October 1st, 2011
Hey, everyone! My, it’s been a while… yet again. In fact, this is an offline journal entry. I’m currently at a Math League competition, so I’m typing this in between grading the students’ tests. Now, I know I need to catch up on blogging, but where to begin…
I remember talking about the floods… but I don’t know if I talked about my visit to Minnesota. Over the summer, I went home for around a week-and-a-half which, aside from my apartment flooding and dealing with flooded and closed roads (can you see what I hate floods now?), was a good trip. My first stop was to a family reunion celebrating 100 years of our family being in the US. It was definitely nice to see family from across the country and I even got to meet some distant cousins who are still living in Belgium. Also, it was at a casino and I even came out winning, so I can scratch that off of my list of things to do before I die. (Yes, it was only a couple bucks on the penny slots, but you know what, I made money.)
After the family reunion, I drove to the Cities… where my car died while driving on a highway. Fortunately, it wasn’t the freeway and I was able to pull over to the shoulder quickly and safely. The good news with this story was that I was able to get to St Paul alright after that and schedule an appointment with a mechanic near the friend I was staying with. (I tried to think of a way to not end that with a preposition, but nothing came to mind.) Anywho, I stayed a few days in St Paul and was able to catch up with college friends, including some of my old residents (who are old enough to drink now… what!?!). I definitely enjoyed all the fun times.
After that, I went to Bemidji to a few days to see people there, including celebrating my mom’s birthday. The time there was brief but nice. After that (yes, don’t you enjoy my itinerary journaling?), I spent a night with some close high school friends in Fargo and finally got to see Thor. Then, it was one last night in St Paul and then the long drive back to Maryville. The car fared well after the repairs, but during the Fargo-St Paul drive I hit a duck… while it was flying… yeah, still don’t know what to think about that one, and it’s been a few months since then.
The time in Minnesota was brief, but well spent. It was good to have some relaxation time because once I got back to campus, it was time to charge into planning the Cultural Transition Program (for all of our new international students) and to basically start the school year.
The international students (from South Korea and China) were here three weeks before the domestic students moved to campus and I must say that it was a fun time. The students took a class so they would have real experience as to what to expect on campus, but we also talked about the Academy’s/American culture, like how to interact with professors/roommates/staff and resources on campus. We also had activities that ranged from kickball out on the lawn to seeing the Pony Express museum in St Joe. The students were shy at first and yes, I’m sure that no students would say that they loved the trip to the University farm (I will go on record by saying that that chicken farm is one of the worst smelling things I’ve smelled before), but the students did grow and it feels like they had a memorable experience.
The second-year Community Leaders moved in for a few days of training and re-acclimation and naturally, the domestic first-year students moved in the following Sunday. The students were here two weeks early for our Bridge Program and it was nice to see friendships form on my floor in that short of time. The thing I was really happy to see was that the international students were not only open to getting to know the domestic students, but the international students were included in different social circles—rather seamlessly, might I add. Bridge Program is always a little funky, since the schedule is notably different (read: more centrally structured) from the normal academic year, but this is only the second run for the Bridge Program, so I’d say that things went well.
Now I’m at the point where I have to think back over the month of normal classes and try to summarize it into a readable chunk… Yeah, things I have been alright. I don’t know, it feels fairly normal—students go through the W-curve, some students really enjoy the challenge of the classes, some students need a little boot in the right direction, and students are directed to find their own way in the world. I have this feeling that the longer I stay in education (as an educator that is), I’ll just ride the tides and remember that everything has been fairly normal. Okay, back up. It’s not like everything has been completely normal, because some odd things have happened, but I think they were kind of the exception that proves the rule.
I feel like I’m rambling about nothing in particular (Seinfeld, anyone?) so I’ll move to the current snapshot of me. I don’t know if I said this on this blog, but I moved to the biggest wing in the building, since I’m now the male RC with the most experience here (kind of weird to say still). The wing is about half 1st years, half 2nd years, and seems to be going fairly well. There are some interactions between the years, but some students have their social circle that is more so just their cohort, and that’s perfectly fine too. Everyone is going through midterms in some capacity, and most have been doing well. (The first year students get panicked and don’t know what to expect, but they have still done relatively well, I feel.)
Like I said earlier, I’m sitting here as my students are competing at the first math competition of the year. I’m glad we were able to get a bunch of new students with previous experience here today, but I know today will be a good gauge as to how much relevant experience is truly there. Science Olympiad recently finished with their initial testing, so pretty soon we will be able to pick the 15 students for the official team. (That should be happening really soon, because a lot of the exec team was busy preparing for the SAT that is also today.) Robotics is off to a healthy start with “Bowled Over!”, this year’s FTC game. The Shop (the workspace for Robotics and Science Olympiad) has undergone some changes since last summer and actually feels like a workshop now: the old closets/dressers/desks have been removed, we have sections of corkboard up, all of the equipment is back down from storage, and we have a shiny “Missouri Academy Shop” sign! The team is working on the designs for the robot, while I’m working on trying to find some sponsorship from places in town, but I feel like we are doing better than this time last year. Envirothon is getting off the ground, but we’re still getting people up-to-speed, since it’s a relatively new club/team still.
Oh, we did start a new thing this year called “Cultural Weeks”. Once a month, a different staff member plans events around a certain culture over a week’s time. I was first up to try this out and my Chinese Cultural Week went pretty well. There ended up being a bulletin board on Chinese inventions, a language lesson by our two 2nd-year Chinese students, a cooking lesson on traditional spring rolls, a trivia competition, and a Chinese movie showing. Some of the Chinese students went and would help out with questions or clarifications, but a number of domestic students came to the different events, and I think they were able to have a meaningful experience.
Speaking of meaningful experiences, Frank Warren, the person behind PostSecret (http://www.postsecret.com) came to campus last Tuesday. He talked about his experiences with creating the idea and the website and stories of different people along his journey. During the last half-hour, he opened it up for students to share their secrets and things got pretty intense. Overall, quite a cool thing. (I didn’t share a secret, but I did purchase one of the PostSecret books and I got it signed.)
Also in terms of recent happenings, I’m a grad student now! I started the Master’s program on campus for mathematics education. I’m just taking two classes now (a practicum and “Teaching Reading in Content Area”, aka how to incorporate literacy practices into—in my case—math) to help ease into the rigor of being a student again. It has been difficult to balance classes and work because I now need to remember to read before class and Tuesdays have that extra element of reading before the next day along with everything else. Still, I feel like I made a good decision to start taking classes again. I don’t know if it was the perfect decision, but I have had people comment that “oh education, I think you’ll do well.” I was talking with a close college friend yesterday and his explanation was that I was able to connect with high school students and I enjoyed explaining math. I don’t know if the first part is always true, but you know what, I’m going to try this program out and see what happens. (If anything, I’m still wrapping my head around the concept of not having to work out formulas each week for homework… Seriously, it feels odd not having to do that.)
No comments:
Post a Comment