Adteacher

We are glad to have high school underway, and we wish our graduates all the best as they head off to college for another year. We handled the first week of classes here at Career Center East just beautifully! I am always worried about the first week, because high school students tend to have a very hard time "readjusting" their night owl habits to start the school year again. This year I have to compliment them. They showed up alert and ready to go on the first day! It was quite different than many years. I am really impressed with their willingness to work hard too. I know that I threw a whole lot of new information at them during the past five days, and they were just great about keeping up with me. It seems right now that this year is full of strong potential. As our school year gets underway, summer is still blazing its scorching heat down on us with 62 days over 100 degrees, continuing its seemingly unrelenting march toward the record of 69 days. (That i...

After three days of school, I have to say that this school year is going down like an ice cold glass of lemonade so far. We have had a great time up here in the loft so far. The studio looks great, and it's nice to be back. So far as the students go, I don't know all of their names yet... but I have so many that it is a challenge. I am getting a few more learned every day, and I am enjoying talking to more and more of the students as they lose their initial hesitancy to talk at school and now are beginning to let their real personalities emerge. It is a nice time. There are approximately 27 in the morning, and that is actually a perfect size...although I know I could take a few more. There is a waitlist and I suspect they could still decide to add someone else, but we shall see! In the afternoon, there are 30 and that is maxed out. I am also not counting two that are special situations that Mr. H and I are kind of "sharing" even though they are enrolled in Animati...

It has been quite a long and hot summer here in Texas, and it drains the energy out of the most well-meaning of us. I am no exception and so my summer was spent trying to escape the 40+ days of over 100 degree temperatures that we have had here in the Metroplex (so far) with no end to the drought in sight. I have to admit that I haven't given this blog a lot of thought until this week, when I began spending some days up at school again and it occurred to me to do some updates. So here we go... the summer blockbuster! With the end of the school year in June came the usual sadness as I watched classes break apart and I knew in my heart that some close friendships were breathing their last (even with promises of "we'll visit" or "keep in touch", some good friends will never follow through on those. High school brings necessary changes in people, and so does the end of high school.) Being a witness to this for year after year now, I sometimes feel like I'm...

Alfred Lord Tennyson There's an old adage that goes like this... "In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." I think that I could very easily add to that thought. If I could be so bold as to be allowed to add my own words to Alfred Lord Tennyson's, I would add "...or anything else that doesn't involve being in a school building when the skies are blue and the world is beautiful." In other words, one of the most challenging tasks in the world, in my opinion, is to maintain focus and keep students moving forward in school when they are thinking so much about summertime and college, and a million other things. The good teachers just don't stop trying though. I have determined that my students will drive forward until the very last day. I don't plan to quit on them, so I strongly hope that they won't quit on me. I have planned some very challenging and dynamic projects for the end of this school year, and I am ...

Change. I sometimes get kind of cocky and think I have everything all figured out about life, and then I realize that no matter how long I live or how many experiences I have...I will never be able to safely say that I understand it completely. I get thrown a curve ball every now and then that surprises me at even my age, so it is very understandable that the students I teach are often struggling with many different things with regard to change. I think that is the single most fascinating thing about people. One day you think you are secure in the knowledge that things are going to work out the way you expect them to, and then...a big change happens. Change is actually potentially a really good thing if we can learn to deal with it. I have a perfect example. It happened to be in my late 30s as a young mom that I had to undergo a DRASTIC change that was completely unexpected and unpredictable that had to do with my health. I have talked about it before, but it still interests ...

We are officially now 3/4 of the way through the 2011-2012 school year. Seniors are now at the point where the "senioritis" is beginning to show its face. Most of the reason for this is the warmer weather. They now sense that it is nearing summertime, and that means college is nearly within their grasp. For a few, that is tremendously exciting. For most, it is slightly intimidating. They ask questions like "am I ready?" or "oh my gosh, how can I get more money at the last minute?" or "will I pass the last courses I need to graduate?" and they begin to feel the inevitable joy-killer at the end of the senior year...STRESS. For adults, this may seem kind of silly. After all, having successfully passed through these years, they know that it isn't as dramatic as it may seem to these students - but when you are at the age of 17 or 18, it is very stressful. This is the time of the year when social stress and performance stress seem to collide l...

Thank goodness I am back at school. This past weekend was one of those very strange times when I felt like it started strange and kept getting stranger as the weekend went on. The way the weekend started, I should have known that I was gonna have a weird weekend. I had dinner at one of my regular favorite spots, Norma's Cafe. I thought it would be nice to have "breakfast for dinner" with a nice cup of coffee and some quiet time to sit in the booth and play "Words with Friends" and have some light conversation with my husband. It started that way, but it certainly ended differently. To make a long story tolerable, suffice it to say that I was "trapped" by the ABC show "What Would You Do?" http://abcnews.go.com/WhatWouldYouDo/ The scenario we were placed in was this: We were sitting in the booth and in walked a couple who were on a pleasant date. The man happened to be black, the young lady he was with - white. I didn't even notice th...