For my Bad Day Box

After a particularly challenging week left me questioning why I became a teacher in the first place, I was feeling really down about my position at my school, and wondering if it was even worth sticking around at Grady. When my students were driving me crazy with their lack of respect, their disinterest in learning, and their overall attitudes, I decided to email the parents of some of my best students. Rather than contacting parents of the "bad" students, I got to praise my good students. Not only did I get to brag about these wonderful kids, I received some amazing compliments in return. I printed these emails to remind me why I love this job, and they are headed toward my Bad Day Binder (I didn't end up making a box). And posted here for constant reminder to me and anyone else who may be struggling through their first year or student teaching experience....

My virtual Bad Day Box:

Thank you so much for your email. It is so nice to hear good things especially when a parent usually only receives information if something is wrong. He is enjoying Spanish so much. I appreciate all you do to make learning a second language a fun experience.

Ms. Aho,
Thank you so much for your wonderful note. I will certainly pass it along to A. He is loving Spanish and comes home talking to us using whatever he's learnt that day Even I'm beginning to pick up on it! Thanks for making it such a fun and positive experience.

Thank you so much for such a refreshing email. I must return the compliment and let you know the girls think you are amazing. They are so excited to learn and that thrills me as a parent. Keep up the great work, I can't wait to see the progress from now until the end of the year.

Wow! Thank you so much. S's first language was actually Spanish. Although she only spoke the language for thee years, she stopped being exposed and forgot all that she had learned. I also studied Spanish and was equally enthusiastic about learning the language. She has my complete support in learning. Thanks for noticing.

Hello Ms. Aho,
Please call me Laura. Thank you very much for your words. I am very proud of him. I can tell you that N has taken Spanish lessons in the past however no one ever seemed to catch his attention the way you have. He actually comes home and wants to have trial conversations. Keep up the great work as you are doing a great job yourself!
Thank you!


Sigh. It warms my heart and makes me want to get up and go to work on Monday, when not 12 hours ago I was having panic attacks at the thought of it! It is amazing how special my students are and their enthusiasm is the only thing bringing me back each day.

LiveBlog of Feb 24th Job Search Seminar

Helpless.

This morning, a student had a seizure in my second hour class.

It was probably the scariest thing I've seen in my life, thus far. The worst part, the thing that I can't get out of my head, is that at first I thought he was goofing around. The students were working in groups, trying to get through "Clifford's first Valentine's Day" (en espanol) and I was walking around, checking on the groups. I happened to walk up to this student's group right before it all began. He was making some weird noises, but he wasn't convulsing or anything...it just looked like he was being a little goofy during group-work time. It wasn't until his eyes started to roll and his body began convulsing that it hit me - THIS WAS REAL.

And then it hit me. And overwhelming feeling of helplessness.

I'm just a student teacher, I don't know what to do in these types of situations. Do I call 911? Do I try and support his head? After a fleeting moment of being frozen to the spot, I called for my mentor teacher, who quickly gave me the extension to call the office while she tried to sit the student up. The school secretary called an ambulance, and sent some help to our room. After a couple minutes (which felt like an eternity....) a wheelchair, a hall monitor, and the school's police officer arrived at our room to help until the ambulance arrived.

All I could do was comfort my students, and again, I felt extremely helpless. Nothing I could say could change what had happened, so I did what I would have wanted for myself: I gave out tissues, hugs, and reassurances that they were taking good care of him and there was nothing that we could have done differently.

Does that mean I don't feel guilty for the few seconds I thought that he was kidding and not getting help sooner? Not at all. Am I so str0ng that this didn't shake me up? Yeah right...I'm as emotionally unstable as they come. But I did manage to hold it together to give support and comfort to my students. Once they'd gone on to their next class though, what had happened finally had the chance to sink in, and I'm left feeling dazed, shaken up, and scared.

Now, even 2 hours after it happened, my 4th hour students are splitting into groups to work through the Clifford story, it's replaying in my head over and over and I'm afraid it will happen again. I still feel helpless.

But, I learned today that I can stay strong in the face of an emergency and be the rock that my students need me to be, and for that, I am extremely proud and grateful.

Speaking Practice, Less Fear

I found this sweet site called voki.com, which allows you to create an avatar and record a voice for it. You can record your voice using a microphone, type in the text that you would like to have spoken, or even record a voice by phone! I'm really excited to use this in my classes, and get my students to do some speaking!! I think this takes away some of the fear students face when speaking a foreign language because there is a little more anonymity in speaking through a character. Plus...it's fun!

Only problems I've found so far:
1) There's a 60 second limit on recordings, unless you upgrade to the paid version. But it's next to impossible to get my students speaking for anywhere close to a minute right now, so this is not such a big obstacle for the time being.
2)Sign-up seems to be a little touch and go. I signed up a few days ago, but never received a confirmation email to activate my account, so that I could save and publish my avatar. However, I tried again today with a different email address, and it worked just fine. Confirmation email arrived in seconds.

I had so much fun creating my avatar and playing around with the voice recording, that the technical issue is worth working past. This would be an excellent addition to my classes' webpage!

EtherPad gets 2 thumbs up

In searching through web 2.0 tools to feature in a webinar in ED504, I discovered a cool little tool called EtherPad. It's a web-based word-processor that allows several people to collaborate on a document, and changes show up INSTANTLY on everyone's screen, no lag time whatsoever. A pretty cool tool for any kind of collaborative work in or out of the classroom, it's recently been accquired by Google but is still up and running until its transition into Google Wave has been completed. Interested in checking it out? Go to etherpad.com or check out my quick-and-dirty how-to screencast. I'm definitely a fan.

It's been really great watching my cohort's webinars and getting a chance to learn about some new web-tools to use both inside the classroom and out. Check back soon for my newest discoveries!

One Potato Two Potato Hot Potato Four

Hot Potatoes is a freeware developed by the good folks at the University of Victoria, specifically for language instruction! The program allows you to create all kinds of nifty web-based activities, like crossword puzzles, matching, multiple choice jumble-sentences, and gap-fill exercises. It was a little tricky to use at first, but after a few minutes playing around with the program, I was able to create some pretty sweet interactive web-based activities. I think this is going to be a very handy tool for the classroom...I may have found a way to make even verb conjugation practice a little more fun!

Check out my latest projects!
Vocabulary matching
Gap-fill Goldilocks story
Past tense conjugation crossword

Do you Think You Can Dance??

Trying my hand at Liveblogging the So You Think You Can Dance results show tonight at 8pm. Join me!