Trifecta

Hello World!

I am a teacher. But wait! Before you stop reading, I'm not just any teacher. I'm a college senior who teaches on the side. Oh so I must be an education major, right? No, my major is business, which is like the complete opposite of teaching. So wait that's weird... I thought business people were selfish, want money, and make this world an evil place. Teachers are selfless, don't care about money, and make this world a nice place. Ah, so you see - I'm like two opposite things, in one! I'm yin and yang. Vishnu the creator, and Shiva the destroyer.

So what the heck is going on? Well let me try to explain it all in a paragraph. I entered college thinking I was going to be an investment banker and make $100,000 a year right after I graduate. As a freshman I thought, what's the best way to be awesome? Hmm by making lots of money! So I became really intense with getting A's in all my business classes, going to business info sessions, and wanted to join a business frat that was like the holy grail to success. But then while I was at some networking event I had this crazy revelation where all of a sudden, I started thinking everyone there was a selfish asshole. All of my conversations revolved around success, and money, and it freaked me out. I left wondering what the heck I was doing with my life and started to question everything.

A lot of things happened after that, but long story short I became friends with a beggar who actually changed my life. He opened my eyes to the low-income community in which I lived. For the first time I became aware of the injustices surrounding me and I began to develop a deep connection to this man and my community. Then one day he invited me to have thanksgiving dinner with him and his wife in the small motel room they were staying in at the time. I wasn't able to go because I had already booked a flight to go home, but I'll never forget that incredible act of generosity from a man who barely had enough to support himself. I began to wonder how a good hearted man like him was left begging in the streets while selfish assholes at my school were on the path to getting rich. I felt like I could relate to him more than the student sitting next to me in my Intro to Finance class.

So what does any of that have to do with teaching? I'm getting there! During this weirdly dramatic shift, I realized that I loved working with the kids in my community, and so I became a counselor for elementary school kids. Then I learned about a program called Teach for America that would allow me to be a teacher in a low-income school for two years after I graduated. After talking to this recruiter lady about it, I thought, "Hmm... I'm already doing something kind of like that... and I really love what I do ... MAN, THAT SOUNDS AWESOME!"

So from that point on, Teach for America became something that I had my sights set on.
It was the perfect way for me to give back to the community while doing something that I love, which is working with kids who have less opportunity than I did growing up. So in order to build the experience that I needed to be accepted into TFA, I began getting involved in different teaching opportunities, and have since then taught in rural Ecuador as an English teacher. I currently teach local high school kids a class on how they can improve their community through bicycling. I also teach homeless and low income adults a class on how they can be successful at retaining a job.

I find teaching to be an extremely challenging, fun, and rewarding experience and am dedicating this blog to serve two purposes:

1. To be a reflection of my own teaching experiences.
2. To be a testament as to why teaching is awesome.

So if you like what you see, please comment! If you don't like what you see, tell me about it! Also if you can find ways that I can be a better teacher, please let me know and I will try to implement your advice the next time I teach. I'll probably even write a blog post about it!

Oh and by the way my views have changed and I no longer think that all business majors are selfish assholes. Business is great, I mean everything is part of business right? I just like teaching better!

Profile Post

If you're a teacher and feel like your students are going to drive you insane, well guess what? I found a remedy for you! And if you don't feel like your students are going to drive you insane, you should drink this remedy anyway because it tastes that good. This remedy takes the form of a blog that will remind you why you are such an awesome person.

Vicki Davis, also known as the Cool Cat Teacher, is the author of one of the best teaching blogs I've ever stumbled across. Take for example her post, Finding Your Beautiful Moment the Last week of School, which expresses how to end your school year in a 100m sprint rather than a halfhearted jog.  Through her blog, Vicki is, in a sense, teaching how to teach. Check out this excerpt:

Plan Your Last Day Well So Students Know You Care. Students need to hear speeches because you can't say things enough. They may groan when you talk about being safe over the summer. They may roll your eyes when you tell them you love them and encourage them to make wise choices. Who cares what they think -- If they KNOW you love them and you say what they need to hear. You have one more chance.

That's so inspiring! And this is just one example of the many blog posts in which Vicki gives super helpful advice through her own teaching experience. So why should other teachers listen to Vicki? Well for one, she happens to be a full-time teacher with ten years of experience. She's also been a keynote speaker on teaching for major companies like Google and Cisco, which is no small deal. But the most important thing to me is the quality of her blogs. One could read just a few lines from any post and know that this lady really knows her stuff.

One thing that legitimately confuses me is how Vicki can be a full time teacher and still manage to post several times a week. And her posts aren't just a few sentences of idle thoughts, but meaty, full-length articles complete with links, pictures, media, and a great deal of enthusiasm. I mean, it can take me hours just to write one post with comparatively way less content. Vicki, teach me the way!

Just to prove how awesome she is, she's won a bunch of awards given for having the best teaching blog. She also has as huge number of readers who comment like crazy - one of her posts has over 80 comments! I have a feeling that most of her readers are also teachers, so by creating an excellent blog she inadvertently created a community for these teachers to interact with one another and share their own stories through their comments. How cool is that? A place where teachers can relate to other teachers' successes, failures, and feelings.

I'm excited to be able to implement Vicki's teaching strategies to my own classroom once I start teaching high school math. I want my blog to be a reflection of my days' adventures for whoever would like to follow the struggles of a first year teacher. I feel like Vicki will help me get through those days through her blog, and she'll remind me how great being a teacher will be. Thanks in advance Big V!

One of her posts that I'm particularly stoked to apply to my classroom is How to be a Terrible Teacher. Even though the title of the post might sound negative, it actually has a profoundly positive message that reflects the entirety of her blog.

The positive message is that when we go down the path to be a Terrible Teacher that we check ourselves and stop. That we remember our noble calling and be more. That we move ahead and focus on our students. We can't afford to be a terrible teacher to even one student.

On top of dealing with constant adversity, it's not very often that teachers receive positive feedback from their own students. However, it's the aspect of giving without being significantly rewarded, other than the sheer satisfaction of witnessing your students succeed, that makes teaching such a powerful and noble career. Thank you Vicki for reminding us of that.

Voice Post

Do you miss your elementary school teacher and how nice she was to you? Well I think I found her, and her name is Vicki.

I would like to dedicate this blog post solely to the voice I hear when I read Vicki's blog. Vicki legitimately sounds like she could be my teacher. She just sounds like a nice person, but with a sense of authority that you want to appeal to. One of the coolest things about Vicki is that she makes me feel smart because I can read through her posts really fast, even though I'm naturally the slowest reader ever. And the best part is that after I read a post, I feel like I just had a really kind person tell me really nice things. And it's not like she uses any sort of special grammar or punctuation or anything... that stuff just confuses me. I love her voice because I feel like she's talking to me in a very simple, yet meaningful way. So check this out for example:

I just want you as the teacher to know that "x" or "y" or "z" or whatever the advertiser or magazine says you HAVE to have to be a great teacher is a lie. You have all you need to be a great teacher, right there inside of you.

It is what you DO every day. It is WHO you are. It is your CHARACTER in doing the right thing when no one is looking. The best teachers teach like crazy whether admin is in the building or not..

"You Don't Need Another Gadget to be a Great Teacher."

Vicki tends to capitalize a lot of her words, which I find really effective because it makes it sound like a motivational speech in my head. You know when a really powerful speaker cranks up the volume on certain words and then those few works speak to you? What better way to emphasize certain powerful words than by capitalizing them? I also found out that Vicki often speaks at conferences, and can bet that she also emphasizes certain words during her presentations.

I mean, Vicki could have capitalized way more words, but then the capitalizing would have lost its effect. I decided to experiment a bit to see what that would look like:

It is your CHARACTER in doing the RIGHT thing when NO ONE is looking. The BEST teachers teach like CRAZY whether admin is in the building OR NOT.

Now it just sounds like Vicki is insane and needs to take multiple chill pills... and be locked away in a padded room. But since she doesn't actually write like that and keeps her capitalization moderate and effective, I can really envision her character as being an enthusiastic woman who is passionate about her job but not way overzealous. And you know what? That's the kind of person a teacher ought to be.

I also want to highlight this particular excerpt from her post, "Advice to presenters and teachers: All You Have is Enough," because it gives me a really good sense of how she feels. 

Ending a conference [or presentation] feels just like ending school. I get this feeling. I want closure. Somehow I want to know that I've done enough. I want to know that today made a difference. I want to know that it was worth this unique, special day -- the only October 18, 2012 that I will ever live. I don't really know what I want to confirm that. I don't know why the kind compliments about the keynote this morning or other words of encouragement just weren't enough. But they never are.

There's nothing really that fancy about it, which is what I like. I hate reading something that makes me have to think hard. As I read it, I could feel myself nodding with each sentence, thinking in my mind, "Yeah I feel you.." Each sentence was short enough to add a bit more in a provocative way. And then when she ended it with the bold lettered four word sentence, that got me. I was like, "YEP."

I also chose that particular excerpt because it contrasts from the first excerpt I quoted. Instead of being all fired up and motivating, it's bit more low-key but grabs your attention in a sympathetic (empathetic?) way. She uses "I" a lot so that her readers can identify with her as a real human being. She writes, "I want to know ___" several times with each one building on the last and catching the reader in that momentum. I also want to know ___.

Vicki's writing style takes you along and sucks you in. Not because it's highly stylized or anything, but because it's plain simple English that has just enough tweaks to spice it up a bit. Stuff like capital and bold letters and a bit of parallel structure here and there. She also uses short sentences a lot which I really like since I have this tendency to forget the beginning of a sentence once I get all the way to the .... wait what?

Nah just kidding, but seriously. Vicki makes me feel smart. I wish she was my teacher!