Looks Aren't Everything

Posted on by April 1, 2010
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Again I am reminded of this saying when I finished knitting the reindeer hat. On paper, the design looked wonderful. During the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, the hat looked great on the US athletes. After seeing this hat, I just had to knit the hat. I mean, really, how hard could it be? Well, I can tell you, that after finishing it, looks aren’t everything. The pattern was nice and fun to do but the finished product was awful. I have told everyone that it is a hideous hat!

How many times in my classroom has this happened? Many.

I have had a student who looked clean cut and angelic but was a terror on wheels. I have also had a student who was constantly dirty, smelled of kerosene (the only way they heated their house), and stunk to high heaven but he was the most thoughtful, caring, and well behaved student in the room. Too many teachers attach stereotypes on their students. Many of my own teachers felt that because I was Asian, I should have been smarter than anyone in the class (which was actually the opposite in reality). Many teachers expect boys to misbehave more than girls and that may be true on the outside, but I believe girls are much sneakier than the boys and misbehave almost as much.

I have seen a lesson that looked great in a book or on the internet that was so interesting. I just knew my students would not only learn something from it but would have fun too. Yet, when I taught the lesson, it was a flop. I’m not sure if it was the mixture of students, their interest in the topic, or whether I was more into the lesson than they were. Maybe it was just the mood everyone was in. Or maybe the lesson just stunk.

How many times has a project seemed really perfect for my class? It had lots of hands on time plus lots of fun activities. Then when it is introduced to the class, they whine about how stupid or complicated it is. They complain that they don’t understand it and I think that it is so easy; I can’t understand why they don’t understand it. I then find it takes even longer than the allotted time given in the plans and we don’t get to see the final results in time before the bell rings. Then there is mass confusion, clean up, and just plain frustration.

I have also taught a lesson that I worried would be boring and too cut-and-dried to motivate the students but felt compelled to teach it anyway. I’m always surprised when this initiates great discussions and interests from the students. Suddenly they are motivated and want to know more. Yet, when I first saw this, it looked boring to me and I just couldn’t see how my students would enjoy this.

I have to be very careful in class on how I present something to my students. If I tell them it is hard and complicated, they will give up immediately without trying. But if I act unsure about how it will be perceived, sometimes they look forward to giving input. Sometimes if I act too excited and thrilled, they want to prove me wrong and sabotage the lesson.

Sometimes looks are not everything in order for a lesson to be successful. It is how it is presented, the interest level of the students and sometimes the moods of both the students and the teacher. I have also seen lessons be great for one class and a flop in another.

So if your lesson flops, don’t be too hard on yourself. There are so many unpredictable variables that there are no guarantees in any lesson. I only hope that the lesson ends on the positive side most of the time, especially if I am being observed by an administrator!

Outside of the Box is Better

Posted on by March 28, 2010
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Mamacita says:  Why stay in the box, all cramped and restricted and crowded with boring people, when it’s so much more fun to live OUTSIDE of the box?  Nobody who chose to live inside the box has ever changed the universe in any noticeable way.

Sing.  Dance.  Write poems and stories and plays and songs.  Draw.  Sculpt. Discover things.  Connect things.  Remember, everything is connected to everything else, and one of education’s jobs is to help students connect the dots.  There is nothing in the universe that you don’t know something about; my students probably know this entire speech by heart.  🙂

Well, it’s true.  You might not know enough to land the space shuttle, but if you can spell it, you know SOMETHING about it.  Can you perform delicate and complicated brain surgery?  Probably not, but you know where the brain is located; therefore, you have schema you can bring to the table about brain surgery.  Never underestimate yourself.  You know things.  You can do things.  And you have a story to tell that nobody else can tell.  Nobody knows it but you.

Who cares what the rest of the world thinks? Be yourself.  Nobody else can do it.

You have a message for the universe that only you can deliver.  Don’t let the world inhibit you.  Don’t let anybody talk you into keeping your message to yourself.

Naturally, if you’re an evil psychotic axe murdering terrorist or a deliberately annoying prick who likes to shoot, steal, pester, disrupt, or otherwise annoy others in both deadly and non-deadly ways, keeping them from their rightful participation in the celestial dance, this does not apply to you. I include people who get off on tickling someone until they cry in this category.

Behave yourselves.  Contribute.  We need you more than you could ever know, but unless you control yourselves and do what you were born to do, nobody will want to hear your message.

Remember who’s talking here.  🙂

Quotation Saturday: Behavior

Posted on by March 27, 2010
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quotationsaturdayMamacita says:  Behavior.  It’s on my mind.   Watching a mother allow her child to play roughly with an unpaid-for toy throughout the store, then discarding it at the checkout without paying for the damage, disgusted me, and I mentioned it on Twitter and was immediately challenged by a mother who saw nothing wrong with such behavior.  Well, fine; apparently, I’m an overly strict dinosaur who doesn’t understand that children need to be catered to in every way, and a toy that she has no intention of paying for – it’s merely diversion –  in a retail store is a lot easier than teaching the kid to sit still and behave herself in public.  Oops, there I go, being overly strict again.  My bad.

1. Behavior is a mirror in which every one displays his own image. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

2. The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don’t know what to do. — John W. Holt, Jr.

3. If I have made an appointment with you, I owe you punctuality, I have no right to throw away your time, if I do my own. — Richard Cecil

4. If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. — Albert Einstein

5. When man learns to understand and control his own behavior. . . he may be justified in believing that he has become civilized. — Ayn Rand

6. I believe that you control your destiny, that you can be what you want to be. You can also stop and say, ‘No, I won’t do it, I won’t behave his way anymore. I’m lonely and I need people around me, maybe I have to change my methods of behaving,’ and then you do it. — Leo F. Buscaglia

7. Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes. — Unknown

8. The behavior of some children suggests that their parents embarked on the sea of matrimony without a paddle. — Unknown

9. The man of character, sensitive to the meaning of what he is doing, will know how to discover the ethical paths in the maze of possible behavior. — Earl Warren

10. Children lose their innocence the very moment they are forced to make excuses for their parent’s bad behavior. — Krista Delle Femine

11. Children follow your footsteps, not your advice. — Krista Delle Femine

12. A cigarette in the hands of a Hollywood star on screen is a gun aimed at a 12 or 14-year-old. — Joe Eszterhas

13. You want to raise your child in such a way that you don’t have to control him, so that he will be in full possession of himself at all times. Upon that depends his good behavior, his health, his sanity. — L. Ron Hubbard

14. The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults. — Peter de Vries

15. You want to be a parent? Shut up and do your job. — ‘Dr. Robert Romano’ from E.R.

16. Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. — James Baldwin

17. Live so that when your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of you. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

18. Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means. — Albert Einstein

19. There is a sobering side to eccentricity. Odd behavior can flourish only in a tolerant society and that it often produces radical new ideas by virtue of its willingness to cast off accepted norms. Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light. — Unknown

20. Someone will always be looking at you as an example of how to behave. Don’t let them down. — Unknown

21. About all you have to do to get a man to behave right is expect him to. — The Country Sage, newspaper clipping, Albert W. Daw Collection

22. The test of a man or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel. — George Bernard Shaw

23. If a man does not control his temper, it is a sad admission that he is not in control of his thoughts. He then becomes a victim of his own passions and emotions, which lead him to actions that are totally unfit for civilized behavior. — Ezra Taft Benson

24. When a woman behaves like a man, why can’t she behave like a nice man? —
Dame Edith Evans

25. It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won’t go. — Bertrand Arthur William Russell

Oh, I could keep going for hours.

My point is, if everyone in the world simply behaved properly, the whole world would be vastly improved and infinitely easier to go about in.

Since that’s never going to happen, the next best thing would be if the penalties for misbehavior were so severe you’d have to be certifiably nuts to misbehave.

bratYes, lady woman in Kmart today who just watched and laughed as her two daughters raced around the store with that tricycle. Were you paying attention when the manager took it away and carried it off and all the other customers applauded?

And yes, we were all looking at YOU and passing judgment, and I bet we all agreed.

Dear Parents: I Like Your Kid

Posted on by March 23, 2010
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Mamacita says:  Parents have a right to be kept informed about their child’s progress in school, and we all know that the students themselves are NOT good message-deliverers.  Phone calls can be awkward and time-consuming; email is excellent for those families with computers and internet access; hand-carried letters probably won’t get home, and apparently it’s considered bad form to safety-pin a note to a student’s coat these days.  That leaves snail mail.

Which, the more I think about it, is an excellent thing.  Few people get actual LETTERS in the mail any more, and there’s something about a letter in the mail, to hold in one’s hands, slit open, unfold, and read, and put on the refrigerator door, that can be really, really special.

Many families dread any kind of communication from their child’s school because they know their child well,  and any message can be only one thing: more trouble.  I maintain, however, that no matter how certain we might be that a kid sold his soul to the devil on purpose and is happy with that choice, there’s still something positive that can be said.

For over twenty years, I sent this letter, or a form of it, to students I found to be creative, out-of-the-box, quirky, and right up my alley.  Often, these kids were not making good grades.  Often, they were.  The point was, I wanted kids who probably weren’t going to get anything but bad news, or no news, to get something awesome in the mail.

So, here’s what they got, give or take artistic and necessary license on occasion:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smythe-Parsley,

The school year is half over, and I wanted to drop you a note and tell you how very much I’m enjoying  having Ashleigh  in my class this past semester.  It is delightful to work with and to talk to her.

I am pleased and impressed with Ashleigh’s effort and performance.   She is always willing, cooperative, pleasant, and thoughtful.  Her contributions to the class are intelligent, creative, and contemplative, and indicate maturity as well as mental growth.

I know that attitudes instilled in the home are often reflected in a student’s behavior at school.  I therefore wish to congratulate you, as well as Ashleigh, for her  accomplishments.

Ashleigh will bring her progress report home this week.    If there is anything you wish to discuss, please call the school and make an appointment.  It would be a pleasure to meet you.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Me

==

I understand that many of my former students still have their letters.  This makes me very, very happy.

I usually sent these out either during winter break, or right before Spring Break.  Sometimes I sent a few out at odd times because I knew a kid needed something positive.

Timelines and other people’s rules don’t make me no nevermind.  Never did; never will.

(Unless they’re my own.  I’m faithful to those.)

I hope you’re all having a lovely spring break, and may every message from your child’s school be something that makes you want to go out in the back yard and frolic, with ice cream cones in your hands and a jar for lightning bugs under the apple tree.

Why Do It Be: That So Many Adults Are Scum. . . .

Posted on by March 22, 2010
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whyMamacita says:  Spring Break is over for me and just beginning for other people, so naturally I’m, to quote Jimmy Fallon, BOTHERED.

Oh, not really.  I love my job.  All of them, in fact.

In honor of my love for my jobs, I shall dedicate this post to things that BOTHERED me at my former job, and which are still BOTHERING dedicated teachers today.  That my children will inherit the botched situations and circumstances of this kind of mindset REALLY bothers me.

Oh, why do it be?????

. . . that parents who do not supply or pay for their children’s school lunches are the ones who complain and whine the loudest if this FREE lunch, paid for by OTHER PEOPLE, isn’t exactly what they or their child like to eat. . . .

. . . that anyone who so obviously hates kids would end up in a classroom influencing them. . . .(you know who you are, if you’re reading this.)

. . . that so many sweet, smart kids who love learning and who have so much to give must end up in families that regard education as something that interferes with the NASCAR schedule. . . .

. . . that Jerry Springer is on at 4:00, just when little children are getting off the bus and entering empty houses, so that they grow up believing that those roadhouse incestuscums are typical people with viable lifestyles. . . .

. . . that the media celebrates shackups, illegitimate babies, divorce, adultery, and pleasing oneself regardless of the wake of heartbroken and betrayed spouses and children. . . .

. . . that the public is so quick to forget the former spouse and family of celebrities who have finally found true love after all those misunderstood years. . . .

. . . that an adult would put himself/herself before a promise, a marriage, and a child. . . .

. . . that people think a $900,000 gown on a celebrity is money well spent, but who balk at donating ten bucks to help buy shoes for an orphan who has lost everything he has and everyone he knows. . . .

. . . that a parent should care so little about the health, welfare, and safety of a child that he/she smokes in the house, or at all. . . .

. . . that there are adults who see nothing wrong with bringing a child into the smoking section of a restaurant. . . .

. . . that there are still smoking sections in restaurants at all. . . .

. . . that so many children must live without fantasy, traditions, values, imagination, and books. . . .

. . . that there are so my houses with no books at all in them. . . .

. . . that so many families’ idea of a good time is to sit and watch other people on tv doing things. .  .

. . . that there are so many people right here in the US who are so ignorant they don’t even teach their kids to brush their teeth, bathe, control their tempers, flush, wipe, or eat with utensils (probably because the adults themselves don’t know how). . . .

. . . that so many parents feel it’s their right to sit and watch the game or a tv show instead of going to watch their children sing in the choir, which means the child can’t go either. . . .

. . . that so many adults lie, cheat, steal, betray, abuse, and otherwise screw their children out of the life all children deserve. . . .

. . . that any parent would allow his/her kids to misbehave in public and disturb other people. . . .

. . . that any adult with kids could dare state that “it’s all about ME” and mean it. . . .

I’ve got more – of course I do! – but it’s midnight now and I’ve got papers to grade for tomorrow.

Y’all behave yourselves now, or you’ll find yourselves right here on a list, with the scorn of the clean and decent upon you.  You’ve been warned.

P.S.  Being an adult isn’t SUPPOSED to be fun all the time; we’ve got responsibilities, too, and frankly, those of us who fulfill them are bloody sick of doing YOUR work along with our own.

Of course, the Blogosphere is populated by people who DO work, and who DO raise their children properly and wisely, and who DO despise adults who don’t do what adults are supposed to do, so the segment of the population I so publicly despise won’t even read any of this and therefore won’t be heartbroken and devastated that the universe looks upon them with such scorn.

Good thing WE’RE all perfect, huh.