SO! Pretend its two weeks ago.
Over the last week, many of you probably noticed some changes in my patterns. First and foremost, I stopped tweeting on a regular basis. The first thing you should know is that Im totally fine, and nothing bad happened to me. The fact of the matter is, I stopped tweeting because most of my thoughts these days involves either frustrations with my job (which isnt fun to read on Twitter), or my thoughts about how different the kids are that are work with (which prolly flirts with FERPA violations if I talked about it).
So! Im gonna kinda do a run through of everything thats been going in my life, and what the next year looks like, all planned out.
First, I got a job working for the Dreamcatcher program in Boulder, a Direct Instruction program that helps students who are behind catch up to grade level quickly and successfully. Interesting fact - the dude who invented Direct Instruction actually taught at the University of Oregon a few years ago.
I got involved with this program because Dreamcatchers is hired by the school my mom works at to help the students who are the most behind get caught up. AKA Remedial instruction.
My mom works at Justice High School, a school for students who are all legally involved in the court system, generally have a criminal history, and were either expelled or not allowed to attend any other school. Another words, this is the last chance school for most of these students. So the makeup of this school is about 95% Latino students, which all combined, makes this a VERY different group of students than what Im used to. For example, on my VERY first day at work - two girls started fighting. And I dont mean fighting as in verbally, or even just slapping. I mean full on, full out yanking of the hair, clawing at the face, and lots of blood dripping down both their faces once 6 people finally pulled them apart. Oh, and it happened again with two different girls on my second day. Yea. Different.
I spend my morning hours at Boulder Justice High, and spend my afternoon hours at Denver Justice High, another branch of the school.
However, instead of spending most of my time teaching, I find myself spending most of time babysitting or trying to coax these students into working instead of telling me to fuck off.
Its SOOOOO different than what Im used to. In any other place, when you approach a student with discipline of some sort, or some loss of privilege, and the student realizes that they need to apologize and get back to work or stop goofing around. At Justice High, they look at you like you are crazy to even try to tell them what to do, and then they laugh at you.
Its like Im having to start from scratch and re-learn everything I know about working with students. Instead of working from the top down, and bringing the students down a peg when something happens, I have to work from the bottom up, and really focus on positive reinforcement and using Love & Logic techniques.
Basically, this is HUGE opportunity for me to really develop my skills working with students, even though these students are in high school. So I am grateful for the opportunity.
In terms of my tech dreams, most of that has gotten kicked to the way side for now. After I take the GRE in November, Ill start studying to get my Apple and Microsoft certifications so that tech shops will actually hire me. Right now, its just a flat no from most people.
So for now, Im tutoring students at CU in Computer Science, and I already have 2 students that Ive taken on, and 2 more that are interested. So all good money rolling in. (This was a MAJOR fail. The students sat down and I had NO CLUE what the devil they were talking about. I had to turn both tutoring offers down and switch to tutoring algebra and stuff. OOPS.)
Between all that and watching Nip Tuck with mom, I stay pretty busy these days. Anyways, Ill update more later.
LATER -
So now that ive been on the job for 3 weeks now, Ive noticed some things.
First of all, my fellow remedial teachers really dont have the backbone for this kind of job. ....I take that back. They do. Everyone does. We just dont use it and follow up when we should. The lot of us are empathetic towards the students. We dont want to send them to the office to get in trouble, so we threaten, and then DONT FOLLOW THROUGH. How I allowed myself into this pattern, I dont know, but heres the bottom line.
Normal classrooms: 20 kids, 1 teacher, smooth as butter.
Us: 25 kids, grouped into 8 kids per room, TWO teachers per room, and we cant control them at all.
As you might be able to imagine, the schools are pretty pissed with our performance. And so am I.
But Im not in charge anymore. Decisions dont go through me, and my boss isnt super on the up and up with dealing with these issues. She wants to kill them with kindness. Well wake up, sweetheart. It aint working. We need solid structure before we befriend these kids.
Oy.
Other news........ ummm.......
My parents are making me pay my cell phone bill now, so yep, im trying to find someone on AT&T to jump onto their family plan with so i can FINALLY GET AN IPHONE. If your interested...... let me know.
Im studying a lot for the GRE now........ taking it Nov 8th......
Booked a trip to Florida from Nov 10th to the 18th...... seeing my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc, all of which I havent seen in SIX YEARS. So yea, Im glad Im going.
Im getting out there in the gay scene more often, which im pretty happy about. But Im still trying to figure out a good friends routine. I love the people I have seen since Ive been home, but i see them too infrequently. I need something more solid.
Oh, and on the DL........ i ordered a PS3, which will complete my trifecta of currrent gen video game consoles. As of this Friday, I will own an Xbox 360, a Wii, and a PS3. Bwa-hahahahahahahaha.
So life is going ok! Could be better in some areas, but im pretty happy as it stands. Im doing something I enjoy, thats also VERY challenging, helps me with my weaknesses (cough*my patience levels*cough), and looks fantastic on a resume for something im doing on my OFF year.
Sorry for the lack of updates! I promise ill pump more out as I go. But as it stands, I roll out of bed at 7:30, and finally get back to my computer around 7:30. And with Fall TV making a comeback...... well...... blogs take a backseat I guess. Oh well.
Til next time!
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