Whoa! Chris and I just watched a documentary about N.W.A. the other night. I think he was inspired in some way, because the next day he said "I programmed the old school rap channel on your Sirius." I thought, "They have that? YES!!" Anyways, I was pretty stoked when Coolio -Fantastic Voyage came on last night. Also, another tidbit for you, when I was downtown around 4, the car said 113 degrees. Can you believe it?!
Ellie - I don't know if you'll get this since it's our last blog - I think? But, I've had a lot of the same questions about funding for resources. I can tell you from my experience thus far, the schools order the textbooks for the most part. Along with any workbooks and such that go along with it. For books for your classroom library - I would start hunting now. I see libraries have books at farmer's markets sometimes for super cheap. You can also ask around to librarians to see if they will be doing any book drives or book exchanges, and maybe you can participate in the exchange, or nab any leftovers. I was lucky and took about 3 boxes of chapter books from Cathedral's book exchange, because they were just leftover. I know most librarians also know other librarians, so it just couldn't hurt to make a friend and ask how you can get books as cheap as possible. Depending on the school, there may also be art supplies in a work room up for grabs, or divied up among teachers at the start of the year. Every teacher I've ever worked with totally hoarded supplies, even hid them. And they always had their name and grade written all over everything, which just goes to show that there isn't much funding anywhere to replace items. Some schools have set budgets so you can purchase things and get reimbursed, like art supplies or movies. I think it really depends on the school. I know a lot of teachers shop garage sales, and clearance sales, and just sort of stock up when you can on all sorts of things. I've also heard of teacher's getting a "signing bonus" when they come on as a new teacher to help ease the cost of setting up a new room. That would be something you'd find out in an interview. I'm sure you already know a lot of this, but maybe we could talk more sometime because I am always curious how veteran teachers have so much awesome stuff.
I've really enjoyed this class. I feel that I've learned much, much more than I did in undergraduate classes about similar topics. Maybe those classes were awful, or maybe I'm just a different learner now? Either way, I am confident that I got the most I could out of this class and I'm pumped about all the new knowledge. I love thinking about it in terms of - will I be able to answer someone when they ask me WHY I did something in my classroom? And I want it to be a super sweet response so they are blown away by my intelligence and ability,and trust my decisions. I know I can do that. I've got a lot of good information to fuel my philosophies.
Zalika, thank you for offering your talents if we need you in the future. I think I speak for us all when I say that a. we wish you were our mentor teacher and b. we've learned a great deal from you.
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