WOO HOO!

Have you ever quit your job, packed up your life and moved from, oh, let's say somewhere like Ohio to somewhere like Alaska? Have you done it without another job lined up, just hoping for the best?

Well, my bloggy BFF did just that a month or so ago when she left the teaching/coaching position she adored to move to where her hubby matched and would begin his residency.

It wasn't a culture shock for this couple, as both grew up in Alaska, but for Ashley it was, in my opinion, an admirable, ballsy move. Leaving a job you enjoy and an environment in which you are respected is tough, particularly when you have nothing lined up but hope; I know, I did it a decade ago when I left Pennsylvania and moved to Staten Island. I got very lucky when, after scouring the Internet for positions and sending out many, many resumes, I was offered my current position at the first interview.

Yesterday I found out that I'm not the only one with a lil bit o'luck on my side -Ashley got lucky, too! Now, let me make this clear: the only reason this gal needed any luck at all is because of the job market. Apparently, all of Anchorage is umbrellaed under one giant district and English positions were severely limited.

But I wasn't worried because this girl is a peach: she's smart, engaging, enthusiastic, caring, and dedicated. Obviously, the interview committee recognized a prize when it saw one because yesterday she was offered a position teaching 8th grade English.

I'm so happy for her! As a gal who is about to experience a pregnant pause in my teaching career, I'm thrilled that my bloggy BFF will be able to keep me current on our discipline.

Alaska may be quite a trek from Hoboken, but my gal Ash is only an email away!

Congratulations, Ashley! I'm so happy for you!

Control the Caffeine, Control the Words

Love, love, LOVE this pic - it's so true!

There are few things in life that I can't live without - I'm not much of a material girl - but this pic pinpoints two things that I need in order to function: words and coffee.

I don't read blogs to live vicariously through others and I don't drink coffee to get high off caffeine. No, no , no - my real life is too much for me to schedule as is and, well, caffeine has little to no effect on me (thanks, ADD).

No, I read blogs to connect with other thinkers and writers, kinda like my version of a writer's retreat or writing group. I drink coffee for pretty much the same reason I read blogs, to feel - how did my boss put it that year he banned all coffee from our classrooms? like I'm in a "Parisian cafe"? Um, yep, he was right: I do want to feel like I'm in a Parisian cafe, don't we all?

Actually, no, according to his vision of what must go on there (he obviously never saw Amelie or perhaps he did watch it and all he remembers is the bathroom scene). To me, sitting in a "Parisian cafe" connotes feelings of being out in the world sucking nectar from the thriving whole instead of sitting annexed in a tiny, dimly lit cellar with the rest of those not allowed access to "the real world". To my boss, that phrase obviously reeks notes of subversion and perversion, no doubt thanks to the whole Feeney experience.

Coffee is communal and, as you have no doubt realized from previous blog entries, I dig community. The art of making or buying coffee is so much more than the act of drinking it, which is why combining blog reading with coffee drinking is about as close to Nirvana as I'll ever get.

So, what's La Pointe of It All? It's this: teaching should be communal but let's face it, it's not. It's weird and compartmentalized; superficial and lonely. I think the admin is so afraid of us making real connections with the kids or with the other teachers that its primary goals is to - in small, strange ways - retain control of our words and in order to do this, it must limit our coffee consumption.

Kids and School

When, at breakfast this morning, my soon to be MIL commented, "You love your job, don't you, Ali?", I rolled my eyes and shuddered.

As if conjured by a charm, images of this past year's Period 4 English experience flooded my mind. While I LOVED the kids in that class as individuals, together as a group they drove me to the brink of madness and I can say that publicly and candidly because they know it.

They also know that I loved them and that to this day, I will go out of my way to help any of them but I'll never sugarcoat how difficult it was to teach them.

Fortunately, they had me as their teacher and I'm not saying that to sound conceited or to imply that I'm the world's greatest teacher because I'll be the first to admit that I'm not; I have A LOT of faults as an educator however luckily, the way I feel about and understand teenagers isn't one of them.

Did my Period 4 English class purposefully try to drive me insane? No. Was the atmosphere of that class the fault of an individual(s)? No. Would the experience of that same group of students have been the same if it had a different teacher? NO.

Then why was teaching that group of kids difficult?

I don't know - it just was and that's the point of this post.

Teaching is not easy - AT ALL. But learning isn't easy, either. And unfortunately, there isn't much that can be done to make either of them fool proof and, in my opinion, that's ok as long as both parties try its hardest to put forth a positive attitude and a true effort and, most importantly, as long as both parties care about one another as individuals. Mutual respect goes A LONG WAY in the classroom and in the long run, will teach a student more than a text book ever could.