School Year in Review: My first year of teaching

All of the college courses in the world cannot prepare you for your first year of teaching.  Especially in the inner-city.  This year has been a roller coaster, but I am a stronger person for it. At the beginning of the school year, I was a hopeful substitute in schools where I was comfortable.  I knew other teachers, I fit in.  In November, I picked up that comfortable life and moved to Memphis.  Not only has it been a culture shock, but its been the biggest learning experience of my entire life.  I figured I would share some of the biggest things that I have learned, and things I wish I had known before I got here.

Patience. 
We all know that teachers need patience, but this cannot be said enough.  In my first year of teaching, students cussed me out, told me every insult in the books, refused to follow instruction and any other nightmarish thing you can imagine.  Students have knocked each other out, stolen my cell phone, hidden things around the room, written graffiti on my walls, anything you can imagine.  As a first year teacher, life is hell.  I had no curriculum, my classes were scheduled incorrectly, my room was raided and I found out on my first day I would actually be at 2 schools.  No one taught me how to enter grades, write students up or anything.  Patience.  It takes mountains of patience to make it through your first year.  Nothing goes as you plan, and it takes Patience.

Flexibility.
As I said previously, when I walked in to my first day of school, after being heckled by all the students ("I know this white girl ain't a new student up in here!"), I was told I was in the wrong place.  "But my contract says to be here?"  Oh, they don't know we're splitting you with the middle school.  It was just the first day and I was already upside down.  Class rosters?  Nope.  Course descriptions? Nope.  Students for the first few days? Nope.  Flexibility.  The week before a presentation and someone steals the sound equipment.  Flexibility.  No one told you that you are chaperoning prom?  Flexibility.

Strength.
In all of your college courses they tell you not to get angry, just love the students, get to know them and teach to the standards.  So not true in real life.  Sometimes you've got to yell.  Sometimes you've got to "show out" to show them you can deal with them.  And standards?  In your first year, standards are the last thing you should be worried about.  Be strong.  Have strength and you will power through. Strength.


Now here are some things I wish they had told me before my interview.  You've got to know what questions to ask.  Don't get so desperate for a job that you just take the first one you're offered because you could end up like I did, at a school where you don't fit in.  Make sure you know what the atmosphere of the school is, and not just between the students but between administrators and faculty.  Ask about administrative changes that may have happened recently or are about to happen.  I came in to a school that was in a bad administrative change and merging with another school district.  Not an ideal situation.  Ask about community support.  Ask about extracurriculars. Ask to see curriculum maps for the courses you are expected to teach.  Ask about unions.  Ask about benefits.  Ask about orientations.  Ask if you are replacing a teacher, and how long ago that teacher left and why they left.  Ask if you are going to have a mentor teacher.  As if there are resources available if you need extra help.  I didn't, and I got shafted.


How I managed to get through an 850 mile move all alone, a terrible year of teaching in the inner-city is beyond me.  The biggest lesson I learned is to know when to get help.  After spending weeks severely depressed, I sought help and it changed my whole experience.  Then I got back into exercise and healthy eating and my life is completely changed.  Teaching is still hard, but life is good.

Garmin Forerunner 110 w/ Heart Rate Monitor Review

Alright.  The time has come to review my Garmin Forerunner 110 w/ Heart Rate Monitor.

I have had the device for a few weeks now and have had the chance to use mostly all of its features.  Overall, I am very pleased with the device.  It does exactly what I want it to do, no more, no less.   It is a very simple device, and is easy to use.  No, it doesn't have all the fancy features that some GPS sports watches have, but I don't need or want that. 

The device itself is small, especially compared to some of Garmin's other watches.  This watch is no bigger than the watch I wear everyday to work.  It's material is very comfortable and fits well, even for a person with very small wrists, such as myself.

The main "Power Save" screen looks just like any other digital watch, displaying just the time and date.  When you press the menu button, the device comes to life, picking up satelites and the heart rate monitor rather quickly.  I found that it even picked up satelites in my 3rd floor apartment when I was near the window, making for a quite interesting workout stat map:

When the device is fully powered, it has three main viewing screens. The first being your stop watch, the second being your heart rate and the third being the time and date.  Each screen also displays your total distance and your pace at the top and bottom of the screen respectively.

The device has many other features including a lap button, start/stop button(which also resets the workout), a back-light and a multi-feature menu.  When the workout is reset, it is saved to the watch's history which can be accessed in the menu.  This will give you all of the stats from the workout: time, distance, average heart rate and calories burned.  Some people would find it frustrating that you can't see the calories that you've burned until the workout is over, but I'm okay with that.  The device even works indoors, though it won't give you speed or distance without a food pod, it will tell you calories burned after your workout.

In the menus, you also have the ability to change the auto lap feature, setting it to automatically give you lap times at different distances.  I think this is a really great feature for long runs and races to help keep you on track for negative splits and help push you to a personal record.  The device can also be personalized to your height, weight, age and fitness level.  It can obviously be set to different units as well.

When you upload data to your computer, it gets really interesting.  The main way to upload data is to Garmin Connect.  I found this a little bit tricky because I already had a Garmin profile from my Nuvi navigation device and I couldn't remember my login information.  But after I figured all of that out, I was good to go. It will upload your workouts and give you tons of information about the workout.

Here's a screenshot of one of my workouts:

I think this part is awesome.  There are so many ways to analyze the data.  As a numbers person, this is awesome for me.  Garmin Connect also has training plans that you can upload to your device, and it saves your workouts to a training calender to track you progress.  It also keeps track of your personal best times and distances.  You can set goals for times, paces, distances and other things to keep yourself on track.  There are also features to find other maps and runs that other Garmin users have done.

It is also really easy to upload the data to other, similar websites like Map My Run and Run Keeper. 

The biggest con I could find about the device was the charger connection.  There are four prongs that need to be lined up just right and can be very touchy, especially when connecting to your computer. It doesn't make a tight connection and can become very frustrating. Another thing some people may find as a con is that maps cannot be uploaded to the device, because it doesn't have directional screen capability, but that doesn't bother me.

As far as battery life goes, the watch has lasted 11 days on "power save" mode, with 8 half hour workouts , using the heart rate monitor and a bunch of playing around with the menus.  It just today told me the battery was low.  The website claims 3 weeks in power save mode; 8 hours in training mode.  I got 10 days in power save mode plus 4 or more hours in training mode, so I think that's just about as advertised.  As far as battery life for the heart rate monitor goes, we will just have to wait and see.  The monitor's battery is pretty easily changeable through the back like a watch, but I will update when it needs changed.

The device is simple, but does so many things, and does everything I need it to do.   Still, it is just a tool, and for a price tag of about $180, some people may need to think twice about whether it is a tool they will actually use to its full capability.  It isn't guaranteed to make you faster, thinner or more diligent, but for me it has definitely helped.  I love my Garmin and am so glad that it was given to me for my 24th birthday.