Change is good....right?

Hey guys! Its been a while since I've written on here.....probably because its been SUMMER and the farthest thing from my mind is school. HOWEVER, that beautiful time is coming to a close...school is here. TOMORROW! Pardon me while I go sit in the dark and mourn my freedom, aka take a nap.....guys I don't know if Im going to be able to function without a mid-day nap.....and this is the point where im sure every non-teacher reader is rolling their eyes at me :) but like whatever! I LOVE NAPS!
Im straying from my original intended topic of this post....which im sure ill do a few more times...

This year I will be starting my year at a different school. Still within the same district but just a different building. Can I just stress that this decision to move from my beloved RMS was one of the hardest and still is a pretty hard decision to make/be okay with.

Side note: I am currently writing in a Starbucks trying desperately not to cry but I'm getting misty and I might have to put on sunglasses soon and just pretend im severely hungover or something...

SECOND SIDE NOTE: I had to leave Starbucks and finish my post in my apartment because I didn't want to worry customers with my emotions. 

Anyways. I will spare you the details of why I am making this switch because this post is already going to be long enough. But I am lucky enough to be moving with a few of my best friends and I will be teaching Kindergarten with them. Things like that don't always happen, moving schools with the people you love and teaching on a team together. So I am so grateful for that.

However, I will be leaving some of my other best friends and others are going to different schools as well (just caught a falling tear....you guys....this is bananas...). I knew that someday this would happen, we would move schools and we wouldn't get to teach together, but I didn't think it would happen so soon.....my heart still hurts, I spent the last few days of school crying at my desk because I didn't know what decision to make.

The staff at RMS is incredible. I never thought I would love the people I work with so much. When I first got hired I figured I would make some decent friends and acquaintances and I would be just fine. Little did I know that these people would weasel (in a great way, weasels are adorable) their way into my heart and stay forever.

Am I saying that everyone I worked with was amazing? No. Am I saying that every day was this walk in the park dream? Absolutely not. But I am saying that those times that were hard, and even unbearable were made okay by the weasel people (thats a horrible nickname.....) the people who supported me and made me laugh while I was crying, the people who made inappropriate jokes, the people who built me up as a teacher and told me what I could do to improve myself. These people are the people who I will miss. They are my family. They always will be. And if any of you try and kick me out of the Rough Rider group I am going to cry.

Something else that made this decision so difficult were the kids. My babies. The little turds that you all love hearing about. I will miss seeing them grow up and go on to higher grades. I will miss being able to burden their hurt and give them hugs. I know that there are children everywhere that will need me and I will love them all. But there is something about those littles that you start out with. Ones that have your heart and you just can't shake them. I have a list of teenys that I have specifically asked my RMS teacher friends to keep a loving eye on. Little babes that told me at the end of the year "Miss Philips I know Ill be in 2nd grade next year but I can still come say hi to you right?" And even though I knew I was leaving the building I told them "of course" those kids almost made it harder than my coworkers to leave (no offense coworkers). I know I can always call my RMS family and we can meet up and catch up and I won't lose them. That is something that I can't do with my kids.

RMS will always be where I became a teacher. Those people will always be my family and YOU CANT GET RID OF FAMILY! muahahahhahaha

I thought I would add a picture of the day I got my job at RMS and a picture of my last day at RMS.....

BRB going to cry

The apple and the tree: a true story

This is the true story of an apple that didn't fall far from the tree.

One day a big tree, the kind you see in the dark and scary woods, grew so tall and big that it decided to start giving off fruit. The tree didn't know what it really meant to give off fruit. The tree thought that it could make the fruit and drop it off wherever it pleased and that would be the end of the connection to the tree. Produce and drop. Produce and drop. The tree was a selfish tree and it thought that it was so strong and powerful that any fruit it produced had to be the best fruit in the world. Strong and powerful, just like the tree thought it was. The first time the tree produced a fruit it started off small and fragile, the cutest little apple you ever did see. It was small and needed love. The tree didn't want to love it, the tree was annoyed that it was so small and fragile so it ignored the apple. It spoke unkindly to it and didn't nurture it the way the apple needed. The tree was a lazy tree and an ignorant tree so it did not care about what was best for the apple. The apple eventually fell, before it needed to, but it didn't fall far from the tree. It stayed close and listened to the tree and watched the tree. The apple wanted to be like the tree because it thought that maybe the tree would like it better if the apple was more like the tree. The apple eventually became so much like the tree that it started to put down roots in the ground and grow. It was becoming a big and selfish tree just like the tree that had produced it. Once the apple had grown into a tree it looked to the tree next to it to see if it finally cared about it, but sadly the tree had moved on to producing more little angry fruits that would grow into selfish and ignorant trees. The end.


I know that wasn't the best written story in the world....but you get the point. More and more I see that the problems we are having in schools does not start with the kids and it does not end with the kids. It starts with the parents. They are teaching theses children ALL THE WRONG THINGS! And shockingly enough NONE OF THE RIGHT! Like oh I don't know, the alphabet? And maybe it would be nice to be read to sometimes at home. But instead they are teaching their children how to curse and "whoop that kids ass" because thats how things get handled.

Am I saying that every parent is like this? No. Am I saying that it is the main problem in our school system. YES I AM! You would not believe how many times I have had a kid mouth off to me, put their hands on me, or call other students foul names and not feel any remorse. I call a parent, or the parent is called to the school and what do we see? The parent snaps on me or an administrator, slaps their kid in the head and calls them a foul name and then drags them off for what I can only imagine is a "whoppin" of some kind.

It makes me sick to hear the way 97% of these parents talk to their kids and around their kids. The children get called ugly names and pushed around like the are property. Children are not property, they are humans and they need to be taught and loved and cared for. If you can't raise a child to the best of your ability then oh I don't know mayyyyyybe don't have 10?

I adore my parents. Are they perfect? No. But they raised me with morals and they raised me to be kind. Am I always kind? Yes! Kidding kidding kidding Im not.....but I do my very best to be. When I am hurting, broken, sad, confused, mad, lost, frustrated, in need of comfort or basically any other emotion I go to them. They give advice and I hold it in the highest regard. My parents give great advice I think. Maybe thats because their my parents.....which leads me to my last point I swear.

What hope do these children have for growing up to be functioning and wonderful parts of the world when the people that are raising them and shaping them into the person they become are such total and complete ninnys (for lack of a better term). I mean really. When I was little I did anything my mom said because SHES MY MOM and I trust her opinion over anything else. When these kids parents are teaching them to fight and attack before thinking and talking......What do we expect them to do? Go against what their parents are teaching them from the time they could walk?

I guess Im feeling a bit hopeless because I see how hard teachers work every single day and I see the progress that is made when they are at school and then we hand them over to their "parents" who undo what we have worked so hard to do in mere minutes when they pick up their child and call them a "f**ker" (ps-I don't think I bleeped that out correctly....but you know what I mean). Sometimes I hate adults. They're idiots.

Sorry for the novel.....

This is what I know

I don't claim to be a genius. I don't know it all. I know some things I guess, but not everything. You're all probably shocked to hear that......but its true. I guess this is about things that are mainly my opinion......I have very strong opinions about this.

Teachers, true teachers, work really freaking hard. They work late nights, long hours and get paid diddly. The thing that really irks me are the people and things that make teachers lives harder. And usually its not the kids! ITS THE ADULTS! And usually its not the other teacher adults in the building (it sometimes is....but not the majority of the time). The people who make the rules, the tests, the standards for excellence, the criteria and basically suck all the fun out of life are the ones who I have a problem with.

I completely understand why the turnover rate for teachers, especially teachers in rough areas, is so high. Many teachers don't make it 5 years in the same school, and some even leave the profession all together. I bet if there was a study done on these teachers that have left the profession and we asked them why they left, the majority would NOT say the students. Politics. The politics of the education system sucks for lack of a better word.

Testing can suck it
The shame we put on teachers if their students don't grow a certain amount can SUCK IT
THE SHAME THAT IS PUT ON STUDENTS IF THEY DONT GROW CAN SUCK IT!

I am really over it.

I am also over education professionals who are anything but that. If you don't have a heart to teach, leave. If you won't truly do ANYTHING to ensure that your students are safe, learning to their full potential and feeling successful and accomplished to their ability level, leave. Am I perfect? No. Do I yell? Absolutely. Am I quick to judge sometimes? 100%. But I try to change. I know I make mistakes and I don't know how I will get better if someone doesn't tell me! I try to make myself better with the help of others. These kids need me to be the role model that they don't have. If their parent doesn't care for them at home and then they come to school and their teacher doesn't give a crap either, how are these lovely young little babies suppose to grow up to be anything less than a bitter mean adult.

Teaching isn't easy so I am confused why some people decide to do it. It is not some glamorous job where we can go home and leave our work at the door.
 Teaching also isn't a one person job. If you are a teacher you aren't doing this job alone. It takes a team to help students.
We need administrators who care and have a firm belief on what they want their school to be and will stop at NOTHING to get it.
We need support staff who will stick their neck out when a teacher makes a mistake or turns in something late, because we all know thats happened to us.
We need counselors to help our students who we cannot reach because of all the hurt and pain they have in their young hearts.
We need secretaries and office staff to keep the school organized! Because God knows the building wouldn't run without that.
We need tutors and aids that will be the second set of hands for a teacher when they are stretched too thin.
It is not just the job of the teacher to teach the students. All these people impact the kids we see daily and if you aren't a person who has a heart for this you need to go. AND IT IS OKAY IF YOU AREN'T! Teaching isn't for everyone, and you aren't a bad person if it isn't the thing for you.
You ask me to put an IV in someone and I will barf on you for sure. Not because I don't want that person to be hydrated and such but because that is not my thing. Am I awful for it? Nope. So if you truly shouldn't be a teacher. Don't be a teacher. We don't just work 9 months and then have 3 off. It doesn't go down like that yall. So like lets figure that out.

I'm just at my breaking point I guess. This whole education system thing is draining. It takes a toll.

Honestly don't really know what I just wrote about.....if there are even valid points in there....kinda just rambled....a lot.

Meh

Since when....

Its no secret that school and the education system has changed a tad since even I was little. Things are way more serious.....and intense.....and not working? Its weird. Like we take away the happiness and the fun and the creativity and no one is flourishing or succeeding. Its so incredibly strange! I just don't get it......(if you aren't sensing any type of sarcasm in my writing right now I don't think we should be friends anymore)

So here goes my list of "since when"s

Since when is it bad to have recess? I read an article where a school in Texas is allowing their students 4 different times for recess each day. They go out twice in the morning for 15 minutes and twice in the afternoon for 15 minutes. Now really thats only an hour, thats nothing. AND GUESS WHAT! Scores are improving, attitudes are better, kids are thinking more deeply and on their own, they are more quick to try and solve problems on their own than to run to their teacher to fix things. Am I saying that recess fixes all? No. It doesn't at all, but would it hurt to try? I don't think so.

Since when do tests tell us everything we need. This might be the stress of testing season barreling down on me like a ton of bricks (honestly its not too bad for me right now, but I know some other teachers who are feeling the stress) but a test can only tell us so much. Actually spending time with a kid, working with them, reading with them, doing math with them. Thats when we find out our stuff. All tests aren't bad.....they can help us track trends and data buuuuuuuut the importance that we put on tests....unncessary. Calm down test people.

SINCE WHEN is a hug bad. Kids crave hugs, high fives, nose pinches (side note I accidentally typed pUnches first and Im really glad I caught it). Some don't, and that is fine, but others do! They love hugs and to be loved on. It makes them feel cared for and who doesn't have a better attitude towards pretty much everything when they feel cared for!

Since when are the arts unimportant.....I would love to live in a world with no creative people. Oh just kidding that would be awful! It is so important to foster creativity and promote being different and a little weird. The best people I know are total weirdos!

So in conclusion....lets go back to the way school use to be. The end.