Footloose Helps Everything!

So had a really bad day.  To start the day off I had a dream that my sister was going into labor and called me out of school to "tap" in for Matt because he was in Colorado. In my dream I freaked and ran out of my class without getting anyone to watch them and just told them to "read till I get back." As I ran to the car some how I got those big yellow rubber gloves you use when washing dishes and put them on and drove to pick up my sister. I don't know what I was planning to use the gloves for, but I really hope that is not what delivering a baby really involves. Then I woke up and got ready for school hoping my dream would not become a reality. Matt I know you can't hear me right now, but please don't make me tap in for the delivery of MP2. You know I will if needed, however I would greatly prefer not to.

The rest of the day was filled with boring, slightly sexist training, where I learned all the things that would have helped me at the beginning of the year. Thanks MKU, for making me feel like I have not properly taught my students anything and now they are going to forget everything I bestowed on them. I feel awesome today.

On the way home I stopped at AMC to pick up tickets for our field trip tomorrow to the Hunger Games for my 7th graders. When I got there and tried to buy my 91 child tickets and 8 adult tickets for a total of 99 tickets the usher said that the theater only held 87. sigh. After talking to a manager and having him call his supervisor, (who might I add I talked to earlier in the week warning them that I was coming), and me looking over my list of kids seeing if there are any that I could get suspended before tomorrows field trip to bring down the number, the manager came and told me they could switch the theater to accommodate me. Breathe. I got all the tickets and drove home, which took an hour due to an accident.

Got informed the guy who was suppose to move in June 1st is bailing. Awesome. Then my friend who I was suppose to hang out with tonight totally bailed, for the third time. What is with that? Seriously I hate that! If you can't hang out when we have plans, I might be sad, but I will find something else to do. Don't have me wait 3 hours just to ditch me. Not cool Kool Aid.

However, my roommates and I all sad around my computer, because we don't have a TV, and watched Footloose. Nothing can make your bad day better then Kevin Bacon dancing around and doing gymnastics and having a bro-mance teaching his BFF how to dance so he can impress Rusty. There is honestly nothing better. Well "Let's hear it for the Boys"

Letting go of the Ohana, part 2-Oh the dreaded graduation goggles!

I am a true believer in the graduation goggles. A special thanks goes out to How I Met Your Mother for putting a name to feeling I have feeling my entire life.  For those of you who are not cool enough to know what I am talking about, graduation goggles is "the relief and nostalgic feeling one has about a time in their life when it is about to end, even if the time was completely miserable." This is the perfect thing to describe this weirdly intense feeling I am feeling at the moment. 


While my last year of teaching was at best helpful for future teaching endeavors, I would not call it fun... I learned a lot about what kind of teacher I don't want to be and even more about what kind of administration I don't want to work for, but there are not many moments I would want to repeat. I love my students and love their joy for writing, I know I am equally as shocked to be writing this, but most of the time I did not want to get out of bed to go to school. (I know I like my bed an awful lot, but most days I actually don't mind getting out of it.) I felt like a women in her ninth month of pregnancy, miserable. My racist, passive aggressive, sexist admin made my life a living hell at school most days, but now that it is almost to an end I don't want to let go. I don't want other people to be teaching my kids, they are mine god damn it, I am not possessive I promise. Being a lover of change is not a new concept for Allie Roush, however this recent change is slowly breaking my heart. While most teachers are counting down the days till the end of school and the start of summer, I am holding on to every last minute of the time I have left with my Ohana.

Honestly I think the majority of this painful countdown is the realization that I am going to have to spend the summer without my team. I work with 5 wonderful people who I have spent the whole years pain and suffering with, and our relationship has grown it to one of the most magnificent co worker friendship I have ever had. Now I usually get a long really great with co workers, but this is something special. I have never worked so well with a group of people. To my point our kids try to "play parents" on us, by asking one teacher something and then when they don't get the answer they want they go to another teacher to try again. We have gotten so good at catching them do this because we know each other so well that we know what the other person would say. God my team is fucking awesome.


Maybe I should look at this in a positive light... I get to keep my team next year. Yeah! and we are so strong that next year is going to be 5,000 time better!


Okay Graduation goggles off positive sun glasses looking forward to my summer va-ca on!  

Letting go of the Ohana... :( part 1

So if you have not talked to me lately I have joined Teach for America this last year and have been teaching 7th grade writing, in central Phoenix. As first years go, this one has been very good and a lot more manageable then what I had been prepared for. My kids are honestly great and really try to do the best they can. I really love them and here lies the problem...

This year I created the 7th Grade Ohana, which became out class motto. Ohana from Lilo and Stitch means "family and family means know one gets left behind or forgotten" We adopted this saying and turned it into our own 7th grade family. Ohana means everything to me and we really treated each other like a family. Sometimes we had our fights and our hard times, but our love and respect for each other made us survive the year together. We grew together. They became better students and they in turn made me a better teacher. I am so proud of them and of what they achieved over the year, but it all has to end in a few short days.

What do I do when the year ends? While don't get me wrong, some kids I will be happy to leave and move on to 8th grade, but some I am honestly going to miss having them in my class everyday. I know I am not very good with change, but this is my profession, I have to let them go on to bigger and better things. I need to let them grow up and trust that they will keep all that I have taught them. Am I really ready to let them move on? I trust the 8th grade teachers and know that they will get the education they need to do well in high school and in turn college, but I also feel that I have failed them a lot. I have more to teach them and I think it is unfair that I just have to stop being their teacher. We have shared so much this year and my student and I really know each other, but I have to pretend that did not happen and just adopt a whole new groups of kids...

Maybe I am thinking about this all the wrong way...

Not leading by example, the truth about this writing teacher.

I need to work on writing again. I am a writing teacher right I should be doing this daily, but the reality is that I have no time for my own thoughts and expressions. I love my students and love to read their writing, for the most part, but I miss being able to understand and work through things with words. Writing is the ultimate stress relief. Being able to just let things go and put them on paper makes the weight of them disappear off of your chest. Finding the correct words and even some incorrect ones to get the feelings out of hiding makes my brain feel free enough to work through the problems at hand one letter at a time. I really need to be teaching this to my students. Showing them that writing is more then just a was to go to high school and college, but a way to let go and express those things that are too hard to say out loud. Writing is like screaming the words you want to say, but don't have the guts to let the voice escape your lips. I require writing to function.

Note to self... writing helps you, you have too many things to think about and worry about to not use this space to break down the wall that your brain has put up.

WRITE GOD DAMN IT ALLIE!

<3