What the Bleep?

So.. most of you know that I'm going for my masters in Deaf Ed. 23 months down with 1 month to go and that month couldn't come and go any faster than I'd like it to. I'm down to my last two requirements for the worthless degree I'm about to get (and by the way, I have already received my certification, yippee!!!). A huge Comp project and of course, the Comp Exam, which is due in about two weeks. If I haven't told you yet about the Comp project, you'll find out about it now.

Basically, the Comp project is a super-long paper (I'm up to 15 pages so far and I'm NOT even halfway done) detailing what I will do during certain points of my first year as a teacher. Prior to the start of school, first week of school, end of the first 6 weeks, end of the semester, beginning of the 2ND semester, early spring (ARD preparations) and end of the year. I have to painstakingly explain what I will do in which situation at these points of the year and why. Fine, I get the point of the project - but as I struggle to complete it each day, I get more and more frustrated. Why? Get ready because I'm about to give an eyeful.

In every aspect of the paper, I'm required to recite how I plan to incorporate speech, language and audition skills in my lessons along with the other normal stuff like seating, IEP goals for individual students, blah blah blah. I have to talk about how I plan to evaluate the students, determine whether they're improving and how I plan to incorporate new ideas into new lessons based on the students' success. Language I can understand but speech and audition!?

I had an interview last week with a school district that I'm not too crazy about. I had an interview with them back in November as a long-term teacher... needless to say, I didn't get the job. However, this time around, I was much more prepared for the interview because I had a very good idea of what type of questions they would be asking me. Regardless of my teaching philosophy and my personal experience, I answered the questions according to what I knew they wanted to hear. Never mind my beliefs - I was willing to say whatever BS possible to get the job. I'll find out Friday whether I got it or not. I highly doubt it, though.

Now, as I'm completing the Comp project, I'm looking back at the interview and thinking about what they asked me. The more I work on the project and the more I think about the interview, the more I get agitated and angry over their philosophies. It just seems to me that Deaf Education programs are being overrun by hearing people who know crap about Deaf people. In two years of my education and my interviews, I've seen that these people are more concerned about the Deaf kids that has the potential of speaking and hearing. Never mind those who are mute and profoundly deaf with no possibility of hearing a sound. Who needs them, right?

I may be profoundly deaf now but I'm certainly not mute. I may not have grown up profoundly deaf but these "insignificant" profoundly deaf and mute people are my parents and friends. It really bothers me that people put more of a focus on deaf children who may be able to achieve much more than those who cannot hear or speak. What the hell? Who are they to decide early in the children's life who and who may not be successful based on how much skill they have in hearing and speaking?

In every lesson, I'm required to think and talk about how I can accommodate those who can speak and hear. I have to talk about how I plan to improve these skills and incorporate them in everything I do. What about the others? What about using your time to think about what visual aids you can use to provide better education for those who cannot hear and speak?

Ultimately, I know that if and when I become a teacher, what I do in my classroom is up to me. However, I do have to follow laws and abide by the IEP goals, district rules and of course, the program rules. I've told myself that I could always put up with stupid people for a while until I found a position at a district that I could appreciate. However, the more I think about it, the more I wonder... am I willing to compromise my beliefs and the children's education because the program coordinators think they know what they're doing? Don't get me wrong - I have no formal experience under my belt so I am not in any position to say I'm better than they are... but I AM a deaf person, I DO have deaf parents and I ALSO have a deaf child.

I teach GED to deaf adults that are struggling really bad (and I mean, bad) in English and Reading. The funny thing is - 3 of the 5 adults grew up in oral schools. My heart goes out to them - and I just keep thinking.... if people cared about them in the beginning and provided them education in their natural language along with visual aids (frankly, ANYTHING that could take advantage of their eyes rather than their ears), would they be at the same place they are today?

Living a Whole Lifetime in 7 weeks

After 14 weeks of student teaching, I am back to my old life. Going to bed late, sleeping in, being a kid at heart almost all day (and it's exhausting!), cleaning up and doing things around the apartment. This is only my 3rd full day back at home, and I already feel like I have too much time on my hands. While it's exceptionally nice to be back at home, I feel happier when I'm working. Contributing to society, supporting myself and my kids, and most importantly - keeping myself busy.

Don't get me wrong. It's really nice to be back at home again full-time. I can get things done and go grocery shopping during the day. How I missed grocery shopping in the daytime during the week. I've gotten used to enduring long lines in the evenings and on the weekends along with the working people. Now I share the lines with stay-at-home moms, the recently unemployed and lazy bums.

In just 7 short weeks, I've learned more than I ever could in my entire life what NOT to do as a teacher. Teaching high school was a mess! In my personal opinion, some of the teachers created much more drama than the students did. They actually leeched off the drama between the students and recreated them. They call it "professionally discussing their concerns for the students" but they are really feeding off the energy and amplifying the situation. Some of the students acted more mature than a few of the teachers. How sad is that?

During my evaluation (which I passed with flying colors - but that doesn't mean anything to me coming from an ineligible sponsor), my supervising teacher gave me some advice - two, actually. First, he said I needed to be more social with the students and the teachers. Yeah - because I didn't want to hang out with him during my free time, that means I'm not social enough. Right. Second, he said I needed to dress more professionally. There he was - telling me that when he himself was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Maybe he meant I should wear skirts or pretty myself up. If that's true - he deserves a fist in the face. Here are some "Don'ts" I've observed and told myself to NEVER EVER do when I'm a teacher. It's also my advice to the supervising teacher I had:

1. When a student needs help on an assignment, never tell him/her to hold
on so you can finish talking about another student and his/her problems (in the
presence of a class).
2. Don't leave your student teacher alone for 30-45 minutes at a time
(almost daily) to wander the halls, talk to other teachers and come back with an
excuse saying "I had to deal with a problem."
3. When you make rules, never break them. If YOU break them, your students will.
4. Never make up grades based on how you feel about the students. If he earned it, good. If not, do NOT give him a passing grade! That only sets them up for failure in the future.
5. Do NOT back stab or gossip about your co-workers. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday it'll come back and bite you in the ass. Hard.
6. Don't teach the same lesson every...single...day. It's BORING! No wonder your students hate you.
7. If you're lazy - you're NOT meant to be a teacher.
8. When you often dump your class on another teacher because of a "situation", do NOT call that teacher lazy when he wants you to return the favor once in a blue moon.
9. Do NOT meddle in your students' lives. There's a fine line between caring and getting involved.
10. If you give assignments and tell them it's for a grade, do NOT just throw them in the trash when you've decided you don't want to be bothered with the gradebook. It's a waste of the students' time (especially when the assignment is 2nd grade material...like, really!? You'd give seniors a 2nd grade assignment!?).
11. When the student teacher teaches for a week, creates an assignment/test, and administers it to the students, do NOT disregard that as "practice" for the student teacher and simply place the papers aside. At least when the student teacher teaches, the students are actually LEARNING. Look that up in the dictionary - I'm sure it's a very unfamiliar term to you.
12. Again - if you're lazy - do NOT become a teacher.

Overall, you can see my experience wasn't a very good one. I did enjoy some of my time there. I met some teachers that I've become friendly with and hung out with during my breaks. There are some decent people there and the students can be super nice.

If you or anyone you know is planning to intern at HISD, please PLEASE talk to me first. I'll tell you who's good and who's not - so you can be sure you're not placed with the same teacher I was stuck with.

Counting down the days

I have two weeks left. After today, 9 days to be exact. 9 more days before I'm done with my internship. Finally.

I'm getting major "senoritis." It's a disease that seniors get. God knows I had that my senior year of high school. After so many years of school, we are finally at the end and the end is the worst. Time just drags on and on. This is when we get restless and lazy - big time. Time started to slow down for me two weeks ago. It was a slow "4 weeks left" and a slower "3 weeks left." Just two more weeks left, I keep telling myself, but I'm wondering just how slow it'll go.

I finished my independent study. The only thing standing in my way from certification is my Comp Exam. I'm due to take that in June. The first half is a couple of assignments and discussion board participation. I guess it's a way to prepare us for the test. I'm a bit annoyed by that but thankful, I guess. Everyone I know didn't have to take a "course", they just signed up for it and took the exam. Lucky for me, my Comp Exam grade isn't based solely on the test. So, if I don't do well, I have my assignments and discussion board participation to fall back on. I have a proctor for my exam (supposedly), so I'm all set. Let's go - I'm ready.

I've applied to 4 districts. Success comes in numbers, doesn't it? 4 districts with three schools each (if there's elementary, middle and high schools), my odds are good, I think. HISD just opened up a brand new position a few days ago for middle school. I applied. Fingers are crossed.

Today is the first day in 4 days that my butt isn't sore. Being more active - working out and doing cardio almost daily (so far), and rollerblading at least once a week makes me feel better about myself. I feel energized and I feel like I can keep on doing more things. Being sore is terrible - but it means I'm working the muscles. However, I'm not expecting any results anytime soon - I've been cheating. I've been having an affair with food. I just hope my body doesn't find out - but it probably will soon enough. Because of my birthday (and among other reasons), I've been eating out a lot lately - which means I've been taking in lots of calories. Oh well - nobody said guilty pleasures was good for your figure.

Not to mention - I do pretty much nothing 3/4 of my time here during my internship. For instance - I have 10:22 to 12:00 off today.... which means I'm playing around on the computer. I didn't have to teach this morning either - I had seniors for 1st period and they had meetings to go to.

Well, time for me to go and be bored. I bet you'd kill to be my position right now, J. Wanna trade?

Improvising at its worst

This week looks promising to be a bad week. Or at least a bad start to the week. Where to start? I don't consider myself addicted to the computer. I don't think I'm addicted to the Internet. It's an extremely nice "luxury" to have and to kill time with. Many of us don't realize that we literally have the whole world at the tip of our fingers when we access the Internet.... until we don't have access anymore.

I lost my Internet connection for two whole days. TWO days! That's a mighty long time for me, especially when everything is riding on the Internet. I do lots of planning and rely heavily on the Internet to supply me with ideas, pictures, and worksheets. Of course, I also use the Internet as a fact checker. Imagine teaching a few adults that "dog" is a verb. Ok, maybe not that extreme but you get the idea.

Apparently, my computer decided to go off the deep end and start acting crazy. It was spamming the servers so the DSL company shut me down. I fixed the problem so I am back up and running now (obviously) and am trying to catch up on two days worth of checking emails, websites, and news.

Loss of Internet at home brings Improvisation Number One: Working at school during lunch and later, in an office frantically printing my GED lesson 10 minutes before class (I decided to revamp it, I wasn't happy with what I did a couple weeks ago). Doing stuff at the last minute is NOT fun and stressful. J and P - WHY do you do it!? You're both crazy.

What else has happened to me? Well, the projector at school decided to break too. That put a crimp in my math lessons. Improvisation Number Two: I decided to use the SmartBoard instead and have my students work off that. THEN the next day, the laptop connected to the SmartBoard decided to block us out and refuses to accept any logins and passwords. That gets rid of my plans to use PowerPoint too. What next? Improvisation Number Three: The teacher whose class I'm teaching has paper, posters and junk plastered all over BOTH chalkboards - so guess what? I had to write on a teeny tiny chalkboard that's about 8x8 inches. Fun.

Today, I had to go to an appointment at 8am which meant I would be late for school. I figured about an hour and half of wait time and meeting time which would get me back to school by 10 at the latest - which would allow me to teach my Language lesson at 10:15. Right? Wrong! The stupid office made me wait TWO hours before they even saw me. Needless to say, I was pretty annoyed. This also meant I arrived too late to teach Language. Which comes.... Improvisation Number Four: My teacher is insistent that I cover Deaf Culture for 5 days (bummer) so I couldn't bump up Language today. Yesterday, the teacher wanted to finish an old lesson she started but never finished. So - I have three days to teach them a week's worth of Language. It'll be fun cramming and modifying my lessons!

After my appointment, I had to stop for gas. I was in a hurry and cars were lined up, so I grabbed the first available pump I saw. I stepped out and guess what. Stepped into a very sticky puddle of spilled gasoline. Yay! My shoes were sticky for a while after that.

AND - I had a bad hair day today. If any of you saw me today (and P did), you'd frown. I learned my lesson - I'm not going to bed with my hair wet without brushing it. It.doesn't.look.good.

GED class went very smoothly tonight, thankfully. I'm hoping tomorrow brings a new beginning and ends the not-so-fun week I've been having so far. Wish me luck!

An Intern's Experience

I went on a field trip on Thursday with my students. We went to a ranch south of Houston to show the kids how people in Texas lived back in the 1800's through early 1900's and how life was hard for them. Specifically, we learned about the cattle ranchers and the cowboys that brought their cattle up north to be sold. Very Brokeback Mountain minus the gayness. I ate a homemade biscuit that was made from a recipe dated back to the early 1800's. Pretty good.

I experienced a huge deja vu in the morning when I got to school. Instead of my purse and my lunch sack (because of the field trip), I walked up to the school with a dark blue backpack slung over my right shoulder, cranberry juice in one hand and a cookie in the other. This is exactly what I had every morning when I went to high school. If I didn't have cranberry juice, I had chocolate milk.

Stepping on the bus was weird for me as well. It was the first time I stepped on a bus in 10 years. Nothing has changed except for two security cameras that were installed on the bus. One up front and one in the middle. I guess that's a good thing. Not good for students that like to pick their noses and eat the boogers or pick at their butts. There's an audience now.

On the way there, it was a slow drive because of the traffic. We have 8 students. Three of them wanted to sit together so that left one student alone, so I decided to sit with her. She's a new student that just moved from Africa a few weeks ago. She kept pointing out the window asking me what the names (specifically, signs) were for everything, so we worked on improving her vocabulary. She was in awe of everything. Last week, I had taught the class what solids, liquids and gasses were. As we traveled down the highway, we passed a couple of houses, creeks and factories. She beamed at me and called them out - solid, liquid and gas. This is why I want to be a teacher. Very satisfying.

I love working with her. She's always smiling and has an enthusiasm for learning new things. Although, just like any other student, she gets tired of working and gets restless in class. No student is perfect, I suppose... but she's pretty close. We continued to work on her vocabulary all the way to the ranch. Coming from Africa, her reading ability is quite low and some of her signs are different from ours. However, she excels in Math and is a quick learner.

Once we got to the ranch, I paired up with another student of mine. She has Cerebral Palsy and struggles with keeping her balance while walking. The ranch is a pretty big place, so this student was given the courtesy of riding a golf cart around the place. The teacher stayed behind with the other 7 students while I rode around on the golf cart with my student on my lap (who's very small and weighs about the same as my 2 1/2 year old). Because of her special crutches, she couldn't carry around her lunch or anything that she received that day. Guess who got stuck with carrying them all? I stuffed them all in my backpack. Good thing I decided to bring a backpack with me.

Most of the land was grass so my student struggled with dragging her crutches across. I carried her around piggyback style and had fun with her. She's so adorable and sweet - but like any other student, she has her flaws. She's SO slow with her assignments! While I think it's cute, it's definitely annoying - often, she'll stop whatever she's doing and get into a giggling fit. I wonder what goes on inside that mind of hers.

So far, my experience as an intern has been a good one. My students may drive me crazy and I may like some more than the others, but I know one thing for sure. When I finish my internship there in four weeks, I'll miss them.

My Daily Morning Commute

I started my internship for my MA degree three weeks ago. I work (or should I say intern?) at a magnet school. It's very different from a regular public school and sometimes I find myself still adjusting to the environment. I am majoring in Deaf Education so I am working with deaf children, specifically 2nd graders. This magnet school has three types of students. Talented and Gifted, Mentally Impaired and finally, Hearing Impaired. Everyday, I see lots of students with disabilities. Some are minor while others are pretty severe. There are good days and bad days. On the bad days, I leave school feeling depressed and feeling sad for the students who have severe defects. I won't go into detail here - but imagine seeing a small child that is practically a vegetable who sits in a wheelchair all day long, stares into space and drools on their bibs. Now multiply that by about 20 to 30. Pretty depressing.

Anyway, I have been driving to the school for three weeks now. I leave my apartment at 7:00am and arrive by 7:30. Some days, I don't leave my apartment until 7:05 or 7:10. I take the same route everyday. I go through the same morning routine 5 days a week. It can get pretty boring. For many of us, we have our daily morning ritual - and even if we leave our homes on time, we probably don't see the same cars on the road, right?

On my drive to work, I go through a fancy community. During my short drive in this community, I find myself feeling strange. I get this eerie feeling of being in a movie. Why? Well, you know how in some movies, people in small towns go through their daily routines and always pass the same people on the road or on the sidewalk? That happens to me.

On one specific road, I see the same people almost every single morning like clockwork. First, I see a middle-aged man that looks like he's built to be on a football team. He is always wearing a dark blue jogging suit. He comes out of his gated townhouse community with his middle-sized grey schnauzer and waits at the street corner. When he receives the signal, he crosses the street and starts walking his hyper dog down the road.

I see a woman with long blonde hair in a ponytail wearing a white jogging suit. She runs weird. Whenever I see her, I think of men training in the military. In the usual military obstacle course, you will see two rows of tires lined up. The recruits are seen running as quick as they can through the tires, picking their knees up and balancing back and forth. This particular lady runs like she's going through the tires. Her hair swishes back and forth wildly. I'm not sure if her running style is intentional or if she just runs weird.

I see a couple of senior citizens walking their dogs. Once in a while, I will see the same people stopping to chat with each other on the sidewalk as they pass each other. There are lots of dog walkers at this time of the day. Sometimes, I will see two people with their trainer (I'm assuming) going through a workout routine on a tennis court.

Whenever I go down this road, I am always reminded of movies and television shows that have their characters meet and greet the same people every morning on their way to work. I always think to myself that it isn't realistic. There's far too many people in the world and there's tons of factors to consider. Just how often do you see the exact same people every single day down to the exact minute? If I am a few minutes early or late on my drive through this community, I see an entirely different group of people. Most of them are dog walkers and some of them are business people walking down the sidewalks. If I am a little bit early in my drive, I usually see a lady sitting down in the grass next to a bus stop waiting for her bus to arrive.

I find it fascinating and somewhat comforting to see the same people every morning. My internship at that school ends in four weeks. I'll be starting a new morning routine and a different commute. I wonder what that will bring me.