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Posts Tagged ‘School’

Encourage a Teacher

Posted in life, The Kids, WONDER, tagged Back to School, Encouragement, end of summer, failure, Kids, relationships, School, teacher on August 21, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Two weeks from today summer will really be over. There will be great mourning and gnashing of teeth in our home. It will be with great regret that our alarms will be set, lunches will be made, and the trek to school will be taken.

As I contemplate all that this day means, I also think back … w a y back … to when I was school student. I remember the new clothes (brand new fall/winter sweaters when the temperatures are often still reflecting the summer season), the new shoes (which always came home not so white, and feet requiring bandages for the new shoe blisters), the crisp clean lined Hilroy notebooks, the line-up at the pencil sharpener (because we all had new pencils), and the revelation of who would be our classroom teacher for the school year.

Just one month ago I was driving down a highway in Oregon, listening to a radio station, and they started talking about back to school. I just about drove into a light standard! Back to school was not something that I wanted to hear about in late July. But what they were saying about returning to school stopped me from doing anything too radical. They were encouraging people, parents, to print off a teacher appreciation certificate and take it to the school on the first day, as an act of supporting and encouraging the teachers of their children.

Now that I could get into!

I have tried over the years to be supportive to the classroom teachers of my kids. Working within the school system gives me an even more intimate understanding of just how appreciated (and, for those teaching high school, rare) words, acts and gifts of encouragement are to these teachers who spend more time with our kids each day than we do.

I think all of us can think back to at least one teacher who inspired us to live better, think differently, and who encouraged us in who we are.

Immediately I think back to my grade four teacher, Mrs. Kavanaugh, who was so kind … to everyone in the class. The thing I remember most about her is how she treated the ‘underdogs’ of the classroom. She was more patient with them than any other teacher. She gave them extra words of encouragement. She did not favor the smartest, the prettiest, the richest. You know, I do not remember one academic thing she taught us, but I think I took away something better, because she gave me the tools to be a better person.

She was not the only teacher that I think of, but she is the one who comes to my mind first.

How about you? Do you remember a special teacher? How about taking the challenge to encourage a teacher as your children return to classrooms, gymnasiums, and libraries? How about starting the parent-teacher relationship off with an act of encouragement, of love?

It just might set the stage for a great year for your son or daughter, for their teacher, and for you.

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Leaving Home

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged Change, child to adult, FAMILY, Graduation, Growing Up, Home, leaving, School, school home, security on June 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »

It is end of the year at school, with exams, report cards, prom and graduation the main talks around the water fountain.

The students who are graduating out of the school system are a totally different group than when they entered.

In the beginning they were possibly still struggling with toileting, could barely print their names, might have been dealing with separation anxiety, and possibly still even needed a car seat .

Now, thirteen years later, they can fix an engine, write a manuscript, run for miles and recite Shakespeare. They can drive a car, survive alone at home, and are just months away from being able to elect our politicians.

Truly, if anyone has, they have experienced the reality of metamorphosis. Who they were in the beginning of their schooling is barely a shadow of who they are today.

Those who are graduating this year are fully immersed into all of the farewells, from all that they have known for the past thirteen years. They are having celebrations, receiving gifts and making plans for the rest of their lives. They may not know what their immediate or long term future will look like, but they all share one common bond … they are leaving home.

Now they might not be leaving their parent’s home, but they are leaving their school, and whether they spent just a year or all thirteen years there, they are leaving home.

School is not just a place of education, it is also a microcosm, or small picture, of society and more specifically, of family. Within the walls of every school are:

* the ‘perfect’ cousins, who do it all the right way … always!
* the uncle or aunt who is always carrying mints.
* the grandfather with a flatulence problem.
* the grandmother who cannot match her clothing colors.
* the weird uncle.

The list goes on and on.

The school family, like the ones we share Christmas with, is not perfect. It is often unpredictable, nosy, odd and embarrassing. It can make you feel as though it is ruling and ruining your life. It can seem like the only chance at freedom and a good and healthy future is to leave.

And then the day comes, and you hold that diploma, and it is time to leave … forever.

And whether you loved your school home, or were convinced that you never should have been there, all that you knew is done, over and gone … and it is never, ever going to be the same again.

The school family was not just the negative, the strange, the obscure. It was also the place where you had, not just moments of failure, but also moments of success. It was where that one teacher would say, “how are you?” and you knew that he or she really wanted to know. It was where you got your first taste of a gift or ability that you could be passionate about … in the lab, the computer room, the drama class, the gym, the English class, or in chatting it up with the custodian. It was where you first dealt with your fear of public speaking, test taking, sports, an engine, or computers (okay, that is just the staff).

When a graduate leaves their school home, there is adjustment coming. The expected is no more, the unexpected is all that is before you. The safe places to hide, and the spotlight to shine on you are changed. A temporary homelessness descends, and adjustment is necessary.

It was the school home. It is the place where students have gone from child to adult.

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Good Students?

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged conforming, educational assistant, Learning, ready, School, smart, Students, tests, Understanding on April 18, 2012| 2 Comments »

W A Y back in the days of the abacus and slate boards, I was a pretty good student.

Maybe it wasn’t back quite that far (my high school grad class is having a twenty-fifth reunion this summer), but I probably work with a few students who would not blink an eye if I told them it was so.

I had marks in the 80-90% area, I did my homework, was polite to my teachers, and was involved with various school groups and activities. Not to be arrogant, but I was an ‘ideal’ student (although my memories of my parents coming home from parent-teacher interviews, always included, “she talks a lot in class” … okay, maybe not ‘ideal’ 😉 ).

I feel bad for the hard working teachers I had, because the pearls (education) that they presented to me, were received by a swine. They gave me what I needed to know, but I had rarely understood that I needed it, beyond test writing. I had learned to put the information in, spit it out for the purpose of assessment (test or exam), then forget I ever knew it. For me the information was only learned for the purpose of regurgitating it back at test time.

As an EA (Educational Assistant), I have learned so much by working in a high school, that I was supposed to have learned when I was a student.

In English I listen to poems that I could never have understood, when I was back in grade nine.

I sit in Math and I can read a word problem, involving algebra that I now understand will be the most practically utilized math skills, after school ends.

In a foods class I learn about different leaveners, and how each works. I cook every day … this is important education!

I watch a PE class and understand that ‘playing games’ is for fitness, and that fitness is something that is of vital importance, as we live and age.

I now understand that knowing about history (including religion) can help to make sense of world events, and can help us to learn from the past and (hopefully) not repeat it.

In science, a student can learn about the physical world we live in, and even if all one ever gets from astronomy is that they can lay on a blanket on the grass, on a summer night, and point out the big dipper to their own kids, it will all be worth it.

When we are school students we learn for no reason other than to just get it done, so that we can move on to the next grade, and so on, and so on. The information has not reached a level of practical importance.

I recently heard an educator say, “if a student can re-teach what they have learned, they understand it.”

Originally, if my child came home with A’s and B’s, I would feel confident that they had done well, and learned what was necessary. As I have worked in schools, and my own kids have gotten older, my perspective on learning has changed. Now if my child is driving home with me, and tells me the interesting facts about life in the Roman Empire , and even includes what we can learn from their lives and the fall of the Empire, but only gets 70% on a unit test, I am far more pleased in the learning.

From my own experience as a ‘good’ student, and now being in classrooms on a daily basis, I see that a number on a report card does not indicate learning. I also know, from my own experience, that A’s and B’s on a report card do not indicate success in life, and C’s and D’s do not suggest a mediocre existence. And, sometimes, qualifications for life (after high school) have nothing to do with education.

I would rather see a child squirming in their seat, but absorbing the information that is taught, than one who is ‘conforming’ in their seat, able to perform a test.

Just sayin’.

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Insecure Source of Devotion

Posted in GOD, life, The Kids, WONDER, tagged Daughter, Devotions, Ephesians 2, Grace, Insecure Source of Devotion, Insecurity, Peers, School, Sin, Teens on March 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Sometimes my mouth has a mind that is completely separated from my brain. This particular day was a good case in point.

I work in a Christian High School (as an Educational Assistant). I also work with students who are in the same grade as my younger daughter, so I get to work in classes with students who I have known (as a mom) since these young adults entered kindergarten. When they were in their grade seven year, I worked in their grade as well, while filling in for a co-worker. I know them better than any other grade I have worked in before, and I feel very privileged to walk through high school (I hope) with them.

Sometimes I feel like mom of the grade, because I know them, and their families quite well. I remember some of the ones who had to be pried from their mom on their first day of school. I remember when they had new siblings born to their families, and when loved ones died. I remember when new students joined the group, when they competed in sports, and when they kept me up until 3am the year my daughter insisted that I invite ALL of the girls in her class to her sleep over birthday party (face palm for me for agreeing to that one). I also remember who was nasty to my kid on the playground, and who wiped her tears. These students are all precious to me.

So, on a particular day, early in the work day, the teacher of the first class I was assigned to be in asked a colleague of mine and I if one of us would lead devotions to her grade nine math class. Before my ears had completed the process of hearing and processing her request, my mouth said, “yes.” When my brain heard my voice, I think it wanted to move out. My pulse started racing, my palms got clammy and I experienced what can only be likened to a hot flash.

But, once I sat in front of this class of students, all that mattered to me was sharing the message that has been on my heart for many years. The message of grace.

Over seven years ago, I was at a school event, talking with two men, one about my age and the other in his eighties. We were just chatting, when the subject of heaven came up. The older man got serious, “Heaven is not for me, I’ve been too bad.” His words took me back … he had grown up in a Christian family, gone to Christian school, gone to church all of his life, and he felt that his place in heaven was dependent on his behaviors. Had he not, in eighty plus years of life, not heard of God’s grace? How many Easter services had he sat in? Didn’t he hear, at least once, that Jesus blood is the atonement (payment) for our sins … ALL of our sins?

So, my impromptu devotion for the morning was about this older man. It was about the grace of God, and how HE covers all of our sins. I was able to tell them if there are pious Christian people who make them FEEL that they are not good enough (because of their clothes, or their hair, or the music they listen to, or what ever other ‘important’ outward expression), they are wrong. The reality is that none of us are “good enough” to pass through the gates of heaven, it is only our acceptance of the gift of forgiveness and grace that God offers through the sacrifice of His son, that we are made good enough. I told them that it was that one message that I want them to take through their lives, and into their eighties. That I do not want them to be at the natural end of their lives and think they are not good enough for heaven.

They were respectfully quiet, I just hope their hearts heard this humbly delivered message, from one who hopes deeply that they believe it. And, if they do, my mouth saying yes when my brain felt too insecure, to sharing a devotion with them will be all worth it.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—
and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
not by works, so that no one can boast.
For we are God’s handiwork,
created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God prepared in advance for us to do.
But now in Christ Jesus
you who once were far away have been brought near
by the blood of Christ.
Ephesians 2:8-10, 13

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Brand New Hormones

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged Brand New Hormones, Growing Up, High School, Hormones, Puppy Love, School, Teen Love, Teenagers, Teens on January 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I get to work in a high school … yes, I said “get to”! I also get to work in a few of the classes that my daughter takes.

I have a motherly fondness for many of her friends. Many have been at our home, driven in our vehicles to various events, slept over, made cookies in our kitchen, been cheered on at basketball games by me, and attended countless birthday parties.

I struggle at school with the boys and the girls, and their brand new hormones. I find I watch and listen, and just want to … gag!

I do realize that they are just ‘test driving’ their new thoughts, feelings and awareness. I realize that what they are going through is so very normal and necessary in that age old process known as ‘growing up’. I just wish our society, our culture, did not encourage this process to become so all absorbing all at once.

The girls looking at the boys, and even the boys drooling over the girls can be cute or, as they might say, ‘adorbs’. It is a process of an awakening within them that is starting to burst out into their daily lives. Truly, it is a wonderfilled time in their lives. But, as they grow and mature, their hormones are NOT the best, or the only thing in their lives.

This is also a very important time in their lives for learning, in an academic sense. As important, if not more so at this phase of their lives, is the development and nurture of friendships. This is a great time of life for shooting hoops, all night chat sessions, playing games, dancing to music, and other activities that are surrounded by the peers who a teen calls friends.

My hubby is brilliant (yes, I said that in writing), and that was confirmed for me when he worked as a youth pastor. When a pair of teens in the youth group would start dating he would take them out to lunch, and his conversation with the couple would start with the same question every time, “you WILL break up, and when you do, how will it affect your relationships at youth?” And he was right, because about 98-99% of teen couples do not end up in a lifelong relationship. Should teens invest the majority of their teen years in relationships that are, at best, temporary?

Hubby was really brilliant a number of years ago, as well, when he told our preschool daughter that if she chose to not date in high school, he would buy her a car. This was her choice, not ours! We told her that our hope for her was that she spend her teen years focusing on friends and school, and we were willing to put wheels where our mouth was. But, we left the choice in her hands.

This fall when our eldest daughter got her car, her sister and brother realized that the deal (that we had offered them, as well) was good. All of a sudden, the story they had heard all of their lives, was in view with a happy ending.

And it is a happy ending, beyond the car, because if they take our challenge, they can look back on their high school years as ones of friendship and learning, and those are things that they can take, 100%, into adulthood with them.

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Missing the Past-Excited for the Future

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged Change, Future, Rememberig the Past, School, Students, Wonder, Work on September 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Working as a support staff, in a high school, everything about what is my job can change from one year to the next.

Last year I worked fifty percent, this year I work one hundred percent. Last year I worked with three students, in grades ten, eleven, and twelve. This year I work with five in grade nine, and one in grade eleven. Last year I worked off campus part of my time, this year I work only on campus. Last year worked with my three students, primarily out of class. This year I am in class almost all the time, and assisting all students who need it. Last year two of the students I worked with graduated, this year there will be no graduates among the students I work with.

It was like starting a new job when school began last week (and I am sleeping solidly because of it)!

Since the start of school, I have to say I have been missing last year, and all that was familiar about it. I miss the quick, cheeky tongues of the the older students, I miss interacting with business people to set up work experience opportunities, I miss the interactions with the parents (moms) of the students, I miss the challenge of out-witting the older students who lived to be late to class, or look at life through a half-full cup … I simply miss the individual students … period.

It would be so easy to say … last year was so much better than this one. As is always the case, what we know is more appealing, more comfortable than what we do not know, and what is unfamiliar to us. It would be so easy to start looking at the school year through a half-full cup …

But, a new broom sweeps clean! And my undiagnosed ADD thrives with change, novelty and challenge.

I have been getting to know the personalities and habits of the new students that I work with. I have been able to see how unjaded high school freshmen are to their senior counterparts. I have been getting to know classroom teachers, whose classes I have not been in before (or for a long time). I have been challenged in having to think out of the box in classroom settings, according to what assists the students needs best.

In all of this there is an excitement to this new year! There is a blank slate effect that I get to be there with the students as they begin their high school career.

The other day, one of the students said, “Mrs. Wheaton, will you work with us until we graduate?” And, on the inside, I smiled, because the thought of that excited me immensely. The thought of providing consistency to students who often thrive in consistency gave me something to hope for … for them, but for me too. But, the nature of this job is that change is inevitable, and there are no guarantees of what next year, let alone three years from now, will look like. But, for now, I know that it’s going to be a great year!

And my focus is to begin with the end in mind, so I will work with them as though I will see them through to graduation. And, together, we can learn so much.

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