Tag: Florida

Teaching, Writing

Support House Bill 1149: Essential Recess for Middle Schoolers

Alexandra Diane

Usually, I want the government to stay out of education, but House Bill 1149 is something I could get behind, extending mandatory recess up to eighth grade! Absolutely! Yes, please do! That is if the bill isn’t pork rolled with extra nonsense. As of writing this, the bill currently does not have any unrelated funding or provisions, so I see no reason it shouldn’t pass. And it is so important for developing brains to have free play. 

I started my teaching career in middle school. Those three years were a nightmare wrapped in an amazing experience. However, I noticed these kids are overworked more than millennials and older generations were. The schools test students at an insane rate. Most of these kids are taking high school level math classes in 6th grade. Some students have six classes, and extracurriculars, sports, and Florida Virtual School (FLVS) classes so they don’t have to take certain ones in high school. Students in seventh grade were also remotely completing eighth grade simultaneously. These kids need a break. Their parents, teachers, and the school board are pushing them to a breaking point. We forget that middle school students are still children. They are not borderline young adults like those in their junior and senior years of high school. 

The first post I saw about this was littered with comments. So many people were saying isn’t this what P.E. is for? No, no, it’s not. P.E. is a class where students are still in a structured learning environment. It may be an athletic class, but there are still requirements that students must follow. And after seeing the comments, it’s obvious that the general public is blissfully unaware that most middle school students do not have P.E. at all. Many students who would be in a P.E. class are in intensive reading or other classes instead to help boost their grades and standardized test scores. 

Another argument from those who have never taught or haven’t been in a school setting in  recent years brought up lunch. They argued that this was a time for students to be social. However, with so many students in the public school system, most barely get through the line and have enough time to eat. And each school has a different way of handling lunch. Some schools allow students to sit wherever they would like in the cafeteria, while others will allow students to go outside or to the media center. But there are still some schools that require students to sit with their class. This leaves little time for students to decompress and be social because of the restrictions put in place.

One of the dumbest arguments people had for not implementing recess for middle students was that they would be on their phones. My answer to that is so what?! I am 99% certain that the adults complaining about kids escaping into their phones during breaks would do the same thing. People think playground when they think of recess. But recess is a time when children may do whatever they want. They can read, draw, talk to friends without worrying about being told they are too loud, or they can watch stupid videos on their phone and just be. It shouldn’t matter what they are doing with their time as long as they are outside and not being jerks to one another. Recess would be the only time in their day where they aren’t being told what to do. 

Many adults take this for granted. We go to work, but before and after work we are in control of our own lives, whatever that may look like. Children do not. If the students are in clubs or sports they are still being told what to do by adults. Yes, they may enjoy what they are doing, but it isn’t freedom of choice. When they get home, children also have their own responsibilities, be it chores or homework. But recess, this twenty minutes of supervised, unstructured free play is solely for being social. After students go home, it’s harder for students to see their friends. Some might live far away or have limited screen time with their phones or computers. But during recess, they are free to communicate with their friends in a way no classroom, including P.E. and lunch, will allow them. 

House Bill 1149 plans to allow a minimum of 20 consecutive minutes per day. Honestly, I am not sure how they would implement that. Most schools have their days structured with six 50-minute classes. It wouldn’t be wise to go any shorter than that. The schools could return to block scheduling, where classes are longer, allowing time for recess to be added to the schedule. Thankfully, this decision is above my pay grade. 

After I read this bill, I discussed with my freshmen how they would have felt having recess in middle school, and every single one of them said yes. Most claimed that they felt more burnout in middle school than they do in high school. At some of the middle schools in our area, they would have Fun Wednesday or Friday mornings with music and dancing in the courtyard. Sometimes they would have pep rallies at the end of the day. But they said if they had to pick from the two, it would have been a fun morning because they had a choice of where to go and what to do. However, if they could have had a midday break, that would have been better. Just time to stop and not feel the pressure of the day. Some said they would catch up on homework; one kid said he would take a nap, while others said they wanted to play basketball with friends who couldn’t have a PE class. One girl said she wanted to jam out with her band friends because they never have the chance to play the music they wanted. 

So to the adults making the decision in Tallahassee, please let’s do this. The kids need it. They want it. And what is so strange is that education keeps forgetting we’re here for the kids. We are here to make them better, and sometimes a break is what they need to do better and focus on who to be shaped into better students and, one day, members of society. 

Teaching

Navigating the Industry: A Teacher’s Perspective

Alexandra Diane

In high school I remember smart mouth kids saying “If you can’t do, teach.”

 For some reason, they were taking digs at my English teacher that day. She was a young woman, twenty something and was still in her first three years of teaching. A woman who spent her college career with the goal of educating these smart mouth brats. I wish I could smack all of them. But thankfully, they were quiet during class. 

Now as I am teaching, How to Break into the Film Industry, I wonder how many students have that thought running through their mind. I know all the steps they need to follow. I know how hard the journey is they must take if they want to be successful. But why didn’t I do it?

First, no one showed me. 

I didn’t get an 85 page slide show presentation breaking everything down. The internet was in its infancy; the trades were only available in magazines and I didn’t even know that was a thing. Living in South Florida might as well have been another world compared to California. The internet was in its infancy and trying to navigate it to find websites and information was basically spy work. 

No wonder why millennials can search out a human who thinks they have no online footprint with ease.

  • But I digress. 

In that 85 page slide show I have links that direct students where to find casting class, production jobs, and locations to submit scripts. Those didn’t even exist really until a decade ago.

Secondly, I chose a school that was more about film theory than the physical creation of movies. That’s my fault 110%. FAU is ten minutes from the beach. I didn’t take college seriously. I just wanted to be done with my four years and I allowed other people to distract me. I worried about dating, partying, and traveling. I would never regret traveling the world. That is something I would still want to do. But partying and dating those were a waste of time. A waste of my location. 

Living in South Florida gave me an opportunity others didn’t have. I was close to the Miami Heat, Dolphins, Marlins, and the Panthers. Games were held nearly every day. I could have started doing grunt work and found my way into directing live sports events. At least I would have been on my path rather than waiting for an opportunity to come to me. It’s easy to look back twenty years later and think about how I should have sought them out while I was in school instead of heading to Ft. Lauderdale for other fun reason. 

Maybe that’s why I have put so much work into explaining to my students how to follow their dream. I need a big sign that says DON’T GET DISTRACTED.  

At one point, after a bunch of personal shit went down, I made it out to California. I met with kids going to Film school and talked to them. I learned they were in their third year and just starting film theory classes that I had already covered in my freshmen year. So there was a give and take. It’s also where I discovered I hated LA. It was like a far dirtier Miami. After a month meeting people with the same passion as I had, I learned I didn’t have the passion to sell my soul to the Gold Coast. I was east coast through and through. 

Being out there also taught me I loved writing; however, I enjoyed working in news. I missed the world of live theater and broadcast news blended my passions into one. 

I had to make the best of my degree: Communications and New Media. 

Filling my classes with subjects I was passionate about because I knew I wasn’t giving up my life to make movies. I wasn’t gypsy enough to worry about living job to job, moving my life around. If I wanted to do that, I would have joined the Air Force, and at least with that job, I wouldn’t have had to worry about a paycheck. 

With my students, I sit down with them, breaking down each college they are looking at, showing them what classes are offered. Do those classes meet their passion? Because recruiters talk a big game. They make their school look like the best no matter what. Thorough analysis into that is what it takes for a student to discover if the school is truly offering the subjects they want to learn.  

But what does this all have to do with the saying “If you can’t do, teach.” 

Well, I could do it. I did do it. And I learned I didn’t want to. Making films in school was more fun than 12 hour set days worried about if we went over budget and would get dropped. There was no fear of living paycheck to paycheck and hunting for the next job. And after working in broadcast for so many years, I was tired and ready for something fun. 

So maybe the saying is true for some teachers, but those ones don’t last. We can do it. We just don’t want to anymore. 

P.S. 30 days left of work until I get two months off…. Bliss! 

Teaching

The Impact of AI on Modern Education

Alexandra Diane

How has technology changed your job?

Skynet, A.I., definitely not Skynet, the self-aware artificial intelligence network that perceives humans as a threat to its existence, thus starting a nuclear war and turning all robots against humanity. Even if a billionaire genius jokingly decided to name their AI Skynet, my students miss the foreshadowing of our impending doom, so long as they have weaseled their way out of homework. 

I have a love hate relationship with artificial intelligence. I grew up watching The Matrix, Space Odyssey, I Robot, and Terminator, none of which were a good thing for humanity. However, movies like Chappie and Wall-E pulled on my heart strings for those robots. And just like my mixed emotions about A.I. in the fictional world, I have the same for those in our world. 

At the start of the school year, teachers were told that we had to integrate Khanmigo into their daily use. As I sat in the factual meeting, I wondered who in the county was getting their palm greased by Khan Academy. It was dumbfounding how hard the district was pushing artificial intelligence to replace teachers’ lesson plans and student interaction. One of the biggest reasons they wanted teachers to use this program is they could track how often students were using it and what lessons were being used. I skirted this request because I wasn’t a core subject and the district had deemed us unimportant. The only lesson offered covered TV production, Pixar’s story structure, or something like that. But it wasn’t even directed for TV, it was meant to be used in English classes. 

Students have moved past using the limited Khanmigo and straight to ChatGPT or DeepSeek. I can’t fault them for asking for help from certain subjects. When they are doing math homework and are stuck on a problem, they ask ChatGPT to break down how to solve it. There is no difference from asking a teacher, who would be on their off hours when students are completing their homework. But the issue is most don’t just use the software when they are stuck. I have seen many who just input each problem and write the answer. Now we are back to the idea of students just regurgitating and no longer learning. In a single year, ChatGPT has single handedly circumvented years of teaching students weird multi-step processes of completing math work. 

While I have used ChatGPT to help me create lesson plans when I am stuck on how to create a new and fun, interesting way to present a subject, I have found my students doing the same for their script writing. I don’t fully hate the idea of them getting ideas, it would be the same as grabbing a card from Storymatic or prompts dice. I know not everyone is a storyteller and needs assistance. But it’s sad how quickly ChatGPT regurgitates the same storyline. My students don’t know this but I do, especially after reading four of the same script. Some students get creative and will put the script in proper format and change some character names, along with dialogue. But there are others who don’t. It’s just lazy. Part of their grade is writing in the correct format. If they just did that they would get more points. 

Outside of ChatGPT, adobe has integrated artificial intelligence into its software. Students have found it helpful creating voice overs when they have forgotten to record one and their projects are due. Others have used it to clean up their audio when they have poorly recorded their sound. Again, I don’t hate it. However, this is allowing them to be lazy. Instead of ensuring they have filmed everything they need for a project, they now shrug it off. That is the correct use of “I’ll fix it in post.” I need my students to follow their shot list. I also need them to learn how to film audio correctly. Because when they use the artificial intelligence to clean up their sound, it sounds off. Either the audio becomes thin or there is just an unnatural sound to it. 

Artificial Intelligence could be so helpful for students. It can guide them in ways that sometimes I can’t because it’s a room of 30 kids and I am just one person. However, I am finding that not to be the case. This is the generation that just uses technology without understanding how or why they use it, and AI is the same. Instead of sparking creativity and exploration, the kids are fine with allowing the machine to do all the work for them. So when Skynet, ChatGPT, finally takes over the world, my students will welcome their new overlord because the robots will do all the thinking for them. 

Writing

Post three years in the making: Car Accident.

Alexandra Diane

I have been wanting to write this for a while, but now that I have a chance to put all my feelings into words, nothing feels right. At the beginning of December, my lawsuit was finally complete. For three years, they have prevented me from writing about the car accident that changed my life. Though if you were to ask the opposing counsel, the witch of a woman, would have you trying to believe nothing happened to me. The car accident did far more than ruin my back. The mental toll had lasting effects that affected not only myself but my family.

So if I am going to start, I will start from the beginning. 

It was late July, the week before teachers were supposed to return to school. The kids and my husband were going to have pizza for dinner that night and I didn’t want to miss out. However, the only place that sold the gluten-free frozen pizza I wanted was Target on Northlake. Usually, this wasn’t a big deal. Going to Target was and still is my favorite mental escape. Only it had been pouring that day and I did not want to take the highway, so I took military instead. Everything was great. Traffic was following at a decent speed and life was good until it wasn’t.

There is always traffic near PGA Blvd and I took that into account. I wasn’t speeding, and I wasn’t tailgating. As I passed under the I95 overpass and saw the brake lights and knew PGA was backed up. I reached Garden Lakes DR and the dark SUV in front of me suddenly put on their brakes, causing me to brake as well. I had enough time from when I stopped in the rain to think thank god I didn’t hit them. But that’s where my luck ran out. I heard tires, and I clenched as a white van slammed into the back of my F150. 

Thankfully, the airbag wasn’t released. I have had that happen before and that is just awful. The burn of the airbag hitting your skin burns and the chalk makes it hard to breathe. 

In this accident, my seat belt locked and pulled me tight to my chair. My cell phone launched from the cupholder and onto the ground. Because my phone was Bluetooth-connected, I dialed 911 without handling my phone. I moved my truck one lane over to the turn lane, so I wasn’t blocking traffic anymore and waited for the police. When the police showed up they had me and the van move to the parking lot nearby. 

I gave the police all my information, then took pictures of my truck and the van. I am so glad I did because the only pictures shown during my legal case were the ones I took. Hell the witch didn’t even show the van during our mediation meeting, trying to show how “little damage” my truck received. When they asked me if I needed to go to the ER I shook them off. Looking back now I wish I would have just gone because I wouldn’t have had to listen to the nasty witch accuse me of not being in pain. Apparently she’s never heard of adrenaline. Because when that wore off when I was walking through Target my lower back and leg were feeling something fierce cutting my trip short. 

One of the weird things that I thought I imagined was the driver of the van asking me “Is the man okay?”

“What man?” I asked.

He looked back at my truck. “There wasn’t a man driving?”

I shook my head confused, “No, I was driving.”

It wasn’t until my lawyers and I talked about a year later did I see the police footage with that conversation. It still is so strange. 

I always joked that my guardian angel was too busy stopping my car and that he didn’t have time to stop the van from hitting my truck. 

The day before my accident, I had an MRI. I had completed months of physical therapy for my shoulder and occlusally my lower back during my cycle. The issue with my shoulder was over stretching the ligament with how I was sleeping. The reason I was always getting an MRI of my back was because my sciatic nerve was a pain in the ass during my cycle.

My need to find out why I was in pain was used against me. The witch took the doctor’s note and left out the parts about why I was having leg pain. I don’t know how many times I wanted to scream during mediation that what she was saying was incorrect. Instead she called me a liar, saying all my pain from the accident I had before. So many times I wanted to say “yes I had random pains that would leave. But now for the last three years I have not had my leg burn. That’s how I know it isn’t the same.” 

The witch’s purpose in life was to make sure the insurance company paid as little or nothing as possible. That meant dragging me through the mud, questioning all my life choices. During this process I learned lawyers aren’t there to discover or show the truth, they are there to cover you with dirt. She insisted I had no additional damage from the accident. Which I did. 

I was thankful I had a childhood friend as one of my lawyers. Before he could say anything, my head lawyer called out the witch for attacking me. She tried to pull the female card, saying, “I’ve been practicing law for blah blah years and no one has ever accused me of attacking someone.” 

While she was going on her tangent about disrespect, I was wracking my brain trying to remember where my Nero said my injury was. I had received multiple epidurals and was trying to set up an appointment for a nerve ablation. If I had pains before, why had none of my doctors ever done this for me? Before the accident, my spine was in excellent shape, deemed “beautiful.” Which it still was until you reached the bottom spine. That is where my Nero and all the radiologists saw my herniated disks, spinal stenosis, and that my L4/L5 was squishing the disk. The disk was pinching the nerve, sending the pain down my leg for the last three years. 

Pointing this out to my lawyers, they countered her smug response that her radiologists saw nothing wrong with my spine. Apparently, her radiologists were like most doctors I’ve dealt with. They probably saw my age and just half assed glanced at my scans. I am grateful for my lawyers. I have always had to defend myself so often with my medical history. It was amazing to have someone on my side, challenging the narrative, and exposing the witch was ripping and twisting reality. 

But I couldn’t bring something up during the whole legal process. The mental anguish that I went through. The reason I was told not to bring it up was for the reason above. If I brought my mental health into the case, then the witch would rip a part of everything that I had gone through in my past. I hated that. I didn’t need someone questioning anything more about me.  

It was painful to not be able to write about what was going on with me. Things that have changed about my body may seem minor to others, but for me, it has deeply impacted my life. I tend to avoid basic chores because bending for dishes or laundry will pinch the nerve and will set it into overdrive. But I can’t actually avoid them, so I have to suck it up and know that after chores, I will need to stretch. If I don’t move to get my nerves to calm down, I’ll be in pain for the rest of the day because 99% of the time, it is too early in the day to take a muscle relaxer. I have three kids. I can’t be a zombie or have my house be in shambles. So I make due as I always have in life. 

I have lived in pain for my whole life. Before finding out I had celiac disease, my joints would lock up, my digestive track was near shredded, and there’s a laundry list to go with everything else. Although this pain was new, I was not new to pain. There was no way I would allow myself to be a victim to pain. My perseverance is what kept me from falling apart these last three years. It’s about the only thing aside from my husband that kept me from spiraling into the dark abyss of depression when I could not do things I enjoyed. 

Adelyn started cheering about six months after my accident. That’s when I discovered how limited my range of motion had become. I have always been a hyper flexible person and when she started learning different moves, as basic as they were, my back would not allow me to bend. I could not show her how to do a simple backbend because my back just stopped. Also, I learned I could not hold the scorpion stunt. The moment I bent backwards to bring my foot to my head, my back seized. Instead of a scorpion’s tail, I became a jumbled mess of limbs. 

My physical therapist always joked about how bendy I am. Which is true, I am still bendy. But I can no longer go as deep into a Sirsa Padasana pose as I once was. The Sirsa Padasana is when you lie on your stomach and touch your toes to your head. I could wrap my toes to my chin. I can now barely reach my back. 

Limited flexibility was something I could live with. It wasn’t as if I was walking around like a contortionist in my spare time. However, what I could not live with and needed to remedy right away was the amount of pressure that my spine would be in after getting out of the pool. I have spent nearly all my life in the water. For 13 years of my life, I was a competitive swimmer and as I aged out of competing, swimming was a way to relax. I had never experienced pain before when pressing off out of a flip turn. That was supposed to be a point of power to keep me going while I was exhausted, instead, as I pushed off the wall, I would get jolting pain shooting up my leg and into my spine.

My legal battle ended over a month ago, and the pain hasn’t left. I’d love to send the witch a letter or a link to my blog. I know she’s seen it before. I watched her page hop through every single blog post that dealt with my health. I’ll never know if she was planning on using it against me. But if she had tried I would have asked her. I know every single pain in my body. I have documented it for the world to see. This one is new, now old, but new to the list of shit that has tried to destroy me my whole life. 

I don’t know how people can defend companies like they are human. It’s as if insurance companies suffer when paying the injured. I could call them fire drakes or other things that like to hoard wealth. But human, no. I’d like to think we all still have a sliver of decency that when people get hurt, we take care of them.  

Teaching

Another school year, another set of suicide classes

Alexandra Diane

Another school year brings another set of classes where teachers have to share partial information about suicide and other mental health issues receiving no true training or support. 

Today I showed students a three minute and forty-five second video that loosely touched on warning signs and I am not entirely sure what else. I had to talk to boys and thought now was the time to laugh and make fun of each other. My skin was already crawling because this topic puts me on edge. But to have kids laughing while others are visibly uncomfortable made it worse.

After separating the boys, the video was over. I opened the teacher’s lead discussion questions and just stared at them. 

What is suicide? 

Why is it important to talk about suicide? 

What are some signs that someone might be thinking about suicide?

What should you do if you or someone you know is thinking about suicide?

Who are some people who can help if someone is thinking about suicide?

These questions were empty. 

While I knew other teachers had no interest in engaging with their students on this topic, that wasn’t me. I’m still not sure how we can expect students to handle a heavy topic, gloss over important details, give them a pointless quiz, and then expect them to get back to their classwork. Just the same as if we asked them to color a dinosaur, not possible to trigger them. Fuck, they don’t even consider the teacher. 

Before this year, teaching the subject was bearable, but this year I had to truly mentally prepare myself. Less than two years ago, I was staring at a lake, wondering how long it would take my family to miss me if I drowned myself. 

So instead of turning the kids loose and leaving them to stew in whatever the mind funk the session left them in, I asked my own questions.

First, I asked how many had a friend tell them they wanted to kill themselves? More than I expected raised their hands. One of the annoying boys says “what if they were joking?” I asked “how many were serious?” The same hands stayed up. I called on a few students and asked them what they did. One said he didn’t leave his friend alone. The other said he showed his mom the messages and his mom talked to the student’s parents. I asked if the student was mad and mine said “yes but I’d do it again.” 

They were the amazing friends that saved someone’s lives that day. It was better to have them mad at them rather than dead. But I apologized to them and the class that this wasn’t something that was going to go away. As they grew older, they would lose more people in their lives. 

I told them the story of my friend Jeff, who took his own. How he was the most talented musician I knew. I explained that he always saw things with dark lenses and one day he viewed them through rose-colored glasses. A student asked, “isn’t that a good thing?” I said “no, because my friend in the years that I’ve known him had never been happy like that.” It was a major red flag. It was a personality change. I reminded them about how the video talked about personality changes, but it’s not always a dark and depressed person. I told them how to this day I wonder if my friend would be dead if I hadn’t lost his address. I remembered calling and calling his phone, texting him, asking what his address was. But there was no answer. Later, when I found out he took his life, I saw it was the day I was supposed to visit him. 

I then asked how many students I had in this class that I taught in middle school. Then I asked them if they noticed anything different about me when I returned from my maternity leave. None of them said they did. Then somehow I verbalized that a few weeks after Bb’s birth, I wanted to take my life. Through tears, I told them how Adelyn came up and held my hand. She said “mommy I need you.” Those were the words that stopped me from wandering off. 

A boy popped up and asked, “isn’t that postpartum depression?” 

I said, “yes it was, still is.” 

I explained that women can take around 5 years to return to their mental state. 

There was a collective sigh in the group. 

But I had to use this opportunity to reassure them that seeking help was okay. I shared with them how I’ve been through therapy and how it’s okay to get help. I also encouraged them to talk to their parents. That in a perfect world, their parents will always be there to help them and if they didn’t have their parents, there is a campus full of adults here to help them. 

I shifted the focus to a new icon added by the student portal. This icon is called trusted adults. A few kids giggled at the idea. I told them it wasn’t dumb or pointless. The school wanted to make sure that the students understood they could talk to their teachers. I let them know that I’m always available if they need someone to talk to about issues that they couldn’t discuss with their parents. There would be no doubt that I would call them dumb, because most of the time it’s something super dumb. However, no matter what, I would encourage them to talk to their parents and help them figure out the best way to discuss it with them.. 

But I also clarified that I am a mandatory reporter. Reporting anything that happens to them or their friends is not just a legal obligation for me, but a commitment I will fulfill. Because I’d rather they be mad at me, but alive. I also suggested that if they ever get a message from their friends that they don’t know what to do about that, they could send it to me and I would be the one to report it. That way, they could genuinely tell their friends that they said nothing. 

We eventually had to take the short quiz and fill out the worksheet. 

After the bell rang, a few students came up to me and said thank you. 

I don’t know if this was too much, but it felt necessary. I couldn’t leave them to stew or think suicide was something that only happened to sad people. Throughout the next four years, I wanted to ensure they were aware I was available to help and that I would be a supportive listener for them. 

Teaching

PEBCAK

Alexandra Diane

PEBCAK: Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard

I thought when I transferred from the newsroom to the classroom that I wouldn’t be playing tech support for my co-workers. My prediction was somewhat correct. I’m no longer tech support for my co-workers, however I am teaching basic computer skills far more than I ever expected to.

There is something terrifying about this generation. 

They were born with technology at their fingertips, yet none of them grasp how to use it. 

Today students were removing footage from their SD card. That isn’t something that I fault them not understanding, since every camera records footage in their own unique way. I was shocked to discover that not a single student could create a new folder or identify their desktop versus Google Chrome. A few didn’t even know how to right click with a basic mouse. Nearly every student told me that outside of a Chromebook, they did not use a computer. That was if they used a Chromebook, most simply used their phone or tablet. 

I thought the tech issues ‌were bad when I taught middle school. But those students, who are now sophomores, had stronger skills. These freshmen seem even more perplexed when using basic tech. 

It’s bizarre that most of these kids didn’t know how to click a mouse. When I tell them to right click on the mouse, they either double tap the left button or they just barely click the Right mouse button. And when we’re going back to regular clicking instead of clicking the left mouse button, they use the right one. Because all these kids have ever used is the trackpad or their finger on a phone or a tablet. 

It’s not just computing they have an issue with. Students keep confusing SD cards with SIM cards. They are not the same and despite my constant corrections; they don’t understand the difference between the cards. SIM cards allow mobile users to connect to phones to the network and it stores their user information. While an SD is a removable memory card. I’m sure you’re aware there’s a big difference between cellular connection and data storage. Apparently, the kids don’t think it’s a big deal.

I’m not sure when we stopped teaching kids how to type correctly, but I’m sure it’s around the same point when we stopped teaching cursive. We need kids to read cursive so they can read original documents and sign their name. At this point, I think we’re just going to have people marking X instead of signing their name like a pirate. 

That’s how I feel every time I’m asking these kids to type out a simple word and they’re hunting and pecking. Nobody knows what homeroom keys are. Nobody understands that if a word is already highlighted, they just have to type. They don’t need to press delete. They don’t need to do anything extra.

As I am teaching kids how to add new folders to their desktop, I am also teaching them how to copy files from their SD card and transfer it to their desktop. Watching kids figure out how to operate a mouse to highlight the files is entertaining and frustrating all at the same time. Teaching them shortcut keys like pressing control n to open a new file is mind-boggling to them. Pressing Ctrl a to highlight all the files that they need is magic. I don’t know how these kids have been using devices basically since kindergarten and nobody has actually explained to them what to do. 

We are doing these kids a disservice by not actually having basic computer classes anymore. I remember in elementary school where we would go to the computer lab and we would do typing drills and we would practice using our keyboards and did fun games. But in reality, these games were teaching us how to use the mouse correctly. These games that we would try to beat the leaderboards on were teaching us how to type correctly. It’s always funny to have my students watch me type a document as they’re talking to me and I’m not looking at my keys. It’s almost as if I’m an alien.

This is just a very bizarre world and I wonder how employers are dealing with the young adults entering the workforce. Are they sitting down with these fresh adults and showing them how to use a computer? Are these people asking questions or are they just staring at a desktop computer for the first time, hoping they can make it work? 

I could easily just say I teach TV production, not an intro to computer course, and leave it at that. But before I can have my students edit, I have to make sure they know how to operate a computer at the level that I was doing in elementary school. 

Thankfully, my students seem eager this year, but they aren’t ready to get into the nitty gritty. We’ve spent the last week putting cameras on tripods and learning how to use a professional camera. I hope when we open up Adobe Premiere Monday, things go smoothly. But I know I’ll be spending more time than I want teaching basic tech and how to operate a real computer.

Teaching

Disappointment in the classroom

Alexandra Diane

I didn’t think I would write about students so soon. But as I concluded day two, I already experienced two very fun incidents that left me shaking my head and disappointed. I hope this doesn’t foreshadow what’s to come this year. 

Monday started out with an extended drive to work. The roads were filled with more drivers due to it being the first day back to school. That meant there were a lot of new drivers out there. I’m not sure if those were responsible for the accidents and delays or just distracted drivers. But ‌it didn’t help matters much, that the city decided the perfect time to start construction, just north of the school, was the week before. Thankfully, they hadn’t shut it down to one lane, like they did when the teachers returned to school. However, things were still a mess.

I was hoping this was going to be the worst of my Monday and, for a few hours, it was. That’s only because I have planning periods in the morning and there weren’t any students to harsh my mellow. Honestly, I was looking forward to my third and fourth period classes. The classes were filled with mostly juniors who were excited to work with some of my best seniors. I had the first week already planned out months ago. Which meant nothing because during pre-school week I learned that administration wanted to have class meetings during 3rd and 4th period. So I adjusted and could still coordinate what I wanted to teach. 

As I greeted my new set of students, some I knew while others were brand new, they all claimed a seat and were talking to themselves. My first error was not checking their schedules. I figured they were all upperclassmen that knew whether they would be in film or news. I didn’t think I needed to check anyone’s schedule because I recognized 90% of their faces from the roaster I had checked minutes before. I called attendance and everyone answered “here”. 

Once it came time for me to breakdown how the year was going to go, one very large student was getting vocal with their friend. I kept having to ask this student to remove their headphones or quit talking. A few times, they would snicker when I said if they didn’t stop talking to their friend, I would ensure they sat apart for the next few weeks. When it came time to break into groups, they begged to work with their bestie. I shared the three songs everyone could choose from, explained the importance of making a detailed shot list before filming, and mentioned that the quick turnaround would be challenging. Leaving the students to it I sat down. Not even two minutes later the snickering student comes up to my desk. 

“Ms.” the student snickers. “I can’t believe it. I’m in the wrong class. I’m supposed to be in news.” 

I am completely taken back. The pain in the butt answered during attendance. I don’t have patience for people who waste my time and are in the wrong place, I would have kicked him out right away. “No way, give me your schedule.” 

And of course, the student was right. Snickering and being as boisterous as possible, the student shouts to their friend, “Man, good luck with this class, she gives way too much work. I’m going to Wrights.”

As annoyed as I was that student acted out and thought they would cause a disruption to the class. The person they were acting out with drastically changed their behavior. No longer were they acting too cool for the music video project, they became an active participant in the project. 

I warned the other teacher about the disruptors’ actions, and he was disappointed and surprised at the students’ actions. After that class, I check every single student’s schedule. I didn’t want a repeat.

Unfortunately that student’s first and last name is burned into my mind now. I expected little from them after that. However, today before fourth period, the student came to me and apologized for their actions. I hope they were genuine because if that student is coming with us to any competitions this year; they have already lost my trust. I expect this student to act a fool until proven otherwise.

Again, I allowed myself to believe that disruptaurus was going to be the worst of it this week. Students tend to be on their best behavior during the first week. You know, slowly letting the crazy out. And to be honest, having a kid try to figure out what class they want to take by sitting in and being a bone head wasn’t that bad. What happened during a freshmen class left me speechless. 

The students received a packet containing my syllabus, the academy handbook, and a cell phone policy, all for their parents to sign. We request that every student who can pay contribute an academy fee of 40 dollars. I’ve learned that if I give a grade for the signatures, students return the papers quicker, and I don’t spend weeks hunting them down. Thankfully, the freshmen this year were prepared and in one class in particular two students had money for their fees. 

Before I collected their papers, I asked the students to get into groups and work on their favorite movies slideshow. I did this so I could walk around the class, talk to the students and collect their papers while others are busy being on task. One student paid in cash. I collected his papers and picked up the next row. I was worried about dropping his money, so I put the stack of papers on my desk and headed back to get the rest. After I collected the rest of the papers, I looked at my desk and the cash was missing. I retrace my steps and start looking on the floor next to the row that I left. 

“Are you okay?” A student asks me.

“R did you hand me the money or did I ask you to keep it?” I ask the student in the row ahead of where I was standing. 

“I gave it to you,” he says matter-of-factly.

I turned to the student who asked me if I was okay and asked, “did you see money by your desk?” 

That student shake’s their head but says “No, but those guys were asking whose money was on the floor.” 

The whole row confirms that the row behind them was asking about money. 

So I stare at the third row and every single student in that row can not make eye contact with me. That is a handful of students whose faces are bright red and darting around. 

“Did anyone happen to find money on the floor?” I asked hoping to god someone will just say oh yeah I found it. 

The lies pour quickly out of everyone’s mouth. “No, I didn’t see any money? Money why would there be money? What kind of money?” 

I had to keep my cool because I wanted to throw some FCC finds at them. “Don’t lie, six students just confirmed you all were talking about money on the floor.” 

I turn to one who has the reddest face. Eventually, that student puts their hand in their pocket and magically pops out a twenty. “I just saw it and -” 

I took it from them and walked to my desk. Before I could sit back down, I hear, “Ms! I think there’s another twenty on the floor.”

I love how things just appeared when the floor was bare, and I had moved backpacks around to double check before asking a single one of them. When I went to take the money from the group, I made it very clear how disappointed I was in their actions. 

“When you find money on the floor, a classroom floor no less, that doesn’t belong to you. I am collecting money. You know I am collecting money and your first response to seeing something on the floor is to take it? Not bring it to me and ask if someone may have dropped it. I would understand if it was in the middle of the courtyard, filled with people or empty, that it would be hard to find the owner. But in a classroom where you know money is being moved really speaks a lot to everyone, one of you in this group’s character.” The two who pocketed the money won’t look at me, while the others just hang their heads. “In this class we are checking out equipment that cost upwards to thousands of dollars at a time. Sometimes classmates are going to forget headphones and SD cards in their bags. I expect you all to be good stewards and classmates to turn those items in, not steal them. Because one day you will forget something or drop something and I hope it’s around people who return things and not just take them like someone in your group did.”

The bell rang not too long after that and that entire group rushed out of the class. I  heard mutterings of kids saying they can’t believe that everyone just went along with it and no one said anything. 

That made me feel a little better to hear there were those in the room that were disappointed by their classmates’ actions. 

I am not sure how I can combat stealing or poor character, but I know that class has lost its ability to have open seating. I want to be sure that none of those students are sitting next to each other. 

So two days down and only a 178 left to go. 

Hopefully, the rest of the week is less eventful. 

Teaching, Writing

My Career has never been one direction

Alexandra Diane

What is your career plan?

What’s my career plan?

Well, that’s a loaded question.

Twenty years ago, I would have told you I wanted to be a scriptwriter. I had all these wild dreams about heading out to Hollywood and writing movies. However, after spending a summer in Santa Monica, Venice Beach, and exploring California, I decided that it wasn’t the place for me. It wasn’t long before I gave up this dream. I never stopped writing, but scripts were no longer my focus. This was back in the early 2000s, the idea of working virtual wasn’t an option. So I changed directions. 

One direction was where I would live. I love the east coast. It’s the best coast. The people, the weather, and the speed of life  — something about it fuels my soul where the west coast sucked the life out of me. Now I had to add something else to my plan. Where I would live. I had always thought I could live anywhere. That wasn’t true. I need humidity to thrive and the sea breeze washed away my worries. So my living situation had become a key factor in my career search. Virginia, North Carolina, Savannah or even my home state of Florida were where I wanted to grow my professional life. 

My professional life needed to match what brought me joy. That’s being creative. I have had jobs in the past where I was stuck in a cubical filling out excel spreadsheets and staring at the wall daydreaming when I could leave. This meant applying for jobs out of state. Florida is great for hospitality but not so much for those who want to work in film, news or marketing. The rational part of my brain knew I might have to leave Florida. But because I was young and dumb, I received more than a few job offers I regret not accepting. 

Sometimes I want to shake that girl. Tell her to take the risk before starting a family. I traveled enough to know that I could leave. I could survive. However, I didn’t want to leave the person I was dating. Even when I knew it wasn’t a forever, end game type of relationship. All of this is laughable because in my late twenties I left a job in political news to move to a different country for my ex husband. 

That didn’t last. I felt lost for the months I lived there. I was supposed to focus on writing, but depression set in.I didn’t have something that was mine to keep me busy. Other things also fueled my negative experience. I wrote short stories and wrote the manuscript Angelic Findings. But none of that left me satisfied. I needed to know I was doing something worthwhile. 

When I returned from Brazil, they offered me my job back. But things weren’t the same. The election ended, and the company did a massive downsizing. I was one of the handful of  people cut. This sent me down a different path. For about six months, I was an editor and producer for a financial show. It was weird. Every edit was under a microscope to be sure it was in compliance. Eventually, I left that job and ended up working for a local news station. 

I liked it there. I love how busy and chaotic things were. Hurricane days and breaking news kept things busy. Only I was missing time with my family. Birthdays skipped, vacations missed, holidays put on hold until my shift was over or I woke up from a nap. I needed a change. But I couldn’t follow my dreams of accepting a job in Virginia. We couldn’t leave. My parents are here and they help with my kids. And my stepson’s mom lives here as well.  I wanted to leave. I still want to leave. But I couldn’t. I can’t. So I left the only thing I could. I left my career in news. 

`However, I didn’t leave the world completely.  I ended up teaching, and it’s been oddly enjoyable. 

I work with students, teaching them how to write scripts, create films and edit mini news packages. I’m able to do all the things I love everyday, without having a boss breathing down my throat for insane deadlines or people trying to undercut each other for a raise. However, the students do that to each other daily. I try to explain to them that A. We’re not saving lives, it’s not serious. And B… to just do the work their lives would be that much easier. 

Sometimes I stare at them and wonder what the future of our world will be. They do some dumb shit on the daily. It makes my brain hurt and I wonder if they eat lead paint chips as babies. But at the same time, most are incredibly sweet. They genuinely want to learn. I’m talking about my high school students. My middle school students had me wanting to jump off a bridge with cement feet. 

So this is my twisty turny career path, always something creative, never leaving Florida. One day I’ll escape. I’ll have a cottage in the woods, far away from people. But until then, my students will slowly drive me insane, wondering if their strange ideas doom or save humanity. 

Mommy Blogs

Core Memory: Garden Gate

Alexandra Diane

Ever since I became an adult, not like a young adult and my 20s but a more adultier adult. One who has been raising three children and had the blessing of having my parents nearby. I have often thought about sharing property with my parents. In Loxahatchee, The Acreage, Jupiter Farms, or Palm Beach Country Estates, there’s plenty of land to build a home and guest cottage for my parents. I’ve always wondered where this idea came from and then I remember growing up and hearing the story about the gate that was in my backyard. 

The house that my parents bought used to belong to the daughter of the neighbor behind my parents’ home. An adorable gate connected the backyard fence. When my parents moved into their house, Mrs. Brown never put a lock on the gate. My brother and I were free to come and steal oranges from her tree, and my dad was often helping her take care of her house. I never knew what happened to her daughter or why she moved away. I just remembered that when Ms. Brown finally passed away and the new family moved in. After my brother and I went to college and moved away to start life as an adult, my parents changed the entire look of their backyard. Instead of fences where all the neighbors can see and talk to each other. Privacy fences went up. However, before the privacy fence ever went up, a lock went on the gate. It felt strange to know that we no longer had a connection to our backyard neighbors. 

Now that I’m reaching my 40s and both my parents are retired. I’m wanting the connection that the former owner of my parents’ house had with her parents. My parents want to travel. That is when my dad isn’t being the most awesome PopPop daycare ever to the wild Mr. B. Part of me feels like it would be easier to share a property with them, so when they went away I could watch their dogs and their house but not miss time with my family. 

Having a separate space would still give us our own freedoms and not being on top of each other. But it would still allow my children to be close to their grandparents. It will allow them to absorb all the knowledge that my dad has on fixing everything and gardening. I have no luck with fixing anything nor with gardening. Anytime I try to help my husband, I seem to harm him and whenever I plant something, it dies within days. I must either suck at picking plants or I am the exact opposite of Poison Ivy. 

In the Latin cultures that a lot of the parents move in with their children as they get older. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that idea. My tiny townhouse is not ready for anything along those lines. I still like having our anonymity to have two separate households. But that’s not to say if my parents needed to move in with me, I wouldn’t be able to make it happen. I would just probably go crazy. As would they. 

I have shared this idea before with friends or acquaintances from work and a few have said “Oh you would get to live in babysitters.” No, that is not what I’m looking for at all. I enjoy doing things with my children and taking them places. Family time is something I cherish. A big reason that I enjoy spending time with my kids falls back on my parents. They took my brother and I everywhere with them and I absolutely want my children to have their grandparents a part of their life just not as a caretaker. That is my job. 

Lent

Day 37: STN: Closing Time

Alexandra Diane

During the first night of STN, we celebrated our awards. Seminole Ridge took home two third place and one second place awards. This is nothing to scoff at. Our kids worked their asses off this year. The news kids far more than the film kids. As we waited our turn to take pictures on the stage, the DJ began playing closing time. Part of me wanted to yell at him because one we earned our time to take this picture and two, the song isn’t about the bar closing. It’s about a chapter of the songwriter’s life ending. He was becoming a father and welcoming his baby girl into his life. But as I thought about that, I couldn’t think of a more appropriate song.

My students who are graduating this year are closing a giant chapter in their life. In three short months, a large portion of the thirty students I chaperoned will be heading off to college, while others will attend vocational school. But it doesn’t matter where their future is. They all have the same thing in front of them. The world is for them to take.

 I saw students that have screwed around for most of the year create an amazing news package. And with all honesty, I really wanted to smack them. Their work was professional. In all honesty, it surpassed some of the news packages that aired on the news station where I worked. I just wish they put the same effort into my film class as they did during this competition. Unfortunately, they didn’t even earn an honorable mention. 

Another pair of students that I watched worked took home honorable mention. Watching somebody who is usually a goofball transform into a professional was astounding. To see him work as a photographer like I have seen other seasoned photographer’s work gave me hope. He listened to everything his partner asked him. He never once changed her story, but he provided her with ideas about how the camera should be placed. But the moment the shoot was over, he went back to being a goofball. Which is pretty appropo for a photog. You should see what type of hungry fiends they turn into during the political season. No pizza is safe. 

Some of our young female journalists did not make the cut to place this year. And my heart breaks for them because this was their last year to win. In the past, our school brought home a truckload of awards. However, the judges were different this year. They critiqued much harder than the previous years. Even the board of directors, who is a friend of my co teacher, said that this year’s winners were quarters of a point off from those who didn’t place.

That’s amazing and depressing all at once. The bar has been raised and we need to work harder. That means that the sophomores that we brought with us are going to have to work three times as hard as those that are graduating this year. My juniors had a hunger as we flew home to Florida. They know the work that they have to put into it. Some sophomores seemed to not care while others showed a passion and a drive that is going to make them placed in the years to come. 

Unfortunately, judging is not everything that held us down. We shot ourselves in the foot from the beginning. Our vlog team kept fighting. And by the time they could finally sort things out and put egos aside, they wasted far too much time. It wasn’t just in California that they battled it out. Who would be on camera and who wouldn’t? They wasted a bunch of time back home, given the chance to practice. Aside from them, our film team was green. Not just age wise, but experience. Part of the fault is mine. This was my first time in a major competition, so I did not know what to expect. Two of our seniors, this was also their first time. And while we had someone experienced on our team, jealousy and anxiety overtook their ability to perform. The student also lost my trust. Sadly, this student got caught up in gossip and started a rumor of their own. They claimed that our strongest editor wasn’t skilled in their own right, but I did the work for them. 

This rumor was nothing more than utter nonsense. That student has heard me say time and time again, “if I wanted to edit I wouldn’t be teaching.” Which is 100% the truth. It’s just sad that I have gone out of my way for this student and in a moment of weakness, they had to bring down someone on their team. What’s even worse is I heard it on an accidental recording and that student lied to my face when confronted. 

But I will not let this moment or our lack of awards bring us down in the future. 

In the next two years, we have an advantage. Instead of Long Beach, California, we’re going to be in Tampa Bay, Florida. It’s just a quick drive across the state and one that we will scout out locations. One that we know the history of the city and all its dirty secrets. However, we’re not the only ones with the advantage. Over 200 awards were given out in Long Beach, California, with more than half awarded to students living in southeast Florida. Every single one of those schools has the same opportunity as we do. And I know a bunch of schools will take advantage of that opportunity.

So now, as closing time plays on my radio, all I can think of is that the chapter is closed. The point where we could take home award after award is over. Students from across the country, and now internationally, have come to compete. Our students have to step up. But I have 100% know that our kids are competitive. They have a drive needed to win. And for those students graduating, becoming young adults, they are going to do amazing things.

So who are we?! 

Hawks!!!