Home!

Holy cow, I bought a house! The good news: we do the paperwork and get the keys in a month. The bad news: I'm supposed to be in New Orleans for my Yeats conference the week they want me to close! Why does it always have to happen all at once. What could possibly go wrong?
Peace

the magazine is in business!

Finally, The Compass Student Literary Magazine is in business! I published the first issue last weekend. Is it good that the last page is a fart joke? Check it out on the class website, sites.google.com/site/scottraymoure. It's even up for sale on a cloud storefront, and The Compass has a facebook page. I'm really getting into the publishing, it's even cutting into my Yeats research time.Dare to dream that the website becomes a nationwide meeting place for students to learn??

New Year's Resolution

I've never been one to make new year's resolutions, but I bet my students would have a few ideas for me if I asked :) I think my goal this year is, "simplify and smile." Like probably every new teacher, I came in with TONS of new ideas and activities for the classroom. Too many. In addition to theme units there were vocabulary and journal notebooks, a grammar strand, computer lab days with email, blogging and forum tasks to learn, independent reading time, and the whole idea of portfolio assessment organizing with a special binder, notebook, and the need to keep everything you do all semester.I think I overloaded their growing brains and it made the team-building side of things harder because it was reduced to commanding them to compliance in order to keep maximum time for activities. This year I cut out the fat. I've learned a lot about what is essential and what can go, and those are definitely going, which should leave some room for an increase in the fun quotient. If anyone's reading they'll like to see that.

That said, in 2 days they'll all come streaming back, I wonder how easily we'll slip back into school life? (I hear experienced teachers snickering). We have 7 days to finish the semester, which is publishing a magazine with each student contributing an article that shows what they learned. The publishing is my passion in teaching so I hope they are excited about it. How many 8th graders get to publish their work for the public instead of just giving an essay to the teacher?

I revamped the class website too. It didn't get nearly as much play as I had hoped so hopefully this more friendly design will entice more use. Check it out at sites.google.com/site/scottraymoure.

On a personal level, the train keeps rolling. Our home offer is at the bank and I may actually be a home owner this winter! Meanwhile, I better think of some genius things to say at my New Orleans conference asap. Clock is ticking on that, only 10 more weeks to go. Well, if you're reading, peace.

On time! (barely)

Long slow exhale. whew. We actually got through the book in the 4 weeks planned, so everyone finished and completed their reflective projects by the Christmas holiday. "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." It didn't look like it would be accomplished for a bit there, attention spans and the lure of an upcoming holiday being what they are. But they did it. It was great to have so many say, "I can't believe I actually finished it! It was so long!(223 pages)" or "This is the first book I actually finished! Well maybe the second." It feels good to have a group so unfamiliar with success in reading feel successful. They even expressed some great insight into the meaning of the book, some things I hadn't thought of.

Of course, intelligence and mental handicaps are a central theme, and they all responded to it in a thoughtful way. Many of them really see Christopher as a hero, and the world is the "crazy" one, not him. He's just a brilliant boy in a crazy world (and family), although he is eccentric. Time for a well earned break kids, enjoy the holiday and I'll see you next year! Peace

In Over My Head!

Unbelievably, my application to speak at the American Conference on Irish Studies National Conference next March was accepted! I am invited to present my research on Yeats in New Orleans. From the looks of the website, it's a pretty big deal, with some famous thinkers and artists attending. The working title of my paper is "The New Island: How W.B. Yeats invented Cyber-Space." I'm too surprised to even think about it more, but it should be a blast. Peace

There's No Place Like Home

I can't believe it, but it looks like I'm going to buy a house and become a real Bakersfield resident. Last week Grace and I went out looking at houses, and put in an offer on a house on our first day. I was always kind of freaked out about the responsibility of owning a house, but it feels right this time. The problem is that this is a short sale, that means that the owner couldn't pay his mortgage and the bank took his house away. Now I'm trying to buy it from the bank. It's hard to work with the bank, they are slow and sometimes they won't sell it and you don't know why. Grace and Dazzlyn will be super disappointed if we can't buy it.

This means I'm a central valley guy now. I never thought I would settle down in one place, but I guess it's time. I have a good job, and it's comfortable in Bako. I hope that wanderlust doesn't kick up again though!

On another topic, I got accepted to present a paper at the National American Conference on Irish Studies in New Orleans in March. I still can't believe it. The conference looks like a big deal, with lots of famous thinkers in the field, so I still feel like it must be a mistake that they let me in! I have to get working on my research again to come up with a big idea. My working title: "The New Island: How W.B. Yeats Invented Cyber-Space."
Peace

The Lunch Party

We had a lunch party Friday, the last day before the Thanksgiving week off. Students had been getting stickers for their team flags for winning grammar games, or getting best average quiz scores, or other signs of working hard. The winners were "Hush" from 1st period (naming themselves for their quietness), a tie of "The Smores" (for melting together into a team), and "The Randoms" (self-explanatory) in 5th period, and "IDK" ("I Don't Knows") for 6th (for helping each other in times of need).

Grace was awesome, she woke up at 5:30 to fry up lumpia and made Philippine torta and rice too. The kids chowed it down in seconds. It was a cool time and I think everyone had fun. I hope we can do it again to end the semester. It is definitely worth the effort to see them laughing and smiling in English class!

Now it's time for a rest week, and I think we're going to San Francisco to visit the family of Grace's friend Marissa. I haven't been there for a long time, so it will be great to go. The last time I spent any real time there was when I was living in the RV and travelling the West trying to be a writer. That was almost 20 years ago! I remember meeting some hippie kids by some parks along the coast highway and taking them up with me. Everyone should have the chance to travel with no home but their car for a bit when they're young. It gives such a sense of freedom and life to your life. I've always thought the more keys a person has the harder it is to be happy. If you can be happy with no keys, then you can have true happiness in your soul indeed.

Peace

Anyone out there?

By the way,  I wonder if I am sending out these messages into the big empty internet universe. If anyone is reading this please post a comment! Or a question or two would be great. Anything anyone would like me to write about? Peace

The Whirlwind

The most amazing thing about this first teaching year is definitely the non-stop, 120 miles per hour, head-spinning, being-pulled-in-240-directions-at-once tornado of days and weeks that it is. It feels like I was on my fall break yesterday, then I realize that that was almost 3 weeks ago! Since then we had parent teacher conferences. It was awesome to meet so many parents and start to work together to help the students learn, but it was 4 hours of meetings without a chance for a breath. Wow. Of course, there are so many kinds of parents and students; some are very interested, some are a little interested, some are happy, and some are not satisfied. We all have one thing in common though, we want the kids to succeed. It's an wild experience for a new teacher to see all these different families one after another and realize we are all connected through this classroom.

Then as soon as that was over, it's back to work. It was time to rev up to the end of our 3rd unit (already). That means another essay. Sometimes I think that the biggest success for the kids may be just getting past the nervousness of writing an essay. It causes a bit of a panic. We almost spend an entire class just giving the instructions and gathering the energy to give it a try. I wonder if I was like that when I was their age? (It's much to long ago to remember). Then it's time to quickly grade all the end-of-unit work and get the next unit started strong.

Meanwhile all the fall holiday events are starting; carnival, dances, car wash BBQs, bake sales, fundraising events, visits from motivational speakers, pep rallies, and, my favorite, my first official review. If I can take the experienced teachers vibe as a hint, this is something to be nervous about. The judgement of 1 day of 1 administrator observing 1 lesson (or 1/2 a lesson), could decide my future at the school. No pressure. And all of this is cutting into lessons and making short schedule days as we lead up to a week off at Thanksgiving, which means we will lose all momentum on the novel we start next week. The fun thing about seeing a train wreck coming is that your on the track, there is no turning left or right. One thing is for sure, it is not boring. The life of a first year middle school teacher is like seeing who can stay in the washing machine the longest :)
Peace.

The Way to San Jose

Last weekend was my first time attending a professional conference, and I also gave a speech about my research on the Irish poet Yeats. It was awesome just to get out of town for a couple days, I don't think I've gone out of the valley all year! San Jose is cool, relaxing and the weather is cool and there are tons of interesting people walking around.

The conference was cool too. I was stressed out waiting to speak because there were a lot of professors there from universities in Ireland and some famous artists. Everyone had an important sounding introduction, but I was just a middle school teacher from Delano :) But, everyone was really friendly so I relaxed. They all told jokes during their speeches and didn't try to act like they were better than anyone else. They just like meeting people that share their interests and talking about it. The only bummer was that a pretty famous Irish playwright, Bisi Adigun, gave a performance at the same time as my speech so only 7 people attended! (they usually had about 18 people). I hoped everyone would hear me. It turned out ok though, because I spoke well and one Irish professor (Peter Denman) that listened gave me some good feedback that is really going to help me to continue my research. So you never know, it only takes 1 good listener to be a good audience.

I also heard some great speeches about Irish history, James Joyce, and even the youtube sensation of hand dancing (you might have seen it in a mcdonald's commercial). It has a much more complicated backstory than you might think! I went to nice dinners at 2 restaurants and hung out with Matt, Bradford, and Meghara. I even got to talk to Bisi, and he's a really nice guy so I was happy that so many people went to his performance. I'm glad I went and now I hope I can go to the big national event in New Orleans next spring (if I can come up with new research!) peace.

Workaholic?

I'm on the fourth day of the fall holiday that both teachers and students were very much looking forward to. Why have I done school work everyday? I guess with the end-of-quarter crush some grade updating was unavoidable, but I seem to be unable to just do nothing. I remember a time when I actually stayed in my bed for  an entire day, now I keep looking for projects. I must love to be busy (and anyone that has known we for a long time just fainted with shock).

The first extra project I just took on is pretty cool though, I am going to teach a university literature course. The school is California Miramar University, an on-line school out of San Diego that a ESL teaching friend of mine works for. The class will be an on-line survey of American colonial literature, from the early explorers to the 19th century. It's no secret that I would eventually like to teach university, so I'm psyched for this opportunity to try it out. So I'm partly spending my week looking over the textbook and sorting out my syllabus.

Then there's my Yeats presentation at the American Conference of Irish Studies on the 22nd to prepare for. I'll spend most of this week making sure I have my 15-minute speech ironed out. I've never been to such an event, let alone be a speaker, so the nightmares that I will look foolish in a room full of Yeats experts is growing fast. It is exciting though. Yep, I'm a workaholic (and possibly a nerd).

Note to teachers: my biggest revelation of the first 2 months of teaching has been "start simple." If you check out my website and course overview (sites.google.com/site/scottraymoure) you will see I have a ton going on. Computer lab segment, grammar work, journal days, vocabulary notebooks, and service opportunities, not to mention the actual unit topics (laden with way too many texts to survey). My second quarter motto is "streamline." Maybe it's the early developmental stages of 8th graders, but it takes a lot of time to introduce and master a concept as simple as a pronoun, not to mention discussion the effects of the Information Age on culture or dig to the deep message of, and answer to the title question of Soto's essay, "Why I Became a Writer." Baby, baby steps. then retrace the baby steps.

Happy holidays

County Fair

Even though Grace had to go up to Sacramento, this was a great weekend of fun, family outdoor action. On Saturday we hung out at Liberty Park for Dazzlyn's soccer game and pictures. A tough game with a good team that went down to the wire (they couldn't pull it out despite a great effort). Then on Sunday Daz and I went to the county fair. We rode the Ferris Wheel, and she went crazy for the games for prizes (she took home 3 stuffed animals). We saw a good little 2-man circus and a cool show with some old hippies giving a blacksmith exhibition. It was like being at a Shakespeare festival. This is the crazy truck they travel around in, it has a working blacksmith shop inside.


The only downside was that the animals were all gone since it is the last day of the fair :(
Oh well, off to Magic Mountain next week!
Peace

Go Bears!

I think my work is melting my brain. Yesterday morning I stood before my classroom door and pulled out my keys. I had my wife's car keys and my keys! I have no idea how they got in my pocket, but waking up at 5:30am can't help. And, she had to drive 30 miles to school for her biggest day of classes (she's a college student studying dental hygiene). I was about to get a very upset phone call. So, I had to act fast and get her a taxi for $50. Ugh, what a waste. Then to top it off I had to drive out and pick her up at 9:00pm. Looooong day. I'm so distracted with classroom plans always on my mind, they even get into my dreams! To top it off, the Bears play the Packers this weekend. It could prove to be a bad season right off the bat. Bear down boys, I need some good news ... 2-1 is nice, 1-2 means give it up.
Peace

Students love essays?!

Wow, what a week it was working through our first big unit projects of the year, an essay and "students media handbook." It took about 2 days of essay work just to get past the shock of the assignment to a calm get-down-to-work environment, lol. I guess it was the first time many of them had been asked to write an essay summarizing a non-fiction reading, though in the 8th grade it shouldn't be. The funny thing is that the ones that I got (about 60% of the classes) were awesome. They are well about their grade level. Could it just be that they don't have any confidence in their ability? Maybe the resistance is just a habit that doesn't really mean anything? In any case, the results will just prove that they are smart kids and that I should expect even better work in the future (sorry kids!).

The artistic, advice to classmates about internet use handbook, however, didn't go as well. I think that they viewed it as just a fun day since there was drawing and coloring and didn't really try for quality ideas. Isn't it weird that the work they enjoy (art project) got lower results than the work they don't enjoy (essay)? Or maybe they really enjoy essay writing and just enjoy the complaining about it too! The secret is out, more essays all around! :)
Peace

TGI Labor Day

It's amazing what 1 extra days rest can do. When the bell rang at PBA on Friday afternoon the whole school seemed to let out a sigh and say, "Thank goodness." After the rush of the first 5 weeks of school (and trying to figure out what I am doing!) I needed the breather. To celebrate I did anything but labor. We had an awesome BBQ pool party for Grace's birthday (her 21st again). Junior and Daisy came down from Delano and Junior BBQed his spectacular ribs on the grill and Grace cooked up a ton of lumpia, pancit, and Philipine spread. I saw some friends from the MAT that I hadn't seen since graduation, and we all got to relax and let off some steam. To top it off college football opened and I got to lie around on the couch and catch some games. The perfect way to recharge the batteries and get ready to push the students through to their first expository essay (don't tell them though). Here's a couple shots from the night, we smoked up the clubhouse pretty bad with the bbq, Peace.

Time Flies

Wow, I can't believe it's been over a week since my last post. One thing I'm learning about teaching is that time really flies by quickly! I'm so busy planning my work every day, then making sure it goes well in class that I never have time to stop and reflect on things (which is a core PBA philosophy :). It's true what they say about the first year of teaching, you will know exactly what you're doing as soon as it is over. But I think the students are learning a lot already, even if their are hiccups, and it will only get smoother as we go. The computer lab work is popular, and they will build a lot of skills that will help them in high school and college classes, we're learning tons of vocabulary, and they are even showing interest in grammar! Hope springs eternal.

I did get a small vacation out to Pismo Beach, but we took the wrong highway. It was the old route that was a narrow winding road through the mountains with no guard rails. Grace and Dazzlyn were so scared. But the party we went to was fun and it was great to get away from the heat for a day or two. Then yesterday we went to the circus. It was Dazzlyn and Grace's first time. There were elephants and tigers and acrobats. It was a great time. But now it's back to school work! Peace.

Settling In

Well, I'm 3 weeks into it now, and I'm starting to feel comfortable. My students and I are starting to understand each other; our personalities, abilities, and expectations. The room feels like our room now. It's so easy to see that they really to want to learn about everything. They have so many questions (even if I sometimes can't take the time to explore them), and so much they want to say. I forget what it's like to be a kid; everyone wants to tell you things and nobody wants to listen to you. I hope I can remember to listen sometimes. And clever things too, 2 days in a row Fernando asked me a riddle that I couldn't answer! As I get to know them, I can see that I really think I can help them learn and that is making me begin to relax, if I can keep up with my grading that is! :)
Peace

Payback

Just a quick posting, a couple students mentioned that it was embarrassing to have their picture posted on the internet. This should even things out; it is a photo of me from my tee-ball team when I was 7. Can you pick me out?

Of course, people had a much better sense of fashion back in those days. By coincidence my mom just mailed it to me a joke. Looking at it made me realize I wasn't much younger than my class is now, but the biggest surprise I've had as I start teaching is how incredibly sharp they all are. They know so much more than I knew when I was in 8th grade. During the first week they have argued with me about the criteria for having personal rights, and the importance of dress codes. They made solid arguments on both! I've heard people say that childhood is longer than it used to be, but looking at these students I don't agree. They seem almost grown up already. It's going to be a fun year watching them mold their independence. Peace.

L&T Week

     Wow, what an incredible roller coaster week! In case you don't know, PBA really focuses on helping students learn the writing and critical thinking skills they will need in their careers. Most every student dreams of going to university, and when you get there you can't just tell your professor what you think, you have to write it. And you have to write it well. So the first week is the Language and Thinking (L&T) Workshop, where we practice techniques to help these skills in our advisory class. They are long days, and the students get pretty drained by the end, but they work hard. Don't forget, it's just the first week of August and they have to come back to school already, in 100 degree heat!
     My class is awesome, they have so much energy that the roof almost popped off a few times. When they have an opinion, you know about it (a good thing, in the right manners).There is a lot of art talent in the class too, they were proud of the illustrated Symbol Dictionary they made together: a book defining the symbolic meaning of over 50 animals! Here's the picture of them from the first day:

Quite the little angels, right? Here's the real them:

Much more fun looking, aren't they? They are so outgoing and assertive of their opinion that it made me think about my school days and how we are very similar in some ways, but very different also. I grew up in rural Rockford, Illinois, a town about the size of Bakersfield, surrounded by corn and about 2 hours from Chicago. It's not as hot as here, but kids had the same complaints: it's so quiet and there's nothing to do. However, I went to catholic school from first grade all the way through high school. I always wondered how different public school would be. It's really different. When I was in primary school the principal had a paddle in his office for trouble students (that's right, a spanking!) and some of the nuns in high school really knew how to use a ruler (ouch). We learned at a very young age that the rules would be followed, period. They knew what was best for us, and we accepted it. We even wore a uniform with a sports coat and tie in high school. 

     At PBA they want students to explore their own opinions and decide what they think. Of course, this can make more friction at times, but I think it's great. In the end they will be strong, independent people who know why they believe what they believe, and have the skills to do anything they choose. Tomorrow our regular schedule, and my English classes, start. Peace.

      

Raise the Curtain

     Tomorrow I begin my new life. I am the 8th grade English teacher at Paramount Bard Academy in Delano, California. I have decided to keep this journal for my students. Hopefully it will give us a chance to get to know each other more personally. Class time is all about academics, so I can spend most of my time here writing about me: my background, my interests, my opinions (I have lots of opinions), and whatever else comes to mind. Maybe it will help you understand me better, the guy who is telling you (or your kids) what to do all day. So please comment often with requests of what you'd like me to write about!
     Speaking of opinions, I am also hoping that this will be a good introduction to the world of 21st century media communications for my students. This is an important time of historical change in human civilization. The rise of the internet, and all the technology that we now have use of, is changing the way we communicate, think, and even dream. It's also changing the way we package and enjoy art and literature. Preparing students to understand how to participate in this new computer age is a big focus of our classes, and this blog could serve as a good practical introduction for students. Maybe they'll even start their own blog.
     I will also use this  blog as a place to reflect on education, and what makes good teaching, so I hope other teachers out there will find this interesting to follow. If you do read this, I'd be happy to hear your impressions.
     Well, I've got to get up early tomorrow to meet you all, so I'll stop for now (why am I drinking coffee? I'll never get to sleep!). I will try to post something a couple times a week though. Peace.