1 Class Meeting Remaining

Yup, just 1-week of classes remaining after tonight's meeting with Dr. S. Schechter. Another day closer...! It is most certainly going to feel really good after this wknd. when work is all over, %99.9 of academic assignments are complete, and the light at the end of the tunnel will be reached. I will finish my integrated unit later on today, wrap all most loose ends regarding 502 work later tonight and on into Thursday, utilize Saturday for completing Xtra credit assignments and then have Monday-Wednesday of next week for that last paper. An 8-pg. piece, NOT a book review, and NOT a biography but a historiographical essay on Ben Franklin. Historiographical meaning what do scholars have to say about the life of this man. How is he perceived in history? What methods do the author's use to account for their findings and are on they on the mark, are they significant by any means, what new questions do they raise...? Ahhh, the wonders of S. Schechter's historiographic essay...

Tonight in 511 I completed my PowerPoint presentation that was leftover from the previous week. I thought it went well but hoped when it was all said and done that I did not portray the Alternative Program where I have completed a fair amount of my observation hours in too much of a negative light. That was not my intentions. It really is a wondeful place and one that I feel I may have something to offer to students who meet those needs. Anything else on that would be considered "jumping the gun". I gues I am suppose to be happy with whatever job offers I receive my rookie year. Well, maybe that will be the case and maybe it won't. It hasn't seem to ever be the case for my personality yet in my 30 years so I doubt it will start when I'm entering the teaching profession.

A tad after 1am so I am about to venture to that cold and lonely pillow calling out for me across the room. You know, maybe I'm starting to enjoy writing in this blog daily. It's a good tool to clear my thoguhts on what has been accomplised today and what needs to be accomplised tomorrow. Maybe an experiment for me will be to blog daily during the upcoming academic break...those topics assuredly would get interesting.

Next blog there will be no academic chatter...I'll make it more personalized...

Till then...

Update

Well now, let's see...I have spent the last 5+ hours working on my integrated unit plan and have on the checklist (rubric) just about half done. Although I feel that the first half is by far the most in content, especially the rationale (and writing out all those standards)! I have to admit that I veered from my original plan of challenging myself and building a unit around an area that I was not all too comfortable with. Not that I wasn't up for the challenge! I simply finding myself very stressed over the amounts of academic work I need to complete over the next week and was just too worried about time. I am finished with the unit plan for now but will come back to it tonight after the gym, which will be after class of course!

anyways, some random thoughts. my plan is based around the Revolutionary Period. by far my favorite in American History. Makes me wonder what the hell I am going to do with myself when in my rookie year i will either have to teach ECON or World Religions. Gosh, I hope there's a World Religions for Dummies book out there someplace. Anyways, so far so good. Like I said the goal is to be finished with this plan by Noon tomorrow. Then, on to 502 revision of my Lit. Review, which for a second time was absolutely hacked up by Professor "Z". And to think, I previously considered myself a fairly "strong" writer...but he has done a very good job at refuting that! It's not like I am submitting this research to a journal for publication...??? Anyone else feel the same way?

The gym, and moreso very long runs have been my savior over the past month or so. If I had time, I feel like my mind and body would be much more in sync if I could get one done right not but that is just impossible. It'll have to wait till later this evening...my least favorite time for running!

So, there it is. A quick one. Not too interesting but 1 more down and 1 more closer to yet another assignment completed! See ya'll ini 1 1/2 hours! PowerPoint presentation tonigth...ohhh, how exciting!

A Delightful Surprise

a tad after 8 this morning and i received a phone call from work asking if i'd prefer to work a 9-4 shift as opposed to my usually scheduled 3-11pm monday night shift. i jumped at the chance, especially since most of my productive work occurs at night, with the exception being writing papers, for some odd reason my best writing occurs sometime between 5-8am...???

ok, goals! i often find it more beneficial to write out what needs to be done before any actual planning occurs. here we go. this week i need to finish (and start) the integrated unit for 511. i do have a topic, and one that i stated in my previous post that'll be more of a challenge for me. it is on ancient civilizations including chinese, greek, roman, indian, and mayan. should be interesting, probably more geared towards a younger audience, middle school, 9th grade tops. what else? i have to write 2-three page reactions to online podcasts for X-tra credit (502)...which i have a feeling is needed much, unfortunately...! there goes straight A's through the grad program! That is all until Saturday. From saturday on, my focus will solely be on an 8-pg. capstone essay on Ben Franklin....due next Wed.

ok, with more of a clearer mind now re: what exactly needs to be done when, it is time to get started! i'm off...

Let it snow, let it snow...let it snow...

i am experiencing a very proud moment here where i am holding strong to my word and posting for a second time in as many days. good job mark! i'm finding myself back at work on yet another sunday evening and it is undoubtedly one that i wish i was home, curled up under a blanket, with some good munchies and zero academic responsibilities! soon enough, soon enough. in the meantime, it is quiet here tonight...and with the expected bad weather (hopefully) rolling in anytime now, it will remain this way. especially since my brainstorming last evening wasn't all that productive. what i did come up with regarding my unit plan for 511 is that i would like to conceptualize a unit in a area of my content where i am not all that strong (or confident)...for example, maybe world religions or The Roman Empire...??? something that will be more of a challenge than my usual approach to these assignments being focused around areas of strength such as Colonial America, Native Americans, or the Revolutionary Period...all stuff i love dearly but am very familiar (and confident) with!

now, with that said...let's cover todays thought! i have been in contact within the past hour or so with two very close friends, both local educators and they are both sharing these emotions of excitement, wonder, curiosity, and hope that they will both find themselves tomorrow at 630am not having to dig out a car and sludge their way to there schools. it is really hilarious listening to them! it has been almost a full year and a half since i have been employed by a school district but i do recall these nights, especially those falling on either a Thursday or Sunday, both providing for the potential of an "extended weekend". once or twice, i may even recall having to go to bed wearing my sleep garb inside-out, at least that is what my 6th graders at the time told me to do...??? anyways, just a minor, but very humoruous observation that teachers find themselves on these nights almost in more anticipation than their students when it comes to snow days...!!!

Good luck to all who are hoping, wishing, and falling asleep tonight with their pj's on inside-out that tomorrow brings that ever so exciting "day off from school".

The Home Stretch...

well, with just about 2-weeks remaining in the Fall 2007 semester...it is now "crunchtime"! with a historiographic essay to be written on ben franlin, a unit plan, a few minor revisions, one final online exam, and a few more of these posts on blogspot...i can almost see that "light at the end of the tunnel"...and boy, i am excited.

i can't recall any other time in my academic life that i have needed and looked forward to a break as much as i currently am. by far my most demanding graduate semester, mixed in with some major life changes, a move which took me from Clifton Park to Watervliet (yeah right, what was i thinking?)...well, i really don't recall much of anything this semster. it has simply flown by at the blink of an eye.

with over a handful of these posts remaining and limited time to complete them in, i am dedicating myself to write a brief post each day until i have reached the required 15 in total...and thus will have completed yet another assignment this semester.

for now, i am looking onward to brainstorming and eventually conceptualizing my thematic unit plan due in just a few days! here is a persoanl thought. something i am most definitely looking forward to over the break in between Fall and the start of the Spring semester (1/22/08)...is to do some FREE READING! a good book, nothing historical, and maybe even something fictional, who knows...??? i have had both Teacher Man and The Kite Runner sitting on my book shelf since mid-summer...maybe either one of those will do. YES, i simply cannot wait!

till tomorrow

As an aspiring historian and a soon to be educator, I wanted to write briefly on the topic of the Thanksgiving holiday that children, adolescents, and young adults will be celebrating across the nation in just a few days from now. In a time and age when myspace, facebook, youtube, NFL football games, and Playstation III will assuredly all be equal parts of the upcoming holiday season, I feel that it will be upon me to bring to light how integral the events were that played out in the woods, just off the Atlantic Ocean on Cape Cod in 1621 (I think...some historian).

By integral I not only mean for the English colonist but also the Wampanoag Indians that inhabited the southeastern shore of Massachusetts at this time. It was the first contact period for most natives and definitely as much for the English, who assuredly only heard tales and saw depictions of the natives as savage beasts.

When we view this event, at this time we are looking at the veins of what would soon be a new nation found, The New World discovered. From these early encounters on, the world in which we all live currently, in which we all succomb to those holiday vices (i.e. Playstations, Guitar Hero's, myspace, instant messaging, and text messaging), well, that world seized to exist by the encounters on that Cape Cod Beach, for us as European and African descendants and most defintely for the natives that lived off of these lands.

No matter where or what the upcoming holiday holds for us, it will be my duty, and one that I am assuredly looking forward to to engage the minids of my students in order for them to gain a real sense of what exactly this Thanksgiving holiday means to peoples everywhere.

Just a thought...Happy Thanksgiving. Someone's cell phone is ringing!

FREEDOM WRITERS

so, moving along with the likes of Educating Esme, the movie Freedom Writers depicts through motion picture the "rookie" year of teacher Erin Gruyell. Known as Ms "G." to her students, this is the true story of how a single teacher had lasting impact on the lives of her inner city students whom that many were caught up in the life of gangs and violence.

by no means the biggest of Hilary Swank fanatics, i felt as though the movie was a good story of what can be accomplised when a single individual shows the determination that Ms. "G" did in attempting to change the lives and educational experiences of her students. although some would probably agree that the story and the setbacks to Erin's life were unrealistic in the sense that she basically chose her students over her own life and that of her husbands, i feel it is more of a story of potential "obstacles" that may be encountered by rookie educators. from the beatup old classroom with little to no equipment with grafitti written all over the desks to coming across certain individual that will only tell you that "YOU CAN'T or "YOU SHOULDN'T"...in many ways this story overlaps with what Esme encountered in her rookie year in the Chicago school system.

i enjoyed the movie. probably both more than i had expected and would like to admit but would have liked there to have been more time devoted to either the classroom discussion of the film or something to the effect that wold have held us onto a standard to watch the film (i.e. writing assignment, quiz, etc.). for me, during a severly stressful academic week...if I knew there would be no grade assigned to watching this movie, I probable would have utilized the 2+ hours slightly different, say perhaps working on this very painful 502 Literature Review...!