Sunday morning

I am staying in bed instead of going to church, because I am feeling anti-social. It's amazing to me sometimes how much social interaction drains me. I need to make sure I get my alone-time.
I've been reading the blog of Laura Dekker, the youngest girl to sail around the world alone. Here is a link to her website: http://www.lauradekker.nl/Basis.aspx?Tid=5019&Sid=5042&Hmi=5042&Smi=0&STARTPOS=370

I find her story inspiring. Now I want to go to the Canary Islands!! She says it is a place with volcanoes, volcanic fields, lagoons, caves, and clear water. She writes of going to a restaurant where they use the heat of the earth to barbecue... there is just a pit in the ground, and the soil is very hot!! Amazing. I could see myself living abroad with Alex. Before we got married, I could have pictured myself living abroad, but it could have been lonely. Not anymore, since I have a travel-buddy for life!

Adventures in my life:
I am now student teaching at a school I will call "The High School."  The High School is an upper- middle class high school on the northern side of the city. I am biking there every day, and it's difficult to find a place to park my bike, because nobody is "poor" enough to bike. I'm teaching in a Special Day Class, which has students with special needs, most of whom are classified as  Intellectually Disabled or  Emotionally Disturbed, and most of whom will not be working towards a high school diploma.

I took over our English class last week; we have been doing a unit on bullying. It got really intense, really fast! I showed the students a video about the violence that can result when bullying gets out of hand, to try to prepare them for discussions about bullying. They were generally very disturbed by the video, and one student talked with me after class for 20 minutes, because he was so disturbed. They were disturbed because they have personally experienced many of the events on the video. One of my students died in a car crash, but they brought him back with shockers, and he lives with brain damage. Another student has brain damage from drowning when she was 3, and they also brought her back. I am teaching 2 students who have died.

After the movie, we discussed types of bullying, its progression, and what you can do to stop it (tell an adult). Students told me that they have told adults about bullying, but the adults haven't done anything about it. So then we talked about how it's true that sometimes, adults don't act the way they should, and they may not do anything when you tell them. So, what do you do then? Tell someone else, and continue until someone does something. This was not an easy topic to discuss.

Our most recent step in the bullying unit was making Deflector Shields- shields students can use to combat bullying. These shields are made up of truths about themselves- good characteristics- that can deflect the negative comments from bullies, and the negative comments they might mentally say to themselves. They will write negative ideas or comments about themselves on a piece of construction paper, and then cover it up with torn pieces of another color of paper, and write truths about themselves on those pieces.

Once they have finished this project, we will start a unit on Music. :)

Alex is enjoying his job at Alex's Job- he was their #1 sales associate in the district this past week!