How to Travel on a Teacher's Salary

This post isn't about Middle School PER SAY, but I feel that it's relevant in the sense that I came up with the idea on a middle school teachers salary.

HOW TO TRAVEL ON THE CHEAP: making your life a bit more fun on a budget.

I want to start by saying I am not nearly important enough to have a sponsor, so everything I reference because I use it regularly.

This summer I went on a trip to Maine, which is far away from my home state of Florida. I wanted to visit another "corner" state, but trips like this are normally expensive. This trip cost $450 total for 2 people, and included airfare, a rental car, and a full cabin near Bar Harbor. Between me and my husband that was a 4 day cross country vacation in the middle of June for $225 a person. $225 is not "no money", but is much cheaper than the average vacation. Here's how we did it:

Trick # 1:
Air fare: my absolute FAVORITE airline is Frontier Airlines.

They are the Greyhound bus of the sky. They are going to nickel and dime you. You have to embrace this because their flights are cheap. They do price by "one way", so you buy 2 tickets a trip. Check their website, they do direct flights for cheap. I sign up for their email alerts and get an email deal twice a week. Most of the time I ignore them, until I want to start planning a trip.

If you're open to just picking whatever location is cheap, you could fly for as little as $20 one way.

NOW: carry on bags are an extra charge, but if you're just going overnight, you could keep everything in a purse or laptop bag, which is a "personal item" and it free. I am the queen of shoving all of our crap into 1 bag, so I pay for 1 carry-on, take a purse, and roll our clothes. Rolling clothes saves space, I'll do another post about this later.

On frontier, the seats don't have a big cushion, but after flying a major airline and then Frontier right afterwards, after about an hour both seats feel the same. Also, on Frontier they do not have complementary snacks, but you can get a cup of water for free or pay for a soda. I also do a free water, and once I brought a burrito on board with me because I was so hungry (a memory that still makes my husband laugh hysterically).

Thank you, Airport Burrito Casa, for serving dinner at 6 am

Frontier is not the most luxurious, but if you just need to get from point A to point B cheap, then it's worth it.
Last thing about Frontier: join their "Den Club", it's $50 for a full year and your tickets are cheaper. I wanted to go to San Francisco for my birthday, and I waited for a Frontier deal to pop up. I noticed that the Den Deal tickets were $80 cheaper than the regular seats, so it made sense to spend $50 because I was still saving $30. And now I don't have to pay for it again for a full year, so my flights are EVEN CHEAPER!

Trick #2:
Kayak. I love kayak for flights if I can't use Frontier. I've been using Kayak for years now, and I'm worried all of these commercials are making it so popular that their deals won't be as good anymore. I know this doesn't make sense, why would popularity change the basis of the website? I'm just being paranoid.

My deals, MINE.

Anyway, I found really good hotel deals in Miami when we went to the Everglades this past Valentine's Day, and it's the only website I use to book rental cars. If I'm paying more than $40-$60 a day (maybe more if I waited until the last minute) for a car, I'm paying too much.

Tip for rental cars: those $20 a day deals are normally for local places where the service won't be as good and you have a mileage limit. Even if Kayak says no limit on the miles, the car company will still have one. I have experienced this firsthand. Stick with the cheapest company you recognize, like ACE, Hertz, Enterprise, etc.

Trick #3:
Air BnB.
This is a well known trick. I LOVE Air BnBs. I've stayed in 6 total, and we are staying in another for our San Fran trip next month. When we went to Maine this summer, we had an entire apartment to ourselves for less than the cost of a hotel. Since it had a toaster oven, stove eye, and fridge, we stopped by the grocery store and got some supplies. PB and J every day for lunch, bag of chips and some water make the perfect meal. We'd eat out for dinner, and then we could beat up the leftovers if we were hungry. We also made some tasty breakfasts of pancakes and eggs.

Not the cabin I stayed in, but one that is available on Air BnB!

Staying at an Air BnB is more comfortable, and often you can stay in a better location. We wanted to visit Acadia National Park in Maine, and this put us closer than a hotel would have. Plus we had more room and a smart TV in our room, so at night we watched Netflix and Hulu instead of trying to find something on cable channels we were not familiar with.

Streaming TV is the best, how did we ever live without it?

Another thing to consider is the hosts. When we did a weekend trip to Chicago in May (flew from Orlando to Chicago for $50 total, and stayed at an Air BnB 2 nights at $40 a night. It was such a cheap trip!) our host pointed out some cool local places so we didn't end up at touristy places for dinner.

Trick #4:
National. Parks.
This year alone I have been to 5 National Parks, 6 after our trip next month. We got a NP passport book, and we get stamps every time we go to one. It's become part of my favorite part of trips, getting our passport stamped.
I've climbed 2 mountains this year, and I've biked around lakes, seen Elk, and eaten lunch in places that look like postcards.

There is a National Park for everyone. Acadia in Maine was close to Bar Harbor and had a lot of small shops and was very bicycle friendly. Zion National Park and a small town but was mostly wilderness. National Parks are a great stop on a vacation, or a great destination.


Trick #5:
Dates dates dates dates dates.
If you travel when everyone else is traveling, it will cost more AND be more crowded. Disney World is the perfect example. If you want the best Disney Trip, you should go in January because the weather is nice and there are less people. Since the season is so slow, hotels and tickets are cheaper. It is the best time of year to go!

I hope you can use any of these tips! It's really all about trial and error, finding what works for you. And most importantly, finding those hidden gems of discount flights and cheap hotels. Wanderlust is no longer an impossible dream!

~If you have some great travel tips, SHARE THEM IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!~

Just living L I V I N: The life of a Modern Teacher

Being a teacher makes you tired. 

Now, working any full time job will make you tired. Especially when you are hourly and trying to get as many hours as you can per week.

But as many jobs as I've worked, teaching leaves me the most tired. Everyone tells me it is a first year teacher thing, but I see the dark circles under everyone's eyes.

You get used to looking like the Grim Reaper

And I am tired of people thinking the work we do after school is "grading papers". Yes, grading papers takes a long time. But it becomes mindless, you can just sit down and get it done. I actually don't mind grading papers most of the time, you just sit down and get it done.

 

It is EVERYTHING ELSE. 

Everything you see on TV and Pinterest that you would love to do for your kids, mixed with everything the state needs, mixed with everything the district needs. And these unit plans and evaluations. It's not the evaluation that gets you. I love people coming in to my room, and I am a new teacher so I want feedback.

All I need is cute construction paper, some wood to build the outside, and a bunch of specifically sized boxes!

It's the pre evaluation work, the post evaluation meeting, and then the post evaluation paperwork.
But DON'T WORRY: Because of new standards for teachers, we have to attend Professional Development Trainings during our Tuesday Planning Periods. And because research has shown that block scheduling is both good and bad, we have decided to create a schedule that is 7 periods on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Wednesday will be block schedule for 2,4, and 6, and Thursday will be block schedule for 1,3, 5, and 7. So while you get one long planning one day, you do not get a planning the next.

So you get 3 days of planning periods a week.

On top of grading, evaluations, and the 16 page unit plans we must now create, teachers must also have a Deliberate Practice Plan. That you must create and follow, even though no one will remind you about it and after October you completely forget about it until you get an email that it is due next week.

And all of this paperwork must be turned in or you will lose your job.

And ON TOP OF ALL OF THAT: You have to give a 40 question multiple choice standardized End of Course Exam. If not enough of your students pass, you do not get paid as well next year. This creates "incentive" to teach well. Or it creates EOC related nightmares for first year teachers.

So even though this is a performanced based band class, students must take a multple choice test. It does not matter that they read in different clefs, or that they are not all in the same key. Let me tell you, trying to explain concert pitch vs. written pitch was confusing to college students in my conducting class.

My 6th graders did not do much better.

So I am tired.

I have my concert band evaluation in March, I am behind on typing up unit plans (my lessons are all well thought out but scribbled down in shorthand), and I have not started on my DP evidence.

And in my engagement pictures, I have giant baggy circles under my eyes.

But I sill think it is worth it, to see those kids laugh and bond together. To see them learn songs outside of class, like when they secretly learned Happy Birthday for their mom and played it on her birthday and she cried.

Moments like can warm your heart.

I suppose I really just needed to explain it is not just "grading papers". There is so much we do to be able to teach your kids. So when your son or daughter's teacher is a day late responding to an email, or they forget to send the permission slips home the same day as another teacher, just know they are not lazy.

They are just TIRED.

Dress Code: Sexist?

This has been a controversial topic lately. 

There has been a lot of talk, and even more blog posts, written about how school dress codes are sexist and exist to make females feel persecuted.

As a self proclaimed feminist, and now someone who works for a school, I have formed an educated opinion.

No.

Keep in mind this is my opinion. A lot of people would disagree, but this is how I see it:
School dress codes exist because students are not only learning reading, math, science, etc., but are learning proper social behaviors. You should not wear a short skirt and crop top to a meeting, you should not wear a tank top and hot pink shorts in an interview.

Believe it or not, I sat in an interview when I worked at the ice cream shoppe, and the girl wore tiny hot pink shorts and a tank top. The interview did not go well, for reasons that went beyond her outfit choice. But that first impression did not help at all.

And now that I am a teacher, we take classes on classroom management and things of that nature. Our school follows a program I love called Positive Behavior Systems. We reward more than we punish, and keep in mind some of the things students do that are wrong, they do because they do not know differently. Keeping in mind that I work in a low income, inner city school, this has worked well. The back bone of this entire program can be summed up in one statement: Replace bad behavior with good behavior. That is to say, if a student does something like getting up in the middle of class and walking around, rather than just yelling "Hey, sit down!" (like you really want to), you say "So-and-so, have a seat. I'll give you time at the end of class to get up." This way, the student knows what they are supposed to be doing instead. You cannot just tell someone they are wrong, and then make them guess what the correct behavior is.

 

Picked out my outfit for that important interview tomorrow!

So we have dress codes to show students how to dress professionally. Don't wear a tank top to a job interview. Don't go to work in a crop top. Replace the behavior. We cannot just expect students entering the workforce to know how to act. Some of these students are first generation high school graduates, maybe their parents did not ever get the opportunity to tell them how to dress for work or an interview. Maybe they have been moved from foster home to foster home so many times they never had anyone that could explain it to them.

We cannot call it "common sense" if it is not common knowledge.

Don't jump off that bridge, you'll hurt yourself- that's common sense. Falling hurts, falling from even higher up hurts more.

The workplace is a place for professional attire- not common sense. Where would your average teenager learn that? Not cosmo. Not TV.


So maybe instead of blaming the system for "shaming" our students, we should explain to them what it means to dress appropriately.

No, your adorable American Eagle shorts are not going to be long enough for school dress code.
Yes, it is Florida, and about 1000000 degrees outside.

But go downtown and look at all of those woman. Are they wearing adorable American Eagle shorts? Or are they wearing dress clothes, blazers, pants, etc?

No, they will probably not be found in a designer store. But is that sexist of the school dress code, or the designers? Why are the girls shorts so much shorter than the boys? Why was it always significantly harder for me to buy clothes that were dress code, but most everything in the store was something my brother could wear to school.


So stop blaming the school, or accusing teachers of sexualizing females. Honestly, teachers would rather just ignore your clothes and spend our periods starting lessons on time and making sure you were learning everything you need to.

And of all of the students I have had to send to the front office, boys are top of the list with their tank tops with no sides and shirts with drunk woman in bikinis.

 Teachers bother with dress code (because we have to, but also) to make sure you are becoming functioning members of society.

And that will always be our end game, and the reason we took this job in the first place.

Teacher Fairs: Worth It?

I had always seen job fairs advertised at Troy, but I never attended one. I always went and searched on the State Department websites as well as County sites.

So when I was cruising around the Orange County website, I saw them advertise a teacher's fair. Since I was STILL looking for a job in July, I signed up right away.

 

There were 2 time slots, a 8:00 am and an 11 am. Since I did not want to get lost in the morning downtown traffic, so I opted for the 11 am.

Now, if you are considering going to a Teacher's Fair, please be smarter than I am! This event had on the spot interviews, and they would either offer you a contract or put you on a waiting list at the end. So by going to the later fair, a lot of the jobs were already taken.

But for those of you who, like me, have never been to a job fair before, here is what happens:

You find the school or event hall and begin looking for signs.
Mistake #2 was that I parked near the front of the school, assuming it was near the job fair. I should have stopped and looked for signs, because it was a trek!

 

And not the good kind of Trek

Once you find the correct building, you enter and they will have a check in desk. They find your name on the computer and make sure your certification is in order, or is at least pending approval. Then they give you a list with every school there, where that school's table is located, and what positions they are interviewing.

So you go down the list and find your subject area. In my case, there were only 2 music positions listed, an elementary school and a middle school. I went to the elementary schools table first. The principal was interviewing someone (there were waiting chairs in the back for everyone who wanted to wait for a free principal), but I saw the sign with all of the positions listed and saw that the music position had been crossed out.

 

Dejected and sure there was no way I could find a job, I headed to the middle school table. To my great relief, they had several positions crossed off but the music position was still open. This meant the principal was keeping the sign accurate, as well as hiring people on the spot. She was open, so I sat down and she asked for my resume right away.

 

The most important part of looking for a job is to have several copies of your resume on hand, especially at a Job Fair. 

I gave her my resume, as well as print out of my transcript since I had no teaching experience. She was very pleased, and we went ahead with the interview. Now, at the end of interviews, I always know they are going to ask me questions, and it is best to have these planned so that you look prepared. Mine questions for her were:

1. How and how often are teachers evaluated in your school?

2. How many other people are you considering and when are you planning to make your decision?

3. How large is the program, and are there classes other than music that the band director will be expected to teach?

She told me she wanted me to meet with her Assistant Principal, and so we met at the Middle School itself a few hours later. After meeting a lot of administration, they called my references and after they got ahold of some of them, they offered me the position. I went on the county site and officially applied for the position, and now I get to set up my classroom tomorrow. 

So while it may be July, do not give up. The band I will be directing is a large program, and one of the top rated groups in the county. And I only found it because I happened upon it at a job fair.

Art Survey: An Educational Journey or Required Torture?

I am horribly optimistic when it comes to teaching. I think maybe all first year teachers and interns are, but I mean I think I can do ANYTHING!

It's not my fault completely. In college they say "You can teach anything to anyone at any age if you find the right way to reach them".

And ready to set the world on fire, I jumped right on that bandwagon. I am busy teaching my 3rd graders genres like waltz and fanfare, and my kindergarteners rhythm and patterns. 

But this art survey class is a special challenge. I can not get my pacing down pat. This class is 11th grade non-music readers (except for a couple of band students), and there are not that many of them. I was READY TO START, and since this class is a half a year class, it started when I got there. So I took it over from the beginning.

Now this class is supposed to cover basic music reading and understanding, and then it moves through basic music history for the last 2 months. However, I started creating a pacing guide and then became overcome with excitement. I FLEW through reading music. Those kids did not have any hats, as it is against school policy, but if they did they would have had to hold on to them while I made them learn EVERYTHING I could possibly cram into one lesson.

 

A hurricane of Music Theory comes to devastate the land

I did not want them to be bored, so when I felt like they had a grasp on something I moved on. I'm not saying this was wrong, because the students still have a strong understand of everything we have done. But it may have been overwhelming, and this class is not supposed to be a core academic class. I am not trying to belittle art survey, but it is supposed to be a mild class and I maaaaay have turned up the heat.

 

 Now that I can look back at my lessons and see just how much I crammed in there, I realize I did not make it interesting, I just kept a constant flow of information going. 

So now I have a new goal: less pumping them full of facts and figures every day, more tailoring the learning to what they want to know. 

So after the last quiz on Friday, I asked them what they wanted to know. These were the respsonses I got:

Student 1: "French composers? I'm in a quiz bowl and no one on our team knows about French composers, and they always ask 4 or 5 questions about them."
Me: "Okay, what era of French composers?"
Student 1: "I don't know...all of them?"
Me: "Is there a set time period? Like what years?"
Student 1: "I don't know... all of them?"
Me: "That's like 1500 years of recorded history. We can not possibly cover all of that."
Student 1: "......so, is that a yes or a no?"

Student 2: "Have you seen American Horror Story?"
Me: "What?"
Student 2: "American Horror Story? It's a show."
Me: "Uh, I mean I've heard of it, but I've never watched it. Why? What does that have to do with music history?"
Student 2: "Well, there's this girl, and she plays this thing and it goes like this (begins moving his hands all around) and it makes like the Halloween noises. You know what I mean?"
Me: ".....what?"
Student 2: "Like, she's this girl, and it's got like this stick thing and it makes Halloween noises."
Me: "Okay, I guess I can look that up....."

Student 3: "Do we have to learn about art too?"
Me: "Yes. Music, Art, and maybe even some Dance.
Student 4: "I love dance!"
Student 3: "This sounds boring."
Me: "Well, I'll try and keep it fresh."

Student 2: "Can you bring in a didgeridoo?"
Me: "I can try. They're really big instruments though."
Student 2: "Cool. Also, what is yodeling?"
Me: "I'll have to look it up."

Student 5: "Was Bach an artist or a music person"
Me: "Bach was a composer."
Student 5: "Aww man, student 3, you were right."
Student 4: "Did Da Vinci write music or did he just paint?"
Student 2: "He invented a helicopter! And was an Assassin in Assassin's Creed."
Me: "He was a painter and inventor, but no music background there."
Student 2: "And assassin. In Assassin's Creed."

Student 4: "Are we going to learn about Donatello?"
Me: "Yes, eventually."
Student 4: "What about Rafael?"
Me: "Are you just going through the ninja turtles?"
Student 4: "....."
Whole class laughs. 

This went on for quite some time, and eventually I realized I was giving them too much freedom. They do not know what they are supposed to learn, so how will they know what parts we should focus on? So now here I sit, writing a lesson plan, hoping I can keep their attention at least for a little while.

I do not have high hopes for this first lesson. It's unfortunately about Gregorian Chant.

But I know I do not have to go in depth, as long as I can get them to learn what they need to to build on that. I know without a good foundation they will crumble like a powerline in a hurricane. Time to sloooooow down, even if it means extra work on my part to keep them interested.

Kindergarten- Learning to Expect the Unexpected

We have already delved a little into my analysis on the minds of the kindergarteners.

But this week has truly opened my eyes to the terror of the mind of a kindergartner.

Let me explain: This week we are discussing the differences in loud and soft. So my friends and fellow interns sent me lesson plans, just as I send them lesson plans, and I combed through some of the elementary school ones to find some cool things about loud and soft, and one of my friends had a neat game similar to heads up seven up. A little worried the students would take this tiny break from routine and use it to burn the music room to the ground, I have decided to brave it any way. 

MONDAY:

Starts out well. We sing Hakuna Matata and get louder and softer. Kids are eating it up. They love singing quietly and keep giggling. So far so good. Then I tell them that we are going to play a game, and if they want to play a game. We all agree as a class that if this gets too loud that we have to stop playing. They are literally shaking with excitement. I was not sure that was a good omen. But we begin.

Grizzly Bear, Grizzly Bear, sleeping in a cave,

Please be very quiet, please be very quiet,

If you wake him, if you shake him, HE GET’S MAD

And other than being too loud on the “he gets MAD”, the students loved it. They got a little bored toward the end, but I had to give everyone a turn to keep it fair. And ultimately, it was a little noisy, but successful. We went on with the lesson happy and in peace.

 

So far smooth sailing...

TUESDAY:

Starts out well enough, the class is behaving very well. And they love the game, and play it quietly. They also getting a little bored toward the end. But we keep it together, and the whole lesson went so well I could not even believe it. It was very unnerving, I just kept waiting for the moment of chaos. But none came.

 

We are still all friends

 

WEDNESDAY:

Today’s class is normally very similar to yesterday’s class, so I have high hopes for the lesson. We begin and they do a great job. I am so proud, and then we start the game. And they start getting weird. People start laying down on the ground and I don’t know why. And when the grizzly bear wakes up, one kid growled and from then on they all start to growl. This should have been my warning signal, like a beacon flashing “WARNING! WARNING!” 

 

But I laughed good naturedly. There is a little boy in the class who has been tested and did not test anywhere on the autism spectrum, but clearly struggles with his behavior. He is a great student though, and he loves music class. So in this class I just have to make sure he is on task and focuses, which means sometimes I cannot watch the rest of the class with the same intensity I do my other classes. And they start to go a little wild, and I try and reign it in. Now I have 4 kids on the floor pretending to be asleep, and one girl who is normally very good cackling like a hyena in the bear seat. 

 

I'm not sure why this post is now Lion King themed....

 

I get everyone to be completely silent and let her close her eyes. When we get to the end she jumped up out the chair growling furiously. In my initial shock she took the opportunity to attack the students around her, knocking down 3 kids before I could stop her. 
Confused, she shrugged and told me that’s what bears did. 

 

Someone has watched too much Brave... 

 

Confused, she shrugged and told me that’s what bears did. 

She did not get to play the rest of the game. 

I have a new plan of action for my next class, which is normally the worst behaved class of the week.

Come on Kindergarten. Cut me some slack.

THURSDAY:

Today’s class was very good for what we normally encounter. I only had to be serious with them once about the volume. I tried to make the Bear game go by more quickly by having students only do either the poking OR the bear instead of letting them do both. This. Went. Horribly. One kid started sobbing because he did not get to be the bear, and another said that this whole world was unfair (because he did not get to be the poker). The drama continued until I ended the game and we moved on to singing again.

I just cannot win with these kids.

I did some research and found a teacher who only does like 6 or 7 turns, and she keeps a bucket of sticks in her room that have two different colored ends. She pulls your stick and flips it to one color when you have had a turn, that way everyone gets a turn eventually. Students eventually understand the system, and apparently the results are fantastic.

We will see about that.

I guess I am making sticks this weekend.

I have no idea what bounces around in those tiny noggins, nor do I think I will ever understand it. But I will adapt, and we will get a system that works for everyone!!!

 

All I know is: The whole world is unfair.

Field Trips from the Other Side

Something I always enjoyed about school was the day we got to miss for field trips. It didn't matter why; band trips, honor roll trips, etc. Teachers could not be mad at you, because you were not skipping classes. You were simply at an off-campus school function. And it was glorious.
So today we went on our first field trip.
What I learned from ALL of my education classes is there is nothing worse than field trips. Kids scream and run and you want to pull all of your hair out and basically quit your job the very next day.

 

But I, like the students, thought missing a day but getting credit for being there sounded like an awesome plan. And we were going to see The Dallas Brass, which I wanted to do anyway. So we took our sixth and seventh graders and got them on the bus. Immediately, I knew we had to lay down the law. I stood up and told them that if I was standing up, they were silent, because I would not stand up if I did not have something important to say. I got this line from my co-operating teacher. She knows how to get a bus full of students quiet, so I knew she would never steer me into disaster. 

Sure enough, the bus was silent, and except for a couple of times of reminding some students to lower their voices, we were set and ready to go.

THE CONCERT. WAS. AWESOME.

I almost expected it to be a little bit boring to the students, but the guy entertained like no one else. The students kept looking back, as if to say "Are you seeing this too???"

                          

They clapped, they recognized the songs, they heard the crisp clean tones, and ate up every second of it. It was fantastic. And even though it was very chilly and pouring rain, it was worth the damp hair and runny make-up to see the kids face when the trumpeter came down to give them high fives. It was hilarious. 

    So ultimately, it was a lot of work. Taking roll, counting heads, spending the whole concert watching them and not the brass, running all over in the rain to make sure I had everyone on the bus. But in the end, the great concert and the looks on their faces made it worth it.

I did learn, however, several things I did not remember from middle school. 

• Kids will eat. Like until they run out of money. So when given the option to choose restaurants, they will get large fries and milkshakes from McDonalds, then a Subway Sub, then a box of cookies from Publix, then gum. I know. I watched it happen. But overall, it did not cause any problem, except the nausea I felt from watching them. 
• Kids will get excited and then not be able to process their emotions, and will exert their excitement by saying weird things like "PI TIMES PI TIMES PI SQUARED PLUS APPLE EQUALS APPLE PIEYEYEYEYE"
• Kids will not do anything unless you ask them specifically. Instead of emptying the rows one by one, it will immediately become priority number 1 to get out of their seat and out of the row before everyone else, even if that is logistically impossible. You have to release them row by row.
• Kids sense of wonderment at concerts will remind you why you got into music education in the first place.

So, today was a lot of fun. Now to focus all of our energy on making sure MPA goes well. My co-operating teacher is in charge for our district, so it's list making and folder stuffing for me!