1. Life update

    So hi. This might be a long post, but I promise there will be pictures at the end.

    Things that have happened since my panic attack a few weeks ago:

    Classes are going a little more smoothly now. I really do have good kids (that are well behaved for the most part), but I’m finding it really hard to motivate some of them to want to do well in class or to set goals for themselves for after high school. I’ve got most of my classroom systems organized already — I use a ticket system with a daily raffle drawing for Jolly Ranchers for reinforcing positive behavior on an individual level (you would not BELIEVE how effective this is), I have class points, I have Brain Busters worksheets for fast finishers or kids who need to work on specific skills, I have a homework system, I have a system for absences, I have a math word wall, we use math journals, and we’ve been working on automaticity skills (adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing) on a daily basis. It took a lot of work on the front end but I really think that is putting me on the path to having a really engaging and efficient classroom culture, even though I’m still pretty far away from that. I’ve made contact with nearly all the parents of my 32 students and most of them have responded positively. In fact, one of the faculty members at my school told me that she heard from a parent who was talking about the fact that I was the first of her son’s teachers to ever call just to introduce myself. 

    On the not-so-bright side, we took our first unit test. The average in my 2nd/3rd period class was a 19%, and the average for my 4th/5th period class was a 23%. I’m using this scripted curriculum since intervention classes have to be research-based, but from what I’ve seen so far it’s really hard for students with such low reading and basic math skill levels to get invested in the “collaborative classroom” environment that the program says needs to exist. They are expected to naturally make conceptual conclusions about mathematical patterns a group setting, but 144 minutes of that type of work makes them more than a little antsy and not as interested or focused as they should be. I want to start using the computer-based part of the curriculum as soon as the computers in my classroom start working, so hopefully that will help make the program more effective. Anyway, when I got the Unit 1 test scores back I sent letters home explaining that we would be re-testing. I started a class blog and announced I’d stay after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as any other day a student requested it. My 2nd/3rd period class is the only one in which everyone has re-tested already and their class average went up 20 points, which is encouraging even though a 39% is still dismal.

    I want to post pictures of my classroom soon but I haven’t taken any recently, so I’ll have to do that this week!

    Outside of class, most everything is going well. My roommate and I have gotten to know a few of the teachers at our school really well, and we’ve become pretty good friends with them. We had a cupcake night where we gorged ourselves of maybe 10 different varieties of cupcakes, we went hiking at Eagle Falls, and we went to our first home football game (where we won by a lot!). We’ve been so lucky because everyone here is so welcoming and friendly, it doesn’t feel like I’m 11 hours away from home anymore.

    Our little house/trailer finally has everything set up— utilities, internet, etc… but we’ve found that there’s another option that looks like it’s going to be better for us, so we are going to try and break our lease on Monday. When we first moved here we were really frantic because we couldn’t find anything available for rent and school started in 4 days, so we signed for the first place that we saw. Hopefully it all works out. My fingers will be crossed until I sign the new lease. 

    I guess that’s basically it. Like I said I feel a lot more comfortable overall, but there are moments where I get really homesick and miss the people/places I’m used to. This Friday my boyfriend is coming to visit until Monday and I could NOT be more excited! Here’s to hoping I survive a week of moving and unpacking and teaching so that I can drive to Knoxville and pick him up from the airport…

    Here’s my school:

    A pretty sunset as I was driving home:

    Our first home football game of the season. Go Panthers!:

    They set off fireworks for every touchdown.

    My roomie and I and some of our new friends:

    This is the house we currently live in:

    It has a really pretty view since it’s kind of up on a hill.

    The inside:

    This is where we want to move this week:

    It’s an actual house, it’s closer to school, we have neighbors, and it’ll be easier to get to when there’s snow. Plus it has the most beautiful back porch ever.

    Some pictures from our hike. This is Cumberland Falls:

    Randi and I:

    Eagle Falls:

    We stopped to go for a swim. The water itself was freezing but it was really warm under the waterfall. I am severely accident prone and was too afraid to jump from the rocks but everyone else had fun doing that too.

  2. "I want to go to UK. And become an engineer maybe. Marry the girl I have now. And become successful at a lot of thing and get a nice beautiful home somewhere quiet. Have a happy family and be able to teach my kids math."
    One of my students, writing on what they want to do after high school.

  3. Well hi there.

    I haven’t blogged in forever. Mostly because I haven’t had any internet connection, but partly because I’ve been busier than ever.

    14 days ago I packed up the rest of my belongings (or whatever would fit) into the back of my little Yaris.

    13 days ago I drove 11 hours to a hotel in Hazard, KY.

    12 days ago I spent a day in professional development sessions and spoke to a principal who wanted to interview me but had to wait for the job position to post online.

    11 days ago I phone interviewed with a high school I spoke to in June.

    10 days ago I spent 4 hours waiting to be interviewed for the second time at another high school I spoke to in June.

    9 days ago I drove 2 hours to interview in person with the school that phone interviewed me two days earlier. Our GPS misled us and we ended up in another town at first. I fell in love with that school.

    8 days ago I got a job offer from the school I interviewed with the night before, drove to my new town, got a bunch of paperwork from the school board, spent 3 hours looking for a place to rent with no luck, found a house, signed a lease, cleaned the house, unpacked my car, and drove 2 hours back to Hazard to stay in the hotel for the night. 

    7 days ago I bought a mattress and a bookshelf, assembled the latter and continued to unpack. I spent the night in a hotel that was closer to - but still 35 minutes away from - my house.

    6 days ago I bought a desk, desk chair, kitchen table and chairs and assembled all of them. My hands were dead.

    5 days ago I went to my school for the first time, sat through professional development, then went to a New Teacher Induction at the school board.

    4 days ago I went to my school for a staff meeting, spent the day trying to figure out the situation with my classroom, went home during lunch break because my mattress was being delivered, spent 4.5 hours driving to Hazard and back to get my clothes out of storage, and found out what I was teaching/got my textbooks around 6 at night. 

    3 days ago was the first day of school. I wore shoes with little heels (a mistake) and found out my students (who are in a two-hour intensive pre-algebra intervention class) don’t know how to do simple multiplication. I went home and passed out for 2 hours. I came back to school and stayed until 1:00 am trying to figure out what to do for the next few days. Tears were involved. 

    2 days ago I came to school with a plan to start catching my students up on their multiplication and division skills. My computer in my classroom didn’t work. I found out that it will take until August 18th for the utilities company to come out and set up our internet. I felt totally lost and under-qualified for what I took on. More tears were involved. I got sick from a stress headache.

    Yesterday my computer at school (sort of) started working. I felt slightly (very slightly) more in control of my instruction and started working on my first unit with my classes. I drove an hour to London to get a drug screening, then went back for an opening event for my school’s football team. I went to bed at 10:30 pm. It was glorious.

    This morning, I woke up and drove an hour to London to sit in a Starbucks with free wifi. I need to start planning soon. 

    As soon as I can I’ll put up pictures of my new house and town and school!

  4. I’m reading a book about classroom management, and after a whole chapter about giving students choices when it comes to following the rules or getting consequences, I stumbled across this gem. Maybe I’m delirious, but I think this is hysterical.

    I’m reading a book about classroom management, and after a whole chapter about giving students choices when it comes to following the rules or getting consequences, I stumbled across this gem. Maybe I’m delirious, but I think this is hysterical.

  5. I don’t know how I forgot to mention this…

    Average score on diagnostic exam at the beginning of the summer: 28%

    Average score after 4 weeks on the end-of-summer exam: 67.9%!

  6. Institute is over!

    Friday was the last day of Institute. Woah. A few lessons I’ve learned:

    1. Anything top is “business casual” as long as you wear a cardigan over it

    2. Dry erase markers are worth their weight in gold

    3. It’s really hard to recover when you trip over something in front of your class

    4. Watching people take a test is more boring than actually taking the test.

    On a more serious note, I feel like I’ve become a lot better at planning and teaching and I feel ready to take it to EKY and to my own classroom. In our lessons and in our advisor groups we’ve been getting a lot of information about classroom organization and the first few days of school, which (although it has been SUPER overwhelming) is really cool to think about and start to plan out for my own class. I don’t think I’ve really gone into detail on this blog about the problems I’ve had with Institute and TFA - and I don’t think it’s the right way to express those frustrations - but despite those road bumps I’ve really come to value the meaning of what we do and why we’re doing it. I’ve only known my summer school kids for 4 weeks and I’m dreading that I have to leave.. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like after teaching students for an entire year. 

    Some fun things since the last time I posted: 

    Right before my last week I had the most amazing lazy weekend EVER. I think it proves how tired I was that I slept in on both mornings and still took two naps on Saturday and two on Sunday. 

    Friday night my friend Kellie and I drove 45 minutes to go to the closest movie theater in Greenville, then ended up hanging out at this local bar called Rivals. It was a pretty fun atmosphere — a lot different from the college crowd I’m used to in Tallahassee. Everyone seemed to know each other. The music kept switching from country to hip hop. There was some pretty questionable dancing. ….I guess it’s not that different from Tally after all. 

    Saturday night some of AppalCorps went to Ground Zero, which is Morgan Freeman’s blues club in Clarksdale.

    It was really interesting. The live music was good and the walls were covered in writing - very cute. Too bad Morgan Freeman wasn’t there. 

    During the middle of the last week, we experienced what I’m pretty sure was almost a monsoon. The rain was so intense that the water level reached above my knees in the middle of the road (I’m 6 feet tall).

    Figures that I was stuck on the other side of campus and had to wade across to get back to my dorm. Luckily my car didn’t get flooded.

    I also administered some surveys to my students to see what they thought of my teaching so far and how I could improve. They were almost entirely positive, which was really nice to read. Someone didn’t like the use of behavior narration… which is HYSTERICAL to me since I’ve sat through countless sessions on how behavior narration is essential to a well-managed classroom and how it works on all ages. Some of the cutest/funniest responses:

    Random comments:

    “1. You is a good teacher.

     …

    2. And also when we need help on the problems we don’t know or we stuck on you always help us we we need, you always be there for us……. LOL LOL you is a great teacher to the class.”

    “She’s the coolest of them all. She’s respectful, I understood everything she taught and she made it very easy. Thanks Ms. Hazrati.”

    “Ms. Ms Hazrati,

    You are one of the mot amazing teacer I had in my entire life of being a student, your learning methods are easy. I feel like I can master anything. Really enjoy you this summer! :) P.S Love Lunch time in your class.”

    … on the first day of class I put lunch time on the board as a way to motivate them to work hard for the last hour of the day, and every day after that there would be an uproar if I forgot to write it, haha.

    “You is a wonderful teacher, and Also a nice teacher. You taugh me Alot in class, but some thing I already knew. Yo showed me that you care because you took the time out in help me individualy. I have learned alot, and I thank you very much.
    LOVE YOU

    Ms. Hazrah

    TAKE CARE and Continue to be A Wonderful TEACHER.”

    “I think you are a good teacher. You should bring snacks for us for behaving well.”

    “I love love your class Ms. Hazrati, your a good teacher, I wish you can be my permanent Geometry teacher, we only had 4 wks with you, but it’s like you taught me Geometry, before I really didn’t know it but now I feel like a pro.”

    What more should your teacher do?

    “My teacher shouldn’t do not more if my teacher dont want to”

    “More group work, it be fun when we do it, all our brains function good” 

    How do you know whether or not this teacher truly cares about you?

    “They dont want me to make less then an hundred.”

    “She be askin me questions”

    What has your teacher done to help you know how to behave?

    “She tells me to stay focus and don’t let anyone stop me” 

    The only terrible part of Institute being over is how much I’m going to miss my students. They’re hysterical, they’re incredibly bright, and they really want to learn. I hope they have teachers that inspire them to continue working hard because they don’t deserve anything less. 

  7. One week later…

    Here’s a weird thought: I only have 4 more actual lessons to teach and I’m done with summer school. 

    I think I’ve definitely gotten better with the planning aspect and my execution in the classroom, but every day is so different from the last and there’s always a few things you learn through trial and error that you need to improve on. On the bright side, my lesson plans usually take less time - around an hour and a half to finish - even though sometimes I end up procrastinating and staying up wayyyy too late.

    The procrastination isn’t really laziness. I need to spend at least some time every day relaxing and not thinking about school or lesson plans. I think Skype has been a big part of me keeping my sanity.

    Some changes have happened in my classroom since my last post. We’re down to 17 students from our original 26 or so - mostly because some students got switched into classes that they needed to move on to the next grade. My scores on my exit quizzes have gotten significantly higher. I think this can be partly attributed to the fact that my objectives seem easier, but my quizzes are just as rigorous and I do think I’ve been getting better about teaching them.

    M, one of my higher performing students, got kicked out of class permanently. My collab did an activity during one of his lessons that involved students drawing a pyramid and decorating it - and while we were posting their work outside, one of the faculty advisors told us that M had drawn gang symbols. It was really crazy because he was a really smart and well-behaved kid, and I felt bad that he was automatically dismissed from summer school without the possibility of credit, even though I understand the reasoning.

    A, who had some of the lowest scores in our class, has started to turn around. He still has trouble with some of the objectives because of the gaps in his foundational math skills, but he started asking more questions and really attempting to work on the problems during practice time. He’s been making 100s, and I think he’s only going to continue with that trend.

    On the whole, A is more of the rule than the exception. Our students seem more focused during their Academic Intervention time on re-learning and re-taking their failed quizzes, and our class average on all our assignments from the whole summer is standing at a 67.5%, when our starting average from the diagnostic exam was at a 28%. 

    Here are some pictures of what my class looks like now - I thought it might be cool to see it in comparison to what we started with. Three weeks into summer school and I’m pretty sure we’re the only classroom in the school that still doesn’t have a working A/C. 

    I think it looks pretty nice, but I’m probably biased :-)

    So, outside from the classroom? I’ve been able to see a little more of Mississippi and hang out with other people in a more relaxed setting. We had a school social at this restaurant/bar called Airport Grocery, and it was hysterical. Some of the staff members probably had more beer than they should have and were being pretty funny.. even if they were telling teacher jokes.

    About a week ago our regional staff from Appalachia came down to see us. We have a few more parter counties but I still don’t have a job, so I’m trying to stay patient and keep applying to more schools. The last I heard, about half of us have placements at this point. We also had a social at a place called the Warehouse.

    It’s really nice - a lot of CMs go there on the weekends - but like a lot of other places around here, you really wouldn’t be able to tell that it was anything special from the outside.

    And not to overdo it with all the places we’ve been eating, but my CMA group went out to dinner to this place called Fat Baby’s Catfish House and it’s totally worth mentioning.

    I’m pretty sure almost everything they serve is fried, but the food is delicious and the owner and staff are so nice.

    They give TFA people a discount and they’re just really friendly overall. They had a huge map were people would put pins to represent where they’re from. Definitely a place you should go to if you’re ever in Cleveland.

    And of course the 4th of July was the 3-day weekend we’d all been counting down to. The city of Cleveland put on a special fireworks show on the 3rd for TFA, but I made plans a loooong time ago to meet my boyfriend in Biloxi (halfway between here and Tallahassee) and I’m glad I did. Not only did I want to get away from DSU and all the things on my to-do list, but I’d been gone for a month at that point and a visit was very very welcome.

    I had a lot of fun just hanging out, but of course we had to visit a casino. Since unfortunately I’m the party pooper because I’m too young to gamble (story of my life) we settled on just going to the Imperial Palace for dinner at one of the restaurants, but the line was so long we ended up going to the Hard Rock instead.

    The food was good and nobody said anything when we were walking around checking out the tables, so we hung out for a few hours and I got to watch Steve play Blackjack. For someone who loves people watching, casinos are fascinating. Plus no money was lost, so it was a good night. I will definitely have to come back when I’m 21 :-)

    The drive back on Monday morning was torture. I almost fell asleep while driving.. I ended up pulling over off an exit and taking a nap for an hour and a half. And when I got back, this is what the city looked like:

    Gross.

    Thankfully the weather has cleared up and I’m back in the swing of things, but I have to say I’m looking forward to the 16th when I head back to Tallahassee and get to visit my friends and family for a week. Only 9 more days left!

  8. Highs/Lows

    So I’m going rogue during my PDT (professional development time) to post this update, but oh well… I’m so excited! One of my students who was such a huge behavioral problem in the beginning part of last week has totally turned around. W. asks questions when he doesn’t understand something and keeps working even when other “forces” in the classroom (aka the ringleaders) try to distract him. It’s awesome to see! His scores on his exit tickets keep getting better and I think he finally believes me when I tell him that he knows the math, he just lets the test get in his way. Hopefully he keeps it up.

    L was a lot worse today than normal. He’s one of those students who acts out a lot in class and I think it’s because he’s frustrated with the fact that he doesn’t know the material. Last week he was the student who needed a calculator to work out 8 divided by 8, so I know he’s lacking some of the foundational math skills he needs to do things like trigonometry. He was totally unresponsive during my lesson. He copied all my notes from the board but his head was down the whole time, and when it came time for the quiz he just put down some random words and turned his paper over. I tried to prompt him as much as I could without giving away the answers but all he said was “I don’t know”. I need to find his guardian’s contact information so I can make a phone call, but we don’t have it on record. 

    Every day is so different from the last, it’s crazy to think that a million little changes like this are happening at once. I think that’s why I’ll probably never get bored teaching… yeah, you’re teaching the same type of material every year, but if you can’t adapt to everything that’s thrown at you then you’ll never have any success.

  9. "The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real."
    Marge Piercy

  10. Week two: DONE.

    I slept as many hours last night (12) as I did every night last week.. combined. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to be that productive with that little energy, but I really didn’t have a choice. This week was crazy.

    Monday was my favorite - I got to meet my students for the first time, and even though I had to teach a lesson on conditional statements (read: boring) after they took a 2 hour diagnostic geometry test, everything went pretty well. We have 25 students, mostly entering 11th and 12th grade next year, almost all of whom are taking this class over summer to get remedial credit in order to get their diploma. We have one boy who’s entering 9th and just wants to get ahead… it’s an interesting mix. 

    I thought I’d be really nervous in front of the classroom, but I felt fine. Aside from a few minor problems with behavior management everything went pretty smoothly. 

    All week we’ve been giving them exit quizzes after each lesson (that’s 3 a day for our kids) and entering all our data into this tracker system. The average score on the diagnostic exam was a 28.4% (that’s on things they should’ve learned last year) and the average amount of growth we hope to see per student is around 50 points. We only have 3 weeks left to do it, so every minute of class time feels like it needs to be packed.

    As much as I do love doing this, I’m finding it harder and harder to stay positive. I go into class every day super tired from planning lessons, try my best to teach students the material, inevitably get some scores back that show that some didn’t gain a single bit of knowledge, and continue to stay up all night again in an attempt to avoid making the same mistakes the next day. Being able to see progress is promising, but teaching is still absolutely the most exhausting thing ever.

    The other thing that’s really hard to deal with is getting to know more about how the education system works down here. After spending some time with my students both as their teacher and even just on a personal level, I can tell they’ve been let down. Most of them have just been pushed through school — how else can someone get to be a senior without being able to divide 8 by 8 without a calculator? — and even though they’re told they need to get a 60% in order to get summer school credit, they know that there are lots of cracks to slip through. If they’re close to graduating or if they’ve failed a few times they usually get credit, even if they didn’t do the work. I can see that they’re incredibly bright. There have been tons of times this week where they’ve grasped the material right away or asked insightful questions. They just need teachers that push them to do the work and that don’t let them slide by. Sometimes I seriously doubt that I’ll be good enough to be that teacher for them.

    There’s so much more that goes on, but I don’t know if I could ever cram it all in one post. I literally had no time to update during the week, and I feel bad because I know I’ve been terrible about answering calls and text messages. I promise I’m still alive and that I’m not a bad person. I need to get better about it in the future.

    Tonight I’m going to spend time with AppalCorps.. it’s always good to get a break after dealing with students and parents and faculty and my teaching team all week. Oh, and I’ll be sure to update more often and upload some pictures of my new (and improved) classroom… which STILL doesn’t have a functioning A/C. Until next time!

About me

I'm a 20 year old graduate from Florida State University chronicling my journey from Tallahassee, Florida to the mountains of Eastern Kentucky as I start my teaching career.