Commencement Day

Good Morning! Today is the day when I will don my cap and gown, and march across Franklin Field as a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. In preparation for my grad school graduation, I've been ruminating on my graduations from high school and college. I think because of the way I grew up, I was still very much a kid when I graduated from college. It goes without saying that I was a kid when I graduated from high school. I had just turned 18 two days before the ceremony. I guess this is my first graduation in which I see myself as an adult, and that is a pretty exciting thing!

Now, I'm not usually a nervous sleeper. I can sleep through anything: test anxiety, thunderstorms, noisy neighbors, etc. But for some reason, I could not fall asleep last night, and when I finally did, I woke up in the middle of the night. I woke up again and was too scared to look at my phone for the time. I tried to fall back asleep for a while, then finally caved and looked at the time: 5:00 am on the nose. That's when I decided I wasn't going to get anymore sleep, so I read a little bit and finally got out of bed before my alarm (which never happens) to meet the day head on.

There is something nice about being the first one out of bed in the morning. I've been getting ready for the day at a nice, leisurely pace, all while enjoying some of my favorite tunes. I've been bopping around from playlist to playlist, and I thought I would share them. These are all thanks to Spotify!

Rise & Shine Playlist

Who Run the World? Girls. Playlist

Feelin' Good Playlist

Have a Great Day! Playlist

I will be taking a lot of pictures today, and I'll be sure to share once I get the chance!

Scratch!

Never heard of Scratch? It's a friendly way to introduce yourself to coding. CODING is kind of this scary term that I used to associate with people who sit at computes in dark rooms, plotting how to take over something. This is quite inaccurate, as you probably already know. Coding is something that kids can do at school, which is why we learned about Scratch at a seminar about science and technology.

I love science and technology, but loving them doesn't make them easier for me. They're the subjects I struggle with the most, because I have had years of building up mental road blocks for myself. I got a lot better this year, thanks to NancyLee (our program director and Science instructor), but I did not know what to expect out of this science and technology seminar.

What I got was a whole lot of fun and satisfaction!

scratch.mit.edu

Basically, here is a game that I made in which the unicorn has to spell my name. Every time it touches a letter, the unicorn grows, makes a chomping sound, and the letters disappear. Oh, and you get a point. It took me a long time to make it, but it was so fun to share with my classmates!

If you're at all interested in coding or bringing coding to your classroom, I highly recommend Scratch or Scratch Jr. if your students aren't reading yet. 

Happy Coding!

- Rachel

p.s. one more day til graduation! 

Fishing

My Grandpa was a great fisher. When I was a little kid - I'm not sure how old -  he took me fishing, along with my cousin and uncle. I'm sure my Grandpa did his best to explain fishing to me, but I still had no idea what I was doing. I picked up the pole and did that dramatic swing back that I saw people do in movies when they fished. As I swung the pole forward into the water, it caught on something: my uncle's pants.

As I'm knee-deep in the job search, I think about my attempt at fishing and can't help but feel like a little kid again. The job search feels a lot like fishing. My resume and experience is the bait, and email and phone calls are my pole. Whenever I get a bite, or even a nibble, I reel it in like crazy, following up, walking the fine line between persistent and annoying. It's not easy to fish, either literally or metaphorically.

But I'm assuming when you finally catch something, it feels pretty great. I think I am in the early stages of catching something. I reached out to a principal this week at a school that I heard good things about, and I was invited to an Open House for interested teacher candidates. It was set up like a rotating interview session, and I was invited in to teach a demonstration lesson next week. It's actually going to be on birthday! It is sort of hard to write this on my blog, because if it doesn't go well, there will be a lot of disappointment and embarrassment, but I'm supposed to be documenting my experiences as a TEP student, and this is what all of my experiences have been leading toward!

Wish me luck.

Graduation Musings

Graduation is so close I can almost taste the overheating and exhaustion. 

Kidding (sort of). I'm really looking forward to graduation, but there are a lot of annoying things that come along with it. For example, are my family members going to find parking? Will I be extremely hot if I wear this dress under my robes? Sandals are comfortable, but will they look nice enough? Are we going to make it to the restaurant in time for our reservation? Are the kids in my family going to be totally bored during the ceremony? Stuff like that. There are worse things to worry about, but they come along with the graduation territory.

It seems like a lot of my younger Facebook friends have been graduating from college this year. I know a lot of people who are the age of my best friend's little brothers. A lot of them are so sad to be graduating! I never felt that way. Even though I grew up down the street from the college I eventually graduated from, I was more excited than sad to be leaving college.

I was a transfer student to my school, Lebanon Valley College (LVC), so I think that had something to do with it. I always felt like being a transfer student set me apart from my classmates. My best friends in college were my two roommates, who were also transfer students, one from Millersville, one from West Chester. I spent my sophomore and junior years at LVC, but I was barely around during my senior year. I was student teaching in the fall semester, which meant I was only on campus one day a week for class, and I commuted from home that semester, so I was kind of removed from the social scene. In the spring semester, I had to unenroll from LVC so that I could study abroad at a program that was not affiliated with my school. I wanted to go to Rome, but the only study abroad program my school sponsored was in Perugia. So, I went abroad in the home stretch before graduation. When everyone else was soaking up every last college experience, I was doing something completely different in another country. When I got back home, I was suffering from some reverse culture shock, some serious Rome-sickness, and the sort of sad realization that I had spent four months making amazing new friends who now lived nowhere near me. It was TOTALLY worth it and I would not change anything, but it changed my relationship with LVC. It was the name stamped on my diploma, but I wasn't too upset about leaving it. I think I got an amazing education, and I'm proud to be an alum of LVC. But graduation meant that I was ready for the next step, and at that point in my life, I was so ready to leave and go on to the next phase in my life.

That phase turned out to be Philly! I tell James that I grew up when I moved to Philly. Moving away from home, working with City Year, meeting James…it all changed me and made me who I am today. If I hadn't come here, I definitely would not be graduating from Penn with my Masters degree.  

Again, I'm not really sad about graduating. There are certain things I will miss about being in school, like having a wonderful learning community and supportive professors, but just how I knew that great things awaited me after graduation from college, I know that the next phase is waiting for me now. Next year I'll be a classroom teacher, and I'll also be getting married. How can I be sad when I know what's waiting on the other side? 

 

5 - 7 - 15

My students and I have been going to Science class at the Academy of Natural Sciences on the Parkway, studying paleontology and preparing for a day-long fossil dig in Delaware. Today was the day, we packed ourselves on a school bus, and headed for the First State. I was armed with sunscreen, packed lunches, and a first aid kit. The trip went off without a hitch and I think I found some cool fossils! I'll admit that I was sort of tired from being in the sun, and was ready when we headed back to school. Field trips were definitely better as a child. They are sometimes a logistical nightmare to the teachers who organize them, but in the end, they are totally worth it if the kids get a lot out of them. I think my students had a great time.



Tonight is the eve of my last day of school. I got to write tomorrow's schedule on the board - one last time - and it's a doozy! We are having a Goodbye Circle at 9:15, where we will eat donuts and each kid will get to say goodbye to me. I hope I don't tear up! At 10:30, James is coming to school, so that the 2nd graders can present their "Country Study" to us. The kids have been working in pairs to study a country of their choosing. They are trying to convince us which country we should go to for our honeymoon. It's been a really fun process! A lot of kids were coming up to me throughout the process of working on it, asking me if I liked the beach, if I wanted to go hiking, etc. I hope they're not expecting James and I to pick one right away! We certainly wouldn't do that anyway, in case it made some kids feel like it was a contest that required a winner.

It's hard to believe that it's all coming to a close so quickly. It feels like slamming on the brakes while driving. After tomorrow, it's one week of wrap-up classes and events, then GRADUATION!!!

Pretty much sums it up. 

5 - 5 - 15

Does anyone remember this show? As an adult looking back at this show I'm thinking, "What's with the stereotyped characters?"also, "Spinelli looks like a modern day hipster." But when I was a kid watching it, I'm pretty sure I was thinking, "I wanna be at this school," because recess is the best. Recess is why some kids come to school. Recess is what breaks up the sometimes monotonous day, both for kids, and for teachers.  

Recess is an important time to kids, and if they're lucky, the adults around them will validate that importance by giving them ample freedom and space to spend recess how they want to. Sure, there are always going to be rules, but they should only be enforced to protect children's safety. For example, it would be ridiculous to have a "No running" rule at recess. But it's understanding to have a "No carrying other children on your back rule." 

Most public school teachers I know do not do their own recess duties; instead, their school has NTAs, or Noon Time Aids, who supervise recess. At the private school I'm student teaching at this semester, teachers supervise their kids' recess. It's really an invaluable experience. Sure, it's missed time to prepare or plan, but I have learned a lot about my students by spending time with them at recess. That's where I learn the things that don't always come up in the classroom, but can sometimes be the most important things. So, here are 5 thoughts I've had while on recess duty.

1

I CAN'T WAIT TO GO INSIDE.

Remember this past winter? Yeah, while you were all warm and cozy somewhere, probably sitting by a fire, I was outside on recess duty because our kids go out in any weather. There were lots of snow pants involved for the kids, but I don't have adult sized snow pants, and my onesie pajamas are inappropriate for school. There have also been days when I just. wasn't. feeling. it. and I couldn't wait to get inside. Those days were few and far between, thankfully, but I'd be lying if I said this wasn't a thought I've had during recess.

2

I LOVE THESE KIDS!

Some kids are so stinking adorable. Whether they're learning how to do a cartwheel for the first time, and they excitedly call you over to watch them flop on their face, or they're playing an imaginary game that sounds a lot like the plot of a Star Wars movie…recess is when I got to see a whole other side of my kids, and most of the time, all it did was make me love them more than I already did. 

3

CAN I EAT RIGHT NOW?

This is mostly a thought I've had during morning recess, which strikes at 10:00, which I used to call "10:00 Snack Time" when I worked with City Year. 10:00 is like my second breakfast/elevensies in the Hobbit world. I get sooooooo hungry, and it's hard to monitor students for thirty minutes with an angry, empty belly. One time I snuck a granola bar out to recess, but I felt bad because I think it's a rule that you can't have food on our recess field. Whoops. I swear I only did it that one time...

4

IF I HAVE TO MEDIATE ONE MORE ARGUMENT I'M GOING TO LOSE IT

Thankfully, the school I'm at right now uses Responsive Classroom, which is all about maintaining a strong social-emotional curriculum in your classroom, right along with your academic curriculum. Mediating conflicts is something that can happen a lot at recess. It's a wonderful thing to do, because it's much better than the alternative, which is an adult yelling and doling out a meaningless consequence but ignoring what may have caused the conflict in the first place. 

5

ARE KIDS BETTER THAN ADULTS?

I'm amazed at the creativity that comes out of my kids during recess. The games they invent, the way they play together, how they problem solve, how thoughtful they are…it makes me start to wonder if childhood is where we're at our best, and then we only get more boring as adults. There is never a dull moment when it comes to kids, especially kids at recess. 

5 - 4 - 15

Happy May! Specifically, happy May 4th, the day the internet explodes with this perfect Star Wars joke: 

By the way, I'm so excited for the new Stars Wars movie, even though I'm skeptical about how it will turn out. But that's neither here nor there.

______________________________________________________

This is my last week of student teaching. It's sad, but true. Next week at this time, I will not be sitting in an empty classroom while my 2nd graders are out having fun at recess. While it's hard to say goodbye to children who you come to know and love, it comes with the territory of student teaching. I've done this before, so I know the motions to go through. 

You start by dropping subtle hints to kids about which field trips you will or will not be around for, which units you'll be there to see, etc. "No, I won't be able to go to _______ with you, because I'm only here until May 8th!" The more calmly you say this, the better the kids take the news. They get attached as much as you do. Then, a few weeks before the actual last day, you make sure to say that your final week is coming up. On Friday, during our weekly ritual of Roses and Thorns, I told everyone that I had a rosy thorn: I was sad to leave next Friday, but happy because I've had such a good experience at this school. This was my most formal announcement, as it was said to the whole class, but it shouldn't have been anyone's first time hearing that information. 

This week, I'm focusing on writing notes to my kids, and finding nice, simple gifts for my Classroom Mentor and the Assistant Teacher I work with. Stay tuned on that, it's only Monday.

______________________________________________________

Speaking of Mondays - *cough* the worst day of the week *cough* - here are three things that are helping me wind down after a busy year. 

1. READING!

That's right, I'm reading for pleasure for what feels like the first time in a long time! The other day while I was baby sitting, I picked up a book in my sister's house and got hooked. The book is called The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. All I will say is that I started it on Saturday afternoon, and it's been hard to put it down for things like eating and sleeping. 

2. ANIMALS!

Yeah, here's your typical Buzzfeed article with pictures of cute animals. Sometimes you just need them. 

3. DAY DREAMING!

One of my college classmates, Laura, keeps an incredible travel blog called Roam and Golightly. It's a beautiful website full of stunning photos and great writing about art, travel, and local adventure. Laura makes everything look beautiful, exciting, and as if I've never seen it before. Check it out! 

That's about it for now. Tune in tomorrow! I am trying to write a post each day this week, in honor of my last week of student teaching.

Best,

Rachel