Uncategorized

I can’t believe that it’s already May!  This is our last full month of the school year, it’s gone by so fast!  While I am excited for the summer (and my trip to Thailand) I’m not quite ready for the year to be over.  I truly do love being here and teaching at Mount.

I got a text at 7:30 on Saturday morning (my first thought was, “who the heck is texting me this early on a SATURDAY morning!?”) from one of the girls I work with at the youth group where I volunteer.  She told me that she was taking the SATs and that she was in my room to take them.  Now this may seem silly, but it honestly made my entire weekend!  My classroom is my happy place, it’s bright and it’s where I feel loved, satisfied, fulfilled, but mostly, it’s where I feel safe.  My potential is reached in this space, the real me is showcased when you all walk through the door and into my classroom.  Most students in the youth group where I volunteer are either in the Acalanes school district, or they go to College Park or Northgate.  So I spend so much time hyping up Mount, telling them how wonderful it is and what a great place it is to be.  So when I found out one of the students was actually in my room, it made me so excited that she was able to experience my happy place.

On top of that message Saturday morning, I got to spend the afternoon with my coworkers, your other teachers, at Ms. Fontanilla’s daughter’s hootenanny.  Not only do I love the place where I work, but I absolutely adore the people I work with!  They are truly some of the most amazing people I have ever known.  Their kindness, passion, and knowledge is astounding and everyday I’m thankful that I get to work with and hang out with such admirable and fun people.

I hope that you all have a place and people in your lives like I have found here at school.  There are certainly sometimes when it can be tough to be here, especially in the face of so many negative (budget cuts, layoff, etc.) but I have learned to focus on the positive aspects of it all, hopefully you are able to do the same!

This week will mostly be focused on STAR test review.  We will break down sample test questions, review academic vocabulary, and review material from earlier on in the year.  The hope is that you will be able to understand the test better and improve your scores from your 8th grade social science test scores.  We will take a review break on Wednesday for current events and then pick up review for the end of the week.

Homework:

• Current Event due Wednesday, 5/5
• Workbook page 135 due Thursday, 5/6
• Legacy of Imperialism drafts due Friday, 5/7

A new week is here and away we go!  We are almost to the home stretch, the month of May, and things are picking up quickly.  Remember to take time for yourself as the weeks get busier and the weather gets nicer so that you are able to stay healthy.  I’ve been really busy with obligations the past few weeks and I realized this past Friday that I had too much on my plate.  I had events that I needed to participate in on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning but I put everything aside on Sunday afternoon and enjoyed some time reading in the beautiful sunshine and met up with some of my favorite people (my parents) for dinner and watched a movie on Sunday night.  Usually I spend Sunday afternoons grading and/or planning, but I recognized that I was at my breaking point and I decided to put work aside for a weekend and just enjoy myself.  I realized I felt so much better as soon as I decided to take some time for myself and I woke up this morning feeling better than I have in a long time, more myself.

I encourage you all to check in with yourselves, how are you doing?  How are you feeling?  Obviously we can’t always do what we want, but we do need to make sure that we are taking care of ourselves and spending some time doing whatever it is that we want to do.  Even if it is only one afternoon on a beautiful Sunday!

In world history this week we are going to continue the film we started on Friday, The Manchurian Candidate.  This film highlights the fear of espionage during the Cold War and it discusses a little bit about the effects of the Korean War.  We have three short days in 5th period this week, and one short day and one regular day in 6th period.  This will mess up our schedule a bit, but we will continue our study of the Cold War, looking at how it impacted the world after World War II.

You don’t have any specific history homework this week so that you are able to focus on your STAR tests and your Legacy of Imperialism projects.

Homework

• Draft 2 of project proposal and draft 1 of the Impact Anaysis is due on Friday, 4/30.
• Rest for STAR test this week and eat good breakfasts

Welcome back from spring break!  I hope that you all had a wonderful break and that you were able to get some rest and enjoy some time off of school.  I know that the week before spring break was a tough one for many of you.  Your DSA teachers were all a bit off and many of you will be feeling grief for a while.  Know that those feelings are ok and your teachers are here if you ever need anyone to talk to.

This week we will be returning to our regular routine in the classroom.  We will wrap up our lecture on World War II and we will finish the book Night as well.  At the end of the week we will have a quiz on World War II and then we will move on to the Cold War.

We will also spend some time this week preparing for the Star test which starts in 2 weeks.  Regardless of how you feel about the test, it has become an important test for our school and our academy as well.  As teachers all we ask is that you do your best.  We know that there will be questions that you don’t know the answer to, but please do your best to read each question and use the historical knowledge that you have in order to answer it to the best of your ability.

Homework:

• Workbook page 129 & 130 due Wednesday, 4/14

The first of our 2 short weeks is here.  I hope that you enjoyed your weekend and the Saints victory on Sunday!

As I was thinking about the content of this week I can’t help but think about my time and friends in D.R. Congo.  We will finish watching the movie Hotel Rwanda on Wednesday, a movie that deals with the harsh and ugly reality of the world that we live in, the world our ancestors have created.  I see so much hate around me, a world where people hate one another because that’s what they have been told to do and I wonder how I can change things.  How did I make a difference?  How can I help my friends in Congo who have lost their homes, who have seen murder, torture, and rape?  What can I do for people who are suffering on the other side of the world?  Sometimes I get so fed up with my helplessness that all I can do is cry.  I see people suffering all around me and I feel so useless.

I have realized that all I can do, that the best thing I can do is educate people.  I can tell people about what is happening around the world.  I can refuse to be one of the Americans who ignores what is happening in other places and I can refuse to plead ignorance.

Sometimes history is ugly, sometimes it’s uncomfortable.  For this reason we must study it.  We must look at what has happened in the past and learn from it so that we can try to prevent it from happening again.  Once we finish the movie we will look at how imperialism has affected Africa and the impact the Europeans had on the continent.

Homework:

• Workbook pg. 73, due Wednesday, 2/10
• Page 296 in textbook, #1, 3, & 5 due Friday, 2/12