Teacher Appreciation

Today in the middle of one of my classes, a random student came in and shoved a pineapple in my hands. My students asked, "What is that for?" and were given the answer of "teacher appreciation!" I was pretty excited b/c we were planning on grilling that night anyway, and I love pineapple!

One of my more mature and thoughtful students asked me if I blogged and told me I should blog about it so I'm taking her advice :-) Some of the other activities they've done and are planing on doing are fairly lame and honestly make me feel the opposite of appreciated, but I'll take free food anytime! Interestingly enough, a lot of the activities seem to reward students more than the teachers. (Makes me wonder who planned them.) For example they have done two things now where if a teacher does something, the students get candy...not sure how that is supposed to show us "appreciation," but I know it makes the kids happy!

The Office Returns

One of my students is pretty much obsessed with the TV show The Office. Whatever we talk about in class, there will be a direct relationship to an episode and he will share it with the whole class. Usually it starts with, "like that episode on The Office when <cast member> does such and such." I have to admit it's pretty hilarious and it's a good thing I'm a fan so I know what he's talking about! The other day he brought up a more obscure scene that I had totally forgotten about. This prompted the question, "Mike, how many times have you watched each episode??!" The response was given in the usual goofy chuckle, "Oh probably like five times or so."

Just to give you an idea of why it's so easy to make connections, here are some of the topics we have covered in class: Diseases spread by animals such as...Rabies (pretty much a whole episode was ridiculously devoted to this!), sexual harassment, healthy relationships, communication and anger management (Andy had a slight problem with this in season 2), concussions, and so on. If you're an Office fan, some of those should ring a bell.

I think the pinnacle of his Office obsession was on the morning of the season premiere. The eve of the premiere I caught some of the boys playing with the staplers on my desk and asking funny questions about how much they cost. It was a little suspicious, but I had no idea what they could be up to. I found out the next morning. A procession of about 8 kids walked into my room, all following the obsessed one. He carried a mold of lemon jell-o with ...a stapler inside! Jim would have been proud. Apparently they found out the hard way just how difficult it is to put something into jell-o. However, for amateurs, it looked really good! I had to send pictures to Keegan immediately and tell him that this was much better than the archaic 'giving your teacher an apple' tradition :-) I left it on my desk all day. A lot of my students thought it was another one of my object lessons -haha. By 5th hour it had melted a lot so you could actually tell what was inside.

"A lot of people go to college for seven years."

"Yeah, they're called doctors." Well, it didn't take us seven years, but almost for me :-) We finally graduated from college at USU on Saturday and it was a fun day. We were kind of tired from wedding festivities the day before so we skipped the morning stuff, and started the day getting ready for a graduation luncheon at our church's pavilion with the fam.

Both of our families came and so did my grandparents and Keegan's grandma which was awesome. My great neighbor Alice and her son Matt came, and so did Karinnee's special friend Daylin. We had a TON of food and lots of fun with the kids running all over and the guys playing ping-pong. We cleaned everything up and then had a moment to relax before heading to the Spectrum for the ceremony. It really wasn't too long and boring either!

We're excited to get on with the rest of our lives but a little anxious as well :-) We are also very thankful for all of the people that have helped us through the college experience! From family and friends, to roommies and professors. We loved the college life and are especially glad that we both found the best perma-roommate of all!

Moans, Groans, Smiles & Screams

I just finished up my last week of student teaching. I really did love it and I actually miss it and am kind of sad its over. (Never thought I'd say that when I started!) The last week I was there we were learning about the reproduction system in health- everyone's favorite :-) This is always an interesting unit and when the students first found out that they'd be learning about it there were naturally some moans and groans- but not as many as I thought. Both health classes that I taught are full of really great kids and for the most part are pretty mature.

The unit started off on a high note when the students took an opening quiz called "Is it Male or Female." I'll let you figure out the content of the quiz ;-) One of the guys who sits in the front and is fairly outspoken said "How can you take this without smiling?!" It was pretty funny. On my last day this week we watched some clips on the ...laser disk (so old school!) and the last one happened to be a woman in labor.

The clip started with a shot of the woman with husband at side encouraging her to breath... they went through a little breathing exercise together and everything was fine and good until quite unexpectantly the camera moved to the opposite view where we saw the baby crowning and heard a blood curdling scream- not from the mom- but from one of the girls in my class! It was hilarious! Everyone started to laugh but the girl for the most part kept her head in her hands and was hunched over not knowing if it was safe to look up again. When she was assured that it was all over she looked up and then began to laugh with us- but I had never heard a response like that before. :-)

One of the best parts about this was that word got around about her response so the next class period was definitely more prepared for the shocking scene and was even looking forward to it. Oh the joys of teaching high school health! I love it!

An Apple for the Teacher

Today I had my final in media law. This class hasn't been the easiest , and one thing that made it more difficult is that my learning style just wasn't congruent with my professor's teaching style. Although I didn't necessarily agree with the way she taught the class, I thought she was a nice ole gal and thought she deserved something special for her last day preceding the Christmas break. Also, I had a sort of class clown rep so I felt I needed to represent my fellow pupils. Assuming this responsibility I walked into the final fashionably late bearing a fruit basket Martha helped me create. I waltzed right up to the front of the class and announced that on behalf of the class I wanted to present Mrs. Byrne with this fruit basket...and in no way did I want it influencing our final grade. The class cheered and I handed a camera to a young lady in the front row to snap a pic. When the cheering died down, the crowd started to chant, "speech, speech..." So the teach took the stand and announced that never in her 20-something years of teaching had she ever seen anything like this. I think it made her day. I still got a B.

Health Insurance Article

I wrote this article about student health insurance