Decisions Decisions

Where do I spend my summer?
Yoga and surfing here?
or teaching and beaching here?
My life is so difficult.

A Perfect NY day includes:

-A beautiful day on the beach
-Jewelery shopping on the streets of Soho
-A friend's friend's art gallery
-Closing out Essex

Sigh. My life is wonderful.

Where did time go?

I only have 9 weeks left with my kids. What? What happened to time? As crazy as my class is, it just hit my how much I'm going to miss them. I really love them, and they know that. The other day during a "community meeting" about respect, one student said, "Ms. Sadek you care about us too much." Another chimed in, "Ya for real! You like our mom!" Then another, "My mom doesn't even care about me this much!"

My heart melted.

It got me thinking...should I loop up to sixth grade with my kids that will be staying at our middle school? Would I be able to handle the hormonal tantrums of my kids as sixth graders? Do I want to do another year of not knowing the curriculum of that grade?

Better figure it out quickly...I've already turned in my preference form for my top three grade-level choices, and if I want to make changes to that, I should do it soon.

Books Books Books

Every once in a while I go on a huge book-buying binge. Unfortunately for my suitcase and my back, the latest hit me when I was in Madison.

What books I buy usually says something about where I am life-wise. So, again, for my own memory, here are some highlights of books acquired:

Siddhartha: Hermann Hesse
The Alchemist: Paolo Coehlo
Bird by Bird: Anne Lemott
Essential Rumi
Palestine Peace not Apartheid: Jimmy Carter
Unfortunately, It was Paradise: Mahmoud Darwish
Darwish Collection
A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers will Rule the Future: Daniel H. Pink
The Great Gatsby: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Anthem: Ayn Raynd

Sara 2

Sara 1

Escape Java Joint and Art Gallery.

I just discovered the coffee shop of all coffee shops. If I lived in Madison, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't leave this place.

I am, after all, an escapist at heart.

About F*n Time!

I'm very passionate about bedbugs.

A Shift in Mindset

In taking this week to remove myself from my everyday life, I've noticed a shift in mindset since I was last in Madison. I'm still grappling with how to articulate it, but I think I came closest to verbalizing it when out to brunch with a dear friend this morn.

I've mentally decided to simply remove myself from the career treadmill of life...a treadmill who's pace seems to be set by everyone but myself. From here on out, I set my own direction, my own pace. And often, that direction is not linear, the end goal ambiguous.

It's deliberately about the journey and not the end result.

Siddhartha

Siddhartha listened. He was now listening intently, completely absorbed, quite empty, taking in everything. He felt that he had now completely learned the art of listening. He had often heard all this before, all these numerous voices in the river, but today they sounded different. He could no longer distinguish the different voices-the merry voice from the weeping voice, the childish voice from the manly voice. They all belonged to each other: the lament of those who yearn, the laughter of the wise, the cry of indignation and the groan of dying. They were all interwoven and interlocked, entwined in a thousand ways. And all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life. When Siddhartha listened attentively to this river, to this song of a thousand voices; when he did not listen to the sorrow or laughter, when he did not bind his soul to any one particular voice and absorb it in his Self, but heard them all, the whole, the unity; then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: Om-perfection.

(Siddhartha, Herman Hesse)

Rules For Teachers 1872

1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean Chimneys.

2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's session.

3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.

4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.

5. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.

6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.

7. Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.

8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.

9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.

Music in the classroom

I got a beautiful new smartboard in my classroom a few weeks back, and it has completely revolutionized my school day. Not only can I now show awesome videos, newspaper clips, and other awesome multimedia resources to enhance student learning, but, it has made MUSIC an integral part of our day, which make me and all my kids much calmer and happier.

With pandora stations pre-created for different moods, the kids start the day with the Miles Davis station, and quietly shuffle in, eat breakfast, put their things away, and copy down their homework. During independent reading, I go with some Joni Mitchell, Tracy Chapman, or Ani Difranco. During focusing sessions, Chopin is a favorite. And, depending on my moods, sometimes I'll throw in some Keller Williams, afro-funk or thievery corporation. Lisa Hannigan has been this week's addition.

Today, during silent reading time, after I had turned on the music, J.U came up to me and said, "Ms. Sadek? Can you play Tracy Chapman's "talking bout a revolution? I'm reading an Obama book and I think it would get me into it." This made my heart swell just a little.

Not only is the class calmer and happier, but they are connecting their music to their reading in unexpected ways. I mean, who doesn't want music integrated into their everyday lives?

Finding the Hilarity

I've noticed that my blogs have become...lazy. My favorite type of blog post to write is when I attempt to capture awkward life moments because, let's face it, we all know these situations happen to me more often than the norm.

I did a little reading of my blog over the years and the dwindling of quality entries about ridiculous situations became quite apparent. Perhaps I stopped finding the hilarity in life in the same way I used to? Truth be told, I'm pretty sure I lost the ability to laugh at the absurdity of it all during the soul-sucking year of 2008, but, now that my life is not falling apart and my soul has been conveniently returned in near tip-top shape, I'm pretty sure that is no longer the problem. I have miraculously returned to finding moments of hilarity, insanity, and ridiculousness in my everyday life.

I'm just not writing about it.

Maybe I'm just being lazy. Maybe the amount of ridiculous incidents in and out of the classroom are just too many to capture via blog. ¿Quién sabe?

Regardless, capturing these moments needs to happen, so that I can refer back to them and chuckle at myself all over again.

Oh, Guerilla Theatre

This makes my life.

Skinny Jeans

As the year has progressed, the jeans in my classroom on my tween girls have gotten tighter and tighter, and less and less appropriate. They can't sit on the rug because their booties hang out, and their shirts are to short to cover potentially exposed arenas.


So today, I busted out some blunt one on one convos about the appropriateness of 5th grade clothing with a handful of my students. The conversations went something like this:

So, I've become really worried about the way some of you girls are dressing in school. Skinny jeans are not appropriate clothing for a 5th grader, especially in school. You are all starting to grow up and it's not appropriate or safe to attract attention to yourself by dressing the way you do. You can't even sit on the rug because your jeans hang so low! I'm hoping you decide to stop dressing like this outside of school too, but whenever you're anywhere around me, I want you dressing differently from now on. And yes, that means I'll call you out if I run into you dressed like this on the weekends. And yes, I'll continue to call you out for dressing like this until you're 18.

Each girl flashed me a variation of incredulous looks at the start of the convo, But, as my speech progressed, they slowly reverted back to their innocent, child-like selves, nodded their embarrassed heads in understanding, and vowed to the end of skinny jeans in my classroom.

Good riddance.