By Ashley McFadin –

I attended the “Simplifying RTI Institute” with Mike Mattos (who, by the way, is amazing!) this past week and it was eye opening.  You see, RTI is a system of supports set up school-wide to help all students be successful.  One of my colleagues said, it’s like an IEP for everyone because it’s so individualized.  But, I think that’s oversimplifying it too much.  While there is no way I can summarize two days worth of material into a blog post, I’ll do my best.

Before we begin, as an educator, you must believe two things in order to have effective RTI:

1. You believe that all students (those we expect to be independent adults) be able to learn to high-school+.  This means that the student will not only finish high school but will also attain an education beyond graduation.
2. You will take responsibility for what you can control in terms of teaching them academic skills.

There are three tiers of intervention, starting with Tier 1.  Every student receives “Tier 1” instruction.  This is considered effective classroom teaching.  But, as most teachers can attest to, not every student learns it the first (or few) times the teacher presents the material.  In fact, only about 80% of students will understand the essential standard the first (few) times the teacher presents the material.  If the student is part of the other 20%, we move onto Tier 2.

Tier 2 is the stage where you have an out-of-class small group instruction or 1-on-1 help with the students who still do not understand the material.  While the “magic number” is a 30-minute lesson, there is no limit as to how long a student can be in Tier 2.  What matters here is the intensity of instruction.  Because a student is identified by the classroom teacher as “tier 2”, the teacher must provide more differentiated instruction that fits the students’ needs.

Here is the tricky part – if the student is lacking foundational skills (i.e.: below grade-level reading, lacking number sense, poor writing skills) or has behavioral, motivation, and/or attendance issues, the student can be recommended into Tier 3.  This is the most intensive level and may require some remedial classes be added to the student’s schedule to build foundational skills.  Here’s the catch – these are in addition to the grade-level courses…

If the student is always taught below grade-level, they will always stay below grade-level.  In order for all students to achieve high-school+ learning, we must teach them at grade-level in addition to giving them remediation.

But wait!  Where is special education?  They must be in Tier 3!  Well, no.  They’re in that whole mix of kids.  Just because a student has an academic goal doesn’t mean that they won’t fall into the Tier 1 category for an essential standard that you teach.  The same goes for a regular education student who might fall into months of tier 2 instruction for the same essential standard.

That’s the gist of RTI.  Why is it important?  It’s important because it focuses on maximizing student learning.  By identifying essential standards that students must know and ensuring that the students are proficient+ in those essential standards before they leave in June, we are giving them more of a chance to be successful in the long-term.  And, isn’t that our job as educators?

If you would like more information on the RTI process, the best (and most cost-effective) resource that I’ve found is “Simplifying Response to Intervention” by Austin Buffum, Mike Mattos, and Chris Weber.  You can also go to www.solution-tree.com to see if Mike Mattos is coming to your area to speak.  It’s well worth the price tag.

Have you started to implement an RTI system in your school?  If so, how is it going?

By Nick McDaniels –

However, this post is about one of the the best gifts I have ever heard of a teacher receiving. The gift of time. In a conversation with a few great principals, they told me about the gifts they give to their teachers. And one gift they talked about was the gift of time. Every year the principal gives teachers a gift certificate for an hour or so of time to use as they please. They cash in this certificate (with advanced notice of course) and the principal teaches their classes for them. The teachers then are free to do as they please, go out to lunch, get a massage, etc.

Teachers, under all the pressure to run data, call parents, get professionally developed, grade papers, attend meetings have a dwindling amount of time to complete their work, and most teachers, as we all know, take home hours more work. That is why this gift of time is so important to teachers. It doesn’t necessarily help them to get any more work done, but it does remind them that someone notices how much time is being put into their work. It is this type of gift, something that really reflects the work that teachers do, that makes a great teacher appreciation gift.

Unfortunately, my school is probably too large to pull off something like this with well over 100 teachers. However, if you are a principal or teacher in a small school, recommend or suggest it next year for teacher appreciation week. This type of thoughtfulness and mutual respect can really energize a staff in a positive way.

By Peggy Wuenstel –

I have been in this business for 30 years. There are some things that I knew back at the beginning that are still true today. Teaching is hard work. Educating children is a team sport. You will never get rich working in public education if your bank account is the measure of your success. The days will be long and the summers will be short. The intangibles will always trump the measurable in making you feel like you earn your paycheck, and even though it’s not all about the kids, it is certainly mostly about the kids.

Some things have changed radically, at least here in Wisconsin.

Showing up every day, doing the best you can, keeping your skills current, and volunteering for extra duties will not make teaching a secure job anymore. The majority of Wisconsin taxpayers don’t view the public money they spend to compensate teachers as the good investment that they have in the past. In a consumer-driven society where we’ll upgrade our phones, order the pricey wine, and stay in the four star hotel, the adage: “You get what you pay for” doesn’t seem to apply to the education of our children.

There is now a marked difference between what we can afford to pay as a society and what we are willing to pay. Where the stereotype of the teacher in the past was (and certainly not universally true) the patient, kindly public servant who never lost their temper or expressed discontent about their working conditions, today’s image is just as likely to be a militant public employee who is overpaid, with an attitude of entitlement. Neither is accurate.

What has also changed is the way we connect the dots between our democratic government and the aggressive capitalism that drives the American economy. I am married to an economics major, and we have had three decades of conversations on where our money comes from and where it goes. I have come to understand that there are two essential components that drive the creation of prosperity and fuel the engine of American success:  Capital and Labor. Both are necessary for the creation of products, the provision of services, and the rise of small businesses, cottage industries, and multi-national corporations.

We have historically believed that Americans value the labor of their fellow citizens. We express our appreciation for the actions of first-responders in a crisis like the Boston marathon bombing. We covet the skill of the engineer, the cabinetmaker, or the cake decorator that create the items that enrich our lives. We are grateful for and dependent upon the services of those who transport our goods cross country, diagnose our illness and treat those maladies, deliver our mail, and cut our hair. We dream about being in the same league as the pro athletes, musicians, or actors that entertain us in our leisure time.

But things have changed in my lifetime.  We seem to value what people HAVE far more than what they DO. Celebrities like Paris Hilton, the Kardashians, and Honey Boo Boo  are not particularly gifted in actions other than commanding our attention and accumulating wealth. We know more about athletes’ contracts and salaries than we do about their statistics on the field. It is now as important to be the highest paid player as it is to have the most passing yards, home runs, shots on goal, or won/loss percentage.  This appears to reflect the value system of our society in general. Those who have the capital command the respect. Capitalists have so devalued the labor of our fellow Americans that their jobs are exported overseas where they can pay even less so that capital grows at a faster rate.

As you can imagine, this puts educators at a great disadvantage in earning and keeping public respect. We have never, as a group, been about having things. The fruit of our labors does not fill warehouses, power automobiles, heat homes, or satisfy that chocolate craving at the end of the day. We fill minds, power aspirations, kindle fires of enthusiasm and ambition, and satisfy the needs of children to feel loved, valued, and capable of meeting the challenges of the future.  We help parents, clergy, community leaders, and others willing to invest in the future, to shape people who aspire to DO things as much as to HAVE things.

If we still value the work that we do for each other, the communities that we build, the wounds that we heal, and the knowledge we accumulate, then teachers are essential to the future of this country. They deserve the return of the respect, in both financial and standing realms, to this honorable profession. Until we do so as a society, we will undervalue many, many people whose contributions are essential to our collective American dream.

Many of my friends and colleagues remain mystified by what has happened. For the most part, we haven’t changed. We still come in early and stay late. We carry piles of papers home and carry our students in our hearts. We haven’t gotten rich, and we’re not sure of the retirement plans we made when started out as novice teachers. We worry about health care, about students who come from unsafe neighborhoods and homes with empty cupboards.  We try to live the Marquette mission every day, to Be the Difference, all in a time the difference between what our fellow mortals feel we are worth and what we know we contribute to the students we love is as large as it has ever been.

Have a great summer, and I’ll see you on these pages in the fall.

By Joel O’Brien – 

For many, this period of transition is filled with uncertainty, anxiety, and excitement.  It was no different for me as I wrapped-up an undergraduate career filled with learning, relationship-building, and professional growth.  While graduation brought closure to my undergraduate experience, it also meant directing my full attention to the teaching job search, which had been in motion since February.

Throughout this blog, I will discuss three strategies for standing out during the job search process and earning interviews.

1)      Utilize Effective Language, Never Assume that Administrators Know Your Experiences

When reviewing teaching resumes, it is common to see words such as “worked, helped, and assisted.”  While these words do not seem harmful at first glance, they can be quite detrimental to candidates’ chances of being selected for an interview.  They do not allow administrators to see the skills developed and implemented by the educator in the classroom. Instead, consider utilizing strong action verbs such as led, managed, created, and collaborated, which provide specificity to skills demonstrated during an experience.

Similarly, remember that every other candidate applying for a teaching position has student taught. Do not assume simply including student teaching will make you standout. Consider incorporating items such as teaching strategies implemented, technology used, parental contact and involvement, and student assessment into your bullet points. Providing brief, but specific examples within your resume and cover letter is essential to developing the credibility necessary to earn an interview.

2)      Maintain Relationships with Mentors and Administrators
In his April 13^th Marquette Educator blog, Matt Olinski offers very sound advice about networking with administrators and collecting letters of recommendation. While it is crucial to establish relationships and obtain references from individuals that can speak positively and specifically to your skill sets and experiences, it is equally important to maintain these relationships both during and after the job search.

This could mean sending a monthly email or grabbing a cup of coffee to touch base and update your references and other contacts within your network. With this being said, never assume that networking will directly result in a job being handed to you, but it can significantly increase your chances of being selected for an interview, which is essential in a competitive job market.  Put yourself in the position of an administrator, would you be more likely to interview a candidate that you know only on paper or someone who you personally know their background and strong skill sets?

For individuals searching for teaching positions during the summer (like I did), it is crucial to make sure that you have the best contact information for each reference once the school year ends. For many references, home (cell) phone and address may be preferred over school contact information, make sure to ask their preference. It is difficult for someone to speak positively on your behalf if administrators are unable to reach them.  Most importantly, remember to thank references for their time and efforts, as they are not obligated to speak on your behalf, but voluntarily do so on their own time.

3)      Get Involved: Volunteering, Coaching, and Substitute Teaching
Despite being later in the semester, one of the best ways to positively stand out is through becoming involved within districts of interest. For those currently student teaching, the best opportunities may exist within your current school district. There are few things that an administrator values more than a candidate’s willingness to demonstrate initiative. It is irrelevant whether the opportunity is paid or unpaid. Rather focus on skills developed and demonstrated when describing experiences to administrators. Great opportunities exist through literacy and after school programs, music/art departments, athletics, etc.

For past graduates, substitute teaching is a great way to develop additional experience and versatility through teaching a variety of grade levels and subjects. Furthermore, substitute teaching can also be a great audition for anticipated full-time teaching openings. Occasionally, individuals gain long-term substitute teaching experience, which can occur for a variety of reasons (e.g., illness, maternity leave, etc.). These experiences allow teachers to instruct the same classes for extended periods of time and are great opportunities for building relationships with faculty and administrators while also gaining credibility within a building. In addition to versatility, these experiences show commitment to the school district and its mission.

Hopefully you find this information to be beneficial. If you have additional questions or are seeking career counseling, Marquette University students and alumni can schedule a career counseling appointment with the Marquette University Career Services Center (MUCSC) by calling (414) 288-7423.

Online resources for education majors are also available on the MUCSC Webpage.
Prior to pursuing his Master’s of Science degree in Student Affairs in Higher Education, Joel O’Brien taught American history and government while also coaching basketball and golf at a Catholic high school in Iowa. As a graduate student, he completed multiple practicum experiences in career services and academic advising while serving as a graduate assistant within academic support.  Upon finishing graduate school, Joel joined the Marquette University Career Services Center Staff. As a career counselor, he enjoys empowering students with the self-knowledge, skills, and tools necessary to take ownership of their career exploration and job search process, and find meaningful employment.

By Bill Henk –

It came and went with little public attention.  No hoopla.  No fanfare.  No fuss.  No pomp.  No circumstance.

A little blip on the radar screen.  If that.

In fact, all of National Teacher Appreciation Week so far hasn’t fared any better.

Such is the life of teachers in America.  It’s not like that everywhere. In the countries that enjoy international acclaim for their educational systems, teaching is a revered profession. That’s not a coincidence in my view.  Instead, back in the good old U. S. of A, teachers might rightfully lament, like the late comedian Rodney Dangerfield, “I don’t get no respect.  No respect at all.”

And that’s at the heart of my question about what’s wrong with national teacher appreciation.  My answer is short and sweet – it’s not nearly enough.  Not a day or a week or a month or a year or a decade of appreciation suffices.  We should honor teachers every day, every week, every month, every year – in perpetuity.

By contrast, nationally and within our own state, teachers have had to endure public vilification the past few years.  The media and others with reform agendas of questionable motivation and merit have portrayed teachers as inept, uncaring, lazy, and greedy.  One major result has been that significantly fewer young people of extraordinary promise choose teaching as a profession.  Why would they?  After all, they have options with far more earning potential, where they can enjoy some measure of — you guessed it – respect.

Advocating For Teachers

Recognizing that harsh reality, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Area Deans of Education (MMADE), a group I currently co-chair, decided to do its part in affirming teachers.  In our experience, the overwhelming majority of them aren’t anything at all like the way they’ve been depicted.  The teachers we know are smart, talented, dedicated, capable, passionate, caring, and hard-working educators.  Consequently, we felt that it was high time for someone else, especially a group like ours, to stand up for them.  They clearly deserve our respect and advocacy.

As a result, next year we will be hosting a special event on October 17th at the  University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee called “Celebrating Teachers and Teaching.”  We plan to make this gala an annual event.  This year’s theme is urban education.  Next year the event will be held at Alverno College with the theme of servant leadership, and then it will come to Marquette as a celebration of literacy.

In subsequent years all of our member institutions, a group that includes Cardinal Stritch University, Carroll University, Concordia University, MATC, Mount Mary College, and Wisconsin Lutheran College, will proudly take their turn hosting.  Among other things, attendees can expect an engaging keynote speaker and remarks from other local celebrities and dignitaries.

At the heart of the program will be teaching awards that honor graduates of our licensure programs at our institutions.   We will be giving one award to an early career teacher and five awards to those who are more experienced.  Each year we will seek nominations for candidates who graduated from our teacher preparation programs or completed licensure programs through those programs, and who teach in the metropolitan Milwaukee area.  We completed this first year’s solicitation recently by casting a wide net, which produced several nominations.  Now we look forward to the review process unfolding.

A Personal Wake-Up Call for Advoacy

Shifting gears to a personal and related note on teacher appreciation, I was squarely reminded last week of just how hard it is to be a teacher.  I volunteered to spend all of last Friday helping out at my daughter’s Catholic school (St. Mary’s in Hales Corners), and most of my service occurred in her first grade classroom.  I volunteered last year, too, and came home exhausted.  But I thought that was because I did a fair amount of atypical physical labor – mostly lugging library books from the first to the second floor, spending a lot of time on my feet doing bus and recess duty in the playground area, cleaning tables in the cafeteria, going up and down steps making deliveries– that kind of thing.

This year was different.  Audrey’s teacher, Ms. Cimpl, knew about my educational background and decided to put me to work doing — of all things — teaching.  The expectations were modest, and I welcomed them.  I read books to the kids, gave the spelling test, circulated to check their work, and did an honest-to-goodness lesson on nouns and adjectives.  Although I loved feeling my old teaching juices flowing and my once well-heeled instructional instincts kicking in, I felt the stress of everything I had to do to keep 27 precious first graders, with an endless supply of energy, engaged in their learning.

And guess what?  I went home twice as exhausted as last year!

So what should your takeaway about teacher appreciation be from this post?   Although it’s definintely been too little, it’s NOT TOO LATE.  Celebrate teachers!

By Sabrina Bong –

As I was walking down the hall to deliver some papers, two of my fifth grade students stopped me. One boy gawked at my injuries before saying, “Miss Bong, what happened to your leg?”

I explained to both boys that I had fallen off of my bike and scraped up my leg pretty well in the process. It was then that the other boy looked at me with a very serious expression on his face and said, “Miss Bong, you do know that you shouldn’t ride your bike in high heels, right?” (I wear high heels a lot at internship.) When I asked him why I would ride my bike in heels, he responded, “We all know you like your high heels.”

That conversation, in addition to being one of the funniest things I’d heard all week, really reminded me of my role at the school. After being a student for (gasp!) 19 years, I am most comfortable as “one of the crowd.” But now that I’m an adult (and almost a school counselor) I’ve become much more aware of the fact that the students absorb everything about me. I can casually comment to my classes that I am preparing to do a 25-mile bike ride, and then they ask me about how my training is each week. They ask about my weekends. They ask about my dog. It’s a totally different experience to be on the other side of the desk now. Plus, it makes me feel great that I have this kind of trusting, open relationship with my students!

Having that relationship also makes me really think about how I want to live my life. I see that, as an adult in the school, I have a lot of influence over my students. They look up to me. They notice what I do. They embrace my decisions and choose to do things that I have done. Once, I told my students that I kept a journal … and then the next week, half of them ran up to me to talk about the new journals they had started!

I had no idea that they had been listening so closely, or that what I did was suddenly the “cool” thing to do. Because of this, I want to be able to live a life that I am proud to share with them. I want to make smart decisions and show my students that you don’t need to have the newest gadget or most expensive shoes in order to be someone of worth. I didn’t realize that I have the ability, as an intern, to heavily influence what they do or how they see themselves. It’s an incredibly humbling experience.

Of course, knowing this also makes me a little sad. The end of the school year is approaching, as is the end of my time at both the elementary and middle schools. I have slowly begun prepping my students for the fact that I will not be at their school next year. But as sad as it is, I also am excited for what the future has to hold!

Here it is, Finals Week and the end of another great semester. We know your brains are overworked this week, so how ’bout an easy question?

What year did Dean Henk get his Ed.D. degree?

Claim your chance to win by leaving the correct answer in the comments section below anytime today between 7am – 6pm. And don’t be afraid to play, even if someone has already posted the right answer! One winner will be randomly selected from ALL correct answers after the close of business and announced the following day.  The winner will be posted on our Facebook page and notified by email.  Please note that you must have a valid email address listed in your comment or WordPress profile to win.

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How much do YOU know about Marquette University and the College of Education? Test your knowledge every Tuesday during Tuesday Trivia!

Let me explain.

Suli Breaks, Spoken Word Artist from England, posted a video “Why I Hate School but Love Education” that quickly went viral, nearing the 3 million hits and showing no signs of slowing.

I encountered his video a few days ago when Justin, a high school junior and a former student of mine, emailed to me, explaining: “This describes exactly how I feel about my education.”

The video left me speechless with its heart-heavy indictment of public education. I replied to Justin, coaxing him to explain, which resulted in a lengthy response (“probably the most [I've] ever written,” he reminded me, with a smirk, in the hallway at school).

I then posted the video on my AP English Facebook page with Justin’s tagline: “This is exactly how I feel about my education,” asking my AP English Students (current and former) if they felt the same, which inspired a lengthy Facebook post from Domonic, another former student of mine, currently a college freshman.

Therein lies the genesis of this blogpost: “The Tale of Two Scholars.” Having received their permission to post,  I will now get out of the way, posting their full responses and allowing  students (the most important, most authentic, and least heard critics of education) to speak:

Justin  (High School Junior)

When I was in Waldorf all I wanted was to get out and go to a public high school, but once I started in a public school I hated it and knew that I would be better off in a Waldorf high school. As I look back on my Waldorf education, it was so hands-on and let individuals grow in their own, creative way. In the Waldorf school I was Justin… I was a character… people knew my for who I truly was. In high school I feel more like a number, a letter, a score on a piece of paper that classifies who I am, what classes I can take, and where my future path leads.

 School has been nowhere near what it should have been. If you ask me what I learned today I would most likely tell you something that I learned from one of my peers or read online…not something I learned from my teachers. I am so uninterested in what they are teaching because all I focus on is that I need to pass my next test so I get good grades and can go somewhere with my life in the future. And that’s not what I want my future to be based upon. I am more than that test grade I get at the end of the semester. School should challenge you in ways you want to be challenged; it should still teach you a little of everything but in a way that you can relate to and benefit from.

The solution is that the world needs to wake up and realize that we are the next generation, it is up to them to pass on their life lessons. Also much smaller classes with a much more hands on learning environment. They need to teach us that we are individuals, not just numbers or grades. They need to let us be us without trying to influence our ways. They need to teach us to excel to the greatest WE can be not to the class average. 

Domonic  (College Freshman)

I had a job interview the other day for a summer legal research position. The attorney was telling me about how other attorneys frequently come to him when they’re stuck on a case because he truly believes that there is a way to win every case. For this reason, he told me, he hated specialization and considered it a limitation because someone “may be very good in one area, but if [he’s] in the courtroom with them, [he] will be able to, at some point, out flank them in an area that’s not” their specialty, but still relevant case law.”

I truly believe that all knowledge is power; trivial historical facts may one day help me win a legal case. The Pythagorean Theorem may assist me to…build a garden in my backyard. So to say that students shouldn’t need to learn the details of the Great Compromise or the proper interactions of sine, cosine and tangent, is never something that I’ve personally thought or believed in. Who knows what purpose that knowledge will one day serve in their professional or private lives?  But, at the same time, that’s not to say that knowledge that isn’t taught won’t also serve them well. Certainly the educational system can and should improve in areas that are perhaps more relevant to today’s youth, but I don’t believe that should come at the expense of other basic knowledge. And while I acknowledge I am biased, because I never have believed in memorizing things for a test simply to forget them (because I do believe “it” could one day help me),.

I truly, truly, truly, truly believe the key to fixing this educational “gap” is so much more complex than just the educational system itself (which could also use some work). Why aren’t American students as inspired…no, as driven to succeed as they once were? Why aren’t they going home at night and studying what they’re passionate about, like students in other countries who are academically surpassing us? Even if it’s just reading Wikipedia pages on history or science or law or engineering or journalism, this is gaining vast amounts of knowledge.

So, three things we need to do:

1. Get American youth reading again (not tweets, rather books, or even Wikipedia articles if they must)
2. Re-instill the desire to succeed through their own passion for personal interests outside of school (or in school through EXTRA-CURRICULARS, Problem Based Learning, Independent Study, etc.)
3. Bring those basic facts that will serve them in God knows what capacity in the future, to the point where they’re not cramming them in, but learning them for life. Use things like increased PBL (FrankenTrial anyone?) (also applicable in #2), a redevelopment of the testing system with broader exams on wider amounts of course material, and real world applications (design your dream home using these geometric principles, defend a high profile supreme court case with precedents from historic cases) with the understanding that it may not help them/us be a graphic artist, electrician, engineer, accountant, etc., but it’ll sure help you be a better one, and a better, more rounded person.

Create the hunger.  Feed the hunger.  Fuel the hunger.

Final Thoughts:

I hold Justin and Domonic in high regard. Both are good-natured, intelligent, dynamic young men. And while their thoughts about the education they have received from the same community and same school district differ greatly, they represent points on the spectrum of the diverse student body all educators serve.  As such we must acknowledge the integrity with which they speak, the voices they represent, the songs they sing, the deficiencies they decry.

For the Sulis, the Justins, the Dominics, we have much work to do.

By Matt Olinski –

I often think that I should keep a pad of paper at the ready to write down all the thoughts that keep me awake at night.

The most recent idea came to me as I was driving back from Raynor library and reflecting on my day and my choice to take the final graduate level course to complete a second master’s degree. Half of my cohort finished their graduate program last semester, but I chose to continue for another term to earn that Marquette degree.

It is a lot of work to be sure. It involves writing a complex research paper. But,  I do not have regrets.  Certainly, I could have gotten my principal’s certificate last semester as well, without finishing an additional degree. But,  I take pride in the challenge of this degree program and I want to finish the race.

I  also do not think I am a hero for making this choice. Rather, I believe there are many in the education field who like to rise to the challenge. Part of why we’re teachers is that we like to learn.   It is what makes us take so seriously the lessons we’ve learned both in the university classroom, and hopefully the life lessons we’ve learned while practicing our craft.

I work in a large school with many different personalities. I really cannot think of one colleague in my school who doesn’t enjoy the learning process.  There might be some who struggle with certain concepts more than others, but the continuous pursuit of knowledge is a quality that successful educators inherently possess. I think it is what draws many of us to this profession.

So I drive home late at night after a long day of work, and then a long day of class, with some time in the library after… and I am drained, and my daughter has long since been put to bed (a portion of my life I do not enjoy missing)…

But, the feeling of accomplishment from advancing my understanding of the education field still makes me smile.

The fact is, it’s just been one of those weeks where the silver linings have been hard to find.

As I get bombarded with the work of submitting licensure applications in two states, applying for jobs, asking for letters of recommendation, tweaking my resume and cover letters. I am also planning a unit plan, getting observed, up to my eyeballs in grading, and planning for the following week.

While this is a typical week in the life of any student teacher, the added difficulties of nice weather, all of my friends completing their undergraduate careers, and missing out on senior week activities are weighing on me. While this is an inevitable tragedy in any Marquette Education students senior career, the added bonus of my students being off the walls this week has absolutely drained me….and it is only Wednesday.

While they are cute, sweet, loveable first graders, the constant back talk, tattling, and tantrums have been to an all time high this week.

So, why am I still going back instead of faking a rare disease?

Because while I feel like I am loosing my mind and my sanity- I still miss it on the weekends…call me crazy.

The silver lining pushing me through?

• Being in the home stretch of my college career
• The “ah-ha” moment I see when a student understands a concept we have been working on for weeks
• The pride in the student’s eyes, face, and body language when they read their writing aloud to the class
• The joyful thrill of reaching the epitome of a days perfect behavior- super student- and receiving a piece of candy.

While all of my friends are wrapping their semesters up Friday, I wrap mine up in June. But, while that extra six weeks might seem daunting when I glance at it in my planning book, I know that, in reality, it will fly right by.

Better pay attention while it lasts.