School has been out for about a month and a half now. As much as I enjoy teaching, it’s been one of the best summers I’ve ever had. Not having to go to work every day and sleeping peacefully every night have seriously been the most refreshing and reenergizing thing I could have asked for.
I spent the first 5 weeks of the summer learning a new curriculum to teach freshman physics this fall. The program and its organizers (all outside of the NPS system) are awesome and I imagine this program will be wildly successful! My only hope is that the district communicates with the school building people to actually make this happen smoothly for my students.

Beyond that, we’ve taken a couple of weekend trips with friends to enjoy the beach, some live music, and the beautiful summer weather. We’re packing up our house to move next Friday. Wow. That’s coming quick. I’ll also be back helping out the 09 corps this week and next with round 0 and foundational tools. I’m looking forward to it, and some pressure to finish my own stuff so I’m prepared for the school year.

The rest of the summer will be painting, moving, unpacking, organizing, planning, setting up the classroom, and heading back to school. Looking forward to another great year!

Like, “Wow, was that a time warp?” level of gay. What a perfect locale for midwestern Newlyweds to cut their teeth on being in the world, but not of it. Rebbeca is moving a bit faster than I’m ready though. We stepped out of the Christopher Street PATH station and the first thing she said was, “Can we move here?” Seriously.

We discussed (read: I argued to her) the how’s and why’s of not being able to move there while we wandered down to the corner of 4th Street and something like 12th-ish.  (Right about where Hudson turns into 4th and all the cab drivers will tell you that this street doesn’t exist here…there’s also a hidden *cliff dive* bar that’s pretty cheap.) Here we stopped for breakfast and drinks.

I like little bistros that are open to the sidewalk. Love them actually. This is what I’m finding to be my East Coast equivalent to Sir Benedicts (shoutout to Duluth!). Here, you can actually drink and think (or even talk) without stilettod bimbos or posturing meatheads forcing my mind to revolve within the gravity of their world.

And the food is pretty edible too.

We wandered for a while after loosening our minds with mamosa’s and iced Bailey’s (and quieting our bellies with an omelet filled with all kinds of plant life and whatever it is Rebbeca photographed…), and continued our conversation.

Like I aforementioned, the West Village area is awesomely gay. Not totally gay like THE Village, but gay enough to have clean quiet streets and friendly, but unobtrusive locals. I’ve decided that I love gay people…well, men anyway, the truly raving lesbians are still kind of awkward, but that’s more of a social issue than some sort of illegitimate bias. I generally find they tend to be types of people I wouldn’t like anyway, straight or otherwise, so there’s some comfort there.

Gay men are helpful, savvy, and generally good natured. You can usually expect solid advice from them on a topic and they’ll tell you if they don’t know much about whatever you ask them. Assuming you’re the type to consider homosexuality a flaw, what would you prefer to be the serious downfall in a friend? I don’t want to associate with cleptos, liars, whores, or whiners so someone who’s wonderful, but is gay, is pretty flippin sweet in my book.

Like this man who cut Rebbeca’s hair. His little shop is on the lower level on a corner near a giant cathedral in SoHo. Rebbeca wants him to be her new best friend and do her hair at least once a month if not every week.

See how happy she is?!

We explored quite a bit just for a relaxing time away from Newarkness. One of the things I saw that was pretty interesting was handball. There were actually people who got together at a public place with the intent of playing handball. It’s something I’ve done for a lack of options, but not here in the capital of the world that is NYC. People came together to play. Lots of people. They’re behind the ones hooping it up in this picture.

All that walking around makes you thirsty though. So we found our way back to a place Rebbeca wanted to go. We ate chips and had drinks at a little outdoor mexican place that gave us a time limit and sat us in like a Tetris stack. I didn’t appreciate it very much, but she liked it. I wanted to go across the street to the place for explorers and mad scientists…since that’s pretty much what Rebbeca and I fit to a “T”.

…where’s that come from and what’s it actually mean, “to a T”?

The past few day’s I’ve been on a mission: find the solution for students coming LATE LATE LATE to school in the morning.  A few disclaimers: 1. I have seniors the first block of the day. 2. They have major senioritis. 3. They’ve learned over their four years that there are no consistent consequences for their tardiness, they simply show up sign their names in a book and keep it moving.

I am sick.and.tired of beginning class at 8:25 (although school STARTS at 8:20) with only 4 out of 20 students.  I give them until 8:45 to get there by having breakfast and the do now for the first 20 minutes.  I’ve tried calling home every third tardy, I’ve turned in behavior referrals, spoken with the guidance office, child study team, it’s affecting their grades and I’m simply fed up with it.  So my new mission is to figure out a way (in my classroom) to remedy this problem.  Maybe not for this year, but I’d like to come in next year with a solid plan.  I think the key to a successful approach is to have a positive incentive or rewards system for the students who are there on time.  A friend of mine gives out scholar dollars.  With these scholar dollars students can buy test points, free homework passes, bathroom passes, and any number of other things.  I’m wondering if this is something I can maintain.

Tomorrow AND Friday I’m doing a lab.  I’ve split the students in two groups.  Half are doing the lab on Thursday and the other half on Friday.  I didn’t tell them their groups.  I told them if they aren’t in class on time on the day that they do their lab, then they don’t get to do the lab.  They will do an alternative lab

So, I had full intentions of writing a post today that included awesome pictures of some of our fun adventures since moving here – a day in NYC, a weekend in DC – but I forgot to put the pictures on my computer.  Instead, today you get my perspective on urban education and the art of the parent-teacher conferences, and parent-teacher-school relationships in general.

When I first interviewed for TFA, one of the role-play questions I had to answer involved my solution to getting & keeping parents involved in student education and the art of pulling off a really successful parent-teacher conference night.  At the time, in all of my idealism, I remember saying that if the first night/time wasn’t successful then it was something that WE, AS A SCHOOL, were responsible to fix.  We just needed to call parents more, communicate with them ahead of time, go the extra mile, provide food and day care and set everything up perfectly so that we call all work as this great TEAM to further their child’s education.  I still have a lot of that optimism and I do believe that having parents involved in the education of their children is a vital part of making successful students, but as I alluded to yesterday, there is SO MUCH MORE that goes into actually MAKING the solution happen.  In the case of the parent-teacher relationship, the solution starts with me…

I remember having high hopes on day 1 and 21 and 71 and 101 about calling and reaching out to parents, about setting up times for students to stay after school, about conferencing with them over the phone because I “understood” that it was difficult for them to come in to the school.  What I know now is that actually DOING that for all of my students on a daily basis amidst planning, paperwork, documentation, teaching, having a successful marriage and community relationships, the first thing that ALWAYS falls to the side for me is calling parents and enlisting their help.  I hate to admit that I have students that have failed and are failing my class, have missed 30+ days since FEBRUARY, are missing tests, quizzes, labs, and I have not called their parents.  A lot of days I justify it.  I say, “I give them progress reports “weekly” (every three weeks…), I gave parents my contact information at the beginning of the semester, they could always reach me when they don’t EVER see their kid going home and doing any homework.”  But the reality is, I’ve dropped the ball.  I know that if I had taken the time every day, to call home when students were absent (because I know no one else is doing it), to call when a student missed a quiz, failed a test, clearly needed some extra help, I would probably be seeing greater results and less frustration with missing assignments and failing grades as I am right now.

I have in motion plenty of dreams and goals for why my second year will be different, how I will set things up for success from the beginning, knowing what I know now.  In my heart I’m excited and I know that it will change things in my classroom, but in my head I also know how utterly difficult it is to maintain.  Many days there are just not enough hours to do what we know we should.

I’m developing new strategies, and trying to figure out how to implement them and make them self-sustain.  In the meantime, as a result of my inability to bridge the connection between school and home, I will likely see very few parents between 1 and 7pm today.  I’ll be sitting in my classroom forging ahead on lesson planning, ironing out a long-term project for my students to do and being very productive, but perhaps I would see my students being more productive if we had the real parent-teacher conferences we are supposed to.

We certainly haven’t kept up with blogging the way that we intended. In our defense life has been BUSY!  In the next few days we’ll work on updating all of our *fans* with some pictures and anecdotes of the wonderful adventures this first year of marriage and life on the east coast has taken us on.  We’re loving every minute of this crazy and hectic life out here.  We were warned that none of it would be easy, it hasn’t, but in the midst of challenge and struggle we have found a God who has provided for us in every way.  We would not be the people that we are today without having walked through the fires that we’ve walked in these last 11 months.  Here’s a short story from Rebbeca, a brief update on life in the classroom…

Life in Room 218, what can I say?  There have been good times, and there have been bad times.  I have yet, in my 8 months as a teacher, to be surprised by something that my students were lacking.  I came to Teach for America and NVHS fully expecting the achievement gap that I have witnessed to.  That is in fact why the organization exists.  There have been plenty of surprises though.  I guess I shouldn’t have been so shocked to see the HUGE roadblocks that students and teachers alike endure in order to achieve this thing called education.  If the system were perfect, then I suppose the problem wouldn’t exists.  I guess it was just the realization and implication that those imperfections brought that has had me thinking for quite some time now.  Teach for America has this thing (I forget what it’s called, and sadly do not have a book to reference) about a teacher’s “Locus of Control”.  The idea is that we as teachers (especially in our first year), have very little control over anything that happens in our school and in our student’s lives, except what we CAN DO in OUR CLASSROOMS.  I absolutely believe in this idea.  It also drives me completely insane most days because as a teacher I have discovered that in a system with all of the imperfections that our urban districts posses, with such a small locus of control, I can really do very little to close this achievement gap that my students live with.  Now make sure you hear me on this, I AM NOT using this as an excuse to no longer work tirelessly for the achievement of my students in my classroom.  I absolutely do.  BUT, let’s be realistic.  The problem of education inequity goes WAY beyond classroom teachers.  I fully expected the lack of parental support, social/economic problems at home, broken families, and I have maintained my high student expectations amidst those things.  But in a system that is completely broken down, the problems go way beyond what students working together with their teachers can really combat.  I will continue to work tirelessly for my students in my classroom, but it is a daily struggle to keep my “locus of control” in perspective knowing that real solutions to these educational problems will not be found until the entire system is evaluated and ALL parties work together as a team with one common goal: the pursuit of excellent education for our students.

I can’t believe 6 weeks have gone by already!  Can it be real?!  We’ve made it through 3 units so far and today we started on our last unit before the midterm: Unit 4 – structure of the atom & the periodic table!  I’m excited to start this unit because I feel like we’re finally getting into the chemistry of it all! 

My *personal* big goal for my students is to begin to help them understand WHY I’m having them do the things they’re doing.  I mean I have a reason for why my students do everything but I rarely articulate to them WHY they are doing it!  I think they would retain a lot more information if they understood the why behind it!

I’ll keep you all posted on how that all goes…

Alright, this is my own personal political vomit for the blogosphere. Here’s my thesis statement:

“Christians want to force others to follow God’s policies, but in reality, we don’t want to follow them either.”

There was an article posted on WorldNetDaily.com that is now circulating the Christian weblogs as a rally cry for the political evangelical. Take the time to read the article so you can properly follow along and draw your own conclusions. When you get back, we’ll take a look at the problems the church has with our country and politics. Then I’ll hypothesize why it’s all our fault in the first place.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=77557#

I’d like to discuss the inevitabilities that this article touches on: death and taxes.

Our fixed inevitability: death.

Given what I’ve seen from the church, the only thing that decides who is capable of running a country is their opinion on abortion (and homosexuality, but that’s a different pile of vomit). I had a conversation with an abortion voter who told me, “When I die, I will stand alone before God and explain why I voted for who I did. I cannot in good conscience vote against the innocent lives of babies.” That is fine. I’m not going to tell you what your convictions should be. I applaud you for actually having some and sticking to them. I’m only curious if you think God will ask you to answer for the harm that elected official also caused in other arenas.

The issue of abortion is often boiled down in concept so that everyone can pick either the home or away team. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. I’m not talking about situational cases like rape, mortal danger to the mother, or retardation, that’s out of my pay-grade. Choosing to address the legality of abortion is a band-aid for a gaping wound, yet here we are, debating what type of useless band-aid to use. Rather than concern ourselves with the wound, we should first remove the knife (or attacker) and only once it’s dealt with can we properly heal the wound.

Who thought up abortion? Why do Americans think there is a need for abortion? The answer to these and other questions is as complicated as the solution to stopping genocidic abortion. Before abortion was legalized, married men used coat hangers and second-hand knowledge on their mistresses in an attempt to hide the evidence of their sins from their wives. When something, inevitably, went wrong, they panicked and left the helpless woman to bleed out on a $12 tarp in a $40 motel room. Alone, with her lifeblood gushing out from between her legs, she was resigned to her death unknowing of a better option. So far as she knew, no one could help her because no one loved her enough. Who is going to answer to God for those two deaths?

I am. You are. The Bridegroom of Christ is, but not because we didn’t do anything about the act specifically. Were I living out Jesus’ command to love people as he does, we certainly wouldn’t have this problem. So next time you are standing outside the abortion clinic, I hope your sign reads, “I will care for you and your baby in my home,” or “Let me know how I can help,” or “I will adopt your baby”. If it doesn’t, you aren’t helping, you’re just adding to the noise.

*Intermission*

Here’s the message I’m getting from the political evangelical sect. “Do not vote for Obama because if you do, life as we know it will cease to exist.”

…wow.

Anyone still wonder how everyone got the idea that Christians suck because we’re just trying to scare everyone into thinking (or voting) the way we do? On one hand, I think it’s great that our modern Body of Christ still hears so clearly through the Holy Spirit that we managed to receive the TPS memo that things would spiral out of God’s control if Obama gets elected….

On the other hand, it bothers me more than a little that a half-black man could so easily wrest control from my creator. If that’s the case, why do I even bother to worship him anymore? We should switch to the more powerful and worship Obama! …except that he isn’t more powerful, so I won’t….and if Obama isn’t more powerful then I’m not worried about life as we know it ceasing to exist.

I took quite a lot of liberty with my interpretation, but I don’t feel guilty. I think the author should be ashamed of their propaganda. The Nazi’s used fear to control the people and turn them against the Jews and Blacks too. That was less than 100 years ago. We haven’t come very far since then apparently…

In reality, the statement was in relation to taxes.

Our fluctuating inevitability, taxes.

Barack Obama wants to increase taxes in order to provide better care and circumstances for people who are unable to provide for themselves. Lots of people are very unhappy about this because they think the government taking their money and giving it to people who they feel don’t deserve it isn’t right. This is the “end of life as we know it” they were referring to.

The basis of our free enterprise system is the fact that if you work hard, you can improve your circumstances and provide a better life for yourself and your family. If you are not a Christian and you’re pissed about the government giving your hard earned money away, you are absolutely right. However, if you profess to love Jesus and desire to be like him, getting upset about being taxed to pay the poor is not a Godly attitude, nor Biblically justified by verses traditionally taken out of context in defense of pocketbooks.

Cries of “socialism” are running rampant through the land, a fact that I find very humorous given the recent actions of our intercessory-prayer-appointed president. The “economic stimulus act” and “bail out bill” are pulled right from the manifestos of Karl Marx. Our republican government has just spent $250,000,000,000.00 to purchase the stock of privately owned banking organizations. This was on the heels of a $700,000,000,000.00 package for individual households. Sounds like “one large step for mankind” in the direction of a socialist nation-state to me. Tell me why we’re crying “socialism” at forced giving money to the poor but not forced giving money to the rich?

In Summation

There are only two tasks Jesus gave us. Love God as hard as we can (everyone on the planet too), and care for the widows and orphans (which in Bible-speak means poor and needy). It’s kind of a funny logic circle because if you’re doing number one really well, shouldn’t number two happen naturally? The American body part of Jesus hasn’t really been keeping up their end of the deal with that covenant. Fortunately, Jesus has his Indian, Sudanese, and Chinese bodies working double overtime to compensate.

As Christians, it isn’t our job to decide which poor people we help. We aren’t told to help the poor people who can’t help being poor. We aren’t told to help the poor people who are poor for reasons outside of their power. If they ask for help, you give it. The oft- quoted verse is 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “Even while we were with you, we gave you this command: ‘Those unwilling to work will not get to eat.’” It’s a wonderful verse that I whole heartedly agree with. Especially when I realize what Paul is talking about. Not ALL mankind, just lazy Christians. In verse six the topic is started with, “And now dear brothers and sisters, we give you this command in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: Stay away from all believers [the original Greek reads 'from ever brother'] who live idle lives and don’t follow the tradition they received from us.” Ah! Christians shouldn’t be on welfare, but that has nothing to do with caring and loving on non-believers. Why are we so confused?

Ah yes…the pocketbook twisted my logic again…

A house divided against itself cannot stand. The problem really isn’t that Christians are against abortion, we should be. The problem isn’t that Christians shouldn’t want to be forced to take care of poor people, we shouldn’t have to be. We should be caring for the people who “need” abortions and loving them in the way Christ would. We should be caring for the poor ourselves so the government doesn’t have to. These things are not the presidents job because, frankly, there are other things he should be concerned with. That this is even on his radar is a testament to what a poor job we are doing as Christians. They are the church’s responsibility. The government only stepped in when the ball got dropped so hard for so long that they had to.

We need to take it back!

So, brothers and sisters, we need to stop trying to force legislation that forces others to follow God’s principles on abortion and we need to stop needing to be forced to take care of the poor and underprivileged. There’s nothing to be upset at except our own lack of faith in action.

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What follows are thoughts I had whilst pounding out this article. I wasn’t able to logically work them in but didn’t want you to miss out on them either. Most of them are fragmented ideas and concepts because I didn’t take time to explore them and solidify my thoughts. Please treat them as such. Enjoy.

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I’m not saying I’m voting for Barack Obama, but I’m not saying I’m voting for John McCain either. If our founding fathers saw we have to choose from, they would start a new country and a new revolution. My ideals don’t mesh with either candidate.

Fortunately, performing my duties as a Christian has absolutely nothing to do with who is running the country. I can show everyone that I come into contact with exactly what my God looks like regardless of my nations political climate.

My innards are frequently conflicted between my upbringing in a pentecostal church, my experience as a Scout/Sniper in combat, and the Holy Spirit quietly tugging at my conscience in a way separate from the other two.

Perhaps I’ll do what every good pirate does and vote for myself! Or I’ll do what every good ninja does and wait for the pivotal moment to strike and actually make a difference with a decision and act. Most likely, I’ll do what I do best and not decide until I’m on my knees in the booth begging for God to help me make a decision…at which point he will and I’ll leave the booth with ballot unused.

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By the way, Chuck Norris is a Monday columnist for WorldNetDaily.com…They maintain a very eclectic rotating list of columnists. Some whom I deeply respect, and others not so much. http://worldnetdaily.com/WND%20Columnists

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I am commanded by my savior to love everyone just as he loves them; to view them through the eyes of Christ. Does Jesus love Barack Obama? Only as much as he loves Ellen DeGeneres…

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Speaking of life “as we know it”, it’s pretty much a state of suck anyway. What’s wrong with changing it? There is a whole sect of Christians that have locked themselves in the prayer closet to pray for the state of our country. They are an impressive spiritual body to reckon with and believe they will accomplish amazing things with their efforts. I am only hoping they are praying for God’s will to happen and not for what they think is God’s will to happen.

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Case in point, Mr. George W. Bush. There was a little reminiscing thrown into the article. If you missed it, look for the part that mentions where they prayed Mr. Bush into office. After balking at the realization people still think he was a good president, I further realized this situation we’re in now politically and economically is our (the Bride of Christ) fault.

I don’t pretend to be a wise and educated person when it comes to warfare and politics on the macro level. I realize there are more than two sides of the fence when we look at the Iraq war. Personally, I choose not to have a side. I’ve been to combat and seen the elephant and my thoughts on the benefits of Iraq are book in itself. Suffice it to say, I believe God has been able to work some good out of a situation he didn’t want to happen.

Before Mr. Bush was prayed into office, twice, there was a system called “Checks and Balances”. This political system was erected by our founding fathers to ensure that the country remains in the control of it’s people, the citizens. However, as the caliber of it’s citizens has begun to degrade, so has the effectiveness of our “Check and Balances” style system.

Who’s fault is it that American’s suck? Why, it’s my fault! It’s your fault. It’s the fault of Christians. Our church needs to start being missionaries in our every day lives so that the quality of our citizens can improve. We are called to be a royal priesthood for our God. People look to priests and religious leaders of every religion as a window to what the God of that religion looks like. Show people what your God looks like!

…by the way, passively handing them a tract doesn’t count and is a flaccid gesture.

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Links to whatever: click at your own risk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerri_Santoro

http://mattschiefelbein.blogspot.com/2007/11/welfare-reward-for-nothing.html

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/About%20WND

http://jacobsonhoppers.blogspot.com/

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Oh yeah, I’d like to thank both sets of my parents who labor tirelessly for the underpriviledged without letting their own underpriviledged status be an excuse! May you continue to inspire us all.

*I’m still awful at planning ahead, but I’m getting better at it.  Today I actually had my powerpoint done before I got to school*

*My students did awful on their tests – blame should probably be equally placed on both parties – however, I have them time to analyze their test results and make an appointment with me to come and make up their test to improve thier grade…they seemed open to it*

*For my part in the bad test scores I spent some time researching cornell notes to decide how well it would work in my class and how i would have to modify it for things like figures and charts.  I put it together to introduce to my students today as our new strategy for mastering our unit 3 objectives.  When they discovered that the answer to every question was right next to the question they got so excited! (ok…as excited as seniors in high school get over taking notes)  Truthfully though, their faces lit up and it seemed like it was something that they would actually use to prepare for thier test.  As a side note…none of them had ever heard of Cornell notes OR taken notes in a format like that before*

*I actually motivated my students today by telling them, “Life is made up of time.  When you waste your time, you waste your life.”*

On that note…I’m “wasting” time on the computer when I should be organizing and planning ahead.  Warning notices for my failing students are due tomorrow so I better figure those out!

and I had a lot of plans to get a lot of things done this weekend.  I did get a few things done, but mostly I just worked at a slow pace while I enjoyed my weekend…and I like it that way.  This week has been ordinary so far…still trying to get seniors to understand what silent actually means while continually reinforcing that my class is a class that they need to graduate.  I’m sure they’ll get the idea at some point…I just hope it’s soon.  We’re having our second unit exam on wednesday and the warning notices for grades go out to parents on Friday…

…and I honestly couldn’t be happier.  I’m struggling with planning and preparation and as a result I’m feeling underprepared and like I’m rushing my students through the material.  It’s a crappy feeling.  As a result, what I should do is stay and work late, get ahead on planning, blah blah blah, but what I’m going to do is pack up and leave my classroom ASAP after school today, go home and make a fantastic dinner, drink a glass of wine, actually have time to enjoy both and then I’m taking my paycheck and going to ikea…my house needs some help.  This week has been pretty rough but things are looking up.  I have big plans on planning over the weekend, and I need to come up with some better systems for keeping myself organized…it’s only 4 weeks into the school year and I am SICK.AND.TIRED of students needed extra copies, being absent, not knowing what they need to turn in.  I mean seriously, most of them are 18 years old.  I’m about to pull the “in the real world” speech on them because of they don’t get organized and quick, the real world is going to be rough on them.  In the meantime, for my own sanity, I need to figure out some better organization so that at least they stop askine me!

On a positive note…spent an extra day doing “GUIDED PRACTICE” after both classes failed a quiz.  Gave the kids a quiz again yesterday.  They did great.  The moral of the story…I need to spend less time “teaching” (interpret: talking at the) and more time letting them practice with the material.  That should be an obvious thing to understand but you have no idea how difficult it is to put into practice.  There’s this fine balance of explaining the material slow enough and well enough that they can actual do the practice without calling your name to come and help them 500 times and just talking to them about the information for the entire block and never given them a chance to work with it.  I’m figuring out what that is…

You can find me at a local panera tomorrow.  I’ll be spending the day using the free wireless and planning, planning, planning while my husband puts together our new desk from ikea.