Student presentations

Half of my students came to school today jokingly telling me they were going to be deported. Haha. "Goodbye Mrs. Fitz! Now I am going to have to go back to Mexico!" Haha. smh.

Project presentations were today! I love project presentations! Because inevitably I have that one group that spent way too much time making their transitions "hard" instead of checking all the typos in their bullet points. (cough, 8th p today, cough) And inevitably their hilarious personalities come out in their projects. 

Haha after stumbling over the first bullet on this slide, mumbling, "I think I messed up there," then the way he said "Another con is your neck gets hurt because the car goes so fast super quick" had the whole class crying. Ah, I love my physicists!

Let the love of physics seep into all aspects of life!

When your student creates a gmail account for the first time and she makes her password "Physics Rocks" and you know every time she logs in for the rest of her life she'll think of you/your class!!!!

And let's document my outfit today for good measure! I tried out a new faculty bathroom today for this selfie! Haha.

Classy af

At lunch the other day my shoe collection came up, because, you know, I'm kind of known for my heels at school. :-D They were asking how many I had... Oh, approximately 75 pairs of heels... (They are my passion! My favorite collection of art! When I'm too old to wear them I'm just going to look at them and admire their beauty!!) And I was also explaining my standards for heels: only stilettos, only 4" or higher. And one of the other teachers said, "You're classy af, aren't you?" Haha! 

I would definitely describe my style as classic. I was wearing pencils skirts and blouses to church in middle school. So here are a few pictures of some of my heels and outfits... 

Me and my "lil sis" at prom last year!

Accidentally matching one of my favorite colleagues at work!

Trying to document my heels in the downstairs faculty bathroom haha

My second favorite pair of shoes! (Second only to my Benjamin Adams Swarovski crystal wedding heels, of course.)

Me and one particularly amazing young woman at graduation last year!

All in a day's work

I just have to ask... does anyone else get the most random work emails? I'm in first period and I get an email from the teacher in charge of yearbook, and word-for-word it says, "The yearbook students have found a picture on your Instagram post that has you dressed as a storm trooper they want to use. Before we use it we wanted to get your permission." Bahaha--what--wait, what?--where do I start?! (Of course I said yes, and actually sent him the original picture that would be much better quality.) Hahaha. Oh. my. goodness!!

Today my students remembered what I was wearing when they were in a different class period, and that made me incredibly happy that they pay attention to my outfits [almost] as much as I do!!! I was in the teacher's workroom making copies and then cutting them with the paper-slicer-of-death during my planning period. Apparently a kid "went to the bathroom" and was trying to go in the teacher's lounge to buy a "real drink." 

(No, not that kind of drink! Explanation: Students are not allowed to leave class to purchase a drink from the machines, they have to do that in between classes, but lots of students "go to the bathroom" and mysteriously return with a cold drink in their backpacks. Furthermore, our school is only allowed to sell diet/zero and other "healthy" drinks to students in the pop machines in the halls, BUT the teachers' lounges have the only machines that sell normal Coke, etc. So it is not uncommon for students to try to sneak in there to buy a "real drink.") 

Apparently the kid went back to his class, and told his friends he was drink-blocked by a teacher who was in the workroom, and then he wondered aloud if it might have been Mrs. Fitz because it had dark hair and a dress on... "Mrs. Fitz is wearing a black and white dress today!" one of my students said, and evidently multiple others confirmed. "Then that must have been her!" Hehe. Yas. Goals. 

Additionally today was a good day because none of my students wanted to leave my class! At the end of class they were doing my "rollercoaster challenge," which is simply groups trying to create as many loops in a cut-open foam insulation tube as possible for a marble to successfully go through without falling out. They were having so much fun, and trying to beat each other, that they ignored my two and one-minute-until-the-bell warnings, and even when the bell rang they were still trying to win! 

A girl from next door was removed to my classroom because she was giving the sub a hard time, and although she sulked in the back of my room for most of class, when we did this she was interested enough to put in her two cents to the group that was working nearest to her! "Nah, you gotta start higher! Put that loop farther down!" Ha. Made me smile. She learned some physics today.

Oh and I accidentally mixed up hockey and football in 1st period and by 6th period my students had all heard about it, and were lovingly making fun of me all class period...

All in a day's work... I could write a post like this every day, filled with the random happenings of a day teaching high school physics. This is the life.

This is the dress I wore today that my students remembered. This picture was taken with my phone by a sweet student who saw my phone sitting out, and after she shot this proceeded to fill my phone with selfies of herself... haha oh, the books I could fill with student selfies secretly taken on my phone when I wasn't looking. Btw in this picture I am teaching my students how to whip and nae nae. Hahaha.
All in a day's work.

Halloween!

Happy Halloween!! (A day late, but y'all know, the busy teacher life...)

I love building up holidays at school. Any excuse to celebrate, to have something to look forward to, to have a special day, is important. I had hanging glitter pumpkins waiting for my students when they returned from fall break.

I lived up to my nerd queen expectations by dressing up as Obi Wan Kenobi yesterday. My first period helped me make a light saber out of a meter stick, because they are awesome. And I quoted Star Wars all day. These aren't the droids you're looking for.

May the F=ma be with you!

 One of my favorite aspects of Halloween is getting to do fun makeup! I used Halloween as an excuse for extra dark eye makeup at school, balanced with nude lips. (I explained all of this to my physicists, and how black eye shadow only goes in the creases and bountiful mascara is key to not looking like you have a black eye.) My all black outfit was polished off with skeleton hand earrings, a gift from one of my previous students. At the end of every class period I turned on Michael Jackson's Thriller (with no explanation--always keep 'em on their toes!) and proceeded to do the Thriller dance.

The rocker side of me loves wearing black as often as possible ;-)

See I told you she's smiling

Yesterday I was a minute late getting into the hallway in between classes. (I always greet my students at the door by their names.) We're in the middle of building our toothpick bridges so I had to make sure the last class had cleaned up. And as I hurried into the hallway with my clipboard and pen to take attendance as students entered, one of my physicists was almost to my door, talking to another student as he came. "See! I told you she's always smiling." (Apparently he had said, Watch, Mrs. Fitz gonna be smiling. Ha.) "She's always happy. Hi Mrs. Fitz!" And that of course made me smile bigger!

One of the greatest compliments I ever received was during the valedictorian speech my second year of teaching. I didn't have him as a student. I hadn't ever even noticed him, and the kid was like 6'7" or something ridiculous. But apparently he had a class down the hall from me, and he mentioned me in his speech at graduation. While he was listing aspects of our school they would all remember, he said, "And I don't think I ever saw someone leaving Ms. Potter's room who wasn't happy!" (Oh, back when I was Ms. Potter!)

Wow. So honored. Just... wow. If I had a goal for how my classroom was perceived, that would be it. Enter here, leave happy. 

Today I was again a minute late getting into the hallway, 'cause, you know, bridges bein' built. A student walked into my classroom before I had made it into the hallway and he said, "Mrs. Fitz you didn't greet me! I'm coming in again!" And walked back into the hallway so that I could take my position outside my door and say, "Good afternoon! Welcome to physics class!" And he smiled the whole time.

I love fashion, and don't you know that you're never fully dressed without a smile!

Smiles are contagious. 

School should be full of them.

The most wonderful compliment I could receive.

Most Likely to Succeed

My school's yearbook is doing a page on teachers who won superlatives when they were in high school, and they wanted us to pose with a prop that represented our old superlative. So my students, since they are the best students in the entire universe, photo-shopped my last year's yearbook picture on a Time magazine cover!! It's a piece of paper taped to a Seventeen magazine. And I am going to keep it forever!!!

Just taking a selfie with my Time magazine!

I remember feeling so honored that I got a superlative at my high school, because my high school was so large and I was never "popular;" I was never on any kind of homecoming or prom court. But I was very smart. I ended up being valedictorian and was president of a bunch of different clubs my senior year, (NHS, FCA, Band, etc.)

Most likely to succeed. That's a good one. I'm proud to have gotten that one. I'm honored my peers thought that I would make something of myself. What does it mean to succeed? To make a lot of money? To be popular/a celebrity on social media by having thousands of followers? How about to be fulfilling your life purpose? (Or just identifying your life purpose! Can I hear an Amen!?) To be in the most wonderful marriage I could imagine? To be proud of the person I've become? To be enriching the brains of precious adolescents so that they may succeed in their own lives? Yes. By these standards I have succeeded far more than my wildest dreams. 

Reflecting back on my high school self, I can barely believe it... How content I am with myself and my life. More than content. I am ecstatic about who I am, what I am doing, and who I am doing it with. If I could go back in time I would tell my high school self, just keep at it. Keep working hard. You are going to do it. You are going to be happier than you ever imaged you could, and you are going to be so good at what you do! It was a hard road to get here, and of course it's still hard, but it has always paid off. So keep at it, young ones! You will reap the benefits of your hard work soon.