Teacher's Log 2:

At Log Last . . . an Update:

I was selected to write the introduction for this week's Appalachian Teach for America Newsletter.  So, I figured I might at well kill two goats with one paper weight (that's how it goes, right?) and double up.  Here is my blurb complete with inspiring pictures:

Warning: Several of the jokes are TFA specific. I will try to explain.

The Quest for Home:

I’m currently living 1,833 miles from my home in Salt Lake City, Utah.  1,833 miles from 8-hour board game marathons,  garden picked heirloom tomatoes, and the best skiing powder on earth.  1,833 miles from my folk-the friends, family, and animals who have developed Annie mood barometers and always know when to calm the storm with quality dark chocolate and the latest Neil Gaiman novel.  Basically, I’m 1,833 miles from home . . . and it’s starting to wear on me.

Not that I’m ungrateful.  I love this adventure-the beauty here, the TFA friends, how easy it is to spy on Will Nash (For non-TFA-ers this is our neighbor the Region Director) from his home right across the street (Blinds much?), but I’m so busy this whole business of being a TFA teacher (QC Alignment, Extra Curriculars, Call All the parents?  TRACKERS!!! Freakin—Ain’t no body got time fo dat!) that I barely have time to be a human much less make a home. 

However, I know I must find my little corner of the sky eventually, so for some time I’ve been on a quest to find myself a quick affection fix in the form of a cat.  The thing I value most about cats is that they give you affection on their terms and they’re consistent about it.  You don’t have to work hard to win the love of a cat, merely have a bowl of food and be a warm object that sits still.  Then they’ll be yours forever, a wonderful ball of fluff to squeeze tight for a quick burst of joy.  In other words, cats are the exact opposite of many of my students who require me to all but donate my liver to them to win even a smidgeon of approval.  

As some of you are well aware, my cat quest has taken me on some odd twists and turns like when I caught fleas from the stray cats at institute.  Many of you may think it would be best at this point to give up and focus on something more productive . . . like maybe finding a boyfriend instead of a cat.  Or I don’t know, lesson planning?  Ha!  A wiser woman might, but I’m on the quest now.  I will find the elusive ball of cuddly joy that is meant just for me even if I have to inspect every flea ridden stray in Hazard!  I know-I KNOW that there must be cuteness to be found!  A chance at connection with another living being!

I want to find my cat because I believe that behind every flea ridden, mangy, alley wild stray lie stories of abandoned kittens weaned too early and thrown into a world with the dogs stacked against them.  And if I only strive hard enough, if I only do my best to find that one kitten I can be transformational for I will have made my mark.  I will have taken a step towards the dream that One day all kittens will have access to a quality home . . . or at least food. (For non-TFA'ers this entire paragraph is making a joke on TFA's mission statement that: One day all children will have access to a quality education.)

Now I think it behooves me to cut this extended ramble/metaphor short.  Let me only add as a postscript that last week a grey kitten with gold eyes showed up on my doorstep and I’ve been gradually taming it with spoon fed milk and chunks of Tuna.  It won’t stop purring.  On a related note one of my most stray cat-like students (i.e. a perpetually dip-chewing bubba whose smell often frightens me but who deep down just needs some lov’in) has started tweeting me to get help on his homework, and has with much pestering and make up work raised his F to a C.

One day . . . there will be a home. 

This is a picture of BG (short for Black Gold since we found her on the last day of the Black Gold festival . . . and cause she's black with gold eyes).

Isn't she cute?  And she's now been thoroughly treated for fleas!

Photo Time!

I know that some of you want to know more about my life than me rambling about cats . . . I swear I'm not a desperate cat lady.  So, since a picture is worth your father forgiving you 1,000 dollars of loan payments (that's how it goes, right?) here you go:

Here is one photo of my classroom complete with Smartboard (which I've dubbed the Dumbboard because it malfunctions so often), pretty windows, and bright yellow wall.

Here it is from another angle.  Featuring our whiteboard complete with class points, No name of shame paper collection, and the day's learning target.

And here are two of the value pillars of my classroom on which I've posted pictures of the heroes of the week who embodied those values best.

And here is the hero of the week board where I post the 1 student per week who best embodied the class values . . . and then I make them pose in an awesome cape.

Our class tracker where I keep track of class averages on quizzes and exams.  Everyone is trying to shoot for our over 80% goal.  And our class slogan: Empower Up!  Is located on the back board.

And the other two pillars.  Grit and Audacity.  Audacity is by far my favorite one.  In my accelerated classes I'm always pushing my kids to be as sassy and outspoken about their quest for knowledge as possible.

And this is the class mascot Thag, short for Pythagorus.  I found this stuffed crow buried in a cabinet in the back of my room . . . he's pretty awesome.  Most weeks he'll have an inspirational quote posted and sometimes the kids make him clothes . . . like the crown.

Here's an example of a hero of the week poster at large scale.

And here's the cape from behind.  It's got an x-squared because it's the Empower cape . . . get it? Raised to the power . . .

And here are two samples of student work.  The assignment was to design a theme park where the rides had to be at set points.  Then they had to find all of the slopes between the points, the midpoints, the distance, and the y-intercept form.  It was a really fun couple of days, especially since the kids kept trying to suck up by naming their rides such things as:  The Pulsinator or Pulse's Playful Palace.

So there you go.  Pictures aplenty.  Hope ya'll are well and I'll see you again come November.

Cheers,
Annie 

Teacher's Log . . . A Beginning . . .

Mountain Date: 8/10/2013

Dear Friends and Family, 

Let me begin with excessive groveling.  I'm so sorry, so, so, sorry that I haven't properly been writing letters keeping you all informed of my adventures as a fledgling math teacher in rural Kentucky.  I have excuses i.e. that I've been in summer boot camp where Teach for America has been using me as a slave--or perhaps indentured servant is the more apt metaphor since in exchange for free work they provide room, board, and they help us pay off our college debts--but things will get better since my vagrant lifestyle is about to end as I've finally gotten a real life job with a real life salary teaching Algebra at Leslie County High School in the three street town of Hyden, Kentucky.  

Here's a picture of the school:

Rather Coliseum looking, but you couldn't ask for a lovelier setting. 

I could ramble on and on about the oddness of setting up my classroom and being a teacher who this Wednesday will be teaching actual students despite not looking much older than the students she's teaching--pretty much every time I introduce myself to staff at my school as the new Algebra teacher they exclaim "but you look like a student!," which, as you can imagine, is hardly comforting--but I'm sure that I'll have much fodder about things like that later.  Now, I feel I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't relate a few of my summer Boot Camp stories since it was one of the most surreally amusing experiences of my life.  

Besides, you don't want to listen to me ramble on all day about quotidian nothings when I should try for gripping, brief, and very readable tales, right?  What with brevity being the soul of wit and all that, riiiiiight?

Right! So on with the tales.

Tale 1:  Flea In Terror!

Once upon a time there was a poor orphan girl named Annie with striking reddish hair, eyes the trembling blue of a sea after a storm, and a lovely smile.  Though really, she wasn't a literal orphan, her parents had just abandoned her to take a scholarly jaunt through Great Britain and also lived across the country when they were in the US.  In truth, her hair wasn't naturally reddish, but artfully dyed through the use of a henna wash.  Oh, and her eyes were kinda . . . meh.  Greyish.  They could look blue if she wore blue clothes.  And as for the smile.  It is rather nice, but the poor girl was so cursedly unphotogenic that I can offer no proof of it.  But on with the story!

Little pseudo-orphan Annie had traveled far across the plains of America from her native land of Utah in order to receive training in an apprenticeship teacher program called Teach for America.  You see, Annie was a starry-eyed idealist type who despite being a millennial  i.e. suckled on sarcasm, couldn't resist the warm fuzzy feeling associated with do-gooder organizations that profess to be for America . . . so long as they're not Tea Party affiliated!  And so Annie signed up for this program, and they shipped her to the muggy Mississippi Delta.  

The eeriness of the Delta made young Annie very nervous.  In her native land there were mountains that kissed the sky, created a nestled bowl for her town, and served as convenient reference points.  Mississippi was so utterly flat that Annie felt like lost and like the sky was about to eat her.

See!  The freaking thing is stained bloody red.

It also made her feel small, insignificant and very lonely.  She missed her family and friends and desperately wanted someone to cuddle . . . and so Annie decided to do the next best thing.  "I think I'll tame one of the feral cats that lives on campus and keep it as a pet for when I move back to Kentucky!"

On Delta State campus, where the TFA housing was, there were about 7 feral cats including three adorable white kittens which Annie dubbed: Nietzsche, Schrodinger, and Box.  With her friend Dutch, a quirky boy who was also lonely for that special sort of joy that only a cat can give,  Annie set out wandering the campus at night, boldly swatting down house-sized mosquitos, and building winding trails of tuna chunks to slowly lure the cats into a life of comfort and joy.  

Nietzsche . . . at least I think.  All of the kittens kinda looked the same.

And Dutch.  He's kinda like my human pet.

But then . . . about day five of kitten taming something strange happened to Orphan Annie.  Every morning when she woke up her legs would have ten or so little red bites in clusters of three.  Back in the magical land of Utah, where bugs are a scarce and legendary thing, Annie had never had any problems with bugs, so she had trouble identifying what the bites could be . . . all she could tell is they weren't mosquito bites.  So Annie decided to inquire with the locals and promptly was told that it could be:

• Bedbugs!
• Chiggers!
• A Staff Infection or 
• S C A B I E S . . . 

All these suggestions were very informative (i.e. horrifying) but not very helpful.  Annie searched all of these problems extensively on the internet and none of them seemed quite right.  Something had to be done quickly because the bites were getting worse.  Annie itched like mad, so much so that despite dousing her legs in every anti-itch ointment she could find she'd wake up every morning with red fingers and bloodstained sheets.  She also had to give up wearing skirts because her students certainly couldn't see her legs.  And most nights what with the itching and heavy workload she only got about 3 hours of sleep.  Her whole life had dissolved into a rather kafka-esque dark comedy.  

This is not my leg but a fair approximation of what it looked like.

But despite the pain and confusion Annie trudged on; taking the 6 am bus ride every day to her summer school site, putting on a smile in front of her students, applying ointment, hitting her head against walls, and occasionally weeping.  

Then one day as Annie fed cats with Dutch a pair of students passed them by and one girl snidely remarked:  "Ewwww!  Those gross cats are going to give you fleas."  Hah, though Annie, what a ludicrous idea.  

Then she said to Dutch, "Humans can't catch fleas."  

"Actually," he said, "I'm pretty sure they can."  

An hour of internet research later and Annie was convinced.  Rats, I have fleas.  So, what's a naive first-world damsel to do?  All.  Out.  War.  

Within 24 hours Annie:  

• Flea-bombed her room.
• Washed every article of clothing she owned.
• Got a steroid shot at a local clinic.
• And decided to abandon all of her anti-pesticide scruples and thoroughly douse herself in Deet bug spray at all times.

And so, life gradually improved for Orphan Annie.  The bites didn't stop itching for about 4 weeks and still haven't quite faded, but she didn't get any more.  232 all over her back, legs, and hands was the final count.  But horrifying though her experience was there were some odd perks to it.  Miss Annie became a bit of a campus legend.  Oftentimes whenever a cat came near she heard other TFAers saying:

"Watch out for those, I heard some girl got fleas!"

"Really?  Fleas?  Ewwww!"

Once Annie even warned a girl she saw petting them:

"Careful, those things can give you fleas."

"Oh yeah," giggled the girl, "I heard that happened to someone.  How awful must that suck?"

"Pretty bad I bet," said Annie, a droll smirk on her face . . . It's nice to have a sense of humor.

That, in fact, is the moral of this tale.  Always keep your sense of humor.  It helps even the darkest stories become funny growth opportunities.  And legends you can use to scare off future suitors (hah!) with.  

Finally, I present to you the house seal Annie designed to commemorate this legend:

Cat with mustache.  What more need be said.

And so there we go.  Instead of telling you what's actually going on in my life I'll send you some horrifying tales . . . but at least it's something!

Capriciously yours, 

Annie