Roll, firedrills, dead fish, and a tender psyche

The bell rings.

In a perfect world with a perfect teacher, this is the time roll is taken.

But the world isn't perfect, and neither am I. Class begins, I launch the lesson, and then--the fire alarm! I did not know (or I have forgotten) there was a drill today! Or is this real?

The law says we have to have one a month

It doesn't matter. I send the students out the door, grab the red backpack containing our first aid and fire drill paperwork, and realize too late that, oh no, I don't have the paperwork AND I don't know who is absent. I fumble around inside the backpack, searching, finally realizing I'll just have to go out there and try to piece this together with my kids' help; I'm the last to arrive at our gathering spot.

We make our middle schoolers sit down for counting ease

When I'm out there, I count and recount students. "Can you think of anyone not here?" I implore the students. I send a paper up to the admin with my best guesses, the last to send the official red paper (except mine is white and unofficial).

After the drill, I search for my boss to apologize. He is angry. Let me write that again, properly: ANGRY.  I tell him I don't have a good excuse but that I feel badly and it won't happen again, offering my hand in forgiveness. He places his in mine and it is as cold and lifeless as the dead fish that cold and lifeless handshakes are often compared to. He can't even look at me, he is so furious. I have made him look bad in front of his boss.

I wake up.  Cheesy, but true. I begin to ponder the dream's significance.

Truth be told, I am quite bad about taking roll even when I am awake. It is one of those secretarial details that I find interferes with my launch into class. It has to be done six times a day because our school receives funding dependent upon the body count--the bodies don't have to be conscious, so far as I can tell, fyi. I have found a way around this which I don't care to share with the wide world; suffice it to say that apparently my psyche has some anxieties about taking roll. And maybe my psyche harbors anxieties about pleasing my boss, or about dead fish. But the bigger question is:

WHY AM I HAVING SCHOOL DREAMS DURING THANKSGIVING VACATION?

October 31

So I do not enjoy this holiday. Its origins bleed through in all the fear and horror and ugliness that folks seek out and that is thrown at us, and as a believer*, that's bad enough for me. Add to that the excuse for our children to dress slutty (yes, in middle school we have had prostitutes, pimps, and a Hooter girl, not to mention the whole menagerie of sexy bunnies, cats, Minnie Mouses, you name it, I've seen it). I'm ever tired of tired costumes, store-bought costumes, hours spent on makeup to make gunshot wounds, zombies, things calculated to nauseate.

BUT.

Every so often the creativity and boldness of a kid will blow me away. Here are the best of this year. (All boys, probably because of the pressure on girls to be "hot" at all costs. Ever see Mean Girls?)

Here, A. is dressed up as my favorite starfish, Patrick. You can't see his pink tights and his pointy head is drifting west, but he is definitely Patrick. My only regret is not seeing him with his friends; I understand there was a Spongebob and Squidward, too.

R. is committed to his persona--rolled down pantyhose, fake nails, breasts sagging. (As to the latter, nothing was more disturbing all day than to see R. holding up one to another student dressed as our principal, commanding him to smell it.) His face was lined with wrinkles and he hunched around all day.

If it were up to me, D.'s Pizza Samurai would have won first prize. His whole costume was beautifully crafted, completely original, and hey, eco-friendly.








This last one wins my heart. Today was our Declaration of Independence test, and J. came as The Natural Rights Pumpkin who rises out of the pumpkin patch once a year delivering good grades to those who have studied. Yes, those are flowers coming out of his "stem." How can you not melt when a kid is so inspired by your class that he wears something like this to actual school???

*Philippians 4:8 : Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

He Can't Read....

....but he is in my 8th grade history class that has the "gifted" label on it.

Any wonder he doesn't do any homework?  Any wonder he fails his tests?

There is something I wonder: HOW DID HE GET THIS FAR?  I am not waving a huge "hold him back" flag. (Obviously being in a classroom with 7th or 6th or 5th graders won't teach him to read, because 7th and 6th and 5th graders already have learned how.   The kid is attentive about 85% of the time. He is often animated and even voluntarily contributes a few times a week.)

I am waving a huge "horrible reality" flag. A big ol' "make him take a summer school 'how to read' course" flag. A gigantical "help him" flag.

Of course, he is part of the issue. He mouths off to adults regularly (Today it was to the principal. Gee, kid, not your smartest move. I suppose I am blessed he has been pretty good in my class--my mom has been praying for him since the first day of school....). He shrugs his shoulders when approached about his performance/achievement/situation.

Teachers fail him, but the district moves kids along. But why can't the district provide a remedial reading course? I wonder that, too.  I haven't done any research on how to help kids like him. I don't like the way I feel when I think about him--guilty, defensive, accusatory, angry, helpless. Whoo, I'm a walking party.

Are there any solutions?*



*To his plight, not my feelings. I can deal with my feelings, thanks very much. Now pass the cookies.

Christmas is coming!!

As a kid, I went to two elementary schools, a junior high school, and a high school in the same district I teach in today. I did my student teaching at two schools and as a contracted teacher have taught in three schools in this district, the 2nd largest in California.

I have NEVER worked, as a student or teacher, in a classroom that had air conditioning. (That's a looonnnnnngggg time. I'm hoping to retire in less than ten years.)

Look--a person absolutely can learn in high heat and thick humidity. But for the cohort I work with, thirteen year olds, learning can be a challenge in the most temperate of times. If my 35 kiddos struggle with the Mayflower Compact when it's 75° outside, imagine their difficulty when it's 95° outside and the humidity is at 80%. When I got home from school as a kid, it was to an under insulated home with no a/c. Hot at school, hot at home, I didn't really have much comparison. But most of the kids at our site have a/c. They know better. We've had students vomiting from the heat, suffering from heat stroke, and at least one teacher who was in danger of heat stroke.

Some people think the most beautiful sentence in the English language is "I love you." I think it might be "I forgive you." But right up there are these words I never really believed I'd hear: "Our air conditioning is coming mid-October."


In C.S. Lewis's classic, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Mr. Tumnus tells Lucy that the White Witch has cast a spell on Narnia such that it is always winter, and never Christmas. Well evil Humidity Heat Witch, start packing your bags or whatever it is that evil witches pack: you've been given notice.

Move over, Humidity Heat Witch--Father Christmas is getting me some a/c!!

"Mommy! Mommy!"

Have a nightmare when you are little, and you wake up, run to your parents' bedroom and get some immediate comfort there. I had this year's first school dream--nightmare, really--last night, with no Mommy in sight. Glad the alarm went off, because while I was persevering in my dream, it was NO FUN. (Understatement.)

I'd been last-minute transferred to another site;

Of course no rosters;

Thrown into a classroom that wasn't kid-ready, or me-ready;

After the bell had rung.

Next door was a band room that kept the door open.

On the other side of my room was a huge room that kids could just slip into unnoticed because I had no rosters and didn't know who my kids were.

I was desperately obeying the First Rule of Middle School Teaching: "Stay calm." But there was no way I could obey The Second Rule of Middle School Teaching, "Be over prepared," because, well, last-minute transfer to a crazy room after the bell.

I suppose it could have been worse. I mean, at least I had my clothes on, right??

Perplexed, Bewildered, Bemused, Mystified, Stumped, Flummoxed, Puzzled

Can't figure it out.

We post students' grades online

Most parents don't check.

(It's true--on our grading program there's a little scroll-down window that shows us how many times a parent or a kiddo has checked grades. A parent can even sign up for free notifications. If I had a kid I'd be so glad to know what was up, because, according to most of the parents I conference with, teens are, ahem, less than communicative with them, something that hasn't changed since I was a tyke. If I were a kid, I'd be checking all the time.)

That moment when the high school usurps your curriculum...AGAIN

Last post was about my thrilledness (Humpty Dumpty and Shakespeare give us all permission to invent words) over my highly gifted kids getting into Lord of the Flies. I was exuberant.

(I never blogged about why this unit was a big deal. See, I'd been teaching Animal Farm and To Kill a Mockingbird to my 8th graders for four years when the high school VP emailed my principal and told him those books were now (thanks, Common Core) going to be taught in 9th grade. It was more than lame--for one, I was getting ready to launch AF in a week or so, and two, TKAM is just my favorite. For three, teaching TKAM was so awesome after teaching Elie Wiesel's Night--to teach about a man of courage just brought me joy and was a wonderful counterpoint to Night's darkness. OK, I reconciled myself to writing units for two new texts this year. I asked the VP what the upper grades were teaching and only heard from one 9th grade teacher.

Fine. I spent days creating a unit for Lord of the Flies, and boy did I get excited. Talked to a teacher friend in Texas. Stole a few ideas from a teacher in Pennsylvania. Got some ideas straight from the Creator. Man, this was gonna be waaaay better than AF, waaaaay deeper. You can see read about my excitement here and here.)

Things just kept getting better, especially when I assigned chapter 8 for reading and the kids came in all shaking their heads about the answer to the question, "Who IS 'Lord of the Flies?'" Whoo!!!

After school that day I had a couple of formers come by to visit, sophomores in Honors English at the local high school. "Guess what we're reading, Miss M?" Oh dear Lord, please, no....

I dashed off an email to my principal and the high school VP, forwarding an old email where I'd asked for what the upper grades taught. I told them I'd heard no reply. I told them SOME of what my unit contained--Hobbes, Rousseau, leadership theory, Christ figure symbology, Freud--and got the response: "My best advice is to check with the department head before you select novels."

Are. You. Serious....

If my kids could do this in 8th grade, shouldn't the 10th grade teacher tackle something tougher? Give them Plato. Or just TELL ME WHAT THE UPPER GRADES ARE DOING, AS I'D ASKED. Or ask US what WE'VE done at the lower grades!

Anyway, my principal wrote a response supporting me: "Please understand that we need to keep Lord of the Flies here at DP." I haven't heard anything back from the high school or from him. I am hoping no new news is good news, but it's been a loonnnnng time since I have been that deflated. Gonna press on this year with my plans--comparing Peter Brueghel's paintings to the novels, finding music that goes with each character (compiling the definitive LOTF soundtrack with rationales), writing fine literary analysis papers, and celebrating all of it with a luau complete with PORK (bahaha) and the "islands" creating displays of the symbols and characters chosen from the text: fire, specs, the conch, the beast, pigs, Ralph, Simon, Jack, Piggy......and when they get to high school and the high school forces them to do the same things I had them do already, it will be upon THEM to write a new unit. These kids are ready for more.

And I think I am done giving up the books that work so well with my history course. 

That Moment When the Class Finally.....

I was beginning to think it would never happen, that inner click you feel as an educator when your class corporately buys into the book you are reading. But it happened today, and what a relief.

DAY ONE: Name choosing and nametag making was fine, fun, childish, unacademic, and silly--but good team-building. 

DAY TWO: It did NOT go well. We began with a Golding bio--fine as it went, and then started the book from the Pulitzer Prize winner. But the yards of description Golding pours into the island bogged us down (my exact 10th grade reaction: "Who CARES about all this stuff?? Tell the story, already!").  Boring. Yawn. I brought out the conch--mild interest--passed it around--mild interest. Sigh. I assigned the rest of chapter one for homework. I felt defeated.

DAY THREE: I passed out leadership style readings. This was a bit more interesting. In their islands they had to connect the styles to the boys and write down where in the text their support was. I asked, "Was this activity ok?" B., who LOVES to learn, said sincerely, "This was fun!" But MR. gave me that apologetic head tilted smile that said just as loudly, "Not really." I still felt better because the groups were talking. We launched the next chapter and made lists of the boys, their traits, the symbols, and our designations of meanings. The list-making was full-class but half-hearted. I trusted that list, though. I was thrilled when the kids posted Ralph as democratic and Jack as autocratic. Small victories when things aren't going your way can feel like huge ones.

DAY FOUR: I began chapter three with a handout about characteristics of Christ figures I teacher-stole from a wonderful teacher in Pennsylvania. More interest, especially when we looked at Obi-wan Kenobe, Gandalf, and Dumbledore in that light (they weren't familiar with Cool Hand Luke). "Is Simon going to die?" asked an astute person. "Perhaps, but necessarily--do you think Simon will be crucified or resurrected?" I returned. The normally jolly N. was uncharacteristically scornful: "Number 11 on this list is dumb! No one is a carpenter!" And so we began the chapter only to find the Simon is helping Ralph build a hut. "He IS a carpenter!" someone yelled triumphantly. Things were looking up. They finished chapter 3 over break. The Christ figure trope was a revelation for them, a novelty, cool and adult.

DAY FIVE: We pretty much straight read chapter 4 as a class, adding to our list about the boys. I talked about symbols, and the kids were a bit more into the drama. My VP walked into watch. Wish I had something better than reading aloud. Nope.

DAY SIX: But then today. Ah. Half the students read about Rousseau and the other half about Hobbes. Then we had a Chalk Talk--I had prepared the classroom with ten quotes, half from R, half from H, and the students responded to the quotes and to each others' responses using dry erase markers. It was like having ten silent conversations at once! I had warned them about writing stupid things like "I like turtles," but about three boys couldn't help themselves (Hobbes would say that--and I will use that tomorrow as an example in class). When we began to review chapter four, a shift happened. I don't know what, but the kids began to see the story as a story of human nature. I let them talk. "Would the kids treat Piggy differently if he looked different?" "I think Jack punching Piggy is a sign of civilization running down." (!!) "But what about the cover on this book? Why is that giant fly near Piggy? Is he Lord of the Flies?" And off the discussion ran: who WAS Lord of the Flies?

God bless this ambiguous cover

I finally shared what any bible-reading, church-going Protestant fifty years ago would know, that The Lord of the Flies is Beelzebub, Satan. (I did this by showing Wikipedia's entry and scrolling to the verses in the bible in Matthew 12.) The kids got excited about the reference to the house divided--"The island is dividing!" And then they wondered if the Beast, or maybe Jack, was the Lord of the Flies. Someone wondered if Piggy's name was connected to the pigs on the island. "The names are significant," is all I would say until a girl jokingly asked if Ralph was going to vomit since his name is slang for vomit. "His name means 'counselor,' I said. A thrill ran through the class, I felt it. I decided to share with them the secret of names that had captivated me decades earlier.  Above the lists of the boys, the students watched as the meanings of the names were written:
Ralph - counselor
Jack - supplanter, usurper
Simon - listener
Roger - spear
Piggy

"Piggy's name is significant because it means what it says." And the class blew up--"Piggy is going to die, not Simon!" "Simon is going to save Piggy because he is the Christ figure!" "Jack is evil and must be the Lord of the Flies!" They were all* so excited and absorbed, making connections and predictions--"Roger is Jack's tool to kill Piggy, just like Jack speared the real pig!" "Jack broke Piggy's glasses, does that mean the end of intelligence?" OK, cue the bell.

Tomorrow we will look for Hobbes and Rousseau in the text and have a quiz contest among the islands groups. But I believe that when I assign chapter five as homework the kids will enjoy it. FINALLY.

*"All" is a relative term. Do 36 students ALL do anything at the same time? In a class of 36, many of whom are introverts, it is sometimes difficult to be accurate about "all." I use it here in the teacher sense of "heavy majority with 36 sets of eyes looking alert."

No no no no no no no

He died defending his children and therefore his country 12/21/13

Michael Landsberry
Marine, Teacher, Dad, Hero
Inspirational

(I can't let myself
feel this. It takes such a toll.)
He took a bullet...

Were all his papers
graded? His grades up-to-date?
How about his soul?

 (I keep wondering
what I would do, but all I
can do is wonder.)

All Aboard!

It really is often like this...

We are starting a new year and I need to remember my true calling and my true Captain. I can't stop reading this sonnet and applying it to the school year, especially the public school year. I haven't been excited AT ALL about this coming year, perhaps because last year was my best ever, but this poem inspires me in a way that nothing has so far, not even the aisles of The Container Store or the techniques in Teach Like a Champion or having a spanking-clean and ready room:

The Call of the Disciples 
by sonnet master Malcolm Guite

He calls us all to step aboard his ship.
Take the adventure on this morning's wing,
Raise sail with him, launch out into the deep,
Whatever storms or floods are threatening.
If faith gives way to doubt, or love to fear,
Then, as on Galilee, we'll rouse the Lord,
For he is always with us and will hear,
And make our peace with his creative Word,
Who made us, loved us, formed us and has set
All his beloved lovers in an ark;
Borne upwards by his Spirit, we will float
Above the rising waves, the falling dark,
As fellow pilgrims, driven toward that haven,
Where all will be redeemed, fulfilled forgiven.

(In search of more curricular inspiration, I will be watching Stand and Deliver sometime this three-day weekend before the ship sets sail on Tuesday....)

Is good spelling a waste of time, or a waist of thyme?

I can never buy this dress.

Man oh man. We are are either getting dumber or lazier, not sure which. Tooling around on a fun fashion site, I clicked on a link that took me to a sentence containing two consecutive Autocorrect problems that no editor checked/caught/knew enough to spot--read it and weep, and try to ignore the unnecessary comma:

"Day At The Races Dress- Black 

We love the fit of this dress! So classic, and cute! The synched waste is sure to show off the best parts of you!"               

 I am grateful that I was born a great speller. Got a word that needs spelling? I'm your go-to. (Except "occurance" or "occurence" or "occurrance" or "occurrence"--only one of these is right* and I truly didn't know without the little spell check feature on this bloggy.) But I know that spelling is not a function of intelligence. HOWEVER, good publishing demands that someone spend some time editing and checking, lest embarrassing moments happen to otherwise good writers:

That's one laep forward, two laeps back

Mr. Rogers wants you to be his neighhobor

Hey, aren't we supposed to be creative?

*The last occurrence is correct. It was the last one I typed and I truly was surprised. (Every time.)

Strictly Surprising, Somewhat Unsettling

Soooo. A friend of my mom's is a kindergarten teacher, retiring any minute now. L. tells me she ran into a former student of mine, that they discovered this mutual connection somehow, some freakish incidence of Six Degrees from Lola Bacon. Apparently what he told her about me as a teacher is that I am very..... strict. Strict???

Though I've been teaching since the dawn of cell phones, this is the first time I've had THAT feedback. I kinda don't know what to make of it.

It's better to be remembered as strict than as lenient, I suppose, and "strict" is waaaay better than "horrible."

Ratemyteacher.com asks students to rate a teacher's helpfulness, clarity, and easiness. I do really well on the first two and think that is a teacher's goal. Students do not perceive me as an easy teacher. Is that the same thing as saying someone is strict?

What does that word mean, anyway? When I was in elementary school, it kind of was synonymous with "mean." If a teacher was nice but was in charge, we'd say, "She's nice, but she doesn't let kids get away with stuff," because the word "strict" had some bad connotations.

Am I strict? In September, I am super strict, I admit (a little defensively proud of it). There are only four rules for class and I have to make sure 35 or so 8th graders, crammed together in a small wooden bungalow with no a/c, LEARN stuff that they don't, let's face it, care about. When kids learn how to behave in September, that pays big dividends for the rest of the year.

But am I strict? I don't write referrals because my kids behave. The principal (well, the one who just left who was at the school for eight years) sends in student teachers and visitors and staff members to watch me because she thinks I'm a good class manager with good class rapport. Am I strict? Did that former student REALLY mean I was "mean?"

Postscript: This morning I read a blog that is usually way above my head, and I caught whiffs of my  post and of other doubts I've had about the meaning of my life, that I've never written a book, about possible self-delusion, and personal struggles as a teacher in a public school setting (a Christian teacher, what's more).  This post by Dr. Holly Ordway gave me a handle: http://www.hieropraxis.com/2011/01/i-can-be-a-failure/

The YMCA School of Swimming, German, and Feisty Sharks

Long ago when we were wee 'uns and enrolled in a Backyard Swim class, my brother told me that at the YMCA, they just threw you in the pool and let you figure out how to stay afloat. Although that's not true (is it?), my student teaching felt a bit like being thrown in the deep end after having merely READ about swimming, with a university supervisor, master teacher, and my own rising panic all screaming, "Swim better!" as I flailed about in a pool with 30 smallish but feisty sharks. Consequently, whenever I have student teachers, I've always tried to make things easier for them.

My current student teacher began the semester boldly independent, sure that he could be an amazing teacher right away, mostly by building rapport with kids, which meant talking about football. Without realizing it, he began pretty much copying my day-to-day lesson style and sometimes whole presentations, using my examples and pauses, borrowing far more from me than he imagined, because lesson planning is time consuming and he was teaching, going to school, and working ten hours a week: "I liked the test you're giving, so I'm going to use a lot of it" meant he was pretty much going to change my joke question to one about the Philadelphia Eagles. I suggested activities, had him spin them his way, let him use my homework, and let him believe that he was mostly original.

So. Student Teacher realizes his 4th period is beginning to turn on him (the worst feeling) with only two more days of school, today and next Monday. Finals are over today. "What do you have planned for Monday?" I ask.

"I don't know."

"You better think of something, because the natives are restless." With no test to dangle over young teens and as a teacher without much life experience and with not much originality, he's in deep water.

He hemmed and hawed and hung about, and said, "I wonder what I could do? I wonder what would keep them involved? Hmmmm."

Yes, he was flailing, hoping I'd rescue him. "The internet is loaded with ideas, M." Suddenly, I was working for the YMCA.

"I know! I'll teach them to count in German!" He looked at me for feedback. (Teach them to count in GERMAN?!? OK, that'll be interesting to about ten of them. But twenty sharks'll kill you just as dead as thirty. "If you were thirteen, would that interest you?" is normally what I would ask, pushing him to fix his lessons until the answer was "yes.")

"What incentive will you use? I think you are going to have to cave and buy candy."

"Yes, that's what I was planning to do." I tell him I'm glad he thought of that, because middle schoolers will do anything for a Jolly Rancher, but I think he told a fib. I hate fibs: my brain thought, "You and your German lesson are on your own. After ninety days of Lola-designed, -modified or -approved lessons, you are going to have to apply what you've learned at Backyard Swim."

I'll be in the room so there will be no blood, but fifty-five minutes feels a lot longer when you see fins.

 

Teachers: WE ARE OK

Our school is launching a little aid raiser for the Red Cross in honor of the victims of the Moore, OK tornado. Our goal is to raise $1000, a dollar per student.

One teacher ordered "We are OK" wristbands online to give to donors.
Two are manning the collection table during their lunch.
One is housing the funds during our drive.
One wrote the bulletin announcement.
One is doing an "all call" to the parents.
One will manage the transfer of funds to the organization.

I kind of wish students were driving this drive.

(As I was sharing our drive with an advisory class, a student asked, "When did this happen?" Hmmm.)

And as this school year zooms toward its end, I reflect on the two real lock downs our neighborhood schools had--the teachers were champions. I reflect on the teachers at Sandy Hook and Plaza Towers and Briarwood--the teachers were heroes. I reflect on Q, tutored after school by my student teacher, who is going to pass now--my student teacher is a champion. I reflect on the teachers' hearts prompting this drive--they want to help the hurting so badly. 

Hmmmmm.............................maybe teacher-bashing can end for a season, m'kay?

Must Be Nice

Courtesy shuttle--driver, passenger, myself.

P: You're going home, not to work?

M: It's spring break! I'm a teacher at DPMS.

P: Must be nice.

D: My sister went there! Did you have J.I.?

M: I did for a while, then she transferred to Mr F.

She's a junior now, right?

P: You must have a great memory to remember each student. How many kids in a class?

M: About 34.

P: YOU TEACH 150 KIDS A DAY?

M: It used to be worse--around 180. 

P: How do you know what they don't know?

M: I grade their papers, but you're right, it's hard.

P: You can't grade all their papers--you have TAs for that.

M: I wish. I grade it all. There are no TAs for that. Look, here are some papers right here. (shows bag full of work to be graded) That's what I'm doing when I get dropped off. Look, some studies say class size doesn't much affect student learning, but no one ever studies how it affects the teachers.

P (sympathetic): How could it not? My kid's elementary class has eleven students.

M: Must be nice.

P: What do you teach?

M: History.

P: Excuse me for asking this, but can't they just ask their smart phones for what they need to know? For when stuff happened?

This is where normally I would bridle and get out the soapbox and quote George Santayana and preach for twenty minutes and totally school him. But you know what? My head didn't explode and I didn't melt his face off. I tell myself I must be nice: he simply demonstrates once again that the study of the past is both undervalued and misunderstood. Unless it is taught poorly (and this is why there were no explosions or melting, because it so often is poorly taught), it is about WHY stuff happens, HOW it happens--much more than just WHAT happened. 

Although it would be nice if people knew WHAT happened, too.

Cruel to Be Kind

Last post wasn't very cheery, was it?
But it was real.

A large part of my angst was training a novice teacher. All kinds of ego and fear were in the picture, because he wanted to design his own lessons and he was going to take over two classes full of my giant thirteen year old babies.

"You do realize that teaching is three huge jobs at once--presenting, planning, and class management, any one of which can be really challenging..." I really thought it might be best to use my already designed standards-based lessons, not because I thought they were good (which I do), but because I wondered about his ability to do the other two. Truth be told, he is physically a bit awkward and his enunciation is mushy; when he shared that he'd 1) been bullied in high school 2) overcome a speech impediment and 3) had had an IEP, I believed him. Colleagues would ask me, "How's he doing?" with the small, knowing smile of one who already knows the answer; they thought he'd be lunch meat.

Here's the surprise: he generally connected well with the kids. He was able early on to think on his feet, to persevere, to press on--wow, stuff that you can't teach--impressive. Granted, he was blessed with the best behaved kids I have ever taught IN MY CAREER, and they were already trained when he took them. But their awesomeness built his confidence on the management front.  Presentation-wise, he was pretty good, sometimes even funny, and his mushy diction didn't seem to pose problems for anyone but me. His incessant football references helped him with some students (although they seemed to alienate others, truthfully).

His lessons? Hmm. That was another story. I worried about how he never. ever. wrote anything down. He shared with me that he responded well to encouragement. Uh, oh. I feel weird about high five-ing grown ups, and in the beginning I wasn't sure I should even be encouraging. I was (and remain) freaked out by the atrociousness of his spelling and grammar ("mils" for "mills," for example). I was concerned about his lack of, or over simplified reflections about how the class had gone. His class management? The typical problems of wanting to win the approval of "the cool kids," of needing them to like him, of passing over the quiet children.

Real conversation snippet: Me: "So what went well today?" Him: "It was AWESOME!"

Sigh. 

So last Friday after something bad happened because he didn't write it down, I sort of turned into the calm, icy surgeon and let the scalpel fly a bit. "You don't read much, do you? You don't like to read. [I had tons of evidence]. It shows in your lessons. You don't want to admit to the kids you don't know something,  I understand, but you can't just make things up. You can't get up there and teach something you don't know about. You need to research the time period you are teaching, dig deeper than the text--read a ton!!-- make sure what you are teaching helps them understand, look at your presentation through the eyes of a thirteen year old. You need to rehearse your lessons, anticipate what they won't get, how they'll respond, blah blah blah...." It wasn't a monologue. But it sure wasn't the "Good for you! You are trying so hard" lines that tone-deaf grandmas give their American Idol wannabe offspring.

And I thought, "He hates me and thinks I'm mean." I'm not really used to being hated, and I'm not mean.

Funny thing is, he TOTALLY brought it this week! His lessons had depth, and so did his understanding. When kids asked questions, he fielded them with soft hands himself, or he said, "Hm, I'm not sure, Miss M do you know?" and let me either field them or shrug my shoulders with him. While teaching them about Sequoya, he even googled how to say "Hello" in Cherokee* and had a mini language lesson.

I gave him a high five after class. He earned it.

And then after school I began speaking in football terms: "I would think you'd want to review your performance--don't coaches watch films of games in order to improve and anticipate, to praise and refine? When I ask you how something goes--" He smiled and interrupted, totally understanding what this elderly lady twice his age was doing, but actually and finally COMPREHENDING the urgency, the importance of what I expected him to do to improve: "You don't want to know the score, you wanted to know the big plays," he said. "No, I want to go even deeper than that: I want to know why you called those big plays, how you were able to execute them, and why you went to no-huddle when the players were obviously lost and there was no audible..." 

Anyway, that seemed to change the air, clear it, charge it. Why can people take constructive criticism from coaches but not others? Coaches can literally YELL at kids and it's no big deal, and kids get out there and work for the coaches' curt nod of approval. I would gently say, "Can you think of another way to get S. to participate?" to a grown man and he'd cross his arms and look injured and depressed.

At any rate, I am finally relaxing. He will not mess up my giant babies. He will be a better teacher over time, he is doing quite well for how early on in the semester, he is grading 40% of the papers, and I will be able to do much of my grading at school, thus freeing up my weekends. Win-win. Or as he would put it, "AWESOME!"















*oh-see-YOH

Sandy Hook: Our Children

Collective anguish
All of us somehow bereaved
Sorrow comes in waves

 (The grown ups, too, are
Someone's children.) Oh parents--
 How we ache for you

My students have vowed
In memoriam: to be
Kinder and gentler

Feeling like a loser....

Why oh why do my kids bomb the Constitution test every year?

I give them a study guide. The study guide even tells them the exact essay question on the test.

My lessons teach what's on the study guide. Our notes explain the text.

The kids are involved in the Convention--they "become" a member of one of the original states and see how the compromises would affect their state.

The homework reinforces what was in the lesson that will appear on the test. They have a project wherein they actually draw the powers and checks of each branch.

I relate the past with their present with school-based analogies. For example, federalism divides power between the national govt and the states, just like school, because the front office has power like the national government and so do the classroom teachers, like states. Another example is when we have a three-legged race to show how our three branch government prevents any one branch from abusing power, the effectiveness of separation of powers. Or when we use rock paper scissors to show how each branch gets checked by the others.

I truly am not just a talking head.

Granted, the concepts are abstract and the terms are fancy: ratification, federalism, checks and balances, separation of powers. I check for understanding. In the moment, they get it.

I am turning to my colleagues for help, because I am apparently being blind to some glaring weakness or issue. I need their eyes to help me see what's going on. Or not going on.

I do expect them to look at their notes for one minute every night, and pretty much no one does. Is that me shifting the blame to them? Is it wrong for me to expect them to carry some of the intellectual weight around here? How much learning responsibility is theirs? If I don't blame them, I have to blame me. Doggone it, I work so hard it's demoralizing to accept responsibility for the results.

Fourteen kids in each of the three classes earned a grade below C level--even with a free point for the question #34: "Hey! How'd you like to earn a free point right now? A. No thanks, trying to cut back.  B. I am just randomly bubbling, hoping to work two minimum wage jobs someday. C. Why thanks Miss M--that's so awesome!"

Every year.

Ugh.

Mercury Rising

Boiling hot outside today. From my colleague's phone:

Boiling hot inside. Here's a snap of the thermometer in my classroom from another colleague's phone:

This wasn't just the hottest day on campus since ever. It was the day of a lockdown at the local high school.

As I drove to school, I saw at least three police cars parked along the canyon adjacent to the high school. Oh Lord, I prayed, please don't let any of our kids be involved in anything awful...

(...and they weren't. A couple of thieves tried to steal some copper wiring and fled to the canyon.)

When I pulled into my school, about seven yellow school buses had pulled over in front. Uh oh.

Kids could roast on the buses given the forecast, but the situation was so unpredictable. As the first teacher on campus I called the principal who came dashing in, grabbing the walkies and fielding emergency calls. We and another teacher boarded each bus, letting the students know they'd be our guests for a while, walking them to the auditorium.

We had to make sure the kids had food; many get their breakfast from their school. We had to take attendance for some 300 students and get release forms and deal with panicky parents. The kids had to be cooperative and patient in the emotional uncertainty, and here's the thing: they were amazing. One reed-thin Latino man-child slid onto the piano bench and began playing softly and slowly; one group of students sat cross-legged and experimented with makeup; another group played elementary playground hand slapping games. (!) I had to leave them to teach my regular students and by the time I left, an hour after their arrival, I knew they'd continue to be wonderful.

And then on to my actual students, full of fear and rumor. After good discussions about safety and why we do things the way we do, after answering their questions with what little I knew, we went on to the day's tasks. The heat came in like the hordes of Mordor, hot and merciless and overwhelming, and just like that, we had a different challenge: to carry on despite the physical burden of airless heat. The mercury jumped but the kids were champs. I even taught them our colonial region songs, and we gamely sang them.

Whatever may be wrong with public schools, it certainly is not the kids. I have always respected them, and today my respect deepened. I am proud of our staff--the way we circled the wagons, stepping up, solving problems, filling gaps, unasked and undirected--I am proud of the way our schools worked together in an emergency. And I am proud of the students who were bused in from far away, showing maturity and grace under pressure, and of the neighborhood kids who soldiered on, rising above heat exhaustion.

(If I hear anyone criticizing public school teachers this week as being lazy or incompetent or selfish...)

Houston, We Have Re-entry

My brain is set on "whirly." That is an entirely different setting than "coherent." So here are some of the thoughts whirling in my head today:

Kids arrive a week from tomorrow--PANIC: I'M NOT READY and THIS ROOM ISN'T READY.

I think I will ditch latitude and longitude this year and dive right into colonization.

Hey, no rat dookie.

NO, ant scout, you must not live. 

The custodians took my desk like I asked them to. YAY! There's room to polka! If I wanted to polka. I don't want to polka. Should I pronounce the "l" in "polka?"

Why doesn't the pricey rotating fan that I bought with my very own money rotate? It rotated in June.

PANIC: Should I switch my computer desk to the other side of the behemoth Promethean board?

Where should I put the iPad cart?

PANIC: I don't know how to use iPods in history lessons. I suck.

The custodians took my desk like I asked them to. PANIC--where can I shove stuff I don't know where to put?

I better start making copies of the syllabi before the machine breaks and the Christmas rush. PANIC: I have to make the syllabi, or find them--are they on the Mac? The PC? Aughhhhhh--

Syllabi is a funny word, and coincidentally my principal said "foci" this morning. What else sounds like that? Alibi. Lullaby. 

Lessons are more important than the room. I should work on the lessons immediately.

I can't work on the lessons--this room is unacceptably chaotic. 

How can other teachers just show up on Wednesday all calm and serene? Is it medication?

No one has been in here for July or August. So why is it so dang DIRTY? Brown dust is coated everywhere. 

Hey, class sizes of 32. Nice!

Hey, just when did "32 kids" become a good class size in my district? That is just so wrong.

No more separate GATE classes--all the kids are mixed together. Lord, help me stretch them all.

Where'd I put those Glade plug-ins? They don't make these any more. PANIC: How will I keep my 8th grade bungalow with no a/c from smelling like an 8th grade bungalow with no a/c?

OK, so in over twenty (gahhh--over twenty???) years of opening days, I have ALWAYS been ready on time. (Well I wasn't ready for the opening day when ten minutes into class E. threw up. Nothing can quite prepare you for that. Ready to stand and deliver, I mean.)

Odds are on my side.