A dear friend of mine went through what is one of my biggest fears, taking precedence even over fear of being eaten by a shark. Losing a child before they have a chance to live.
My heart breaks for her and her family. It has been two years since she wrote this. As I read her story, I broke down several times in tears, still after two years. If you want to read her story, "Empty", here it is: http://lostinterrobang.blogspot.com/2014/01/empty.html . I would encourage you to check out her whole blog as well.
Even though I'm currently behind in "the game" (meaning it's just me and myself currently ha), all girls dream of their futures. Be it future wedding, life, children, house, etc. And every time I think about my future children, I cannot help but worry about losing one of them.
But for me, I know that my God is bigger than my worries and when that time comes, I'll need to turn my worries over to Him.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Thoughts on Teacher Pay
Don't get out your pitchforks and torches folks! It's been such a long time since I last posted, I know and I apologize. But that's what happens when life hits you smack in the face and since hitting the ground running, you haven't stopped. But I figured I would weigh in on this teacher pay issue we're experiencing in South Dakota.
I recently got into a discussion with someone and a comment that was made really made me bristle. It really got my goat, you know? Here's the exact comment for you: "Find a first grade teacher who can throw like Cam or Payton and we'll pay them millions...to throw a football."
Let me get this straight. The implication being stated here is the work that I do is not as valuable as the work that an NFL player does? The hours I spend trying to teach kids in creative and innovative ways so that school isn't "boring" and "a waste of time" to them isn't worth jack compared to the ability to throw a pigskin down a field? How is the value (return on investment) that we as teachers pour into students proportionate to the long duration of our employment? Heck, I would learn how to be an NFL player, even if it was to be paid millions to be the back-up kicker and ride the bench all year for a short period of employment. But where's the value in that? These guys can be role models for kids, absolutely! Plus being in the national spotlight gives them great opportunities to be role models for kids. But that's not the same as shaping the minds of the future generations into thinking for themselves and discovering their purpose. That's the value of teaching. Can football do that?
Don't get me wrong, I love football. But in my opinion, this pay difference IS sad. It's vexing to be honest. I'm not saying that Cam and Peyton don't work hard. But they get paid millions to play sports. To throw a pigskin down a field. To catch a ball and run with it. After they retire, they would never need to work another day in their lives. You have teachers and veterans being forced to pick up 2nd and 3rd jobs in order to afford to live.
Show me an NFL player that can teach groups of kids effectively on the salary that I make, which is 0.00161905 of what they make a year (looking at Cam's annual salary), while also being heavily scrutinized and bombarded with content standards and standardized tests that have nothing to do with learning and everything to do with being a good test taker. So for every dollar I make, Cam makes $617.65. Soldiers get crap pay and they protect our country, sacrifice a lot of the comforts we have, go through things just so we here at home never have to experience them. A teacher (and I'm speaking from personal experience here) gets paid crap pay for the amount of work that they do. It's not just knowing my content area and finding multiple ways to teach it to students so that they understand the concepts and apply them. It's not just an 8-5 job, Monday through Friday. It's all hours of the day, 7 days a week. I don't have the luxury of an offseason. My summer is used to prepare for the upcoming year by reflecting on the last year's lessons and how I'm going to improve those lessons. During the school year from 8-4, I have students in my room and we're off to the intellectual races. After those instructional hours, it's lesson planning and grading on top of trying to find resources while proving to the department of education that I'm an effective teacher. It's communicating with parents and being a professional in dealing with many different aspects. Which is a whole other topic I'd like to get to at a later time.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. And it isn't all doom and gloom. I love what I do and I love those kids. I love watching them come to a realization or take what I am teaching to the next level. Finding a book that holds them captive within the confines of its pages. The good far outweighs any bad and the bad instances are few and far in between. But, not everyone can be a teacher. It's hard work and it takes a lot of practice and failing in order to be a better teacher. Here's an acronym I use with my students: F.A.I.L. = First Attempt In Learning. I'm not trying to say that I'm valuable and I deserve better pay. I'm saying that I aspire to be a better teacher because if I do the bare minimum, I'm failing those kids. I have just affected them in a negative way and the consequences won't be immediately seen. How could I live with the weight of that? This question literally drives me to strive to be better - so that I can better serve those kids. What I am saying is that when you compare the different salaries, obviously something is seriously wrong.
Okay, seriously though let's get back on task. Let us break this whole issue of teacher pay down so thta we can better understand what I'm getting at here. Let's say on average I work 12 hours a day for 6 days (just throwing some numbers out; they vary from day to day. Sometimes 10 hours, 16 hours, 5 or 7 days) That's 3, 744 hours in a year (52 weeks) worked versus 2, 080 hours from those who work 40 hour work weeks. At $34,000 a year divided by 3, 744 hours, I make $9 an hour. Now take a look at the cost of living (i.e. school loan repayments, rent, utilities, groceries, etc.). I don't even want to figure that one out - it's that depressing. IF Cam Newton worked the same hours I did, he's still making $5,608.97 an hour compared to my $9 an hour. Math teachers, how did I do with that? I'm an English major so you have to let me know, math is not my forte.
The reason we're having a problem in South Dakota is because it is too easy to jump into another state and get better pay. Or even to get a waitressing job which I could make more money and work 40 hours a week instead of what I do now. I could go back to working at Wal-Mart as a CSM and make more money an hour while only having to work 40 hours a week. Obviously I'm not in it for the money, I'm teaching in order to try to create a positive learning environment. But the pay does suck.
Here's a little video that really sums up nicely what I'm trying to get at here:
If you've stuck with me this far, I really appreciate your interest! Thank you for taking the time to read this post and hopefully it gets you thinking!
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Teaching Isn't So Scary!
So I apologize ahead of time if I rabbit trail at all during this but I just need to share how awesome my student teaching semester is going so far!
This week was the first week I started teaching in one of my cooperating teacher's classes. And despite the fact that I should have been nervous, I wasn't on Monday. Like everyone who knows me, knows I should have been a nervous wreck but with a bunch of people praying for me, I firmly believe that that is the reason I was calm. I did send a quick text to my mom to pray for me but that was the extent of my freaking out. I just buckled down and completed the first lesson I wanted to accomplish and was prepared for class to begin. After that first lesson, I was totally pumped about teaching! To hear that all the students were actually interested in the book, Touching the Void, was just awesome. I read it beforehand in a day - it was just that good! But that's just my reading speed, I know that isn't the speed it will take us to read the book :)
Today I had to be gone from the school to attend a diversity-technology conference. To be honest, I was bummed because I didn't want to miss class. I decided that I would create a presentation using Google Drive and break students into the groups I had seen them in. I then assigned each group a different mountain (I googled top 10 deadly mountains to make the list interesting!). The mountains were K2, Mt. Everest, Annapurna, The Eiger, Matterhorn, and Mount McKinley. I asked them to find specific information: geography/description of the mountain/height, first known ascent, deaths, any interesting facts, and at least one picture of the mountain. I was nervous to find out how this had gone, especially since I wasn't there to answer any questions.
Skip forward to the conference: I'm just going to touch on the last 3 speakers we had because I feel like I learned the most all day from them. Speaker 1: Jennifer Adams (seriously, check her website out! http://www.jenniferlynnadams.com/). From her, I learned a lot about identity and how important it is for students to know who they are. Everyone has a story that has helped to shape who they are and it's important to take time to find out people's stories. Identity is not how people see you. Identity IS the things, talents, skills, whatever that when you use them, make you happy and you enjoy doing it. And each person has a message to their story, hers was "The Power of Words". I don't know that I have figured out a phrase that perfectly describes mine, but when I do I'll let you know! I'm thinking something to do with books, like George R.R. Martin's phrase "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one." If you knew my story, I think that would make sense :) If you ever do want to know my story, let me know and we can meet up and talk!
Speaker 2: The 2014 SD Teacher of the Year, LuAnn Lindskov. She had 10 tips to teaching that I would love to share with you.
1. Build relationships with your students. Obviously this means appropriate ones, but it's more than just knowing who they are. It's getting to know them and what motivates them to learn and how they are doing.
2. Have high expectations for yourself & your students.
3. Learn from your mistakes (they are made on a daily basis) - strive to be a better teacher tomorrow than you were today.
4. Surround yourself with positive, like-minded colleagues.
5. Model lifelong learning & share your joy of learning.
6. Make your connections to real life.
7. Have a sense of humor.
8. Show your students that learning is fun & celebrate it.
9. Keep a "memory box" of notes, photos, cards, emails, etc to remind you why you teach! (And do not call this the "when I want to quit box"...negative implications)
10. Teach service to your students. This can be to look out for one another on the local level but also on a national level. Her example was talking about hungry people in other countries and her students pointed out that there is a hunger problem right here at home in America, and often in your own city. They asked to fundraise and do a backpack program for these individuals.
Speaker 3: This was actually a Google Hangout with a few of the 2013 Teacher of the Year Recipients: Brian Curtin (Illinois), Andrea Fox (North Dakota), Lauren Eckman (Georgia), and the host was with us in the room, Katie Anderson (South Dakota). Just getting to talk with teachers about different concerns we had (by the way, the were all English teachers....score!), a lot of what they were saying really resonated with me. Plus Google Hangout would be a cool way to have students get to speak with an author, definitely going to look into that!
Jump to after the meeting: I get an email from my cooperating teacher and she mentions that a student told her that they liked the assignment and would love to do more assignments this way. I not ashamed to admit that I totally started cheesing out! I'm so excited to go back tomorrow to keep teaching and learning! I'm just so pumped!!
Here are some quotes that we got throughout the day that also really hit home.
"Teaching is not what we do; it is who we are." Dr. Jill Biden
"Teach students, not subjects."
"Kids before content. Love before all." Sean McComb
" I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou
This week was the first week I started teaching in one of my cooperating teacher's classes. And despite the fact that I should have been nervous, I wasn't on Monday. Like everyone who knows me, knows I should have been a nervous wreck but with a bunch of people praying for me, I firmly believe that that is the reason I was calm. I did send a quick text to my mom to pray for me but that was the extent of my freaking out. I just buckled down and completed the first lesson I wanted to accomplish and was prepared for class to begin. After that first lesson, I was totally pumped about teaching! To hear that all the students were actually interested in the book, Touching the Void, was just awesome. I read it beforehand in a day - it was just that good! But that's just my reading speed, I know that isn't the speed it will take us to read the book :)
Today I had to be gone from the school to attend a diversity-technology conference. To be honest, I was bummed because I didn't want to miss class. I decided that I would create a presentation using Google Drive and break students into the groups I had seen them in. I then assigned each group a different mountain (I googled top 10 deadly mountains to make the list interesting!). The mountains were K2, Mt. Everest, Annapurna, The Eiger, Matterhorn, and Mount McKinley. I asked them to find specific information: geography/description of the mountain/height, first known ascent, deaths, any interesting facts, and at least one picture of the mountain. I was nervous to find out how this had gone, especially since I wasn't there to answer any questions.
Skip forward to the conference: I'm just going to touch on the last 3 speakers we had because I feel like I learned the most all day from them. Speaker 1: Jennifer Adams (seriously, check her website out! http://www.jenniferlynnadams.com/). From her, I learned a lot about identity and how important it is for students to know who they are. Everyone has a story that has helped to shape who they are and it's important to take time to find out people's stories. Identity is not how people see you. Identity IS the things, talents, skills, whatever that when you use them, make you happy and you enjoy doing it. And each person has a message to their story, hers was "The Power of Words". I don't know that I have figured out a phrase that perfectly describes mine, but when I do I'll let you know! I'm thinking something to do with books, like George R.R. Martin's phrase "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one." If you knew my story, I think that would make sense :) If you ever do want to know my story, let me know and we can meet up and talk!
Speaker 2: The 2014 SD Teacher of the Year, LuAnn Lindskov. She had 10 tips to teaching that I would love to share with you.
1. Build relationships with your students. Obviously this means appropriate ones, but it's more than just knowing who they are. It's getting to know them and what motivates them to learn and how they are doing.
2. Have high expectations for yourself & your students.
3. Learn from your mistakes (they are made on a daily basis) - strive to be a better teacher tomorrow than you were today.
4. Surround yourself with positive, like-minded colleagues.
5. Model lifelong learning & share your joy of learning.
6. Make your connections to real life.
7. Have a sense of humor.
8. Show your students that learning is fun & celebrate it.
9. Keep a "memory box" of notes, photos, cards, emails, etc to remind you why you teach! (And do not call this the "when I want to quit box"...negative implications)
10. Teach service to your students. This can be to look out for one another on the local level but also on a national level. Her example was talking about hungry people in other countries and her students pointed out that there is a hunger problem right here at home in America, and often in your own city. They asked to fundraise and do a backpack program for these individuals.
Speaker 3: This was actually a Google Hangout with a few of the 2013 Teacher of the Year Recipients: Brian Curtin (Illinois), Andrea Fox (North Dakota), Lauren Eckman (Georgia), and the host was with us in the room, Katie Anderson (South Dakota). Just getting to talk with teachers about different concerns we had (by the way, the were all English teachers....score!), a lot of what they were saying really resonated with me. Plus Google Hangout would be a cool way to have students get to speak with an author, definitely going to look into that!
Jump to after the meeting: I get an email from my cooperating teacher and she mentions that a student told her that they liked the assignment and would love to do more assignments this way. I not ashamed to admit that I totally started cheesing out! I'm so excited to go back tomorrow to keep teaching and learning! I'm just so pumped!!
Here are some quotes that we got throughout the day that also really hit home.
"Teaching is not what we do; it is who we are." Dr. Jill Biden
"Teach students, not subjects."
"Kids before content. Love before all." Sean McComb
" I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou
And to add my own two cents:
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