Catching Up

I haven't been able to post for a while as I've been swept up in the business of planning and facilitating projects, going on local and traveling adventures and trying to adjust to a new pace and lifestyle. I have also been trying to keep up posting to a professional blog for Innovation Unit where I have to filter out some of my doubts and frustrations. It's funny how those frustrations melt away after a weekend trip to Dublin. Issues about my timesheet and a schedule made by non-teachers who don't fully appreciate that time in the classroom is only the tip of the iceberg of a teacher's work seem insignificant after standing in the Long Library in Trinity College and breathing in the smell of truly old books or inhaling the scent surrounding the unimaginably large vats of Guinness brewing. I couldn't really take my daily struggles too seriously after a tour guide told us about the suffering and executions in the Kilmainham Gael around the time of the Irish rebellions. I bought a copy of The Dubliners by James Joyce for three euros on our way out of town. I can't wait to re-read it after all that I just learned about Irish history!

Today, I was back at Goole High School laughing to myself on my mile walk to school when I was hit by a flying joint (out of one of the hands of a group of teenagers in front of me) and later, I was blown into a light post by the incredibly intense, frigid winds. All I can do is laugh about the weather here, because it's often so ridiculous on my morning and evening commutes. I don't know why so many people smoke here, but when you add in high-speed gusts of wind, it makes walking down crowded streets of smokers a bit frightening.

I had a great day at Goole as we planned our fieldtrip to Goole Docks (involving a boat tour, guided office tours and expert speakers). Louise (the awesome teacher I'm working with) and I are going to go to the docks next week, while the kids are on break so we can do the project ourselves before the students start it in a couple of weeks. I am looking forward to the calm of this coming weekend after a jam-packed work week. Darrick and I haven't filled up the weekend, yet. Perhaps, we'll make another Costco run (this happens every couple weeks...okay, I hate to admit it, but probably every week) which ends in a mile walk back to our apartment with supplies bungie-ed to a wheeley cart. They have smaller quantities of items at Costco for great prices! We tend to make a scene here with our strange routines- but we're Americans so it's expected and overlooked. We could make a great Costco commercial. 

A couple weekends ago, we went on adventures around Yorkshire, including a great hike in the snowy hills of Hebden Bridge. Snow is such a beautiful, joyous thing when it comes on the weekends - although, I do find that I feel quite differently about it when it comes on my way to and from work.

I am currently in the midst of a project on the Goole Docks, a super-hero project, a project about traveling on a budget (both in a classroom in Sheffield and in my own life), a survival project and a project on developing sign-age for a new school building. My head is spinning with project planning, gathering resources and trying to model planning, tuning projects and facilitating projects with students calmly (while simultaneously trying to cover up the fact that most days I feel completely overwhelmed by the volume and variety of projects I'm juggling). I find myself making posters on trains, stuffing free newspapers in my bag from all my different transfer stations as resources, asking Darrick to make movies of student and teacher footage I’ve gathered, finishing a personal logo mini-cereal box while power-walking down the street and drawing comics and super-heroes in a bus.

The most challenging days of work are Fridays when I facilitate the Super-Hero project with three new teachers for 6-hours with the same group of 7th graders. We are trying to deliver the project and plan it simultaneously (since we only see each other and the students on Fridays without a prep). I’ve been talking with the school leaders about adjusting our schedule so we have more planning time. Each day feels like a day of Intersession, with all the ups and downs and exhaustion that goes with Intersession. The majority of the kids are really engaged and excited about the project - doing a lot of work outside of our Friday project days without being asked. A few of the students seem to enjoy the challenge and attention of disrupting the classroom environment and I find myself taking deep breaths and wishing that we could speed up that transition from resistant, disruptive behavior to that hard-earned mutual respect that eventually comes with a lot of work, listening and getting to know students who walk into class with baggage that sometimes gets thrown in your face before you get a chance to unpack it. It’s harder to get to that better place with students when you only teach a group on Fridays… but we’ll get there, eventually.

This Friday school is really interesting, because they start every two-hour block with a community meeting of 7^th graders that begins with a lecture about rules and ends in the chanting of a mantra of good behavior. It’s a strange sight to see students sitting on the floor silently in rows, dressed in suits and ties and made to chant a mantra before each two-hour block class period… and then from there, they transition to Super-Hero Project work time… no wonder some of them are struggling with this new style of learning, which in some ways contradicts the mantra of staying in line, not questioning authority and following rules they are forced to repeat right before they come back to us. I definitely need some pump-up music and a good stretching session (another practice that leads to strange looks while waiting and stretching on the train platforms) before going into work on Fridays…

The days are starting to get longer – in fact, today was the first day I have come back home in the partial light. It’s still pitch dark up until almost 8 am, though, which makes traveling in the morning feel like you’ve gotten up in the middle of the night. Today, the wind is blowing the cloud cover out as quickly as it arrives – occasionally, I get pelted with freezing sideways rain and sleet, but it’s moved on in minutes (just long enough to freeze me to the core and blow by). Tonight, there are snow flurries in the forecast. I have a much deeper appreciation for San Diego’s weather now, although, I must admit that I’m enjoying the excitement of the crazy weather (knowing that this experience is temporary). Please, forget everything I’ve just written about the weather and please, come visit soon!