Speechless

I'm a first year teacher. I should be naive and believe that all my students are well behaved; they don't cheat on tests, they don't think about sex or drugs or alcohol. But I'm far from naive because I have seen it all; I have friends who did drugs (some who still do), who have problems with alcohol, who sleep around ...all of it. And I know in today's day in age kids are getting younger and younger to explore these temptations.
BUT, and I mean this a big BUT, I don't think that I should sit idly by and watch my students hate on each other or do things that will harm themselves. My students have become increasingly 'evil' towards each other; almost on a daily basis I have a student coming into my classroom crying and saying how somebody made fun of them. I just can't take it anymore; my students are so hateful towards each other it makes me sick. It's mostly the girls, which is understandable because girls are evil, but we go to a Christian school. I would think that someone would have told them before that being hateful to each other is wrong but I guess they haven't received that message. Even if we were in a public school setting I would say something to them, but I think being at a Christian school they are held to an even higher standard of morals. I don't know. I am going to have all the girls meet in my room for lunch tomorrow to discuss all of this. I'm tired of students coming to me crying, telling me someone was mean or that they are scared that someone is hurting themselves.

I can't sit by and watch this happen. Not when I've already seen it happen to so many other people.

Am I wrong to try to fix this?

Purity Ceremonies?

Has it really come to the point where we have to have a ball/gala if you will so that our daughters will stay a virgin until marriage? I don't think that buying a fancy dress, learning an elaborate dance, and receiving a ring will make the temptation any less severe as they grow older. What ever happened to sex education? I'm not saying that it isn't realistic to stay a virgin until you get married but statistically kids today are having sex at a younger age. It is time to face facts and realize we have to do more than give our girls rings to protect their virginity. I know PLENTY of girls my age and younger who walk around flaunting their purity rings one minute and talking about how they had sex just last night the next.
The whole reason I came up with this topic is because of crappy television on TLC. But here is the biggest issue I have with all these people and their purity ceremony.

A) They say that if you do not grow up with a father you will turn to another man and give bits of your heart away until you do not have your whole heart to give to your 'soul' mate.
-I've dated plenty of guys and my heart has healed after each of them, I plan on giving my whole heart to Jeff...not just the parts left over from past relationships.
-I believe this implies that girls who grow up without fathers are more likely to have sex before marriage then girls with fathers. I call BS on that. I have a father but he was not around a lot when I was growing up (he would admit this himself) but my mother did a wonderful job explaining what is right and what is wrong according to what we believe. And, I didn't turn to other males to fill the void of my dad always being at work...that would be stupid, no one can replace your own father. And having sex with some random guy doesn't fill any void that an absent father creates, at least not in my eyes.


B) Every single person they interviewed said they weren't even going to kiss anyone until marriage. They don't even date anyone who isn't a possible candidate for marriage. This one girl didn't even hold her fiance's hand!!!!
-I really don't think God said anything about kissing in the bible. Am I wrong? And I'm pretty sure that God made no rule about hand holding. What unrealistic ideas to feed your children. Kissing isn't wrong, holding someone's hand isn't wrong and neither is dating. How can you expect to find the right person without even getting to know several people? You don't have to sleep with someone in order to get to know them. These people are so confusing. Crazy crackers.


I just don't even know what is wrong with these people. I understand why parents are concerned about their children having sex at a young age, I get it. I know that parents are concerned about STDs and teenage pregnancies but there are other ways to prevent that. My issue is that the more you shelter and confine your children the more they will want to break out of that mold. I've seen it so many times, even in my own family. Children are going to want to have sex, or kiss, or hold hands...it's human nature and it's wrong to deny that. Putting a ring around your daughter's finger isn't going to make her stay pure...your education on the matter will.

And don't be a stinkin weirdo about hand holding or kissing, that is just plain old bizarre.


P.S. I found the father's to be extremely creepy...the way they hovered over their daughters and talked about them...gross.

More politics

Every where I go someone is talking about the election and I'm simply annoyed by it all. I've been following the campaigns, watching the news, looking at propaganda and 'hate' advertisement but enough is enough. I can't wait until Tuesday is over, I never want to watch a presidential election again. The biggest reason is because people are idiots and they never know what they are talking about. If I have to hear one more person say ' well my dad likes McCain but we don't agree' or something like that I'll shoot myself in the knee cap! The second biggest reason I don't like about this election are the candidates, well maybe this should be my first reason but whatever. Both candidates have major flaws, neither of them excite me, and most importantly neither of them will make a good president. People talk about Obama's inexperience but what experience does McCain have as a great leader????? What experience does any presidential candidate have? If you've never been the president then how can you be experienced, I mean really??!!! I understand that McCain has life experience and yadda yadda but he's not a strong leader; neither is Obama.
I wish we could just start over; America has to have something better to offer. I'm sure most people would disagree with me, but I know I'm not the only one who thinks this way.


I would like to have a president who would fight for morals and values that Americans haven't had in a long time. I'm not advocating that the president should impose a certain religion upon this country but just have some sort of moral judgment. When I hear a 10 year old talk about oral sex, or an 8th grader talk about getting high and see a 16 year old having babies then something is wrong. If our children are the future then what kind of future are we getting set up for? I certainly don't want my children to have sex in junior high or get drunk or high or anything I didn't even THINK about when I was that age. In fact, I don't even know if I want to raise children in this kind of society; I'm afraid for children today. And it isn't just children, it's adults too! There is a whole website called "The real housewives of Collin county" where they talk about people behind their backs, and discuss how great of 'partiers' they are...ridiculous! Do these ladies really need to share their lives through blogging? But I guess I do the same thing, except I don't gloat about the fact that I party 'good'. (I don't have children and I'm 22 years old so I guess that makes me a little more mature)

I don't know what's going to happen Tuesday and I don't know what will happen after Tuesday. But I hope that some type of GOOD change will happen rather then just any kind of change.

Sometimes I wonder

With the upcoming election a lot of my students, even the young 7th graders, have been asking about politics. I've been trying to give my students an unbiased opinion about both candidates, but sometimes my liberal beliefs leak out. I don't know how many of them have noticed that I'm not a republican but so far I've dodged the topic successfully. But enough about me, back to my main idea..my students interested in politics. Most of my students, I'd say about 95%, are republicans and I'd venture to say that they are this way because of their parents. My junior high students are constantly saying "my dad says Obama is a terrorist" or "my mom says only republicans go to heaven" or the best so far "my dad would beat me if I ever said I was a democrat". It makes me angry when my students say things like this because I really want them to think for themselves, but it's very hard to tell these kids their parents are wrong. (I also don't want parents to come screaming at me) It also irks me that my students take these radical ideas about Obama or even McCain as the truth. We all know Obama isn't a a terrorist, McCain isn't a super conservative republican but my students won't believe that what's on TV is a lie. Am I even making any sense here?

I just want my students to be well-informed, well-educated; whatever you want to call it, I want them to be intelligent voters and members of society. Even if they can't vote in this election, they will have to vote someday.


Funny of the day:
One of my 7th grade students, as innocent and cute as she is turned to me during a discussion about politics and says:
"Ms. Tutwiler are you even allowed to vote? Aren't you too young?"

Aah, my students think I'm under 18, I just hope this face keeps looking young for the rest of my life.

Really?

All I have to say today is........McCain are you kidding me? You want to overturn Roe v. Wade? Seriously.....


And I'm out, because I'm at school and I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be blogging while teaching.

Oops!

Good people

I tend to be the most cynical person out of my little circle in life. And as this person I generally have the worse things to say about human nature, people, politics, life ...etc. I don't believe that man was made for peace or niceties but sometimes people can shock others, even myself. Case in point:
Saturday I needed to get air in my tires so I could make a trip up to Sherman to see Jessica. Well, I had no idea how much air to put in, how to use a tire gauge and all that nonsense so my mom decided to ask a guy at the Shell station. No one inside knew what to do so we asked some random dude who pulled in to get some gas. Not only did this guy inflate my tires, he explained how much air was supposed to go in, how to use the little air pump AND he gave me his tire gauge thing-y. Apparently nice people still exist.

By the by, Jessica and I had a wonderful Saturday being crafty and I even made a clock! I think I'm going to work on being creative because I want to make all these things that I see that are too expensive to buy. I hope Jeff is prepared to deal with my home craftiness.

..............................................................................

This week is going to be hectic and I'm definitely not looking forward to it. Monday and Tuesday are regular days, with cheer after school on Tuesday....Wednesday is PSAT testing for 10th graders which means the whole school schedule is jumbled around. I also have a meeting with some Academic assistance company Wednesday after school because one of my students met with them. I have no idea what to expect out of that meeting. Thursday is Rock-a-Thon/Jog-a-Thon which means kids will be going in and out of the classroom every 30 minutes; we're supposed to conduct class as normal....like that will happen. Oh, and we have a football game after school Thursday so that eats up that whole day. Friday we have parent-teacher conferences and I DO NOT look forward to this at all. I get so nervous around parents because I'm new and I don't know all the answers to the questions they ask. I know I'll make it through the day without any problems, I'll just stress about it until then.

Ahh, the joys of teaching.

Long time, no see

My life has been consumed by grading lately! It's the end of the first 9 weeks this Friday and EVERYTHING needs to be turned in by Monday so report cards can be run Tuesday. I can't beleive I'm already done with the first quarter of school. It doesn't even feel like I've been teaching that long, but I guess that is a good thing. Time flies when you are busy.
So here's a funny that my student said on Wednesday during Fashion Club (yes I sponsor fashion club, go figure):

Girl: Do you have any glue?
Me: Yes, it's right there on the desk.
Girl: Oh it's foam glue....LOOK GUYS THIS GLUE IS GOING TO FOAM!!!!!

Strange, strange child I tell you.


The other thing I wanted to write about is maturity. I don't know what it is about my students but they are so immature. Today I introduced my 8th graders to the Holocaust/WWII unit that we are doing in conjunction with Anne Frank and The Hiding Place (both good pieces of literature that I recommend reading if you haven't already). I told my students about the movie The Pianist and of course they all laughed when I said the word pianist. It wasn't that I didn't expect laughter but....it was the amount of laughs and how loud/obnoxious they were about it. I told them that this was a serious subject and that The Pianist was by no means a funny movie. So after they quieted down I started telling them about the Madagascar Plan, which was a plan to ship all Jewish people to Madagascar before they came up with the idea of just killing them all. You'd think that would just be a simple point and I'd be able to move on but nooooo! My students all started discussing Madagascar the animated movie, continued to giggle and laugh and I just got so mad at them. When I was told about the Holocaust I couldn't even think of anything remotely funny to laugh about; it's just so serious. I'm about to give up on them. I was NEVER like that towards a teacher, well I shouldn't say never because I was once (but she's the Antichrist). BUT-I just can't get them to realize that they embarrass themselves by acting so immature. For Pete's sake they are in 8th grade not 2nd!!!


Oh and I found out that some 8th grade girls were talking smack about me in the bathroom, pretty awesome.



Life is eventful.