Back to Student Teaching!

After about 3.5 weeks of resting and doctor visits, I finally returned to student teaching last week. I sat on the teacher's chair while the kids slowly piled in and they each gave me a card they drew of me. I was very touched! I missed them a lot and it was great to finally work with them again. It has been such a long and painful journey to recover, and I still have a long way to go before I have full control and normal strength in my left again. In the meantime, I have to functioning and continue living my life. I've been attending my own classes at night at my university, but it's a lot of work for me to take buses/trains so I have been cabbing it to school and it's gotten quite expensive. Luckily, I don't have to go class this week so I will only be student teaching part time. However, I am doing my PACT lesson filming this coming week so I am bit nervous. Hopefully my lesson will go smoothly and nothing big will happen.

Cards my students made me :)

Still out of student teaching....

Crap. My leg and nerves have not healed so I am still limping. Tomorrow is my 10th day I am missing for student teaching. I think it's ridiculous I still can't walk properly but I guess my injury was more serious than I thought. I will be going in for my second physical therapy session tomorrow. Hope the therapist notices some improvement in my condition. Cross fingers!

Health Update

I went to my first session of physical therapy today. My therapist, A is a very fit and handsome gentlemen who was very thorough and helpful (well, I did pay over a hundred bucks out of my own pocket for it...). He diagnosed where the problem area was and broke down what was going on with my back and leg. Basically, I have a herniated disk (L4 and L5?) in my spine and that has affected my nerves on my left side of my lower body that stems from my buttocks (yes my bum) all the way down to my left leg. Basically, my left leg is a heavy log I lug around. I have a major muscle spasm on the lower left side of my back (a 4 out of a 5 scale) and so I couldn't do much of the exercises needed to aid in a speedy recovery. He did teach me some exercises to help strengthen my core (stomach area) so I can protect my spine. He does not recommend me to go back to teaching yet, but I asked if next week would be doable and he said it should be ok. I made an appointment next Monday afternoon so if I do student teach I will leave right after to go to my appointment.


Earlier on in the summer I had saw a postcard from a site a friend recommended me (Postsecret.com) where people anonymously send in secrets written on postcards. There was one from a teacher and it made me scared and nervous about my future profession as a teacher. But after experiencing this medical situation, I think its even scarier for me to think what would I be doing if I could no longer teach. Yes, I am extremely nervous about graduating and anxious about finding a job and having my own classroom. But from my own experience being idle and bored, I love working with children even if there are some unpleasant situation/remarks that sometimes happens. I'm sure there will be bad/slow/hell/exhausting days, but everyone one of those negative ones, I will have many more positive ones to "overwrite" them. Sure there might be some traces of the negative ones, but I will never forget the nice ones. I will never forget the moment the third graders from last semester who piled around me to hug me and say farewell. And the little kinders from this semester who come up to me randomly to give me a hug. Those moments and memories and priceless. Even the kid who asked me why am the size that I am, he randomly threw out another remark how he loved I was his teacher. Teaching is one of those professions where you give a lot, but you also get back a lot. It's not gonna be the big bucks (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA) that reel people into teaching as a lifelong career. But it's definitely one of those jobs where you will make a difference in many peoples' lives forever that will trickle down like water down a neverending drain. My own experience with teachers, good and bad have shaped what I am today. I was fortunate enough to have many wonderful folks who cared enough to care about what they were doing and take an extra step to help me out when I needed a little push or encouragement.

Withdrawls from teaching...

Today is exactly one week from my first painful episode to the ER. I had gone to school to student teach earlier that day but was sent home by my master teacher. I was also able to skip out on the CPR training that I was suppose to attend later in the day after school. I am grateful I was home instead of school when my shooting pain started because that would have been embarrassing and terrifying for the teachers and students that would see me going ballistic crying and screaming for dear life. I have never done that in my life due to physical or mentally.

Today is also the 6th day of student teaching I missed. Most of the time when I'm home I'm lying on my right side of my body and watching videos to distract myself from the pain. Or I would be sleeping because the meds I take to control the pain have side effects of dizziness and nausea. Right now I am feeling alright, taking less meds than before. I even finished a novel for a class that's due way later in the semester (The Circuit by Francisco Jimenez).

I wanted to post some photos earlier but didn't have the opportunity since I was so out of it and none of the photos were uploaded yet. I have photos from my last semester and current semester of teaching.

Last Semester

 Some of the math measuring units kids had to learn last semester (I had a hard time memorizing them myself!)

White Alligator from Academy of Science field trip I chaperoned

A literacy game I made with my partner (she did most of the work really)

Vocab words kids used for their journal after the field trip

Awesome play my classmates made for "The Giving Tree"

Another play my classmates did for another storybook

One of the students drew me and other teachers in their yearbook (^_^)

This Semester

View of new classroom I am working in before school year started

Another view of classroom with teacher's work table

Another view with kids cubbies

Another view where kids come in from door on left

Kids cubbies during first week of school (I have one too from photo above with flag)

Homework I have for student teaching-this will be made into a book with students drawings :)

First few weeks of last semester..

It's been awhile since I last updated. School started a few weeks ago and I had been doing well student teaching. I'm now in a kindergarten Cantonese immersion classroom with 22 cute little ones, and 24 for during English time. I feel very tired after each day of teaching, but I always come home with new experiences and memories for the day. Some days are better than others, but I don't ever regret going into student teach. My master teacher is a wonderful woman with a caring heart-she always makes sure I am doing well and communicates with me. She is also very accommodating and makes sure I am comfortable and doing what I need to do.

Then the nightmare started. Last week, I woke up with a sore back. Then it escalated to a stiff back. I went to see a nurse at school clinic and they wrote me some pain meds. I went to student teach on Friday morning but was sent back home after my teacher saw the condition I was in. I was also very torn because I had signed up for a first aid training session but I had gotten my money back. That night, I was in extreme pain and had to go to the emergency room. I called my friend who then quickly drove to my home and drove my mom and I there. I was crying and in immense pain, pain I had never felt in my life before. I was seen in the ER pretty much immediately after two paramedics helped me hop inside since there were no wheelchairs available at the moment. A nurse saw me soon after I did registration and given an IV and later pain meds. My mom and friend came in afterwards and a doctor also came into look at my condition. I was diagnosed with muscle spasm although it could possibly be Sciatica. My doctor was pretty young and I got the feeling he was trying to lighten the situation but it just made him seem a little unprofessional. I was asked to give a urine sample-that took a long time because I had trouble maneuvering in the restroom. Afterwards when I came out I was extremely nauseous and passed out. My friend said I turned green while my mom said I turned white. I woke up an hour or two later with a oxygen mask and more IVs hooked p to my body. While I was in and out of consciousness I could hear my mom crying. My friend had left earlier so my mom and I caught a cab home around 3am. By the time I got home I was very out of it, and I was pretty much spoon fed some food before passing out on my bed.

Saturday passed by and I was still in a lot of pain.... Sunday afternoon I could no longer hold it in anymore and another friend drove and picked me up to go to ER again. I was seen almost right away but I had a med student attend to me. I knew she was like me, a student doctor and I did not want to give her any pressure but she really did not know what she was doing. I was poked a few times to insert and IV and that was unsuccessful so I was given a shot instead. I had a real doctor come in and she confirmed I had Sciatica and it could take a few days to weeks to get better.  It has been about 5 days since my first ER visit but I am slowly losing track of time. I am home all day, often laying down or just watching some random video online to kill time because I am in great pain, and often sleepy and/or nauseous most of the time.

I have missed 4 days of student teaching now, and I really miss the kids I work with. I wonder what they are learning for the day? I wonder if they are getting along with each other?  I wonder if they miss me? I wonder if they remember me? I know I will get back into the classroom soon enough, but I am miserable at home doing practically nothing. I miss the freedom of going outside, the sound of kids speaking Chinese, drinking coffee, even riding the Muni bus. I just hope all this pass soon enough so I can get back to finishing my teaching credential.

I can kind of walk and stand but the pain in my leg is still unbelievably painful. I've been through other things and I know I will get through this, but I just hope it will be sooner than later.

Yeah Yeah Yeah...

Earlier this week during student teaching, a student YEAH YEAH YEAHED me when I was helping other students. This particular student, H is at a more advanced level in Chinese (and other subjects) than the rest of her classmates because she speaks Cantonese at home AND attends Chinese school, BOTH in Mandarin and Cantonese. So well, DUUUUUH she is gonna be ahead of other kids in Chinese. But the point of this story is, she disrespected me and tried to brush it off. Well I wasn't gonna let her go. First of all, I'm an adult. Second, I am her teacher. I might not be her regular teacher, but the moment I step into that school I have just as much responsibilities to those students I work with as my master teacher and I don't even get paid for it. I am there to learn but also guide and help students. This kid disrespected me, and when I tried to ask her why she did that she totally ignored me even after I called her name at least 5 times. What did I do? I walked around the table and tapped on her shoulder and got in her face to ask why did she do that. She had a guilty look on her face and didn't dare to look me in the eye. I asked why did she do that, she responded she already knew the answers. Well I asked if she knew, was she going to help her classmates? She said she wasn't going to help. I asked her was it necessary for her to make that rude remark, and she said no. And she knew better. If it was her regular teacher she would have gotten in much bigger trouble. Now that I think back, I should have gave her a warning. She is smart, but if you're not going to help don't be mean or show-off about it.

On a lighter note, the same student who gave me a hug wanted to give me another one but it was during a time that was not too appropriate so I told her she can give me one later. I didn't get one but at least she wanted to give me one. :) Yay.

Next week I have to teach and videotape a math lesson for a final project. Hope everything goes well. Well if it doesn't, I will learn what not to do next next week when I am being observed.

One last note, I went to conference where Dr. Lily Wong Fillmore, a prominent educator in the  education field gave a presentation about the new Common Core State Standards that will be implemented in 46 states (except Virginia, Texas, Minnesota and some other state). She made a comment that teaching is not for the weak or wimps. Damn straight! She is one feisty woman! I like! And she didn't seem snobbish or uptight at all, unlike some people I've met in higher education who seem to look down on others who are not the status as they are. Education and teaching is not the for weak or wimps; it takes a lot of patience, endurance, care and heart to teach.

And one final last note (no, really it is!), I found out two of my classmates who attended a different high school (also different years) had the same horrendous math teacher I did in high school. That man was impatient, rude and mean. One of my classmates also dislikes him while the other liked him and had him all 4 years (WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?) ! I hated going to math class because he was always yelling and belittling us students. I last heard he had been fired and moved around several other schools in the city and was no longer teaching in the school my classmates attended. That man should have been fired and forbidden from teaching a long time ago.

I hope I will be a good teacher. I WILL BE AN AWESOME TEACHER.

A Fruitful Week!

Many things have happened in the past two weeks of student teaching.. first of all, I got my first hug from a student! That morning, I happened to see another student give another teacher a hug and I was thinking in my head: "When will I ever receive a hug from a student?" A little later, I received a hug from one of the students in the class that likes to chit-chat with me; I was glowing inside. It's been a long journey student teaching in this school because many of the students are still uncomfortable around me. Another thing that happened was that while I was walking with my English class to lunch, two of the girls from my Chinese class were standing behind me and they decided to tap on my shoulder and play a trick on me. While it's not right for them to be fooling around, inside I felt giddy because the students were warming up to me.

A few days ago, a student came up to me and gave me a flyer for one an event he is doing: raising money for kids in Africa with AIDS. What a sweet kid! He is asking for book donations and also holding a popsicle party/book fair to raise the money so I am going to donate a bag of books to him.

My own schooling on the other hand is always busy and exhausting. Finals are coming up and I have a midterm for the online Chinese American course. Ick. Hopefully all goes well. At least student teaching is getting easier, fun and fruitful! :)

First week after spring break!

This week was the first week of school after spring break; I was super out of it last week. While not going to class and student teaching was nice, my daily momentum was thrown off and I became very down and sluggish. On Tuesday, I was observed to teach an English Language Arts lesson; many things went wrong but at the same time, I just kind of don't care. I was suppose to go over the students' homework but they didn't bring it to class (because it is due on Friday); the kids went all crazy and attitude on me, one even said: "DUH" to me. I don't know if its fortunuate or unfortunate, but I didn't catch it. However, the substitute Ms. S, my observer, AND the kids' Chinese teacher heard it; the student got reprimanded pretty badly with a letter sent home and he had to come and apologize to me in person. The next lesson I need to teach is math, IN CHINESE. Oh shieeet! I dread teaching it in May, but it will eventually have to happen.

On a random note, during seminar I found out that one of my childhood mentors, Ms Y is a master teacher for my classmates. If it wasn't for her, many things in my life would have been much different. What a small world! If I didn't do bilingual ed, there might have been a chance she would have been MY master teacher! It's a small world after all... la la la la

On Thursday, a professor gave us a talk about academic integrity and yadda yadda. Unfortunately, this person does not preach what they teach. It's moments like this, it allows us pre-service teachers to see what we should and should not do in our own classrooms. Being bi-polar, inconsistent, messy, unprepared, and not flexible is just a big no-no as an educator. I just pray that I never get on the bad side of this teacher and swiftly/quietly finish their course without any problems. In my second class, there was a presentation from my classmates that mentioned about immersion, language loss, code switching, etc. I shared a dialogue between my mom and I, I had

I started my online Chinese American Identity course in another CSU campus. It's a pain because it's more work (readings/papers) to do, and I have to get books for it. The professor seems pretty alright so far, but was not very helpful in helping me into the online system. Luckily, I resolved the issue myself as the professors I had contacted weren't able to help me.

I have about 5 more weeks to go in my regular program, and about 9 more weeks for the online course and student teaching. Let's hope all this goes well! And one last random note: I miss Taiwan! Hope I can go back there sometime soon. nom nom nom

Last day of spring break as a student...

Today is my last day of spring break as a student. I've been going to school non-stop for the last two decades from preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school, college, graduate, and now post-graduate; it's been a long, tedious journey. Being a student is a safety net/bubble for me; I have somewhere I belong, a place where I can learn, where I can let go my emotional baggage of being my parents' daughter, a place where I can think express myself.

This spring break is one of the most not relaxing ones I have had... Although I got the chance to sleep a lot, but I was sick for about half of the time. The highlight of my break was probably the start last week when I got to have dinner with some of my fave girlfriends. I don't know why I can't enjoy my break.... Maybe it's because of the little damn critter running around at night harassing me so I have been afraid to fall asleep. :(

On a different note... old man is out of town which means=mom is less edgy. So that's one thing that has kept me sane... though mumsie is still shrieking once in awhile, but it's definitely less than when the old man is around.

Not exactly teaching related... but sort of.

The first school I worked at, let's called it Yut is a school located in a not so great neighborhood, while school two (let's call it Yee) is located in a very odd part of town where there are lots of wealthy middle/middle upper folks mixed with hippies and homeless. The first few weeks of student teaching in Yut, my friend's stuff got stolen in the classroom she was working in. Throughout the semester, we had multiple break-ins and stuff stolen. But even in a more affluent area of Yee, there appears to break ins too. Those thieves sure are low to rob schools. Anyhoo, that's not what I was going at. In Yut, the Mandarin Immersion program I worked in, I often saw parents drop off their kids every morning. I would greet most of them and chat a little bit. I really envy these kids being able to brought to school by their parents; I was always dropped off by my grandma. I mean I love my grandma, but my parents were never around to even look at my homework. Which makes me wonder... why did I even do it? Haha. They never went to the parent-teacher conferences either, and I was always translating for my grandmother, so I could have gotten away with a lot of things as a kid. Darn, I could have slacked off in elementary school. Ok, back to student teaching! Yee is a very affluent public school with a strong PTA force to help the kids achieve their goals; every day I see parents waltzing around volunteering. Hell, there is a fieldtrip to the Academy of Science coming up and I can't even go as the student teacher because there are parents who have to do a lottery to chaperone! Well, fine by me. I can always go by myself outside of teaching. But man, these parents... don't they have jobs? Or other things to do? I mean it's great they can invest time and money in their kids' future... but I see a huge discrepancy between Yut and Yee. Money talks. These kids at Yee are learning more, have more resources, they get music, dance and LOTS of extra curricular activities... It's sad how the quality of public education varies so greatly even though these schools are suppose to be getting the same amount of funding from the government.

equality does not=equity

First post!

Ney Ho! Hallo! Bonjour! Konichiwa! Anyeonghasayo! Nihao!

I started this blog to record the tidbits of my teaching career. Originally, I wanted to start this last blog last summer when I started my student teaching but I got lazy and never got around to it. My first semester student teaching also ended kind of flat, with my students. I believe part of the reason was that my master teacher never really acknowledged my presence in the room; she was always doing her own thing and I was just there to help. Second, I didn't actively teacher because teaching in a classroom was still very new to me. Here's some photos from my first semester of teaching.

 Frog Puppets that lets students use their drawing and pasting creativity

English Alphabet Word Chart

Farewell Book students made me (probably forced/required by teacher but nonetheless cute)

Christmas/Farewell Gift for each student in my class (cute Japanese erasers)

As for my second semester... I am in the middle of it. I am currently on spring break, but it doesn't feel relaxing at all. I might be procrastinating, but in the back of my head I am thinking about projects and assignments I have to complete. Today, I finally did my federal taxes. That took a LONG time, calling the IRS and Turbotax. But luckily that is done with and I got a minor amount of refund back (coffee $$$).

Last week I went in to watch my kids perform-my master teacher kind of use peer pressure to guilt me into going. But I was glad I went anyways because I really do care about these kids and I want to see them perform. However, it totally messed up my Wednesday schedule and I had to scrounge back home and sleep and practically did nothing. HOWEVER, something did happen the next day during my student teaching. After school was over, the kids were saying goodbyes to their teacher, each other and they automatically (without any prompts or hints from their teacher) TO ME!!! ME!!! The student teacher! Usually I feel invisible in the class but they did it without anyone hinting or prompting them, that says alot! I hope by the end of the school year, they will learn to be more comfortable with me and talk with me. One baby step at a time. :)