We both have new jobs.

Disclaimer: I apologize for those reading who like to organize their thoughts, mine are just a string of unrelated things.

I (Katie) have a job.

Just going to let that sink in for a bit.

I am working with a staffing agency so I am all over Denver doing all kinds of work. I am enjoying it so far and I believe it will be a good fit for me. No better way to learn to be a nurse than to learn how to be a nurse in alllll sorts of situations. I have been mainly working H1N1 vaccination clinics around town which has been very interesting. They are 6 hour long clinics with 15 nurses vaccinating and we have vaccinated over 1,000+ people each time.

Layne also has a new job.

Some of you may be wondering how in the world is that possible... we were too.

Layne is now a 6th grade math teacher (for those that are behind, he started the year as a 6th and 8th grade science teacher).

The logistics are still being worked out but starting this past monday Layne said goodbye to his "young scientists" as he called them and hello to some mathematicians.

It is a odd thing to think about but we think it is a good thing. The school was in desperate need of a math teacher and were giddy to find out he had enough credit hours to teach math.

Ill let him tell you more about it but I thought the blog world might like to know.

My mom bought me a sewing machine as an early Christmas present when she was out here and I have been going to town. Let me just tell any family members that are reading this to expect a homemade Christmas present! I am loving it! I would LOVE to put up pictures of my first conquests on the sewing machine but like I said they are all christmas presents and no one likes a spoiled surprise.

THE BLIZZARD of OCTOBER hit while Layne was home for Clemson homecoming.

29 inches of snow in the month of October, 24 of it the weekend he was gone. Can I add to this story that I have never not once in my life ever ever driven in even a flurries of snow. I was super brave except for the fact that I asked one of Laynes friends to drive to the airport and pick up Tracy who was here to visit. Tracy and I had a great time, we got bundled up (like the little brother in A Christmas Story) and had fun in our park just falling back into the snow. It is difficult to make a snow angel when the snow is as deep and you. Funny thing is that Layne missed it ALL. snowed after he left and was melted when he got home. How does 2 feet of snow melt in one day!?

My Halloween costume, incase you can't read the name tag, I was

the Appalachian trail/Argentinian lover. Layne was supposed to be my Mark Sanford but when he decided to go the Clemson game he gave permission for one of his friends to be my Mark.

Sophie's Halloween costume!!! She is a lady bug! She loved every minute of it. Until she did her possessed running backwards dance trying to get it off of her head.

November 1st I started burning my Christmas Tree candle and since then I am all about Christmas. Not to skip over thanksgiving but since we will not be in South Carolina for thanksgiving my mind is already at Christmas. We are, however, going to cook thanksgiving dinner. We bought a frozen turkey the other day. We did a practice run last week and it went well so I think the meal will be edible. :)

Layne went snowboarding yesterday. It was 70 degrees in Denver but there is snow in the mountains. He equated it the best day in new york. And that was with only 5 of 100+ runs open at Keystone. I think I will lose him to the mountains for the rest of the winter weekends. I plan on going some but I have to learn to like skiing first. It's the whole "out of control" thing that I am not so fond of.

My husband

and my cat

now love each other, as you can tell.

With much Love - Layne, Katie, and Sophie Madden

Alive!

Yes, I am still alive. I am still a teacher. I would LOVE to tell you about it. How about this week? I promise, really.

We are alive.

Update/My trip home.

I (Katie) still do not have a job.

Layne is kicking achievement gap butt.

Francis the fish has decided to stop eating, which I think is a bad idea.

After several nights of sleeping in the bathroom Sophie the cat has decided not to wake us up at 2am, 3am, 4am and 5am.

We are now bike owners ($25 from salvation army)

Mom-in-law will be here Friday.

Mom will be here Oct. 1

Tracy will be here Oct. 29

Nesting still in process, more pictures of the house coming soon.

Speaking of nesting - I, after much bargain shopping training from my mother, purchased $360.92 of merchandise for $23.94!

I changed the layout... too girly?

I recently was home for a wedding, it was so good to see everyone and spend time with family. My trip was supposed to be a quick fly in and back out but since I still don't have a job I was able to stay a few extra days (thanks mom!).

Groucho's with the lovely clair bear and my favorite set of twins!

Graham came to grouchos too!

We went to Grahams house on Church St. AMAZING.

We headed on to Beaufort for the wedding and Clair decided that she now likes children.

She baby sat a bridesmaids baby during pictures and exclaimed " I put it to sleep!"

Bridesmaids!

Bride!

Clair and I drove back from Beaufort late and got pulled over, I may have been speeding just a little bit, the officer was very nice and as soon as he saw that my last name was Madden he started asking me if I am related to so and so. I told him that I am a new Madden and I am not sure who all of my new relatives are. He enjoyed our conversation so much that he told to have a great night and a safe trip... not even a written warning. This is small because I never told mom about this event. When we finally got home I slept in my old room and moms new office. The rest of the weekend was filled with girl time (movies, m&ms, cheetos and shopping) and Kitten sitting!!!

Meet Tumbo aka Bo

He is too cute and sooo teeny tiny.

Could not drive around Lexington without going to see this place -

Best day of my life was in this church almost 6 months ago.

Came home to my sweet husband and a clean house - he is amazing.

Back to the world of Job hunting and nesting and experiencing Denver.

This was one of our most recent experiences -

Tour de Fat.

(notice my Impala Lucy, getting a front row seat to the parade)

This pro Bike festival started with a parade. No Halloween I have ever seen compares to these crazy costumes. multiple hundreds, possibly thousands of bikes paraded down our street. Being very intrigued we decided to check out the rest of the festival. Live music, lots of food, and lots of recycling. It was crazy but fun! People here really love their bikes!

Thats all from me... I tell Mr. Madden to update on his 6th and 8th graders.

With much love,

The Maddens

Bring em on!

Tomorrow is D-day. At this point, however, I don't even know what grades/subjects I will be teaching.

Tomorrow the 6th graders come all by themselves. I suppose this is a way to ease them into the brave new world of middle school life (lockers, swirlies, zits, girls, etc.). The problem is, we don't have schedules for them. We don't know what classes they should go to, and they certainly don't. As a 6th grade team we decided that we would just split them up and rotate them through all of the 6th grade teachers until we have schedules for them. That will probably be Monday.

Back to the point that I don't know what grade I'm teaching. This is because the registration numbers did not match predictions made in the spring. There are way more 6th and 7th graders than 8th graders, and the administration is needing to move teachers around quickly to accomodate the lopsided school population. There are several factors outside of the control of my school that have led to this situation.

1. Denver Public Schools uses open registration. This means that students can enroll in any school they want to, so predicting class sizes from year to year is more of an art than a science.

2. The Montbello community is very unstable. People come and go with alarming frequency. Here is an article from a few years ago that outlines what happened in the housing market .

3. Students are still registering. The students numbers are changing, significantly, on a daily basis.

So I am in limbo. It is pretty stressful not knowing what to expect for the rest of the year, but I have a plan for tomorrow. And tomorrow I will have a plan for Thursday. And then I will have a plan for Friday. Though this habit is not going to turn my students into incredible scientists, for now it will have to do.

I am excited and terrified. And it is just weird to think that I am about to be entrusted with 200+ 11 year olds. Up to 41 per class, 6 times a day. What am I getting into?

Side story:
Here is a picture of a TV that used to be in a bar, and for $25 bucks is now about to be in our living room! And they gave us a free meal at the place, so really it's free. I know you're jealous.


How about a look into my classroom?

Classroom pre-Clemson Theme + Motivational Posters

Student Achievement Mecca

Another View

Driving home after a long day at the shop. I see snow (14ers) every day on my drive home. You should be jealous.

- Mr. Madden, K, Lucie the impala, Timmy the taurus, and sophie.

Seriously...where is the closest beach?

First things first - immediate apologies to all of our loyal fans (thanks mom) for the severe posting lapse. We have been doing much of the same: settling into our new space (see post below), learning how to be a teacher, looking for jobs, finding the best laundromat, buying groceries, etc. We have found Denver, and specifically our neighborhood of Capital Hill, to be very pleasant and welcoming.

Recently we have shared heart warming human interest stories about moving, Sophie the cat, our apartment, Mexican food, etc. I think today is an appropriate time for an achievement gap update. It is a bit of a delicate task to publicly illuminate the systemic problems of American public schools when I: 1. Have only recently been a part of this bureaucratic organization, and 2. Am actually employed by said organization.


Why I Write
A purpose that I have for this blog is for friends, family, and those who happen to google "Teach for America, Denver Public Schools, Achievement Gap, etc.", to be able to see a glimpse of the injustice that children in poverty, and specifically minority children of poverty, face every day. What we are up against is a culture of low expectations, a misaligned pedagogy that labels students as lazy (or dumb, or slow, or too far behind), and disproportionate challenges to learning outside of school. While I cannot change a child's home life, the realization of overcrowded homes, absent fathers, video games in lieu of books and after school sports, malnutrition, and abuse are all factors that prevent my students from achieving at the level that my classmates and I did in school.

Back to the delicacy of this blog. While I want to be candid about my experiences, this is a public forum. Even though no one reads it, this is still public. That kind of begs the question of the tree falling in the forest....but I digress.

I am an employee of DPS, of Rachel B. Noel Middle School, and I am entrusted with the lives of 200 students. With that in mind, I will share funny stories, atrocities, tearjerkers , and knee slappers. However, this will not become a rant, a place to complain about work and my employer, or a place to humiliate my students. My students will, undoubtedly, read this blog when they google "layne madden". Not that I will not talk about my students. They absolutely deserve to have their stories told, but stories will be anonymous, or pseudnymonous . It is morally incumbent on me to share the injustice that I see, but only in a way that maintains the dignity of the 11-14 yearolds whom I have been entrusted with.


My Assignment
I can only speak to my experience as a first year teacher, but I encourage the veterans to comment to this point. From what I understand, this is not a situation unique to Denver Public Schools, but is the modus operandi for back to school preparation. Here's the story:

When I was hired, in early June, I was told that I would be most likely teaching 7th and 8th grade. During the time that I was at institute in Atlanta, however, the administration team that was at RBN (rachel b noel) was replaced by a new team. As could be expected, the transition between the two teams meant that my assignment was again undecided. Because the new team brought with them new priorities and perspectives, the schedule needed to be changed.

Teach for America, ever on the forefront of planning ahead, began guiding me through the process of developing my Learning Goals (assessment objectives, tested standards, _____insert your own educational buzzword here), assessments, long term plan, and first unit plan. Even though my assignment was uncertain, I chose to plan for 7th grade life science. I spent hours breaking down the standards into objectives, determining all of the skills that my students would need to have by May, re-writing assessments to fit into my long term plan, and planning out what would happen every day of the first unit. I was pretty proud of the work that I had accomplished, and felt prepared to begin teaching life science.

Flash forward to last Thursday. This is when I found out I would not be teaching 7th grade life science, but I would be teaching 6th and 8th grade Earth and Physical science. Frustrating, yes, but I do not fault our administration team. I am actually quite impressed at how quickly they worked to implement all of the changes that they wanted to make. I don't fault the district for the late transition. I believe that there is a fundamental problem with how this whole teaching profession is viewed. I am given 13 days to prepare to teach a year of earth science AND a year of physical science. I have never taught before.


What is expected:
Trust the curriculum. Even if you don't know what you want your students to be able to do by the end of the year, just trust the curriculum, it will get them there. It was designed by experts in their field, it is full of hands-on activities that will engage the students in learning, it is used by everyone in the district, so just trust it. There is no expectation that I would write a long term plan for the year. No one expects that I would even have my first unit planned out. Does the curriculum diagnose, pace, differentiate, remediate, discipline, build respect, encourage, challenge, or call home?


Comments:
I have written enough today, and I need to respect everyone's attention span. I would love to hear comments about "what is expected". What is so wrong with giving a first year teacher the curriculum and saying trust it (btw, I actually haven't even been given the curriculum yet)? Why do teachers pay tens of thousands of dollars to get Master's degrees in education when all that is needed is to trust the curriculum?

The Nest

While Layne has been here and there training for this whole "teaching" thing, I have been nesting and looking for a job; only one of these endeavors has been successful.

The story of our nest goes like this -

While we were out here in Denver several months ago for induction, we literaly stumbled upon a for-rent sign. Two hours later we signed on the dotted line. It was a good feeling to have a specific destination for the GPS when we pulled out of Lexington, SC. Our first night here consisted of $40 pizza (I didn't ask for the price I was just hungry), an almost parking ticket for our trailer, and four very worn out people as we unloaded almost every earthly possession we own in 2 hours in the dark. We all (by all I mean me, Layne and our fathers) slept soundly on my creatively made 3 beds with the works.

We tackled the big stuff in the morning, ie the box springs, bookcases and bed frame with some almost causalities.

Who knew it was trash day? Not us.

The garbage man had my antique wrought iron bed frame in his truck and was going for the bookcases when Mr. David, using any spanish he knew, tried to convince the garbage man that it was not trash but just move in day. I have to pause and acknowledge the tragedy that could have been....

The good news is that everything was in by lunch and the nesting began.

The wonderful trailer and truck that brought all of our things across the country.

Day 1

Day 12

We love our kitchen and our living room but I think the best room of our house is...

We love our bathroom... come visit and you can shower with the crisp breeze of the rockies!

The nesting continues and I guess the job search does too.

Be on the look out for our nested bedroom, man room and closet.

I hope you all enjoyed my inaugural blog post.

- l & k and sophie

o yeah and speaking of Sophie, she has become nocturnal. Sleeps all day - annoys the crap out of us at night. We have begun to return the favor waking her up when we see her sleeping.

Week One in the Rockies

I hope you enjoyed our photo journal cross-country. If you didn't enjoy it, but you did see it, I apologize. If you didn't enjoy, but haven't seen it yet and think that you may enjoy it at least marginally, please scroll down.

Last week schedule:
Arrived - Tuesday night
Unpacked trailer - Wednesday
Started teacher training, again - Thursday.

Things have been hectic, to say the least. We finally got connected to the world wide interweb yesterday, and we also got our tv connected to this wire that sends all sorts of different images and sounds into the tube. In this one picture show, 25 men are all out-cologning each other to get with this one girl. The weird thing is, they all "get with" her, but only one of them will be allowed to get with her after the moving picture crew stops filming.

On another frequency, people look you right in the eye and tell you what kinds of things are going on in other parts of the world. It's kind of like reading a newspaper, except less relevant and a lot slower.

Katie went to the rodeo in Wyoming today. I've never been to Wyoming, and I had no idea it was just a hop skip and a jump from Denver. Apparantly, at a rodeo men get on the backs of really angry bulls, and then try to hold on as long as possible. People who do this get hurt pretty often.