Please, watch this:
Really really ridiculously good-looking.

James pointed out that having a skunk has lowered our "can this animal make a good pet?" IQ. There really was a second there that I thought about it.

Lessons learned

As the year is wrapping up, we've all been reflecting on how much growth we've experienced and all the lessons we've learned... not just the students, but us, the staff. Really, when you boil it down, teaching isn't really about the subject matter. Most big schools focus on getting the kids to memorize math terms and sentence structures so they can pass state and national tests. That's what education has become - test centered. (That's a whole other subject that I won't tackle now.) But educators that really know what's up - my instructors at Concordia, luckily, had this sense too - focus on character development. They're student-centered. What do you remember most about high school - economics lectures or the choices you made? Do you remember what the teacher taught, or what kind of person teacher was? We want these kids to learn how to be good people who love to learn. But like most things done right, it takes more effort than to do it wrong.

I haven't talked a lot about what MACA is about. Part of me wants to rave and rave about what a phenomenal experience we're giving these kids, but I don't want to seem like bragging. But you know what? 10 people in one hallway of an 80 year old building have managed to create something extraordinary. We've been given the spotlight at small schools organizations, national newspapers have written stories about us, our students are winning awards (most recent were two students that produced a video PSA for the Suicide Prevention Coalition), and the Employers for Educational Excellence (an organization that works with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) say our school is ahead of other small schools that have been open for years. In short, it's starting to work.

This means that NONE of us in the building have ever worked harder before. The teachers that have worked for 10+ years say this is their hardest year. Not only do we have to do our normal teaching duties, but we've had to incorporate professional media into our whole school's plan. We do projects together - all 150 of us - in Adobe Illustrator, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Flash, Premiere Pro, Soundbooth, and PhotoShop. Each of us 7 teachers have had to become experts in at least one of these programs - I'm the house expert, for instance, in Photoshop and Illustrator. These kids are working with the industry-standard versions and producing professional quality work.

In teaching these kids, I've of course learned SO much myself. I've been working on my photography skills, my graphic design skills, and of course, my bowhunting skills. In trying to keep ahead of the tech-savvy and sneaky students trying to get around our tech restrictions, I've had to become a pretty good troubleshooter. Teaching a year of math and science have increased my knowledge of both. My mind has never been stretched as much before. This is hard.

This post has turned into nothing like I intended. I only wish to express how excited I am to finish the year, how I can't believe I'm going to make it out alive, and how thankful I am to have had this experience. I wonder how different my experience would have been if it weren't my first year teaching, because sometimes my struggles with that have clouded some of the more extraordinary moments. In the end, I'm a different person (and I hope a better one).

Complexes.

This week in Psych we're talking about Freud's psychosexual stages.

Pure comedy.

Perks

There are few perks to being a teacher. Sure, we're guaranteed national holidays off (even though having two weeks off for Christmas was convenient, this year it didn't really seem like a "perk"), and we get summers "off" (if you're a half-decent teacher, this really just equates to about two weeks), but the amount of overtime a teacher puts in is really ridiculous. At least, if you're doing your job right. But during the day, I can't think of any real "sweet" benefits. You're lucky when you get time to use the bathroom between 8:25 and 12:15. Your stuff gets stolen, drawn on, and broken. You get constant emails, calls, and unexpected drop-ins from unhappy "clients" (i.e., parents). You get observed regularly. You get constant reminders of how imperfect you are.

You get the picture. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining per se, but being a teacher's harder than most people realize. It's like most jobs - until you've actually experienced it, you can't really "get" it.

Thursday and Friday I got the rare opportunity to go on an overnight trip with 13 sophomores to help begin the planning process for a service retreat next year. The meetings took place at one of the students' grandma's house. It happened to be next to the beach, at Oceanside. On the warmest days we've experienced this year. Needless to say, it was a welcome change to the regular school week.

This is the view from the front patio where we held our meetings:















I was almost washed away shortly after I took this picture. I clung to the boulder on the left while the surf washed up to my waist. Tide was coming in and that was the biggest swell the beach had seen since the day before!






































Due to privacy issues, I can't post pictures of students at this time. BUT... I don't think anyone would recognize feet.






























Our house was one of the ones on the left.















It had to be one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever experienced. These pictures do NOT do it justice, sadly.

Dedicated to my sister, Ginny

Alas

It turns out I'm allergic to B12. No injections for me.
Now I've got to take a B12 pill and hold it under my tongue while it dissolves. I did it this afternoon. It was disgusting, even though I made sure to NOT get the kind that lists "dessicated liver" as one of the ingredients.