Weird week, good week

Let's recap what a normal week is supposed to look like for a TEP - Elementary student in January:

• Monday: Student teaching
• Tuesday: Student teaching, evening Seminar
• Wednesday: Student teaching
• Thursday: Student teaching
• Friday: Morning Seminar, afternoon Teaching Diverse Learners (every other week)

Now let's look at what this week has looked like:

• Monday: MLK Day 
• Tuesday: Early dismissal (due to snow), Seminar cancelled
• Wednesday: Snow day 
• Thursday: Student teaching
• Friday: Student teaching (field trip!)

Sliiiiiiiiiiiightly different. But not really complaining!

First, about MLK Day. In Philadelphia, it's a pretty big deal -- it's the MLK Day of Service, something that's catching on nationally but which I had never heard of before I moved to Philadelphia. Then again, I grew up in Virginia, a state whose relationship with the holiday has been, shall we say, troubled. I live with an organizer who was recruiting volunteers to help out at Jackson Elementary in South Philly, so I joined in to help with a massive library inventory project. It was great to work with so many people in helping with such an important project -- but I can't help but feel morally conflicted about volunteering to do work that I unequivocally believe should be funded by the state. Schools need libraries; how is that even a question? And yet, in Philadelphia, many schools lack functioning libraries, and many of those that operate libraries part-time (like Lea, where I taught in the fall) do so with volunteers (something plenty of schools don't have access to). Also -- there were SO many volunteers at Jackson (from some VERY highly connected organizations, in areas of the city nowhere near Jackson) that I could only wonder how many schools could have better used some of them. Not to knock volunteerism, but in the spirit of a day celebrating Dr. King, let's remember that we should be conscious of, and fighting against, structural injustice.

Anyway.

I wrote a book!

A little while ago, I cryptically mentioned a project I was working on - well here's the big reveal:

I've always had a dream of someday writing a book of some sort. When my Literacy Methods class made an assignment of it (specifically: "write a children's book"), I decided to take it really, really seriously. In spite of the demands of the semester, I ended up investing probably 50 hours on this. And I'm actually really proud of it.

(Note to prospective TEP students - this was NOT necessary. We were basically graded on completion rather than quality, so most people didn't put nearly as much time into it as I did. That's not to say that there weren't some spectacular books in there - I actually really, really loved some of the books made by my classmates. It was a great assignment. We ended our semester with a book-sharing party, with our Penn Mentors and professors invited as well!)

Welcome back, me!

Well, after a nice long blog vacation (I seriously considered writing "blog-cation," but wouldn't have been able to forgive myself), I'm back in action for 2014!

My actual vacation, of course, wasn't quite so long. But I managed to do a lot - both of the "lots of fun" and the "this is a vacation" variety?

The timeline: 
My Term III assignment was due on December 13th; my first day back in the classroom was January 2nd. That gave me just under three weeks - much better than the absurd 8 days (12/24-1/1) that the public schools had off, but much less than my grad school colleagues who are just returning to class today.

So what did I do with that time?

And the results of the poll say...

...That nobody responds to survey responses. Or, perhaps, visits this blog. But traffic stats claim otherwise!

Well, in case you are reading this, and you are a real person, and you'd like to influence the content of this blog, please fill out this survey:

Or email me with questions or thoughts: gojesse@gse.upenn.edu

Or just read and do nothing, and I'll keep writing anyway, because I'll love you anyway, and also I get paid by the hour.

Happy New Year!