Testing My Confidence on Day One!

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This week, McGraw-Hill Education posted my guest blog, Feeling Like a Fraud as a Teacher: Reconciling with Your Abilities and Gaining Confidence in Your Own Teaching. In the blog, I disclosed some of my insecurities as a Spanish teacher and shared how I overcame them.

On today, the first day of school for teachers, my confidence was hilariously put to the test.

Our school's new Spanish teacher lived in Japan for seven years. When a colleague introduced him another teacher who speaks English, Spanish and Japanese (yes, we have kick-butt teachers at our school!), the new teacher greeted her in Spanish, then started going!

I'd been anxious to hear the new teacher's Chilean accent, but my mouth dropped when he started speaking. In my head I was thinking: Oh, crap! I can't understand a thing he's saying! This is NOT going to go well for me!

Turns out he was speaking Japanese!  Whew! Who knew Japanese could sound anything like Spanish?

We all had a good laugh at my expense.

(And yes, by the way, I can understand his Spanish!)

Worrying less, praying more: Feeling powerless as a parent

Despite the endless amount of energy and worrying that we pour into our children, we still have moments when we feel absolutely powerless. Or maybe I should speak for myself: I have moments when I feel powerless.

For example, I feel like I'm constantly fighting to impress upon them the importance of screen-free time. And I don't feel like I'm winning that fight. Yes, I can snatch a cell phone or turn off the WiFi. But a big part of me wants my children to want to experience life outside of their devices. I want them to enjoy reading books and magazines, going outside and finding something to do, playing board games and doing other creative activities.

Bullying is another area that has stripped many parents of their power. I heard a mom friend recently express that seeing your child hurting and knowing you can't do anything about it is the worst feeling in the world.

My third biggest day-to-day worry is totally out of my control: the state of our country and world. Racism, drug abuse, sex trafficking, terrorism ... I could go on and on. It's enough to make a parent throw up their hands in defeat.

This is one of those topics that I wish I had my mom around to discuss. While the details of our parental worries have likely changed in the past few decades, I'm sure worrying itself has not. I think about how crazy it must have made my mother for me to go out for hours and hours -- with no cell phone -- in a community where age-appropriate activities were scarce and violence was commonplace. Although she can no longer tell me how she coped, I am confident that I know exactly what she would say. She would tell me that she prayed.

Prayer. It's the parenting tool that I know I should keep sharpened, but that I admittedly do not utilize consistently. In my busyness as a working mom in this fast-paced culture, I run and run, not taking the time I should to present my worries to the only One capable of handling them. Yes, I pray daily. But if I compared the amount of time I spend praying for my children with the amount of time I spend worrying, I'm sure worrying would win.

I need to change this, not only for myself and my own sanity, but, more importantly, for my children. I wonder where I would be today -- who I would be today -- had it not been for the prayers of my mom, dad and others who cared. Looking back at some of the situations I walked away from, I am thoroughly convinced that God's angels protected me. And I strongly believe those angels were dispatched as a result of prayer.

My plan to pray more for my children includes the following:

• Just pray. In the words of the Nike slogan, just do it. 
• Build your skills. A search for "praying for your children" will result in more resources than you can imagine. How to Pray for Your Children by Mark Batterson is a great article  with specific strategies on how to pray.
• Write your prayers. For me, personally, I find that writing my prayers in a journal also keeps me focused. So, I'm going to grab a blank journal and designated it for this purpose.
• Read other people's prayers. Pray the prayers of others. I'm sure God will listen to them, even if you didn't write them yourself. I ordered The Power of a Praying Mom (you can order from the affiliate link below), and I plan to use it to help me stay on track.

The Power of a Praying® Mom by Stormie Omartian

The Power of a Praying® Parent by Stormie Omartian

How do you pray for your children? What strategies and resources do you use? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. Let's encourage each other to keep our kids lifted in prayer.

Why Teachers Work in the Summer

In case you didn't know, teachers don't get paid over the summer. I find myself needing to remind people of this frequently, when they start talking about how teachers have it made this time of year.

In my county, teachers are 10-month employees. Most of the teachers I know opt to have their paychecks spread out over 12 months, in order to keep getting a check during the summer.

Let me say something else about Howard County, Maryland. It has listed among the 10 riches counties in the country. But keep in mind that the cost of living in one of the riches counties is a lot higher than in other places. Yet, teacher salaries here are not the highest in the country.

Trust me, I am not complaining. Just pointing out that some of us can't afford to just chill all summer.

In the past, NerdyTeacherMom has taken the summers off for several reasons.

First, I was too fried to do anything else. Usually, by the end of the year, I have absolutely no motivation or energy. I typically plan to work throughout the summer, to alleviate the workload during the school year, but I end up am too pooped to touch anything related to teaching.

The second reason I have not worked during the summer was that my daughters were too young. I realized that any money I earned would immediately be handed over to the camps I'd have to put them in while I worked. So, my summer job, in essence, was running mommy camp. And believe me, this was work. I typically planned an itinerary that included a morning activity, lunch, afternoon activity, and dinner.

The girls are older and fend for themselves for a few hours. And NerdyTeacherMom could stand to pay off some bills. So I approached this summer with a plan to find work.

Most people think Summer School is an easy option for teachers. I did, too, until I applied this year and did not get the job. Turns out, summer school teachers don't want to give up their jobs. The hours and money are pretty good, I hear. My county didn't need another Spanish teacher this summer. When I got the news, I was too stunned to even ask if there was something else I could do, or to seek a position in another district. So, no summer school for me.

When the topic came up in a Facebook group of teachers, I realized that teachers all over the country are working during the summer. Some of the teachers posted that they drive Uber or paint houses. Others work as on-line tutors, teaching English to students in China and other countries. I know teachers who have summer gigs in retail and at concert venues. Teachers are getting it in!

One advantage of having worked outside of education is my ability to remember that there is life outside of the school walls. (Okay, I remember this sometimes!) So, for some fresh ideas, I went to YouTube and searched for tutorials on "side hustles." Gotta love YouTube! I found more than I could watch. But what inspired me most were the ones related to writing. In the past, I've blogged about how much I've always loved to write. (And how difficult it is for me to just sit down and do it!)

I've decided to make my side hustle something that I love: writing. I'm not sure how much I'll make, but I'll enjoy the process.

I've gotten my feet wet with my first Kindle ebook, Fun Activities for Spanish Club Meetings, a compilation of games, crafts and other activities teachers can do with their Spanish Club students during the school year. .

Happy Summer!

How to thank your child's teacher (and not look like a suck-up)

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A parent recently asked NerdyTeacherMom for advice on how to get her daughter's teachers to think of her favorably as they wrap up their grading for the year.

If you don't have a child in high school, you might not see the big deal. But for those of us with high school students, we know (or will soon understand) how significant quarter grades are. In my district, quarter grades, along with midterm and final exam grades, are averaged into the overall grade earned for the course. This final grade is what is used to calculate the grade point average (GPA). The GPA, of course, helps position students for more competitive colleges and scholarships.

I asked mom who her daughter's teachers were. I figured I could give her some hints on what those teachers might like. But when she named colleagues who I actually don't know well, I was forced to give her question some more thought.

As much as I, personally, would love to walk into the summer armed with gift cards to Starbuck's, Target and Dunkin Donuts (or anywhere else -- I'm not picky), I have to admit that I would wonder about the motives behind an influx of such affection. In our district, we are allowed to accept gift valued at $20 or less. But teachers of integrity aren't going to show favor (or even grace) to a child solely on the promise of a cappuccino. In fact, such a suck-up gift might actually have an adverse affect:

What kind of teacher would I be if I bumped up Mary's grade just because her parents gave me a gift card when Marsha's parents may have wanted to but couldn't afford it? Now I definitely can't bump up Mary's grade.

And, coming from a teacher, one of the easiest ways to become a pesky parent is to act like you are entitled to everything you want -- from unlimited amounts of teacher time and attention to the grades you think your child should get.

I decided on two pieces of advice.

First, write a note of gratitude. Acknowledge the teacher's hard work and sacrifices of time. Tell the teacher something that he or she has done to help your child grow. Be sincere. Put it on paper. Keep it short and simple.

Second, talk to your daughter. Tell her that with one week left of instruction, finish strong. Tell her to put her phone away in class for the last week of school. (Let her know that you know this is not an easy thing to do and that you know other students will have theirs out.) Tell her that when teachers see students using phones in class, they make assumptions about how much those students care. Fair or unfair, I view students who put their phones away during class as much more serious and dedicated to learning then those who don't.

Since mom's question was ultimately about how to influence her daughter's teachers to think favorable about her, I encouraged her to urge her daughter to create positive, hard-working images of herself finishing out the year as a motivated learner.

I would venture to say that most teachers are pretty easy to figure out and to please. We want people to acknowledge that we sacrifice a lot of our personal time, money and energy. (Some of us even wake up in the middle of the night thinking about your child!)  For most teachers, a verbally acknowledge from parents is sufficient. And while students can tell us, too, their showing us -- through being cooperative and respectful and treating our classes as if they are valuable -- is what touches us most.

Rethinking the Mommy Blog

Finally, I'd created a blog and started writing about topics that were both easy and fun to talk about. I'd sit at my computer, and the thoughts would flow easily. Writing about my younger daughter's elementary school antics, with a few mentions of my middle schooler sprinkled in, had me mapping out my plan to deal with the popularity that would surely come from becoming a well known blogger.

Then it happened. My older daughter started high school. And not only did she start high school, but she started 9th grade at the high school where I teach. What more could a NerdyTeacherMom ask for? I was convinced that I would have enough material for a daily blog entry. And I did, in fact.

Except I couldn't bring myself to write about any of it.

Publicly reflecting on my child's academic shake-ups, social dramas, and physical and emotional insecurities just didn't sit well with me. Every time I thought about writing, the idea of me -- her mother -- putting her business out there for the world to read (not to mention the kids at school) made me feel extremely self-centered. I wondered if I'd be pimping my own kid for some views. Would I become a shameless, opportunistic, reality-TV-type mom?

When I couldn't bring myself to write about other topics -- my teaching, my own personal struggles, my interactions with students, their parents and colleagues, I knew I'd hit a wall. I almost out-and-out deleted NerdyTeacherMom.

But part of me still wants to write. So instead of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, I'm rethinking this blog and what I intend to accomplish by writing. I've decided to view my girls' experiences as inspiration, when appropriate. In the meantime, I'll need to be more creative and dig deeper within to find material that will motivate and inspire. And if I fall short of motivating and inspiring, perhaps I'll simply help a few others realize that they're not alone trying to balance the draining, yet fulfilling duties required of working parents.