this is SO me...

we had a guest come to speak at our church a few weeks ago, isaac anderson, that gave a talk that was SO me that by the end i couldn't help but cry because it was so good to know that i'm not the only one that has the same neuroses. anyway, here's a link to the talk. it's about the idea that god made a decision to come near to me, and he continually makes that decision again and again. it's so good. anyway, it's about a half hour talk, but so worth it. if for nothing else it's a window into my mind. isaac starts talking at the 5:10 point.

isaac anderson - god is near

kirk came to school with me last thursday to help me fix breakfast for my students and their families. we fixed pancakes, french toast, and bacon. it was a good time. kirk got to see a little window into my day. he says my students are very "energetic." we had a good turn out of families: 2 moms, a grandma, godfather and his grandson, aunt, and a case manager from the mental health center! here's a really sweet email i received from one of my students the next day:

"good morning just wonted to say thanks agin for breakfast this morning. and to tall you that my mom says thanx to. i wonted to say have a good weekend and a Marry Christmas and thanx for leting me talk to you when i needed to and for being so suppurtiv and for being a nice teacher to not just me to every 1 so Marry Christmas and t alk to you latter."

so, even though i'm TIRED and so ready for this break, this is what reminds me that i love my job!

in other news: i have been so looking forward to this break, partly to get a jump start on getting back in shape, starting to run again, hopefully getting back into the habit, etc. well, on day 1 of my break i'm playing indoor soccer and i step on the ball, turn my ankle and can't even WALK! to make matters worse, we didn't have any subs for the game, so i kept playing, on one foot. i was such a worthless team member! so, here's a pic of the ankle. the picture really doesn't do it justice. it's very purple and swollen. i think god has a sick sense of humor, thwarting my ambitious plans of getting back into shape over break. but really, who tries to get in shape BEFORE new years???

finals

remember in college, when we would stay up all night to "study" for finals... really we were just watching movies, eating junk food, and cracking the occasional text book. how i miss those days. i just submitted my final project for one of my graduate classes and it was 25 pages long. ick. i'm tired of sitting and typing. and i think i have a callous on my right index finger from using the touchpad on my laptop. it feels good to be done. now i can party. yeah, who am i kidding?? i'll probably fall asleep on the couch by 8:00 tonight! ha!

5 work days until christmas break! woop woop!

good day today

i know i've been a crappy blogger, but i don't think i've ever been this busy in my life! i think i've lost some of my multi-tasking capabilities because i used to be able to handle a lot of different things all at once and now i'm just WEARY. but anyway, today warranted a blog post because it was a good day.

my students read today for 10 whole minutes, completely SILENT. they only complained for a minute and then i set the oven timer and told them that i would let the timer run while they read. but if they talked or stopped reading i would stop the timer and they would just cut into their free time the longer it took to get back to reading. it totally worked. this may not seem like an accomplishment but i assure you, it is.

secondly, i have gotten 3 new students in the past 2 weeks. two of the three came from alternate "facilities" and let's just say that the transition back into a "normal" school should not be expected to go completely smoothly. one of the kids has been in and out of several different schools, foster homes, jail, running away from foster homes, and hasn't been in school for almost a year. he is really far behind as far as credits go and that's discouraging to go into classes with students that are several years younger than him and still not understand what's going on because he's been out of the school "habits" for a year. day one this kid tells me he's probably just going to drop out and if he wasn't in school he'd just be on the streets doing "illegal stuff." i didn't even see this kid for the first few days that he was supposed to be at school because instead of going to classes he decided to wander the halls all day to avoid class. i finally caught up with him one day and he ended up sitting with me and venting for an hour about how frustrating it is to try to get ahead with so much stacked up against him. the next day, he came to my class. ok, fast forward 2 weeks to today. he went to ALL of his classes today! by the end of the day he got frustrated in his last class and walked out but instead of walking the halls he came to me. i called his teacher to let her know he was with me and he ended up working with me on his science classwork. we learned the difference between power and work and how to find them using equations. we looked up Usain Bolt online and talked about how if Ms. Hutson raced Usain Bolt in the 100 meter dash that we would do the same amount of work (force x distance) even if i took WAY more time to finish. but since the equation for power factors in time (P = work/time), who would be more powerful? "Quit playin, Ms. Hutson. Bolt mo' powerful." i need you guys to understand how much i hate science, but i taught this kid some science today. i don't think Usain Bolt taught anyone science today.

anyway, i've gotten to where i can joke with this kid but also lay down the law when i need to. i gave him a stern look and gave him a little "mom" lecture about his girlfriend and school and whether he should drop out and get his GED...etc. then i stopped and said, "you know what? i'm not going to tell you what to do. if you want to talk to me, you're more than welcome, but i don't want you to feel like i'm in your business." he said, "Ms. Hutson, i like talkin' to you. people always trying to get me to talk to counselors, but i say, 'man, i need to talk to Ms. Hutson! don't need no counselors!'" later i heard him telling another student, "Ms. Hutson my savior, man. it weren't for her, i wouldn't be doing NOTHIN." that was huge. it was a good day.

good news/bad news

let's start with the bad news: today i committed teacher suicide. i cried in front of my students. that is the absolute worst thing that a teacher could do, especially when your students are emotionally disturbed behavior disorder students that have not yet developed the ability to empathize. they angered me. they angered me so much so that tears welled up and then i knew it was downhill from there.

ok, moving on. good news: i won honorable mention for my photo here on the right ---->

"the council." my photo was one of the top 36 out of about 300 photos in the river to well photo competition to raise $ for drilling a well in South Africa. yay South Africans having water! yay winning awards! yay!

more on ksu football

i know you've been waiting for it... my analysis of the ksu game to open the 2009 season.  yes, i have a few opinions.  first of all, let me say, i'm not disappointed.  i feel like there's a lot to improve upon, but, as i mentioned in my previous ksu football post, that is a mark of a bill snyder team.  so, we can pretty much guarantee that our boys in purple spandex will improve.  simple thing to ask for, yet somehow so elusive in the prince years.  

 

so, special teams:  good at times.  i felt like our tackling, getting downfield to cover the return game, was good.  we made tackles on first contact.  also an elusive skill last year.  however, on kickoffs, the kicker has some decisions to make:  as a kicker you have one of two jobs:  either put the ball through the back of the end zone or hang it in the air for a significant enough hang time that the really fast guys can get downfield and tackle the guy with the ball as soon as he touches it.  well, we did neither on saturday.  our boy couldn't reach the end zone once. and when he tried to get it to the end zone by line driving the ball all he did was prevent the special teams from making a tackle below the 20 yard line.  

i thought our offense did ok.  yeah we made some mistakes, yeah we turned it over a couple of times, yeah we had almost no passing game.  here's why i'm not worried about those things yet.  one, coffman was nervous.  that'll work itself out.  two, we have some insurance in our back up QB, he's fast, he's a runner, and he's a bill snyder type of QB.  three, we ran the option!  i know, i know.  but i love the option.  and we ran it pretty well.  i think coffman has a good feel for the option and i think we have the players to pull it off.  four, we WILL have a passing game... it just wasn't there last saturday.  we will have tight end options and brandon banks will not always have a bad game, like he did last week.  he was rough last week, no doubt.  that will not always be the case.  fifth, our running game was good.  and we pretty much ONLY ran it up the middle, but we still dropped over 200 yards on UMass.  we had a good team of backs and we really didn't even use our fullback option.  snyder is notorious for not showing all of his cards up front.  we ran a limited number of plays and we will add to our repertoire as the season progresses.  the turnovers will clean up as the season progresses.  i feel ok about offense.  

defense, to be honest, didn't stand out one way or the other.  the times that UMass scored were odd occasions, once on a special teams play and once after a quick turn around.  the only score their offense truly earned was a field goal.  we gave up a few big plays, but we also held them to a field goal in the red zone.  i give us a passing grade. 

as i mentioned in my earlier post, i'm not discouraged because i don't think we are going to peak here.  it's unlike a snyder team to allow these same mistakes to continue to happen.  i think we had a lot to learn from from saturday's game which is all you can ask for in a non-conference game.  

my response to an email from a friend giving me a hard time about ksu football.  he asks me about my opinion of bill snyder returning to coach at kstate and if the hall of fame will not only wait, but never materialize as a result.  i said:

snyder cannot coach himself out of the hall.  brett favre will still be a hall of famer despite the lunacy of his present choices.  bill and brett can't undo the amazing things they have done in the past, no matter how much of a circus they decide to let their careers turn into in the future.  bill snyder took a team that was ranked 113 (out of 112 teams... no lie.  Wichita State University had an accidental higher ranking in football than KSU in the late '80's... accidental because WSU did not have a football team at the time... [is that really true, or is it a tale of legend and lore???  oh well.  it works for making my point]). he led them to 16 successful seasons, a #1 ranking, and BCS bowl games.  that's incredible no matter what happens in the upcoming seasons.  it is still known as one of the best turn arounds in history.  that won't change.

as for how things will go in the new snyder era:  this is why i am not counting him out:  

1.  a mark of a bill snyder team is discipline, fundamentals, and more discipline.  that is what KSU is lacking, so increasing the discipline can only lead to improvement.  

2.  another mark of a bill snyder team is progressive, even if slow, improvement.  one thing you always could count on was improvement from one season to the next, one game to the next, and one quarter to the next.  snyder's teams climbed the rankings each season and with each game.  ron prince's team did the opposite.  ron prince had a game plan that involved a lot of trick plays that surprised teams, even really good teams (UT), in the first half of a game.  but he made no halftime adjustments and his teams became increasingly worse as the 2nd half droned on.  they made more and more mental mistakes, penalties, predictable plays that led to turnovers... these things are rare with a bill snyder team.  i expect that, even if our record does not indicate as such, we will see marked improvement as the season progresses and i'm ok with that for this season and maybe next.

3.  and this is why i think bill will be able to have "success" in upcoming seasons (whether that's bowl eligibility, big 12 north champions, or...), bill does not have to be the best or strongest "link" on the field.  he has brought in some amazing coaches to his staff including the offensive coordinator from last year's successful utah team and jo bo clements from ku.  bill knows that his teams are only as strong as the coaches around him.  he does not try to make himself bigger by keeping everyone around him "small time."  there are a lot of big time coaches that were assistants under snyder before and he's staying with that pattern.  he knows that he's older and up against a lot of odds... again.  he knows what it's like to be in this position.  in fact, he's dug himself out of even deeper holes before and he did it by bringing in strength and talent in the coaches around him.  ron prince was afraid of bigger and better talent on the coaching staff.  this threatened him.  he had to make himself the central element and the strongest link and he did not have a coaching staff to fall back on when his inexperience showed.  

4.  part of ksu's problem has been really poopy (not the word i used originally, but i'm censoring myself) ADs since the previous bill snyder era.  snyder will not go for this.  he will demand excellence on that level as he does with his coaches and he has the clout to make it happen.  for f-s (really did just say f-... not the actual word) sake, he's the reason we have a damn (not really that bad of a word... right?) equestrian team.  in the early '90's before ksu football brought in a profit, bill demanded an indoor practice facility and stadium renovations.  this was before anyone knew what he was capable of doing and everyone thought he was a crazy man for those demands.  but, he knew that is what it would take to build a program that could compete and to bring in recruits... and it worked.  he knows how to get it done.

i can't make any predictions about what bill snyder will do, but there's comfort in knowing that this is how he will build the program.  snyder loves being the underdog.  he really has nowhere to go but up and no one is paying any attention to ksu this year.  this is perfect for him to be able to teach and coach and turn things around gradually.  

first days of school

first week of school:

*getting up at 4:50 every morning, leave the house by 6:00 am. i'm kinda proud of myself for that.

*i've had a work order to get my phone in my classroom fixed for three weeks.

*we have a paper shortage. budget cuts = paper shortage. this is ok with me as i am trying to be environmentally conscious anyway. but, it's just a reality for schools this year. it's not just paper either. teacher shortages too. most of the teachers have 30+ students in their classes. i've spent several hundred dollars in the past month on supplies, posters, and books, BOOKS for my room. i am determined that my kids will READ in my class. if you've not been in a school in the past 5 years you have no idea how difficult this simple goal is to achieve. i'll be danged (i edited myself!) if my kids don't read a gosh-darn fleeping book in my class. i told my kids that they may not like it, but we're doing it, and by this time next year they'll know that in Ms Hutson's class you're gonna read a book!

*evacuation. wednesday we had to evacuate the building because of a diesel leak. we spent 1 1/2 hours in the school's football stadium with the entire staff and student body until buses came to take the kids home. we didn't get back into the school until friday. first week of school.

i'm not going to lie, my kids are tough. i'm the third case manager they've had in 3 years and right now they could care less about me. it makes sense. they have no reason to trust me, take me for my word, believe me... that all takes time. you can't just walk in and start talking about how much you care about them. i told them on day one: things you should know about me: i am not the enemy. i know you don't know me, so you don't know if you can believe that or not, but i'm not the enemy. i'm not looking to "get" you. i don't enjoy that. but there's right and wrong and we're going to work on some things. if i have to talk to you about something, you're not in trouble, you're LEARNING. i won't assume anything about you. i won't judge you. also, i'm not perfect. you want me to give you a break from time to time? you gotta give me a break too. i have bad days, i'll make mistakes. but i'll always own them and apologize when i've been wrong. the hard part with my kids is that until they decide to respond to me, until they decide i'm the real deal and they can work with me, i can't force their hands. one student told me i'm doing ok so far. hey. i'll take it.

guys, seriously. it's like every inner-city school movie you've ever seen. please pray that i'll just love these kids well, if that's the only thing i do.

p.s. read the post from yesterday about river to well. take photos. submit them. build a well in south africa. give people fresh water.

photo competition!!!!

Hey friends. Don't forget about the River To Well photo competition that I think all of my photographically-inclined friends should enter! You can submit photos online (save on the cost of printing photos and postage) and all of the funds go toward building a well in a South African village in a region that was hit hard by last year's typhoid outbreak. The competition has student, amateur, and professional levels, so there's NO EXCUSES to not enter your photos. DEADLINE IS SEPTEMBER 15!! Here's the link to the competition website: www.rivertowell.com

I'm planning on submitting a few photos, some of which have been featured on this blog. In fact, why don't you weigh in on which photos are your favorites. Go to the right side of the blog and click on my previous blog entries that are under the "photos" label and scan through and let me know which photos are your favorites and that you want me to submit.

school!

well, students show up tomorrow! yikes. i am super nervous. i feel like i've been trying to sip from a fire hydrant that is opened full blast. there is so much information, so much that i'm expected to know already, and i'm really nervous about how the students will respond to me. all to be expected, i suppose. the two most stressful things in a teacher's career are the first year of teaching and adjusting to a new district... i'm doing both this year. i feel like i know a storm is approaching and i can't avoid it but i am just hoping to weather the storm. i know that it's going to be busy, stressful, uncomfortable, confusing and scary for a little while but if i can just get through these first few months, i'll start to settle in a bit. here's some pics of my classroom.

i'll be teaching social development skills to kids with emotional and behavioral disorders. most of the office referrals from last year came from kids in my caseload, specifically the class that i teach. i'll also be working in an intervention room to help students with academic and behavioral problems that come up during their gen ed classes. and, finally, i will have my family advocacy group, which are kids that i will have close communication with everyday, close connections to their families, and help them stay on track with their goals, graduation requirements, etc.