Yo Mista!

2010 was a superb year. I'm really excited for what's to come in 2011. As expected, I plan on hibernating for the next few days. You should too. Happy Holidays!

Shit is just flying all over the place because it’s the week before winter break. Vacation is just around the corner. When I was in high school, this particular week involved taking lots and lots of finals, so I was either cramming for exams or playing Goldeneye . Or both. Those were the good old days. To be completely fair, our trimester system doesn’t coincide with winter break; we’re nearly a third of the way through our second trimester. This means our first trimester finals already passed and our second trimester finals won’t happen until end of March. So basically, there’s nothing important happening this week. Shhh, you weren't supposed to know that kids. So as you probably guessed, attendance has been horrific (less than 55% some days). Some of the students who are actually still coming are acting out of control: there’s a ridiculous amount of chatter, foul language, inappropriate conduct, etc. Some seem to be showing up to first period [on a sugar?] high or quite simply...

As a public school teacher, I'm on my feet in front of a group of teens for at least half of my work day. I have absolutely no issues presenting ideas in front of a large audience. I have no issues being the center of everyone's attention for a purpose. It recently occurred to me that I wasn't always this ballsy . Nearly ten years ago, I was an awkward, bumbling nerd giving a speech in front of my 10th grade English class. This class required every student to give informative, instructive and persuasive speeches throughout the year. There were minimum time requirements for each speech. We even had to come dressed up on speech day. My English teacher, Mr. B, would tally the number of times I'd blurt "um" and "like"  throughout my speeches. Needless to say, this was a challenging class that often scared the shit out of me. One of my most vivid memories of the class is nervously shaking behind the podium, clutching my index cards tightly as I tried ...

This last Friday was the last day of the first trimester. The first third of my second year of teaching is already over. Shit. There are lot of differences between last year and this year. I'm a little better at this game (I think) and certainly better prepared (I hope). Although I'm still working hard, I'm also working smart. I'm planning for time to think about my lessons rather than just being a mindless drone cranking out PowerPoint lessons and quizzes. I've learned I work best when I have the time to get creative, which is kind of insane because I had no idea I was capable of being "creative." Then again, number crunching 90 hours a week in Microsoft Excel wasn't exactly fostering creativity. Most of my "creative" time this trimester was spent tweaking my Personal Wealth Management class (a.k.a. finance for teens). It's an elective course at my school that is only a trimester long (12 weeks). This class serves as my escape: it ...