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School starts in just over a week. I go back to work Monday.

I love that I am able to segue from my associate job into the classroom teacher job, at the same school I was at last year. I know most of my students and am already comfortable at the school. I have a support system in place, several good friends on the staff, and know what I need to do to fit in and be a productive part of the school community. It’s a blessing to not have to fumble along in a brand new school and face class after class of students I have never seen before.

All those years ago in college I had thought I wanted to be an English teacher. I had an adviser as well as the chair of the communications department talk me out of that plan, instead convincing me I had a great career in writing. My career has been exciting, involved a lot of writing, and allowed me to accomplish a great number of interesting things. However, I never stopped knowing I would make a good teacher.

So, when I got divorced, I took a look at my life and decided to start over and accomplish some of my original goals in life. It feels good. I love my job and I adore the students. I relish how each day is different and the challenges keep coming my way. It is also easy to admit that having the summers off to be with my daughter is a dream come true. It is actually a little bit like having the best of both worlds – a satisfying carer AND the time I need to spend with my child.

I went this morning to talk to my old supervisors. They want me to come back to my old school and in fact, they are already working on the master schedule with me in mind. However, nothing is EVER set in stone in our district. Things can go wrong. They have not been able to speak to the principal yet to get the final word.

In the meantime, this afternoon I got an offer from the high school where I interviewed last week. I had to ask the gal in personnel to give me two days to work out my issues and hand her a final answer. I really do prefer to go back to my old school, but we have to ensure the spot is actually open. I do not want to turn down the other high school if I cam not 100% certain things are going to work out at my old school. And, we probably will not really know about that until Wednesday morning.

High. Anxiety. Situation.

Yesterday afternoon, not too many hours after my interview, I got a broadcast e-mail that went out to everyone at my old school. One of the teachers in my department is leaving – to be the vice principal at the high school where I had just interviewed.

That would mean I would have an advocate at that school. Even better, it would mean a vacancy at my old school! I have to jump on this one.

I had a teaching interview today. It went very well. The school is beautiful and newish. I liked the people I met who I would ultimately be working alongside. I like that it is a high school, close enough to home, and a job teaching classes that interest me. I am, however, just slightly apprehensive about the population I would be teaching. Don’t get me wrong. I love the strugglers. I have a place in my heart for them over and above a typical student. It’s just a tough group and I have heard about the high rate of teacher burnout at this particular school.

I need guidance.

Things are getting ready to ramp up in my job situation – I hope. In a week or so, the district will open jobs to others than the displaced teachers. There will be a small period where voluntary transfers will be considered first. Then, it’s open season, so to speak. I have watched positions at a lot of the schools I like come and go and it has been nearly excruciating to not be able to apply for the positions. In a couple of instances, I got as far as drafting a letter and then had to stop myself and remember that even if I did get an interview, the district hiring people would reject the recommendation for the school.

I’m hoping and praying that something opens up at my old school. That is where I really want to be.

I just posted an article about being the kind of parent who gets involved and makes sure your children stay academically sharp over the summer. One of the points I made talked about sitting down with your kid and helping them to choose a book that engaged them on a personal level.

For some kids, reading is a chose. For others, it is a delightful escape. No matter, all children need to be reading as often as possible. The more they read, the better they get at reading. The better they are at reading, the more they read. It’s an unending circle.

More often than not, someone just needs to spend one-on-one time with a child and help them to find at least one book that captures their interest. I LOVE to read, but a textbook on Economics puts me to sleep and is often a struggle for me to comprehend on a satisfactory level. I’m no different from anyone else. If we are honestly interested in what we are reading, it is easier to read.

For some kids, the text that hooks them might be a sports magazine, or a book about robots, or a story about a princess. One genre I have found interests a wide variety of children of school age is fantasy adventure. It just seems to resonate with children, probably because children have more vivid imaginations by nature than their adult counterparts.

Here then, is one reading suggestion along these lines: Chin and the Magic Stones: Book One – Becoming Guardians by L.J. Salazar.

It has adventure chock full of riddles. It has an entire world of fantasy vivid with the potential of magic. It has lessons in the value of positive thinking, and it has a protagonist that kids can relate to in our modern world. If you think your child would find joy in the fantasy genre, this is a good first book to give them as they embark on their new reading journey.

Clocking in at a brief 108 pages, Chin and the Magic Stones will not overwhelm a struggling reader. And, it will leave more confident readers anxious for the next book in the series. It is generally suited for young readers from the ages of 7 to 11, but we all know that kids read at many different levels at any given age, so this is a book actually appropriate for a much broader age range.

And, in the end, it all comes down to helping our children make reading choices that will not only engage and excite them, but also have a positive impact on their lives. Anyone who experiences Chin’s adventure along with him will come away with the benefits of some of the lessons he learns about believing in himself and understanding that positive thoughts lead to self esteem and the fulfillment of dreams. These are lessons we all need to learn – over and over.

Salazar is the father of an 11-year-old son, so you can rest assured that this story is coming from someone who understands the age group for which he is writing. On the surface, this is the exciting adventure of a boy and his dog (the extraordinary Eagle). On a deeper level, it’s a handbook for positive thought.

Take a look at Chin and the Magic Stones on Amazon’s website. You can pick it up for less than $10.

It’s summertime. At least for now, schools all over the nation are out for the season and kids (and teachers) have the opportunity to recharge and relax. I know that from a educator’s standpoint, we NEED this time to take a step back. Teachers would have meltdowns regularly if they did not have summer breaks. I know a lot of people see teaching as a job where you do not work as many hours in a day or as many days in a year as most other salaried folks, but they fail to take into consideration the almost constant engagement you have with students and their families throughout the school year. Teaching is indeed a job you take home with you.

However, that wasn’t my point. Sorry about that tangent.

My point is that, as parents, we need to make sure our kids still have opportunities to learn over the summer break. It is true that a good bit of time at the beginning of each school year is spent reteaching some of the skills kids seem to lose over the summer months. That’s not going to change.

You can help your kids stay just a little bit sharper, though, with minimal planning and effort.

Keep your kids active.
When I was a child, summer meant being outside from morning until late-night sundown. We ran and built forts and skateboarded down hills. We built dams in the creeks behind my neighborhood and explored old civil war bridges and chimneys in those same woods. Of course, I grew up in the DC outskirts of Virginia, where summers were temperate. Here in Florida I have to put a little more effort into figuring out places we can go to be active without getting to heatstroke. We load up on water and hit the local beaches and parks.

Help your kids stay interested in reading.
Especially with struggling readers, summer can mean months without picking up a books. Sit down with your child and help them find a book or magazine that is in their interest area. Find fun reading material that will wake up their imaginations. And, no matter how old your child, offer to read aloud to them. Even your teens will benefit from some reading aloud by mom or dad.

Find some fun lesson ideas.
If you are really motivated, you might even do some research and find some fun lessons online to help bolster any areas your child struggled in this past year. You don’t have to be a teacher to find a search engine and type in “lessons multiplication grade 4” – or whatever the relevant subject may be. You would be surprised at the massive cache of free worksheets and lesson ideas out there floating around in cyberspace.

I found some worksheets and learning strategies I am going to use this summer to help my daughter with some of the reversals she struggles with in reading and writing (b, d, p, etc.). I am also going to take things a step ahead and work with her on multiplication and division. She did not cover that in Kindergarten, but she loves math and actually delights in working ahead.

Anyway, my message is simply this – use the summer to keep your kids sharp. Believe me, the teachers will love you this fall. Parental involvement is something that has been proven to make a difference and teachers can tell which kids are receiving more parental involvement than others.

…, just not in Florida.

I’m stuck in Florida. At least until my daughter is 18. I cannot imagine her father being alright with us moving away. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, because the job situation here in the schools is horrific. I suppose I thought it was like that everywhere.

It’s not. When I was up in WV visiting family, I took the time to check out postings in various counties. In the county where my dad lives there are already posting for at least 4 high school level special education teachers. In the town where a lot of my family lives and at least four of my relatives teach – they have already posted job openings for 5 high school level English teachers and 4 high school level special education teachers.

It’s enough to make me feel like drawing blood, I tell you. I want to pack it all up and just move to a place that actually has the money and desire to hire teachers. Instead, I am stuck in a district that has cut almost 1000 instructional and support jobs during the past two school years.

I know the courts like to see children living close to both parents, but at what point so they become sympathetic to the fact that the mother is struggling to support the child. Sheesh.

Jack Hanna has been well-known since I was young. I grew up seeing him make the rounds on late night talk shows and TV specials. However, I have never been to any of his appearances.

Today I took my daughter to see Jack Hanna at Busch Gardens. I bought season tickets in January and made it my goal to go at least once a month. Here we are near the end of April and I realized we had not been to Busch Gardens this month. I was thrilled when I looked online and saw that Jack Hanna was scheduled to appear today. He will also be at the park next weekend, for any of you who may be in the area and missed today’s events.

He is just as endearing in person. I like the way he seems to blunder about verbally, almost stepping on his own words – all the while sounding casually informative. He’s never boring and his sense of humor is understated, sneaking up on the unsuspecting.

We had a great time and will make a point of seeing him the next time he is in town.

*sigh*

That was me releasing the pent up stress I have been holding onto for the last week and a half – ever since I took the FTCE certification exam for English 6-12 here in Florida. I went in so confident. I’ve been immersed in literature all my life and I have spent the past three years absorbing everything there is to know about teaching theory, methods, and best practices. Still, I came out of that exam with my ego deflated.

Today, though, I came home to an envelope in the mail from the testing center. I got that crazy heartbeat in my neck feeling right away. I tore open just a bit of the envelope and peeked inside. I was just looking for the word “PASSED”. I saw it right away. What relief. The notice came just in time for my application packets.

In other news…

A Reading Endorsement is a rider a teacher in Florida can earn and add to their certifications. It is required for all reading teachers and now that most schools have the pick of the best during the job shortage, anyone who teaches English really needs to have it.

I decided to go ahead and begin working on mine this spring. It has 5 competency areas and a practicum, and is at least 300 credit hours of work. I recently signed up for one of the competencies in an online cours4e,.

In the meantime, a friend of mine who already has her Reading Endorsement asked me if any of the coursework I did at St. Pete College when I was doing my teacher certification could be applied to the endorsement. I heard back today that I do not have to take competencies 3, 4, and 5 – just 1 and 2, as well as the practicum. I can get all of the coursework out of the way early this summer and all I will have to do this fall is the practicum.

That’s some great news to offset my anxiety about yesterday’s exam results.

Holy cow. I have been reviewing study materials this week for an additional subject area exam I took this afternoon. It is in my area of passion. I have more than one college degree associated with the subject. I have taken class after class on how to teach it. I am in the subject classes daily at the high school. I’m well-read and associate with others who are well-read in the subject.

Even so, I came out of the exam feeling like a simpleton. Since there was an essay involved, I did not get my score immediately and have to wait about three weeks for the results. If I did not pass, I cannot re-take the exam for at least 31 days, not to mention that it was pricey to take it in the first place.

*sigh*

I know the high school is going to be thinking about new hires soon. I need to get my little resume packet together and was hoping I could say with all honesty that all of my desired certifications were up and running.

Cross your fingers for me, or better yet say a pray. Of course, that prayer is not for me to do well on the test, since what is done is done. Those prayers would be for my wrecked nerves!

When I was growing up in Virginia, we had fire drills in school. However, I do not remember ever having air raid drills, or lockdown drills, or tornado drills. It was fire drills, and that was it.

Here in Florida, we have all kinds of drills in the schools. This week all of the schools in the district had tornado drills, for example. Face-down on the floor, knees up under your chest, hands up covering the back of your next. It seemed oddly pointless since the drill happened while I was in a classroom with a full wall of windows.

Even so, we are training our kids to understand the right way to react in the face of a crisis – be it dangerous weather or gunfire on school grounds. It’s practical and it’s absolutely part of educating our children as they head into a society that seems to modernize at a quicker and quicker rate each year.

Florida is an absolute wealth of things to do. Of course, if you are vacationing there you are probably thinking more along the lines of week-long excursions and major attractions. Living here, though, is all about the amazing day-trips we have at our fingertips all year ‘round.

The new exhibit at the Orlando Science Center is Grossology. It premiers January 31, 2009

Grossology is actually a phenomenon that started with the book by Sylvia Branzei called Grossology: The Science of Really Gross Things! We use it in the school, because the kids absolutely love it. It’s engaging, interesting, hilarious, and genuinely informative. That book led to several others in the Grossology series.

Now, you can experience Grossology hands-on with Grossology: The (Impolite) Science of the Human Body at the Orlando Science Center. This is actually the second Grossology exhibit at the Center. Adults and children alike were delighted with Animal Grossology in 2006.Other area attractions might have spinning teacups and pirate rides, but where else can you go down a 30-foot long slide that travels through a 3-D model of the digestive system? How cool is that?

Grossology Exhibit – Orlando Science Center
The Center is open Sunday – Tuesday: 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. and
Thursday – Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. You can order your tickets online, or call 888.OSC.4FUN for more information.

A lot of the conversations I have with the other teachers at the high school are about college plans for the kids. I suppose that coming from a home where it was always just assumed that I would go straight from high school to college; it feels odd to me how many kids I interact with now are not planning to go to college. In fact, when I think back to the people I went to high school with, most were college bound. Those who were not were almost always involved in a vocational program during high school.

Our kids here in the district do have access to various vo-tech programs. However, so many of them are just drudging through high school, doing just enough to pass from one grade to the next. If you have the pleasure of having the time to sit down with them and talk about the plans they have for after college, so very many of them have just not given it much thought. They are very focused on graduating their plan ends there. Well, ends might be the wrong word. What I mean is that the days after graduation are just a grey fog of generalization right now.

Yes, there are those who have already been accepted to colleges or are at least interested in thinking about their college plans. There are many who are looking at a career in the military. There are others who have vague plans about attending a vocational program after high school.

I personally do not think our kids have enough access to technical and vocational school programs during high school. Yes, the opportunities are absolutely there after high school, but so many of them could get a head start if they were involved in one of the programs within the district that they could be working on right now. And, since it would be part of the public school system, it would not cost them anything to get that head start.

I was looking over an online technical and vocational school guide and it gave me a lot of hope for so may of the kids I teach. Many of the careers I saw kids writing about for their senior research papers are careers they can have access to via technical programs, rather than a traditional 4-year college. And while I am a fan personally of a traditional college degree, I see so much merit in technical programs that move directly to prepare individuals to work in a specific career area. I’d like to see more of my students take advantage on the training and preparation they offer.