One word, Two syllables, Sounds like...

Every day in school I play Charades.

Which is terrible, since I really suck at Charades.

However, I often say words that my students do know the meaning of. Not on purpose-they are just deficient in a lot of vocabulary. The pace of learning is such that students cannot look up every word they do not know in their dictionaries (which the school had to purchase for them btw-most of our kids come to school without any supplies). The few times I am able to provide them with the Spanish equivalent of a word is wonderful. Lights shine in their eyes, I know they understand, and class can move on. Ah, the promise of bilingual education.

Not to this prick.

Some of my students want to learn English. Some don't. Why? Because it's hard. And they're high schoolers. Most high schoolers want to avoid doing things that are hard. Learning any language is hard (especially English). But even for the ones who don't want to learn English, I think most of them know they should. And, eventually, they will pick up what they need to survive. Some will go further, some will be content to remain in their cloistered communities. Bilingual education would have allowed these students to keep up with content until they have mastered English, giving them the confidence they need to survive in school while also preserving the dignity that their heritage language deserves. To do otherwise automatically puts these students behind in school, disadvantages them and is, in short, a form of systemic racism.

To think that bilingualism is a threat to this country is to be a frakking idiot. Or a politician. Same dif. Let's imagine American without bilinguals-oops, we actually lost WWII. Oops-we can't translate terrorist messages. There goes a large city up in flames. Oops, corporations can no longer correspond with a larger population of customers, make more profits, and donate more money to stupid politicians. Oh, well I guess that one isn't much of a loss.

To compete on a global level with countries such as China and India, we need to learn to embrace bilingualism. The only reason call centers can move to India is because people in India learned to speak English!

As for voting, all I would say is that a good portion of the voting population in Florida had trouble with reading their ballots in their native language a few years back. 'Nuff said.

Listen-English is the dominant language in this country-not by law but by choice of the people. And as long as the majority of people choose to speak English, it will remain so. But I think making English the official language in this country is the first step in criminalizing speaking another language. Yes, that must be want Gingrich wants-a nation where you could be penalized for saying "Gesundheit." (Or did he forget that a lot of English words and expressions come from other languages?) Ah yes-that sounds like the America I know.

See, mom? If I had had that second beer tonight, I wouldn't have gotten so uppity.

Jammies! (not Jamees-God forbid!)

See them here.

Well, THAT was close

So the house next to me caught on fire.

Eep.

"Rose-Tint My World"

"Hey, do you have one of the dead kids in your class?"

Not something you would expect to hear in a public school. Unless it was Zombie County Public Schools. Mmmmmm.....brains.....

Really, it was drunk driving awareness day at the school I am at. To represent the number of deaths from drunk driving, 2 kids were called up to the office every 15 minutes to have their faces painted black. They then were not allowed to talk for the rest of the day. Earlier, in a staff meeting, the teachers complained that they hadn't been allowed to nominate students for this activity.

:) I myself could have nominated some.... After only two weeks...

I thought it was a nifty idea, but like all idealistic high school projects, I doubt it will have an effect on the students who really need the kick in the ass.

Teaching...is...hard. As I pick up more classes, I am amazed by how much work it is. But I do enjoy it and have yet to regret the decision I made.

Check back with me in May.

I am deeply amused by my fellow student teachers who think that because we are not interning in an inner city school, we don't have "issues." These are the ones amazed that middle -class, suburban kids use drugs (um, duh). Of course, they probably don't have students who are either a) in trouble with the law or b) pregnant. I have both of these. No, I am not trying to say that the challenges inner city school kids face are equivalent to those faced by surburban, fairly wealthy folk. But, dammit-there are problems everywhere. You just aren't looking hard enough if you don't see them.

Maddy's new thing...

is to throw herself on the floor and cry when she percieves something is not going her way. For example, let's say I am about to give her a peppermint pattie and I take 2 seconds too long to undo the wrapper. Tilda-tantrum ensues.

I do not like Maddy's new thing.

We went to the Beer, Bourbon, amd BBQ fest yesterday in Timonium, MD. Pretty enjoyable actually. I got to sample some beers I had never tried-notably an Indian Brown Ale, Raven Ale (on tap), the Clipper City Maerzen, and Dogfish Head 60 minute IPA. I normally don't like IPAs, so that was pretty impressive. BBQ was quite good too.

Last weekend we got 6 inches of snow. Today, I got a sunburn on my back while working in my garden. And not just any sunburn-a 3 inch thick swatch of bright-pink skin across my entire lower back. So I look like a zebra.

But my chives are coming back in full bloom, my garlic is on its way, I have started my 'maters, eggplant, herbs, and peppers, and I planted some strawberries, broccoli, onions and lettuce. Yay, Future Food!

I don't use canned cat food...

...but if BillMurray continues to attack my vegetable seedlings, I may start.

XXXcellent

Hard-core porn interrupts Brokaw broadcast

Eep

I started my high school placement last week. Wow. It is amazing how much I have forgotten about high school in the past 8-9 years. How two students talking in the hallway can create a horrible clot of students that prevents anyone from getting to class on time. When trapped in that clot, how all one can smell is deodorant, hairspray, and a vague sense of oppression. Seeing how kids segregate themselves. Worksheets. Teachers yelling about notebook organization. How forgetting to get your interim signed can ruin your day. How you are only given 30 minutes to get to lunch, eat lunch, and get back. How a subsitute can make or break your day.

There are some differences of course. The school I am "teaching" at (did I mention that I realized I am a sucky teacher today?) has students whose handbags appear to be worth more than my car. It is way more diverse than the schools I attended in Hampton Roads. And it is huge. I remember thinking Grafton High was big. It seems cozy in comparison to the school I am at.

There are good teachers. There are bad teachers. There are scary teachers.

But most of all, I am astounded by the memories I have been having lately. Seeing students interact with one another, or just a random kid walking down the hall clutching a notebook can activate a memory I hadn't thought of in years.

For example, freshman year, my friends and I would congregate outside of the ROTC room in Tabb High. See, if you took a year of ROTC, you could get out of one year of PE. My friend Nick would always pretend to squeeze Capt. Piotrowski's uniformed rear whenever he bent over to help a student. His uniform was a bit tight.e He liked his uniforms tight.

John and I passed a "Blue Book" back and forth to one another, a continous written dialogue we had with each other. Most times, it was the only thing that made class interesting.

Renee, Nick, and I drawing on our chucks while riding the SOA bus. Renee and I both had Tweety Bird chucks.

In Latin class one day we had to read out loud. I mistakenly read the phrase "out of exile" as "out of X-Files." Only Matt Stith caught it and smiled at me from across the room. Not even the teacher noticed. We were all bored.

How band and chorus teachers hate it when someone cheers during a concert. Yeah, now I realize it was rude. But we were proud of our friends.

Most of all, I realize how frakkin' naive I was and frankly still am.

I do appreciate, however, that the students face different academic challenges than I did. I took a look at some of the SOL test questions regarding ancient Greece, something I thought I was well-versed on given my four years of Latin in high school. I didn't know most of it. And the class I am participating in, full of SPED, ESL, and other low-level students, have to know all of it for the SOLS. How sad that they and their teachers have to spend so much time memorizing random facts when they aren't spending time working on life-long skills they could use to look up those facts when they are needed. Let's face it-I adore history, but I don't claim to know every detail of any particular era. But I can analyze historical information and I know what resources I can use to look anything up that I would need to know. Isn't that more valuable?

:(

I picked my niece up from school today. She excitedly told her teachers that her "babysitter" had come to pick her up. Driving home in the car, she asked me if we were going to have dinner together. I told her not tonight, but on Saturday we were all going to have dinner at her house. Very seriously and sternly, she asked, "Jamee, do you think our house is a restaurant?"

Well. I won't be leaving her a tip.

Brilliant!

Check this out...

Are you there God? Please don't listen to Margaret

My brother-in-law was so kind to publish an e-mail that had been forwarded to me by a teacher in the school division I am interning in. He is the only one in my immediate family that I thought would have immense appreciation for it.

This is the quote that especially got me:

"2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time even if they do not have the same conditions or opportunities to practice on their own. NO exceptions will be made for lack of interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities of themselves or their parents."

As a student teacher in ESL, this is what affects me the most. Putting it in terms of education makes it sound all glossy and new, but when one applies NCLB rules to another medium, one sees how ridiculous it is.

It takes the average American, native-English speaking child 5 years to become linguistically competent enough to enter public school. Even then, many 5 year old children are not able to pronounce certain phonemes.

Think about that and then consider the fact that we are simply talking about linguistic competence. We haven't touched on reading or writing yet.

5 years just to learn to speak and understand the language. Now imagine an ESL student. Many of these students do not have backgrounds equivalent to their native-born classmates. For example, I have a 1st grader I am working with. Her mainstream teacher is confounded that she cannot read at grade level. No clue why. Um, she has no books at home. No crayons. Her mother is not literate and cannot speak English. Her father is literate, but he works three jobs to support the family. Not home most nights. Sorry, teach, but she isn't going to perform the same as my kid who has a crayon thrust at her every other day and, at the age of 19 months, already picks out her own nightly story.

Now that is a 1st grader. She is better off that some of her older counterparts. I have one student who has only been in the states for a few months. He is just now getting to the point where he can answer questions with one word answers. I am certain he does not understand 75% of what I say.

Next year, he will have to take the SOLs. The SOLs will test him to make sure he is grade level with his classmates in the various subjects, including US History. Because of this, and because he has no knowledge of US History, I started to teach him about the founding of the country. I stopped when I realized he didn't know the meaning of the word "wife." He was missing basic vocabulary needed to read about Thomas Jefferson and, you see, I don't have access to content-based reading materials at his reading level.

Don't get me wrong-this is a smart kid. It just takes time to learn a language.

Think about your own language experience. Can you imagine taking a geology test in Spanish, German, or French after only 1 year of Spanish 1, German 1, or French 1? Futile, right?

But the government believes we should test all students to determine where they are lacking in content-level knowledge. They say it is to determine where there are deficiences.

But if you don't even understand the question, how is it a fair assessment? The government says they accommodate for this by providing a dictionary during the test. Um, excuse me, but has the government forgotten how screwed up the English language is? There are an abundant number of words that cause even native speakers confusion. For example-there/they're/their. Even in an office environment have I seen native speakers mess these words up. I won't even address the time it takes for someone to use a dictionary to answer a question in which they might not know the meaning of 50% of the words.

Don't get me wrong-the goal of NCLB is an honorable one. Even in my small environment, I see that ESL students can easily be ignored by their mainstream teachers. I just don't think high-stakes testing is the way to go.