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Today - by KT Chen

8/26/2019

Today is the first day of my third semester of graduate school. -- I have 5 English classes left for my English masters. I have 10 history classes left for my History masters. Should all things go as I hope, those numbers will be 3 English and 8 History classes remaining in December.

Today is the last day I will have to write anything for my fiction workshop class tomorrow night. I volunteered to submit my work first because I'm trying to force myself to actually get some more writing done. I will spend tomorrow doing edits. I am turning in work on two separate books, which I hope will help me decide if I wish to pursue them to completion.

Today is supposed to be thunderously rainy and slightly chilly. I wish the weather would have picked a different day to be cold, wet, and sloppy. My dog's hips have been bothering him and I've been using a wagon to get him outside so he can do his business. The rain is just going to make that all the more onerous.

Today is the 15th day I will work out this month (out of 26 days), and the 131st day I have worked out this year (out of 238 days). One of my goals this year was to work out at least half the days of the year, and, so far, I'm exceeding that goal. (It hasn't been easy).

Today will be a great and productive day, because I will work to make it so.

Go forth and write!

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New Ideas - by KT Chen

8/19/2019

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One of my history classes supplied me with a syllabus, and I have been hard at work reading through the books assigned for the first week and starting the second week's material. (Classes don't start for another week yet, so I'm ahead. For now).

The history class covers colonial history (1500's) through Reconstruction (1877).

I *love* this era of history.

The first week's readings were a crawl. Lots of information about space and how the Native Americans and the colonists had very differing views of space and its use. It was interesting, but dry. Sahara Desert dry.

The second week (so far) has been about the relationships the Native Americans had with the various colonial entities (Spain, England, and France). More my speed and it was much faster to read.

Of course, now I'm circling back to the historical fiction story I've been kicking around for ages. The reading has given me some new facts and a few ideas.

Go forth and write!

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Sometimes - KT Chen

8/12/2019

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I have this idea for a story that, if I write it how I imagine it, it will stretch my own beliefs of the depths of human evil.

I am hesitant to write it, because it puts race and gender at the forefront of evil.

And yet, I believe there is a value in telling such a story. Even if it is hard for me to write.

So, go write the stories in your heart. Even the hard ones.

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Advice for New Teachers - by KT Chen

8/5/2019

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For those entering the teaching profession this August, I wanted to share a few of the best pieces of advice that I ever received from a master teacher:

1. To be successful, you have to like kids, or teens, or young adults, or adults, or seniors, or whoever it is that you are teaching.

Don't misunderstand me, you are not going to like all kids (or teens, or young adults, or whoever), all the time. You are going to (eventually) have preferences on which grade(s) and age(s) you like teaching the best (and it may not be what you think, pre-actual teaching). However, you do have to have a genuine like of who you are going to be teaching, even before you've met them.

If you don't like the population you are teaching, what are you doing in this profession?

2. The best teachers have a good rapport with their students.

You know the type: they are strict, but somehow fun; they have high expectations, but somehow instill the belief in every student that they can meet and even exceed those expectations; their students are engaged; their students are encouraged to think and explore ideas and arguments; and, perhaps most importantly, their students know who to go to if they need help.

Relationships are built over time. These teachers begin on the first day of class to build relationships of trust, honesty, and openness with their students. They are not to proud to say, "I don't know, but i'll find out," and they aren't too rigid to say, "This activity isn't going as planned, let's talk about why." Students need to see their teachers as people, preferably people who are fair, truthful, compassionate, and fallible.

3. New teachers need good mentors.

Most schools have some sort of mentor set-up. New teachers (brand new, or new to the school) are assigned someone that's supposed to help and support them. -- In some cases, the person assigned is awesome. In other cases, not so much.

There are two types of mentors: procedural and content. In some cases, they can be the same person.

Procedural mentors can tell you what you need to do in a given situation. Who to talk to, where to find things, and what to do is their forte. A good one will be able to tell you what the exact rules are, and how to apply them to what you are wanting to do. A bad one will tell you what they'd do with no mention of the rules and shrug if you get slapped on the wrist for breaking the rules. Find a good one.

Content mentors are masters of teaching your grade / age / subject. They can guide a new teacher through common pit-falls, curriculum muck-ups, and content questions. These teachers have a deep knowledge of their area of expertise, have seen just about everything there is to see, and are passionate about what they do. Find one, even if you have to go outside of your school to do it. They are an invaluable resource with an amazing bag of tricks to mine.

4. Have procedures and not rules.

A procedure lays out a way of doing things: what to do when students first get in the door, how to hand in papers, how to ask to go to the bathroom, how to ask for help, how to get classroom supplies, how to line up at the door, how to be properly dismissed when the bell rings, and so forth. Every single action that could happen in a classroom needs a procedure on how to handle it.

Why not rules? Because they are made to be broken.

Students sometimes see rules as challenges for what they want to try to get away with. If you make a rule that says they can't "shoot" paper wads at the trashcan from their seats, someone, at some point, is going to do that. If you say, our procedure is to walk paper wads to the trash, if a student "shoots" one from their seat, you can say, "That's not the appropriate procedure for getting trash to the trashcan, how about we practice that?" and then you can have them get up, retrieve it, sit down, get back up, and walk it to the trash, because, obviously, they need help remembering the procedure. You can't break a procedure, you can, however, practice it until you get it right.

5. Have fun.

Seriously. If you are all draggy and curmudgeon about what you are doing, the students are going to reflect that. And yes, not everything is fun, and you can be upfront with students about those times as well. However, you should enjoy what you are doing, and the students should be able to see that.

Best wishes to all the new teachers out there!

Go forth and write!

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Today - by KT Chen

New Ideas - by KT Chen

Sometimes - KT Chen

Advice for New Teachers - by KT Chen

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