ORIGINAL: JW
Gee, Rhonda, after reading your posts I just wanted to tell you I'm in love with you and want to come live with you and teach with you. Okay?
Well, actually I greatly enjoyed reading this thread, my wife's first name is the same as yours, and I've been teaching since retiring from the Army in 1992. What you are doing sounds both fascinating and a very good thing to be doing.
I started out teaching social studies and now teach English and am the yearbook sponsor at my school. I taught until this school year at a very small, rural, poor school, mostly very poor minority students, in rural NE Louisiana. This year I've moved to a more diverse, bigger high school, the school my daughter will be attending starting next school year.
My kids at my old school had more similarities to your kids than you might imagine. Most were very isolated. Many had never been out of the state, though we were within an hour of Mississippi and 30 minutes of Arkansas. And they had very parochial views about the world brought about by the poverty and isolation of their communities.
One thing I'll mention about computer programs. When we first began receiving computers at my old school, I put Civ II on several computers (shhhhhhhhhhhh!) and taught some kids to play. You can run Civ II w/o the CD. Many had never used a modern PC, only old Apple II's. And they loved the game. And the game taught a lot of neat lessons about economics and diplomacy and geography and other things. They also liked Oregon Trail, though that might not fit in well in your situation. And some of the Sim games. We also did flight simulator, and the kids loved that, too. So some older and now cheaper programs might be of use to you.
Again, I enjoyed reading your posts and look forward to continued updates.
Thank you for the kind words! I can see that we do share a common teaching philosophy (and perception of the probems of all children who are isolated through geography, poverty, politics, or even culture). Civ II is a great suggestion for a "starter" simulation... hmm.... must slip it onto some classroom computers!
And you are more than welcome to come out to the Navajo Nation. We desperately need motivated and caring teachers like yourself out here. As we begin reviewing and grading the big class assignments in anticipation of next week's grade cards for 1st quarter, I am struck by how far these kids need to come. I just got off the phone with our new Language Arts teacher (she's been teaching next to me for two weeks now, her first teaching job)and she was so depressed over the papers that she received after two weeks of work. I'm working on collaborating with her to try and integrate my social studies curriculum with her writing assignments. Our classrooms are adjoining and we can easily combine two separate class periods into one two hour block for our 4 of our 5 sections and "team teach". We tried it last week after a field trip when we had all of our 7th graders for an unscheduled two hours because we got back early. With both of us moving about the classrooms and sharing our computers we got a lot done and had time to work individually with students.
I took a table of 4 boys who were staring at a blank piece of paper without having written a word of their assignment and then had a discussion about ADD, procrastination, learned helplessness, and time management. I basically talked about my own problems (myself and two of my children are ADD) and how I had to attack big jobs one step at a time. We talked about just trying to focus on writing the first opening sentence and not to get overwhelmed by the whole task (the "baby steps" philosophy)... to take one portion of a task at once and just get that done.
I came back 20 minutes later and they all had over a page written and were making great progress. I've been counseling the new teacher to try that approach herself. It also helps to get the kids in small groups or individually and just have a frank chat with them about things. All of the classroom bravado and clowning disappears when you are "one on one" I have found. I had to send three girls to the principal this week for refusing to take their final exam. It was the ulitimate "test of the teacher". They took the exam in the Library, turned it in to me, and delivered a personal apology for their actions. I used this incident to put some stringent new class rules into place and we all did just fine the rest of the week. No hard feelings and still plenty of smiles [:)]
It all really comes now to the kids knowing that you really do care about them. Most of them know how much I gave up to become a teacher and that I am here because I want to help them. They are, quite frankly, amazed that someone would do this for them and even more amazed when I tell them that I am so lucky to have the opportunity to work with them and be part of their community.
It was a pretty good week - challenging - but one that left me feeling very good. I just started setting up a planning session for all of the Jr High teachers at my house for during intercession break to explore how we can all coordinate our classes and do combined projects. The Jr High has needed someone to exert some leadership. They see me as that person. I'm already official teacher rep for the Jr High now and already got us guaranteed one hour a week in the Library for each of our sections. Now I want to work on getting the same deal set up to give us an hour in the school computer lab while the computer teacher has her prep period. That would be a big help!
I've never felt so motivated and alive. It beats the heck out of my old business career! Let me encourage all of you who may be nearing retirement or just tired of the "old rut" to consider becoming a teacher. There are increasing numbers of alternative licensing procedures that can let you start teaching with a minimum of courses. They recognize that your life experiences and maturity are invaluable. Part of the problem in American education is that most of our new teachers are still kids themselves, lacking in life experience and wisdom. More than half of them leave teaching within the first couple of years. We need people with maturity and varied experiences that can be shared with the kids. It's all about helping them grow up to be useful, productive, and happy members of society. Too many of our schools produce nothing but despair and hopelessness with unacceptably high drop out rates. No Child Left Behind, I am afraid, has done far too much to drive kids away with it's testing "club". It's driving teachers away too, because our math, reading, and language arts teachers know that they have to somehow improve their test scores on the state achievement tests or else they are going to be discredited as teachers. I'm starting to sense the stress levels they are under (and I'm glad that Social Studies doesn't operate this way....yet). The whole school is obsessed with meeting our NCLB targets. We squeaked by this year by filing and appeal and disputing some of the statistics, but next year will be harder. Eventually, I read that virtually all American schools will be labeled "failing" under NCLB because we will never be able to get 100% of our students to meet the standards established by the legislation. We MIGHT succeed in wrecking our schools, driving away our best qualified teachers, and putting a large percentage of an entire generation of children out on the street without a high school diploma. OK, end rant.... [:(]
Time to get back to grading tests!
Here are a couple of pictures. It is a shot of the "White House Ruins" one of the largest ancient pubeblo ruins found in the Canyon de Chelly near my home. The canyon is about 2,000 feet deep at this point and an entire civilization flourished there until they disappeared with no explanation. The Navajo came later as the Apache people migrated south from Canada and the Bering Strait land bridge. Yes, the Navajo are actually an Apache tribe who split off centuries ago and adopted much of the culture of the Hopi and other Pueblo Indians. The second shot is a view from the canyon edge above White House looking west down the canyon. It had recently rained so there is actually a stream of water. Normally, it is dry with periodic flash flooding.
Enjoy the pictures!
