Skip to main content

Stories from a Middle School Teacher: America the Beautiful


America The Beautiful!
My second year at PEC a new person was introduced to my team. His name was Mr. Cacamatzin no one ever knew how to say his name and constantly mispronounced it. He was part of a work program from Romania (Because again, CMS couldn’t find anyone in the continental US who would work for their school). He looked extremely busy and mean when I first met him, but the more I got to know him the more I realized that he was extremely funny and sarcastic.

During one of the first faculty meetings of the year, Cacamatzin decided to sit next to me. I was fine with this because we were becoming close friends. This turned out to be a disastrous mistake. During the meeting the administrators told us that they were going to have to ask a lot more of their teachers. They were going to need us to fill out three extra forms every benchmark, and turn in lesson plans in triplicate, and a plethora of other things. Each Time they mentioned something new we were going to have to do Cacamatzin would raise his hands above his head and clap while loudly saying, “I LOVE America!”

The more this happened, the more people kept turning to look at him, and the more the administrators would pause to state. No one could figure out if he was being serious or sarcastic. He was being downright sarcastic and I found the whole thing highly amusing. However, I never sat next to him in a faculty meeting again.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Teaching Point of View with Video Games

I was looking for new ways to introduce point of view and I stumbled across a GREAT idea! Using video games! There are tons of video games in different points of view. Halo=First person point of view Mario 64= Second person point of view Tomb Raider=Third person limited point of view The Sims=Third person omniscient point of view A great video overview that I found:

Teacher tip: Paint Your Bulletin Board

One of the things that I hate every. single. year. is putting bulletin board paper up!  It never fits properly and trying to line the various pieces of paper up is so frustrating as well! I tried many different solutions over the years. I tried sheets, I tried fabric, I tried shower curtains.  Finally, I had an idea! PAINT (Cue hallelujah chorus music) I decided to paint my bulletin board with a pretty universal color that would show up in most borders or could transform into a specific background if need be. (I recommend a blue!) I got a quart of pain and a roller and I went to town! It's great! It doesn't need to be replaced, it doesn't fade in the over time, and it can be reused over and over again! 

Lego Rewards for VIPKid or GoGoKid

So I was looking at the facebook groups today and I saw a lady who's daughter made this for the GogoKid lesson "Apple and Banana" and I thought it was just great! :  Every slide (or every time a student does a good job) you could add a few more pieces to creation and have them guess what it is going to be!  I started looking up other simple creations that my students always talk about and compiled a short list below! (Each picture is clickable for instructions on how to make them) I am sure that if you have children you already have these Legos rolling around in your house somewhere causing havoc on your feet. However, if you are like me and don't have kids yet, you might need a little bit of a starter kit! Click the images below to see them on Amazon.