The Woes of Recessions from the Eyes of a Teacher

School starts very soon where I live, and it is something I am constantly reminded of at my job. No - not my teaching job, my retail job. Why on earth should I have to work for minimum wage with my education and certification? Honestly, I think about it every day and it makes me miserable. What's even worse? One of my former students came into the store I work at and laughed at me.

Sigh.

At the Close

This is a journal entry I asked my Juniors to write for me, and the response that I wrote to read to them.

Your Junior year is very quickly coming to an end. Next year, you'll be seniors! This is a very important period in your life. Many of you (I hope) will be thinking about college and life after high school.

Take some time to reflect on this past year at Katella, and how you've grown. What important life lessons have you learned? How have you changed?
Tell me what your goals are for your senior year and after. What colleges are you interested in? How excited are you to apply as an English major? (just kidding... maybe!)


This is my "journal" to them:

I've learned a lot about teaching this year. For example, as much as I wanted everything to go perfectly, it never will. Students will always be late, not do work, cheat, and make up excuses. Another thing I learned is that you can't make everyone care. I know these sound really negative, but for me, they're not. I, for a while, felt like I was a failure because I had students failing. But now I know that even the best teachers can't reach every student.

More importantly than all of that, I learned that I really was meant to be a teacher. Watching kids succeed, fall, struggle, and pick themselves back up again and being around to help is very fulfilling. I love challenging students. But most of all, I get to be the center of attention and talk about how much I know - which is fantastic for my ego.

My goals for next school year? Get a job, and do well in my masters program! Not much, but they're both extremely important!

Nothing to do with teaching, but...

I have started my food-blogging up again, and I am doing it here this time. Find me at http://jackie-cooks.blogspot.com.

The Final Stretch

With my personal life taking every bit of my emotion and energy out of me, I'm starting to struggle in this final stretch of time for teaching. It's difficult to care when I know I'll never see these kids again, and probably won't step foot on that campus again. I know it wouldn't be this hard if people didn't have terrible timing. But right now... How am I supposed to feel motivated to teach when it takes me 15 minutes to even motivate myself to get out of bed everyday?

This is the email I received today.

You have met all of the necessary requirements to receive a recommendation for the following document.

Credential: P5--(Preliminary): $29.50 Single Subject Teaching Credential
Issuance: 05/29/2009

In order to complete the filing process, you must take the following steps:

1) Proceed to https://teachercred.ctc.ca.gov/cctc_phase3/InteractionMgr?interactionmgr.interaction=Enter_ApplicantLogin
2) When prompted, enter date of birth and social security number to prove identity.
3) Complete a short online form.
4) Pay the credential fee using Visa or MasterCard debit or credit card.

When completed, the application form and fee will be sent to the California Commission on Teacher
Credentialing, which reserves the final authority to grant or deny a credential.

Certified by: Kristin Luzzi

I Make Them Think

I am not the only student teacher at my school. There is another, and she goes to a different University than I do to get her credential.
I was speaking with her on Friday, in the copy room, and she asked me about a particular student. We talked about him for a minute, and she told me that she knew him from outside of school. She asked me about him because I guess they had talked about me, which automatically would make me uncomfortable, of course. Anyway, the point is, he said he didn't like me, and that he likes their old teacher (my master teacher) more. Why is that?

Because I make them think.

I suppose, if there was any reason to be disliked, that is a good one for me.

When The Students Are... Nice.

My kids (er well... Juniors) were odd today.  They were nice.  We exchanged a few jokes before class, poked a little fun about... and one of my students (NOT one of my good students, mind you... she is failing pretty bad) gave me a button!  It says "I <3 cats, it's people I can't stand!"

I had to yell at my freshmen today, though, because they laugh at everything.  Was I really ever that immature?

Senior Prank?

We were scheduled to finish out our last day of standardized testing today.  When we arrived at school to get in the classrooms, we found that all of the doors on our side of the building had their locks glued shut.  It was hilarious to watch administrators, one after another, try their keys in the doors - because if one key didn't work, maybe this one will...

One of the teachers also had, as he put it "a penis with hairy testicles" drawn on his door.  When they came to clean it off, I said (without thinking) "it looks like they're cleaning off your hairy testicles."

Yeah.

Thankfully, this whole experience only set us back 30 minutes.  Nevertheless, what a way to start out a week.

It's been a long time.

So, unless you live under a rock, you should be aware that California has a bit of a crisis in regards to the teaching and education community.  This is something that does not bode well for someone like me, an aspiring teacher. 

With the economy the way it is overall, "layoffs," "budget cuts," and "unemployment" have become frequent discussions in the household.  My concern is when these discussions hit the households of an educator.  Perhaps I am biased, but I am starting to feel like one of very few people with their head on straight.  

Why is it always so acceptable to jeopardize the educations of the youth in this country?  Here we have a president that has finally put the emphasis on education that is so long over due, but we have a governor that is so willing to cut billions out of the budget (do I need to remind you that Schwarzenegger ran on a platform where he said he would not cut from education)?  And then, on top of it all, they put out a Proposition set (1A-F) that couples a FANTASTIC 9 billion dollars back into education (Prop 1B) with an evil, diabolical, and deceitful tax extension/raise that is being disguised as a "spending cap" (Prop 1A).  Why is this such a problem, you wonder?  Because if Prop 1A fails, Prop 1B fails too.  This places so many people in a horrific predicament - do I vote for taxes that I can't afford to pay, or do I give up on the public education system and put thousands of California teachers out of work?  I for one will never vote against education, because you cannot put a price on the future of a child.

I recently attended the John and Ken Tax Revolt 2009 with my boyfriend in Downtown Fullerton, California.  We were among the minority there (being under 30, not upper class, liberals), and I can certainly say that I do not stand for almost anything that John and Ken do, but I must agree with the basic premise of this so called "revolt."  The governator has got to go, and so do the bigwigs up in Sacramento.  Say "so long" to the days of political divides, it is just one big clusterfuck.  But I will never, ever support the concept that it is okay to cut from education, which seems to be an idea that J&K are more than fine with.  They consistently call teachers "greedy" on their show, and talk about how they just want to suck money from every avenue possible.  Is it greedy that I want to have a job come fall?  Is it greedy that I went to school for an extra year to get a credential so I could teach children, while not being paid for all of the work that I did and am doing?  I am not greedy, it is politicians that are greedy.  It is republicans that are greedy.  It is democrats that are greedy.

Someday, I will be governor of California.  But for now, I just want a job.  Is that so greedy?