More flooding......

Here is a video of the Musselshell Rivver.

This is east of me about three miles. The actual river is right next to the cliffs you see in the distance. However, the water is next to the highway which is about 200 yards from where the river should be.

Zero Days

I am officially done. I checked in my grade books, keys, lesson plans and the like.  I have spent what was supposed to be the last day of school helping a friend empty her house which is flooded. Then I took a drive with three of my coworkers to survey the damage.  Here you will find some of the pictures although they don't do what is actually happening justice.

 This is Darci's driveway and yard. It's over a foot deep in places.

 This is the road to Darci's house. It's a good thing I have a truck! You cannot see the road any more.

 Darci's basement. The black yucky stuff is water. Her basement is about 5.5 ft. deep.

 More of Darci's yard

 This house is west of Ryegate about 1 mile. It was evacuated yesterday.

 This is East of town about 2 miles. The actual rive is about 200 yards due south of this point. This is a field (of water).

 THis is the highway out to the colony. Do you think there is an incident ahead???

 This is the Musselshell river on the bridge where I drive across everyday. I was standing next to the fence you can see last night taking pictures.

More of the Musselshell. There are actually two fences here. One is just covered with water.

Graduation

Hello again! It's nearly 24 hours later and I have my speech written, printed and delivered.  The graduation ceremony went very well and I even had three or four parents come up to me and say that my speach was nicely done. That felt good. Here's my speech for those of you interested and I've included some pictures. Normally pictures are not allowed and I am only posting one of the kids for this reason. The room that is decorated is normally the dining room.

Good Afternoon!

I will start by saying how proud I am of these three students and what they have learned this year.  They learned not only how to ask questions, use their own ideas and but they learned how to adapt to change.  They also built upon their knowledge of what respect is and where it gets you.

I now refer to the dictionary-what would a Miss Stepp speech be without one?! (pause)

Respect: the dictionary defines respect as esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability

It has been the number one rule class all year long.  It is also a rule of life.  You have to have and show respect to be successful.  You respect yourself, those around you and you respect learning.

Learning goes both ways.  If I as a teacher had not bothered to learn, then the students would not have bothered to learn either.  Let me share with you what I have learned this year.  I learned that despite the challenges I faced learning about a different culture and getting to know a group of students humor always eases the tension in the classroom.  These students love to laugh.  One of their favorite things to do this year was to get me to laugh-especially in the middle of a lesson. I've learned that each of these students has a curiosity that drives them to ask questions and that they don't want only themselves to succeed, but they will do anything to help someone else be successful.  I've learned they are always ready to share their opinions, whether I ask for it or not. I've learned that they do care about what they learn and who is teaching them.

The students have learned as well.  I've seen through their behaviors and increased abilities.  This year, they learned about Pi. Oh what a glorious number but it was a bit puzzling why we used a picture to write Pi rather than writing out the number.  They also learned how to find the volume, diameter and circumference of a pie.  the students learned that it's hard to learn sometimes.  There were plenty of frustrations when I said, "no, try it on your own," and "you can do it-trust that you can." That's the most important thing.  Trust that you have the ability to do something so that you can teach it to someone else and keep learning about why. Why do things happen? Why do you do that differently? Why. Keep asking it.

Last, here is one bit of knowledge to take with you.

Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs."
(Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-Swiss-American mathematical physicist, famous for his theories of relativity.)

Don't learn just because someone tells you, you must; learn because you are curious.

Oh yes, and one more thing:

Hyperpolysyllabicomania is a fondness for big words."

Hyper-poly-syllabic-co-mania

 This is the podium and the south side of the dining room.

 Still facing south-a look at the whole room.

These are the first through seventh graders who sang the three songs at gradation-including humming Pomp and Circumstance.

End of the year

It is now 9:50pm here in MT and I am just now sitting down to write my speech I will be giving at graduation tomorrow.  I am suprised that the kids asked me to speak but that shows that I did teach them something this year and I did do something to impress them at some level; even if was with the funny quips I taught them!  I decided to give my kids awards so that every one got one and then I made cupcakes with vanilla frosting.  I only had a spice cake mix and did not know how well that would go over. Apparently these kids love spice cake and home made frosting! Who knew?!  I gave out mostly funny awards including class clown, ravenous reader, teacher tester, funniest quip, most innocent looking, the 'whatever' award, the George Jones award and such.  The kids had a good time with them and liked the pictures I put on all of their awards. These pictures were nothing more than clip art but I printed them out on the fancy, color printer at the town school so that they looked extra nice.  I was very impressed at how appreciative the kids were at their award and cupcake.  On a side note, I had made enough cupcakes so that the other class could have one and every single student came in and said thank you. (I'm sure with a little prompting from the other teacher).  So, in return the kids made me a poster that had lots of the funny things on it that I said all year. I will post a picture of it because they were proud of their creation. All of the kids signed it.
This last week is becoming bittersweet for me.  With all of the negative experiences I have had with my students and such, there have been positive ones like today that make my job so enjoyable and drive me to teach what I can.  The days with improved behavior have become more frequent, making my job more pleasent.  I've got some attitudes that are challenging but writing a bunch of sentences and paying fines are quickly taking care of them.  Tomorrow will be interesting. I will be telling my students that I will not be returning next year.  I am sort of torn because the fourth graders (soon to be 5th graders) want to be in my classroom all day next year and the third graders are excited to be in my classroom every afternoon next school year.  It's hard to disappoint them.  I do know that teaching somewhere else next year is what is best for me (I'm being overly optimistic, I know the state of teaching jobs is not great in WA, or MT for that matter).  I am going to continue my quest for knowledge at SPU next fall.  Farewell for now and see you soon.

This is the poster from my students. They think I am a walking dictionary.

I went to Chouteau last weekend and on the way I stopped at the Amish store. Who knew we had Hutterites, Menonites AND Amish people in MT.

  This is west of Chouteau. If you look carefully, you can see the beaver dam.

 We went hunting. No T-Rexs for me.....

 On the way home from Chouteau. You would never know the wind was blowing like crazy.

 A rainbow over Ryegate tonight.

Same rainbow, a little closer.

May musings

Well, with eighth grade graduation just over a week away and the end of the school year not far behind, the countdown has been happening for a while.  The official numbers say that there are 8 teaching days left, and 10.5 actual days of school left.  It's ironic that I am just now feeling like I am getting into the groove of things and can focus on how to teach these children to be creative and introduce them to the world through books.  I just finished reading novels with my four different grades and it was a success!! As with anything I would change it the second, and probably third and even the fourth time I do the unit. It was kind of hit and miss with the books I chose for the students.  I read The Giver with the eighth graders and they enjoyed it.  There was a lot of grumbling about the vocabulary I designed to go with the book but they really became engrossed with the story and enjoyed it (even though one of my eighth graders will never actually admit it-they liked it).  My seventh graders just finished reading Julie of the Wolves.  Somewhere along the line of this adventure I have been on all year, I realized that if I want to teach rich literature stuff like theme, character and plot, I need to drop the reading level of the book two or more grade levels below the grade my kids are in.  We talked a lot about character and learning about yourself with this book. I even did a book project (no...not a report-that's old fashioned and boring) that two out of my three students understood well enough. It's difficult to get my students to do anything from scratch; in other words, things they have to think of on their own.  This project was about identifying discoveries, setbacks and successes of the main character of the book.  The project was a success and the kids did well on it.  It was my first attempt at a book project from a handy dandy little teacher book I bought.  On to 6th grade!  With these students I read "The Egypt Game," an story about a group of middle school age-ish kids who create this imaginary game of being in Egypt.  This is a hard concept for my students because they live in such a literal world that does not involve having an imagination.  I picked the book because I have one sixth grader who is bored out of his mind due to his intelligence but for some reason doesn't want to admit that he's actually way smarter than any of the other sixth graders.  (I'm not talking about bragging rights here but just understanding that it is okay to be smart.)  This book was tough and lengthy for some of my sixth graders but in the end they understood the book and were able to fluently talk about the importance of plot and order of the plot in the story.  Lastly, with my fifth graders we read Indian in the Cupbord and they got a kick out of the way that the author "made the Indian to talk."  (For those of you who have not read it or it has been a really, really long time-the author stereotypes the indian and makes him talk very awkwardly and funny English).  They also thought the story was a bit silly because plastic figures don't actually come to life (what I silly idea, I know *insert sarcasm*).  They made it through and I gave them their last novel to read for the year and one of my students has already finished his (although he did so at the cost of not finishing his math). Oh well, there is always tomorrow to finish math work, right?  I am glad that I had the insite to finally do novels for reading because I realize that this is how I prefer to teach kids reading.  I must say, that the reading curriculum we have for the k-6 is a good curriculum and has all those nice qualities us teachers look for in a curriculum.  I just like the novels better because they are thematic and allow a lot more flexibility.  Yay for successes, right!! I just wish I had done it earlier. 
Over here we have gotten a teasing of spring and the last two days have dumped rain, which flooded the basement of the school again. The boys have been pumping water for almost two weeks now.  Spring is coming and the fields are finally green over here.  It is such a contrast to the brown fields that I have been looking at since I moved over here. 
I will leave you with some pictures of the bulletin board I created with my students' art work (taught by yours truly!). Enjoy and I will see you soon.

Each student did a flower and a bee.

The border around the bulleting board.

Sorry this is sideways. It's the flowe I got from the other class for May day.

It's official

So, as many of you may know, I will not be returning to Ryegate to teach my little rugrats next school year.  This was a personal decision based on safety and then the school board made it a little easier by not renewing my contract.  I don't really know why I officially did not get my contract renewed but rumor has it that there are a couple of people that do not think I know how to do my job.  That said, I know that there are things that I stink at when I am teaching.  One of those things is trying to figure something out when I have 16 kids shouting out at me to answer their questions because they think I should just drop everything and help them and only them at THIS MINUTE!
I do not consider this year a failure because I have learned so much about what it takes to make a small school function, how to juggle multiple grades and keep the parents happy.  I have managed to keep some of them happy, though not all. You can't spend every minute trying to make everyone happy right?? Right.  I did have a parent come in a few weeks ago and again tell me that I needed help so I told her that the two options were to have the colony pay for another person to be out here or come in and help herself.  I was quickly told "I have a full day."  My mouth said "well, that is your decision but it is an option," but my mind was thinking "And I don't have a full day???"  Scheesch!! 
Amoung the things I have learnd is that this is definately the right profession for me.  I have been approached with the question, "is this the right profession for you?" The answer is a vehemit YES!! I still want to inspire some kid to do what ever he wants to do.  Maybe some student I inspire will invent the space craft that will take the first living object to Mars.  Who knows?
As for next year I am going to go to graduate school full time and work a part time job. Right now Starbucks is looking to be my best work lead at this point.  I am also going to travel. 

Is it that time again?

Wow, yesterday was the end of the third quarter and today was the first day of the fourth quarter!!  Today was a bit chaotic, as some of my students were still testing and therefor did only some of the work and my lessons were all out of order, which drives me crazy because I like things to go step-by-step and in order and keep the routine the same.  I will be glad when it is Monday again and the rountine will be normal.  I think the routine change attributed to most of the behavior issues I had this week.  I cannot wait until spring break which seems like it is never going to get here because it is still six weeks away!!
We did art in my class again today but the students aren't appreciative of the art that I prepare for them.  They were very confused that I made them read an article and answer questions for an art lesson.  We did abstract expressionism for our theme. We learned about Jackson Pollock-my favorite artist. (Have you seen his work? It's at the SAM!)  One fun fact I learned while researching the article about Jackson Pollock was that he was born in Cody, WY which is not too far from Billings.  He also died in an alcohol related car crash. Yet another reason to not drink and drive-even though you make awesome paintings you still can't drink and drive.  Okay, that said and done, more teaching things.
This week, until spring break are all normal days and hopefully this will curb some of the irresponsible decisions that my students have been making.  I have yet to figure out why a change in the routine makes the kids go crazy.   It makes me crazy when they go crazy!! I guess my job wouldn't be nearly as exciting as it is if there were no questions for me to wonder about....