High School Students Working

After learning that several of my students work until 2am several days a week, I decided to look up the rules concerning student working...

Jobs & Hours Teens Can Work

• If you're 12 or 13, you can not work as a newspaper carrier work during school hours, before 4 a.m. or after 7 p.m. If you're working with your family in a farm or orchard you can only do so outside of school hours and with your parent's permission.
  If you are 14 or 15, you are limited to 3 hours of work during a school day and 18 hours during a school week and are required to take a 30-minute break after working five consecutive hours.
  If you are 16 or 17, you have no restrictions on your work hours.

Read more: Child Labor Laws in Virginia | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/list_6303476_child-labor-laws-virginia.html#ixzz1KijgNUIy


Granted it's information from eHow, but they have references so it looks legit.  I was wrong that 16-17 year olds are limited to a certain amount of hours.  So in my conversation with them tomorrow, I'm going to inform them that school comes first and they need to be able to get their work done (I'm not assigning anything without a reason) and stay awake in class, even if that means limiting their working hours.  I think the law needs to be changed limiting 16-17 year olds from working past midnight, and limited to 5-6 hours per day if they are full time students.  If they're not in school, they can work as long as they like. These are supposed to be part time jobs, not full time.  Maybe that's just my opinion, but you're not learning anything when you're so tired from working until 2am that you fall asleep in class.

ISTJs

It's scary how well it fits me, so I decided to post the entire thing from http://www.personalitypage.com/ISTJ.html

Portrait of an ISTJ - Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging
(Introverted Sensing with Extraverted Thinking)

---

The Duty Fulfiller

As an ISTJ, your primary mode of living is focused internally, where you take things in via your five senses in a literal, concrete fashion. Your secondary mode is external, where you deal with things rationally and logically.

ISTJs are quiet and reserved individuals who are interested in security and peaceful living. They have a strongly-felt internal sense of duty, which lends them a serious air and the motivation to follow through on tasks. Organized and methodical in their approach, they can generally succeed at any task which they undertake.
ISTJs are very loyal, faithful, and dependable. They place great importance on honesty and integrity. They are "good citizens" who can be depended on to do the right thing for their families and communities. While they generally take things very seriously, they also usually have an offbeat sense of humor and can be a lot of fun - especially at family or work-related gatherings.
ISTJs tend to believe in laws and traditions, and expect the same from others. They're not comfortable with breaking laws or going against the rules. If they are able to see a good reason for stepping outside of the established mode of doing things, the ISTJ will support that effort. However, ISTJs more often tend to believe that things should be done according to procedures and plans. If an ISTJ has not developed their Intuitive side sufficiently, they may become overly obsessed with structure, and insist on doing everything "by the book".
The ISTJ is extremely dependable on following through with things which he or she has promised. For this reason, they sometimes get more and more work piled on them. Because the ISTJ has such a strong sense of duty, they may have a difficult time saying "no" when they are given more work than they can reasonably handle. For this reason, the ISTJ often works long hours, and may be unwittingly taken advantage of.
The ISTJ will work for long periods of time and put tremendous amounts of energy into doing any task which they see as important to fulfilling a goal. However, they will resist putting energy into things which don't make sense to them, or for which they can't see a practical application. They prefer to work alone, but work well in teams when the situation demands it. They like to be accountable for their actions, and enjoy being in positions of authority. The ISTJ has little use for theory or abstract thinking, unless the practical application is clear.
ISTJs have tremendous respect for facts. They hold a tremendous store of facts within themselves, which they have gathered through their Sensing preference. They may have difficulty understanding a theory or idea which is different from their own perspective. However, if they are shown the importance or relevance of the idea to someone who they respect or care about, the idea becomes a fact, which the ISTJ will internalize and support. Once the ISTJ supports a cause or idea, he or she will stop at no lengths to ensure that they are doing their duty of giving support where support is needed.
The ISTJ is not naturally in tune with their own feelings and the feelings of others. They may have difficulty picking up on emotional needs immediately, as they are presented. Being perfectionists themselves, they have a tendency to take other people's efforts for granted, like they take their own efforts for granted. They need to remember to pat people on the back once in a while.
ISTJs are likely to be uncomfortable expressing affection and emotion to others. However, their strong sense of duty and the ability to see what needs to be done in any situation usually allows them to overcome their natural reservations, and they are usually quite supporting and caring individuals with the people that they love. Once the ISTJ realizes the emotional needs of those who are close to them, they put forth effort to meet those needs.
The ISTJ is extremely faithful and loyal. Traditional and family-minded, they will put forth great amounts of effort at making their homes and families running smoothly. They are responsible parents, taking their parenting roles seriously. They are usually good and generous providers to their families. They care deeply about those close to them, although they usually are not comfortable with expressing their love. The ISTJ is likely to express their affection through actions, rather than through words.
ISTJs have an excellent ability to take any task and define it, organize it, plan it, and implement it through to completion. They are very hard workers, who do not allow obstacles to get in the way of performing their duties. They do not usually give themselves enough credit for their achievements, seeing their accomplishments simply as the natural fulfillment of their obligations.
ISTJs usually have a great sense of space and function, and artistic appreciation. Their homes are likely to be tastefully furnished and immaculately maintained. They are acutely aware of their senses, and want to be in surroundings which fit their need for structure, order, and beauty.
Under stress, ISTJs may fall into "catastrophe mode", where they see nothing but all of the possibilities of what could go wrong. They will berate themselves for things which they should have done differently, or duties which they failed to perform. They will lose their ability to see things calmly and reasonably, and will depress themselves with their visions of doom.
In general, the ISTJ has a tremendous amount of potential. Capable, logical, reasonable, and effective individuals with a deeply driven desire to promote security and peaceful living, the ISTJ has what it takes to be highly effective at achieving their chosen goals - whatever they may be.
Jungian functional preference ordering:
Dominant: Introverted Sensing
Auxiliary: Extraverted Thinking
Tertiary: Introverted Feeling
Inferior: Extraverted Intuition

Lessons learned

This weekend has gone by so fast and I still have a super load of work to get done, but that seems to be the story of my life this semester.  And, I've realized that I have trouble sleeping a lot because I'm writing the next blog post in my head or I'm planning lessons, so I've started keeping a notepad by my bed so that I write it down and can tell my brain to "shut up!" and finally go to sleep.

The lesson from last Thursday is that I should never eat the boneless wings from Bdubs (Buffalo Wild Wings), even though I happen to love them.  GI wasn't feeling so hot after that, and of course there goes my energy for the weekend because the equation goes like this:

(BDubs boneless = dairy + my GI system = pain + micro damage in intestines = energy usage to repair = I have no extra energy)

So.... don't ever let me eat breaded anything without checking with the kitchen how they are made, and don't ever let me eat the boneless wings from Bdubs.

Friday after school I drove up to DC, waved to all the people stuck in traffic going the other direction, then promptly got stuck in traffic myself. Ha. The metro train was going faster than me. Finally got to Georgetown, picked up Annalisa from her open house day at Georgetown, found a parking spot in Georgetown, cursed the people who decided to use SUVs in Georgetown (they really should limit transportation to only SMARTcars) and we went and got Vietnamese for dinner on M St.  The restaurant was pricy and the food was ok.  Lesson learned = everything in Georgetown is expensive.  Having used dinner to also let traffic die down, we then drove down to Alexandria to say at my aunt and uncle's for the night.  They have a townhouse in Old Town and during our conversations I learned several things about Faye that I had never known before.  1) She was born in England and then moved to Australia (I thought she was an Aussie through and through, and 2) she was an English major in college, so she and Annalisa had a lot to talk about.

Saturday A and I headed out after breakfast to look at two apartments that we had found in Arlington.  We've pretty much decided that we want to live in Arlington because there are more young people and it's closer to G-town for A.  The first place, called Ballston Park is right near my friend Sara's house and I had always thought they looked sketchy, but the pictures on the web look so much nicer, and I didn't realize they were the same place.  We looked at one apartment, about 850 sqft and figured out that it had never left the 1950s.  We also didn't exactly feel as safe in the area as we wanted, especially if A is going to be coming back from class at 11:30pm, and it was a good walk from the metro.  We then had lunch, did some work sitting in Panera and then walked around to find names of apartment buildings.  Our second appointment was even further from the metro in a community called Arlington Oaks, and again, 1950s syndrome.  Plus the current homeowner was looking for the next people, not the central office which raised some red flags in my head.  I think we need to look for something that was built after 1980,  and I'm going to be stuck up here, but I want laundry in my apartment/house.  Deal breaker there.  The lessons learned are that we need to raise our price expectations for 2 people (hard for a grad student and a teacher still looking for a job) or we need to find a 3rd person who is a clone of us so that we can find a small house.  Hoping for one of those other 20 English MA students... When I got back to JMU last night I did find some houses that would work for 3 people, score!  Now to find that third person.

Now for the last lesson of the weekend.  I am a very responsible person and when I make plans with other people I make sure that it is going to work out and there are no other plans that could overlap.  Because of my personality I expect that everyone else does the same thing.  (One of the reasons why I'm an ISTJ (refer to paragraph 5 in the link).  However, I'm slowly learning that others do not think the same way, and may respond to my "let's hang out" with "sounds great" but allow for some overlap.  I don't think there's a problem with that at all, things come up and things take longer than expected.  Sometimes I just wish that other people had the calendar mindset that I do so that I don't end up getting disappointed.  Don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of incidents of this happening.  I think this weekend just made me realize why I always get disappointed when it does.  The lesson for me is that things don't always work out because everyone is different and I guess the lesson for anyone reading this is: when we make plans, make sure to phrase things in a way that if you're 100% on and it's on the calendar and won't change then tell me, but if you'd love to do it but have XYZ going on and it may not work out, that'd be great to tell me too.  Especially if I've had any dairy in the last week because I'll be more tired and less understanding.  :o)

Phew, lots of lessons, now it's time to go write some lessons for my students.

Update

*Had to put $300 into my car to smooth the brakes and replace the brake pads...awesome.
*My cooperating teacher loved an activity, the students hated it.
*I'm really ready to graduate now.
*My supervisor asked how long I had really been teaching...as in there's no way that I've only been teaching for 10+ weeks...just wait until he sees 3rd period.
*relationships require honest communication and effort by both parties involved, guess the effort wasn't really there all along

Theta Weekend

Last weekend was the 2nd Annual Theta Weekend here at JMU and everything went so well!  It really made me proud to be an advisor to this chapter, and neat to see how they've grown.  Friday night they had the Scholarship/Senior Recognition Banquet.  Aside from a classic JMU scheduling issue, it was beautiful and well put together, and they even recognized us advisors.  I was impressed at the number of both seniors and new members who showed up because in the past, attendance has been spotty.  Saturday I got to have lunch with my little and it was fantastic to catch up and hear what's going on in her life, especially a job offer with Greek IV at Clemson that her heart want's to take but her mind has to think over.  I'll be sad to see her leave DC just as I'm arriving, but she needs to do what's in her heart.  After lunch we headed over to Festival Lawn where our Chapter was hosting the DeKAThalon, their new philanthropy event.  What a success!  Many other chapters had multiple teams, Thetas were coaches, and there were 10 fun/silly games to compete in, and everyone was so spirited and enthusiastic.  Definitely a new event to continue on next year and grow to include groups outside of Greek Life.  The last event of the weekend, on Sunday was the Influential Women's Tea.  Last year's event was a good start, but left room to grow, and this year it grew!  There was another JMU scheduling issue, mainly with not having enough tables set up, but that was the only thing that went wrong.  Our philanthropy chair, her committee, and the entire chapter have so much to be proud of!  I got to meet some mothers of chapter members, looked around the silent auction they had set up and grab some food before the first speaker who was entertaining.  She talked about being influential and how sometimes you never realize when you've influenced someone, or how much you've influenced them, especially in your daily life.  Being a CASA is definitely on my life list after that day.  I also got a book suggestion called Three Little Words, another thing to go on another list! :o)  We also heard from the Director of the Staunton CASA branch, and then a fellow Theta from North Dakota who works to teach people how to network.  She was a great speaker because she got us up and doing things.  One of our challenges was to discuss the 6º of Kevin Bacon (how everyone in hollywood is somehow connected to Kevin Bacon) and see if in 6º we could get an audience with the Pope, meet a U.S. Senator and an award winning entertainer.  Our table achieved all three!  She also talked about introductions and how if you just say your name, people won't remember you as well as if you state your name, an affiliation, two things you do and then use an EST word (biggest, best, most important).  So we had to write our own, and my was

• "Hi I'm Christina, I'm in Grad School at JMU studying Secondary Education (affiliation) so that I can teach social studies (1) and change the life of a child (2).  The most important thing that I do is engage my students and relate history to their lives (EST)."  

Not hard, right?  So after her talk with activities we found out that just the silent auction raised over $2,000 for CASA.  That's not including anything from the DeKAThalon, cost of the brunch or any donations given, and exceeds what the chapter raised in total last year!  So everything put together from the weekend made it a major success and I'm so proud of the Eta Rho Chapter and how they've grown from last semester.  Can't wait to see how they do in Greek Week this upcoming week!

Teaching Against

A great graphic of what teachers face...

Image from: http://i.imgur.com/7ryw2.jpg