A Dead Poet Moment

I take my dog for a walk (almost) everyday, baring an RA flare or rain. Since I'm a creature of habit, as is the dog, we always turn right out of the driveway and make a circle through the woods. Well today I saw a strange dog at the end of the cud-de-sac so I decided to turn left instead. We walked through the same woods that we go though everyday but I honestly had a moment of complete confusion as to where to go once I got into the woods. It was like I was in a whole new place despite having walked that same path everyday for two years. It made me wonder if maybe we need to look at things from a new angle more often...

p.s. Bonus points if you understand the Dead Poet reference!

Teacher Tales

Every teacher has a special cache of stories that they pull out at parties (you know you do). Kids say and do some crazy things and honestly some of them are to good not to share. I was reminded of a classic story yesterday at at meeting when someone mentioned this student's name. Of course I'm not going to reveal any names, or even gender, but honestly how could this not make you love kids......

In my very first year of teaching I had a student who was a particular project of mine. I really wanted X to feel confident in their ability, and to learn to love school as much as I did (remember this was my first year, I was a bit delusional). X has a severe learning disability and was functioning far below the rest of the class, but still we slogged through it. Then one fateful day our entire team took a field trip to the local history museum. The docent who was working my group that day was a tiny old women who looked like she didn't know quite what to think about my students but she bravely carried on taking us through the history of the state. Periodically she would stop and ask the students questions and every time this ran through my head "please don't call on X please don't call on X". Before you think I'm a horrible person you must understand that this student would often answer volunteer to answer questions in class, and was called on frequently, but X's answers very, very rarely related to the question I had asked. "Why no dear, purple is indeed not a factor of 42, but good try."

Anyway back to the museum and the section on farming.

Docent: "Can anyone name one of the state's Cash Crops?"
Johnny: "Tobacco"
Docent: "Excellent, anyone else?"
Alice: "Cotton"
Docent 3: "Yes, great....how about you dear, in the back row, did you have an answer?"
Me (in my head): "Oh dear lord"
Student X: Celery

Yep, celery. I will give X points for understanding that a Crop has to do with something you plant. And bonus points to the docent who, after a moment of stunned silence, recovered well.

It was a great day at the museum, and I'm still laughing about it years later.

The Real Story

I get asked about my RA a lot so I thought to write about it and answer lots of questions at once!

I went to a Halloween party on a Saturday night in '07 dressed as a girl scout (it was awesome). The costume itself isn't significant, but the party is because I was driving that night so I stuck with one glass of wine and lots of water. The point being that I wasn't drunk and, despite my perpetual clumsiness, I didn't fall down. Still the next day my right ankle hurt and I was limping. By Monday my limp had turned into a full-fledged pain and I had a disturbingly large lump on the back of my ankle. My sister insisted that I call the doctor to see what was up, which I did a bit begrudgingly since I don't generally like visiting the doctor. My doctor agreed to see me the next day and when she saw my ankle she was stumped. There had been no apparent trauma to my leg or explanation for the giant lump. After some head scratching and a few looks in the medical textbooks she decided that my best bet was a visit to an orthopedic surgeon. An appointment was made for a week later and I headed home with a still swollen ankle, a more pronounced limp, and a little bit of anxiety over just what the heck was wrong.

I woke up on Wednesday to discover that not only was my ankle still sore, but now other parts of my body were following suit. By Friday my hands, wrists, back, feet, knees, and even jaw were also inflamed. Things didn't improve when I got a call from my mom telling me that her bosses wanted me to come in for some blood tests. My mom is a nurse at an Oncology practice, and although she told me not to worry...I did. Blood tests were run and it was decided that what I really needed was a Rheumatologist. A call was placed and I was given an appointment to see an amazing rheumatologist. The catch was that the appointment wasn't until January 18, 2009.

Now for those of you keeping track my symptoms started the day after a Halloween party. Within a week of that, nearly every joint in my body was inflamed and painful. My doctor's appointment wasn't until January 18! That left me with 2 and a half months to try and deal with my symptoms on my own. True, my regular doctor gave me a prescription anti-inflammatory as well as a dose of steroids, but overall there wasn't much to be done. Those months were not my best, and I'm sure I wasn't fun to be around. I slept very little because of the pain, and ate even less because my jaw was to sore to chew. When the day finally came for me to meet the rheumatologist I was happier than I had been in months! After a LOT of blood work, and another week of waiting for results it was confirmed that I had Rheumatoid Arthritis.

48 days later I turned 30....awesome

Yes I AM a "real" teacher, thanks for asking...

Here's a particular pet peeve of mine, people who think that because I'm a Special Ed teacher I'm not really a teacher. Do you know how condescending that is? Ask any special ed teacher you know and I guarantee that they've heard the same thing. I wonder who exactly people consider "real" teachers? Having taught both regular, and special ed I've seen both sides of the story. When I was a regular ed teacher I had lessons to plan, discipline to keep, parents to conference with, data to gather, standards to meet, and students to teach. As a special education teacher I have to do all of those things plus write IEPs, modify lessons and materials, hold IEP meetings, help regular ed teachers make accommodations and modifications, oh yeah and try and TEACH a kid with a disability. Sure I may have less kids in my class, but that certainly doesn't equal less work!

Here's the big difference...my kids have a disability (have I mentioned that already?). I have students who are reading on a 2nd grade reading level. I have students who can't add (even with a calculator). I am expected to teach these kids how to cope with their disabilities, how to read, to write, to do math, how to function in the classroom. Oh yeah, and I'm supposed to teach them the same exact standards that everyone else teaches. Plus (and here's the real kicker), at the end of the year my kids have to pass the same standardized test as every other kid.

So, people of the world, I'm not sure what you consider a "real" teacher...but let me assure you that anyone with the word teacher as a job title is, indeed, a REAL teacher.

The Good Old Days

I teach 6th grade most of my students fall into the correct age range, although I do have several 13 year olds. Regardless, they are middle school aged and I really wish they would act like it. It really bothers me when I hear my kids talking about a movie, and I realize it's some Rated R horror movie that they have no business seeing, or an inappropriate TV show that's on late. Now, when I was growing up my parents closely monitored my TV watching. My sister and I weren't even allowed to watch TV shows where the kids were disrespectful to their parents. I couldn't understand why I wasn't allowed to watch Growing Pains, but seeing it now I totally understand. Instead, I watched a lot of Cosby Show, Punky Brewster, and Little House on the Prairie. Those were great shows with good values. They were funny and entertaining and just plain good. What happened to shows like that? Does everything on TV have to have an 'edge'? Aren't there any good wholesome shows on TV?

Now don't get me wrong, I like TV (probably to much). And I like a good action show as much as the next girl, but sometimes I just want to watch a show that's....well, nice. A show that I wouldn't be embarrassed to watch with my niece, or someones grandma. Until then, I'll just stick with my DVDs and reruns of M*A*S*H (which would be wholesome if you took out the violence, sex, and drinking)!

Good Friends, Great Soup!

This past Friday my sister, niece, and I made our monthly pilgrimage to Gray, Georgia to visit our best friend. Getting to spend time with the Ivey League is always fun, and we only wish they lived closer so we could visit more often. This weekend we decided to cut the drive short by a bit and meet in Milledgeville for dinner at Buffington's. I'm honestly not sure what I was more excited about this weekend, seeing B and the family, or getting to eat the soup at Buffington's. I've been thinking about eating here ever since the first time we visited several months ago. On that trip I got a cup of soup to start off the meal, but only got to eat about a spoonful before my niece took over! If you've ever met Ella then you are well aware of her love of soup, trust me when I say that it's better to get out of the way if you find yourself between her and a bowl of soup. Well this time, I was smart and got a bowl of my own. It was well worth the wait! Imagine if you will the greatest potato soup you've ever had. Then imagine it's even better....that's what this soup tastes like! If you're ever in Milledgeville and are looking for the worlds greatest soup...then you must go to Buffington's! (This is so not a paid advertisement, but a public service announcement since i think I would be doing the world a disservice not to tell them about this soup!)

Comment Issue

I've heard from several sources that there have been some issues with commenting. I think that i've fixed the problem, so feel free to leave comments (hopefully they'll go through).