Working with the Peace Corps

A few months ago, an old internet friend of mine Barbara contacted me about an excellent opportunity. Barbara is currently serving her second year as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala. The Peace Corps has a program that connects volunteers with teachers in the United States. The volunteer and the teacher and students are then able to begin corresponding and exchanging emails, questions, photos, etc. Interested teachers are able to request specific regions of the world their classes are interested in, and even specific Peace Corps Volunteers if they already know someone there. I'm super excited about this as I know almost nothing about Guatemala and I am confident it will be really interesting for my students.

This is the link to the Peace Corps World Wise Schools program.

Social Networking in the classroom

I've decided to make a teacher facebook page for my students to add. I have also made two "fan pages", one for each of the classes I teach: AP Spanish Literature and Spanish 3. The goals here are many: students can ask questions of me and each other on the "wall", I'm able to post events (quizzes, tests, projects, etc), I can chat with students if they have questions, parents can add the pages so they always have an idea of what is going on in class, homework or otherwise, I can also post interesting links and video clips.

I've tried to make class blogs in the past, and they were incredibly hard to keep up with. Hopefully this will be a better match for both me and my students.

National Blog Posting Month!

I'm participating in National Blog Posting Month! Every day for the month of November, I'll be posting a blog entry. They will naturally be related to my exploits as a Spanish teacher in New York City.

Will you yodel for me and help my students in the process?

Yahoo recently developed a "Yodel Studio" and for a short time is giving any one who records a short yodel (like 3 seconds) a $10 gift certificate to spend on www.donorschoose.org!

It's absolutely free to you, and my students would really benefit.

Here's what you do:

1. Go to Yahoo's yodel studio: http://yodelstudio.yahoo.com/us/recording-studio.php

2. Record your yodel, immediately after you record and submit your yodel a gift card number will pop up on the screen.

3. Go to http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=315672 and make a $10 donation, put in the gift card number and boom! My students will have $10 more going towards their AP tests.

Anyone can do it from anywhere in the world, so please get yodeling and tell a friend!

Interview!!

This evening I'm going to be part of a panel of teachers interviewed by Florence Bernard from Blog Talk Radio, the topic is Challenges Teachers face. You can listen to the show here. It will be live at 6:30 pm this evening, but will be available after that for anyone to listen to. Yay!

Now that you know everything there is to know about teaching...

quit your teaching career. Become a "writer". Tell other teachers how to teach. When all is said and done think "Wow, that was an eventful 3 years".

I am a little tired of hearing about teachers who teach for a short period of time (We're talking 2 or 3 years), quit their jobs, then write a book about how great they were. These books are then used as "textbooks" for Graduate programs in education. Maybe this is more a reflection of grad schools for their poor choice of required readings, than the teacher in question.

Regardless, I am all about a teacher book, a teacher blog, a teacher website. I am also ready, willing, and able to collaborate like the best of them. However, I have NO interest in hearing what you have to say once you're an outsider. I just don't feel that someone who taught for two years has any business schooling me on my career.

Yes, you read correctly.

I said career, not temp position.

Don't get me wrong, I love to hear from experienced retired teachers, that's fantastic and always welcome. I also enjoy conversations with new teachers as they have lots of fresh and exciting ideas and tons of enthusiasm. I've also learned plenty during what I'd like to call "what not to do" conversations with the not-so-hot hot-shot teachers at my school. I'm just a little frustrated that "the experts in the field" have decided to use their self-diagnosed "talent" and "skill" to teach adults how to teach rather than children.

Two books on the required list for my grad program were written by teachers described above. One is The Freedom Writers Diary the well-known book that is now a major motion picture, and the other Educating Esme.

Both of the ladies who wrote the books linked above taught for 2-3 years. I read both of these books, and enjoyed them! Don't get me wrong, I love me a teacher or student narrative. It was just soooo disappointing to reach the end, eager to find out the good they are doing in public schools, only to find out that they left the classroom years ago, shortly after entering it.

Maybe a teacher who doesn't quite make it in the classroom is a more entertaining read than one who is still there.