street photo

beautiful rosy sky and line of green street lamps, color unedited

NYCTF: Debates, Distortions, and Discoveries

NYCTF

Whether it is on someone’s blog or a TESOL listserv, I always seem to find myself having to defend the NYCTF. It’s not an enviable position, especially when half the time it’s not to dig into actual flaws of the Fellowship, but to dispel rumors and myth! How exhausting to have to explain to people who talk about such things as “nyctf grad schools” as if the Fellowship has created their own colleges, or who make comparisons between Fellows and experienced teachers with years of teaching under their belt, as opposed to new teachers. There is plenty to say about alternative certification programs, their necessity, their rigor and how their participants are interacting with veteran, traditional-route teachers and vice versa.

However, I will say that through the process of wading through all these misperceptions in a recent tesol listserv back-and-forth, I have found ESL teachers who are really, truly passionate about what they’re teaching, how ESL teachers are being trained and how the students are being serviced. That has been truly refreshing since 8 of out 10 of the ESL veteran teachers at my school once criticized me for working too hard on my lessons, and who made it very clear that their favorite part of the job, aside from vacations, is administering the NYSESLAT test since, for 3-4 weeks, all the push-ins do is testing — no time for teaching.

With all that said, please feel free to post all your questions, comments, criticisms of the Fellowship and expect a response complete with personal anecdotes from my experience and what I have learned from other Fellows, coupled with more objective thoughts. Or if you find blogs by other Fellows, or posts about the Fellowship, please do share as I am always interested in reading on this topic. I have tried, at times, through this blog to give you a sense of my experience in the Fellowship from Day 1 and appreciate when others do the same.

Favorite quote at the moment

A Primate's Memoir

I just read A Primate’s Memoir: A Neuroscientist’s Unconventional Life Among the Baboons by Robert Sapolsky; a brilliant, hilarious, insightful, and deeply-moving memoir that makes you simultaneously fall in love with both Sapolsky and baboons. I have very many favorite quotes and moments and characterizations from the book that I will re-read for years to come and just reflect on for hours, but here is a favorite I have been mulling over a bit about basically wanting to protect the species one studies:

“Every primatologist I know is losing that battle. They make me think of someone whose unlikely job would be to collect snowflakes, to rush into a warm room and observe the unique pattern under a microscope before it melts and is never seen again.”

And here is a simple quote from this New York Time’s review of the book that should dispel any concerns it could be boring and further inspire you to read it:

“The book’s life flows largely from the youthful Sapolsky’s penchant for throwing himself at the world and weighing the consequences later. Case in point: what specific aspect of his fancy education can help him escape a cave that he finds himself sharing with a large, drugged baboon and an impala (half-eaten, but alive enough to keep kicking him in the head)? His strategy also has to accommodate the baboon troop that’s massing at the cave’s entrance and hollering for impala blood.”

Sick days

It doesn’t matter how sick I am, if I take a day off I feel wretchedly guilty and disconnected; like I have lost my job, my place in time,… or like I won’t remember how to get there once I walk out my door.

plane crash in Hudson

I am so glad everyone survived the crash. I almost stayed home and would have had a bird’s eye view of it all (pun not intended). I won’t be home until late, which is good because I can’t imagine how long it would take me if I was going now. So, by the time I get there there may be nothing to see, but if there is I will try to post some photos.

Update: By the time I got home, the water was so calm. It looked as if nothing dramatic or death-defying had occurred at all.

And as a student..

I am now trying to decide if I want to take just one or two classes this semester. My husband is starting college for the first time, taking three classes and working full-time. I know if I’m not able to find the time to support him, and contribute to taking care of our home life, then there will be more stress and difficulties ahead than I/we can really handle right now. (One thing I don’t like blogging about is personal/relationship drama)

I am already taking a linguistics class this semester on Wednesdays (and I go for physical therapy still for that damn ankle on Tues/Thurs),… but I am tempted to take a class I need that is on Mondays from 7:30pm until 10pm! I dunno if I am crazy to consider taking two classes – traveling allll the way to campus twice a week, doing allll the work for both classes, not to mention stuff for my own students…and not getting out until 10PM. I dunno… If I took it, I would only need 2-3 more classes to graduate and be done.

I feel like just taking the one class, to be honest, but it makes me feel like I’m being lazy.

Temporary theme change

makes it easier to read the posts, no?

pre- and post-big day worries

Tomorrow is it. The beginning of the end of the ELA. I don’t know if, even as a new teacher, I have done all I could for them. I am sure I could have done better – all the “shoulda” and “if only” phrases run around now in my pre-test brain. I think I am more nervous about it than they are, which I am kind of glad about. No need for them to feel anxiety over this.

Once this is over, we are on to book clubs in Readers with different genres. I am a bit nervous about this because I have one student who is a level C and my other lowest readers are level G. How are they supposed to read and discuss the same book?

Ugh. And to top it off, I just learned one of my favorite, inspiring students may be moving to the Bronx and transferring to a new school. These kids get bounced around so much. I feel so bad for them.

Breathing the biggest sigh of relief

smiling

I know it can be dangerous to email a superior – you could come across too casual, to assuming, too frank, or whatever. But email is often my preferred way of approaching my supervisor when I’m worried about her assessment of me or what-have-you.

So, in the aftermath of my panic post-snapshot (which turned out to be a “walk-through” – different?), I emailed my AP this afternoon (and I suppose other teachers use more discretion when talking to their supervisors, but I don’t know how), saying, in part, rather honestly and bluntly:

You finally got to see how nervous I get around Ms. S. I bet that was excruciating to watch.

Then she responded, exposing how well she knows my tendency to freak-out, saying she was surprised I hadn’t emailed her sooner. Then she said:

This week HAS to be better

A grueling week, despite good advice about not staying late every week (thanks Jonathan/jd2718).

First of all,I got a new student on Tuesday from another school – one week before the ELA – and she is a beginner ELL who reads a level C, far below where any of my lowest ELLs are… and it’s January! How can she still be a C? I’m going to have to look and see if she has any interrupted schooling or an IEP. I know it’s quite possible she just has difficulty or was tossed in a corner by the teacher – but most of my kids who came in in September at level E moved to J and L in October. I have to really figure out a plan for her.

Then, due to some personal stresses and obstacles, I was highly stressed on Friday and not in the mindset for a long day (lunch third and prep last period). So, guess what happens on such a day – SNAPSHOT!

Yes, <shudder>….

oh my

For the first time since I was a push-in, I left work right after dismissing the kids and sat at a Starbucks to enjoy the book I am reading.

Of course, in the process I forgot a bunch of stuff to bring home and have left myself in an oddly-relaxed-ignorant-bliss-yet harried state.

Most crucial language lesson

“We screw up royally by making people feel they don’t have a mighty important role in contributing to their children’s education,” she says. “Don’t do it by assimilating children into a language in such a way that they’ve got to put aside their native language to succeed in school. We do that at our peril.”

“What do teachers need to know?” she asks. “They need to know how a language is learned, what role they’ve got to play in supporting it, how languages work and how they differ. It’s akin to a school of medicine turning out doctors who’ve never had a course in anatomy. You just wouldn’t do that.”

-Lily Wong Fillmore, San Francisco Chronicle (July 18, 2004)

Taylor Mali – “What Teachers Make”

Inspiration before going back to work

more about "Taylor Mali – "What Teachers Make"", posted with vodpod

Going back…

I used to look forward to lesson planning and making charts, even if it was aggravating and I would put it off. But now I can barely bring myself to start getting ready to plan and prep for next week!

I keep telling myself, “just another 20 minutes of reading,” or I go online “just to check email” – which adds up to seeing what others are writing about, looking up favorite authors or – coming here to post about what I ought to be doing while not doing it.

Procrastination is a vicious cycle. Once you’re in it, it’s next to impossible to get out. Well, at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Oooo – I wonder what’s on TV?