"I'm a little teapot" unattractive and cracked!

Did I mention that I should never have given my student, so often absent because she's working for the school paper and needs hours and hours to re-write what she submits, asked to take my picture for said newspaper?  I should have said no to said newspaper, but I hate to be so uncooperative.  Yesterday when I went to my office, where three students needed me for various reasons, there was a copy of the newspaper with a note from my wonderful office mate who never misses a thing.  He'd written, "Tina, you're a little teapot...Look on page 3."  Sure enough, there was the hideos picture of me making the gesture we were brought up to make for the short and stout teapot with the handle and the spout.  It's used with the article "No pink slips boosts optimism among faculty and staff."  "....many faculty and staff members are happy about the news."  But I look no happier in the picture than I feel now, looking at the picture.  I'm afraid that it is realistic, but who wants a realistic picure to be seen?  We all want pictures that flatter us almost beyond recognition but still get people to identify the person pictured as us.    The picture of the police officer on the front page is really pretty--and smiling.  They should have used me to illustrate the campus police and used the campus police officer to illustrate the happy, optimistic teachers.

To compensate for reality, here's the flattering (even in 2011, when it was taken) picture I just added to Facebook and LinkedIn today.

Methane?

A teacher about my age told me about a very embarrassing moment in class.  She was giving the students a lecture on the methane that comes from the perfectly good food Americans throw away as it decays in landfills, and as she was talking about the toxic gas, she emitted a delicate couple of winds of toxic gas herself, as if as if on cue.

Backpack Back

A student e-mailed me several ours after our 8:10-11:00 class had ended to say that she had left her backpack in our classroom and it had her wallet in it.  I normally check CCSF e-mail from students twice a day, but that day I'd checked only in the morning before class, so I didn't see her 3:45 e-mail until the next day, when I was in my office and was checking for mail on my iPhone.  Since I'm clumsy with texting, I wrote back only, "No.  So sorry!"  Later, back home, I sent a longer message and called her at the restaurant where she works.  What were the chances of her getting it back?

But the next morning in class, she told me that she'd returned to campus to check and it was on the table by the door.  All the money was still in the wallet!

Pencil Sharpeners: No More to Be Found

Only in the past semester have I become conscious of the fact that pencil sharpeners have disappeared.  I don't like the mechanical ones my students use.  I'm too brutal; I break the lead.  So I brought several pencils--the kind I've known all my life--and went in search of a pencil sharpener.  I even called Buildings and Grounds.  They had no idea.  But Duplicating, bless their hearts, had one, and here it is.

In my lifetime I expect it to be in a museum of curiosities.

Relentless Instruction

Some of my students have given me the clear message that they think I'm giving them too many tests--tests (or exercises) that I think of as getting them to focus and practice their reading skills--and I am relentless.  But I know the foolhardiness of this.  If they don't believe in what they're doing, they'll balk.  We've just started a unit on alternative medicine, and our discussion yesterday was on how important it is to believe in a cure in order to be cured.  They don't believe in the non-reading cure that I've concocted.  I should read the interview given by Ann Fontanella, my colleague who won the TESOL Teacher of the Year last year.  Just glancing over it, I noticed that she suggests we let the students lead.  I really don't do that.  I relentless go ahead towards my goal for them as they drop off, stressed out from too much reading.

Making Sense from Notes

The exercise I thought would be simple for the students today--a note-taking exercise right from the book--turned out to be very hard for them.  They could (in some cases) write the word that was missing from the notes in the book, but they couldn't read it back to me in full form.  I may need to work harder on this.  The may think they're supposed to read back the abbreviated forms they've written.

I'm very tired right now, but when I come back, I should talk about an exchange with the head of an evaluation committee--a friend and colleageu. 

I got to school with very little time to spare, but I had time when he called out to me.

"Tina, did you get my e-mail?"

I responded, "The one I responded to?"
"Oh, you did?  I haven't checked.  We need to find out her schedule."  (Reference was to the person we're evaluating.)
"Maybe we should ask her."
"I'll do that!" he said.

Then I was visited by E., who wanted to share her ginger tea with me after her test.

Good Student Responses

Iryna was the Star of the Day on Friday.  When I noticed the Ihar, usual there and on time, was not there on time, I said, "And just yesterday he said that English was as important to him as soccer."

"Maybe he change his mind," Iryna said.

Then Ihar walked in.

The students practiced their interview questions in pairs.  As they were doing this, Iryna said, "Tina, you will be proud of me!"  She whisked out her new shiny stainless steel water bottle.  I whisked out my camera.

It was just Wednesday that I told them about the proposed ban on bottled water on San Francisco public property. 

Here's an update of the article I let them read while I was (against my own rules) giving a make-up quiz to 4 (record number) students who missed it.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/revised-plastic-water-bottle-ban-proposal-up-for-vote/Content?oid=2712799

The article I gave them was from December 18, 2013. 

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/12/18/sf-supervisor-proposes-ban-on-plastic-water-bottle-sales/