Damn teens and their... Phil Collins

J and I drive home together Monday night after dropping off B at lacrosse practice. She mocks my "weird" music and switches to a radio station whose mantra is "We play what we feel like," which may as well be J's own motto, if her iPod selection is any testiment to her taste in music. But then, don't we all have a little of that in us. We start rocking out together -- we are pretty similar, even in music -- and blast the music, with the windows down, as we fly through our typically mild-mannered suburban streets, filled with neighbors walking dogs and children. One woman whirls around, leash in hand, to see the cause of such commotion, and I laugh, saying, "That woman is thinking, 'Damn those teens and their...'"

Which J finishes with, "Phil Collins." Because that is, of course, what we were dancing to at that particular moment. Sometimes I am wowed by how cool we McA's are.

This link, courtesy of Bob, I've been meaning to post for a while. Whatever comments I was going to write along side it I've long forgotten, but that's all the more reason for reading the article. It's quite interesting

Beautiful, safe, DC

I found this link through Philly-ist.com, listing Pennsylvania as the 9th safest state for children in the country. But check out DC... 3rd safest "state"? Who would've guessed... Think we'll see an influx of parents and parent-wannabes?

Staff Appreciation Week

This week, I found out today, is staff appreciation week. I was delighted by a trip out to lunch and a gift of wine by my esteemed patron and boss. Office luncheons always bring out the best in the attorneys, particularly when stories of childhood memories involving electricity come out. A sample from one attorney: My aunt used to iron and, especially on hot days, would stand in a large bowl of cold water while doing it. Once, -- I was about six -- I found a long wire in my apartment, and decided to try to stick it in the light fixture in our bathroom. The whole floor lost power.

Anyway, electro-therapy aside, make sure you appreciate whatever staff you can tomorrow. And if you're not appreciated, I say walk. You don't need 'em.

No love

Curtesy of Bob, the sad truth about our fair cultured city.

The most interesting part to me, is the fact that every single child stopped to listen. Gives whole new meaning to the innocence of youth.

An Office Memo

Received this morning at work:

Everyone Jump In The Pool!!!
Entry Rules

1) No Entry Fee!
2) Pool must be filled out completely and submitted to Poolmaster, Pat "Bugsy" Barr, by Noon!
3) Entrants will be awarded one point for correct first round predictions, two points for correct second round predictions, etc., and ten points will be awarded for selecting the national champion!
4) First Prize of $75 and Second Prize of $25!
5) Any loss of productivity due to pool entry will be ignored through Final Four weekend; thereafter, the floggings will be resumed until morale improves!

Only in Russia...

This arrived in my Economist Cities Guide: Moscow Briefing last night (the name of which, let's face it, is just supposed to make politics nerds feel cooler about themselves)

Snow finally fell on the city on January 20th, at which many Muscovites breathed a sigh of relief. After a brief dusting in October, the Russian capital has endured an unnervingly warm winter and its highest average January temperatures in 130 years. Russian newspapers have been busily printing articles about how to avoid wintertime depression caused by too much heat and too little snow. “There never were such winters under communism,” Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper claimed wistfully, partly in jest, but truly enough.

BoldItalix added for emphasis. ;-)

Just Ridiculous

Phew, I know it's been a long time since I've posted, but I'm working to change that, I promise. I'm trying to block off the few minutes right when I get home to post to my blog. It gives me a minute to relax from the day, and to try to focus on how things that seem panic-inducing during the day can actually be looked at as very amusing in retrospect. Case in point: W______.

W_____ is one of my worst behaved students. He wanders, sings, and makes strange noises during class. When he is present, I teach half as much as when he is not there. It is my mission in life to teach W_____ how to behave. Today in class, W_____ started out having one of his less bad days. In the morning, he wandered less than normal, cut up fewer pieces of paper, did not pour glue on anything. He even took a test that he had screamed he was not going to take. Usually, W_____ follows through on such threats. This was amazing.

Then, it was time to line up for lunch and recess. Try as I did, nothing could convince W_____ that he needed to not sit on the broken computer that sits by my door bouncing up and down, but rather stand quietly behind the person in front of him. He walked out of the classroom, walked back, walked anywhere but in line. When he came back from recess, W_____ ran away from the line again, hid in the closet by the door, and burst out, almost taking someone down with him.

We went into the classroom and it was time to pick independent reading books from our Book Corner. Instead of waiting his turn, W_____ lunged at the bottom shelf of the bookcase. Our bookshelf has shelves on both sides, with a board down the middle to provide a back for both sides... except on the bottom shelf. Knowing that the front bottom shelf led straight through to the back bottom shelf, W_____ threw himself at the books on the bottom shelf, scattering them through to the other side, where he lay in his book bed, tossing pages around. I should mention, at no point in this endeavor did W_____ manage to select an independent reading book.

Next it was time to review for our quizzes tomorrow. I made up a wonderful review packet that about three of my students refused to look through, including W_____. Instead of whining and threatening to leave the room like the other two, though, W_____ got a little creative. First he pretended to sleep and snore loudly. Then he hole-punched some papers, scattering the resulting confetti around his desk. He took his ski cap and cut eyes in it, dropping the spare cloth to the floor and looking through his new mask like a 4.5' tall bandit in my front row. Finally, he resigned himself to singing and taking other students' belongings.

In the moment, especially while being observed by another students' grandmother, I felt ready to cry, but after further reflection, the day leaves me with no better emotion than amused astonishment that anyone would have such little knowledge of proper social behavior. Crazy. One might even say ridiculous.

Through the Window

Just a quick update from Philly. Things are coming along. My class size has increased to twelve, and only 6 have serious behavior problems (note the sarcasm). In the phases of a new teacher, I'm currently disillusioned. The good news is, the next phase is rejuvination; how awesome is that? Seriously, I feel like I've finally gotten to the point where I can control the majority of the class. Yesterday a student punched his hand through the bathroom window, and I kept control, which I consider an accomplishment. The only problem is one single student, who has no concept of appropriate behavior. The difference between when he's there and when he's not is about twice as much learning. It's a crime to the other students. Anyway, this didn't end up being that interesting of a post, but my brain is elsewhere. Better writing to come, I promise.

Don't Say Pool House!

One of the many misconceptions of teaching is that, if you have nothing better to do, you just give kids worksheets to practice. At least I thought that when I was little. Of course, now I realize giving students busy work isn't one of the best uses of anyone's time, but it should also be said that making/finding worksheets to give students takes boatloads of time. I'm always looking for websites that help create worksheets to practice skills that I know my students need. In fact, I spend so much time creating practice sheets to give to my students so that I can walk around and teach them on their individual levels, that I rarely have time to carefully review each question on each sheet. While grading a worksheet of questions that I had to create particularly fast, I came to an unfortunate realization. This worksheet is a joint practice of reading comprehension and phonics -- a story filled with /p/ words, with comprehension questions at the end. Having only skimmed this story myself, I did not realize that the nice tale of Peter's Pirate Party is held at his parents' home pool, complete with piñata, picnic tables, and pool house. I try to expose my students to diverse cultures, but mostly I want to find texts that reflect my students' races/religions/economics/etc. Can you say the OC visits Chico? Don't say "pool house"!

1, 2, 3

One of my students can't count. Let me rephrase that, she can count to about 15 or 20 without trouble, but when asked to choose the bigger of two one digit numbers, she gets it wrong about half the time. For those of you probability experts out there, that's the same as guessing, which I think she's doing. She has no sense of numbers representing things, unless she has those concrete things in front of her.

And I thought it was bad that I had students who used their fingers to add. I have my work cut out for me.

We Don't Need No Homework

Interesting article, for those of you looking for some pedagogical tidbits. I'm fascinated by what folks say about the usefulness of homework -- I never want to be the busywork teacher. If you have any advice from a teacher that you remember assigning particularly good homework, please do share!

Iiiin West Philadelphia...

Okay, so I may not have been born and raised, but you could add one quick pronoun and make the song fit: In West of Philadelphia born and raised. D____ Elementary is where I spent most of my days, and now I work at an B____ Elementary School, less than 15 miles away, Teaching For America. (You'll forgive the attempt at anonymity, but I'm not ready to get fired in my third week for a privacy slip, so I'm covering all bases.) It's amazing to me that my public elementary school in the northwest suburbs and my new public elementary/middle school (the new K-8 model) in the southwest city could be such worlds apart. It's something I assumed would astound me, but never to this extent. I now understand why Teach For America says that teaching experience in public schools is one of the best ways to make lifelong advocates for public education. It's just beyond understanding.

So for those of you interested in accompanying me on my journey of educational discovery these next two years, I will be posting on this blog with occasional musings, observations, and (or course) rants, so stay tuned. Signing off, your favorite 6th-8th grade special education teacher, Ms. M_c (my attempt at Google prevention)

Training For America

Sometimes I think this training is a bit like breaking you down into the TFA mold and then spitting you out into schools. What didn't make matters better was the dead computer that sat, mocking me on my desk. Last night, the Footes fixed everything, by whisking me away from 1300 (our dorm's address and name), taking me to get my computer fixed (which it is!), and taking me to the movies. Last night, I slept forever, today, I'm going to pick up some school supplies, have lunch with Lauren, then go back to boot camp. Speaking of which, the whole point of this post was to put up my address. Letters are one of those little things that get you through it, so send lots!

Caitlin McAndrews/Corps Member
c/o Teach For America
1300 Residence Hall
1300 Cecil B. Moore Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19122

I miss you all!

Infantile Predictions

At Fathers' Day dinner last night, my family (mom+dad+sisters+grandpop) swapped stories from the youngest generation's childhood. What this translates to in the McAndrews household is as much embarrassment as possible. By dessert, we were all rolling. Around ice cream scooping, my parents mentioned that at ages 2 and 4, Dad commented that when we each went to college, I would ask, "Where do I buy my books?" and Ally would inquire, "Where do I get my beer?" I don't know if I should be ashamed or proud that age four my parents knew I would be a nerd.

"City of Xenophobic Bigotry"

I am now horribly ashamed of the one cheesesteak I've ever had at Geno's.

Usually I avoid the intense South Philly rivalry of Pat's and Geno's and just head to South Street for Jim's and shopping, or go to John's closer to home. When choosing between the two most famous steak-makers, though, my family has always gone Pat's. The only time I ever ventured out of my comfort zone of Pat's or South Street was after I got back from Chile. Blame it on a whole semester of "trying new things," but I decided to give Geno's a chance. It is now a source of great regret.

This regret is due to the recent recognition given a sign posted in the window of that South Philly establishment. The small placard reads: This is AMERICA ... WHEN ORDERING, 'SPEAK ENGLISH.' Classy, right? I don't think that any of the growing population of immigrants in South Philadelphia (who Vento, the owner of Geno's, is apparently targeting with his sign) realized how important English is for getting by in the United States. (Note my dripping sarcasm.) Immigrants know better than anyone else how hard it is to manage without speaking this country's most common language, let's try not to make it harder for them by making them feel unwelcome, shall we? And need I remind Mr. Vento that America still has absolutely no national language to speak of? South Philadelphia was once a community bustling with Italian immigrants... are we so quick to forget?

Of course, my love of First Amendment rights leads me to assert that Vento has every right to display his closed-minded beliefs. But I will then exercise my right to forever eat elsewhere. As one Philadelphian said, "Yo, Geno's: Philadelphia is supposed to be the City of Brotherly Love, not the City of Xenophobic Bigotry."

Hard Core

Hard as it is to believe, senior year is for real over. While I've been chastised and mocked for being "boring" this year, quite the opposite is true. It was, in fact, my most hard core year at Georgetown. Too hard core (gasp) to blog. But the grades are in, and I have passed Russian, so it's time to jump back onto my computer.

This year, particularly this past semester, I really loaded it on heavy. A lot of heavy classes with work, Chambers presidency, etc. It was a lot. Hard core work. But to be hard core, one must also embrace the yin of hard core work's yang: hard core partying. While my hard core party nights were not as frequent as, say, the last 99 days at Georgetown, they did occur once every other week or so, and resulted in stolen belongings, occasional groping, and some unique sleeping locations. There were some things I'm proud of, some things I'm really not proud of. Now that it's all over, I solemnly promise to be less "boring"... or at least to post more. The latter does not exactly guarantee the former.

For shame

At work, two days back from Europe, I turn to blogger to occupy my time while files copy onto a CD I'm burning from my boss (see, not totally idle procrastination). About to click the new post icon, I notice this last post, started weeks ago, and never finished. Never finished, mainly because Amy returned home and Nat and I had a very interesting convo re: pidgeon racism, don't pretend it doesn't exist. Anyway, I post the shreds of an entry here for no other reason than to prove that I did try to blog, I haven't been ignoring the blog completely, I just forget to finish my posts, really, I swear. Okay, fine, or I just deserve nothing but shame. Stay tuned, European postings coming soon.


In fear of a re-run of the virus that ate me (originally aired in September of last semester), I named this weekend "the weekend to stay in and catch up on homework so that I don't get sick and die." Which places me perched cross-legged on my bed ("Indian-style" is so not-p.c., for those of you who grew up in that age; those of us quasi teachers should know) working. Aka blogging about very little. And before those of you who told me I was crazy to take an intensive language at 9:15 every morning (knowing full well that the inhuman thing emerging from my bed eventually known as Caitlin with coffee) assert your "rightness", I should add that I am not staying in to study Russian, which is more or less the least of my academic worries. I'm here to catch up on interminable readings, and reading is something I can't really do yet in Russian. Ah, beginning languages. I have not known thee since 6th grade.

Rebarbative

repellent; irritating; unpleasant; objectionable.

New word of the week. Ready, set, go!

Word of the Week

Only a group of dorks like me would come up with this. To avoid redundancy, I will send you to Tim's blog for an explanation of the rules of the game, but it essentially involves Amy, Tim, and me choosing a new word each week to use in one of 3 very specific circumstances. This past week's word was ochlocracy. My use was in an assignment for New York Stories, entitled by the professor "Your quintessential New York story." Following the rules of the game, which are to post our uses here, I now include an excerpt:

We have a Bell; we have Independence Hall; we have theaters, and museums, and great soft pretzels. We love our sports teams. We will never forget that Philadelphia was the site of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutional Convention, and that George Washington lived there during his presidency. We love cheese steaks, cheese fries, and our street cart food that we believe has risen to a level of culinary excellence never to be challenged by the sanitation (or lack thereof) of the vendor. In short, we feel we offer all there is to enjoy in life without the perceived chaos bordering on ochlocracy of New York.