Youth is not Wasted On the Young...

Recently, a young lady asked me if I was jealous of her because she was half my age.  It took all patience and God-Loving Control not to slap her.

 Instead, I bit my tongue for five seconds and said,  "No, I'm in the best part of my life"


 I know my husband loves me.
  I have two lovely daughters.
 Never again will I have to worry about morning sickness, first job interviews, or what I want to be when I grow up. 
I have my dream job, dream man, and dream home.
 I've lived through my mother's cancer, my sister's cancer, and my daughter's broken neck.
And I never want to live through that again...
I have the confidence of a forty-year-old woman,
and I'm not foolish enough to think I know it all.
I have read enough teen journal entries in my life to know
that I don't want to go back there.
And I'm honored to know that I can be a comfort to these students.

"Am I jealous that I'm old enough to be your mother?  No.  I'm a forty-year old woman.  I'm proud."

Someone Who Matters- Mrs. Amy Christianson

This morning one of my childhood friends called me and said that she saw a past English teacher at Kmart in Grand Forks this morning. She couldn't remember her name, but I did immediately. "It was Mrs. Christianson - Amy Christianson. She's the reason I became an English teacher. Did you tell her that Kurt, Tina, and I are English teachers because of her?"

I'll tell you what. Mrs. Christianson confirmed the idea to me that I was not dumb. I had her in 8th and ninth grade? Was that it? It was two years for sure. I remember I was pretty sad when she announced she was moving to Grand Forks. Pretty sad for us. It was a good thing for her.

My favorite things we did in her class included reading Romeo and Juliet, "The Cask of Amontillado," and The Outsiders. I loved it when mom would go to parent/teacher conferences and come back and reported how Mrs. C enjoyed having me in class. Imagine that? ME?? One time Mrs. C even told mom that I was a good writer. Hooray! My heart soared at the compliment.

Mrs. Christianson had awakened something in me to become a more caring person. I loved to hear her talk about literature and writing. I loved the smiley faces she left on my papers.

Last year, one of my friends asked me which of our English teachers I wished to be like. I told her Mrs. Christianson because she taught me when I was young and needed the encouragement. I had other great English teachers too, but Mrs. Christianson was the first to see me for me. Mrs. Christianson was the first teacher who really inspired me.

I looked her up and found the school where she teaches. I'm going to write her and tell her. Perhaps she'd like to know what a difference she made in at least one student's life.

Someone Who Matters - My Mr. G.

Whenever I see Mr. G., he says "Hello Bobbi G. How are ya?" Mr. G. was my 7th and 8th grade math teacher and my Spanish I and II teacher in senior high!
I suppose I will always be Bobbi G. to him. Sometimes, he laughs and says "Oh but your not Bobbi G. You're Mrs. Aakhus I suppose now!"

My dad said that Mr. G. was his favorite teacher because he never yelled. He was always soft spoken and kind. Mr. G. had been my dad's math teacher. He often told me how smart my dad was. I believed him.

Mr. G. goes to my church. Sometimes, if I haven't been to church in while and I finally go; Mr. G. will hug me and tell me he's missed me. IF THAT'S NOT A GUILT TRIP! But, it works!

It seems as though whenever I ask a high school friend who their favorite teacher was they almost always say Mr. G.

A fun post

I always get a kick out of reading Kurt's stuff. For one, we graduated together. We were classmates from the start. I'm not sure if we were in kindergarten together or not, but we've known each other for a long time. Growing up, we lived a few blocks apart. So it's fun to read his take on our same neighborhood. And of course, Kurt is an English teacher too.

It's cool to live in a small town. We share a lot of the same memories. In that way, we all have a lot in common. We're all sort of brothers and sisters.

Recently, Kurt wrote about one of my favorite memories from high school. Gosh darnit... I love this story.

http://teacherscribe.blogspot.com/2009/07/simon.html

Someone Who Matters

I think I've mentioned that I use a lot of life stories when teaching. Personally, my life is a little drab and boring so I'm always stealing more interesting lives to talk about. I talk a lot about the global studies students in the past, but there are there are four people I mention all the time in my teaching - Grandma Shirley, Bellhop, Oscar, and Jason. Of course, I talk about others too. I know a lot of interesting and fun people.

Jason seems to be one of their favorite "characters." For one thing, Jason's rocker reputation blows their minds. His long blond hair and his biker boots get them thinking. Some of the basketball players found his picture at Oklee High School and enjoyed his odd-ball picture immensely.

"Mrs. Aakhus, why did he wear a light blue suit?"

- "It was gray."

"Mrs. Aakhus, why doesn't Mr. Aakhus get a haircut?"

- "Why does his long hair bother you?"

"It doesn't. But... you know..."


"Mrs. Aakhus, did Mr. Aakhus really build a guitar for your daughter?"

- "Yes."

"Can you bring it?"

- "Mr. Aakhus needs to fix it."

One of my students wrote a respectful letter to Jason requesting he speed up on that one.

It went something like this...

Dear Mr. Aakhus,

How are you? Mrs. Aakhus has told us you have built a pink guitar for your daughter Natalie. We were hoping you would hurry up and fix it. We'd like to see it please.

Sincerely,

Second hour class.

Jason fixed the guitar that night. I used this new phenomena to my advantage.


- "Would you help a girl out?" I asked second hour.

"Sure."

They wrote another letter for me.

Dear Mr. Aakhus,

Thank you for fixing the guitar. It is beautiful. Mrs. Aakhus was wondering if you could fix Natalie's dresser. That would really make Mrs. Aakhus' life better, and we love her.

Sincerely,

Second hour

Someone Who Matters

I'm a storyteller by nature. It all started in first grade when we had ... Show and Tell. A few years ago, when I saw my first grade teacher, she told me about the time I got up in front of the room and told the whole class about the birds and the bees. I love telling stories.

My stories end up in my classroom. For the most part, they are more appropriate than my first grade stories. A lot of times, I tell stories about people in my life who've taught me a life lesson or have given me a good laugh.

This year, one of my students' assignments was to write about someone who matters to them. For the most part, these papers were the best papers. I really learned a lot about my students, their parents, or their grandparents. I really tried to stress to that their parents or grandparents would be more interesting than a best friend.


I gave the students a graphic organizer of characterization and one of a plot diagram. The purpose of the graphic organizer is to help students know what paragraph goes where. I took a transparency of the graphic organizer and showed them how I would start my paper. Throughout the day, I talked about two people who mattered to me. The first "paper" I wrote was about Grandma Shirley.

My characterization sheet showed grandma's habits, hobbies, sayings, what she looked like, and the trouble she had with breathing from her many years smoking.

The kids laughed as I told them how she'd always say "Run 'em over!" anytime we encountered a pedestrian when driving around in her bright red Mercury.

We took the information about her and put it on a plot diagram to plan my paper. I showed them how I would organize my paper by using grandma's "big stuff" as the climax.

This was one of the easiest lessons I taught. I suppose because I could use my past to show them how to write something meaningful. After my laughter and tears about a crazy old lady who taught me how to sew and knit, many of them wanted to share about their honorable grandfathers, silly aunties, and patient mothers. You know someone who matters to them.