Hello All! I’ve been reading your posts about the Pepper meeting on Thursday… WOW, yes, we are faced with all kinds of issues heh? I met with one of my friends last night for coffee; she teaches Math. It’s incredible the different issues that surface within English that don’t with the other content areas. I’d like to think that it’s because students explore their hearts and lives in our classrooms, and despite the amazing things we learn with them, it’s a huge responsibility. You’ve all given me much to think about. I know Thursday was a valuable experience for me too. I do occasionally email back and forth with my students, but I always sign my emails Ms. Triplett. Once, one of the Peppers wrote “Yo, Amanda-” in an email, and I knew I could not respond. I spoke with the student in class and said something like, “If you have questions about group, class, or you want to send me an attachment of a new story/poem to read at home, no problem, but we are not friends. I’m sorry. I’ll always be friendly, and I care about you but email is only for something that needs to be handled relating to group or class that can’t wait until we see each other.” It hasn’t changed my relationship with this student at all. Also, one day I came into class and one of the Peppers was sitting in my chair at my desk, drawing on my desk calendar. I joked but got the point across, “Okay… queenie. You’ve taken over as teacher?” She said, “No. I’m not planning to teach.” I said, “Good, remember you are the student. I am the teacher.” We laughed, but the point was made. It’s difficult, because when you are able to connect well with students and they crave to be loved so, you have to be so careful that they don’t misinterpret anything you say or do. I’m constantly replaying a conversation in my head with a student or a situation. I do let kids come to my room to work on writing after school or during study halls and sometimes during a planning period if they have a study hall, but I always keep my door open, and I often encourage a couple of people to come, instead of just one. Nobody really teaches you these things before you begin teaching, and most teachers are more removed than I am from this closeness. It’s a fine line. And, if you are innocent like I feel I’ve been with no history of family abuse, sexual abuse, etc. you don’t always think of behavior through a critical lens.
Okay, so with the Peppers. I’ve been thinking. I’ve never done this before either, so I’m learning with all of you. I’m going to speak to my Principal and department chair on Monday, but I think until we speak about it again that we should not email individually with students. I know we spoke about it last week, and then I didn’t really think about the positions you could be put in through email without either Karen or I being able to help. I think that if we set up a class blog… and Kaitlin, I hope you will help me this week.. that we as a group could share all of the same things on email, and Karen and I can be there for support. Kaitlin- can you shoot me an email at grits_gone_north@yahoo.com and give me your information? Also, I spoke to Theresa’s group about the writer’s notebook. During student teaching, when I worked in a school split by a magnet program… where half of the school was mainly poor minority students and half was mainly affluent Caucasian students… I partnered students from my gifted class with my struggling learners from the “other” class and had them write back and forth in a journal. It was amazing, because the journal was passed through me, and I could read the entries and initial them. I sometimes added my own work in their journals and my comments. They seemed to love it! This was safer than email. I know Theresa has started a journal with Megan, and I read it before passing it to Megan on Friday. If we did this, met together once a week and shared on the blog, I think we would be safe and connected. Any thoughts on this? Like I said, I will check with the Principal and Brian Bosch, our English chair, to make sure that we are all safe.
Thank you all so much for your enthusiasm and your presence in our group. Our kiddos are feeling very empowered by this. I’ve already received some emails from people who missed last week inquiring about their mentors. This is a good thing, and we’ll make mistakes this first time, so let’s keep talking with each other. You are going to be wonderful teachers! It’s not easy, but we are changing lives… really!
Oh, and for those of you who are more serious about writing and want to meet on the every other Monday at the Blue Frog from 3-4:30pm, the group who made the Advanced Peppers is:
Tori, Ian, Demmarie, Alyssa, Sarah W., Sarah F., Kiara W., Danica O.
Let me know. We’re meeting tomorrow at 3pm and then again in 2 weeks. We’ll also meet over the summer. Take care!! -Amanda 
