Reasons why...

Reasons why I love (yes, love) my team:
We found out Friday that there will be some staffing re-arrangements at school this year due to budgets, lower student enrollment projections, etc... It would make me so sad to lose members of my team to another team, or another school. So here's my ode to them, even though they won't be reading it.

Karen: I love how she calls us her "kids" - she makes a great "mom"! She's a fellow Ute. She is my female support on the team. I am so alone on this team of men when she's gone - all that "manly" talk could drive me crazy! She's willing to share her stuff and ideas. She knows where to find all her stuff and ideas. She doesn't mind four techies trying to teach her stuff, and embraces what she can comprehend from us all. When I taught computers, she always walked through in the mornings with a cheery "Good morning, Miss Ferrin!" She was a great help as I planned things for 5th grade to do when I taught computers, and gave me realistic expectations for those students. She's very level headed. She expects a lot of her students and of us. She's a great person to talk to and text with.

Jeff: He is willing to take on anything. He's our go-to guy for Hope of America, the Christmas Sing, UTIPS. He very willingly took on the toughest science rotation for the year. He is very cool and collected and knows what's going on. I also love his understated sense of humor and timing. It always comes out at the most unexpected times, and almost catches you off guard, which is one of the best parts of his humor. I also love how he doesn't always know how to take Jami and Ryan's immaturity (which is a lot of the time - the immaturity, I mean).

Jami: He fits in so well with us - probably too well. He got a head start with us last year being a student teacher on our grade last year, and we all knew immediately he needed to be on our team. I love how if he has a question that he needs a serious answer to, he asks me because he knows that I'll give a serious answer. Just being out of college, some first year teachers think they know it all, but he gives an appropriate amount of respect to all of us, and adds in with his new-fangled college learnin' when he thinks it'll help. I also love how he and Ryan are such boys when they are together. A very strange relationship they have... but we all love the humor it provides.

Ryan: We are on our fourth year of teaching together. We've done a lot together - moved from 3rd grade to 5th grade together, survived eMints and history classes together, and have a fair amount of glances, eye-rolls, and looks that we share. I was the first person he told that his wife was pregnant last year (awwww, on the one hand; ewwww on the other...), and the one he called when the baby was born. (Oh, and also the one he called to go up to Timp Cave when he thought his wife would go into labor when he was up there... so guess who hiked back up for the second day in a row?) He also was very concerned when my dad died, and was glad when I came back to school. We're the resident techies on the team - if I don't know the solution, he does, and vice versa. We co-teach our school tech group. We share treats at eMints (well, he shares my treats), and we used to share a ride over to the district for eMints and then to his home afterward - more for his wife than for him, really (there's no reason to make his little kids stay up late just to come get him when it's kind of on my way anyway). Now I 'cry' on my way to class in my messy car because he has his own car and takes himself. He fully endorses my cooking and crafting abilities as demonstrated within my Domestic Portfolio blog. It's a very symbiotic relationship that we carry on.

My favorite team story:
When we learned last year that we'd be a team of three men and two women, Ryan was so excited to finally have "manly conversations": hunting, camping, guns, dirt, cars, etc... no sports though, because he's not really into sports. When we graded our DRA tests together in September, Ryan and Jami started talking about their new babies and sleeping schedules, and their wives feeding schedules. Jeff has two girls of his own, so he jumped into the conversation as well. I burst out laughing as their conversation got more and more detailed and less and less manly. They couldn't quite understand why I would be laughing so at them. Silly boys. :)

We've built a lot of team this year - I hope that we can remain intact!


Reasons I like going to conferences:
I've been to two conferences for school in the last two weeks - the Literacy Promise and UCET (Utah Coalition for Educational Technology). Love them!

1. Change. I get to get away from my students for a few days. I like them fine, but it's nice to get away once in a while. Change is good.

2. I learn a lot. Sometimes it's just things that I remember, and remember that I once knew that trick/strategy/resource. Sometimes it's totally new. On occasion, this remembering makes me feel guilty - it's things that I should be doing and I knew at one point that I should be doing them. Generally, this guilt goes away as I re-incorporate the technique back into my teaching. Sometimes it's just learning that I am doing some of these things, which is reassuring.

3. Commute time. I love conferences that are in Salt Lake - Trax, here I come! (I can't believe how much I enjoy taking Trax now... I got to where I despised public transit when I was using it every day. Now, I envy those days when I didn't have to drive myself. Ah...!) Last Friday and Saturday the conference was at Murray HS - 10 minutes drive time, and only because I got stopped at all the lights!

4. People. It's fun to be with people from school in a slightly different environment. For example, I have never seen my principal laugh quite so hard, or the sixth grade teachers let quite so loose. It was also great to see my fellow fifth-grade team mate pull out his iPod touch to play a game during a session. (I was doing exactly the same thing)


Reasons why I need a life:
I don't have a life. I am prone to staying at school for 12 hours at a time, or longer, more times per week than I would like to admit. The other days aren't much better. Even when I do come home somewhat on time (early for me), I bring school work home to do. Even though I don't always do it when I bring it home, it still comes home with me and taunts me. So I need a life that doesn't involve school.

1. All this school stuff is going to drive me crazy. I'm burnt out. Not good. I have 3 more months to teach this year, plus about another 30 more years before I can even think of retiring (thank you Utah State Legislature, Social Security, and poor interest rates).

2. I'm not sure my teaching or my students are better for all my time. No one wants a cranky, overworked teacher, and that's what my kids have right now. Granted, me on a bad day is probably better than a sub on a good day... but still.

3. I really do have things that I could do if I left school at school and left school before I'm too pooped. Lots of things. Crocheting, scrapbooking, reading, blogging... See? Lots to do.

4. People who are my age and who are still single are still single for a reason. While there are probably many reasons I'm still single, probably one of the major reasons that I am still single is that there are no single men at school when I'm there at 6 at night. Nor are they knocking on my door when I am exhausted and grading papers at home. Not that I am specifically going to include "going out to places to meet guys" in my "getting a life" campaign, but at least I won't be stuck at school where there definitely won't be anyone to meet.