In case anyone's wondering...

The OSF decided to go ahead and ask me to marry him. 


And I didn't even suspect it. Not for one teeny tiny moment. The sneak.


I said yes.


After all, you get great tax breaks when you're married, right?

Five on Friday

1) I was reviewing my goals this afternoon (while again putting off homework), and I was trying to come up with a way to ensure I really would read my Bible every day. I used to be so good at being faithful to that. Years and years of waking up for 6:30am personal devotions at camp took quite a while to shake off. But I'm trying to get back into that habit... it just hasn't stuck yet. In my search online for some ideas, I came across this: the One Year Bible Blog. It looks pretty neat-o! They're going through the Bible, and each blog entry has commentary, thoughts, questions- it's like a whole little online devotion book. I'll definitely be keeping track of this site.


2) Yesterday my project at the Sorrento Mesa office was to print library cards for all the books with missing library cards, which I had gone around and found on Wednesday. I stopped in the kitchen first for some water, just in time for people to be pulling out leftovers of Pat & Oscar's chicken wings, caesar salad, and breadsticks. Perfect timing, anyone? They told me to load up a plate, which I did. I loaded it up so big that I had to carry my cup of water with my teeth back to the book room. Yes, I am that professional. 


About half hour in to work, I was enjoying myself so much that I had to share my good time with Chris in this text:


Kind of loving work right now, babe. I've taken over Bill's desk, got a pretty good itunes library loaded on the computer I'm working on, and there's tons of Pat & Oscar's food in the kitchen. I've got a plate full of caesar salad next to me while I search through the inventory. :)


And this is the message I got back:


You are too funny. It's always the simple things you love. What a cutie.


Awww... I like being the kind of person who gets excited about the simple things. Kind of reminds me of this time from way back when.


Or maybe I just like food?


3) Today at lunch with the CA's (and Domingo), I brought up an issue I've been having involving explanation points. For some reason this week, every time I've gone to write an exclamation point, my mind and hand work together to convert it to a question mark. So this week, instead of "Excellent job!" and "This is a great essay!" my kids have probably been wondering why the red markings on their homework say "Excellent job?" and "This is a great essay?" Totally changes the whole tone, doesn't it? For some reason, this question mark/exclamation point mix-up happens to me once in awhile. I can't control it. Do I have some form of punctuation dyslexia? I don't know, but luckily I caught myself today before sending off a text to the OSF saying, "Can't wait to see you tonight?"


4) Speaking of which... I'm still waiting to see him tonight. Boyfriend's been working late. He'd better get here soon, though, because Sarah's Birthday Part Two is happening in about sixteen minutes. Stinks not seeing him until late in the evening every day. But at least I've got some time to get through homework each day while I wait. (Always a silver lining. You just have to look for it.)


5) I was searching through my Pictures folder earlier for a specific picture from a few years ago... and ended up finding a whole bunch of pictures I'd almost forgotten about. I think I'm going to need to make a habit of pulling out those pictures and telling their stories before they're completely forgotten in my mind, too.


So here's my favorite I found today:

This was in March 2006. Mine and Sonia's first spring living on our own. Mandy and I shared the right room, while Sonia had the left room to herself. This was the living room. And that's me sitting on the floor about six inches from the TV. I'm not sure what happened. I think I was putting a DVD in the player and whatever was on TV caught my attention... so I sat back a minute to watch. And Sonia snuck up on me with my camera; she said I looked like a four-year-old who needed to be reminded that it's bad for you to sit so close to the TV. 


I love this picture.


I love simple, every day, this-is-just-what-happened-to-be-going-on pictures.


I need to take more of those.

Week Two

Well, people, I made it through my first week of credentialing. Only... 80 more weeks to go by my count. Give or take.

I think I'll put up one of those countdown thingamajigs on my blog home page. So I can look at it every day and be encouraged.

(Or discouraged. It's all in how you look at it, you know.)

Thought I would share my final essay with you all here, on what I learned about the No Child Left Behind Act. Then those of you who are educators (the three of you? Paul? Sarah? Chris' mom?) can give me your thoughts. Do you agree? Think I'm completely wrong? I'm open to constructive criticism.

If you are not an educator, and don't care about this one teeny tiny bit, please feel free to skip ahead to the end for more blog-like stuff.

Reflections on No Child Left Behind

    There is no dispute that students who attend schools in communities characterized by lower income living have been found to perform poorly compared to those in richer neighborhoods: the research is there to back this finding. The debate lies in the best way to handle this problem. The current solution propagated by the federal government is the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), a piece of legislature founded in 2002. The concept behind the NCLB is to create an education system in which all students in all grades—regardless of family income level or ethnicity—will be proficient in the subjects of reading and math by the 2013-2014 school year. The NCLB utilizes a system of standardized testing to ensure every student is progressing to meet the set standard each year, as well as sets the description for a “highly qualified teacher” and keeps schools accountable as to progression of each subgroup in the school.

    While the idea behind the No Child Left Behind Act is founded upon a genuine need—keeping children at an economic disadvantage from slipping through the educational cracks—it is my opinion the laws that comprise the act leave much to be desired in the areas of implementation and funding. Specifically, I find concern in the following topics: the consequences for schools unable to bring their students to the new standard, and the responsibilities of student achievement placed on the teacher, school, and district.

    Under the NCLB, schools have two years to meet the student standards set forth under the law. These standards are called the Annual Yearly Progress (AYP), a measurement of improvement meant to chart the progress of students each year up to 2014, the year all students should be proficient in reading and math. If, after two consecutive years, a school has not shown the desired progress, it is placed into the group of “Schools in Need of Improvement,” or SINOI. Once deemed a SINOI school, the institute in question begins its journey down one of two paths: it can bring itself back up to meet the legislative standard or it can continue to fall deeper from the mark. Sadly, due to the way AYP standards are set up, many critics of the law believe most schools will be marked as a SINOI school at some point or another (Johnson, Musial, Hall, and Gollnick, 2011).

    The consequences of remaining a SINOI school can be severe: depending on the number of years a school maintains this status, the school may face the replacement of staff members, the implementation of new curriculum, or a complete restructure of the school (Johnson, et al., 2011). At the rate in which schools are failing to meet AYP, it is just a number of years before all schools will be forced to implement these serious changes—a requirement that is just not fiscally feasible in this current economy.

    The NCLB has also left its mark in determining what qualifies an appropriately licensed teacher for Title 1 schools. There are three main criteria for a “Highly Qualified Teacher”: he or she must be certified by the state, have a bachelor’s degree, and be able to pass a state-approved test to prove competency in the subject he or she will teach. No longer will those with emergency or temporary credentials be allowed to take on a full-time teaching role; every class must have a teacher who meets the highest qualifications.  This mandate, of any other in the NCLB legislation, is the one that should be addressed, and the only one, it seems, with any likelihood of being able to be carried out properly.

    However, even the most highly qualified teacher cannot bring out the best work in all students, and this is where the NCLB completely misses the mark. If student outcomes are now the sole responsibility of the school administration, what responsibility is left to the student? It is no secret that schools are filled with plenty of students who simply do not care about standardized test scores. Yet the NCLB places all emphasis on the school’s faculty, the school’s curriculum, and the school’s administration practices. For this act to work, student buy-in of their own education is a must.

    No Child Left Behind is not without its positive aspects. In Ask the Teacher, author Mark Ryan lists some promised benefits of the act: “stronger accountability by testing, freedom for states and communities to make decisions on standards ad proficiencies, encouraging proven research-based educational methods, and more choices for parents” (136-137). While these proposed benefits sound good, the cost to implement such lofty goals are currently too high for the U.S. government, and no matter how great a reform package it may be, without the necessary funding it simply cannot work properly (Ryan, 2008).

    Criticism continues to rage over the No Child Left Behind Act. Proponents of the act look forward to the inclusion of all students in the proficient range, regardless of background. On the other side, those against argue the unrealistic approaches the act enforces. Perhaps the NCLB be better played out over a longer period of time, with less severe consequences for schools unable to bring every student up to standard. Regardless, the act does not seem to be working now, and will more likely need to undergo improvement itself in order to prove effective in changing today’s education practices.

---

References

Johnson, J.A, Musial, D., Hall, G.E, Gollnick, D.M. (2011). Foundations of American 

    Education (15th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Ryan, M. (2008). Ask the Teacher (2nd ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.

Aside from getting my behind kicked by schoolwork, here's what else I've been up to:

March 10, Wednesday: Spent the morning grading math at the Woodman classroom and keeping an eye on the parking lot for the little lost dog that's been showing up this week. Michelle and I are trying to save it. Spent the afternoon going through books with no library cards, creating a list of books with no library cards, and beginning the tedious task of making library cards for the list of books with no library cards.

PS: I love tedious activities. No joke. Bill (who I work for at Sorrento Mesa office, and who's in charge of all the inventory) laughed when I said this. He thought I was being sarcastic. And then I had to tell him the story about how when I worked at Target no one would touch the cosmetics aisle, and I loved working the cosmetics aisle. 

I like organizing things way too much.

And now I'm at Chris', not getting my homework done, and waiting for him to come home so we can go grocery shopping and to WalMart to get new windshield wipers for my care. (We're so romantic that way!)

March 9, Tuesday: School. No Sorrento Mesa. Came home and read, read, read. Fell asleep reading.

March 8, Monday: Taught reciprocals and negative exponents to Nephi. Went through the whole lesson with him complaining the whole time about  how long it takes to do one dang problem like that. When I decided he'd had enough, I pointed out the whole relation between the reciprocal and negative exponents, and showed him how, if he just remembered that one simple rule, he wouldn't have to go work out the problem, he'd just know what it was supposed to be off the top of his head. It took a few more rounds, but finally we came to the point where, when we started a new section, he stared at the problem for a few seconds, before raising his head and saying suspiciously, "Hey, wait a minute...." And then he got the next 4 done in about ten seconds. Success!

We also had TV Monday that night. Don't think anything exciting happened.

March 6 &7, Saturday & Sunday: We headed up to Chris' parents' Saturday morning to celebrate Sarah's birthday with their family, Kris and Becky, and Kris' parents, the Cowen's. Mr. Cowen likes to tease me, but I'm pretty sure I'm growing on him with the whole, "Hey, look! I'm going to be a math teacher, too!" thing. 

Good times.

So Sarah got everything she asked for, which wasn't much, and then some. Mrs. T tried her hand at making ice cream cake, and it turned out fabulous. Even Chris had like three pieces,and that boy is not a cake person. 

Sunday we went to church with Chris' parents and heard a hysterical guy talk about the intensity of the labor and birth of his first child, and let me tell you, if I didn't understand the whole cute cuddly baby part that you get afterward, it probably would have scared me off real good. "Don't look at the needle." That was his mantra. He kept repeating it. And then holding out his arms to indicate just how big that needle is. 

Shudder.

After church we were off to Disneyland, sadly not with Brittany and Ryan, who'd gotten into a minor car accident on the way up. Minor as in they weren't hurt, but not minor enough that Brittany's car made it out unscathed. So they were missed. 

And we really didn't do much anyway. I renewed my pass for free (which was great), we watched the EO tribute (lame), walked through the Innoventions house again (we are so getting one of those kitchens), rode Thunder Mountain in the dark and from the back of the train (the best combo), got our free tortillas from the Tortilla Factory (corn again... disappointed), our free bread from the bakery (yummier than normal, perhaps to make up for the corn tortillas), and then to the Blue Sky Cellar to see the latest on the California Adventures renovations (World of Color = almost complete, but they're still not releasing the official date). When I type it all out like that, it sounds like we did a lot, but it was pretty slow for Disney. Chris and I ditched Sarah (on her birthday!) around 8:30 to make it home at a reasonable hour, and though I tried so hard not to fall asleep on him, I eventually drifted off around Del Mar (so close!).

And... I really can't remember much of last week other than studying the No Child Left Behind laws, so looks like we'll be stopping there. I've been trying harder to remember to record the daily happenings, but life's gotten so crazy busy lately it's been hard. Fortunately I've got some great inspiration to remind me why it's so important to take the time to remember all the little things....

Ten on Tues... Wednesday

1) I pretty much skipped Tuesday this week. Too sick to deal with it.

2) I'm sick.

3) Yes. Again.

4) I'm not sure what kind of sick it is. I've got 3 options:
       a) It's my body's new way of handling being sick, where I get to experience all the normal fun aspects of the cold (sniffling, coughing, runny eyes) along with a wretched sore throat that makes everything so. much. worse.
      b) This time around I was lucky enough to catch a cold (separately) while experiencing the sequel to the ever-so-fun Sore Throat of Summer '09. This would be better.
      c) I've got strep throat, tonsilitis, or any number of serious throat problems, which were not caught during previously mentioned Sore Throat of Summer '09, and which I will be doomed to experience over and over until I pony up the money to go back down to urgent care. And that's only if they actually diagnose me with anything more this time than "a really bad sore throat."

5) Option a is not what I want. The teacher I work with at the school, Michelle, claims that every seven years or so, the way your body handles things is supposed to change. If this is the way my body is going to start handling colds, then... then... well, drastic measures will need to be taken.

6) I'm really quite miserable.

7) On the brighter side, I've had some down time to put into easing back into school. Let me tell you, not having to do homework for two and a half years really makes it hard to write that 750 word essay on service learning.

8) Yes, I know 750 words is nothing in college. I'm a big, fat school wuss right now. I may be in denial about the whole thing, in fact.

9) I did finally find some info on the No Child Left Behind Act. Quite a bit actually, and I now understand the pros and cons and consequences and demands and all that good stuff. Still not sure how I feel about it all yet.

10) I finally received my textbook today. It only took three calls to three different post offices and leaving a note on my front door instructing the post man to "leave the package the heck on my doorstep and not take it to one of the three aforementioned post offices without leaving me a note like the last two times." I think the note was the thing that did it.

11) Also, I've been wasting time this afternoon (not opening my new textbook) playing with my webcam's picture taking abilities. And I just realized I'm holding the books the wrong way to read the titles. Oh well.

***Please forgive the crabbiness of this post. I really don't feel well. :(

No Child Left Behind

My first assignment for Foundations of Education is an essay on the No Child Left Behind Act. Unfortunately, I have yet to receive my main textbook from an Amazon seller, so I'm stuck searching the internet for some clear definitions.

Sure, I can easily just read the law myself on the education website, but seriously, there's a lot of legal-ese in there. I don't have time to search through all that mumbo jumbo to figure out exactly what is mandated.

Unfortunately, I'm not having much luck finding a watered down version anywhere. You'd really think there'd be some kind of simple checklist or something for it. Number one: all students pass such and such test. Number two: All teachers pass such and such test before being credentialed. Number three: Here is how much money you will get for meeting these standards.

I mean, how are the rest of us supposed to figure it out?

So far, all I've gathered is stuff I already know. Teachers must be credentialed and show a mastery of a single subject. Standardized testing is how the feds determine if a school is up to par or not. The hard part is figuring out what the penalties are exactly.

If anyone has any suggestions of some good websites that can explain it all to me, please let me know. This is going to drive me crazy all night.

Zoey: 5 Months

Jenafer decided to make a deal with me concerning baby pictures. She decided in exchange for me doing a photo shoot with Zoey, she would cut and color my hair for free.

Awesome!

The OSF especially likes this deal, because he'd been wanting me to go blonder for awhile now.

So we went and did Zoey's second photo shoot at the beginning of February. 

Let me tell you: that kid is cu-ute. I can't handle it. And she's soooo photogenic. It's really unfair, because it makes my part of the deal so easy. 

I mean, come on. Look at her.

Zoey seems to like the photo shoots, too. I mean, sure I have to let her suck on the camera strap every once in awhile to keep her entertained, but it's worth it to get these kind of photos.

And then, just when you think she can't get any better... Jen busts out the pink flower headband.

(which Justin finds absurd, but he wasn't home yet.)

Jen had wanted to get some shots of Zo in her I Heart Daddy shirt as a surprise to Justin for Valentine's.

(FYI: This is the look that gets you whatever. you. want. Not that I've ever tried it, of course.)

(Wink.)

But Justin came home from work right in the middle of this part of the shoot and spoiled the whole surprise. What a punk.

(FYI: This is a cute little family.)

The next weekend, Jen made my hair look amazing while we had a great conversation about the old days. I really appreciate friends like Jen and Justin, who've literally known me since elementary school. It rocks so much.

9 Months

... is how long I've been with Chris.

Picture from 04/2009

And it's pretty much rocked the entire way.

Picture from 04/2009

In case I haven't made this clear enough in my past blogs, I love this guy so much. It literally hurts sometimes.

Those of you in love, you know what I'm talking about.

It's kind of hard to write about actually. Because when I actually sit to put pen to paper (or keystrokes to blog document, I suppose), I find that I have no words to explain it. I just love him. He is amazing to me. And to just type out a list of the qualities I love about him wouldn't do him justice.

So suffice it to say: He is great. Amazing. Wonderful. Not to mention smoking hot.

And I'm so blessed he's mine.