It's so sad to think about what we've lived through.
I'm my 24 years of existence, there has been so much trauma in the world.
When i think of the trauma that my grandparents have experienced in their lifetime - I know that it had a more profound impact on their daily lives.  Back then, brothers, fathers, boyfriends, husbands and friends were sent to war.  People were pour.  Education was ignored....
But the war meant something!  The war meant something to America and who we are as American's today.

War occurred again in my parents generation - Vietnam.  This war, much like Iraq, took many lives and will serve us no purpose except to escalate prices.

But our generation...
We have lived through the Gulf War
We are living in the War on terrorism
SARS and constant biochem threats
Bombs, school bomb threats
9/11
Columbine, followed by many other violent school shootings and now, Virginia Tech...

Does any of this tragedy? Any of this trauma ever mean anything?
Our generation, when we change America, we turn it into a place where people are afraid

It's Sunday,  I've been trying to figure out what to do about this lesson I'm suppose to teach for observation.  I kind of wish I had more friends besides Rachel who are student teaching so that I can run things by more then one person.  Well... you know, I of course have asked the Crew and others, but I always question if they advise the right thing, since they aren't student teaching. 
Everyone has told me not to call my co operating teaching regarding the lesson.  Everyone agress I have made enough attempts and she has turned them down.  Everyone agress, I need to just walk away from her supervision because she doesn't want to be bothered and that I should stick to whatever it is that I do do in the class.
I think I'm going to have to agree with them.
She does have my phone number.
She does know that I am suppose to do a lesson.
She just doesn't seem to want to be bothered.

I think that I'm going to see what creative things I can sneak into groups at the last minute.
maybe I'll go do that now...

Friday Friday Friday
wow... it's one of those days that you're so glad is here, but also one that I dread @ SS
morning:
directly to computers till 10 (usually we wind up there late, like today, 10:15)
bathroom
coats, homework folders
very short ELA lesson
11, lunch / recess
rest
math
snack
library
free time

Our short ELA lesson was on things that are green.  i was a bit taken back, where did this come from?  It has nothing to do with what we are talking about or the letter that we are working on.  I guess it was the best print out she could find.  She tried to explain that green was the color for St. Patty's day, which is weeks away, and that was her connction for the booklet.  I thought the lesson came out of no where.  She did a quick web of green things, then showed them the booklet and told them to write the word for the green thing on the page.  So for ex: a page had a frog and under it it would say, The Frog is Green.  The kids just needed to write Frog in the given space.  Which the TA's and myself came around and highlighted for them. 
A lot of kids didn't have enough time to finish, but it was collected to go home any way. 
Isn't this stuff at least impt enough to finish???

This friday we had library, special snack, then free time for A's birthday.
math was fun, I got to read a book to the class - but she did not allow me to ask comprehension questions (she didn't ask them either though) and instead immediately turned them to a short math dective cartoon about time.  This movie was not followed up by any comprehsnion either, instead it went directly to snack.
The book and the movie had a lot in them, I don't think our kids digested it all... she should have covered more. *sigh* but I think I say this every day.

On a side note, we were suppose to talk about my observing lesson during computers today.  ms. whiting instead spent most of that time out of the room and then chatted with the TA's as if their conversation was impt.  And she knew we were suppose to talk about it, b/c she brought it up first and then said "i'll be right back."
So I thought ok, fine, we'll get to it during library, snack, rest... something
Rest, she spent w/ mrs. Berk, along with recess.
Snack, I don't know where she left and went to
Free Time, again left and was speaking to the new psychologist regarding testing

oh... and she spent the entire day complaining about the testing that she needs to do and how she doesn't have time
weird, since she never pulls kids out to test
she never stays in the room
she obviously does NO prep at home
she's overly concerned about what's going on w/ mrs. berk
she feels the need to visit her hus. on the 5th grade wing.

... so after all of school is over, I ask her to talk about it and she says, "I just need to get something from mrs. Berks room" and walked out.  I waited awhile and when she didn't return, I thought, forget this, I've sat around just waiting for the day to end all day long, there's no reason to continue to sit here and waste my time waiting for her to come back with another excuse.
I need to email my supervisor and tell her exactly what i'm doing, I need to figure this out... Without talking to her I can't just jump into a lesson... pffff.... is it time to change placements yet?

I never remember having a WEEK off of school for winter vacation.
Apparently this is the new thing instead of having various monday's off for President's days. 
I think that this is a perfect opportunity for spending the next week studyin' my little butt off for Saturday's CST's!!!!!

Bought in <img src=" http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0689863772.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg">, Duck for President  and asked mrs. whiting if I could do a lesson about president's day.  I thought that while the students might not understand the overall concept of Presidents Day they could understand that Presidents are voted into power by everyone to help make the United States a better place.  And I think that Duck for President does a good job of introducing this on a kids level.

mrs. whiting told me that they would not be doing a lesson on President's Day and that they wouldn't be needing the book. 
*sigh* I don't know how I'm suppose to teach lessons here?  Do I just come up with a lesson and it either gets vetoed or allowed?  I hate this method, this is part of the reason I left journalism behind.  Your editor needed to feel as though the topic you want to cover is as important as you and if they didn't feel it was important - even if it was an important topic, it was a no go.  How could Presidents Day not be important enough to teach?  Especially so that the students understand also why they are getting a day off!

I started sitting in on my teachers ELA groups so that I can take them over.  YES! I get to do something.  This observing thing not only sucks, it's not the reason that I quit my job and spent all of this money on a student teaching class. 

I also found out today that next week will be Diversity Week in the school.  Our classroom was given the Carribean.  mrs. Whiting is suppose to teach about the Carriben as well as create a bulletin.  I think that I'm going to go try and come up with a lesson for this to see if I could teach it.  I overheard mrs. whiting talking to mrs. berk about doing a bulletin about a beach scene.  Beach is what she is going to teach them about for the Carribean.