Prarie Park Elementary P.E.

Today I taught PE at an elementary school here in Lawrence for a friend of mine, Mike Martin.  He is a fantastic teacher, with a real passion for teaching kids how to be physically fit.  He is fighting off a sinus infection, but still came in this morning to meet me and give me a verbal rundown of the day.  Not absolutely necessary, since he left pretty good lesson plans, but still very considerate.  Of course, he was probably there because his daughter is a sixth grader at the same school, but he had no idea that I would be his sub.  I got the call just after six in the morning.  A rude awakening for a night owl who (Who!  Who!) has gotten used to waking up after eight.

It's been a long time since I substituted in an elementary school.  I had forgotten the innocent energy of that age.  There are still incidents of meanness, but they are much rarer, less humiliating, and more inclined to be fixed by even a forced, insincere apology. 

Lesson Learned:  One of the basic things that kids learn in PE is sportsmanship.  Because sportsmanship is a kind of discipline, requiring individual attention and effort.  In other words, it is work.  And what do students naturally do when there is a sub?  You know it: they slack off on their work whenever they can.

My first class, a group of 4th graders, did not play nicely; they played a sort of capture-the-flag game, and some of them took it just a little bit personally.  There was some name calling, some bending of the rules, and some outright cheating.  I compensated for this in later classes by starting the class with a talk on sportsmanship, asking them to give examples, and encouraging the practice.

I had forgotten that kids can cry easily. I saw four or five kids cry today, mostly because of perceived unfairness or insult from other kids. One or two were close to tears after a fall. A couple of kids got very whiny when they didn't get what they wanted from me, whether chosen to be “it” or allowed to pitch in kickball.

I had also kind of forgotten that kids can latch onto a reasonably friendly and fair adult, such as myself, in one class period. By lunch time, as well as at the end of the day, there were kids saying, “Hi Mr. Sack!” from all over. And of course, I had learned absolutely no names, as I did not even have rosters. Still, the open friendliness of the kids made me feel welcome, and I'm guessing that if I am back at Prairie Park some of them will remember me. When I started teaching at Central Jr. High there were kids who remembered me from when I subbed in their elementary classes. Like I said, they can latch onto some adults.

 

It was a good day, but a reminder of why I don't want to teach elementary school all the time.  They have an amazing energy, non-stop, and mostly positive, but by the end of the day I have had enough of it.  I prefer the more laid-back atmosphere of high school.

Maxine Quote

As I am taking down the Christmas lights we leave up year round, Horyon asked me why.

"Because Christmas lights don't last forever," was my reply.

Maxine quickly chimed in, "Like flowers. And tattoos."

Leavin' on a jet plane.

In January.

Let me cut to the chase: Horyon and I have accepted jobs in Korea, and will probably leave in late January.

And my wife is awesome.

Over the past month we have been discussing our options. That's when it started to become apparent that there was no teaching job waiting for me in the Lawrence area, nor even a job slowing down to a manageable pace to which I could catch up. Heck, most of them seemed to be in vehicles while I was on foot. This was very frustrating, after spending the past two years in a transition to teaching program designed to help Kansas deal with their teacher shortage. I feel sorry for anyone getting into a program like this one right now.

Since I lost my job, I have gone in and out of a funk. More in than out, I'm afraid. On a rational level I believe that a man is not defined by his job, but it seems that as you walk into my reptile brain, my job title is written on the door and the mailbox. And when you ring the doorbell, it announces, "Someone to see you, Mr. Teacher!" Even the towels were monogrammed. Now when you push the doorbell button it makes a rude noise.

Through all this Horyon has been patient with me, and lifted me up when I felt like just giving up. Not just telling me things would be okay, but talking about what we could do practically to move on.

It was not an easy decision to make. Whatever doubts I had faded quickly: less than a week after telling Horyon's parents about our decision, her father found a school that wanted to hire both of us.

We are now collecting documents to prepare to go. Maxine needs a new passport soon, and Quinten has never had one. Horyon needs to file some very expensive paperwork to leave the country without losing her visa. Papers will have to go back and forth across the ocean before we can go. It's all somewhat messy, and that's not even getting into the fun and excitement of packing and disposing of three years worth of stuff.

We are planning to leave in mid-Januray. You would think that four months is plenty of time, but it is going to be tight. We've already made flight reservations before the prices start changing for the worse. Hopefully we will not have to change them before leaving.

In the mean time, I have applied to be a substitute teacher again, but can't start until the state processes my license. So I have time to work on these projects, but our only income is from Horyon's sewing. Yeah, no stress there, right?

I feel like there is lots more to write, but I'm going to leave it here for now, and hopefully have more news to share sooner rather than later.

Stuff Happens. Like getting laid off.

[OK, I started writing this on the posting date. It was too painful to work on again until I felt there was some resolution. Check the next post for that.]

I'm unemployed as of June. Well, technically August, because that's how long my contract is, officially. But when this school year ends, I will no longer be a math teacher at Central Jr. High.

My principal, Dr. Stubblefield, let me know that this might happen last Friday morning [early April], right before my classes started. Let me tell you, that was not a pleasant way to start my Friday. One of my favorite coworkers, Charlotte Prosser, came and offered to cover the first ten minutes of my class. That was very kind, but I figured that all I would do was sit and think about how crappy my situation was, and that if I were going to be miserable, I might as well be doing my job (teaching jr. high students!).

By the end of the day, I had sort of settled into the idea, though. My intention had always been to spend three years teaching at the jr. high level before deciding whether or not I liked it. Perhaps this is God's way of telling me that I don't really need three years, or maybe not three at this school.

I should have been applying feverishly for every position within an hour's drive of our home, but I was also trying to juggle the last few assignments for my Baker class.

Finishing the year was tough. The kids always get antsy the last few weeks of school, and when the teacher is unfocused, as I was, it's even worse. And when the teacher spends the last two months in deep uncertainty and feeling unappreciated, things can get much, much worse.

I finished my course work with no problem, but was still left with the burden of being between jobs. I had been telling people that I was unemployed until someone told me that I was being too negative. She asked me if I thought that I would have a job again in the future. "Of course," I replied. "So you are between jobs!" she asserted. I have been using this terminology in an attempt to bootstrap myself into a better mood. It didn't make me happy, but if the alternative was feeling worse, I'm glad I did it.

Job application season came and went. I sent resumes and applications for any math job within an hour drive of our home. I just couldn't see doing much more driving than that and having anything left of myself to give to my family. A one-hour drive would mean leaving for work around 6:30 a.m. and probably not getting home until 6:00 p.m. Later than that for the first few weeks, as I adjust to new circumstances and plan out courses I haven't taught before, perhaps earlier if the school/district has tight plans in place or the material is familiar to me. And this was basing driving times on GoogleMaps rather optimistic projections.

There were not many openings available. The Kansas Dept. of Education website has a job connections page. It is not mandatory for schools to list on the site, but most do. The site keeps track of the total number of jobs and the total number of applicants. At the beginning of summer there were about 220 teaching jobs listed, all subjects, all grade levels. At that time there were more than 23,000 applicants. I came to wish that I had never looked at those statistics, because it's been burned into my mind: more than a hundred applicants for each job, on average. Maybe the odds were in my favor as a math teacher, but it takes a lot of swaying to balance out that much competition.

I had two years of part-time teaching in America, and an online teaching certificate from a small university. Of course, in Lawrence K.U. provides a deluge of freshly trained teachers every year, with their student teaching done right here in town. Hard to pass up, with all that energy, youth, and the option to sleep ten hours a night.

This is a difficult topic for me, as it draws me into being bitter easily. There have been nights when I've been unable to sleep, replaying some choices made over the past few years and felt the heaviest regret of my life. I've thought about how fascinating and fun my post-college life was, how different my life has been, and wished that I had just gotten a job and married someone before I realized how big the world is.

Usually at this point I realize I am throwing myself a big self-pity party, and do something to get out of it. It's been harder this time, and I'm not quite out of the woods yet. But rest assured that the party is over, and we have a plan.

Ben Folds Concert

Okay, I should have finished this and posted it the night I started writing.

I got my Christmas present on October 27th (2009):

I went to see Ben Folds in concert at Liberty Hall in downtown Lawrence. A $35.50 ticket, and completely worth it. I've been a fan for years, and seeing him in concert was fantastic. I went with my friend, Mike Colvin. He wasn't very familiar with Ben Folds' work, but he came out calling Folds a genius, and I had to agree.

His opening act was Kate Miller-Heidke. Fantastic. Bought her CD. The CD is fairly heavily produced, but tonight it was her and a guy with a guitar, and they were great together.

Looking back ten months later, it was still worth the money ($35 per ticket). When we moved back to the USA, I had high hopes of seeing live music. Ben Folds is the only concert I've attended, if you don't count jr. high band and choir concerts. (Incidentally, if you do count them, for the most part you shouldn't. However, Central Jr. High had a pretty good choir, and their band and orchestra were not too bad, either. I fear that switching to a middle school format will blow that out of the water.)

Back to Ben Folds. He was fun to watch. It felt like he had just come over to my house to play for me and some friends. The first thing he did after sitting down at the piano was to take his cell phone and keys out of his pockets. He set them down on the strings of the piano, as it was propped open and the music stand shelf had been removed. He then realized that would cause problems, so he picked them back up and fumbled them around a bit before a stage hand could come out and take them.

He played and sang for a good three hours. I knew, or at least recognized, a lot of it, though I am still a couple of albums short of having his full catalog. The parts I didn't know were as fun as the parts I did. The amazing thing is that I think Ben himself had as much fun as the audience.

Folds sometimes caresses the music out of the piano, and sometimes he pounds it out. He reminds you that it is in fact a percussion instrument. I hope they checked afterwords to make sure the stage didn't have a depression where that piano got seriously beaten on.

It is common at concerts for the audience to sing along, but at a Ben Folds concert he insists on it for some numbers, and teaches them some special parts to sing. This clip of Ben singing Army catches the mood quite well. (Warning, he uses some naughty language in this song.) Right there in Liberty Hall, in downtown Lawrence, it felt like everyone in the room was singing as though they were by themselves in the car, driving down the highway with the windows down and belting it out along with Ben. Incredible energy.

So if you have a chance to see Ben Folds in concert, GO. You will come out bouncing and humming and thinking, "This guy is amazing."

Me, getting used to Quinten

Though perhaps I need to turn my title around.

I'm not sure for whom it is a more difficult adjustment. Presumably it's more difficult for him, as he has also had to adjust to being outside of the womb, eating, breathing, wearing diapers and dealing with all these weirdos. I'm pretty much used to all that stuff, except for the diapers. I just have to get used to having one more little person in my life.

I haven't written here for many months, with some very good excuses which will carry no water with anyone interested in reading this. Here's a quick rundown:

1. My Baker classes. I made hash of the summer class. I was absolutely sure that it was a four week class, and the way it was displayed on the website fed this belief, the same way you give extra garbage to the goat just before festival time. (C'mere, you plump, tasty-looking goat!) It was a rude surprise a month later when I found that I had skipped the last four weeks of the class. I can't quite believe they waited a month to contact me, but that was fine. It gave me something to do during...

2. ... the first three weeks of school. Yes, I started the school year doing four weeks worth of Baker assignments in three weeks. And while the first weeks of school are much easier during one's second year, they are still not easy. I had a couple of weeks of just teaching, then the fall Baker course started. I've just finished the fifth of nine weeks.

3. Summer vacation from school is actually the only kind of vacation my wife gets. Since I was home most of the time, she could actually take some time away from Quinten to get work done without having to get him to sleep first. She used a lot of that time to sew, giving a much needed financial boost to our household. I enjoyed having time with Maxine and Quinten, but found it almost as tiring as spending the day with teenagers. Next thing I know, school is starting and I have more homework to do.

4. Waking up in the middle of the night makes the rest of the day seem shorter. Quinten was actually sleeping six or seven hours most nights for a while, and I decided to capitalize on this. When he was younger, Horyon would go to him and feed him in the night, as most babies require. But after a few nights of Quinten actually sleeping, we decided that on the rare occasion when he did wake up, I would go to him. That way he would not be subject to the temptation of nursing. When Horyon goes to him, he figures it's meal time. So I take care of him at night. Sometimes that means not much, but recently I've been getting up three or four times. This makes for long days.

When I was younger I could handle it. I worked for a man who had Parkinson's disease. Two or three nights a week I would stay at his house and help him take medicine, go to the bathroom, and roll over in the night. No problem. I would go home, shower, and go to class. Fast forward 18 years, and waking up in the middle of the night just twice leaves me groggy all morning. I am not overly happy to see Quinten at 2 a.m., no matter how much I love him.

Which takes me back to Quinten. I got to spend a big portion of time with him every day during vacation. I still can't do the breast-feeding thing, but we managed to bond anyway. There are still times when only mommy will do, but those are largely feeding times.

When I come home from work, I get the biggest, two-tooth grin from the cutest little guy. When I talk to him, he bounces up and down and makes happy noises. When he is unhappy with someone else, he cheers up with me.

We're definitely getting used to each other.

I'm Employed!

This week I found for sure that I will be employed at Central Jr. High School next year. Worst case scenario, I work the same kind of hours that I am working now--four hours certified and three hours para per day. Not ideal, but I could make do with that for another year. However, the principal, Anna Stubblefield, seems pretty sure that I will be teaching five certified hours. A full time contract is six hours, so I would be just a bit short of full time. I could, like this past year, work as a para for an hour or two a day, but I have already told her that I would rather just take my five hours of teaching and have three hour for planning, as we are on an eight hour per day schedule.

A full time position comes with two hours of planning per day, one personal, and one team. The consensus on how effective team plans are depends entirely upon which members of which team you ask. Still, however effective or ineffective the time is, it is time that is not spent in the classroom exerting your will on students. Sure, in some teams you have to exert your will on your coworkers, trying to convince them that your idea is best, trying to convince them that a specific student would benefit from a certain course of action, or trying to convince them that the current meeting has exhausted any possibility of being productive and should be terminated immediately.

At any rate, I will have a job next year, which takes a huge load off of my mind. I talked with Horyon about what I should do this summer, and she said that I should not take an outside job. She wants me to stay home and do family stuff, and home stuff, and get more comfortable with Quinten.

That's about it. If I try to add any more, this will never get posted.