Thursday was a long-awaited field trip for my students. As an ESL teacher in a 7-12 school, I am in the unique position of teaching the same core group of students year after year, and so we all get to know each other pretty well. At the beginning of each school year, they always ask me if we’re going to go on a field trip and I always start out with good intentions, but invariably I get caught up in the day to day duties of my job and I haven’t necessarily been a good teacher as far as field trips have been concerned.

This year I made a promise to myself that we’d take at least one, and I wanted to make it a good one, so I planned a long day trip to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island with my students. We took the two-plus hour journey into the city on Thursday, April 7th and it was a great experience.

My students and I are very much like a family. We have fun together. We learn together. We argue and make up together. All of the personalities in the group are well defined and every single person has their place within the unit, and so the trip was more like a family outing than your typical school field trip.

Once we arrived in the city, we walked across Battery Park towards the streets in search of lunch, and that was where the real fun began. Perched on a pedestal near the entrance to the park stood Lady Liberty herself. She was one of those neo-peddlers who earn their wares dressed up as statues and posing for pictures with unsuspecting tourists. Of course this one was decked out in a green robe and crown.

Once the kids spotted her the cameras came out. They started clicking away as some of them made their way towards the figure to be in the photos. Lady Liberty wagged her finger in a no-no motion…she wanted money. Two of my students, Jaqi and Sonia, went to pose for a picture with the figure. Jaqi hadn’t noticed the finger wagging, and from my vantage point I could see Jaqi arguing with the statue. Within seconds, she pulled out a $5 bill and the cameras got busy again. The two of them went into model shoot mode as Lady Liberty struck funny poses for the cameras. A couple of other students got into the action and laughter was everywhere. It would be the first bit of genuine fun we’d get from the day.




After a quick lunch at Burger King, we had to head back towards the ferry to catch our boat. On the way, some of the kids were drawn to the many street vendors stationed on the sidewalk. As I crossed the street back towards the park, I turned back to see that some of the students had stopped to peruse the tables. The other teacher was with them, so I wasn’t worried about, but I knew we didn’t have much time to catch the ferry.

“C’mon, we’ve gotta catch the ferry!” I shouted back at the shopping students.

“We’re coming, we’re coming!…Ooh, Mr. Myers,” Sonia said, “look what I got.” She proceeded to show me the ten rings that she had bought from a costume jewelry peddler down the street. All I could do was roll my eyes and move on as I lead a dash to the ferry terminal. In the end, we missed the boat, the first of three we’d miss.

Even though the little shopping spree took us off our schedule, I took it in stride and just enjoyed every minute. We went to Liberty Island to see the real statue, where we had a group picture done and then went up inside the pedestal. A trip to the gift shop was the culprit for us missing our second ferry, and we ended up staying on the island until almost three o’clock, the time we were supposed to meet the bus driver at Battery Park…and we still had to make a stop at Ellis Island.



After a quick call to the driver, we hopped on the next ferry and sailed over to Ellis, where we’d only have a half an hour. We skipped the bulk of the museum and headed straight for the famous “Wall of Immigrants.” The kids did some etchings on the wall before we headed back to the ferry, which we ended up missing too. Another half-hour’s wait and we were finally headed back to where we started from. Soon we were on our way back to school.



All in all, the day was great fun. During the long ride back, some kids slept, others did homework, while still others had some more fun together. Without prodding from me, they all pitched in to clean the bus before we got back to the school. That’s the kind of kids they are. They made me proud throughout the day. We pulled into the school parking lot around 8PM and the long day was over.

The kids came in to school Friday morning exhausted and exhilarated, just like I was feeling. Many of them thanked me for the day, and I reciprocated. I had as much fun with them as they had with me and I feel honored to have given them a memorable day that they’ll keep in their minds for years to come. I love my job!

Here are some photos from the day:























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It’s now been a few days since I’ve updated this blog. Ever since my entry the other day, things have been different. I’m trying to be more wary of what I say these days, and besides I’m still feeling a little numb in my mind, so to speak. Regardless, here are some things to keep you updated:

The Stalker

It’s been four days since the last incident with Fuzzy. It would appear that my text to him was enough to make him stop bothering me, though of I have been making an effort to start coming home at different times in the days since just in case. Hopefully, it’s over with!



New Students

Once again it’s been a busy week at school. On two consecutive days I got two new students in my classroom, a 7th grade girl and an 8th grade boy, both from El Salvador and both not knowing a word of English. It’s been awhile since I’ve gotten brand new students such as these in my class and I’d almost forgotten how it can be. Once again I was reminded of how difficult it must be for these kids to even come to school without knowing the language.

Although I did everything I could to make their first days at school as easy as possible, they did not go without incident, especially for the boy. The poor 14 year old got lost in between periods and was found by one of my other students crying in the hallway. As all of my students would do, she took matters into her own hands and helped him to get where he needed to go and made me proud. He was so traumatized by that incident and his whole first day that he didn’t even come back on his second day. He has returned since, thankfully. Their first week is now almost behind them and hopefully by Monday, they’ll both be feeling a little more comfortable.



In Defense of Teachers

I have a huge pet peeve when it comes to my profession and unfortunately it’s been thrown in my face a lot lately. It’s an issue I discussed in my interview with Han because it’s been all over the news. I’m talking about the state and teacher union situations in Wisconsin and Ohio. For the past year or so I’ve stopped following the news in general, mostly out of a newly experienced pessimism over it all, but I have seen bits and pieces of these events that have once again put my profession under scrutiny.

Earlier today, I had a pretty heated discussion with a coworker on the issue. You see, lately there has been a lot of local news about school districts laying off teachers because New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is taking school aid away from districts. He is trying to balance the omnipresent deficit in the State budget by doing so and he’s justifying it by telling districts to dip into their reserves to cover the costs in order to help the state get back on track. In response, districts have instead been handing out these advance pink slip letters to teachers, telling them that they may not have a job come next September. To me, it’s all stupid politics!

All of this news has brought up the never-ending bashing of teachers once again. I’m hearing it on television, on the radio, and from people I know personally.

“They make too much money.”

“Their jobs are easy.”

“They have no right to have protection (tenure) from being fired for doing a bad job.”

I agree that may be true for some, but this is not the issue I have. Of course there are bad apples within the teacher community and yes, a lot of them make more money than they’re worth. I regard these colleagues with the same disdain as the bashers, but my problem is how personal and strong these issues are with the general public.

Why do people feel the need to have a say over teachers’ jobs at all? A teacher makes over $100 grand a year and that’s a travesty? Maybe so, when the teacher in question really shouldn’t be a teacher, but why is that anyone’s business but the teachers’ and the school districts?

Are there any other professions where we scrutinize the quality of work and the salaries made in them? When was the last time you heard someone complain that Lady GaGa has already made millions from her latest song? How about the actor who just made millions for one movie, and a bad one at that? The minimum salary for a rookie baseball player is a cool million these days. Why is the same vitriol that’s directed at teachers not directed at them? My theory is that the average person feels entitled to bash teachers because their salaries come out of the public fund.

A teacher is a public employee. The monies used to pay them comes out of the tax money that’s collected by the states, the counties and the towns in which they work. We’re all obligated to pay taxes, so I guess we have a right to bitch about it as well. I’m sorry, but the money that baseball player makes comes out of the $100 tickets we buy to watch a game. And the actor collects his millions through the insane ticket prices at Loews. You get the picture, right? Are their jobs any more important than a teachers’?

A teacher’s job is an honorable one. We are tasked with educating today’s youth in order to prepare them for the future of our country. Why is that taken so lightly? A teacher’s educational requirements are surely comparable to that of a doctor or a lawyer. They must even take continuing education classes for the duration of their careers.

Every profession has its pros and cons, and I say that if you think being a teacher is so rosy and easy, then become one! There’s nothing stopping you. Boy, do I feel an article coming on! Stay tuned…

My Numbing Mind

As I said earlier, I’ve been feeling quite numb in the mind lately. Mood swings hit me at all times of the day, often out of nowhere. Presently my problems seem overwhelming. The residual effects from the breakup, the summer coming up and financial worries about it, my house, my move, my family and now my job, a future job, writing…ugh, so many things!

Anyway, with each new day there is fresh hope, and tomorrow is Friday, the beginning of another weekend. I think it’s almost time to dance!
Thanks for reading!

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Though the rains came on Tuesday, they’ve been washed away today. It’s obvious from my last post that I was having a bad day the other day and though not all is sunshiny and beautiful, things are much better than they were. I guess a day removed from everything can make things better sometimes. I dunno, but my mood has been much brighter as I’m starting to work on having that positive attitude.



Yahoo’s Hot 500

My writing seems to be clicking on all cylinders lately. In the past two months or so, my page views have risen dramatically and I’ve hit several milestones. First I hit the quarter million mark ahead of plan (I’m now close to 280K!), then I made the Top 1000 Contributors for 2010 on Yahoo Contributor Network, and now today I received another honor.

Sometime this afternoon I logged into my YCN account to check out yesterday’s performance views and I saw that I had gotten an email from the site. The subject of the message read: “You’re On Fire!” When I peeked inside, the unexpected news made me jump for joy. It read:

Your Yahoo! Contributor Network profile is burning up, because you're one of our "Hot 500" Contributors based on January 2011 page views earned on content published on Associated Content and throughout the Yahoo! network!

So now I have yet another badge on my YCN profile. This is just incredible to me. I’ve been writing for the site for almost four years and I finally feel like I’ve arrived. Now I’ve just got to keep it up! (…takes a bow!)

Family Reunion

Last night I had dinner with four present and former students, a family of three brothers and a sister whom I’ve taught for the better part of 7 years. Rather than go into their story, I’d ask you to read Family in Crisis: A Year Later. It recaps the story of a four children abandoned by their parents in a strange country and all of the financial and medical issues they’ve had to deal with. The four youngsters made it through a crisis last year thanks to the generosity of an entire town and I’m proud to say that I had a big part in that.

The purpose of last night’s dinner was just to see each other and catch up. I only have one of the four left in my class and so it was good to see the rest of them. I had the opportunity to meet a 5th person, a lovely young lady who will soon become the wife of the eldest brother. It was a great time! Throughout the evening I was reminded that what I’ve chosen to do for a living allows me to meet and make a real difference in the lives of others and for that I will forever be grateful. These kids will be in my life for a very long time, and I am so happy for that.


Me and the groom to be last year

A Post Script from Mom

I forgot to mention the other night another topic I had discussed with my mom during our conversation. She brought up something I had been afraid of earlier, but had forgotten. A couple of weeks ago I had written a piece and a blog entry on Weight Watchers (see the piece here), and I used my mom and my sisters as an anecdote to tell the story. Though she doesn’t usually read the things I write on YCN, my sister saw the posting of the link on Facebook and read it to her.

While the anecdote was meant to be funny (and believe me, I did get feedback that it was!), mom didn’t take too kindly to it. She thought I was making fun of them, which I guess I was in a way. It’s not the first time this has happened, either. A couple of years ago, I was doing a series of articles with another writer on the topic of homosexuality (for links to these articles, please see Understanding Homosexuality: A Recap), and in the series I spoke about my childhood and my brother’s role in my youthful low self-esteem. Although they never approached me directly about it, I heard through the grapevine that he and my sister in law were not too happy about that.

I figure it’s all a part of being a writer and I’m not going to let things like that stop me from being creative. I write a lot about my experiences in life and oftentimes there are others involved in the stories I tell. I try my best not to get too personal and I never make it mean spirited, and to me that’s all I need to do. I have to expect that I’m going to ruffle some feathers along the way, but like I’ve said before, it’s my way!

Dena Bolton, Rissa Watkins and Cancer

It is with great sadness that I share the news that Dena Bolton, the fellow writer and friend I spoke of the other night, lost her battle with cancer last night. Many of us in the YCN world are still reeling from the all too sudden circumstances surrounding her demise. Dena lived only 9 days after finding out that she had the disease. It’s a lesson for us all that early detection is absolutely critical! Rest in Peace Dena! I will miss you!

In the meantime, there is another YCN writer who recently found out she has leukemia. Rissa Watkins is new to me, but many of my writer friends know her pretty well. Apparently Rissa is fighting her disease with fervor and I certainly hope she kicks its butt. In her honor, I’ve commiserated with my fellow YCN writers on Facebook to change my avatar. Check it out below and please keep Rissa in your thoughts and prayers.

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Still smoking!

It seems the writing Gods have been smiling on me lately or I’ve just been better than usual. The hits to my work have been in the thousands for four days straight, a clear cut record for me. Where I had recently been hoping to hit 250K page views by the end of February, I have now soared to over 256K with two days still to go in January. My daily average has risen to 510, which is phenomenal. Some of the articles doing it for me include:

New Music Releases for 2011: What to Expect (9832 hits in a month!)

Songs of Love and Devotion for Valentine’s Day (3962 hits in a week and featured on the front page of YCN!)

Weight Watchers: In the End It’s Still a Diet (1102 hits in a week!)

Top Ten Rap/Dance Songs of All Time (Still my biggest receiver of hits at more than 16K)

All of these and several more have combined to give me these wonderful numbers and I hope it’s a sign of bigger things to come!

A Heartwarming Moment

On Friday, I attended an annual ESL teacher’s conference, which is always a great event. I think that ESL teachers are all special people and as always it showed during a moment at the conference. Once the morning speakers had finished giving their speeches, a kindergarten class from a local elementary school came to the stage and reminded us of why we do what we do. You see, the class is a mixed dual language class made up of Hispanic and American children. They get a half a day’s instruction in each language so that both sets of kids will learn benefit from being bilingual. I think it’s the true meaning of bilingual education, though too many of these programs do not work in this way.

Anyway, the kids came to the stage to entertain us with their work. After reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in both languages, they performed two songs featuring both languages. With over 400 attendees at the conference, you would have been hard pressed to find someone without a great big smile on their faces. The experience was goose bump inducing!




A Meaningful Poem

This morning, as I was writing this entry, I was taking breaks in between to read some of what my fellow writers are writing and I came across a poem written by my friend Charlotte Kuchinsky. I’ve only known Charlotte for a few months, but ever since she named me “Most Intriguing Music Writer for 2010” I’ve come to know why she is a three time-plus millionaire (in page views!) on YCN. She is a very talented writer with many genres thrown into the mix, including poetry.

The poem is entitled “Friendship’s Promise” and upon first read, I couldn’t help but relate what she’d written to my own life. Though friendship is and will continue to be a struggle for me with him, I find it so hard to break away completely. I told him just yesterday that if he’s ever in need, I will always be there for him, and I meant it. If I can’t have him in my life the way I would like, I still care deeply enough not to let go completely, though that may not always be. I’ve had a recent experience with him that I will post later, but for now I’d like to share Charlotte’s poem. It speaks for me almost as much as any song I’ve posted here, and though not every word pertains to me, much of it could have been written by me. Enjoy!

Friendship’s Promise

If you want to break my heart

There is little I can do,

But no matter what happens

Know I will always love you.

People change as they grow up;

Seek to leave others behind.

They don't care how they hurt them

Or how they mess with their mind.

It is not I who have changed.

It is not I who am lost.

I wouldn't wish anyone

To become so tempest tossed.

That's why I can't desert you.

That's why I cannot flee.

Someone has to be here

So it might as well be me.

I promise I will you catch you.

I will never let you fall.

I'll do all in my power

To help see you through it all.

Though I fade into the background

Just to honor your desire.

My heart will beat in friendship

To deliver you from fire.

My love will never die dear

Nor can it ever depart.

All that you are and once were

Is sealed safe within my heart.

To read more of Charlotte’s work, click here.

A Pet Peeve

I have a strong pet peeve when it comes to winter and more specifically, snow. There are so many lazy people out there who are too lazy to clean off their cars of the white stuff, posing a threat to others out there. The other day, there was a maniac on the Southern State Parkway weaving in and out of traffic and the roof of his car was caked with snow. A county legislator, I believe, recently put out a proposal to make a law against this non-practice and I hope it comes to fruition! Take a look and see what I mean:



As always, thanks for reading!

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English language learners are becoming more and more populous in today's classrooms. I work in a school district where only five years ago there were only two ESL students. Today there are over forty. In the past five years, many of the mainstream teachers were faced with new challenges that they had never had to deal with before. The following is a short, handy guide I've written for the teachers in my school for whom non-English speaking students presented a whole new set of challenges in their teaching. I hope this will be handy for any teacher who's new at dealing with the ESL population in their classroom.

Working with ESL Students

What do you do when you get an English Language Learner in your classroom? Quite often, they don't understand anything that's being said around them, which can result in frustration on both your part and the students'. Unfortunately, in our real world, there is simply no magic ESL school where they can spend their entire days learning both English and content area domains under the teaching of a trained specialist. Under our educational system, they must be in your classrooms.

People ask me all the time, "What other language do you speak?" My reply is always, "I speak a little Spanish, but that's not important."

In my career as an ESL teacher, I've had students from many language backgrounds. Turkish, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, and yes, Spanish! It's just not possible, though, for someone to be able to speak all of these languages. The following is some of what I do in my classroom and hopefully you can take into account when you have any of my students sitting in yours.

TIPS

Visuals

-Make use of graphic organizers, charts, diagrams, TPR (Total Physical Response the use of commands with physical modeling- think of "Simon Says".)

Write it down

-If you're giving an assignment out, without the use of a ditto, its sometimes critical for ESL students to have that little extra.

Keep it Simple

-If an ESL Student doesn't seem to understand what you're saying, try and find another way to say it. Here are some examples:

Contractions use "you are", as opposed to "you're" -Simplify the language, not the concept -Ask Yes/No or other simple questions, not open ended ones.

The Students

-Don't confuse English language proficiency with intelligence -In many cases, ESL students (including some in this district!) come from countries where school is not compulsory and they've missed out on chunks of school time.

The greatest bit of advice to any teacher with ESL students in their classroom is to keep these tidbits in mind, and STAY IN TOUCH with the ESL teacher. Remember, ESL teachers are trained in teaching these students with effective and proven methodologies. Not only are they responsible for teaching these students how to read, write, speak and understand English, but to support them in what they do in your classroom. So do yourself a favor if you haven't done so already, say hello to the ESL teacher in your school!

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