Jan 5, 2006

caution: bumpy road...

My first two days of teaching went really well. Today, however, has been rough. I just feel like I've been yelling all day. (My kids are at the Library for now, so I'm taking a break to vent.) I think it mostly comes down to the fact that teachers with a loud voice rely upon their loud voice as their method of classroom management. If kids are too noisy, you speak louder than them to get their attention. I'm not loud. I have no desire to be loud. In my internship class, they were used to soft-spoen teachers, as neither Judy nor myself raised our voices often (and if we did, you knew someone was in big trouble). This class is used to a male teacher. Males, in general, have more volume than females. Not to say that Dave yells at his class, he is just able to speak loud enough to get their attention, even when they're noisy. And for that matter, he tolerates a lot more noise than I do. I'm a little frustrated because breaking their habits will be hard. I'm not sure how to get them used to paying attention to me without the yelling. Anyway, I have high hopes of this all working out one way or another, so I'll just have to wait and see, and do my best. For now though, I'm a little hoarse.

Jan 2, 2006


adventures in sepia tones Posted by Picasa
i will follow you into the dark...

Those who will be spending this week in Nashville for the Passion conference left early this morning. In light of that, and in light of it being Ryan's last Sunday in town, yesterday was filled with even more Ultimate Frisbee than usual. I skipped out on the afternoon game, but then found out that plans had been made to play a night game... at MIDNIGHT. So after making sure I wouldn't be the only girl (J.P. joined me), I decided to join in. The night games are really fun... we use Ryan's fiber-optic frisbee, and mark boundaries and teammates with glowsticks and glow-bracelets. We played 4-on-4 with really well matched teams. While it was a blast, injuries seem to be easier to come by when playing in the dark. Mikie P. took a hit to a rather low section of his abdomen... poor guy... but he was fine; I stopped one with my lip/chin, which resulted in my bottom teeth cutting the inside of my lip; J.P. took a hit to the side of her jaw; Jeff and Ryan collided and Jeff caught Ryan's knee in his throat. All this on a slightly unlevel field, in addition to the usual bumps and bruises. We wrapped up the last game around 2:00am just as it was starting to rain. I took a quick shower, dried my hair, and went to bed. Krissy got home from the Middle School trip around 4:00am, and as I discovered this morning, had lost her license and credit card, so she was up the rest of the night trying to fix everything as best she could so she could still catch her plane this morning to go to Passion. I drove her to the airport this morning, both of us unsure if she would actually be able to get on the plane, but everything worked out fine. Meanwhile, the Passion group (which includes Rob) left the church around 5:00am this morning. I didn't go this year because I start work tomorrow. I'll be teaching 2nd grade for six weeks at Hartley. I'm looking forward to it. I think it'll be good. More than just the six week position itself, I'm really looking forward to the possibility of this opening a door for a permanent position at Hartley. That's what I'm praying for! I have no idea if anything is even going to be available, but I hope it will be.

Anyway, that's all for now. Happy New Year to everyone. It's going to be a great year!