Thursday, January 17, 2008

I'm SO frustrated!

As soon as I typed this post's title, I knew I shouldn't complain. But I'm going to anyway (briefly).

Today was such an extremely frustrating day. My students are terribly behaved and I've really run out of patience. As much as I hate to say it, it's hard for those that are not teachers to understand what it's like.. just as I'm sure it's hard for me to understand what YOUR jobs are like! Anyhow, these guys just have no sense of .. manners? Common sense? ANY sense!? When the teacher is starting to flip out at the class.. do you keep talking? Would it be a good time to go sharpen your pencil!? If the teacher has just given the whole class 5 minutes of detention because the class is too noisy, wouldn't it be smarter to be QUIET and WORK rather than keep doing what you are doing!??!?!?!?!

I kept the WHOLE class in yesterday at recess time to "practice walking in the halls". Today, on our way back from Music.. guess what? I had about 10 kids TALKING in the halls AGAIN! WHAT!? Did you guys MISS the whole thing!? I just don't get it!!

OK.. enough ranting. I know I'm lucky to have a job so I really shouldn't be so .. bitchy. It's been a long day and I have to keep telling myself that some of these kids just don't have very many positive learning experiences so they don't know any better.

Tomorrow is professional development day. I'm so glad. Sort of. It's our final day of Tribes training (Tribes is a behaviour process (program) where we try to teach the students to respect each other and to work as a community. It's a very well known program across North America and is suppose to have worked on school as tough as NYC. My school is the first school to be a Tribes school in the province. Not all the teachers have bought into it yet and I must admit that I have strayed from it as well. I am not 100% convinced, but I think there is some truth in the philosophy of the program.

Another piece of news I have is that we have a new person at our school who is a "citizen educator" who is working with teachers and students to build citizenship in our school. Pride in their surroundings and in themselves. To better understand our community and our world. I spoke to him for about 1 1/2 hrs last night and he's a very interesting guy. He's traveled to many third world countries and is dedicated to helping those in need. I'm hoping that he can help me get a program together where my class will be communicating with a class in Uganda! It'll be so neat for the kids to learn about another country, culture and about helping others. Can you imagine if you had THAT as a kid!? To be able to teleconference in to another country!??!!? WOW!

Anyway, Cory also has an organization that sews hammocks and sells them. The profits go towards purchasing sewing machines which are then brought over to Uganda to allow THEM to make MORE hammocks. The proceeds of THOSE sales go towards a farm called Opac farms which will house orphans who will live there and learn to farm amongst their fellow orphans who will hopefully become like brothers and sisters to them. It's all about sustainability. If you are interested in learning more, Cory's website is: http://www.actionheronetwork.net/ and if you are on facebook, check out the group "Stitch Uganda Together". Another awesome thing to check out is a video called "Invisible Children" - it will change your outlook forever. I know of many people who've watched it and have said that it's an extremely powerful documentary.

That's it for now!

posted by jaryee @ 2:09 p.m. 0 comments

Monday, January 14, 2008

Christmas Snowstorms

As my parents are anticipating moving to Vancouver this coming summer, we took some pictures as a 'memoire' of the crazy NB snowstorms to share with people. Mostly those that live in faraway tropical places that have never seen snow, or those that have never seen this MUCH snow before.


My mom, who is around 5'3 - the snow almost up to her waist. The snow BANK, taller than her.


My neighbour, Tony, plowing out another neighbour's driveway. There's so much snow you can barely see his house!


Finally, the snow piled on top of our roof. This is pretty much all from one storm. I'd say that's a good 30 cm worth of snow, wouldn't you?

posted by jaryee @ 2:06 p.m. 2 comments

What a Crazy Thing To Do!


Near Wellsford
Beyond the fog = ??

I awoke today thinking... just in case, I'd better listen to the radio. Anticipating a snow storm and with the terrible accident that happened in Bathurst this weekend (many teachers heads are spinning over that tragedy), I thought there was a chance that district 8 would cancel school. All I heard was district 6 warning parents that listen to the radio in case they cancelled school in the middle of the day.

I never anticipated it would happen to us.

No big deal, right? WRONG. It was like a zoo (again). With over 800 students in the school, we (mostly elementary teachers) were scampering to make sure the kids 1- were able to get home and 2- someone was at home waiting for them. How does the district expect us to call parents when we have the students with us!? Plus, how many phones do they expect a school to have!? Anyways, I luckily only had to call a few parents and my colleague across the hall was able to provide some relief for me to actually leave the class. All I can say is poor supply teachers and poor teacher who started last week. Talk about panic.. we had to do this all within the hour. From the sound of our VP over the intercom, the office was a very busy and frustrating place to be.

I started a new math program and the amount of preparation that is going into it is kind of a lot of work. I was very happy to have the half day to plan, but I am no where near finished :( I don't think teachers can ever get ahead, we're lucky if we're not surviving day-day! (I also never realized what it meant to "hate marking". Try reading things that make absolutely no sense or when printing is soooo terrible that you can't make out the letters)... it's tedious.

Anyway, I've posting some pictures I shot while driving back to Fredericton on Saturday - what a foggy day! There were some places that really looked much cooler, but I didn't pull my camera out until I had drove past. AND since I haven't posted people pictures in a long while, here's my new haircut :)




posted by jaryee @ 1:52 p.m. 2 comments