Archive for June, 2010

This is the last week of coursework for the teacher training program I’ve been in for the last 16 months or so. It’s been a demanding trip. As best as I can figure, I’ll have 24 college units accumulated by the end, four statewide tests I’ve had to pass, and about 40 separate observations of my work in the classroom. I think I can speak for everyone in this class of 2010 that we’re ready for school to let out at last!

Teachers live by a different work rhythm than most everybody else and the summers are an important time. We like to joke that it’s not the students that need a break, it’s the teachers. Summer is a time to think about how to do it better next year, to mentally and then on paper plan the improvements, to organize one’s thoughts, to do all the things that we couldn’t get to during the months of instruction. And, of course, to enjoy one’s own family, to have a barbecue, go to the pool, take a car trip — a great deal of things have been put off by the time June rolls around.

Teaching has changed who I am, a bit — I had an important meeting with my own children in the last couple of weeks, the gist of which was “if my class of second graders can pick up after themselves, why are you claiming you can’t?” We set up a new chore plan. The understanding of how important rules and procedures are to human well-being is reinforced in elementary school.

One our professors told us last week, “the job of the elementary teacher is to introduce the students to the wonder of the world, to make them see that our existence is full of mystery and excitement, and to begin to show them ways to explore it.” Yes! I thought. That is why I chose elementary — and when I think on my best moments from the past year, and my plans about next, that is what I want to focus on, opening doors to the world.

From a press release by the City:

The City of Fort Worth’s Streetcar Task Force met Monday with consultant HDR Engineering Inc. to review the consulting team’s scope of services for Phase 1 and 2 of the planning project.

The task force reviewed the framework for the route options, economic analysis and evaluation criteria. HDR expressed to the task force the need to design routes with the least amount of track that will bring the most economic development potential.

HDR’s next steps are to present a comprehensive picture of the economic impact and enhanced transportation options a streetcar system could have on Fort Worth. These steps will help determine the feasibility of streetcars in Fort Worth.

A series of public meetings will be held to gather public input before HDR presents its final report to the City Council. The first public meeting will be Aug. 9 at the Intermodal Transportation Center, 1001 Jones St.

To learn more about the streetcar project and to provide input, visit FortWorthStreetcar.org.

I have been working on polishing my Spanish competence and this led me to Netflix, where I found Rudo y Cursi on the “watch instantly” tab, perhaps put there because of the World Cup is stirring up interest in soccer. What I found was more than a reflection on the lives of soccer players. It is a story about brotherhood and the impermanance of wealth compared with the durability of the family, even a broken and dysfunctional family.

The movie tells the story of two soccer playing brothers, Rudo (“Tough”), a goalie, and Tato (who later is branded “Cursi,” or “Corny,” by the press). The two have grown up in the sticks, and have been working on a banana plantation. But on weekends, they are stars for the local futbol team “Tlachtatlan.”

They are discovered by Baton, a roving talent scout, who recruits them to come to Mexico City to try out for the big leagues. When they get there, they make the cut and become futbolisticos professionales, but they soon find they cannot concentrate on soccer. Each one pursues his own idea of wealth and stardom that he began before he became a paid athlete — Cursi is trying to make a singing career, while Rudo tries to roll up a stake by gambling, with disasterous results.

Over the course of the movie, the brothers fight and make up, fight and make up. It’s hard to say what has fascinated me most about this story — perhaps the tragedy of the brothers’ misunderstandings of their own strengths and weaknesses, perhaps the idea that wealth is just another opportunity for new and bigger problems and sometimes even more dangerous ones.

At the end, I had to admit that the movie had a lot of “heart.”  And it was funny, in a strange, sidewinding way. It did present a kind of view of redemption, a making of peace. It illustrated well that concept of vacillada, the idea that we’re only here for a little while and death is coming so we might as well make the most of it and laugh, that is quinticentially Mexican. I’ve pasted in the trailer below.

Although school is out, the “principals” (me, Dean, and Pia) of the house are all teaching or attending summer school. This means that although the pace of life has slowed, for my taste, it hasn’t slowed enough. I go to class four days a week, six hours a day.  I can’t even seem to wake up at my customary 5 a.m. each morning, but drag myself out of bed at 7! This makes me feel I must have underslept at the end of the school year.

Dean was in Italy the last three weeks of school and honestly it was a tough slog, but I made it, and it looks like I will be getting my standard teaching credential and continuing to work at my same job — or after my transfer of October ’09, perhaps all I should be confident of it that I will be working in the same district, in some grade between pre-k and 4th, which is what I’m certified for.

I like being self-contained, which is what they call it now when you teach all the subjects to a single group of students, the traditional elementary method. The alternative is departmentalized, which is where you teach a block of subjects — say, math science and social studies — to your class and one other or more classes. The benefit of departmentalized instruction is that the planning is less — you only have to plan for three subjects instead of six. But for my money, self-contained is better for the students, even though it’s more work for the teacher, and you have closer ties with your class.

The job was more difficult than I had anticipated, and I hadn’t thought that it would be easy. Nevertheless, I came out with the idea that I wanted to go back and apply all the things I’d learned and improve everything next year. I’ve decided I like teaching elementary.