Erika S. outfits

Ghosting out

The school is starting to thin out. Last day of proper instruction is in 2 weeks, all major projects are in and and the year is seriously winding down. So students have been ghosting in and out of class. Today, our school held our biannual Presentation of Learning, where students man course tables and present one project they have worked on in the past semester. Here is Cathy impressing the hell out of a few teachers with a print out (no internet) of her blog from our blogging intensive week. ❤
ghost party

ghosts

ghost arms

My dress is new – an impulse purchase (even on super sale) while shopping in DC one weekend with my sister, and not well suited for the rain we had today.

dress: equipment – shoes: madewell

Erika S. outfits

Women

This skirt makes me feel womanly – like I’m finally dressing for my age, which thankfully has not started with a 1 or a 2 for a little while.  It feels good to be mature sometimes and out of colored skinny jeans (like yesterday).  Today was a long day and very trying.  I laughed, teased, lectured and lost it all in between 8am and 5pm.  By the time I got home I wanted to glue myself onto the couch and never get off.  I am a woman of few words today, with the new Daft Punk album to keep me company on the couch.

women

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women3

cardigan and tshirt: j.crew – belt: gap – skirt: anthropologie  last seen here– shoes: sweedish hasbeens

Erika S. outfits

Peas and Hearts

Intensive week ended, and it’s bittersweet.  Of the all the kids we taught to blog, two have been keeping up with it into the next week post-intensive.  Yay Celeste and Cathy!  The school year is winding down, only 16 days till my kiddos take their Living Environment (biology) regents exam.  Regents exams are a double whammy: kids have to score a 65 or above to graduate, and my performance as a teacher is evaluated based on how many kids pass.  So what happens?  I stress out insanely about getting through all the material and the last few weeks are a mad dash to get through the standards.  Also, I stress out about the kids who are failing the class, which is attributed to a lack of motivation to complete assignments obviously is becasue my curriculum is not engaging enough nor is it rigorous enough.  Since apparently good teachers know, there is a correlation between increased rigor and engagement/buy in.  Seriously, I’d like to see the data for that.  I have my own informal data from my classroom and it shows that the harder I make an assignment, the less the students are motivated to complete it.  I wish that wasn’t the case, but it is.  I just don’t know what the answer is.

I’m going off on a depressive tangent here, so I’ll stop and instead write about a shallower topic…clothes!  I’ve love, loved this corduroy pea coat for the past 8 or so years and it’s about to get packed up for the summer.  I love the cut and how the collar pops up when I button it – keeps my long neck shielded from the wind.  peas

peas2

peas3

peas4

glasses: warby parker – coat: super old gap – sweater: old j.crew – jeans: old f21 – shoes: frye

Erika S. fun stuffs

the Little Things

Describe a little thing — one of the things you love that defines your world but is often overlooked.

I’ve assigned this Daily Prompt to my blogging students today, so obvi, I needed to write it myself.

The first thing that pops into my head whenever I see the words “Little Things” is a shock of nostalgia, one of my favorites from my teenage years:

I love nostalgia.  It is the ultimate little thing that makes me feel alive.  Nostalgia shoots me back (in this case to age 14 in 1994) while at the same time making feel old evolved and accomplished.

One of the best things in life is friday happy hour with friends — I think almost everyone (of age) can agree.  The thing that shoots it to the moon?  Fantastic 90’s music spontaneously popping on the jukebox.  Friday is just around the corner.   Yessssss!!!!

Erika S. fun stuffs, teaching

Teens These Days

This week, my friend Genny and I started a blogging intensive.  It started out a bit rough, with heaps of bitching and moaning reluctant energy such as “I wanted the camping intensive” and “this is soooo boring, I’m not coming to school this week”.  Thankfully most, if not all of the negativity has died down (with the help of a few key absences, I’m sad to say).  The kids are blogging away and creating some really great stuff so far!  It really warms my little heart to see such awesomeness come out of them in such a short time.  It’s a bit mind blowing to see how much they are capable of  when they’re given free reign to create whatever it is they are interested in.  We give them such little time in the regular school day to explore and work with these interests in a productive way, as we are all so consumed by the urgency of tests, grades and graduation.  We (teachers) also assume or hope that they have enough direction and/or resources to explore these interests on their own outside of school.  Sometimes we assume correctly and other times, not.

In the past three days, my kids have created blogs about gaming, music, food, fitness, sports and the apocalypse.  Granted, they’re not perfect and they leave much to be desired in terms of grammar and punctuation (along with a bit of misinformation), but it’s a great start.  I can’t wait to see how their blogs evolve over time.  Fingers crossed they keep it up well after this week-long intensive ends!  Check them out here:

Esmerelda, Cathy, Messiah, Timofey, JV, Ulugbek, Nick, Enddy, Erick, Celeste, Jessica, Anna, Nina, Tariq, Clarissa, Kenny and Brian

I snapped a few pictures of some kiddos working hard and hardly working on the their blogs using WordPress.com (of course).  <old lady rant> Teens these days have it so easy.  When I was their age (’95), we created websites practically from scratch using actual html tags! </old lady rant>

enddy and nick

messiah

three amigos

Also, a pic of the teachers, a bit too up close and personal for some.  #selfie…ish

teach

schenck

Major thanks to Michelle and B for coming out to expert-talk with the kids about blogging.  They buzzed about it for a bit afterwards and they now quote “we should write how we speak!”  New goal for the kids: land yourself on Freshly Pressed!!

Erika S. teaching

Hi Kids, it’s me

Today marks the day my online teacher life has crashed into my real teacher life  That’s right, I’ve gone public. My students have been all over this blog today, looking at photos and probably not reading any of the text.   All of a sudden I have a jump in my stats — 200+ views! Woot woot, I’m feeling like the popular kid.

Twice a year, for a week, my school switches to “intensives”.  Kids and teachers alike take breaks from regularly scheduled programing to reorganize and regroup into intensives, where they spend all week learning about one thing.  These intensives are usually elective type courses that teachers find personally interesting.  For example, this year, there is a “Woman Warriors” intensive, where young ladies learn all about self esteem,  healthy relationships, self defense and feminine strength.  There is also the “Physixxxx Olympics” intensive where kids are learning by doing all the cool part of physics and engineering – egg drop contest, catapult assembly and rock climbing.  This year is my first year running an intensive and guess what I’ve chosen to teach?  BLOGGING, of course!

The first lesson of the day?  Your online presence and how the Interwebs is public and permanent.  I don’t think I have ever heard so many moans and groans, ever.  Some kids really know how to suck the happiness out of a room with their complaining.  This was, until they finally got in front of their computers with a task:  A Google scavenger hunt on their teachers.  They found this blog.  They found where I went to middle school, my middle name, my father’s name and an old Sea Scouts photo in Scouting magazine.   They also found themselves online, though not as much – I have a 17 year head start on them.

My kids today after googling my name:

I will be posting links to their blogs as they get them going.   On the radar for this coming week: an inspiration trip to Central Park, a tour of tumblr’s HQ and a couple expert speakers.

Erika S. fun stuffs, parties

the Nerd Prom

There’s no great way to start writing this post without giving a huge shout out and thank you to my bro-in-law for being my friend in a high place.  Thanks, Dave (with my sister, below) for bringing me along to the White House Correspondents Dinner Pre-party event (not to be confused with the actual dinner).  Next year?  😉

WHCD Kris and Dave

The night started off with me feeling very out of place and awkward – like a teenage kid being brought along to adult parties.  It’s not every day I get dressed up in fancy gowns (first time, actually), and I don’t normally hobnob with politicians/reporters/celebrities.  Pretty much a complete 180 from my usual crowd: teenagers with fart jokes.  The awkwardness eventually gave way once I figured out how to maneuver around with such a long dress and stopped worrying about my bra showing.  Getting to see Bradley Cooper helped up the fun factor immensely (as did a martini or two).  I also got to molest a cardboard cut out of Conan.  My night was complete.  WHCD the cooper

Photo Apr 27, 6 35 21 PM

WHCD

WHCD conan

gown: bcbg on super sale

Erika S. outfits, teaching

Personal

One thing I’ve learned in the past 4 years of teaching (which is not very long) is that you can’t take much personally. It was a hard lesson to learn in my first year (when one of my students stole my laptop and sold it on the street within 15 minutes), and even into my second. Kids are more concerned with what’s going on in their own lives than with yours. This means, if they didn’t do HW, it’s not because they don’t like you. Instead, it’s because they were up late last night with their own real life soap opera. If they take your pencil, it’s not because they don’t respect you. Instead, it’s because kids can’t keep track of their own writing utensils and their back packs are like black holes. You as a person are not even on their radar, let alone significant enough for them to care about potentially hurting your feelings with their careless actions. The same thing kind of goes for teachers. So don’t take it personally, it’s not all about you. Instead, it’s all about the kids. That is all. personals2

On a brighter note, I got NEW SUMMER SANDALS!!! They are taking some breaking in, especially at weird spots on my ankles with slight bony protrusions. I love them and they were a splurge (thanks, tax man for paying out my interest free loan!).

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personals5

personals4

personals3

glasses: warby parker – top: anthropologie (soooo soft and perfectly drapey, similar in material) – jeans: bdg – shoes: sweedish hasbeens via madewell

Erika S. outfits

sad face

Picked this sad face up last weekend. This pouch turns frowns upside down, as does one of my top five favorite bands of all time.  If you haven’t yet, and you were/are a fan of Jawbreaker, check out Blake’s latest, the Forgetters.

sadder face

sad faces
pouch: baggu –  belt: gap – jeans: f21 – shoes: converse

Erika S. outfits

Some Random Tuesday

These are from last week, when we were all stressed over our School Quality review. It also happened to be one of the first beautiful spring days of 2013.  Of course, now that the SQR is over and we can actually enjoy life again, it’s overcast and cold. On this day last week, my legs made an appearance for the fist time this year.  Hello spring!  I’m also a particular fan of this sweater, found in the clearance cave of Anthropologie.  B hates it – he says it’s too granny hipster for him.  Whateves, I LOVE IT.  Tuesday3

Tuesday

Tuesday 4

glasses: bonlook – necklace: unicorn crafts – sweater: anthopologie – belt and skit: j.crew – shoes and white tank: target