Aspirations

• I love to write. There are pages of unwritten stories and essays floating around in my head. Non-fiction mostly, but some totally made up in my imagination. One day I want to write a book so I can share it all with other people. I want Oprah to read my book that does not exist, so then everyone will read it. Then I want to write five more.
• Quilting and crafting are another creative outlet I enjoy, but there is never enough time for. My supply stockpile is so huge that if I ever get around to it I want to open an Etsy shop. I have already done tons of research, come up with a business plan, store name, picked out a theme and everything. Now all I need is the time to make all of the things I want to make.
• After my Etsy shop becomes wildly successful I want to open a real store. There are several funky 1970's era buildings in our town that I want to take over. I want to sell handcrafted goods and vintage finds. I want to sell records and comics and be the cool hangout for all the hipsters. My husband has informed me that no one but me is into records anymore, bummer. Well, I'm going to bring them back.
• I want to buy up all of the cute little properties that are for sale in our town.  I want to fix them up and rent them out. I want to be a real-estate mogul. I want to get filthy rich and own the town.
• One day I will get my masters. After that I will get National Board Certification. and be the best teacher ever. Then after that I will teach at a University and I will teach aspiring teachers how to rock. Maybe I will write a book about that too. 
• My children's daycare is so awesome that I want to have one too. There is a need in our community and our church has tossed around the idea. I want to help open it and be the director. I want to help run everything and play with the kids and lead the teachers. 
• Having this blog has made me want to create a website for my students. This project I am actually working on. There are several great sites out there that have inspired me, but this will be one for my kids. I want to have resources available for other teachers as well. Hopefully my students will gat excited about it and actually use it. 
• Summer is almost here. In a few years I want to be able to take our real kids on awesome summer vacations. Not theme parks, but real destinations. The redwoods, grand canyon, Niagara Falls. Ok, Geography destinations, but I want to take them camping and hiking. 

One step at a time. I know realistically I can't do all of these things all at once, but I can pursue them a little bit at a time. I can let my big dreams inspire me to do fun things and take a leap. What inspires you? What are your secret ambitions? Who do you aspire to be? Share below and have a great weekend!

Work hard and have fun,
Mrs.PJ

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Lovely Landscape

How pretty is this farm? It looks like a quilt to me. I love landscape pictures and city skylines. You can click on the photo to go to an article of about a man that has been photographing agriculture in the United States for 40 years. Of course being the geography geek I am I found the pictures and story so fascinating I wanted to share them with you. I will be showing them to my students tomorrow for sure.

Take care,
Mrs.PJ

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My United States of Geography

and now for a little fun and geekery.......

The Names Behind The States infographic by Fonx.


I adore geography. Interesting graphic huh? So did you learn anything? 

Take care,
Mrs.PJ

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renewed look and lesson plan ideas

        Welcome back to rendered and renewed!  Sorry it has been about a week since my last post. I was waiting to reveal the new look for R&R and I didn't want to post while it was "under construction." After many attempts to redo the banner myself I finally went to Banner Booth, which is probably what I should have done in the first place. I always want to try to do everything myself and sometimes it is just better to let someone with more expertise take over. I hope that you like the clean new look. I guess this was my first spring cleaning project.

         I don't know what it is about this time of year, but I just want to reclaim my home and workspace from the clutter. We already refreshed the flower bed and vegetable gardens over spring break. I have been working on purging my desk of excessive stuff that seems to pile up. Even though the weather is still a little cool I am ready to pack up our winter clothes. I have been revamping a lot of my lesson plans at work.

         I know we still have about two months of school left, but already I am getting into that thought process, "Okay, next year I need to ........."  I am consolidating lesson plans, making digital backups of all of my stuff, searching for new resources to incorporate into next year. By the way, I am way better at planning lessons and executing them then grading them. That is one of the reasons why my desk accumulates clutter. It is mostly work I need to grade. I will get it done, I promise. In the meantime I am enjoying beefing up my lesson plans for next year. Here are some of my favorite teacher blogs:

• The Geography Lady @ http://texasgeography.wordpress.com/  - Clearly this website was designed with her students in mind, but it is chock full of Geography content that other teachers can incorporate into their classes (um, I mean mine). It looks like this Lady has been blogging for quite some time about her adventures in the classroom and in her real world travels. She has posted lot's of great stuff here that you can spend way too much time perusing. 
• Dandelions and Dragonflies @ http://dandelionsdragonflies.blogspot.com/ - She blogs about teaching a way younger group than what I do, but I love what she does. She always has creative and fun ideas to share including photo's of her very coordinated classroom. This blog is one of the ones that inspired me to start my own. Even if you don't teach, I encourage you to check this one out. 
•  Edna Sackson @ http://whatedsaid.wordpress.com/about-2/ - Ms. Sackson is an education expert in Australia and I love reading her posts. She is very active in teaching and leading other teachers and I appreciate that she shares her insights with the rest of the world. It is interesting to see that teachers halfway around the world are facing the same challenges we do here in the United States. 

       If you like those and are looking for more then just check out my page for teachers by clicking on the previous orange text or the link in the left hand column. There are not detailed descriptions there, so it is kind of like a treasure hunt. Most of the things posted to that page are sites that I use on a regular basis, so if you have any questions about them let me know. If you are spring cleaning or planning ahead I hope your end results are what you aim for. 

Take care,

Mrs. PJ

     

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Word up

My latest word wall.

           I used some old material I found about Africa to create a two part lesson on economic activities there.  The first part is a card sort.  Put up signs around the room labeled Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and Quaternary.  Give each student a card and have them figure out where it goes. Afterword you can have a class discussion about why there are no Quaternary activities. You can get the cards here,  African Economic Activities.          You could make several copies of the cards and use them in small groups instead of whole class. After the card sort you can continue the lesson by having students complete this handout, African Economic Notes.          I also have a standard interactive activity that I use with my word walls. It is a graphic organizer that students complete as a throw down lesson whenever needed. You can get that here, Geoterms Graphic Organizer. To use it your students need to be familiar with the five themes of geography, Movement, Regions, Human Environment Interaction, Location and Place. You can see by how I set up my word wall I kind of help my students out with that.

Well, what do you know?

      Most people in education have heard of the KWL chart as a way to establish prior knowledge. Don't worry I'm not about to explain those self explanatory graphic organizers.

• What do you Know?
• What do you Want to know?
• What did you Learn?

      Unfortunately so have the kids,  and the sight of a KWL chart just makes them groan. So as teachers we have to be sneaky sometimes to figure out what those kids already know. Why bother you might ask? I know sometimes it seems like those little angels come into our rooms as blank slates, but that is far from true. They have been in many classrooms sitting in front of many teachers long before they came in to our classrooms. Plus everything they learn form each other, television, and those smart phones growing out of their arms.

     I digress, back to the importance of prior knowledge. If we can connect what we are teaching to something that they already know then they understand it better and retain it longer.  As if the brain is a giant spider web of knowledge. If you don't find something to stick it to, then it just escapes. It can be tough finding that prior knowledge. At the first whiff of new material some students will fake ignorance to avoid being called on. But if they are confident that they already know something about the topic, then they are excited to expand that knowledge. 

     Questioning helps. My general rule of thumb is that I need to be asking the students just as many questions as they are asking me. For example at the beginning of the school year we study physical geography. Before we even start I tell the kids, "Okay, you guys are going to ace this next unit because you already know all of this stuff. Physical geography is just like the physical science you learned last year. Let's see, do you remember what the different layers of the earth are? Oh, that was easy, what about the movement of the plates? What are the different types? Show me with your hands. What does that movement create?" and so on and so on. They get so excited telling me what they know. 

      Another way to find out what they know is to hand them the dry erase marker or chalk. You will always have shy kids, but if you make everyone take a turn it eases the embarrassment.  Just put a starter topic up and have the kids web everything they know for you. Teach high school and don't have enough board room for six classes? Just snap a picture with a digital camera and erase the board.  Remember, while they might act like it sometimes, they weren't really born yesterday. So, be creative, be sneaky, but do whatever you need to do to find out what they already know. You will see improvement in your retention rate. 

The World Like You've Never Seen It

Women's Income

    Here is map of the world based on women's income world wide. Looks a little different from the map that we typically see. It is from an impressive website, www.worldmapper.org

"The total income of women is highest in the United States, and second highest in China. Women in the United States have a high total income because on average they are some of the highest paid women in the world. Women in China earn below the world average, but they have high total earnings due to the large population of China."

      If you teach Geography or Social Studies then you can find a map on this website for your classes. They have distorted maps based on just about every topic that you can think of. They are great for including in presentations or handouts, so students can make comparisons. 

    If you like that, then you might want to see my list of other resources for teachers, here. Enjoy!

Lessons I learned this week.

     School isn't just for the kids you know. It is finally Friday, so I thought I would reflect on a few of the things that I learned this week.
1. It is not a good idea to watch films that you have not previewed. We got stuck watching a film to wrap up a lesson about religion in the Middle East because I borrowed the lesson from someone else. It was the most boring film ever. I mean the narrater.....talked.....like.....this......the .....whole ....film.  I just wanted to shout "Spit it out already!"  The kids were not impressed either. It could have been worse. Once when I was subbing the teacher left a video and a note that instructed me to stand next to the TV and censor it with a piece of cardboard when anything obscene came on.  Seriously.
2. Some kids can be reformed. One of my students used to skip class every time I let her go to the bathroom. I didn't let her go anywhere for three weeks and I called her mom when she skipped after school tutoring that she was supposed to attend. Today she asked to go to the bathroom. She really did look like she was about to have an accident, so I let her go and she actually came back this time.
3. Listening to gossip is lame. I know, the short term thrill of getting the latest dirt is entertaining, but in the end I find myself losing more and more respect for my peers and supervisors.
4. The best lessons are the ones you take time to develop yourself. I came up with a mapping activity that I used last week. It took me three days to get the whole thing together because I had to find a bunch of maps, print and laminate them. It went really well and this week four other Geography teachers have borrowed it. They all gave me positive feedback. I wish I had time to develop lessons like that all of the time. A teacher workday once a grading period would be nice.
5. Don't give a test on Valentine's Day because the kids will be too hyped up on sugar to focus on the task at hand. This is year five, so you would think that I would have figured that one out by now. Speaking of Valentine's day, I hope that you had a nice one.

A few words

1st

Here is my word wall for the unit we just did on Southwest Asia.

  I'm assuming that most school districts require word walls now. I figure if I have to do it then it might as well be a good one. Unfortunately our curriculum bundles only allots ten days for this unit, so this is coming down tomorrow. Then I have to figure out how I am going to do the wall for Africa.

2nd

  "Mom..I mean Mrs.PJ. OMG Miss, I can't believe I just called you that." It is quite alright. Actually I consider it the ultimate teacher compliment. It must mean I am nagging my students just right. 

3rd

   Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. We are supposed to forgo something for forty days to remind us of the suffering of others. I had a hard time deciding this year, but I finally settled on TV. I probably wouldn't have picked that if we had already started watching this season of Walking Dead, but since we haven't, it will just have to sit in the DVR for a month. Wish me luck. Last year I gave up gossip. That didn't exactly worked the way I had hoped. Right now I pretty much watch TV after the kids go to bed and my time would probably be better spent sleeping. We will see how it goes. 

The comeback

"Your kids are f***ing s***heads. Good luck with them."

        That is a text I received before returning to work from maternity leave. Really made me excited about going back you know? Some of my kids were rough around the edges, but what can you expect when you leave them with a sub for so long? One of my administrators even warned me not to smile at my kids for the first several weeks back. He had apparently had several run ins with my kids. Anyway, I knew I couldn't do that. I'm human and if I wasn't able to have some sense of humor in the classroom then I would probably crack and lose it. Besides, I like to believe that they are all good students, just some of them make not so good choices. 

       Last Friday they really got to redeem themselves. My students and I had to sit in the auditorium while the counselors called students up one at a time to prepare their schedules for next year. I knew there would be a lot of down time and we don't have any time to waste, so I brought an activity for my kids.  For those of you interested I will tell you about the activity in just a minute. The important thing was that it kept them busy. At the end of the day the counselors pulled me aside and said, "Mrs. PJ your kids are the most well behaved and most respectful students we have had in here all week." They went on to tell me that it had not been that quiet the entire time they had been in the auditorium and that I was the only teacher that had brought something for the students to do. I was so proud of my kids that I was beaming the rest of the day. On Monday I told them that the counselors had nothing but nice things to say about them. 

       So what did we do with our down time? I split them into six groups. Each group was given a deck of cards. Each deck had forty cards with a term and picture and a corresponding card with an explanation. That's right, my high school students played match. They loved it. With that many cards it took them almost the whole period to match them all up, but they competed to see which group could match them all first. When they finished I got them all to play a game where I called out something and they had to find and hold up a card that fit the description. "Which two cards are opposites of each other? Find a card that is one of the five themes of Geography. Do you have one that is a physical feature?" You can easily make your own deck of cards by making a table in a blank word document or pages file and filling it in with your own vocabulary and pictures. These vocabulary decks are great for a throw down review lesson. 

keeping it together

student: Oooooh Mrs.PJ, you are looking good today.
me: Thank you, but I wish you would pay more attention to your work.
student: Awww Miss, you know I will take care of that later. Why don't you let me take you out this weekend?
me: Um, no thanks, I am happily married. Why don't you do that work now?
student: Miss, haven't you ever heard of divorce?
me: Not in my house.
class: Ooooooooooh, she shut you down!

     As you can see, some students have no shame in kissing up to try and get out of work. If I took all of the monetary bribes I was offered I could have retired by now. That's not what this post is about though. I want to tell you about the happily married part. Just don't tell Mr. PJ because I don't want him to get a big head, but he is an awesome partner and I want to share why. So here is my top three list.

    3. Share the workload. When we were dating I was super impressed at how clean Mr.PJ kept his apartment. We are talking laundry, dishes, vacuuming, the whole package. He still pitches in whenever and wherever he can. You all know how much work there is in housework. In my eyes there is nothing more attractive than a man that voluntarily washes dishes.

    2. Support your spouse. When I'm trying to get our little dude to do something necessary, like brush his teeth, and he is resisting, my husband will tell him, "you need to listen to your mother little dude." It sends a strong message, that we are a team and we work together. He doesn't just stop with the parenting bit, he supported me when I was finishing school,  he supports my decision to be a working mom, he has no problem with me doing things I want to do. For example he occasionally gets up early Saturday mornings to hang out with the kids so I can volunteer at a thrift store for a few hours.

    1. Affection. He let's me know he needs me as much as I need him.

    I think some of the best advice I ever read about marriage was that love is a verb, not a noun. It was in a Stephen Covey book, but I don't remember which one. Anyway, the point was that love is an action, something you have to actively do and demonstrate. You can't just expect that spark to exist without stoking the fire. I have found that it is not just doing things for each other, but also truly appreciating what you do for each other. I was thinking about writing this post and then during the sermon this past Sunday I was reminded of some other important advice about love.
     ⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.  Corinthians

Don't get shot.

      It is something a good friend of mine used to say anytime we parted. After he passed away just thinking about it made me miss him. Not "bye" or "see you later", but "Don't get shot." Cause it is a crazy ass world out there, there you never know what could happen, so stay safe and don't get shot. Anyway it was years after my friend passed before I could comfortably repeat the sentiment. Now every Friday, every time the bell rings to release my high schoolers for the weekend I say goodbye with something along these lines, "Behave yourselves, make good choices, have fun, make your mamma proud and don't get shot." They always giggle. I guess it is kind of a way of telling them to live life to the fullest. On Monday I tell them that I am glad to see them and I'm glad that they survived the weekend.  Recent events have me reconsidering my words.
      Last year a kid got shot breaking into one of our middle schools. Over Christmas break the stepmother of one of my students was shot and killed. The week after that one of our students was shot as a gas station was being robbed. She is still in the hospital. Besides the gun violence there has also been two tragic car accidents. One killed one of my former students and the other left a hole in our schools library and a young man in the hospital. Both car accidents involved drunk drivers. Pointless violence, pointless tragedy and all of it so preventable.
      I keep seeing in the news that in light of the recent shootings people want concealed weapons to be carried in schools. Some even feel that teachers should be carrying weapons.  I will explain why that is a horrible idea in a second, but let me explain something else first. More people carrying more weapons will only lead to more paranoia, anger and violence. I really feel that more people carrying more weapons is really just like putting a band-aid on a scrape. I believe we would be better serving each other if we worked harder to prevent the scrape in the first place. I know you might be thinking I'm naive, that there is simply too much crazy out there in the world. The violence I am aware of.  The second paragraph of this post is just a tiny bit of what the world holds.
      As I was saying, it seems to me that preventative measures would be more effective than reactive measures. Reaching out to peers that seem overly burdened, defending people when they are bullied, befriending those that seem lonely, and helping people get professional help when they need more than we can provide. Not just prayer is needed, but action. I'm sorry, but I cannot believe that the world we live in is so stuck in a downward spiral that the only hope is an arms race between "us" and "them." There are  too many good things that happen everyday.  My babies deserve to live in a world where people work together instead of attacking each other. You never know when someone might be in need of a friend, so open your eyes and ears, pray for guidance, and reach out to the people around you.
       By the way, if you have ever taught or know any teachers you understand that it is one of the most stressful careers out there. We plan, organize, teach, parent, counsel, administer, mediate, explain, accommodate, regroup, re-teach, report and reply and that is all within the first two hours of the workday. I have seen teachers snap and verbally attack students, throw things like toddlers, and walk out of the classroom because they have lost their composure. Not all teachers are that immature, but a person under that much stress is not someone that needs to be carrying a weapon. We have two fully capable police officers on our campus. Defending us and our students is their job. Teachers have enough to worry about.

Grattitude

      The end of a grading period is coming up fast. Generally before it arrives I like to give my students an itemized progress report a few days before I have to turn in grades. I tell them if they get it signed by their parents I will give them a bonus 100 daily grade. Usually by this time they have so many grades in the grade book this extra one will really only boost their average by a few points. So giving them this really serves two purposes. This is how I explain it to them, I am only human so there may be a mistake in my grade book. I ask them to check what I have and see if they have anything I missed in their grade book. It is like having them double check my bookkeeping. Secondly when they see their grades, the ones that are failing will usually be motivated to attend tutorials and get their grades back up.
     So yesterday I gave out the reports and explained to my kids why. One of them (that was failing) shouted out, "Wow Mrs. Thanks a lot!" At first I thought he was being sarcastic with me, but then he asked why can't all teachers be this nice and help them out. This got me thinking about a couple of things. One of those is how we are commanded by God to serve one another and as teachers we are public servants. Galatians 5:13 states, "My brothers and sisters, God called you to be free, but do not use your freedom as an excuse to do what pleases your sinful self. Serve each other with love." Sometimes teaching can be depressing and frustrating and we have to remember the purpose we are serving. This student was asking about those teachers that take out their frustration on the kids.
      In a way this students gratitude reminded that we should be thankful for the opportunity to educate. No doubt schools are full of pressure and stress. There are too many administrators and teachers that operate under a "gotcha" type system where they focus on trying to catch people doing wrong. I was reading about this recently in a business management book.  It was explaining about how by focusing on the negative we create a paranoid environment where people are afraid and don't perform at their best. Not exactly what I would describe as an optimal learning environment. If we remember our purpose as servants then we seek out the best ways to serve and create the most productive environment. I am grateful I have students that help me remember that.

Public vs. Private

     I teach at a public high school. Two years ago there were budget cuts by the state that resulted in twenty jobs being lost on my campus. A good friend of mine ended up at an all boys Christian private school. He invited us to an event (fundraiser) that they hosted for Epiphany last night. It was a fun excuse to get dressed up, go out and spend time with friends outside of school. There was food and music. It was pretty entertaining.
     We ended up sitting at a big table with the following people: myself, my husband who is a plumber, two friends that also teach public school, one of their spouses that works at an group home for kids, and an orthopedic surgeon and his homemaker wife. The majority of people in attendance were parents of students at this school. I'm thinking this one surgeon probably makes more money then the rest of us at the table combined. So they start asking us questions about what it is like to be at a public school. What is our average class size? This year about 26, but last year was worse. This private school has a 10 to 1 student teacher ratio. They want to know how bad is the bullying on our campus. We explain that even though our kids are in a rough area of town they really look out for each other. Our campus is in a neighborhood plagued by poverty, there are active gangs in the area, and a small percentage of our students don't speak english, a larger percentage don't have two parents at home.
      The wife of the surgeon asks if we are afraid to be there. No, we love being there. The husband starts trying to justify their decision to spend $20,000 a year to send their kids to private schools. The students are all motivated, they get more direct instruction, yadaa,yadda, yadda. I'm thinking, look man, you don't have to explain anything to me. All parents want the best for their kids. Not all parents can afford to send their kids to private schools. Not all parents have time to help their kids do homework or go to athletic events. Some parents didn't graduate from high school themselves and they don't know how to help their kids get a good education. I believe everyone deserves the opportunity to have a quality education no matter what their background.  Everyone should have a chance to better themselves and their family. That is why I teach public school. It is a challenge sometimes, I like to say it is a new adventure everyday. Seeing those kids graduate makes it worthwhile.

Rendered

      As we learn and grow we constantly try to define who we are. We tend to use past experiences to illustrate our self descriptions. As in, "Because of this I am that." We want to be able to say definitively, "This is who I am." Our life experiences are what made us, what rendered us. Alas we are not static. Everyday we are alive we grow and change. In an endless loop we are rendered and renewed. In starting this blog I was inspired by two pieces of scripture.
     
     And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2
    
 Found that one in a study Bible and immediately tried to find something to write it on. There was a verse a day calender next to me and when I ripped off the page for today to write on the back of it. The verse was oddly  appropriate.
    
      Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are to become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17
     
      While I am a wife, mother, teacher and christian, I am also human. My life is full of adventure. There is the path I intend to take, the mistakes I make and the learning that happens everyday. My goal is to share some of the fun with you through this blog. Enjoy!