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Report from the Field – Annemarie Orth
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10 thoughts on “Report from the Field – Annemarie Orth”
This is so nice to read. I’m having what feels like Worst Year Ever so knowing light is @ end of tunnel helps! Glad to hear things are going so well Annemarie, you deserve it 🙂
It’s good to hear you are still at it, Annemarie!
Meg I don’t think it takes too long to get all the inner switches and dials functioning properly but it does take some time. It took me eight years to wrap my head around TPRS after being an AP teacher and having that mindset for twenty four years. And that was with Susan Gross – the best – as my mentor! Then it took me another seven years to deprogram myself from TPRS. So give it some time. Nothing good happens fast. Once you get it, and all the light bulbs start going off, let us know. There’s more than light at the end of the tunnel, there is joy and fun and lightheartedness in the classroom too! This non-targeted stuff works, in my CI own world at least.
YAY! Annemarie, I am so happy to hear this! 🙂
What I like about Annemarie is that she has the educational jargon piece down so much so that when she does a demo or promotes CI – like the time she did a demo for some superintendent in a meeting somewhere there in Maine – she brings the credibility in spades to CI instruction. Now she is doing a lot of sharing with others about this stuff. Isn’t she doing something at Bowdoin right now too? We are not really noticing it bc we are so focused on the message, but word is getting out….
And now my office is two doors down from the superintendent…a different one:) I won the super over when my students and I interview him for Star of the class, took his answers and turned them into a song to the tune of “Guantanamera.” Then we performed it for him and the Spanish Immersion 3rd graders…hopefully this will mean my job will never be cut!
Currently I’m world language acquisition specialist for Portland Public Schools, so I’m getting into a lot of classrooms and coaching newer teachers. They know I’m full on TCI-especially since I brought 20 of them to the TCI New England conference! I also get to work with the Spanish Immersion teachers, which is fascinating.
I definitely still get frustrated, though, with some colleagues but that will always be there.
Your job is probably safe. When we involve parents and admins in the fun, it cuts through to THEIR need to be included. That is why I always do an OWI on parents nite featuring the parent with the biggest scowl on their face. Like the time in Delhi when I had the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the School surfing in a bathtub with Lady Gaga.
We step back and then the best things happen. We don’t have to work so hard! Language wants its own path down the mountain, not the one we have planned for it, with all the damns and locks and square corners and things we labor so hard to plan in order to teach our very inferior curriculum instead of the one that Krashen revealed to us, the one that works, the non-targeted one.
That’s AWESOME! I never have time for a story on parent night so I make them do some gestures and chants with me …
Annemarie the one I describe above took about eight of the ten minutes I had. I just don’t do anything but that. And then, when they walk out all smiles after their BORING night in their kids’ other classrooms, I just say, “That’s how I teach…please contact me or my (school) website for details.”
When they leave parents’ night laughing and smiling and their kids do as well, I really don’t have a problem.
Then for the first two months I am very diligent in posting images and stories from each class with the written stories as well and many of the kids actually go there and share w their parents about the fun they are having in class and then, when the coast is clear for the year (when they trust that I know what I’m doing, which is to make their kids happy) – when the helicopters are gone to other teachers – I stop posting pics unless the kids ask and they rarely do.
Honestly, this game is all about the first two months. When Spa Week and Friday WCTG and spring projects arrive, after my strong start, I’m coasting.
So the formula – and sorry for the digression – is:
First two months: work hard
Next five months: take it easy
Last two months (projects): try not to fall asleep at my desk while they do their projects
Summer: forget I’m a teacher
HI Meg,
I am sorry you are having a hard year…it does usually get better. I did have a plan in place, though, to make the next year better, but then I switched schools so I didn’t have to make those drastic changes anyway. Is it the students or admin? Behavior? For me it was behavior, and this was after having taught for 12 years…
I wish you luck and hope this blog helps!!!