A Little Bit of Talent and a Whole Lot of Illusion

I'm trying to catch up here. I originally planned on posting this on November 19, 2011.

Recently, my University granted me the Teacher of Promise Award for 2012. It's the equivalent of Teacher of the Year for student interns. Each year they bestow this honor to one Elementary Education graduate and one Secondary Education graduate. I am the latter. I do not know what I did that set me apart from the rest of my fellow graduates. When I received the letter in the mail I honestly read it over and over again for almost an hour because my mind refused to comprehend what it was saying. You see, I am surrounded by some really exceptional individuals who have incredible talents that make me a tad envious. When I hear about the things they do in their classrooms I am always in awe. Most of them teach itty-bitty's- which scare me to death because I'll take a teenager any day. They try to make us Secondary Ed teachers feel amazing by saying things like "Oh, you have it so hard! You have 125 homework papers/tests/projects to grade and we only have 25!" Sure, like that's suppose to make me feel better. I only have 1 subject to teach every day and I see my kids every other day and only test and collect homework occasionally. The Wee One Teachers have like 5 subjects to teach every day and see the same kids ALL DAY LONG. And they have to have procedures from every thing like emptying out the rocks/dirt from their shoe after lunch, and lining up for different activities, and how to do this and how to do that. Nah... give me the kid who knows how to button up his pants (even if he prefers to sag them) and blow his nose. Give me the girl who is heart broken over the jerk boy who just cheated on her or the kid who was dropped off at school an hour and half early by her alcoholic parent. No, I am constantly in awe of those who purposely chose to be Elementary School teachers. Not only do they have to know a lot but they are amazingly creative too. Amazingly.

One of the perks of accepting the Teacher of Promise award was that I was invited to a 3 hour workshop sponsored by the 2011 Kansas Teacher of the Year team. The experience was nothing short of wonderful and a little surreal. It's not that I felt like I was crashing a party in the lack-of-self-esteem sense but more a long the lines of bewilderment because everyone around me seemed so much smarter, wittier,  and quicker. I did manage to write down just a few of the best ideas:

• Base-10 Villages: using Base-10 blocks have the kids create a village of buildings. The teacher is only to set 2 requirements such as the village has to add up to 4355 and no building can be greater than 300 or no building can have more than 3 stories. Then let them build and create what they think is important in a village. Plus they have to do the math to figure out how many buildings they still need or which building needs to be smaller.
• Using dry-erase markers on their desks. Test this one first to see if the marker is going to stain the desk. Compile a list of polling questions, then have the students make a time-line of the answer. They can then figure out mean, median, and mode. The teacher can see if they have spatial abilities. Or have them create an annotated time-line with a small group of other students. 
• Super Hero: (this one is probably my favorite). Students have to create a super hero based on something that represents the state or region that they are studying. For instance, if I was teaching Kansas history, my super hero might be Sunflower Girl. Sunflower Girl now has to travel through 3 cities in Kansas (kids have to provide the map and tell what she will see in each city), rescue a famous person from Kansas (like actress Annette Bening), and have a hide out (or vehicle) made out of a resource found in the state.
• Periodic table: the creation of the periodic table is amazing, even if it seems boring. Kids should appreciate the work that went into it nonetheless. Teachers can have their students create their own periodic table out of anything they want as long as it has the 3 elements that all periodic tables have. I saw some really great student-created examples like: the Periodic table of Hogwarts, a Periodic table of Sushi, and a Periodic table of musicals.

The other perk was a free dinner later in the evening. The food was tasty and before I knew it, I was in a line waiting for my name to be called which prompted me to walk across a stage and take a series of pictures with individuals I had never heard of. A while later they began to list off the accomplishments of those who were nominees for the new Kansas Teacher of the Year for 2012. I'm not sure how in the world they picked the winner for Teacher of the Year because every nominee's list of activities took a solid 5 minutes to read off. At one point the MC asked one young lady when she had time to sleep. Soon after, the dinner was over and Alex and I were on our way home. Here is a picture or two of the night:

Alex and I after dinner

My new spiffy award

So to get back to what I was saying originally- I honestly do not know why I was picked. I tried to ask my teacher and all she would tell me is that it was absolutely unanimous among the Newman Professors. This was of no help at all. It was truly a humbling experience to be given this honor. Truly. I've said it before, but I am surrounded by some amazing future teachers. I always have been.

The other night I was watching "Water For Elephants" and there is a part in the movie where Jacob (Robert Pattinson) is sharing with Marlena (Reese Witherspoon) and August (Christoph Waltz) that he never finished Vet school so he's not a real veterinarian. Marlena and August start laughing and say something to the effect that the 800 pound lady is more like 300 pounds, and the lady with all the tattoos was never tatted up by the Amazons with blue paint but in reality she did the tats herself over a few years. Then they reveal the true secret to show business: all one needs is a little bit of talent and a whole lot of illusion. This scene struck me in such a profound way because for a moment or two I felt like someone had finally revealed the secret about my teaching abilities. I have a little bit of talent. A very, very little bit. The rest... it's just well-played illusion. I'm just hoping I'll be able to pick up a little more talent along the way before the illusion disappears.