Scaffolding in Midtown

So hey. So hey, how's it going?

There was learning today. Less teaching, more learning. I am in the middle of a two day conference on teaching and scaffolding (or building up of background knowledge for you non-teacher folk) novels for English Language Learners in middle and high school. Yay! It's good to better one's self through education.I'm an educator who likes to be educated, what can I say.



Today we took a look at teaching two novels. Nothing but the Truth by AVI and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. Both wonderful books that I've been meaning to read for a long time. The conference was an excellent way to get me all fired up about teaching novels to my kids, which I've needed a fire to do recently. I get easily wrapped up in what the kids are doing in class, and don't do enough teaching of my own in order to fit their individual language needs. More of that needs to happen. I am inspired by these books. Plus, I got free copies of both.



When I wasn't riveted in my seat and learning about how to help kids discuss themes from the book in small groups, I either silently cursed the woman on the other side of the room who thought it was acceptable to both A. answer her cell phone and have a conversation with her head under the table during a presentation, or B. talk to her group mates as if the place was her living room during the debriefing part. Ridiculous! Can't wait to see her again tomorrow. Anyway, when I wasn't doing those things I was looking out the window and this is what I saw.




After the conference I walked downtown to meet Dan in Union Square, bypassing Gramercy Park, which I hope to document later because it is one of my all-time favorite spots in NYC, the whole excursion turned into one great people-watching extravaganza. Seriously. The crazies were out today. I saw a truck all decorated in honor of Valentine’s Day promoting save lovin' and a guy singing "Wonderful Tonight" or something just as equally cracked out.

Then I noticed the insane lady yelling at people, droppin' F bombs as if her life depended on it as she entered, get this, Starbucks. Is this the place for that kind of thing? Well, it was the place for all kinds of things I guess, cause I got a tea and sat down to read until Dan was finished at school and found the only open table next to the door. It wasn't open long because a homeless/drunk young man came in and set his tin of board games on the table and when I looked up he said "may I?" At least he had manners. He promptly sat down across from me, slouched over and fell asleep.


I thought about just leaving him my Wild Orange tea, but it was just too good, so I just left and waited for Dan at Trader Joe's where we bought our weekly groceries. I toted them home, worked out, felt exhausted, and then began trying to plan what to actually do with myself next week during my mid-winter break from school. Oh sweet relief is coming!!!

All Aboard!

Brunch happened this morning. I met up with Jeremy again and we trekked around in Times Square until we found Carmine's, which was enormous family style protions, but delicious to boot. Chicken Parm...mmmmmmmmmm.

On my way home, I dropped Jeremy off to catch his train back to Albany at Grand Central Station, and then decided it would make a cool picture for today. I do enjoy that place imensley, and I wish that I knew more about it. I shall commence the studying at my leisure, but not tonight I'd guess.
I think this week will be do-able simply because I have next week as a mid-winter break, and therefore there is a light at the end of the weekly tunnel. I'll sleep next weekend I guess. Le sigh.

a real treat

So, the retreat was going well on Friday and Saturday started off slow, but well . I hate getting up early on Saturdays, but I made it to breakfast on time. I was hoping to get out onto the beach for a walk before the sessions started, but I didn't make it. We met as a group in one of the ballrooms, which had a nice view of the ocean. We filled out posters that covered the walls and windows (blocking the view of course) in order to discuss what our plan is to help our students get ready for 9th grade when they will start taking college courses and Regents Prep (the state mandated test for graduation) courses as well. It'll be tough. We walked around (well I limped...still a bum hip) chatting with each other about our schools. It seems that our school is a little worse for wear.

THEN there was a break, and Rachel and I stepped outside into the lovely windy/rainy goodness of weather hitting the Jersey shore. Yay. Here are our escapades!

Later we reconvened just in the Bronz Early College Academy room (although the correct word is Bronx, don't worry, at the end we stole the sign) to talk about...well to talk about all the ways in which we can better our school. It basically means starting over with the student handbook. It's time to take back some control over there, so we needed to start from the ground up. We didn't nearly get everything done, which was sad, but it was productive for the most part. Thank goodness it went well.

I ducked out of the wrap up meeting in order to get the "stress buster massage", which was basically exactly what I needed after those meetings and the hip ordeal. It was expensive, but totally awesome. My hip felt a lot better when I got up. By the time I walked out of the spa, my friend Claudia was there looking for me. We car-tripped it back to NYC singing along with Michael Jackson, and eyeing the ever so popular "New Jersey Turnpike" sweatshirts at the rest stop. Mission complete.

Vegging out was on my mind, but I ended up going out to dinner with my friend Jeremy and gang. We had Blockheads again, and I don't regret it one bit!

Hey New Jersey, How YOU Doin'?

Friday started with a bang, or a pop rather.

Here's the thing about Friday. I was late getting up, I hadn't packed my overnight bag for the school retreat we had to go to in New Jersey, and I was rushing. Just as I closed my apartment door and waddled out with several bags, my umbrella and my hands full of other important items I got a text message from Rachel who rides the express bus with me to the Bronx in the mornings. It said "run". That's our code word for run, the bus is super early, and you will probably miss it because we are almost about to pass your stop. DAMNIT! I started to run, I dropped my umbrella, I picked up my umbrella. I had to slow down because I was hot in my coat and heavy with bags, then I ran some more so that I could at least see the bus pass me on the street in the distance. I only had a little bit of time as I huffed and puffed up the never ending hill to the avenue, and I knew that the street had a green light, but as soon as it turned red that my bus would pass. It did, so I booked it, all things in tow. I saw it stop, and let passengers on, praying that he would wait. As I rushed across the crosswalk I saw him holding the doors open for minute and praised Jesus because I knew I'd make it, but as soon as I hit the sidewalk the doors closed and he slowly started to move away. I kicked it into high gear and was able to bang on the door before he got away! Phew!! It was a miricle. The un-miracle part was that as soon as I sat down I had a shooting pain in my hip. Not cool. It didn't get any better as we got closer to school and my breathing returned to normal.

When I got to school I could barely walk. I pulled something and it was bad. :( Not a good day for this. I did some stretching, just sort of sprawling out on the teachers lounge floor before class started, and then made it a point to ingest nearly all of the ibuprofen that I had on me. I sat with my students in the classes until lunch when they were had 1/2 day dismissal because the teachers were leaving for the shore.

Then the fun started, but the pain persisted. Road trip with Corie, Rachel and Claudia turned into nothin' but awesomeness as we sang along with 80's tunes on the way down to our resort and spa. I had bought me a new bottle of Advil, and some of those instant heat packs, and I was ready for a retreat!

It took us about an hour and a half to get there, and we were late getting in, but I think my favorite part of the evening was drinking ginger ale out of mini-glass soda bottles. I did sit next to a good lookin teacher from another school while we talked about what makes a good Early College Academy teacher, and that was nice. I of course was nominated to speak and report on our group activity. Who knew- I'm a natural leader somethings. Oh and I've become extremely outspoken. Perhaps that's not new.

Dinner followed the group activity time, which was nice. It just proved to me that I have a love/hate relationship with cake. And buffets. I sucked at eating well this weekend.

In order to liven things up I made a napkin hat, and then Rachel and I proceeded to make a montage of "teachers in napkin hat". Some thought it was funny. Some hated it immensley. I thought it was hilarious.

Rachel and I had made a previous plan to make the best of the retreat by jumping on beds. I will sum up my day with a picture or two from the "teachers in napkin hat" series, as well as me jumping on my bed with a shower cap. Yay retreat!

Under and Out

I started off the day by not being fully prepared for the weather. I ran out to catch my bus this morning in my tennis shoes, my winter coat and scarf, and absolutley no umbrella (ella ella eh, eh, eh). It was soggy, and then so was I. Oh well.

My bus ride was lonely, because my bus buddy Rachel (she works at my school) was out at a conference today. That left me to my thoughts and some photo taking. Here's one I liked from underneath the subway. Sounds weird, but the subway becomes elevated this far up and out of Manhattan. I thought it was a good depiction of the morning world waking up in the Bronx.

I spent the day helping kids write descriptive settings about their made up heroes, helping other students understand the word "perfunctory", and then having a 6th grader explain to me why he didn't want to use the term "bull shit", by saying bull shit to me...twice. I laughed. Hard.

Crankiness ensued when I realized that I had an after school staff meeting, which I think is funny considering we have a two day conference in Jeresey starting tomorrow. Don't you think we'll get ENOUGH time together? I DO! There is a plan to jump on all the hotel room beds though with Rachel, and my friend Corie wants to bond like teachers do- at a bar. It won't be all bad. I hope to have nice pictures. It's at a spa on the Jersey shore.

The day rounded out with some Thursday night dinner activities with Erica, Kate and Dan all meeting up at Blockheads. I sing praises about Blockheads. I heart burritos. As we were walking home (after a quick stop off at Pinkberry) I noticed Big Daddy's Diner, which I mostly took a picture of because I liked the fact that they sold "Burgers Shakes and Tots". Man, I like tots. I like burritos and Pinkberry and tots.

Say Something Funny!

I couldn't help myself. I actually didn't take this picture today. I actually didn't take any picture today, but I think it's more fitting that I just post one of the videos that I uploaded. I found myself looking through and uploading many of my old pictures from the computer I had when I was working and traveling abroad. They were FULL of great memories. So I feel it's fitting that my daily blog references memory lane as well.

It's about time I share a video from Korea. This one was taken about a week before the end of my contract in Pusan, so I had been teaching these kids for almost a year. It made me miss them SO much waching this. They are 4/5 years old, and they were my favorite group of students! Without further ado- the Wonderland School's Blue Class!

Rock the vote and burping lessons

I voted today!!

Did you? (where applicable)

After doing my civic duty I went to work out at the gym, so I rocked the vote, and rocked the scales. I rock.

Dan and I made delicious, delicious salmon tonight for dinner. Sometimes we rock at making dinner. Dan likes to say words like "brick" when he burps, and I decided that if I can't beat em', join em', so I was trying to burp and say a word. Dan tried to teach me through linguistics saying things like "you need to start a little lower with a good bi-labial, and end with a stop." I thought this was absurd, but correct.

Know what else rocks? My students. They all were very interested in talking about politics today, so when I was watching CNN tonight, it didn't suprise me that most Latinos support Hilary Clinton. I could have projected that myself based on my conversations. I think one reason might be that immigration is a serious issue with my students. Seriously. Their families, mother's, father's, even possibly themeselves are wrapped up in this touchy subject. It's real, and they are kids, people all here to make a better life for themeselves. There is no denying that. I wish that I had prepared more information for them, instead of teaching the timeline of the Spanish American war, doesn't it make more sense to prepare them to explain the timeline of today? They show interest, therefore I feel as if I need to play into them. It affects them as citizens of their school, their community, their state, and their country. Since I support my students as citizens, I feel as if I should support them in their desire to learn about their world.

I had an interesteing conversation with both my 7th and 8th graders this afternoon. My 7th graders wanted to know more about how the Townshend Act influenced the taxes of today. It was really interesting, and it was hard to put them back on track to their school work, but I liked the questions they were asking, and I'm glad that I felt knowledgable enough about politics, and unbiased enough to discuss it. They asked about term limits, brought up immigration issues, as well as they were all very interested in the way I'd vote.

My 8th graders later were reading a play about Women's Sufferage, and we had a pretty great conversation about women now having a choice. There were two girls in the class, which I was really interested in getting their viewpoint. One girl said that she didn't care to have the vote if it meant being forced to work, or go to war (issues brought up during that time (in the play)). The other girl, and actually the boys stepped in the most to defend equal rights. It's a releif to see that these kids heads are in the right place when it comes to understanding justice and fairness in today's society. We talked a lot about how women now have a CHOICE about working, or going to war, and I think it made all the students think. I DO feel proud that I have the right to go vote, for a woman, or a black man if I choose. I don't have to, but I did have the choice, and thank God for that. We've come a long way.

The picture of the day is not political, but actually a follow up to a January post entitled Christmas Tree Graveyard. Today I noticed with my eyes and nose that the parks, and medians have been mulched with christmas trees! Yay for Mulch Fest 08!! It seems it was a success!

I'm choosing sleep now.