All posts by Dana Huff

English Department Chair/English teacher, doctoral candidate at Northeastern University, reader, writer, bread baker, sometime soapmaker, amateur foodie. Wife and mom of three.
Teaching Writing, Technology

Wiki Update

I mentioned some time ago that my 9th graders were going to create hypertext writing assignments based on The Bean Trees. They have revised and edited essays about an important place. You can read their work if you visit our Bean Trees Wiki and click on their pages. You will find they have chosen four quotes that illustrate place, characters, metaphor/theme, and the essence of the novel. If you click their links to place, you can read their descriptions. If you would like to leave comments on their work, you can address them to the students here. For security reasons, I prefer not to have our password available to folks outside our school community. I will share any comments you make with the students.

By the way, my five-year-old daughter Maggie is blogging.  Check her out!

Uncategorized

My Classroom

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I took some pictures of my classroom in our new building.

This is the view outside my window:

Outside View

As you can see, we still have some construction going on.  You can see a piece of the baseball field.  The building is our gym, which is still under construction.  It doesn’t look as pretty through my camera as it does when I look out, but I have pretty view of the hills and trees.

This is my desk:

My Desk

I was lesson planning.  Ms. George, can you see my Jim Burke Teacher’s Daybook under the curriculum unit book?

This is the view toward the front of the room from my desk.  You can see my projection screen, which is pulled down over my SMART Board.

Front of Room

This last picture is a view of the back of the room, including my then-empty bulletin board, student desks, and book shelves.  This was is kind of blurry.

Back of Room

Isn’t everything shiny?

Blogging

In the Swing

First of all, I want to thank the folks who link to me in spite of the fact that I don’t update as much as I’d like.  I did what some might consider a foolish thing and compartmentalized several of my interests across four different blogs, and the end result is no single one of them gets updated enough.

That said, We have been back at school for a week now, and I’m getting in the the swing of things again.  I love the new building we have.  It is the realization of a dream and a lot of hard work that others did, but I am glad to reap some of the benefit.  On Friday, contractors set up my projector, so now I always have a way to show what’s on the computer.  I just need to figure out how to use the SMART Board I asked for and we’re set.

I really like my classes this year, and on Monday I have to remember to thank my principal for her infinite wisdom in seeing that I needed to teach more 9th grade than 10th grade this year.  Not that there is anything wrong with the 10th graders, but I’m enjoying my 9th graders so much that I’m happy to be their teacher.  They’ll get all embarrassed if they find this post, but I just want to pinch their little cheeks.  And that is not to say I am not enjoying the seniors and sophomores that I am teaching this year, because I am.

We had Field Day on Friday, and I was on the Light Blue Team.  I did some things I shouldn’t have done, considering the shape I’m in, with the end result that I have been sore for two days, but I had a great deal of fun, and we WON!  Wooo!  Go Light Blue!  I would like to say that my successful shaving of a balloon clinched it, but really congratulations should go to my teammates who bravely won the pie-eating contest.  If someone has pictures, I’ll be sure to post.

Well, I have to get some things done for tomorrow.  Be sure to visit my personal blog, Much Madness is Divinest Sense tomorrow.  As a blogger for 2,996, my tribute to Eric Andrew Lehrfeld who perished at the World Trade Center on 9/11 will appear at 8:46 A.M.  I will post a reminder tomorrow.

Uncategorized

Moving In

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The Atlanta Jewish Times has a nice article about my school’s new building and campus.  It’s hard to describe my excitement when I entered the building this morning.  The last time I toured the school, it was decidedly unfinished, and I think I halfway wondered how on earth it would be transformed into a school by our September 5 start date.  I grew more anxious as pre-planning started and we were unable to get into the building to work on our classrooms.  Of course, our administration apologized profusely, and I realize it wasn’t their fault.  We finally got in, and yes, in order to be ready for school on Tuesday, that means I’ll be working over my Labor Day weekend, but considering I was at home for much of pre-planning, I can’t complain.

Our campus is gorgeous.  If you click the link to article, you can view pictures of the building.  Everything is new.  I received a brand new teacher’s desk and chair, two file cabinets, two shelves, 22 new student desks and chairs and…. cue drumroll… a SMART Board!  I am beyond excited about having this wonderful technological tool for my classroom.

I am on the third floor, and clearly the stairs will take some getting used to.  There are still some tell-tales signs that construction continues.  However, when I saw that all of the furniture from our old campus fit in one tiny section of our basement, I realized how much more space we would have.  Our old campus was composed entirely of modular units, and one could walk across the campus in about a minute.  I actually got lost in our new building today.

We have a beautiful faculty dining room.  Previously, we tried to squeeze around one table in the faculty workroom in order to eat together, but now, we will all fit, and there shouldn’t be any scrambling for chairs.  The students also have a beautiful cafeteria with kosher kitchen.  The new media center is absolutely gorgeous.  Our Learning Lab has real study carrels.  We used to cram into a closet-sized room for Learning Lab.

We all have our OWN classrooms.  For the last two years, I have shared a classroom with a wonderful friend and teacher, and part of me will miss having so much interaction with her.  However, our floating teachers were most grateful for their own rooms, and I know having my own space will be nice.

This morning at our faculty meeting, we celebrated as our headmaster arrived, dressed in a tux (as was our Judaics head) and playing his accordian, and some of the braver teachers (not me) actually got up and participated in Israeli dancing through the media center.  It was so much fun to be a part of.  I felt kind of silly just sitting there, beaming (and clapping along with the accordian), but we were all so excited and happy.  I really enjoyed sharing that moment with my colleagues.

What is really going to be cool is when the students come on Tuesday and get their first look at their newly completed school.  I wouldn’t have missed today for the world, and I can’t wait to see what the students think on Tuesday.  I wish you all could have seen it.  It was just amazing.

P.S. Check out the award-winning video our students created.  That’s my principal in the green sweater.

Issues

UGA: Party School

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An article in today’s AJC discusses UGA‘s growing intolerance of the university’s reputation as a “party school.”

A week into the new semester, as students hit the bars as well as the books, it’s clear how tough it could be to change a social culture critics say is built around booze.

First, came articles on drinking in the campus newspaper that administrators found too glib. Then, there was a flap over coupon books given to students as they bought textbooks that included ads for alcohol specials and bail bondsmen. That was followed by national publicity about the university making another list of top party schools.

UGA has been trying to turn around its image for some time. I vaguely recall an embarrassing lawsuit brought by a student some years back over lack of academic rigor in a class that was designed for student athletes. I can’t find a reference to it online, but that’s probably because I can’t recall her name. UGA gradually increased SAT scores required for incoming freshman in an effort to attract the best and brightest. It still hasn’t successfully shed its image as a party school. The Princeton Review voted it the 12th biggest party school — 10th in hard liquor consumption and 8th in a list where “students (almost) never study.”

I remember well what it was like to go to school on the beer-drenched campus of UGA. I never have been a big drinker, and I admit to finding the alcohol culture at UGA distressing. In my Music Appreciation class, the classmate who sat next to me showed up to a morning class still drunk from the night before. He smelled absolutely awful — like a mixture of hard liquor and vomit. He was so drunk I was afraid he was going to vomit right there in the classroom or perhaps even pass out.

I lived in Reed Hall, right next to Sanford Stadium. On game days, it was awful. Folks tailgated all over the campus. After the game, the alley between Reed and the stadium was littered with the beer cups. It was an appalling lack of respect for the students who lived there, in my opinion. I don’t know why folks couldn’t be troubled to throw away their cups. The alley smelled of beer for what seemed like days afterward.

UGA is trying to curb tailgating, and I hope they are successful, but if I know UGA alumni, I imagine they’re raising hell about new restrictions on when and where they can tailgate.

In days past, the joke was that if you slowed down as you drove through Athens, they threw a diploma in your car. Nowadays, UGA must be proud of its growing reputation as a research university and Public Ivy, and I think they are taking steps to put the their party image behind them:

  • Asking the media to stop calling the Georgia-Florida football game as “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party”
  • Tightened policies on game-day tailgating, including setting up family-friendly alcohol-free areas
  • Approved an online alcohol awareness course
  • Announced that parents will be notified of students’ drinking violations
  • Begun assigning first-time violators of drinking laws to an alcohol awareness class and placing them on probation
  • Announced that violators already on probation will be suspended
  • Started sending violators to the county jail for booking and requiring them to post bond before being released
  • Held a town hall meeting with football coach Mark Richt
  • Announced plans for a new center for alcohol awareness and education

I do hope that UGA can fix their image. Overall, I enjoyed my experiences there, but I will admit that the drinking culture really did curtail my appreciation for the school at times.