More Ups and Downs

The kids were lining up to leave this afternoon when I quickly doubled back, grabbed my coat and book bag and left with them. I think today was the first time I remember in a while that I've gotten home when it's still light out. It was a nice change.

Things have been starting to find a bit more of a rhythm as my class settles into it's unit on historical fiction. At the same time my school's gearing up for the math exam. I'm hoping to avoid the stress and intensity that went with prepping for the ELA. Don't know if that's possible, but I'll try.

It wasn't an easy week, as my two main characters (it's funny, last year there were so many) Lil Miss Meltdown and Maverick have been trying every bit of my patience. Today, thanks to some extra support from one of the guidance counselors, basketball coaches and Lil Miss Meltdown's 3rd grade teacher, my class was much calmer.

I'm lucky however to have a great network of friends at my school though who give me another way to think about my problems with these students. At the same time unlike other resources at my school, I'm not made to feel like the problem behavior is entirely my fault. I must admit though, after weeks of basically hitting my head against the wall trying to figure these two out, my approach probably lost a lot of its sensibility. So I tried today with a renewed patience and focus, and was rewarded for it in the case of Lil Miss Meltdown.

As for Maverick, it really seems he just doesn't care, and he hinted at the reason when I offered to call his mom to let her know he had had a decent morning. "She doesn't care," he said. I assured him she does. I'd seen her break down in tears when she came into meet about Maverick's suspension a month or two back. But I can't imagine what's going on (or not going on) at home, to get this kid to essentially lose faith in his mom that way. If there's any way I can restore his faith in his mom and me, and perhaps reach out to a similar network of support like Lil Miss Meltdown received (it's tough, because she can still be a sympathetic character at time, while he's basically a bully), maybe I can get him back on track.

The Snow Day That Wasn't a Snow Day

Here in NYC snow days are hard to come by. The way I heard it Mayor Bloomberg called a snow day back in the early days of his admin, and was embarrassed when the streets were actually cleared relatively easily. And so these days he's pretty unlikely to call off a day of school unless things reach The Day After Tomorrow conditions.

We had a few inches of snow on the ground this morning. I didn't expect a snow day, but for a lot of my students and co-workers I guess it was. I won't call out any teachers, because many of them come from Westchester and it's not easy to get to the Bronx in conditions like today's. But I do have to wonder about my students (or more accurately their parents).

All of my students live within a couple of blocks from school, but any time there's bad weather, attendance drops precipitously. I appreciate a parent's concern for their kid. They don't want them to catch cold. But at the same time, isn't a two blocks walk through the snow better than missing a day of school? Especially when the next state exam is about a month away...

Luckily, even though I had seven students absent, I hardly noticed because I took on 10 students from another class whose teacher was absent for the day.

After the Test

Today I taught a lesson introducing my students to historical fiction. I think it was the second reading lesson I've taught since the test has ended. When the lesson was over and I'd dropped the students off for lunch, I was thinking about what had gone well and what had not. One word came to mind: rusty.

After four weeks of non-stop, high-pressure "test sophistication" I just felt awkward teaching a lesson of my own design, focused on a more general topic. It felt good, but I can't help that after weeks of having my lessons supplanted by Kaplan, Acuity, and practice tests, I've lost a bit of my rhythm.

This week I was hoping to regain it, but it hasn't been easy. Since Tuesday I've lost approximately half of my teaching periods to meetings, testings, grading and a hip-hop assembly. In theory it's all necessary for me and my students. In practice, I haven't had a chance to really do my job. Sooner or letter I'm determined to get some teaching done.

Inauguration Reflections

It was an amazing, historic day. I am unabashedly proud to be an American today on a day when America's promise and potential were renewed. Three quick reflections:

1. A lot of my friends took the trek down to D.C. for the inauguration. I can't begin to imagine the feeling of listening President Obama take the oath and give his speech among 2 million strong on the mall. That said, there's nowhere else I'd rather have been, nor a more special location I can think of, than with my students.

2. My school isn't perfect, but it has very good intentions and tries very hard to fulfill them. Today we managed to set up three different locations for the lower, middle and upper grades to view the inauguration using three SMARTboards. Given the logistical challenges (preps, lunches, bandwidth, etc.) I was very impressed and proud that my school managed to pull this off.

3. I wish I had more time last week to prepare my kids for today. While there was a palpable excitement throughout the school, it was clear that much of the real, historical significance was lost on the students. They clapped and cheered at pretty much all the appropriate moments, but when it was time for the important parts, they were just plain bored. As one student said to me when Barack began his inaugural address, "These words is for lawyers." I myself was pretty moved, but I can imagine how much of the language could be lost on 1,000 K-5 students, most of whom are a couple of grades behind in reading and writing.

Challenges in the classroom aside (more on this at another time), a pretty good day. Bad day as a teacher, but a great day as an American.

Cover Up

I spent the afternoon readying my classroom for tomorrow's ELA exam. That meant covering or taking down a dozen or so charts for strategies like making predictions, using non-fiction text features and understanding cause and effect. I couldn't stop there however. I needed to eliminate any thing that could be used for help on the ELA exam. So, next came down the class rules, the writing process, my science, social studies and math word walls, directions for early finishers, and how to make an "I statement".

The paper I was supplied to cover up my classroom had run out, and I still had to cover my alphabet. I found a roll of paper towels and began rolling it across the letters, pinning as I went. It was at this point that the absurdity of the whole exercise - more or less deconstructing four months evidence of learning - sunk in, and revealed itself as a ridiculous metaphor for the next three days of testing my students will undergo. All of my class's learning across all content areas has been slowly subsumed by these standardized exams. Now even the physical representation of that learning has been overtaken by the tests as well.

TGIF 2

What do you do when you get home at 7:40 on a Friday after the kind of week that tests you to the breaking point? You thought you'd figured out a way to reach your "problem kids." You thought you got through to them and over that hurdle. Then one spends half the day in the closet, climbing on top of boxes and going through them. The other is involved in jumping another student after school. So, what do you do?

Take a deep breath. And repeat after me. I've done all I can do for today. I've done all I can do for today. TGIF.

They Don't Train You for This...

When I got back from the gym I had four voice mails on my phone. I checked them and heard the muffled, frantic voice of one of my students. She was crying and the few words I could make out were "I don't want to go..." So I tried not to freak out, and returned the call.

When I called, my student picked up the phone. I asked what was wrong and she explained that she didn't want to take the attendance down to the office anymore. She was practically in hysterics earlier, because of this. Apparently, her friends told her they saw a spirit in the bathroom and she was scared that she could die. When she told her mom about it, her mom told her she had seen a spirit before too. How exactly do you respond to something like this?

I told her first off that she didn't have to take the attendance down if she didn't want to. Ordinarily it's a reward for students who are on task and get settled quickly in the morning, but obviously I never would have asked her to do it had I known how she felt. After I told her someone else would take the attendance down, I explained to her there was nothing to be scared about at our school and that she was always safe. Now I'm not sure if there's a wrong way to handle a situation like this, but hopefully I did alright.

Time for a New Question

We're less than two weeks away from the end of an error, and with that it will probably to retire this blog's title, borrowed from the Decider himself. In honor of this occasion, a joke:

An Israeli doctor says 'Medicine in my country is so advanced that we can take a kidney out of one man, put it in another, and have him looking for work in six weeks.'

A German doctor says 'That is nothing; we can take a lung out of one person, put it in another, and have him looking for work in four weeks.

A Russian doctor says 'In my country, medicine is so advanced that we can take half a heart out of one person, put it in another, and have them both looking for work in two weeks.'

The Texas doctor, not to be outdone, says 'You guys are way behind, we took a man with no brains out of Texas, put him in the White House for eight years, and now half the country is looking for work.'

Ah, yes. It's funny because it's true.

Hat tip to School Gal from NYC Educator

My Students' Neighborhood

The neighborhood in which I work is not a particularly nice one. At the same time, I've never felt unsafe at or near my school. I've also always known it to be much better relatively speaking to neighborhoods in the South Bronx. And while I knew there was plenty of the problems associated with a high poverty rate affecting my students, I think until today I was somewhat ignorant to what that meant exactly.

For our writing pieces the past month we've been writing persuasive letters. I asked the students to think about something they would like to change about our school or community. Then I asked them to think about writing a letter explaining the problem and how they could change it. A few students talked about getting people to stop smoking, another student is writing a letter trying to persuade me to throw him a birthday party in the class. But many other students' letters struck a deeper chord.

One student is writing about how to stop the murders taking place on her block. She describes them as frequent. Another student read an opening to his letter today that described the fear in his building over non-stop robberies. Other students are writing about problems with drugs, alcohol and gang violence.

While I wasn't oblivious to these aspects of my students' lives, their letters brought attention to these problems in a way I rarely get to see. I'm glad I had the chance to hear about it firsthand. It's a necessary reminder of what my students are up against when I'm not drilling them to get ready for exams.

4th graders are still amazingly honest and open about a lot of issues. Even so, I don't usually get to hear about most of these problems. Most likely it's because the violence, drugs and crime are so commonplace it's often not worth mentioning.

Carrots and Sticks, Revisited

After the past two days I'm realizing I got a little too comfortable in the glory days of October and November. A little too self-assured. We all know what comes after pride, right?

In any case, maybe you can't figure it all out in your first year. Or maybe some things you never quite figure out. For example, I find myself pondering the same question I revisited countless times last year. That is: When is it time to try positive reinforcements and incentives, and when is it time to be the "bad cop" and say enough is enough?

My philosophy has always leaned towards endless positive reinforcement. Not that I've been able to stick to this method at all times. But, even when I ended up being the hardcore disciplinarian, I found it unsatisfying, ineffective or both. Over the past 18 months, I've found that reinforcing good behavior, whether by praise, prize tickets or whatever, and ignoring negative behavior, was surprisingly effective. Most literature I've read (Alfie Kohn excluded) reinforces this philosophy. And yet, days like today seem to illustrate the limits of this method.

It's not like my classroom is falling apart. But, long story short, never underestimate the power of one (or two) students to completely disrupt a classroom environment. And that's what Lil' Miss Meltdown and Maverick did today. I have gone to excessive lengths to avoid confrontations with these students. A teacher never wins when you do approach a true problem child this way.

But it seems like in spite of all my alternative approaches - I described it as babying them to a coworker today - they continue to act out in completely inappropriate ways. And despite my best attempts to control my emotions, I eventually run out of patience, not on my own behalf, but on behalf of the 22 other students were are sitting helplessly, trying to learn while their selfish, ill-mannered classmates hijack the classroom. Some kids, I've realized, just want to test you. Some kids just don't respond to framing the situation a choice or endless positive reinforcement.

In spite of this somber conclusion, I have a hard time giving up. Around a quarter to 5, after I'd finished up a Data Inquiry Meeting I walked upstairs and found Lil Miss Meltdown in her after-school class and pulled her out. I sat down and first apologized for losing my cool. We had a nice long talk about what she had done, how it had affected me, her classmates and herself. I explained that there would be consequences, but as always, a chance to redeem herself. Tomorrow I'll find out if it was worth it.

A Picture is Worth...

Well, you get the idea.















Hat tip to La Maestra Nueva and Wordle.net

Back on the Grind

Wow. After 12 days of vacation it's easy to forget how exhausting this job is. Mondays are always a little awkward and out of sorts for me. On a post-vacation Monday, those problems are compounded exponentially.

A lot is said about how much the kids regress during these lazy days, but I'm the first to admit the problem applies to teachers as well. Just as kids must re-learn rules, routines and procedures (not to mention content with 5 days left until the ELA exam!) I felt myself re-acclimating to the classroom. It helps that I have established rules, routines and procedures for practically everything from using the bathroom to getting a tissue. Still, there is clearly some work to do for both me and my students.

What stood out the most was how talkative, and well, goofy, the kids were acting. They just weren't in a very studious mood and it took some work to fix the tone of the classroom after a somewhat rambunctious period with the art cluster teacher. Eventually things quieted down, but I was definitely tested by my most demanding students. Those students never give you a day off, do they?