Here is a list of things I would like to accomplish this year (I omitted the ones that end in …better or …more.)

1. Read a book of my choice a month.

In a profession where I have to read a lot, I actually get to do very little reading of things I want to read. So… this is my small goal for this year: end 2012 having read at least 12 books I want to read.

2. Learn Spanish.

Aside form the phrases and words I’ve picked up here and there throughout the years, I don’t know Spanish. So, I would like to end 2012 knowing more than “rojo” and “Momacita, donde esta santa claus? (okay that one I got from a  song) and “Que? No habla espanol” (If I have spelled or said any of these wrong that just furthers the point that I need to learn Spanish)

3. Memorize a passage of scripture each week.

This could be any length. I would like to end 2012 having memorized 52 passages of scripture.

4. Write a song.

Yep, I have for awhile now had random lyrical and musical phrases come in and out of my mind, but I never remember or record any of them. This year, I’d like to try my luck at putting the small pieces together to create a whole structure – you know, like a song. We shall see. If I only write 1 song my whole life, it’ll be okay – I want 2012 to be the year I do it.

5. Begin a master’s program.

Everything about this one is still TBD. I have some ideas, but now I need to take a direction of some kind. It’s time. At the end of 2012, I would like to have completed one grad class.

6. Pay off smallest school loan.

I have not consolidated my loans for a couple reasons, but either way, this year my goal is to pay off the the smallest. This is one of those goals that will just be restatd each time it’s accomplished. Hoping for two smallest, but will start with one at a time. By the end of 2012, I want to have a little less debt to my name.

7. Eliminate some bad habits.

This includes things like procrastination and spending unnecessary money. When 2012 ends, I hope to have fewer bad habits to my name.

8. Do something big.

The last goal I’ll share is one I’ve been kind of haunted by. I have this overwhelming desire to do something big – worth while – something to write home about. But, every time I think about it, I come up short every time. So, my prayer and pre-goal to this goal is to figure out what that something big is. When 2012 ends, I want to be able to look back and see that I have done something bigger than myself – something that only a God bigger than this world could do through me.

I guess now, since it’s too late to update about things a long the way, I’ll just reflect. Yesterday, I spent my last actual teaching day sick. This is the second time I’ve been sick the day before a break. It’s a lot harder to enjoy the company of your students and celebrate the upcoming break when all you want to do is sleep. This was a day I had been looking forward to, yet couldn’t enjoy it.

Well, that’s beside the point. For weeks and probably even months now, I’ve been thinking and working towards this last day… Friday… May… 28. I’ve been excited, relieved, happy… every good emotion in the book. Then it hit me. A couple days ago, a new emotion sneaked its way into my heart. I realized that this first year is over… like over over. Now I know a couple sentences ago this was reason for celebration, but all the things that come with “over” flooded my brain in a second. “Over” means unable to be redone. “Over” means I’ll never see some of these kids again. “Over” means there’s no time to fix things. “Over” means – time up. Any mistakes I made my first year teaching were officially set it stone – no making them up. Each student has there opinion of me, and whatever it was this last week of school, won’t possibly change until August. Some of the students aren’t coming back. Have I completely failed them? Did my life do any impacting at all? Are they going to be prepared for the next grade? Are they leaving my class knowing less than when they came in? Fears, worries, anxieties began taking over my being in an instant. I suddenly remembered all the times my patience ran away and my 5 year old habits came back when the students wouldn’t listen to me. Their final exam – everything they should have learned in my class right there on paper – 4-5 sheets of paper. My year of sweat, blood, and tears, right there summed up in the form of something scary to all who make them, take them, and grade them.

Then, after the happiness came and went and the worry came  and went – I had a moment to just think. The noise my emotions were making was gone. The noise my surroundings were making was gone. There I was, sitting  in my classroom alone and in silence. I then vowed to accept my first year mistakes and learn from them and to come back  better in August.

It is now my goal to pray for each and every one of my students this summer. I will pray that God will send somebody to right the wrongs I may have made, and that the little good I possibly could have given to them will grow to something great. I will genuinely miss my students.

1. I love it. I am doing exactly what I’ve been waiting a long time to do.

2. Students don’t really see teachers as  real people no matter how old they are. I have gotten questions like “You dated?” or “You know that song?” There is this strange and interesting stigma that comes with the title “teacher.”

3. I get annoyed by those teachers that seem to be in profession for all the wrong reasons.

4. Each student has a story, and each story is a real life.

5. Students actually read teachers pretty well. They can see past most gimmicks and experiment just enough to know what they can and can’t do.

6. Most teacher tips sound a lot better on paper than they work in the classroom. (There are exceptions)

7. Playing games is a necessity. Not all the time, mind you. 

8. Rewarding good and punishing bad will always work.

9. The more you put in to your work and the students’ lives, the more you’ll get out of it. That could mean more pain, but it sometimes means more joy and excitement.

10. “There is a Savior, and you are not Him” makes more sense to me than ever before. As hard as it is to accept sometimes, I can’t save these kids or even help some of them. They all simply need Jesus.

I am now teaching in St. Croix, USVI. I teach  English to 8th grade, 10th grade, and 11th grade. I am in charge of the newspaper and have just recently started volleyball practices with some girls in hopes of having a team by the fall. I would say that things here couldn’t be better. But, that would honestly be a lie. There are days I get lonely and feel so far away from the rest of the world and my friends and family who live in it. But, overall I know I’m right where I’m supposed to be doing exactly what I was made to do.

So, it is my intention to use this blog once again to keep up with the happenings of a teacher’s life. I will write soon and hope you’ll visit often.

It makes me think back to my days in high school when bell bottoms or I mean “flared” jeans came in and my mom said things like, “I should have saved my jeans and you could have worn them.” Trends and styles are never new. They are all recycled, regurgitated, or slight variation of a past style/trend.

This also leads me to the point that although there a few differences in students today and students of the past, there are also several similarities. Students have more thrown at them in more ways than ever. But their reactions and responses are always the same.

Teens tend to be selfish, needy, rude, and distracted. But they are at a time in their life where they discovering who they are, what they offer as a person, and their self-worth. They have to be taught that true happiness is found through self-less love. Love for others, not money, things, or unhealthy love of self. They need to be taught responsibility and time management. They need to be taught to be a good citizen. The key to all I just said, is that they need to be taught. Obviously, some are easier to teach than others. Some students learn by looking at their dead- beat parents and deciding NOT to be like that. Either way, they are taught in some way or another by someone or something who they are.

One thing I’ve recently noticed, is that adults tend to say things like, “I don’t have time…”, “I don’t care….”, I… I.. I. And while these make more sense in context, they sound a little… well.. insensitive. Are we unintentionally teaching our children that they’re not important right now, but when they become an adult they can expect the world to revolve around them as well? I think we try to teach them they’re being selfish, incosiderate, irresponsible, but instead we’re sending them the opposite message.

So, pardon my choppy blog and horrible segue from 80′s style to life lessons we’re teaching teens… But what are some other examples or what we’re trying to teach and what we really end up teaching?

I would consider the book that made the biggest impression on me in high school to be “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathanial Hawthorne.

Unfortunately, students don’t read anymore. If they read one book, what do you think it should be?

I moved right before my seventh grade year. I was in a new place, a new school, and seventh grade is already an awkward transition. I wanted to be cool and I wanted to make friends. I did fine in my own class, kind of. I met the girl that is still my best friend, and has actually made me her maid of honor in July. She was my absolute best friend in 7th grade all the way to 12th grade.

It was 8th graders that didn’t like me. For some reason, once you make it passed a grade, you think you’re better than those that are now in that grade, especially the new kids. Seventh grade was where for the first time EVER I was made fun of for my smile. All my life I had been told that I had a huge and beautiful smile. Well, 8th graders apparently don’t like big smiles? This is the time in my life I got the nicknames beaver, Mr. Ed, and I’m sure several others I have just dismissed from the painful memories. I also experienced having a “boyfriend” for the first time. You may say, well Hannah a boyfriend? That sounds like you fit in fine. Oh, but let me explain. He was an 8th grader….cool, right? Wrong. He didn’t like me. I found out later that it was some prank/joke thing that he got pushed into “being my boyfriend.” I imagine the conversation going something like this.

8th grade boy 1: Dude, see that girl?

8th grade boy 2: Yeah, ugh.. she’s So gross!

8th grade boy 1: Dude, I dare ya to tell her you like her…

8th grade boy 2: Nah, man that’s not cool…

(Next day in music class they’re sitting next to this girl)

8th grade boy 1: (to girl/me) Hey, he likes you

8th grade boy 2: No, I do- I mean maybe

girl: really?

And basically, I think he was just too nice to ever tell me the truth. I think I found out months later. But while he was my “boyfriend” we sat together at lunch. That was pretty much the extent of it. I would wonder why he would only IM me and not call me like he did his other friends… even other girls.. but as a seventh grader you just take what you can get I guess. And, I wanted to be cool. Well not only did I experience my first “boyfriend” I experienced the first break up. But this wasn’t just you know the regular break up. He and his best friend (another girl) finally got enough courage to express feelings… with a kiss. My world crashed. My “boyfriend” kissed another girl. Basically the whole 8th grade class knew he didn’t like me, knew he kissed this other girl, and had more reason to make fun of the ugly girl with a smile like Mr. Ed. Anyway, I can not write a blog including every story I remember from that terrible year of my life.

But my point is this. As I sit in the classroom with seventh graders everyday I wonder what nicknames they’ve been given. What problems with their peers do they experience? Do their parents write them off? Do their parents unhealthily baby them? Is there anybody telling them they are made in the image of God and VERY special to Him? Do they believe it when they are told?

What are your stories? What was your seventh grade year like?

It seems that one of the next things to be taken out of schools is cursive writing: teaching it and practicing it. Now as a traditionalist, this sort of bothers me. But in talking to people about it, I don’t really have a legitimate reason to let it bother me. Other than the minor fact that I am traditional. I learned how to write in cursive as an elementary student, I still write in cursive, and I guess part of me feels like it should be required.  I have also got to realize that in our ever changing world, things such as cursive are going to seem less and less necessary. Especially with computers that can write in cursive for you, or write for you in general. Typing has the become the required skill. You could be considered unqualified for all kinds of jobs without the ability to type. Who needs to write cursive?

A lot of people have also become perturbed at students who can not tell time on a face clock. They have become reliant on cell phones, computers,alarm clocks and other digital time pieces to tell them the hour and minute without the need for simple math.

Things are always evolving and changing. There are things my grandparents had to learn that I don’t. Teachers feel the lack of time to teach simple things like cursive when students are facing far greater problems more and more everyday. What is your opinion? Are you a traditionalist? Do you see it as needed? Or do you agree that it’s a necessary change with the times? The Declaration of Independence was written in cursive, can students read it?

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the term for a  practice among teens… and I’m sure adults. The name given to the sending of semi-nude pictures, nude pictures,dirty jokes, and sexual language through  text messaging is called “sexting.” And this practice is common for teenagers to take part in.

The article told about teens in Pennsylvania who are facing charges right now. The two girls who are 14 and 15 are facing charges for manufacturing, disseminating, or possession of child pornography. While the boys they sent the nude pictures to, were 16 and 17 and are facing charges of possession.

The school found nude pictures of the classmates on the boys phone when it gotten taken away for being used at school.

I know this behavior is not new to students now. I realize that cell phones did not create the problem, but are merely tools. We are sinful with or without cell phones. And teenagers will behave in sinful ways as long as the world exists.

What can be done to help eliminate this problem? Is there a way? Have we gone too far to be stopped? As a teacher, where does my responsibilty lie involving issues like these? I’m interested in hearing what you think. What is your reaction to a situation involving teens and raunchy texts?

I will attempt to write this blog for teachers or anybody else who works with our youth. I may tell stories about my student teaching experiences, or I may write about things I hear involving youth – students.

This post is a brief introduction and welcome from the “Teacher’s Lounge”

Hope to be hearing from you all through comments.