I'm a new soul
I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit 'bout how to give and take
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear
Finding myself making every possible mistake
See I'm a young soul in this very strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit 'bout what is true and fake
But why all this hate? try to communicate
Finding trust and love is not always easy to make
This is a happy end
Cause you don't understand
Everything you have done
Why's everything so wrong
This is a happy end
Come and give me your hand
I'll take you far away
I'm a new soul
I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit 'bout how to give and take
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear
Finding myself making every possible mistake
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Will the real Ms. Duncan please stand up?
So I was given the wrong email address for one of my parents (unknowingly to both parties, of course), and the following is the email I got back from the "wrong" Ms. Duncan:
Ms. Gauthier, I’m afraid that you have the wrong e-mail address. If this was my child, I would definitely do more than just talk to him (because I’m old school), but I’m afraid I can’t help you. I hope you are able to contact the Ms. Duncan you are seeking and that she can help you solve this problem. I know it takes patience and perseverance to be a teacher. I applaud your efforts and wish you well.
At first I was a little embarrased about this mistake, but after reading it over again, I decided it was a wonderful treat from an honest mistake. I hope the real Ms. Duncan responds in a similar fashion (yes, I do have the right email now!)
Ms. Gauthier, I’m afraid that you have the wrong e-mail address. If this was my child, I would definitely do more than just talk to him (because I’m old school), but I’m afraid I can’t help you. I hope you are able to contact the Ms. Duncan you are seeking and that she can help you solve this problem. I know it takes patience and perseverance to be a teacher. I applaud your efforts and wish you well.
At first I was a little embarrased about this mistake, but after reading it over again, I decided it was a wonderful treat from an honest mistake. I hope the real Ms. Duncan responds in a similar fashion (yes, I do have the right email now!)
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
And we have reconnection
With my seemingly increasing waist-line, I have been finding solace solely with my students:
Student 1: "Oooh, Ms. Gauthier, you be getting big."
Me: "Um, is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
Student 1: "It's a good thing. You're too skinny!"
Student 2: "Yeah, you look good."
I know I haven't posted in a while, and this may seem like a strange post to reconnect, but I've been rolling this around in my head all day. I was wondering why my students don't think my moderatly skinny look is good, or mores-, why a more round shape is better.
I have two theories:
1) It's a cultural thing. Black women may just be more naturally curvy, therefore it's a more attractive feature to have a belly. See, Venus of Willendorf:
She was a symbol of fertility and beauty to her culture because that's just what women looked like.
It makes sense. Big or small, my students seem to overwhelmingly like who they are, and loudly profess they would not change an inch of their body for anyone (re-asserting my belief that Read 180 was not designed for my demographic; we just did a unit on peer pressure, and one of the articles was about self-esteem and how a lot of girls go on extreme diets because they don't like how they look. It went RIGHT OVER their heads. None of them could believe anyone would actually do that).
OR
2) This body type is not necessarily inherent to the culture, but attraction to this body type has grown out of the recent diet of low-income families. I see what my students eat - it's no wonder why they think my naturally skinny physique is something to be gawked at. If a whole group of people ate what they ate (they actually remarked this morning, in a dicussion on healthy foods to eat before the Leap test, that a snickers bar was a high-protein food) all the women would be curvey with a carb/sugar/fat-induced belly. Not saying it's their fault in any way, no one has taught them (or their parents, probably) what is healthy. Heck no one has really taught children, low-income or high-income what a healthy meal looks like. However, a high-income community may be over-eating and poorly eating, they still ashere to the notion that skinny is beautiful. No exceptions. Whereas my students love and accept their bodies the way they are, fat or naturally skinny. And that leads me to the question: which is better - adhereance to some false idea that supermodel skinny is the only "right" way to be, or loving your body, unhealthy or not? Both are unhealthy, in their own ways.
Alas, I have digressed from my point, and I apologize. However, I have been reading Octavio Paz's "Labryinth of Solitude." Pure philosophy. I can't help this.
Student 1: "Oooh, Ms. Gauthier, you be getting big."
Me: "Um, is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
Student 1: "It's a good thing. You're too skinny!"
Student 2: "Yeah, you look good."
I know I haven't posted in a while, and this may seem like a strange post to reconnect, but I've been rolling this around in my head all day. I was wondering why my students don't think my moderatly skinny look is good, or mores-, why a more round shape is better.
I have two theories:
1) It's a cultural thing. Black women may just be more naturally curvy, therefore it's a more attractive feature to have a belly. See, Venus of Willendorf:
She was a symbol of fertility and beauty to her culture because that's just what women looked like.
It makes sense. Big or small, my students seem to overwhelmingly like who they are, and loudly profess they would not change an inch of their body for anyone (re-asserting my belief that Read 180 was not designed for my demographic; we just did a unit on peer pressure, and one of the articles was about self-esteem and how a lot of girls go on extreme diets because they don't like how they look. It went RIGHT OVER their heads. None of them could believe anyone would actually do that).
OR
2) This body type is not necessarily inherent to the culture, but attraction to this body type has grown out of the recent diet of low-income families. I see what my students eat - it's no wonder why they think my naturally skinny physique is something to be gawked at. If a whole group of people ate what they ate (they actually remarked this morning, in a dicussion on healthy foods to eat before the Leap test, that a snickers bar was a high-protein food) all the women would be curvey with a carb/sugar/fat-induced belly. Not saying it's their fault in any way, no one has taught them (or their parents, probably) what is healthy. Heck no one has really taught children, low-income or high-income what a healthy meal looks like. However, a high-income community may be over-eating and poorly eating, they still ashere to the notion that skinny is beautiful. No exceptions. Whereas my students love and accept their bodies the way they are, fat or naturally skinny. And that leads me to the question: which is better - adhereance to some false idea that supermodel skinny is the only "right" way to be, or loving your body, unhealthy or not? Both are unhealthy, in their own ways.
Alas, I have digressed from my point, and I apologize. However, I have been reading Octavio Paz's "Labryinth of Solitude." Pure philosophy. I can't help this.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Oddly good behavior
I have one, completely quiet student sitting in my classroom for lunch. And he's reading a book. These past two Fridays have been very strange. Someone needs to investigate what they're putting in the breakfasts on Friday.... actually, now that I think about it, no one needs to investigate that at all. Let's just keep it going.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
And I speak as a proud Catholic
"Time after time, they have rejected compromises on social issues because of fundamentalist rigidity, not Christian engagement with a changing world. They could have agreed, for example, to secular civil unions for gays - and not full "marriage" rights - but instead they insisted that neither were acceptable at all. They could have made a strong and vital case for the immorality and evil of abortion as a civil-rights issue, without demanding it be criminalized by the state. They could have accepted a compromise on contraception in health-care policies, but they have refused...
...And the obsession among Catholic and evangelical leaders with an issue like contraception stands in stark contrast to their indifference to, for example, the torture in which the last administration engaged, the growing social inequality fostered by unfettered capitalism, the Christian moral imperative of universal health care, and the unjust use of the death penalty."
I am in no way trying to start anything here, I just needed to express how wonderful this Newsweek article is. And what does this have to do with teaching? Well, I'm reading the article on my planning period, and let's face it - I deal with the intelligences of 8th graders all day. I needed an intellectually stimulating post.
...And the obsession among Catholic and evangelical leaders with an issue like contraception stands in stark contrast to their indifference to, for example, the torture in which the last administration engaged, the growing social inequality fostered by unfettered capitalism, the Christian moral imperative of universal health care, and the unjust use of the death penalty."
I am in no way trying to start anything here, I just needed to express how wonderful this Newsweek article is. And what does this have to do with teaching? Well, I'm reading the article on my planning period, and let's face it - I deal with the intelligences of 8th graders all day. I needed an intellectually stimulating post.
Monday, February 13, 2012
A healthy classroom, one panther buck at a time.
No, I'm not talking about the way my students treat each other (or me) because that still pretty much sucks. I am talking about what my students eat. I may be kind of sucking as a reading teacher, but I've found a new excitement in teaching my kids how to make healthier eating choices. Realistically, I am probably not going to stop them from bringing a purse full of candy to school or having hot cheetos for breakfast, but I am going to make sure I'm only encouraging healthy decisions.
- Being a role model; anyone that knows me knows I love anything with sugar, particularly because I can eat it for all three meals and never gain a pound. However, more and more students spend lunch in my classroom now, and it's very contradictory for me to say "don't eat that entire bag of jolly ranchers for breakfast" and then I have a bag of cookies with a side of tootsie rolls at lunch. I've started bringing soley granola bars, fruit, and a real main course at lunch so when my students ask for food, I only have healthy things to give to them (and guess what - they're hungry and they'll eat it!). I gave a granola bar to an unwilling student today (she wanted a bag of chips), and she finally ate it and came back to me and said "Ms. Gauthier, that bar thing was actually really good!" Winning.
- Encouraging healthy choices through panther bucks; Yes, those little slips of aper I give out for good behavior that practically cause a daily riot in my classroom because goodness forbid, I passed a student up who swears he or she was on task! They trade them in at the end of the week for candy, chips, and poweraids because I was under the assumption that's the only thing that would motivate them. Actually, yet again, my students surprise me, and they in fact, do like healthy things - they're just not going to eat them as a default (oh, students, I do empathize with you). Therefore, I'm starting to do what the government doesn't have the balls to do: all the new healthy things at my panther buck store are going to be dirt cheap, whereas the healthy chips and candy prices are going to be jacked way up to encourage healthy buying. I know this isn't teaching them real-life, but hopefully I will enstill the idea in their mind that it is more worthwhile to go for the healthy choice. And if they want to still choose unhealthy, hey, it's gonna cost them.
- CALLING ALL 8TH GRADERS (or those of us that still think like an 8th grader); my students have given me some ideas of healthy things they actually do like (and are realistic to sell to students during the last 10 minutes of class on Fridays) such as oranges (like the little cuties ones that come in the bags), granola bars. BUT I NEED MORE IDEAS. What do middle school/ high school students like they are actually healthy and do not cost Ms. Gauthier a fortune to buy every week. Comments would be appreciated on this post, with any ideas that you have!
- Being a role model; anyone that knows me knows I love anything with sugar, particularly because I can eat it for all three meals and never gain a pound. However, more and more students spend lunch in my classroom now, and it's very contradictory for me to say "don't eat that entire bag of jolly ranchers for breakfast" and then I have a bag of cookies with a side of tootsie rolls at lunch. I've started bringing soley granola bars, fruit, and a real main course at lunch so when my students ask for food, I only have healthy things to give to them (and guess what - they're hungry and they'll eat it!). I gave a granola bar to an unwilling student today (she wanted a bag of chips), and she finally ate it and came back to me and said "Ms. Gauthier, that bar thing was actually really good!" Winning.
- Encouraging healthy choices through panther bucks; Yes, those little slips of aper I give out for good behavior that practically cause a daily riot in my classroom because goodness forbid, I passed a student up who swears he or she was on task! They trade them in at the end of the week for candy, chips, and poweraids because I was under the assumption that's the only thing that would motivate them. Actually, yet again, my students surprise me, and they in fact, do like healthy things - they're just not going to eat them as a default (oh, students, I do empathize with you). Therefore, I'm starting to do what the government doesn't have the balls to do: all the new healthy things at my panther buck store are going to be dirt cheap, whereas the healthy chips and candy prices are going to be jacked way up to encourage healthy buying. I know this isn't teaching them real-life, but hopefully I will enstill the idea in their mind that it is more worthwhile to go for the healthy choice. And if they want to still choose unhealthy, hey, it's gonna cost them.
- CALLING ALL 8TH GRADERS (or those of us that still think like an 8th grader); my students have given me some ideas of healthy things they actually do like (and are realistic to sell to students during the last 10 minutes of class on Fridays) such as oranges (like the little cuties ones that come in the bags), granola bars. BUT I NEED MORE IDEAS. What do middle school/ high school students like they are actually healthy and do not cost Ms. Gauthier a fortune to buy every week. Comments would be appreciated on this post, with any ideas that you have!
Friday, February 10, 2012
Mentoree
I have a mentor teacher!!!! And she's going to actually get someone to get me new computers to replace the broken ones in my classroom!
Yes, I was supposed to be assigned a mentor teacher at the beginning of the school year, but you know, better late than never? I am so excited to fianlly, actually maybe talk to someone at this school that knwos what the heck she's doing (because I guess of all my friends here, I have a tendency to pair up with the ones who equally don't know what the hell they're doing). We'll see how this plays out, but we do have a meeting set up for next week, so it's a start.
Yes, I was supposed to be assigned a mentor teacher at the beginning of the school year, but you know, better late than never? I am so excited to fianlly, actually maybe talk to someone at this school that knwos what the heck she's doing (because I guess of all my friends here, I have a tendency to pair up with the ones who equally don't know what the hell they're doing). We'll see how this plays out, but we do have a meeting set up for next week, so it's a start.
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