Flu, flu

We lost track of a family with two children in our school. How does a school lose track of an entire family? You see, it’s like this. We get in touch with every student and learning coach at least twice a month. We communicate in between those calls by email. We hadn’t heard from this family in a week, the learning coach hadn’t logged in for two weeks, and the students hadn’t logged in for several days and were lagging about nine days behind in their work. We left voice mails when they didn’t answer the phone. We sent emails that got no reply. Then we started to worry. Were they okay?  They didn’t live in the safest of neighborhoods. Should we send the police out for a welfare check?

When we reached their emergency contact, we found out that the entire family was down and out, and I mean really, really down and out, with this year’s strain of influenza.

It’s not over, people. That flu bug that’s been making its way through the nation is still hitting, and it’s not holding back. The Center for Disease Control is asking bloggers to pass the word: flu season is not over. It’s not too late to prepare to prevent yourself from being a victim.

Step one: Get vaccinated. Call around; if you can’t go to a doctor’s office, check with nearby pharmacies. Call the local health department and ask their advice. The current vaccine is still available.

Step two: Take common sense precautions. Every day preventive acts can help keep those germs away. Avoid sick people. Stay home if you’re sick – the office can and will run without you. Cover your nose and mouth if you sneeze or cough.

Step three; If your doctor prescribes antiviral drugs, take them. It’s worth it. They will shorten the duration of your flu, and they can lessen the symptoms.

My story above? It’s not over, either. Flu season continues to affect people across my state and across the country. This family is struggling to get to a telephone, much less log on and actively continue schooling. If the students don’t recover soon…let’s just say I’m worried. Very worried.

I’ll do what I can to support my students and their families. Readers, pass the word. It’s your job to protect yourself with a flu shot. Take care. I mean it.

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Storing the canning supplies

Oh, I was so proud last June. I organized the cupboards, cleared a space, and the storage for my home-canned goods looked great. Here’s an encore post showing the stock and the storage. 

There must be a better way.

This is the “before” picture. I’ve increased my repertoire of canned foods every year, and with that increase in recipes came an increased yield. Then comes the question: where do I keep all these provisions? And after we finish each jar of pickles or jam or applesauce, where will I keep the reusable jars? Above you see the dilemma in June: a partial shelf of pickles and jams and applesauce and rhubarb waiting for their day on the table, surrounded by empty canning jars and freezer containers.

Something here must go.

Step 1: I cleaned out half the books at the top.

Step 2: I gathered boxes for a thrift store donation (shelves out of sight on the left).

Step 3: I relocated the crockpot and reorganized the jars by size.

Step 4: Move in!!

Ah. That’s better.

Readers, this is the “after” shot – the “after” shot for June. After I’ve canned my way through June and July and even part of August, this cupboard will look very different. I’ll be sure to show you then. Remind me. Really.

Okay, readers. I now have at least double that amount of empty jars, and I never did show you August, did I? Expect a sequel as I work on decluttering – as much decluttering as my still-weak left side will allow. 

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When Gradebooks Attack

I tried. I really, really tried. This was my gradebook Friday morning. Each and every little square A+ means there are tests or quizzes or portfolios to be graded. In this case, every single course except Reading for Success (which comes in on Mondays) had work waiting for me.

 

I accomplished a lot, but not nearly enough. I had to leave several of these lovely little A+ icons in their square, unfinished stage. Meanwhile, several students kept working through the weekend. Monday, any progress I’d made on Friday appeared to be erased.

And that’s not counting the assignments that came in the mail.

Friday afternoons and Monday mornings are my busiest schedules, too. Regardless of the challenges, I do my best to hit the ground running on Monday afternoons. When Monday came to a close and I emptied the dregs of my tea, the gradebook looked better. Not empty, but better.

The Language Arts assignment that awaits my rubric and my eagle eye is one from a student who is working ahead. Deep breath; this one can wait until morning.

Now if only I could talk the students into really, really reading directions. Take another deep breath: that solution is still in the invention stage.

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Mental illness in schools – what we need

My email has been overloaded with courses lately. I’m not sure why. Are the trainers and higher-educators getting desperate for business? I know few of us are taking extra courses or earning higher degrees now because we can’t afford it and because additional training and education no longer pays.

But reduced pay scales aside, this offer came through recently. There’s a lot of public attention to mental illnesses these days, so I actually read it instead of hitting delete.

Dealing with Metal Illness in the Classroom

I could have used this a few years ago, or a few years before that, or – the list goes on. Or could I? Let’s look more closely.

This course is designed for teachers, support staff and school counselors.

Okay, the focus is good. School counselors have been cut way back, though, due to the usual and customary budget constraints. When a student needs counseling, the teacher is the first and sometimes the last to handle it. If the student is lucky, his/her teacher will have had at least some counseling training. Next, please.

Participants will learn about the diagnostic characteristics of the various types of mood disorders and the other types of mental health disorders that mimic the symptoms of each.

Now they’ve lost me. Teachers can’t and don’t diagnose illness, whether physical or mental. We may recognize head lice and flu, and we might be the ones monitoring behavior that suggests attention deficit disorder, but we do not diagnose. Training us in “diagnostic characteristics” isn’t the right direction at all.

If we teachers are to help students with possible mental illnesses, we need to have opportunities to refer these students for real diagnosis and treatment. We need to have the connections with medical professionals, and we need permission to contact them. We need administrators who take our concerns seriously, and we need time – yes, time – to meet with and call parents so we can work as a team. We need school psychologists who take our concerns seriously, school social workers who do more than push papers, and most of all, administrators who care about our safety and well-being.

We need coworkers and support staff that will work with us. We need the public to respect our knowledge, our experience, and our observations.

Most of all, we need this because the students, the ones who need help, need us.

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Notes to Teacher Self

Note to reading teacher self: When a student doesn’t have her book, always ask why. Why? One of my middle school struggling readers didn’t have her copy of The Cricket in Times Square because (drum roll) her older brother had picked it up and was reading it. Age 16, he is. Ah, I love this job.

Note to PR-loving self: It’s okay to say no. When approached about an interview with a local rag that has been notoriously anti-teacher, No is a valid response. Feel no guilt.

Note to role model self: Smile, don’t laugh, when a student struggles in writing to a prompt because “he doesn’t know anyone with a disability.” If they don’t remember I’m hearing impaired and it’s a disability, I’ll take that as a compliment. It means my disability doesn’t interfere with the way I do my job.

And that, teacher self, is a high note.

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Communication

Amigo uses an iPhone and Siri. Siri lets him text and all kinds of other tasks even though he can’t see the phone. If I need to reach him by day while I’m at work, I send him a text. He usually answers immediately. A few days ago, he sent me this memo.

“We’re under a three snore emergency.” It’s okay, he wasn’t falling asleep, he was just telling me that the city had declared a snow emergency and with it, no on-street parking.

He sent Chuck the information about the last of the Andrews Sisters passing on, but somehow mixed it up so it sounded like Chuck himself was headed toward that great harmonizing trio in the sky.

My favorite, however, came the day he sent me big news he’d heard on Facebook.

“Your cousins had a baby girl named Napoleon.”

Really?

 

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Minimalizing – me?

Groundhog’s Day? No one in Wisconsin believes this garbage. If the rodent sees its shadow today, it just means that the clear skies and bitter cold temperatures scared the critter more than its shadow did. Six more weeks of winter are a minimum around here. Meanwhile, I’ll hang out indoors and plant tomato seeds in pots and hope the power stays on in the house so they won’t die. It’s all part of channeling my inner Earth Mother.

My inner Earth Mother enjoys reading Mother Nature Network. I subscribe to their news updates and more. This caught my eye, of course. “Join us for a year-long celebration of The Joy of Less!” It’s a month by month guide to making lifestyle changes with the goal of living more simply. I looked it over and thought, “Oh, my. I don’t know if I can handle this.”

What? Daisy, the composter mom, one of the greenest in the neighborhood, saying no to a minimalist theory? Folks, I’m not sure I can live up to the tenth month in the program: Technology Free month. And what about Month Nine – the future of work? The illustration is a computer keyboard.

But then there are the months that tempt me, those ideas with which I’m already on track like Growing Groceries (Month Four) and Cooking: The Basics (Month Two ). The whole year starts with a month devoted to de-cluttering, and my home could use a month (and more) of that.

The last time I signed up for a green living program, it was sponsored by our district’s wellness coordinator. The whole thing was a great disappointment. It was designed for beginners, those who don’t even use both sides of the paper or bring their own shopping bags.  I found keeping the records tedious and I made no changes in habits at all. If anything, I was way ahead of the program.

But Mother Nature Network offers a challenge. I might not be able to handle Tech Free Month, but I can make other positive changes. I’ll share those changes with all of you, readers. I know you’ll keep me honest.

This is not, repeat NOT, a sponsored post. I do enjoy MNN, and this link was not solicited in any way. I don’t see it as a contest with winners and losers, either. Living more simply can only be positive.

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Oh, Lance. Nothing is simple.

Oh, Lance. Think of the good. Rejuvenating the sport of cycling. The Livestrong association. Donations to cancer research and cancer treatment. Bringing attention to a major sponsor, the USPS.

Does the good mitigate the bad?

The bad is damaging. The bad that’s coming to light now ranges from dishonesty and poor sportsmanship all the way to criminal rule-breaking and intimidation of teammates and now, witnesses.

Between the good and the bad we have the ugly: the Too Big To Fail attitude. The I’m Too Cool to Lose or I’m Too Important to Get Caught syndrome.  The I Am This Team and Don’t You Forget It outlook.

Lance, you let a lot of people down. Not just those in cycling and those in your immediate family, either. You’ve let down people who knew and trusted you, those who thought you were the world. You’ve let down people who never met you, but knew you through the ubiquitous yellow bracelets and all that the bracelets represent. Wearing a Livestrong bracelet right now invites arguments to which there are no resolutions.

Then we have the seemingly random quotes that keep getting you in more deeply. Cheating? If you really didn’t know what the word meant, you weren’t in competitive sports. And the argument of Everybody Did It? That doesn’t fly with parents of teenagers, and it doesn’t fly with the enforcers or with the fans – of any sport.

Maybe that’s where the conflict is. It’s not the good vs. the bad or the generous vs. the selfish. It’s the idea of being too cool, too important to follow the same rules and laws as the rest of the world. In that way, Lance, it’s simple.

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Progress Reports!

Daisy’s desk on a big grading day – note that all the papers in the stacks need to be graded, the grades entered in the gradebook, and then the papers get mailed back to the students. Three tasks before I can call the desk “clear”.

The Before Picture

How did I avoid taking an After Picture? The desk looks much better now. I’ve updated the gradebooks for all of my students, mailed back copious numbers of portfolio papers, and even took a few wet wipes to the desk surface. It’s so much easier to work now!

We were advised to keep the mailing envelopes for progress reports in a safe place. I stored mine in plain sight. With Fluffy and friends on guard, no one will mess with my envelopes.

Fluffy and friends on duty

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On a cold, cold day

I showed you the office fashion show of the fingerless gloves.

But then the temperatures took a dive below the zero mark and added a wind chill, so we really pulled out all the stops. Here’s Daisy’s cube in the drafty office in below-zero weather.

Gloves and warm sweater – oh, and snack, too.

Snuggie!

Blankets and snuggies abound in our cubicle world. Mine is from the Packers Pro Shop, of course.

Mug Shot

Warm beverages help, of course! The challenge is drinking it before it cools down.

Meanwhile, progress reports call. Time to warm up the gradebook!

 

 

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