12:00 - Woke up from a horrible dream in which J was living in Austin, TX and working at Jamba Juice in a trailer parky part of town... And she had a baby! >_< It was one of those dreams within a dream, and part of be kept trying to wake up from the horror of it, but when I'd wake up into the second layer of the dream, she was living in Portland, but the part about having a baby was still true. Man, it was a really awful dream! That'll teach me to watch shitty MTV shows before bed...
1:00 - Took one of those gloriously long showers, and then iced myself in lotion afterwards, as if I were a big cupcake. :) Dressed in my favorite hoodie from Amsterdam (the epic one with the big pink pot leaf) and some purple PINK sweatpants from Chicago. Finished the look off with my Havaianas on that H brought me back as a birthday present from Brazil. :-P
2:00 - Made a giant puffed pancake and doused it in that REAL MAPLE SYRUP I seriously splurged on the other day! Eating it while listening to my favorite morning time song - "Murmurio" by Casuarina.
3:00 - Camped out on the couch, reading articles about portfolios. Wheeee....
4:00 - Realized I don't want my thesis to just be on portfolios, but on Chelsea Version Portfolios. I wrote a quick reflection on exactly what I want my thesis to be about when it's all done.*
5:00 - I needed a break, so I made some cheese chips and shandy, then decided to see if any of my students had posted to their blogs today. Some of them read my blog for entertainment, but I don't think they fully understand that I read their blogs for entertainment, myself! :) Pineapple's was totally awesome and made me giggle when she said her dream job would be to be a Unicorn Groomer, and then included a pic of unicorn cupcakes. WIN. Another girl had written hers, and it was really funny, too. They all had to make rough CVs for this week, also, and one of them put their Twitter handle on it.
And so what have I spent the past half hour doing? STALKING all of my high schoolers on Twitter. Either that makes me a seriously awesome person, or a really creepy teacher... I'm not really sure which. But man it was fun. :oP When you're a student, you often forget your teachers have real lives outside of the classroom, but as a teacher, you often forget your students have lives outside of the classroom, too!
Anyway, my conclusion from looking at their Twitters was that I was happy Twitter didn't exist when I was in high school. Myspace was crazy enough for me (man that sounds lame)... and this Twitter stuff is so ineloquent and impersonal, and yet takes up so much time. Sheesh. Aaaand now I sound old. Okay, gonna go back to my thesising...
6:00 - Roomies went to Madrid! I have the apartment all to myself for the night! Time to BLAST SOME MUSIC!!! :oD Anyway, currently organizing everything into an Outline. Just reread the guidelines for this paper, and it's pretty ridiculous. It's supposed to be more like a review of what we've learned, rather than a thesis from scratch. Not that you hear me complaining... if there's one thing I LOVE doing, it's reflecting on my experiences. HAHA!!! Seriously. Let's do this! I've been practicing for 257 days here, guys. Maybe I could just send her a link to my blog? ;)
7:00 - FIVE pages finished. Yep, you can call me Sir BAMFsalot! ;) (Tee hee - I came up with that the other day when I was getting off of the train... and, man, I was just so enchanted my creativity and awesomeness - hahaha.) Okay, to be fair, three of those were already written in my original rough draft submitted in November, but I had to do the work of finding them and rereading them and editing them. :) And then I added two pages expanding upon some parts. The important part is, currently 10% done, and I've only been working on it for five hours. SUCCESS. Roomies are going to be so ticked off when they get home and I tell them I'm 20% done after one intense afternoon of awesomeness. In my defense, writing IS one of my main passions in life, and langauges ARE my other main passion... so it only makes sense that I should be LOVING this paper right now! ;)
8:00 - After I got a few more pages done, I decided to go to my neighborhood Fruiteria to get some fruit for my shortcakes! I felt like the biggest rebel in the world for leaving the house in a hoodie, sweatpants and flipflops. The faces of all those I passed were in SHOCK. One simply does not wear sweats and flipflops in public here in Spain. I saw a police car go by and I honestly had an irrational milisecond of wondering if they were going to stop and talk to me! Haha. Seriously though, you just don't do that here. Ever.
The fruit shop guy, though, was way cool with it. That man has seen me on my hottest days and on my grossest days, and he always helps me with a cute little grin on his face. :) My kind of guy.
I thought strawberries were already out of season, but he had a few boxes of them today! Yay! And, actually, he didn't even have any peaches, so I got a bag 'o bries and am now feasting on some white chocolate strawberry shortcake while about to tackle the next part of my thesis.
My one fail of the past hour, though, was trying to make coffee in Marianna's fancy Italian coffee maker thingie. I totally FAILED the first time (I won't even tell you what I did). And the second time was a pretty unfortunate fail, too. I'm hoping third time is a charm, but the whole contraption is too hot for me to try again yet. Haha.
9:00 - Two more pages written, and other written but not sure where to put them yet. I will not be going to sleep until the first part is completed. There are four parts and each must be 10-15 pages long, so if I do one part today, one tomorrow, one next Saturday and one next Sunday, I'll be done five days before it's actually due! Haha. Man, I'm starting to feel antsy. I need a dance and coffee break...
10:00 - Marianna and her boyfriend came home at last! :) They've served as a nice distraction, as they're speaking half in English and half in Italian. With Marianna around, I've realized that I can still understand an alarming amount of Italian, but I cannot say a single thing besides "squirrel." >_< Che cazzo! (Or, well, okay, I guess I know three words...) But! Tonight her boyfriend taught me a new, and very useful word: "AUTOSCATTO." Translation? "Selfie." BAHAHA!!! Bamf. So Bamf. ^_^
11:00 - Aaaaand I did nothing. I showed Marianna my Tumblr. I stalked my students some more. And I watched movie trailers to decide which movie we should all watch tonight. Time for some dinner and an attempt at finishing this section TONIGHT...
12:00 - LITERALLY just had a moment where I noticed there was a red, squiggly line under a word I'd written, indicating it was spelled wrong, and I seriously could not figure out why. I right clicked on it to find a suitable correction, and there weren't any. I was seriously baffled by this point and typed it into an online dictionary. It took me a few more minutes to figure out the mystery... turned out, it was a SPANISH word - and one without a direct English translation. O_O I had translated it into what I thought was a nice English vocabulary word, and it turned out to not even exist. I don't know whether that was a FAIL or a WIN???
1:00 - ELEVEN PAGES DOWN.
2:00 - TWELVE PAGES. Final count. Not bad for one day, even though most of the text was taken from my two rough drafts and just edited and reformated and moved around. I did add a few parts, too. Anyway, I'm only lacking one part to have Section One complete, and I know I have that hidden in some folder on my computer, too... I just have to find it and edit it. Tomorrow I will do Section Two, while also writing the final draft of what I'm going to give the head mistress on Monday. EEK.
Night night!
XOXO
*"I want my thesis to reflect the interesting concepts I have learned in these classes. The parts that were really worth my time to read and that gave me a new perspective to things.
I also want my thesis to cover what I have observed and experienced at CISTA. I want it to show how much I have really thought and reflected about my experience.
The broader topic that this is meant to explain is the concept of portfolios for assessment, but it is not just another explanation of why it is a good and idea and how to make one. No, I want this to be more revolutionary than that. I want it to have creative, unique and innovative ideas in it. I want it to really show some interesting insight into the usual ho-hum manner of teaching.
I want this to come from the idea of “down the rabbit hole” and also from “The Little Prince.” I want this to be based on the idea that learning another language should be a magical experience and adults should quit ruining this experience for the children. I want this to come off as not just “a way of assessing,” but, instead “a way of creating a whimsical classroom environment to really give students the best possible shot at learning – both English and about themselves - and loving learning.”
The portfolio isn't just a lame ass collection of stuff at the end of the term. No, the portfolio is the ship that is carrying students from week to week, concept to concept. I don't believe in the idea of chapters and units and exams. I believe that learning should be a more inclusive and continuous adventure. Learning should be seen like “Supermarket Sweep,” where kids are let loose into a supermarket of knowledge (the classroom), and are free to grab all the knowledge they can and place it into their carts (portfolio). And not because they have to or are being graded on it or are scared into it – but because they genuinely are excited about it.
A small experience I've had with this – Pablo. I was teaching him about past simple and how to make it positive and negative. Instead of drilling it into his head, I wrote the words on his fingers and we did a puppet show with his Angry Bird stuffed animals. After 45 minutes of this, I had him redo the assignment he had failed, and he did it PERFECTLY, and with enthusiasm. Then, just as I was about to leave, he asked me how to make it about tomorrow. I didn't understand what he was asking, so I asked him to explain his question. “You know, we can talk about yesterday and today, but how do we talk about tomorrow?”
I was absolutely floored. What a freak'n BRILLIANT question. o_O And this is the kid whose mom hired me as their “last hope.” because he was going to fail English and was dyslexic and just didn't understand the most basic concepts!
I smiled, slyly and shook my head. “It's a secret!” I whispered. He laughed and said that he really, really wanted to know. “Okay, but you can't tell anybody you know it. It's something even 5th graders don't know.” He nodded his head up and down, up and down, rapidly, clearly getting really eager.
I wrote down “will” and “won't” on the paper below the present and past verbs. I explained you used those words instead putting an ending on the main verb. And that's how you made it about the future.
He was perplexed for all of two seconds, and then grabbed the notebook from me and started writing. He wrote three sentences using this new concept I'd explained to him in literally 30 seconds – and he wrote them flawlessly, all the while a huge grin on his face.
THAT is what I want this thesis to argue for – I want it to argue for an enchanted, whimsical classroom with learning seen as an amazing adventure. And I want portfolios to be the vehicle for that journey. I want it to be the suitcase of that journey. The scrapbook of that journey. I want kids to take pride in their portfolio and see it as one of their most prized learning possessions.
Like I said, I think by making learning about units and chapters and exams, the average class day loses all significance and importance. But when you properly create a classroom driven by a portfolio and imagination, students come to class knowing they have something exciting to work on and add to. I want their portfolio to be like a treasure map to all of the pieces of gold they've learned throughout the year. I want them to know that class time is for them and their creation and their learning. I don't want to have a minute of our time together wasted. I want them to feel a sense of exigency and adventure. I want them to not even realize they're working and learning, when they are, in fact, working and learning. I want it to be very hands on and engaging. And I want it to be something that parents and other teachers and other students can see at the end of each term and admire.
And so, my thesis will be a roadmap of sorts into creating a classroom like this with portfolios at the forfront of it all. It will draw on articles and videos I've seen throughout my Master's classes, experiences I've had in the classroom, and my own personal thoughts and beliefs. I want this to be the one thesis the lady reads and really makes her think. I want this to be the kind of thing I can truly use in the future and inspire others to get into, as well."
No comments:
Post a Comment