all the time and doesn't socialize.  At this point in the conversation I decided it was time to take a break from the math lessons and teach him a new word:  introvert.  He found the concept to be completely absurd and asked me if I would be one of those old ladies that is in a book club and reads books all day.  I wouldn't mind being a 24 year old who does that!  I unfortunately have a job so I have to leave the book reading for my evenings.  I searched "introvert problems" on pinterest and found these practically perfect images.

Insult Bombs

For some reason my kiddos are obsessed with my appearance and my personal life.  They are also extremely inconsiderate and rude when talking about their two obsessions.  The good thing is that they're just high schoolers and I know you can't take anything they say to heart.  Here are some of the wonderful things they've said to me:

• "My mom always wears sweaters like yours.  I think they're so ugly."
• To an aide, "finally, I get to work with a teacher I actually like."  To me, "don't worry, you are my second favorite teacher in the room"
• "You're so fashionable this year.  Last year you looked ratchet all the time.  We would look at you and be like, 'you know she didn't even try today.'  Seriously, you'd wear these big baggy cardigan's all the time."
• "Ms. Sansom, you never match"
• "Hey Miss, what would you do if there was this girl that liked you, but you didn't like her back....wait, never mind.  You're not the type of person that dates.  I'll ask someone else."
• "Do you have a boyfriend now?  Lately you've been getting ready and your outfits match"
• "I like to imagine that you just have songs about math on your iPod."
• "You have friends?!  I didn't know you had friends!"

I guess my goal of teaching my students to be decent, kind human beings hasn't really played out quite yet.

I found this in another teacher's room and thought it was hilarious.  The level of talent in desk art has skyrocketed this year.  I am quite impressed.  

Monday. Bah Humbug.

It's 10:06 PM and I am in lying in bed thinking, "how is today over?"  Seriously, where did Monday go?  We didn't start off on the right foot today.  When the 4:30 AM alarm went off I managed to convince myself that the battle with my running shoes and the pavement was not worth it.  That was a bad idea because I then continued to convince myself waking up wasn't necessary until it was after 6:00 and very necessary.  Next I realized I hadn't bought groceries and had no food for breakfast or lunch.  Breakfast turned into the only thing I could find in the fridge - a tuna fish quesadilla.  Then that quesadilla ended up on the floor.  It's ok, blow on it twice, brush it off, and it's good as new.  Then that same quesadilla ended up on my car/garage floor.  Once again, blow on it twice, brush it off, good as new.  The copy machine ran out of paper, I realized 6 exams were MIA, I lost the 45-day surveys, and realized I never made a powerpoint for the lesson 5 minutes after class started.  The nice thing is I've become extremely flexible as a teacher and somehow made it through the day.

I'm not supposed to pick favorites, but if I could, these would be their self-portraits

Now I'm going to brag.  My students scored a 75% average on a really hard test last week.  Their first test was a 65% average.  Booyah!  I literally skipped out of my classroom after I graded their exam on Thursday.  My other class scored an 87% average on a quiz today that I did not think they were ready for.  In the middle of everything going wrong this morning, I found four, sweet letters from past students in my box.  Today we started systems of equations which I love and in 4 days I'm going to Austin for Fall Break.

Systems of Equations are my favorite because we bring out the Chickens and Pigs

PD Rant

The last two weeks have consisted of a lot of Professional Development.  If I were to make a list of things I hate about being a teacher, the question, "what's my grade?" and PD would be at the top.  Wednesday's PD was a district wide, all day event so the kiddos didn't have school.  The math folk were all placed in one room from 8:00-3:00 with an hour break for lunch.  During the 6 hours we were being developed professionally there was one presenter.

Side note:  Teachers have a bunch of strategies we use to manage behavior and encourage engagement and participation.  The behavior strategies work great for high school kids and the engagement strategies can be great, as long as your kids are interested and want to cooperate.  I know when I was in high school they never worked on me.  I was the shy, quiet girl.  If my teacher told me to think about something then pair up with the person next to me and have a discussion, you better believe I'd think about it, look at my partner, give an awkward grin, then turn away.  Now that I'm an adult (ha) I still am the shy, quiet girl at heart, but I'll do my best to get over that shyness because I know the teacher or presenter has put time into their lesson and I want to show my support.  That's not the way most high school kids think.

Anyway, getting back to PD.  All of these strategies are used on the teachers at every PD.  I go with it because I know what it's like to be standing in front of a group of people who are not willing to participate, but I can only handle it for so long.  The reason I changed my degree in college from Early Childhood Education to Exercise Science was that I couldn't handle being talked to like a child by all my teachers.  Whenever I go to one of these all day PD events I feel the same way.  These strategies are meant for high school students, not adults and professionals!  Rant over.

For reals.

Mean Kids

Today was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  That might be a little dramatic, but it was a bad day with some sprinkles of goodness.  I like to give surveys occasionally throughout the semester to gauge where my class is and see what I can do to be a little better.  Honestly, the survey's are usually a big confidence booster with a lot of homework complaints and a few constructive criticisms.  I truly feel like the survey's make me a better teacher.  Today was a survey day.  As I was handing them out I said, "be brutally honest!  I teach for you and if I'm not meeting your needs, you need to tell me."  Survey's are also always anonymous so students aren't afraid to express themselves.

First hour ends, I collect the surveys, and take a seat to start reading.  The first survey said something about slowing down and doing more practice together.  Mental note: slow down.  The second survey also said something about more practice, but I was more focused on his answer to the question

Q:  What can I do to be a better teacher for you?

A:  Teach the material better.  You mess up A LOT.  If I had a dime for every mistake I've noticed you made since school started, I would probably have enough money to get a new bag.

I think my eyeballs popped out of my head!  I frequently have people ask me how I can handle teaching high school kids because they are so mean.  I hear the occasional I hate you, I hate this class, I'm never coming back here again, and your outfit doesn't match, but man oh man!  I'm not sure what kind of bag this kid is buying, but I'm assuming it's more than a few bucks!  I happen to know who wrote this comment because he was the only person in class that used pen on his quiz and also the only person who used pen on his survey.  I debated writing "you owe me $0.50" on his quiz and circling the mistakes.  I've also debated going to the bank and getting a roll of dimes to give him Monday morning. Or a possible a "mistake jar" on his desk where I can deposit dimes during class.  The only problem with that is that I would have to carry change all the time and I hate change.  I guess it really wasn't that bad of a day.  Having my AC break when it was 110 degrees outside wasn't stellar, but worse things have happened.

Last year, week 5 was the week that I decided I would be better off in the hospital after a severe car accident than in the classroom and that belief extended to halfway through October.  I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that my bad Friday in week 5 is not going to be followed by another 5 weeks of thinking severe injury/death is better than teaching, because let's be honest, teaching is the best thing that ever happened to me.

This students response made me feel like I was living a scene from the Academic Decathlon in Billy Madison.  Luckily the 82 surveys that followed were much nicer and made me feel like I wasn't a fly, stuck in a piece of gun, stuck on the asphalt, melting in the 120 degree sun of Phoenix on a July afternoon.

First Year Fifteen

Have you ever heard of the "Freshman Fifteen"?  You know, the dreaded 15 pounds that college Freshman gain?  Despite eating pints of Ben and Jerry's on the kitchen floor at 3:00 AM with my roommate, I managed to avoid the Freshman 15.  In fact, I managed to avoid the Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior 15.  No one warned me about the First Year Fifteen.  The dreaded 15 pounds that first year TFAers gain.  Let's be honest, at one point it was the First Year Twenty.  After spending my summer attempting to work that off, I've had to readjust my lifestyle habits so I'm not a victim of the Second Year Sixty.  Snacking on semi-sweet chocolate chips whilst blogging probably isn't a good way to do that (tomorrow's a new day!)

This summer my awesome sis-in-law recommended an 8/12 or 10/14 diet.  Eat for 8 hours, don't eat for 12, or eat for 10 hours, don't eat for 14.  I've adopted the 10/14 idea and it really helps curb my appetite and keeps me from late night munching (unless I'm blogging and there's a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips by my side.)  I've also been trying to get back into running.  I would like to share a screen shot my run one morning last week.


I typically run 9.5 minute miles, but this morning I did 2 miles in 17:37.  For all you people out there who are not mathletes, that's a mile in about 8:48.  Waking up at 4:30 is rough, but I feel so accomplished starting my day with a 3 mile run.  On the to do list before the end of the year I have a 5k, 10k, and sprint triathlon!  Now I just need to find a bike.  Anyone in AZ with a bike that doesn't mind parting with it for a while can give me a call!

Just Keep Swimming

Sometimes things don't go as planned, kind of like the beginning of my school year.  Last March I found out my teaching schedule for the upcoming school year and saying that I was pleased would be an understatement.  Algebra 2 Concepts and Skills is the dreaded math class.  No one wants to teach it because it's the Juniors who have had one bad experience after in math and they now hate math and don't do well.  I taught Algebra 2 CS last year and absolutely fell in love with the class and the kids.  We most definitely didn't have the best Algebra 2 scores on campus, but they had beautiful growth and their hatred for math transitioned to a strong dislike (#win).  I had one request going into my second year - "please give Algebra 2 CS."  I was happily given that class because no one in their right mind requests the class.  I was also given Financial Algebra.  If I wasn't wearing a skirt, I would've been doing cartwheels out of the office when I found out about Financial Algebra.  Almost all of my Juniors that I'd spent the last year working with would be taking Financial Algebra the next year, which meant I would have them again!

The first week was pure bliss.  I already knew most of my Seniors and I managed to get my new Juniors to buy into me and Algebra 2.  My second year was exponentially better than the first and it was too good to be true.  So the administration changed my schedule.  Completely.  No more Algebra 2 CS.  No more Financial Algebra.  I switched to a regular Algebra 2 course and from Financial Algebra to Algebra 1 Block (dun dun dun).  Block is a 2 hour course with the same group of kids.  In other words, Block is rough.  To my most pleasant surprise, I've been able to actually love my new kiddos.  I'll be honest, there were some serious bitter feelings towards them because I was ripped from my original kiddos, but I think I've come around.  Don't get me wrong, Block is still rough.  I consider it a pretty successful day if we can make it through the two hours without anyone relieving their gastrointestinal pressure in class or announcing that they need to go outside to spit.  One of my babies (yes, I refer to the Freshman as babies) asked me if he could "go fart outside" today.  Hey, at least he's thinking of others.  That's progress!

On my second day with the babies we wrote goals.  As a parting gift, I would like to leave you with one of their personal goals and the three steps he will take to achieve said goal.  Kids say the darndest things.

The Nitty Gritty

The weeks leading up to school my feelings included excitement, anxiety, curiosity, fear, commitment, confusion, ambition, dedication, and loyalty to my kiddos.  I had no idea what to expect.  There is so much pressure on the first day of school.  I was told over and over last year that the first day sets the tone for your entire semester.  I was also told to be a million different things and none of those things were myself.  Getting to the point where I realized my job sucked because I wasn't being myself is a different story.  I decided to actually take the best advice I received last year from my favorite teacher in high school and just be myself.  As a teacher you often "fake it till you make it," which is great, as long as you're not faking your personality.  They see right through it.

Anyway, I'm proud to say, 1 day down and 179 to go of my second year teaching!  After a whole lot of reflecting this summer and thinking about last year there is one critical thing that I realized my students were missing.  Many of them didn't believe in themselves and their ability to do well.  After researching motivation and interviewing students I realized that I truly believe anyone can succeed.  For some people success comes a little easier than others.  Those people are lucky enough to taste the sweet joy of success frequently.  But what about those who have to work a little bit harder to succeed?  For them it is even sweeter.  I want my students to taste success everyday and focus on their growth and how far they've come rather than striving to be a master.

Prepare yourself for a cheesy analogy (why is it that exercise analogies seem to apply to everything?)  I in no way, shape, or form am a runner.  I absolutely hate it.  Let's call running a marathon "mastery."  I would love more than anything to master running.  If I put on my running shoes with the intent of running 26.2 miles I will become easily discouraged and quickly give up.  Let's be honest, if I even tried doing a half marathon I would still become easily discouraged.  Tonight I ran two whole miles without dying (please wait while I brush some dirt off my shoulder.)  That was a huge accomplishment for me after barely being able to run half a mile not too long ago.

As Malcolm Gladwell says in my new favorite book, "success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard."  In other words, success is grit.  When my students walk out of my class at the end of this semester, they will walk out saying, "I have grit."  It is my goal that they will be able to find success, whether it's big or small, in everything they try.  In room 201 we are the nitty gritty!

Teacher Appreciation

Let's be honest.  Going into today I thought, "I have to establish dominance in 1st period!"  Finals are coming up, which means summer is coming up, which means students are getting anxious and behavior is getting bad.  Luckily for me, I was able to establish that dominance this morning when someone got up and walked out of class to answer his phone, followed by a few colorful words to me and about my class when I told him to go back outside after the phone call.  Happy Teacher Appreciation Day Ms. Sansom!  The gifts kept pouring in and I was able to kick someone out of 3rd period as well.

Fast forward to 8:30 tonight.  I just got a text from the student in 1st period that had the colorful language and stormed out.  He was working on his study guide and asking for help.  That kiddo stormed out of my class today because he was so mad at me, then went home and not only did his homework, but asked for help when he got stuck.  I was so happy.  In all seriousness this time, Happy Teacher Appreciation Day to me!

Questions

These are the questions my students have asked me today:

"Are you single?"

"Why don't any boys at the gym ask you out?"

"Have you ever been in love?"

Notice a common trend? When I told a freshman I was going to Iron Man tonight I was instructed to wear jeans and a nice top and curl my hair. Apparently my T-town t-shirt and polygamist braid (as Stacie so kindly calls it) are not very attractive. If I want to get a little crazy I can wear a summer dress, but not my khaki pencil skirt or any other professional skirt. If I follow these directions, a guy might just say hi at the movie theater. I am getting dating advice from 14 year olds. Awesome.

Also, they're all obsessed with me working out after this picture surfaced. Super awesome #swag

Phone Hijack

This is what happens when I leave my phone unattended before class starts. Needless to say, these two make sure everyday starts off interesting.

Samson

I love my kids. I've been at a conference for the Arizona Association of Gifted and Talented Students for the last two days and I just want to be at school with the kiddos. I send text message homework reminders every night, but sometimes they have questions on the homework and they can't reply to the text. Solution: google voice! They can text my google voice number and its delivered straight to my cell phone. It's the best thing ever. When I gave my students the number they were told that any abuse of the phone number would result in it being shut down. Is texting me during class abusing the number? It's possible, but I'll make an exception this time.

Suckers!

Today was a good day (by the way, I started writing this on Thursday). It started off with my students accusing me of calling them "suckers" right at the beginning of class. I wasn't sure what they were talking about...then they showed me the text I had sent the night before.

Brother Todd was in Phoenix this week and we went to dinner Wednesday night. I asked him to send a text to my students to remind them about their homework and that's the text he sent. Thanks brother.

I checked my email at the beginning of 2nd period and I had this lovely message from one if my students:

"Good morning!!:) If no one told you today or if you haven't heard someone say this to you, I love you and thank you for being such an awesome teacher"

In 3rd period one of my girls was standing outside my room with her ankles and and arms crossed and wearing my sunglasses with a big cheesy grin. She said, "look, I'm you!"

Then I drove to Chipotle for my burrito bowl and a night at ASU. I love my students and I love my job.

Will Smith - REMIX

I cannot wait for May, and that's not because it's my birthday, the end of my first year of teaching, or because I will be getting ready to return to the holy land for the summer (aka the great state of Utah).  I cannot wait for May because we are starting Trigonometry in Accelerated Algebra, which means I am lucky enough to share this gem with my class:

We had professional development today and talked about multiple intelligences.  You would expect a math teachers "strongest" intelligence to be logic, but mine was music.  Maybe that's why I feel like the only way to teach math is by singing, chanting, and rapping.

Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah....Gettin triggy wit it.

Welcome to 201

Time has been flying by lately, yet going so slow at the same time.  When I moved to Arizona multiple people told me to keep a blog about what's going on in the life of a high school math teacher.  I haven't really had a chance to breathe since school started, but I'm attempting to be better, starting....now.

First game of the season.  Go Wolverines!  We actually won!

Friday was the end of the third week of school!  Fifteen days down, 165 to go, but who's counting?  I hear its supposed to get a little easier and more routine by October or at the very least the end of the first semester (does that mean I have to wait until Christmas to feel like I know what I'm doing!?)  Some days are bad - really bad.  Others are just bad, but for the most part it's good.  The best part of my day is when I'm up there teaching those little kiddos.  By little kiddos I mean high school freshman and juniors.  There were two pieces of advice that I was told over and over going into my first year of teaching:  "Don't try to be someone you're not," and "fake it till you make it."  Those two bits were mixed in with a bunch of other advice like, "you can smile before Christmas, but don't smile in the first month," "make someone cry in every class during your first week," "you have to keep notebooks," "don't start teaching content until the second week," "teach content on the first day."  So much advice!  I want to go back to the best piece of advice I was given - "Don't try to be someone you're not."  It's not my style to not smile or to make someone cry.  I felt like I finally showed Liz and who she really is on Friday and it was the best day of teaching I've had so far.  Kids actually left my class saying they really enjoyed math that day and were looking forward to the semester.  Whoa!

Now on to a little bit of the fun and joys of teaching high school students.  Third period has been my toughest class so far.  Two boys specifically have made this class a challenge.  One of them changes his opinion of me constantly.  He walks in shaking my hand, telling me about his day, all smiles and laughter.  By the middle of class he's telling me he hates math and he hates my class and he's never coming back.  By the end he walks out practically skipping and saying, "bye Ms. Sansom.  Have a great day."  On Tuesday I was crouched down at a students desk helping her with a problem.  I turned around to see this student standing up in his boxers with his basketball shorts around his ankles.  "What are you doing!?  Pull up your pants NOW!"  I held him and the other trouble student back to talk about the de-pantzing situation.  Their responses were "why would I pull down my own pants," and "why would I pull down his pants?  I like girls."  That was fun....

More to come with the joys of teaching high school!

He might not like math and might pull his pants down in the middle of class, but on the bright side my student makes a mean origami bird.  

Institution

I can think of 1,000,000 other things I could be doing right now.  Institute is crazy.  I'm finally beginning to understand why my teachers said there was not enough time in a day.  Even though institute is absolutely insane and I'm always grading papers, writing lesson plans, printing copies, attending classes myself, and lucky if I get 5 hours of sleep at night, I am loving this.  The average day at institue looks something like this:

4:45 wake up
5:45 - 6:30 ride the bus to go to Westview High School
6:30 - 7:00 handing back papers and student trackers and getting ready for class
7:00 - 7:15 monitoring the hall
7:15 - 8:00 working on lesson plans
8:00 - 11:00 attending curriculum and literacy sessions/lesson planning
11:00 - 12:30 teach math
12:30 - 1:30 lunch
1:30 - 3:30 more curriculum and literacy sessions
4:00 - 4:45 ride the bus back to ASU

Then my night continues with planning lessons, printing homework, grading quizzes, writing/grading quizzes, attending evening sessions, and hopefully going to sleep by midnight.  There was an hour and a half of sleep in there one night last week.  It is hard, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.  I'm learning so much about being a teacher.  The best part of my day is definitely when I'm teaching class.  My students are great.  They have a hard time with simple mathematic operations, like adding and subtracting, which can be extremely frustrating, but I'm really enjoying getting to know them and watching them learn the material.

I've heard life after institute is easier, but I'm wondering how that can possibly be true.  How can it get easier when I have 6 classes of 30 + students rather than 1 class of 20?  And taking masters classes at ASU on Thursday nights.  I can't even think about that right now.

I've finished my first week of teaching and two more weeks to go, then final assessments.  As much as I love this, I am really looking forward to July 6 when institute ends!

We're attempting to stay sane in our classroom....it's not working very well

A Really Good Day

I finally feel like I can breathe again.  Yesterday was January 17, which was kind of a big deal.  I was told I would be getting an e-mail at 6 PM that said whether or not I had been accepted to Teach for America.

I got it :)

I'll be moving to Phoenix, Arizona to teach secondary math.  Can I get a whoot?

TFA

I have been extremely hesitant to post about this little something out of fear that it doesn't pan out.  Kind of like relationships.  But the suspense is killing me and making me a little antsy and I can't keep it in anymore.

In October I applied for Teach For America.  This is a program that allows you to teach in a low-income area for two years while working on your Masters.  Which brings up another little update.  After almost four years of school and one year of looking for the perfect job in wellness or sports med, I've returned to the original plan.  Teaching.  I changed my degree from Elementary Education to Exercise Science my Freshman year, but now I'm back at it.

Back to TFA.  I applied because it was a free application.  Thousands of people apply and I thought "there is no way I'll get this."  I was invited to a phone interview and thought that was pretty cool, but still, no plans on getting accepted.  Then I got invited to a final interview at BYU.  This final interview was an all-day event that included teaching a sample 5-minute lesson, a group interview, and a personal interview with one of the recruiters.  That was on December 1 and I have to wait until January 17 to find out whether or not I was accepted.  If I don't post on January 17 that I'm moving to New York, DC, Seattle, Boston, Phoenix, Colorado, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, or the Bay Area then I didn't get accepted and I've crawled in a whole to die.