Let's Play!

Our first game is tomorrow and I am more than excited! I know that I won't be able to sleep this evening. The last time that happened we won it so that is something to keep in mind. Of course, when have I ever been able to sleep the night before a game?

I had my student teacher orientation meeting today and it had to be the first meeting at IUK that I actually enjoyed. I can "see the light at the end of the tunnel" so to speak. Plus, I am really excited that one of my university advisers was a middle school social studies teacher for over 30 years. He seems like a really great person and is highly regarded by many people. It will be a good fit.

The first proof of the basketball program came in today. Overall, it looked awesome even though there are a few things that will probably be changed. I know that I could never do something like that.

Well, I am off to parts unknown as I wait for the games to begin tomorrow. I will keep you updated on how the girls do. Excited does not even cover how pumped up they are for tomorrow! It will be a great day regardless of how the games play out.

It's finally time to play some basketball! I leave you with a pep talk from Coach Holtz which is fitting for our upcoming invitational this weekend.

Wild and Crazy Weeks

It has been a wild and crazy couple of weeks! Alright, let's just skip the chatter and get right into what I have been up to since my last post which was way too long ago.

Well, first of all, I have been completing my high school practicum experience at Kokomo High School since Monday of last week. I only have three days left and has it been a career-changing ride. I started it with no experience whatsoever in a high school classroom and am now leaving very comfortable with the idea of not teaching in a middle school.

That being said, I still think that I am looking to find a middle school teaching job just because of the atmosphere of the school itself. However, let's see what I say in a few months when I actually have to to start looking for one. But despite not wanting to continue within the high school, I have learned a great deal that will no doubt help me for the future.

Also upon the horizon (less than 6 days to be exact but that is only if you are counting), basketball season is about to begin! After months of waiting and endless countdowns on Facebook, it is finally here! Up until last evening, I have never been able to understand why I enjoy coaching this sport so much. Last evening, I finally got my answer.

I was watching the IU basketball game on Monday evening and, during a break in the action, the cameras turned to Kelvin Sampson's father. Interestingly but not surprising at all, Sampson's father had been a great basketball coach himself in the state of North Carolina.

After talking about the great success that he had, they talked about something that helped me understand why I get so hyped up about teaching a simple little game.

The sportscasters stated that Sampson's father was never always blessed with the most talented players in the state. In fact, his teams were never really picked to do well during many of his seasons. However, he was able to get the most out of his players when they were facing incredibly difficult odds. In other words, his players usually performed their best when they were the underdog.

One of the sportscasters then went on to comment that the fun thing about coaching is that you get to take a group of kids and turn them into a team over the course of just a few months. The cool thing is that you yourself are taken along for the ride and get to see each kid grow and develop throughout the season as a person and a basketball player. At season's end, it is always the most marvelous thing to see just how far the kids come in that short amount of time.

I think that the sportscaster hit the nail on the head with this comment. When I look back on all of my coaching experiences (even though I have many more ahead of me), the fun part is looking back and seeing just how far a team has come from where they started.

Also, the games and matches that I most remember might even surprise some people. As a wise coach once told me, coaching is not about winning the games that you should win. Coaching is about winning the games that you shouldn't and are not supposed to win. When I look back on all of the great games that I have been able to coach, the games in which we were truly the underdogs stand out most in my mind.

I have written about them before so I am sure that it is pretty easy to guess what games I am talking about. However, when I think about the incredible odds that were overcome in those games, I am indeed thankful and gratified to have been apart of them and to have shared it with such great kids.

Honestly, when your team wins a double overtime thriller while shooting 16% from the field against an opponent who beat you by over 20 points just a month earlier, you tend to remember it. Even though I will see plenty in the years to come, I highly doubt that I will ever be involved in a miraculous experience like that ever again. No matter how old I get or how far I travel, the picture taken from that experience will always be close by because it was that special of an event.

As I said, it has been a pretty bumpy ride these past two weeks and to be honest it doesn't look like things will be slowing down anytime soon. But, I do know that I wouldn't have it any other way because I am confident that I will have a few more pictures taken of miraculous games in my lifetime.

Thankful but still Confused

I took some time this evening to relax. I spent most of it surrounded by friends who very much share my theories on non-intellectual conversation. To be quite honest, it was borderline middle-school conversation.

I really needed this time with my friends this evening. Probably because I feel as if I am just barely able to keep my head above water with everything that I am "required" to do to become a "qualified" teacher.

The very moment I start thinking about all of the final "hoops" (and yes, they are hoops) that I am going to have to jump through within the next few months I begin to become very nervous and nauseated. Almost to the point that it feels as if my heart is going to pop out of my chest.

I am getting to the point to where I am beginning to grow tired of having to constantly prove that I can manage a classroom, know my subject material, or that I even have what it takes to become an educator. I thought that the process of education was so that it could give us the tools to help us in the workforce.

I never thought that it would consist of me having to actually "prove" that my education has been effective or that they have greatly helped me grow as a person. I have learned a great deal while in college (do not get me wrong about that) but the classroom environment is not where I feel the majority of my "professional growth" has taken place.

To be honest, my biggest growth has not come from my time as a student but rather from my work in the field. Here is where my "professional growth" has occurred; not from a classroom but from my time spent as an intern and as a coach. Seeing things first hand. Making mistakes and then learning from them for the next time. This is what true learning is right?

I guess the main question that I want to have answered is "Why must I constantly be having to provide evidence for my learning when the amount that I have learned cannot be measured so simply in the form of essays, tests, and lessons plans?" Don't be mistaken, I am thankful for being given the opportunity of a top quality education. I just wish I understood it a little better.

Even though this question will never be answered to my liking and I will probably never fully understand anything about becoming a teacher, I am truly grateful to my friends for helping me to have a relaxing evening. Thanks guys!

Hot Dogs and Coaching

What an amazing day! The weather was perfect, the events were exciting, and the hot dogs at the ballpark were warm.

It was a pretty successful day of subbing at Tipton today. I learned some very important things about how I want to run my own classroom when I get it.

I think what I learned about the most was expectations about my students. For me, it is very saddening to see someone give up on a student and to think that they cannot achieve great things.

Granted, as my friend Chad says, "Life is not a beautiful field of daisies, dancing kittens, and sunshine and rainbows." But, it is my hope to never become complacent and jaded with my work.

I am sure that there will be bad days but I really hope that I am able to keep the same level of passion and energy throughout my entire career. It is not fair to me or the students if I don't.

After my day of learning, I was very busy visiting tennis practices, going to track meets (my players kicked major butt again! Good job ladies!), and attending my good friend David's baseball game.

Even though I told him that all I needed was a Coke and a hot dog to enjoy myself, I was extremely impressed with the way he handled himself and how well prepared his players were for the game this afternoon.

In thrilling fashion, they defeated a very talented team 4-3 in one of the more memorable baseball games that I have seen in a while. I think the main reason that I enjoyed myself so much was because I have been in his position before. Seeing our players perform to the level that they are capable of makes winning and losing seem so small in the grand scheme of things.

Good job tonight buddy! I hope you continue to have that same passion for coaching and baseball. If for no other reason than giving me an excuse to come to the ballpark to watch your team along with enjoying my Coke and hot dog.

The Last Day of Education Class

My classes for this semester are now complete and my summer vacation has just begun. I am very happy to see this semester end because it seems as it has been much more stressful than others in the past.

Right now, I only have three more classes that I have to take before I start my student teaching. I am looking forward to it because I will be paired up with a well-respected teacher in a subject area and grade level that I very much enjoy.

My last education class of the year was definitely a site to see as our teacher went around the room asking each of us whether we preferred to teach in high school or middle school after studying both throughout the year. Almost everyone in the room other than me wanted to teach in high school.

The most popular answer I heard was because the content in high school was more in depth than it was in middle school.

Another interesting comment that I heard was that they did not go to college for four years to talk about the basic principles of their subject.

A recurring comment that I have heard throughout the year has been, "Kids in middle school have raging hormones and too many emotions for me to teach them."

Lastly, others were upset with their student teaching placements because it was not at the level that they wanted to teach.

I don't know why these comments bothered me but they did. One of the reasons might be because I enjoy teaching middle school. Also it really does not matter to me what level I teach at as long as I get to coach and be involved with the school and community.

Then their was the "raging hormones" issue that always gets brought up. My understanding was that all people have a wide range of emotions that are uncontrollable. We have seen plenty of this from anyone who has competed on American Idol and Deal or No Deal.

I guess the real thing that I was feeling as I left that class was that we are teachers; nothing more, nothing less. Our job is not to impress our students with the wide range of knowledge we gained in college or to load them down with mindless content drivel.

I see our job as a position that should inspire them to seek out that knowledge for themselves and achieve their potential. I think that some of us take our content way too seriously and forget that we are really there for the students.

My feeling is that if a person's sole purpose for entering education is the content then I think that it should be time to find a new career. As we all know, education and teaching is so much more than just scientific theory, equations, and diagramming sentences.

Protest comes to IUK

As many of my Indiana University Kokomo readers may have heard, a protest will being coming to our campus this Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. in the Quad.

What will this protest be about you may ask? Well, I am glad that you asked because the protest will not be about the Iraq War. The protest will not be about the genocide in Darfur. No, it will not even be about the treatment of all of our veterans.

The protest taking place will be over mandatory classroom attendance and a professor's right to implement it into the college classroom at my university.

For me, it is an unfortunate event simply because there are so many other things that are more important than having the right to skip class without be penalized for it.

Right now, we have young men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan who need people making their voices heard about how they get the shaft in benefits when they come home.

Right now, we have not had any major Education reform since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 which has never been fully funded.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, these issues will not be discussed when protest comes to IUK on Tuesday.

Thank you Mr. Orr!

I received a forward from a former teacher of mine today that I thought was pretty interesting. Normally, I do not pay too much attention to email forwards but this teacher is pretty special. Few educators allow you to watch classic films of the Marx Brothers in class.

Also, as part of his graduation gift to me he gave me some great advice by giving me a card with a picture of himself. Next to the picture, he wrote me a little note - "Make sure that you don't look like this when you get older." So, in honor of this great English teacher, here it is.

Have you heard about the next planned "Survivor" show? Three businessmen and three businesswomen will be dropped into 3 Elementary school classrooms for 6 weeks.

Each business person will be provided with a copy of his/her school districts curriculum, and a class of 28 students.

Each class will have five learning-disabled children, three with A.D.D.,one gifted child, and two who speak limited English.

Three will be labeled with severe behavior problems. Each business person must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create materials accordingly.

They will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, and arrange parent conferences.

They must also supervise recess and monitor the hallways. In addition, they will complete drills for fire, tornadoes, terrorists and shooting attacks.

They must attend 100 hours of workshops, faculty meetings, union meetings, and curriculum development meetings.

They must also tutor those students who are behind and strive to get their 2 non-English speaking children proficient enough to take the ISTEP+ tests.

If they are sick or having a bad day, they must not let it show. Each day they must incorporate reading, writing, math, science, and social studies into their program.

They must maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment at all times.

The business people will only have access to the golf course on the weekends, but on their new salary they will not be able to afford it anyway.

There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunch will be limited to 30 minutes.

On days when they do not have recess duty, the business people will be permitted to use the staff restroom as long as another survival candidate is supervising their class.

They will be provided with two, 40-minute planning periods per week while their students are at activity classes. If the copier is operable, they may make copies of necessary materials at this time.

The business people must continually advance their own education on their own time, and pay for this advanced training themselves.

This can be accomplished by moonlighting at a second job or marrying someone with money.

The winner will be allowed to return to his or her former job.

Thank you Mr. Orr!

Mr. Etherington's Room

I started working on my e-Portfolio for my education certification this evening. Basically, we have to find artifacts that illustrate the different meta-standards that the university wants us to meet by the time we are ready to enter the Teaching profession.

It was kinda funny because a couple of the meta-standards include community involvement and working with extra-curricular activities in a school. Needless to say, I highly doubt that I will have too much trouble finding material for those two sections.

It was also pretty interesting looking at some of my old reports and writings from the past few years. One of the reports that I found was a research paper on bullying within schools.

I wanted to write on that topic because for much of my elementary years, I got picked on quite a bit (shocking isn't it). I can vividly remember it getting so bad that I would come home from school in tears most evenings.

With the passage of time, I have gotten over what the bullies did to me, but in the words of President John F. Kennedy, I have not forgotten their names. I do, however, consider myself lucky because I never had to deal with the cyberbullying that many of today's kids have to deal with.

Honestly, getting picked on is one of the worst things that kids have to go through during the school day. What is even worse is when that bullying extends beyond the school into the child's home. Bullying at school is bad but I think that cyberbullying is just as bad if not worse. Bullying is such a gutless and cowardly way to treat someone.

Kids should feel safe when they go to school and they should feel just as safe when they chose to go online at home. No kid deserves to go through treatment like that.

It is true that we can't protect them from everything but I do know that teachers can do their best to stop that kind of behavior in their classrooms. I know that it will most certainly not be tolerated in Mr. Etherington's room.

"It is so choice."

The first day of school after Spring Break has come and gone. Even though I miss not wearing my pajamas all day like I did for most of last week, it felt really good to get up early and get back to work.

I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel with my schooling. The semester is about complete and all I have left are a couple of education courses over the next few months.

I actually finished my Government Packet for my group project. It looks pretty good. Not bad for my first set of worksheets.

It was also glad to see all of my friends at school again. I have been kind of neglecting them with my outside of school jobs so I am really looking forward to hanging out with them more. Even though most of them are wanting to graduate, I am kinda glad that they will be sticking around next year.

Unlike others in my past, they have been there for me which has helped me through some difficult times.

The other night was especially true when I needed some advice from an outside and neutral source. Of course hearing the truth is never easy but what kind of friend sugar coats what you really need to hear?

The advice put things into perspective and gave me a very good outlook on things. It definitely helped and I hope that things will continue to be that way. Especially if my friends giving me advice involves an iced tea from McAlister's.

Simply put, the tea is amazing. "It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."

"Boring" Stuff is Necessary

I was surprised yet again today. It was just when I thought that my college education could not get anymore interesting. In order to study the nervous system, we watched a segment from Schoolhouse Rock. Enough said.

Anyway, today is game day. After I wrap up my class here in about 40 minutes, I will be traveling down to Tipton. We play Elwood this evening so I am sure that the crowd will be fired up for this game.

The team is doing really well. The "A" team is undefeated still at 7-0. The "B" team is 2-5 but I think we've got a good shot of improving it over the next few weeks.

I really have very little to write about today. I cannot quite think of anything really. I do know that I am tired of being a student. Also, I am tired of being told what to learn.

So many times I have noticed that the instructor is more worried about finding something that will interest the kids instead of trying to find ways to make those "boring" subjects more understandable to the kids.

Granted, teaching kids about the Fourth Amendment of our Constitution is no picnic. When kids hear search and seizure I am pretty sure that they are thinking, "We never had seizure's when we searched for something." But maybe we could make it a little more interesting if we discussed one thing that is very important to a young kid - their room.

Instead of talking about British soldiers entering a colonists house, let's first talk about Mom, Dad, or Grandma coming into a kid's room and messing with their stuff. It can be little things from messing with the posters on the wall or big things like deleting songs on their Ipod. "Oh heck no!" is what they would say and then I think we could introduce the "boring" stuff.

I believe that the true difficulty and great challenge of being a teacher is trying to make kids understand the things that they consider boring. Also, just because a subject may seem boring does not mean that we cannot and should not teach it.

We have to remember what it was that made it boring for us as kids and put a new twist on it so that our kids will not have the same experience. We might surprise ourselves.