The end.

Well once benefit of being a "specialist" is that end of the year cleanup was a breeze compared to packing up my classroom last year when I was preparing to move. It took me weeks to get everything organized and packed into boxes. It took several car trips to cart all of my teacher stuff home and once it was home, I proceeded to unpack the boxes and organize them even further in order to prepare them for our storage unit in OR. It took a lot of time to get that classroom emptied out and it was definitely a sad moment to leave the room and close the door for the last time.

Today all I had to do was clean out my desk in the staff lounge since I never had my own classroom/office this year. All of my belongings fit inside one grocery bag. Now, it's completely empty and another school year has come to and end.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am really bad at goodbyes. I don't like getting to know wonderful people only to leave them. Although I haven't had the perfect year, I have met a lot of really nice people and have learned a great deal from the wonderful teachers whose rooms I have worked in throughout the year. It all seems somewhat anti-climatic because this time, I am actually leaving before the kids. Technically Friday is the last day of school but because we have a wedding to attend in CT, we are taking off a bit early in order to fit in a trip to see the Sneaker-in-laws and my parents too. It was announced in the school newsletter that I won't be returning, but I don't really get the sense that the kids pay too much attention to the fact that I won't be back. Some may not even know (if they don't read the newsletter) and I am way too much of a sap to sit each one down and have a heartfelt goodbye moment. I don't want to draw attention to the fact that I won't be returning because I feel like I need to
"guard and protect my heart" (that might get a chuckle from any Bachelorette fans out there!). The students are the hardest ones to leave!

Last year when I left my school for the last time, I got in the car and cried.

This time, I walked out the doors without the same intensity of emotions. I had a great year and I am so happy to have had this experience, but I feel like I have so much to look forward to that I am focusing on what is ahead rather than what is being left behind. I feel like I am returning home to my teacher peeps that I know and love (even though I will be at a different school) and there are so many wonderful people back in OR that I cannot wait to see!

  I received many nice comments after sending an all staff emailing announcing that Wednesday would be my last day, but truly everyone else is so busy with their own end of the year activities and duties, I feel like my leaving is pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of the last week of school. I did get some wonderful cards from one third grade class which made feel very loved. I took the student I have been working with across the street for a milkshake during his math class and it was fun to just enjoy his quirkiness for a bit. He tried to sneakily hide the card he made for me behind his back the entire way there. He made the card in the shape of a suitcase and it said "An earth sized thank you for helping me in math." Those are the things I treasure!  I was also given Erlangen Monopoly (Erlangen is the city I live in) and a bottle of Prosecco from the director of the school.

I gave my two good friends hugs goodbye and realized I won't see one of them for an entire year!

Change is hard.

At least I can always remember that every end is a new beginning in some way or another....

Happy Summer!

this song is always blasting from my car as I pull out of the parking lot, but this time I was just walking away...

facebook friendships

I received an email today from facebook saying that a former student of mine is requesting to be my friend. She sent me a little note saying, "I don't know if you remember me but I was in your first grade class in 2006-2007." Of course I remember her! She just finished up fourth grade and although I think she is an adorable, very sweet and thoughtful girl....I kind of draw the line at being "friends" with students on facebook. Sometimes I even draw the line at being "friends" with parents whose kids were previously in my class. I often feel conflicted about how much information I truly want to put out there on the internet for people to see. I have my facebook account so locked down in order to prevent people who are not my friends from viewing any of my information or photos because I am not comfortable with random people seeing my pictures or even knowing what country/city I live in.

I am friends with many colleagues, past and present, but students are a whole different story. First of all, I don't think a 4th grader should have a facebook account to start with. Bottom line. I think facebook is for grownups and teens--not children. Even if the activity is closely monitored by parents, I really do not see the need. Second, I really don't want students being able to view photos of my vacations, my home, friends, and my family. I don't want to remain all mysterious and unknown, yet at the same time, there are limits on what I am willing to share. I wonder if this little girl's parent was present when she requested to be my friend. I wonder if her parent encouraged her to reach out and get in touch with me. I feel badly not responding. I want to write her a note and tell her how nice it was of her to think of me and that I will be coming back to OR to teach at a new school. I don't, however, feel that facebook is the right medium to do that in this case.

Writing a letter to a teacher. Great.

Emailing a teacher. Awesome.

Requesting to be friends with said teacher on facebook and gaining access to lots of personal photos and information. Not so much.

I honestly think it's inappropriate.

What bugs me a bit is that another teacher is friends with her and that is probably how she found me in the first place. I absolutely do not want her to think I don't care, yet I will not click accept. I guess I have different views on the matter, but I don't want that to send an unkind message to this child who obviously cares about keeping in touch with me.

Being a teacher is a tough job because it is one of the professions which results in being held to a different standards in one's private life (or at least I feel pressure to hold myself to a higher standard because I want my students to always view me in a certain way which does not include the familiarity of seeing me hanging out with friends or being silly in casual settings). I feel the need to be a role model 24/7 even when out in the "real world" doing regular people things. When I lived in OR I liked living a bit farther from my school because that meant I could go to the grocery store on Saturday morning in sweats and no makeup because I was not worried I would see families from school. I think I have a hang up about interacting and getting too familiar with families because I do wish to keep certain parts of my life private. I know that they know teachers are real people too with lives outside of school, yet my preference is to keep a certain separation between work and play. I don't have anything to hide, yet I am cautious.

Have you ever had a student request to be your friend on facebook? What did you do?

What do you think is an appropriate age for students to get a facebook account?

P.S. I received the guest post article that I agreed to post. It is on technology and teaching and is more directed towards obtaining online degrees than using technology in the classroom, however there is a great link to the concept of learning versus studying and I hope you enjoy reading it. It is very well written and I love the way it starts out, however it does go in a direction that I would not have necessarily taken that pertains more to the author's line of work. I think it's a fun idea to incorporate someone else's views, yet I think I have ultimately decided that I prefer to do the writing on my blog. I will post the article sometime this week and I am definitely interested in your feedback. The author links to her website which relates to online education and for anyone who is thinking about utilizing online education in order to obtain an advanced degree, perhaps you will be able to find her site resourceful. Stay tuned for that post....maybe on Friday....

Things that make you go hmmm....

This year I have tried really hard to keep in touch with my friends/colleagues from my former school in Oregon. I LOVED the staff I worked with and my team and it's really important to me that we stay in touch even though I am now living far away. I recently emailed my first grade team to ask if we could get together for lunch when I return in August.

One of the teachers replied to me yesterday and shared with me that at a retirement party for a friend of hers who works in the same district, she met some of the teachers that work at the school I will be working at next school year. She said some of those teachers shared with her that there is a 2nd grade teacher who really wants to teach Kindergarten and she is hoping I will be willing to swap with her.

Whoa.

It seems as though this is something that the teacher wants, yet not something that has been shared with the principal and not necessarily something the principal will allow. I am not quite sure if/at what point this will be brought up to me, but if I were going to be offered a switch, I would prefer to discuss it now rather than two weeks prior to the start of school. I kind of have the feeling that the principal would not be okay with it, but really I have no idea. I am definitely intrigued though because I know I would LOVE teaching second grade. I always really enjoyed the end of the first grade year because my little kiddos would become so much more capable. They read more, wrote more, and were just more mature overall. Although I have definitely gotten psyched to teach Kinder, I do think second grade would be just as great (and a little bit more in my comfort zone since I have spent so much time with third graders this year).

After mentioning this new knowledge to my mom and a few friends, I have decided that I am not going to say anything to the principal and just see if anything comes of it. Although it would be tough to begin in service and then all of a sudden have to focus on a new grade, I do feel as though I have been placed in Kinder so it is my choice if I want to move or not. If the offer is made and I decide that I have focused too much time and energy on Kinder over the summer, then I can always say no. I don't want to start off on the wrong foot with any staff members, yet I feel like it is worse to start off on the wrong foot with the principal. Obviously, teachers don't get to just decide to swap and this "offer" would need to come from her. I think it would not be cool to ask her about it considering it was second hand information and I don't think the teacher(s) have shared this desire with her. If I am asked to switch and it feels right, then maybe that is what is meant to be. I don't want to start the year by throwing someone under the bus for discussing this since I wasn't even there to hear it myself!

In any event, I am just anxious and excited to have a job and have a more active teaching role next year.  Whether I am with Kindergartners or second graders, I am gearing up for a great year.

Just for fun....which grade level do you think I would like better: Kindergarten or second grade? I love how they are both grades either right before or right after the grade I taught for 3 years, so either one would be a good transition.

Technology in the classroom is fun!

Friends

Last night my friends and I went out to dinner to celebrate my birthday. It's not actually until next Saturday, but on Thursday Mr. Sneaker and I are heading to Cali to visit his parents, then to CT to visit my family and attend a wedding, then I get to see my BFF in Virginia before returning to Germany, so I won't be here to celebrate on the 26th.

We started the evening at my place to watch the most recent episode of the Bachelorette. We made predictions about who will be the final two and we are pretty sure that Roberto is going to leave (somehow baseball related) and that Chris L and Frank will be the final two at the end. I really like Kirk, but from the preview it seems like he shares something from his past with Ali that she is not to thrilled about and I see him going until close to the end, but I don't think he will be one of the final two. Ty is the only other guy that I like and I think the rest will be eliminated sooner rather than later. The whole Kasey tattoo thing is crazy and I think he won't last much longer. We will be able to watch one more episode together before we all disperse for our summer plans....tear!

When the girls came over I was given these

 and these

(the kind with the ice cream cone on it is to DIE for!!!)

and this 

(raspberry cheesecake with graham cracker crust=AMAZING!)

I also got a book (for airplane reading!) and a giftcerfiticate to Starbucks which I used this afternoon on a grande soy latte! 

I have such sweet and thoughtful friends! 

After our show, we went to Zen for dinner, which is an awesome Thai place in town. We enjoyed some red curry, pad thai, some other chicken dish with veges, spring rolls, and chicken skewers with peanut sauce. 

DELISH!

It took us several tries (using the timer and my gorilla pod) to get this shot, but it is nice to have the picture of the four of us together.

The two lovely ladies on the right both lived at the same hotel as Mr. Sneaker and me when we first moved to Germany. They are both from Canada and work at my school.

The lovely lady on the left is my really great friend Jill who is also from OR and who will be moving back as well this summer. We celebrated her birthday last weekend in Prague.

It was so nice to spend a relaxing celebratory evening with friends and before we knew it, it was almost midnight!

Last year on this date, we flew to Germany for our "look-see" to determine whether or not we would accept the job offer at the global headquarters and move here. It was hard to wrap my mind around the idea of moving to another country and the trip was filled with lots of ups and downs. I remember sitting down on my birthday to write a letter to "Birthday Katie 2010."  I saved it on my computer and next weekend, I will read that letter, which is something I am looking forward to. I remember writing something about how right now (June 26, 2009) it seems so scary to think about the idea of moving, but that a year from now (June 26, 2010), I will probably laugh at how worried I was because I will have friends and a new life in Germany. 

I am happy to say that I was right and I did meet some amazing people that I am very thankful I have had the chance to get to know. I am so happy that I met these wonderful girls because they have made living in Germany a lot of fun and we have shared some great times together. My faux birthday was a blast and I had a wonderful time with the girls. 

New Book

I ordered this book back in October when I was doing a paper on multicultural education and I was really surprised when it arrived today because I had given up on it ever getting here. With my Amazon Prime account, I can get most books the day after I order them. Some books, however are more difficult to get through the amazon.de website and this was one of them. The delivery date kept getting pushed farther and farther back and I actually thought I had canceled the order anticipating that it was a text I would have to wait on until I am back in the U.S.

Now that this book has shown up, I am really excited to read it! I think it relates well to the research I plan to do for my dissertation. I am always looking for ways to be a more effective teacher for students whose backgrounds are different from my own. I am leaning towards researching the effectiveness of core reading programs for students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds and I am going into with the belief that reading instruction needs to be more directly related to the particular students in a classroom, especially when students are learning English and come from cultures other than the mainstream. In my opinion, core programs don't do this since they are scripted, so I am interested in reading up on research that supports different methods for these populations of students.

***

I have been slacking on my reading this week. I was in the middle of The Borrowers, but I honestly was not digging it as much as some of the other books I have read from my list. I put it aside and started Island of the Blue Dolphins, which I have heard great things about. Neither book was bad, but I guess I overloaded the week before and now my brain just can't handle all the reading. The truth is I never just give myself a break, so it's probably time to do just that. I will try to finish those two books before school is out next week since I have to return them to the library. I have a few other teaching books I ordered waiting for me in California, so maybe it's time to switch back to PD books instead of children's novels....