Chapter 10: Winter Break is Coming

When I was younger, snow days were the single greatest thing on the face of the planet. It was like Christmas, my birthday, and my sister's birthday (because, when you're the younger sibling, you're expected to tag along and enjoy the ride) all rolled into one, with the added fun of it being a complete and total surprise. My sister and I would even do snow dances together to try and get the weather to cooperate.

In that last respect, things have not exactly...changed.

I will also say that snow days are still completely awesome. They are filled with relaxation, books, baking, video games (so...much...Mario Party...), and movies.

So...my taste's can be a little...interesting?

An apple-vanilla pie, sprinkled with cinnamon.

Obligatory picture from my walk. Not pictured: ICE OF DEATH!!

Which all goes to say that I've been enjoying my two extra-days of Winter Break. True, Portland Public took forever to decide not to have school on Thursday, but that's neither here nor there.

Having said that, I'm also kind of disappointed. See, Portland is probably going to add days on to the end of the year to make up for these missed days. However, my time with my kids is much more limited, because my student teaching only goes until April 21st, meaning that these are two-days I will not be getting back.

I really like my kids. I mean, I say that about every group of students that I've ever had, and I mean it every time. It always makes me sad to leave them, and I am always cognizant of how little time I have. So, going into this position, I knew that I would get about seven months to be a part of their lives. In those seven months, I would make whatever impact I was going to make, teach them whatever lessons I was going to teach, and help however I was going to help them.

And now, I have lost two precious days.

My personal philosophy of teaching is that the class works best when the students have some input, and material relates back to them. It kind of means that my lesson plans aren't planned out too far in advance, and that nothing is ever glued down until the last time that I teach it (like Tuesday, when I completely threw out my lesson plan about two-hours before my class because I had the inkling of something better, which turned out amazing). However, these past three weeks I have been a bit more overbearing than I like. Basically, over Thanksgiving break I planned out three weeks worth of material--which is way more in advance than I usually do things--and...I would say that it didn't work out as well as usual, because I feel as though I wasn't giving the kids input. I also diverged from the lesson flow that I'd developed over the passed month.

This last Friday, though, was going to change all of that. We were going to end on a day filled with things that they'd showed interest in. We were going to learn the chorus for the Latin-America-Spanish version of, "Let it Go," and how to tie bow ties. I cannot say how excited I was for that lesson. And now...I may never get to teach it. I want to teach the kids these things, but I don't know when I'll get to do it.

*Sigh*

Lesson learned. I do need to work on finding more ways to let the kids have more roles in class. I'm toying with having kids lead the story creation, with me just there to translate and turn it all into excellent Spanish, and having students draw pictures to help create a Spanish-English class dictionary to add to their Google Classroom. Basic ideas to toy around with, so we'll see if anything comes of them.

One last bit of my personal philosophy.

A lot of teachers use tangible rewards. You do well, you get candy/ a key chain/ the bones of an archeopteryx to divine the future (and yes, Firefox dictionary, that is a word). Personally, I'm more about giving kids experiences. It might be because I like collecting them (why else would I scurry out in the middle of a snow-storm, winds howling away, just to see what my usual walk in the park would be like under those conditions? Or ride my bike through below freezing conditions to school? Or put ketchup and cottage cheese on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?). It could also be that experiences last longer than material things. At the end of the day, given the choice, I will give my students an experience to last them a life time. That's why I made sure to let my kids out to play in the snow for the last few minutes of the last two periods of my day. I even made a deal with them, where if they focused they could go out. It's amazing how great kids act when they have something to work towards. My only regret is that I didn't give the same incentive to my fourth period class. But that was the end of two days of awkward lessons for that class, because that's what they wanted, and that's what they were interested in.

This has been another adventure in the austentatious. If you liked it, tell your friends; if you hated it, tell your enemies; and if you don't care either way, then tell everyone. Good night, and stay warm.