Spring Break

Only five more days 'til spring break.

Spring Break

Every night Tina and I do a little bit to plan our upcoming spring break. We are pretty lucky. This year our spring breaks are during the first week in April which is great. I know that I am really, really, looking forward to this.

Here is a bit of insider information on what it is like to be a teacher. The first semester is pretty good. It is hard to feel burnt out because there is at least one three day weekend in September, fall break in October, the Thanksgiving holiday, and finally, the week and a half to two weeks we get at Christmas. Just when you are feeling like you are going to implode there is a break that gives you time to rest and recharge.

The second semester is different. January really isn't a problem because you have just come back from Christmas break rested and recharged. In February there is President's day. But, once you pass Presidents' day you enter the empty quarter of days off. There is not a single day of vacation from the middle of February until the second week of April and it is brutal.

Now if you are reading this, you might be thinking,"This guy is a whiner." But I will say to you, until you spend a month in a classroom with six kids with severe mental illness and you would want a day or two to regain your sanity.

Being a teacher is tough because there are no breaks in the day. Your lunches and periods of the day when you don't have kids are spent making lesson plans, planning units, and, if you happen to be a special education teacher, spent dealing with the Everests of paperwork which go along with that. Aside from that there is the day-to-day grind of telling Johnny not to put pencils up his nose, telling Sally no she can't go to the bathroom because she just went five minutes ago and then reassuring her that she does not have a mouse's bladder and will be fine (really, she just wants to leave the classroom and you know this is true because you did the same thing when you were in school :-)

All in all I love my work. I love working with kids. I love being here to see kids make progress and move on to better things. So with these things in mind, I can survive one more week, and then will finish out the year in a blaze of glory.

Chris

p.s. For those of you wondering, the football player at the top is defensive lineman "Mean" Joe Greene of the famed Pittsburgh Steelers steel curtain defensive line.

Caucusing

Today, I am proud to say, we were responsible citizens. We attended our precinct's caucus. It all started with my primary president canceling our presidency meeting tonight because the first presidency recommended that we attend our local caucus meeting. I emailed Chris and told him that it was canceled and why, and he proceeded to look up the letter from the first presidency, and make the rest of our ward aware of it. Thus, all of our ward canceled tonight's meetings in order to go to caucus. As a US History teacher, I am embarrassed to say that I was not even aware of what a caucus meeting was. So I was about to be educated. Anyway, we got together, said a prayer and the pledge of allegiance, and had read to us the statement of the Utah Republican party. Then, the incumbent caucus vice-chairman told us that our goal for the night was to elect a new chairman, vice-chairman, secretary, and treasurer for the precinct. Then, we had to elect representatives who would accompany the chairman and vice-chairman to the county meeting and the state meeting. The people that we elected would need to serve for two years, which put Chris and I out of the races, since we are trying to move out of the precinct soon. (PLEASE! Look at our condo!)
Anyway, it was an interesting meeting, but there was one part that we agreed was a bit scary. One of the people running for office compared President Obama to Osama bin Laden. Wow. We thought that was a bit harsh. Chris thought the guy was to a degree mentally unstable, but then again, yeah, he was nuts.
If you ever have the chance to attend your caucus's meetings, I recommend doing so. It is an interesting way of seeing our government at work.

I get to teach today!

I have had student teachers for the past few months, and I still have them, but today, I get to teach 2 classes!  It is funny how excited I am!  I really haven't done this in a while, and I am introducing the Culminating Project on traveling in the 1850s in America.  I'm the one who did one of these, so I will teach on how to do it!  Yay!