Is This Normal?
The chaos that is the KerbersArchive for school
Let the finals begin…
Today was the first day of final exams at NCHS, and with that always comes mixed feelings from me. On the one hand, I like that the regular schedule is not in place. We have three exams per day, and the students get to go home almost an hour earlier than ususal. On the other hand, this is the time when we collect all of the textbooks used for one semester classes, so it’s three days full of physical labor that does get old.
I think the best thing about final exams this semester, though, is the fact that we’re that much closer to leaving for Florida. Friday can not get here soon enough!
My turn
I knew I should say that we were hoping this sickness didn’t catch the whole family! Now I also have a miserable cold, and I can certainly understand why the kids have been so crabby the last few days. I had been a little bit stuffy earlier in the week, but yesterday afternoon my voice started to get all raspy, and by the end of the day today I could barely make a sound. Today was day 2 of Grandma Kerber daycare at our house, because both kids are still battling fevers and full of congestion. It’s not pretty.
Please, oh please, let this mean that we’ll be healthy for our trip to Florida. We really don’t want to spend that drive down being all coughy, sneezy, and sniffly. Really.
Fun times at NCHS
The NCHS Family, Career and Consumer Leaders of America (FCCLA…what used to be called FHA) sponsors a babysitting night at the high school once per month as a fundraiser. We’ve debated taking the kids before, but to be honest, we get most of our babysitting for free, so it’s sometimes hard to shell out the cash for it. But tonight I decided that it was finally the right time. I thought the kids would have fun there, I knew Dave and I could use the time for more Christmas shopping, and of course it’s a great cause. So off to the high school we went tonight at 5:00 p.m.
It’s always so funny to take the kids somewhere in the evening. Of course it’s already dark at 5:00, and they think that means it’s late. Emma said, “Ooo…it’s VEWY wate!” as soon as we pulled out of the garage, even though we hadn’t had dinner yet. Cracks me up. Ben was so thrilled that we were going to his ”old preschool”, and as soon as we got inside the room they both bee-lined it to the toys and forgot all about us. I was a little concerned about Emma being happy the whole time we were gone. Lately she’s been a bit of a mama’s girl, and I wasn’t sure that she’d make it through the whole night.
Three hours later we returned to the high school to pick them up, and of course neither of them wanted to go home. They had such a great time playing with new toys and with other kids. Ben’s face was beet red from running around with two other 4 year-old boys. I should have known that we’d have nothing to worry about…except getting them out the door to go home. That wasn’t an easy task. It was a great night for all of us. Dave and I got almost finished Christmas shopping for the kids, the kids had way more fun than they would have at home with us, and the FCCLA got a donation to help fund their trip to the state convention. Well worth the $20 it cost us.
Girl time
Tonight I got to have some serious girl time. My friend Amy, who used to teach with at NCHS with us but has since moved with her family to Fargo, ND, came back to Normal for a visit. A bunch of women from work got together at another friend’s house, and as always we had a very fun time.
Since I don’t get girl time very often anymore, I think I cherish it even more than ever. It was so nice to have Amy in town, and I know that some of her older friends were so estatic to see her. As much as I enjoyed the time together, though, it really made me miss my old girlfriends even more. While I have definitely made some great friends here, I still don’t have that close-knit group of friends like I used to. Don’t get me wrong, I really do love my life here. I just long for some of the girl time I used to get.
Scariest conference ever
This afternoon my co-worker Caroline and I attended a professional workshop about Internet safety. Truly, this could have been one of the most worrisome workshops I’ve ever attended. The woman who presented to us was from the state’s attorney’s office in Springfield. Her job is to work on Internet safety prevention in school and with young people. The information she had for us, and even more so the statistics she had to share, were staggering. Cyberbullying is growing at such an astonishing rate that it’s now reported that 1 in 4 teens have been harassed, embarrassed, teased, and/or bullied in some digital format, and only 20% of these teens report the abuse. Cyberbullying has grown so much because it can all be anonymously, and the bully never has to see the actual reaction of the victim, which is often the only thing that makes bullies stop.
It’s so hard to be a teenager these days. One of the points our speaker made really hit home with me. When we were teenagers, there was a built-in filter for many forms of communication that just don’t exist today. For example, we had to get to know our friends’ parents, because when we called their house, the parents answered. Also, we wouldn’t ever take pictures of anything really incriminating, because we knew that those pictures had to be developed in a store, and strangers would see them. Currently, kids have complete peer-to-peer contact at all times. The natural filters are just gone.
Hearing the information presented in this workshop was important, but kind of depressing for me. I hope that we can pass the information along to our staff in a way that will convey the true danger of all of this instant communication. It’s really an important issue in education today.
So…many…meetings…
I feel like I have hardly been at school much at all lately. At the end of October I attended the ISLMA conference for two days. Then I had an all day literacy team meeting the Monday right after that. Wednesday of that week we had our local department leader meeting, and then today I had another half day meeting for our school core team in the afternoon and a faculty meeting after school. It’s so weird this year…I really do feel like I’m spending a lot more time in meetings than I ever have before. I know it means that I’m becoming more involved with our school and our district, but mixed emotions come with all that. I do understand the importance of meetings and committees like these, but man, it’s hard to miss school, too. I can’t even begin to imagine how a classroom teacher does it. I sure hope that I can find a balance between my actual job and these extra commitments I’ve taken on.
We have a contract!
This afternoon our teacher’s union finally ratified a contract. Yes, we’ve been in school for something like 11 weeks now, but we’ve been working without a contract this whole time. Finally, our negotiating team and the school board resolved many of their issues, and a tentative agreement was reached. With this afternoon’s vote, the TA was approved, and I will finally get a raise!
The new contract isn’t offering much of a raise, but it is only a two-year agreement, which is huge. Hopefully the economy will be better in two years, so we’ll be able to ask for more than a 2% increase at that time. The other really beneficial thing for me in the new contract is that a curriculum chair will be created for the IMCs. There will be one representative from the high school level, and there is a good chance that representative will be me. The only person with more seniority than me is retiring in a year and a half, so her salary was locked in three years before her retirement date. I’m excited for this new challenge. We’ve been asking for district level representation for years, so this is a really great advancement.
It’s amazing how rejuvenated I am at work this year. The change in IMC personnel has made a huge difference in my excitement and enjoyment with my job. That makes me very happy…I sure hope it lasts! 
Off to ISLMA
As I type this, the car is packed and I’m ready to head to Springfield for the annual Illinois School Library Media Association (ISLMA) conference. While I’ve attended the conference several years in the past, this year is different. For the first time, I’m presenting at ISLMA. Friday and Saturday are filled with what we call concurrent sessions. That means there are like 7 or 8 different sessions going on at once, and conference attendees can choose whichever one he or she feels will be the most interesting and beneficial. My colleague Ellen (who is one of the media specialists at West, the other high school in our district) and I are presenting together, and it’s the very first session of the conference. We’re anxious and very excited to see how many people we get for ours.
As always, there is some guilt attached to leaving the kids and Dave for a couple of days. But this time it seems like I’m handling it a little better than usual. Maybe that’s because I’m actually going to be working while I’m gone instead of just playing with my friends. I’m looking forward to seeing some old friends there, but it’s so much m ore about networking and getting some fresh ideas for the IMC.
Wish me luck with this new professional endeavor. Maybe this will become something I do every fall…like teaching the ISU class did.
Parent/teacher conferences
Today was parent/teacher conference day at school. The kids got to sleep in while many of the teachers worked harder than they normally do.
While this is easily one of the most dreaded days of the year for most teachers, we librarians absolutely love it! Conference day is one that we get to work absolutely uninterrupted, and it’s so nice to actually get some projects done. We did have to go to a morning meeting, but it wasn’t too long and it was a small group of other librarians, so it was not bad at all.
Believe me; I remember having conferences all day very well. It wasn’t all that long ago that I sat at one of those tables trying to convince parents that their students were either doing really well, or needed to do a lot more to be successful. Neither scenario is really all that great. So these days, I try hard not to rub it in that we get the day to work on our own without dealing with parents much at all. Some teachers appreciate our situation, and others just whine about it to us. I always say the same thing, “Hey, they’re offering classes at ISU to become a librarian…you’re free to take them and then get hired somewhere so you can have this one beneficial day!” That usually shuts them right up.
IMC book club
I did make it to school today, thankfully, and although I wasn’t feeling great all day, one thing helped make the day better. We had our first meetng of our new IMC book club today after school, and it was really great.
My co-worker Caroline and I decided to have our book club meet once per month. We both wanted to be a part of the fun, so we plan to close the IMC the third Monday of each month, and dedicate that time to book club. The students who were interested came to the first meeting, and they had the idea for us to choose a category each month, and have everyone read a different book from that category. Today’s category was Halloween, or scary books. We had a great variety of selections, and it was a really fun meeting. Even though the numbers were quite small this first month, I’m sure that interest will grow as word of mouth takes off.
As a side note, I read a Stephen King book called The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon for this month’s meeting. That book scared the crap out of me!! I even had nightmares one night when I read before going to sleep. I used to love all King books when I was in high school and college, but I am definitely more of a chicken these days. I don’t think I’ll be revisiting him anytime soon.
Next month we’re reading books from the 2010 nominees for the Abraham Lincoln Award. I’m looking forward to another great book discussion with some really awesome young adults.
