I recently heard the phrase "There are three good reasons to be a teacher: June, July, and August." I've heard the sentiment, if not the exact words, before, and I still get just as angry.
Most school divisions around here will end in mid- to late June with teachers reporting back in early August. So, I guess that just leaves us with July.
Some teachers quantify their "earned" summer vacation by pointing out that we work an average of fifty-three hours of week. If you're contracted for thirty-five hours as many teachers are, that's 576 hours we're working past our contracts a year. Those hours equal over eighty-two additional teaching days.
But I think we're not acknowledging something important when we talk about teachers' summer vacations. I think of a vacation as something I can take or do while still getting paid. As a teacher, however, during summer break, I've essentially been laid off and have chosen to split my paychecks from the academic year up into small enough chunks that I can continue to eat and pay my student loans.
What's the answer to this problem of de-professionalization? Year-round schools (and if that's the case, when do we have the chance to recharge, plan, and attend classes)? Contracts that reflect the time most teachers put into their classrooms? Summer work relating to policy and curriculum?
I haven't found the answer yet, but I know that I'm a teacher no matter the season.
Showing posts with label summer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label summer. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Summer Reading List: The American Way of Death Revisited
I've had three good friends lose immediate family members this summer. Watching them grieve and not being able to do much but offer a chance to talk or a few canned phrases has been hard. What's also hard to watch is the way in which the funeral industry takes advantage of the grieving. In one friend's case, advertisements were presented alongside the live stream of her sister's memorial service.
Jessica Mitford died before live streaming funeral services became routine, but after reading her book The American Way of Death Revisited, I can imagine her take on the matter. Mitford explores how funeral directors often tell families that embalming is legally required when that is the case in only very certain, very rare circumstances. When the federal government took steps to ban that practice, cemeteries--often owned by the same three corporations that own most funeral homes--began to require embalming.
Using trade publications, interviews with funeral directors and consumers, and her own research, Mitford explores the ways in which funerals in the US differ from most other post-industrial nations in terms of cost, focus on the body, and terminology. If this all sounds a little depressing, I have to say that this book was surprisingly un-morbid. In fact, the section that describes exactly how the embalming process works has been anthologized in several writing textbooks.
Mitford doesn't gloss over the abuses of an industry that consistently takes advantage of families who are grieving or people thinking that by paying ahead they're saving their family money (the family still usually gets a bill that includes adjustments for increased fees). This book is very honest and, at times, very funny.
Because teenagers as a general rule like to question the status quo, I think many high school students would like this book. It could be very instructive for a creative nonfiction writing. A teacher could also use it as a literature circle pick paired with other books that look at how industries often take advantage of consumers (The Jungle seems like a logical choice). If nothing else, the unusual subject matter could be a great way to hook a reluctant reader.
Jessica Mitford died before live streaming funeral services became routine, but after reading her book The American Way of Death Revisited, I can imagine her take on the matter. Mitford explores how funeral directors often tell families that embalming is legally required when that is the case in only very certain, very rare circumstances. When the federal government took steps to ban that practice, cemeteries--often owned by the same three corporations that own most funeral homes--began to require embalming.
Using trade publications, interviews with funeral directors and consumers, and her own research, Mitford explores the ways in which funerals in the US differ from most other post-industrial nations in terms of cost, focus on the body, and terminology. If this all sounds a little depressing, I have to say that this book was surprisingly un-morbid. In fact, the section that describes exactly how the embalming process works has been anthologized in several writing textbooks.
Mitford doesn't gloss over the abuses of an industry that consistently takes advantage of families who are grieving or people thinking that by paying ahead they're saving their family money (the family still usually gets a bill that includes adjustments for increased fees). This book is very honest and, at times, very funny.
Because teenagers as a general rule like to question the status quo, I think many high school students would like this book. It could be very instructive for a creative nonfiction writing. A teacher could also use it as a literature circle pick paired with other books that look at how industries often take advantage of consumers (The Jungle seems like a logical choice). If nothing else, the unusual subject matter could be a great way to hook a reluctant reader.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Summer Reading List: Looking for Alaska
In the spring of 2010, my young adult literature professor suggested a number of books to us that I'm just now getting around to reading (this class was where I first heard about The Hunger Games). Among that list was John Green's boarding school novel Looking for Alaska. I had a hard time picturing my public school students being able to relate to kids with the means to go to school away from home (there were a lot of questions when I showed eleventh grade Dead Poets' Society).
Looking for Alaska, however, focuses mostly on students who have earned scholarships to a prestigious, fictitious boarding school in Alabama. The protagonist and his roommate explore the death of their close female friend Alaska. In doing so, they hit upon a lot of your basic YAL fare: identity, understanding money and class, love, sex, drugs, a little rock 'n' roll.
What makes Green's novel stand out (and it's starting to hit some bestseller lists seven years after publication) is his absolute honesty. With a lot of YAL novels, I sometimes think that authors have forgotten how teenagers talk to each other. Green hasn't, but that means there are copious curse words and sex. While I think that most teens would really enjoy Alaska, I can only recommend it as a free choice novel made available to students or incorporated as a lit circle book if you have a very supportive administration who understands this philosophy of young adult lit.
My next two summer reading list book reviews will be surprises not from the reading list. Get excited, fellow reading nerds!
Looking for Alaska, however, focuses mostly on students who have earned scholarships to a prestigious, fictitious boarding school in Alabama. The protagonist and his roommate explore the death of their close female friend Alaska. In doing so, they hit upon a lot of your basic YAL fare: identity, understanding money and class, love, sex, drugs, a little rock 'n' roll.
What makes Green's novel stand out (and it's starting to hit some bestseller lists seven years after publication) is his absolute honesty. With a lot of YAL novels, I sometimes think that authors have forgotten how teenagers talk to each other. Green hasn't, but that means there are copious curse words and sex. While I think that most teens would really enjoy Alaska, I can only recommend it as a free choice novel made available to students or incorporated as a lit circle book if you have a very supportive administration who understands this philosophy of young adult lit.
My next two summer reading list book reviews will be surprises not from the reading list. Get excited, fellow reading nerds!
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Summer Reading List: River of Earth by James Still
James Still is a legend in Appalachian literature. Silas House and friends run a journal of Appalachian literature named Still in the author's honor. Many Appalachian Studies scholars consider Still to be the first Appalachian author.
I didn't know any of these things until about a month ago. I was excited (and maybe a little surprised) to discover a piece of Appalachian literature I hadn't yet explored and put Still's River of Earth on hold at the UVA library.
Once I got a hold of the book, it took a couple of days to get into the story. River of Earth is told from the perspective of a young boy whose family bounces between mining towns when his dad can find work there and farming rented land -- where his mother is happiest. A rotating cast of relatives and friends prey on the father's deep belief in hospitality whenever the family is able to scrape together a living.
Still struggles with the country life/town life dichotomy that plagues so many Appalachians. He also explores the ways in which mining is not a sustainable industry for the region. When a mine closes unexpectedly, so do schools, stores, and company housing. And he wrote this criticism in 1940.
Although the main character's reflections are written in "standard" English, the dialogue is an extremely well-done southern Appalachian dialect. The novel's title comes from a sermon delivered by your run-of-the-mill hillbilly preacher:
“I was borned in a ridge-pocket,” he said. “I never seed the sun-ball withouten heisting my chin. My eyes were sot upon the hills from the beginning. Till I come on the Word in this good Book, I used to think a mountain was the standingest object in the sight o’ God. Hit says here they go skipping and hopping like sheep, a-rising and a-falling. These hills are jist dirt waves, washing through eternity. My brethren, they hain’t a valley so low but what hit’ll rise agin. They hain’t a hill standing so proud but hit’ll sink to the low ground o’sorrow. Oh, my children, where are we going on this mighty river of earth, a-borning, begetting, and a-dying – the living and the dead riding the waters? Where air it sweeping us?”
And in the midst of that dialect is a question that people have been asking since the beginning of questions. I think that Still makes a powerful statement about the ability of his characters to discuss God, environmental concerns, and economic plans in such a dialect. Hillbilly? Sure. Stupid? Hardly.
For the classroom library, I'd recommend this book for any student interested in identity exploration. I can also think of a couple of boys who were interested in farming that I think would really enjoy reading about the family's struggle between that life and a life based on cash that can be earned in coal mines. Happy reading!
I didn't know any of these things until about a month ago. I was excited (and maybe a little surprised) to discover a piece of Appalachian literature I hadn't yet explored and put Still's River of Earth on hold at the UVA library.
Once I got a hold of the book, it took a couple of days to get into the story. River of Earth is told from the perspective of a young boy whose family bounces between mining towns when his dad can find work there and farming rented land -- where his mother is happiest. A rotating cast of relatives and friends prey on the father's deep belief in hospitality whenever the family is able to scrape together a living.
Still struggles with the country life/town life dichotomy that plagues so many Appalachians. He also explores the ways in which mining is not a sustainable industry for the region. When a mine closes unexpectedly, so do schools, stores, and company housing. And he wrote this criticism in 1940.
Although the main character's reflections are written in "standard" English, the dialogue is an extremely well-done southern Appalachian dialect. The novel's title comes from a sermon delivered by your run-of-the-mill hillbilly preacher:
“I was borned in a ridge-pocket,” he said. “I never seed the sun-ball withouten heisting my chin. My eyes were sot upon the hills from the beginning. Till I come on the Word in this good Book, I used to think a mountain was the standingest object in the sight o’ God. Hit says here they go skipping and hopping like sheep, a-rising and a-falling. These hills are jist dirt waves, washing through eternity. My brethren, they hain’t a valley so low but what hit’ll rise agin. They hain’t a hill standing so proud but hit’ll sink to the low ground o’sorrow. Oh, my children, where are we going on this mighty river of earth, a-borning, begetting, and a-dying – the living and the dead riding the waters? Where air it sweeping us?”
And in the midst of that dialect is a question that people have been asking since the beginning of questions. I think that Still makes a powerful statement about the ability of his characters to discuss God, environmental concerns, and economic plans in such a dialect. Hillbilly? Sure. Stupid? Hardly.
For the classroom library, I'd recommend this book for any student interested in identity exploration. I can also think of a couple of boys who were interested in farming that I think would really enjoy reading about the family's struggle between that life and a life based on cash that can be earned in coal mines. Happy reading!
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Summer Reading List: The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
I finished one of the books on my summer reading list! Mama gave me Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project in my Easter box to balance out all the chocolate. I'm so glad that I finally got around to reading it.
I also have to confess something to you all before we go any further: I like "stunt journalism" where someone spends a year doing something like trying to find herself, create an object lesson on what the Bible really says about being a woman, or see what it is like to be a low-wage earner. Prior to looking at reviews of The Happiness Project, I didn't know that some people consider books like these pedestrian. I just think they are an interesting way to confront an issue.
Rubin takes her inspiration from Benjamin Franklin's quest for moral perfection. She spends time researching what modern science thinks makes us happy and then divides up the year to focus on one particular facet of happiness each month. Some of her suggestions about taking up a project and eating real food inspired me to finally finish my 2010 campaign scrapbook and to finally kick gluten out of my life for good since a doctor told me in 2008 I should quit.
She does a great job of explaining how to find happiness, but it isn't until the middle of the book she explains why happiness matters. Maybe it's just my friends, but I actually know a fair number of people who don't value personal happiness. These folks think of it as, at best, an indulgence, and, at worst, a distraction from serving others. Rubin makes the really important point that research continues to suggest that happy people can make others happy. Unfortunately, she doesn't make it until about halfway through the book. I think the book would benefit from an upfront discussion about why happiness matters.
For all you teacher types working on your classroom libraries, I would recommend this book for higher-proficiency readers. While you all know that I'm not into any of that gender essentialism business, I do think that girls might be particularly drawn to the ways in which Rubin organizes and analyzes her happiness project. A book like this would have been just the ticket for me in high school when my obsession with ordering my life toward some defined purpose through lists and plans began, but I also wasn't reading enough non-fiction to prepare me for college.
Next up: River of Earth by James Still -- I have about a hundred pages to go.
I also have to confess something to you all before we go any further: I like "stunt journalism" where someone spends a year doing something like trying to find herself, create an object lesson on what the Bible really says about being a woman, or see what it is like to be a low-wage earner. Prior to looking at reviews of The Happiness Project, I didn't know that some people consider books like these pedestrian. I just think they are an interesting way to confront an issue.
Rubin takes her inspiration from Benjamin Franklin's quest for moral perfection. She spends time researching what modern science thinks makes us happy and then divides up the year to focus on one particular facet of happiness each month. Some of her suggestions about taking up a project and eating real food inspired me to finally finish my 2010 campaign scrapbook and to finally kick gluten out of my life for good since a doctor told me in 2008 I should quit.
She does a great job of explaining how to find happiness, but it isn't until the middle of the book she explains why happiness matters. Maybe it's just my friends, but I actually know a fair number of people who don't value personal happiness. These folks think of it as, at best, an indulgence, and, at worst, a distraction from serving others. Rubin makes the really important point that research continues to suggest that happy people can make others happy. Unfortunately, she doesn't make it until about halfway through the book. I think the book would benefit from an upfront discussion about why happiness matters.
For all you teacher types working on your classroom libraries, I would recommend this book for higher-proficiency readers. While you all know that I'm not into any of that gender essentialism business, I do think that girls might be particularly drawn to the ways in which Rubin organizes and analyzes her happiness project. A book like this would have been just the ticket for me in high school when my obsession with ordering my life toward some defined purpose through lists and plans began, but I also wasn't reading enough non-fiction to prepare me for college.
Next up: River of Earth by James Still -- I have about a hundred pages to go.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Summer Reading List
As I finish up with my yearly re-reading of Cold Mountain, it's time for the summer reading list! This summer's list is going to be much smaller in than in years past. Hopefully, I can get through these few great titles.
Fiction
River of Earth - James Still (suggested by many great people at the writers' conference I attended; still not sure how I haven't gotten to it yet)
East of Eden - John Steinbeck (because it's finally time)
Nonfiction
The Happiness Project - Gretchen Rubin (an Easter present from Mama that I still haven't read)
The Defining Decade: why your twenties matter and how to make the most of them - Meg Jay (She's a UVA professor who I've heard talking about this book on NPR. Plus I've only got four and a half years left in my twenties)
The Political Brain - Drew Westen (started but never finished)
Young Adult Literature
Looking for Alaska - John Green (because Dr. Matthews-Meth said so)
Wonder - RJ Palacio (because Kate said so)
I'm still looking for one other YAL book to round this group out. Any ideas, y'all? Also, I'm purposefully staying away from teacher books this summer. I've read so many since starting grad school in 2009, I think my brain needs a break to process all the ideas floating around up there and make them my own.
Fiction
River of Earth - James Still (suggested by many great people at the writers' conference I attended; still not sure how I haven't gotten to it yet)
East of Eden - John Steinbeck (because it's finally time)
Nonfiction
The Happiness Project - Gretchen Rubin (an Easter present from Mama that I still haven't read)
The Defining Decade: why your twenties matter and how to make the most of them - Meg Jay (She's a UVA professor who I've heard talking about this book on NPR. Plus I've only got four and a half years left in my twenties)
The Political Brain - Drew Westen (started but never finished)
Young Adult Literature
Looking for Alaska - John Green (because Dr. Matthews-Meth said so)
Wonder - RJ Palacio (because Kate said so)
I'm still looking for one other YAL book to round this group out. Any ideas, y'all? Also, I'm purposefully staying away from teacher books this summer. I've read so many since starting grad school in 2009, I think my brain needs a break to process all the ideas floating around up there and make them my own.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Thirty by 30
So, I know I have the terrible habit of posting about once a year, but I think I'm going to change that! In fact, blogging once a week is one of the thirty things I plan to do before turning 30. I've been inspired by my new friend Emily. Here's the list:
Also, I promise to keep y'all updated on my summer reading adventures. This summer I'll revisit the books I didn't get to last summer. I'm also starting The Moor's Last Sigh today for book club. Let me know if you'd like to read along with us!
1. Visit NOLA
2. Visit India
3. Run the C’ville 10 miler
4. Publish an essay about education policy
5. Hike the AT
6. Work in Honduras
7. Start work on my doctorate
8. Become a National Board certified teacher
9. Go out West
10. Re-read the Frank Atkinson books about VA politics
11. Keep Atticus a healthy, happy dog
12. Send my parents on a trip to the Homestead
13. Throw a really great pig roast
14. Fall in love
15. Keep in touch with at least two students from every year I teach
16. Visit France
17. Drive in London
18. Stay at a convent for at least a week
19. Organize my finances (and keep them that way!)
20. Learn to fly fish and make my own flies
21. Raft the New River Gorge
22. Eat at the fancy new restaurant at the VMFA
23. Take my friend Bekah to a really nice ballet
24. Live in a city bigger than Charlottesville for at least one year
25. Go on a beach vacation where I do nothing but read, eat shrimp, and sip margaritas
26. Come up with a solid curriculum for grades 9 – 12 in Virginia
27. Blog at least once a week
28. Never give up on going to the gym at least four times a week
29. Help my brother sell his art
30. Decide there’s really no such thing as “settling down”
Also, I promise to keep y'all updated on my summer reading adventures. This summer I'll revisit the books I didn't get to last summer. I'm also starting The Moor's Last Sigh today for book club. Let me know if you'd like to read along with us!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Passing Afternoon
I missed posting about it because I have been at Alta Mons, but yesterday was what would have been James Bond creator Ian Flemming's 100th birthday. In tribute, apparently, a new Bond book has been released. It sounds intriguing enough, and I can't get enough of 007, to add it to my summer list. Thanks to Walt for the heads up.
Alta Mons is going well. We're finishing up all of the medical training tomorrow and I really do think that the staff is coming together nicely. Coordinating the CITs and the Day Camp isn't the most glamorous job at camp, but I feel so blessed to be there. God shows Himself in the simple things and I really think that the people coming to camp this summer are seeing that already. Alta Mons is no longer the place I grew up. A lot of the identifying features have been changed by logging and new permanent staff, but I just keep trying to remember what Bekah told me last summer about the children running around screaming and playing: It's not any different for them.
I'll post more and some pictures later, but now it's off to Indiana Jones with the staff.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Catfish are Jumpin'
Within a couple hours, I'll be at Alta Mons mostly for the duration. This event marks my first day of summer so I thought I would share my summer reading list. Feel free to suggest books to add (or remove) although I fear I will be reading from this list until Christmastime.
The Penelopiad - Margaret Atwood
The Last of the Mohicans - James Fenimore Cooper
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - Annie Dillard
The Life You Save May Be Your Own - Paul Elie
Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier *
Thirteen Moons - Charles Frazier
A Blue Moon in Poorwater - Cathryn Hankla
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Ulysses - James Joyce
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
Angels in America - Tony Kushner
The Problem of Pain - C.S. Lewis
A River Runs Through It - Norman MacLean *
Teacher Man - Frank McCourt *
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Mark Twain
A Time to FIGHT - James Webb
An asterisk denotes a re-read. I've already finished Angels in America (the first part was assigned for class) and I'm two-thirds of the way through my perennial summer opener Cold Mountain. I will probably start Ulysses next as I received it for my 21st birthday in December. This is the summer of epic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)