Ms. Thompson Teaches

I've moved

2009-07-08T05:48:00.001-05:00

Hi lovely blog readers (whoever is left). So I've moved. Literally, I'm living for the summer in Africa. I've moved schools. I've moved blogs. It's been a busy couple of months to say the lease.

Meet me over at: http://thisthattheotherthing.wordpress.com/ if you please.

Love,
Sam

Who did you vote for?

2008-11-04T13:14:00.001-06:00

Ms. Thompson I bet you voted for John McCain... you're like those valley girls. My mama said all rich people vote for republicans.

Who knew stereotypes could go both ways? Lovely.

I also never knew I sounded like a valley girl.

My heart hurts

2008-10-29T11:47:00.005-05:00

I just lost a student today.

At my old school, losing students was a weekly occurrence.

This one is going back to Mexico.

This one is going to alternative school.

One is moving in with grandma or grandpa or dad or tia.

The list is endless and the reasons are too many to number. I just kind of got used to it. I think because KIPP is a different type of school that requires at least some parent buy-in to make it happen, we lose kids a lot less frequently. I have had two kids withdraw since summer school. That's it, just two.

Today I lost E. I didn't see this one coming. She is gorgeous. And that's saying something for a 10-year-old to be gorgeous. On top of that, she's smart and she has a great personality. There are some dark sides too. There is a total lack of supervision at home, mom lives in Austin, she doesn't eat food because she thinks shes fat.

How do we get to a point where a 10-year-old thinks she's fat? How do we get there? That's an entirely different rant all together. (But while I think of it, check out this site and give them help in making a the world a positive place for girls.)

I've been eating lunch with E for the last week, basically to make sure she eats something. And to stick in things about her being beautiful and strong and taking care of her body now. I don't want her to regret things when she's 20 or 25 or 30. E is the kind of girl who breaks my heart. The kind of girl who just doesn't get how much she has going for her and how easily it can all slip away. She's the kind of girl you want to hug and shake at the same time. I have so many of those girls.

And now she's gone. Mom showed up today and withdrew her. No more 3D. No more Houston. I don't know what her future holds anymore. At least here I knew she'd be eating lunch. I knew she'd be told she was beautiful just the way she is. I'd like to think good things about her mom knowing best, but the sad truth is that a lot of the problems my students face are instigated by their parents. I'm afraid E falls in that category and it makes me cringe to think of what will happen in a new city, in a new school, still, without the support and structure she needs.

I got into an interesting conversation with our school social worker about praying for our kids. She said that she sees every bad thing you can imagine and there is only so much she can do. Eventually, she just hits a wall. She's not their parents and she's not God. That can really tie your hands. She does all the social work stuff she can do for our kids. She does a lot more than what she can do because she's amazing like that. Then she prays. That's all she has left. And if that will do something, then she says she prays as hard and as long as she can.

We were talking last night at bible study about taking joy in the suffering and also realizing every good and perfect gift comes from God. Neither of these things are particular strengths of mine, but the times that I really do find it easy to give it all up are times like these. I can't fix E. I can't fix her mom or her life or this messed up world that teaches a 10-year-old the word fat. I can't do those things no matter how badly I want to because at the end of the day I'm just me.

At the end of the day I can teach them. I can love them. And I can pray.

My Cuties

2008-10-24T14:59:00.003-05:00

I hang out with these every day.

Fun, huh?

I'm back

2008-10-24T14:52:00.002-05:00

Hello friendly blog readers,

I know, I know. I never call. I never write. And I do it every fall.

Welcome to the world of teaching my friends. It sucks up every ounce of personal time you have and makes you really sleepy.

Good thing I get to hang out with really really cute kids. My life would really suck if I worked this hard for like... wall street.

So here is my solemn vow. I will write to you at least three times a week. I might even update some blog news (you know, like everything that happened between July and October) in extra posts.

Get excited. Get very excited.

For now I'll just tease: my back-dated news includes Hurricanes, awesome roommates, Africa, puppy love, 10-year-olds, more TFA and ponies (okay, not real ponies, but I needed something to round out the list).

Stay tuned dear readers — also known as Mom.

Dude, espanol es mas dificil

2008-07-07T09:26:00.002-05:00

Or, Dude, Spanish is very hard.

Hola, I'm in Guatemala. Did I mention that? Probably not. I took off the day after summer school to visit the college BFF and hubby in Indianapolis (only to realize that there are darn lot of white people in Indiana and not a darn lot of white people in Houston.) After that I made a reappearance at small group for one night and then boarded a plane to Guatemala to learn spanish for a week.

I have learned that:

A) I don't remember nearly as much as a should from college spanish (thanks in part to the aforementioned whiteness of Indiana).

B) I totally hate not being good at stuff

C) My head hurts a lot when I am frustrated and don't understand

D) I don't like not knowing I will be cold. At all.

E) Guatemala is beau-ti-ful. Gorgeous. And where we are is surrounded by mountains so I'm stinking freezing.

I'm learning a ton, have already been sick, bought some sweet scarves and LOVE that they give me coffee everywhere I go here. I'm a little bit starting to stink, but apparently we're sending laundry out tomorrow.

On Tuesday we're hiking the volcanic mountain outside of town (sweet!) and on Wednesday I head to Nicaragua to practice my spanish and hang out with church folk that my church is friends with/see if Clint can convince the friendly folks at Compassion to let me see my compassion child even though I didn't plan ahead the needed six weeks. We'll see.

Prayers for warmth and no more headaches are very welcome.

I'll write when I can.

Hasta Luego!

Tag, you're it!

2008-06-14T08:15:00.007-05:00

Never one to turn down a game. I was tagged by my friend Barb.

Ok the rules. Once you’ve been tagged, you have to write a blog with 10 weird, random, facts, habits or goals about yourself. At the end, choose 6 people to be tagged, list their names & why you tagged them. Don’t forget to leave them a comment saying “You’re it!” & to go read your blog. You cannot tag the person that tagged you, so since you’re not to tag me back; let me know when you are done so I can go read YOUR weird/random/odd facts, habits and goals.

Here are my answers:

1. It is a personal goal to have mis-matching babies. As in, I would be happy with five kids, if more happen.. well that's fine too and I want to adopt most of them. I really only plan to have one myself. I have wanted to adopt since I was like 15.

2. I am irrationally afraid of all birds and killers in the closet. I know that it is totally irrational and there is not a killer in my closet or any other part of my house, but really... I totally freak myself out and can't sleep/go into other parts of my empty house at night. I prefer there to be someone else in the house when I'm sleeping -- because you know the killer only wants me, not two girls who can't protect ourselves from someone with a knife.

3. I have a stuffed dog named Bark who I have not slept more than two nights without since I was five. My dad gave him to me and he makes me feel safe. Every boyfriend I've had has had some weird jealousy of Bark that usually involved throwing him across the room whenever the opportunity arose. I find this very amusing.

4. I talk with my hands. All the time. My friends used to try to get me to hold my hands in my lap while I talked, but then I would get all flustered and not be able to finish. I think I would drive deaf people nuts.

5. I have major space issues. I really don't like for strangers to touch me or get overly close to me. My space bubble is definitely a lot larger than normal people's. I blame this on the fact that I lack depth perception (I really do! My eye doctor says that's why I bump into everything) and that I went to Montessori school when I was little where we had carpet squares to teach us personal space as three-year-olds. I miss my carpet square.

6.I'm totally naming my only born (which I also plan to be the first born) Jeremiah even if she's a girl. She is also promised to my friend Olivia because she did free physicals for my soccer players this year. Liv promises to keep Jeremiah for five years and raise her as meat eater before returning her to my land of crazy parenting where all the girls have boys names, no one eats meat and we all have carpet squares. I think this is kind of a mean social experiment to play on a child.

7. I plan to start my own tshirt company someday. My friend Janie will soon have her etsy store and she is bound and determined that whenever I stop working so hard I will become her partner in crime with my tshirts. I make shirts with my screen printer and love coming up with new designs and funny phrases.

8. Here's a riddle for you. I am legally adopted, but was raised by my biological mother. Hmmm... my mom married my step-dad, who adopted me when I was five and has been my daddy ever since.

9. I would love to run an all girls charter school to teach young girls that they have power, a voice, the opportunity/right/responsibility to change everything in this world. How you do this and have five kids, I'm unsure of. If I ever figure out how to build in an extra 15 hours to each day then I'm golden.

10. I used to be a journalist. I worked for a paper all through college and planned to go into the field. Then Teach For America happened and I've never really looked back. I'm pretty sure I'll just funnel my writing habits into This Ordinary Day and writing a book.

Here are the people I tagged:

Jamie: They just don't grow college roommates/bff's like this anymore. I got a one of a kind model.

Laura: Future teacher, future awesome everything. I consider it a great compliment to me that people say we look alike.

Kate: Um, I wish I thought about things as uniquely as this. I'm definitely not this cool when it comes to dating. Thanks for the life lessons Kate.

J: I have an "adult life crush" on J... I want to be like her when I grow up.

Annie (of Jeremy and Annie): My awesome former small group leaders who need to move back to Houston. Your niece is getting so big!

Heidi: I totally have a an "adult life crush" on her too. And her kids don't match!

Something to do while you wait...

2008-06-09T14:11:00.002-05:00

I've been trying to brainstorm what I can do to get my students into reading (since that is one of my major goals in life). My thought turned to all of you friends and interneters and how much my kids love to know about "grown-ups" and also how much they love to get mail. So here's my plea:

Take five minutes and write a letter to my class. Tell them what your favorite book was in fifth grade and why you liked it. Tell them why reading is important. Ask them questions about their lives and what they're reading.

I'd like to use your letters as a catalyst to get their interest in reading up. I would also like them to realize that recommending books is fun. So if you write them, they will write you back and tell you about the book they read (who knows, it might be your suggestion).

I understand that most of us don't use snail mail very often, but if you could take the time to hand write a letter, that would be awesome. You can send them to my school here:

Miss Thompson's Fifth Grade Class
3D Acdemy
4610 E. Crosstimbers
Houston, TX 77016

If you know of any kids, grandparents, friends, moms, dads, significant others in your life who would like to write a letter to my kids, please please pass this on. I will take anything.

And then I sold my soul

2008-06-09T13:53:00.001-05:00

Just to note: KIPP is a darn lot of work. And I haven't read fifth grade books since, well, fifth grade.

Also, I didn't learn phonics in school. Who knew? It's really hard to tech phonics when you were taught whole language (or "the hippie way" as Janie puts it).

I plan to back date posts here in a day or two, but I have to pull my sleeping hours up above 5 a night before I can devote time to blogging.

The End

2008-05-29T10:13:00.001-05:00

Today is my last day with my kids. I cannot believe two years have gone by so fast. Too fast (okay, maybe not).

I told my kids I wasn't coming back and they're now referring to my new school as "that nerd school." They apparently think it is a bad idea for me to not be here next year. I can't write about that right now or I'll start crying.

It's probably a good thing that I'm too busy to deal with the fact that I'm leaving this place. All of the good and all of the bad have mixed together to create one heck of a ride for my first two years of adulthood.

The next step is really exciting and really scary all at once...

Positive Post Tuesday - My car

2008-05-27T07:33:00.003-05:00

Last week I sent my friend Laura this link I was pretty positive that I could totally beat her at that game (except for maybe the molar).

My life is going at about a million miles an hour right now. I started a website (that very few people meet deadlines for), I'm transitioning out of one job and into another job. I'm going to be moving homes soon. I've spent the last 5 of 6 weekends out of Houston. All of these things are great and amazing and have me super excited for life, but they're also weighing down on my ability to lead a life.

When the going gets tough, my car and my room fall to pieces.

I had nothing really redeeming to say about the state of my car when I handed it off to Laura on Wednesday. She needed a car. I was leaving town (yet again). I think I called her sometime the next day to let her know that I was fairly certain there was perishable food in the back seat that she might want to throw out. Lest it start to smell.

Lets fast foward shall we? Laura picked me up from the airport last night and I was starting to have a minor panic attack about where I was going to put my huge suitcase. I have not seen the bottom of my trunk since last November. Seriously.

When she pulled up and opened the door I about fell over. Clean. Ridiculously clean. Cleaner than I think I have seen this car since the day my dad bought it from enterprise four years ago.

There are no words for what this will do for my week.

Lets be honest. My schedule is continuously getting more crazy, not less. Cleaning my car was not high on the priority list. Things that effect other people (my students, my co-workers, my friends) take a much higher priority than things that effect me (eating, cleaning my car, doing my laundry, cleaning my room). I still can't believe she did this for me.

I feel like it might sound to all of you that this was a simple scrub down the outside and throw some trash away. Oh no friends. It took her four hours to clean the car out. She did a load of laundry with the amount of clothing she found in the trunk. There were easily five bags in my car. She also scrubbed my steering wheel clean of grime. I didn't even know it was grime. I just thought it was that color.

She started a list so I could beat the lady above, but quit because it would have taken her an hour just to do the listing.

Here's a mini-list:
-bag of gooey marshmallows
-more pens than I can count on my fingers and toes
-37 loose CDs
-three pairs of shoes
-two soccer uniforms
-IKEA carpet
-5 3-ring binders
-two boxes of kleenex
-latex gloves
-a bike helmet
-a box of granola bars
-three packets of oatmeal
-an over-sized purple tennis ball
-my screen printer

Oh and the list goes on. After she cleaned my car and picked me up from the airport, she took me to my house where we moved every thing upstairs and she cleaned my closet. I haven't seen the bottom of my closet floor in some time either.

I'll tell you something. I'm one for great gifts. Anything from Apple. Earrings or bags of any kind. Chocolate. All of these things are wonderful, but this act of service is one of the best gifts I have ever gotten. In taking the time to clean up my wreck of a car and living space, she has done what I didn't have time to do for myself: create a clean and wonderful space to be in. I could not be more happy.

Laura, you are truly awesome. And by awesome, I mean totally awesome.

Don't mess with Kansas either

2008-05-26T14:58:00.004-05:00

Oh sweet, sweet vacation.

Sweet, sweet four day weekends. One of my favorite things about teaching is, without a doubt, the vacation days.

I've gotten basically nothing done this weekend and have a mad last week of school and start to new school coming up, but it's been a great trip.

Things I never realized were great about Kansas:

•It's green. There are trees and hills (oh, hills how I miss thee).
•It's May and it's not 95 degrees at 8 a.m.
•Fireflies.
•My sister is hilarious. I can't relay my favorite conversation of the weekend because my mom reads this blog (hi Mom), but it was so funny. My second favorite conversation occurred in the car today with Kylie and my mom. Mom was in the back seat.

Mom: Kylie, you need to slow down.
Kylie: muth-urr you are not driving.
(deep sigh omiteed from the back seat)
Kylie: Ugh, stupid people. What is wrong with that car? Did you see him cut me off?
All of this happened after Kylie had basically run a stop sign and sort of jumped a curb. But she was still aghast at the driver who had the right of way pulling out into traffic in front of her.
Mom: you are a horrible driver.
Kylie: I hate people.

•There are Sonics everywhere. I went to the Sonic where the commercials are filmed. I take special pride in those little joys coming from my state. And might I recommend a Vanilla Cranberry Coke?
•There are Paneras everywhere (I was raised in the heart of suburbia after all).
• The glorious Shawnee Mission park system and being able to run without losing every ounce of moisture in my body.
•My church still holds hands when we sing the benediction. Even with my space issues, this is one of my absolute favorite things in the whole world. Jacob's Well is also so much like Ecclesia that I forget what city I'm in.
•Lawrence is still one of my favorite cities. Ever.
•Driving in Kansas after driving in Houston leads one to realize "Man, there really is no one living in this state at all."

Awesome

2008-05-22T13:52:00.004-05:00

It amazes me how much my kids effect me. It really does. Gustavo disappears or refuses to read or shows up with burns on his hands and I sleep less at night. Jessenia starts dating one of the sleaziest boys in the seventh grade and my stomach does flip-flops because I don't want to think about what she's doing after school.

Daniel tells me that before this year he didn't like reading, but now it's his favorite thing to do and I walk around with a goofball grin on my face for the rest of the day. He likes reading. He really does.

And then yesterday Leonardo, who on most days annoys me to the same level that a four-year-old in desperate need of a nap and coming off a sugar high annoys me, walks up and asks me if I like rock music. Often questions like this do not go well.

Miss do you like rock music? Yes. Want to meet my brother, he dropped out of high school and started rock band. Um, no.

Miss, you don't eat meat right? Right. I told my mom that and she thinks it's totally weird and says you won't be able to have kids. Lovely.

Miss is that a tattoo on your wrist? No, it's sharpie. Oh, so you write it on there every day? Yes, and I answer all your questions in this sarcastic tone too.

So, yeah, usually these types of questions go downhill very fast, but not on Monday. The minute I told Leonardo that I did like rock music he whipped out his hand and showed me the name of a song and a band I had to see the music video for.

They used the outsiders Miss. They did. They put themselves in as the characters. It's so cool. Can we watch it?

That, right there? That's a miracle. That is Leonardo who hates reading and talks back in Spanish (even though I KNOW SPANISH) and never seems to pay attention to anything. That is Leonardo making a connection. A text-to-world connection. Or maybe a text-to-rock band connection.

He was so excited he asked me to pull up the video four times before I had even taken attendance. When I did pull it up, we watched it together and he could tell me each of the characters the band members were portraying and what scenes of the book this was from.

It's been three days and I'm still a little giddy. He made a connection. He came and told me. He didn't mumble under his breath in Spanish.

Awesome.

Here's the video:

Follow the sun

2008-05-21T09:26:00.002-05:00

My favorite thing about sunflowers (besides being the Kansas state flower) is that they always turn their heads to face the sun. They follow it. Like they know more than the rest of us what is important.

I want my faith to be like that. To always turn and follow God. To always search through the weight and challenge and bad days and find the beauty and the grace and the majesty that is God.

I'm coming up on some major transitions in my teacher life and my personal life. It's getting a bit overwhelming. I'm also getting ridiculously busy. While this is exciting and I'm unsure I've ever woken up this easily in the mornings or wished to face each day in the manner in which I currently do, I worry about where busyness takes me. Busyness often takes me into super competitive, check it off a list, keep up or get left behind Sam mode. That Sam is effective, but not really the type of Sam who is following the sun.

I want to follow the sun.

I want to start every day and end every day with the simplicity of its rays, knowing that in following the beauty of those moments I am following the beauty of what God has given me.

I want to follow the sun.

Natasha

2008-05-19T12:29:00.006-05:00

I have this student. She's not even my student anymore. I taught her last year and she played soccer for me and I drove her home a lot because no one ever came to get her from school.

Natasha is the epitome of why I think I'm meant to be here.

She is not the perfect student. She's not even that nice on bad days, but she is amazing. She is a kid who, despite all the awesomely bad things flying around her, is making it. She's holding on. What's more, she's actively trying to get herself to a new life. A place where people don't shout in the streets at midnight, where you can not only pay your bills, but buy a house. Where you can be safe and know that the people you love are safe.

There is no question that the odds are against her. This is a kid who has no safety net. One slip and she's gone. One mistake and the game if is over. No second tries. Imagine for a minute what that kind of life would be like? I was raised to believe there was nothing I couldn't do. I believed it because my parents were there every step of the way. Even if I did fail, they were there to catch me. To love me. To spur me on. Imagine for a second if your childhood didn't look like that. Imagine if it looked like this. Then tell me if you would get up every day and keep fighting. Tell me if you would see, at 14, that there is so much more to the world than what you've been handed. Tell me if you would be able to keep fighting.

I honestly don't know if I would. But she is. And if I fail at everything else I attempt for the rest of my life I do not want to fail at this. Helping her. She matters too much. She matters because she's not perfect. She makes mistakes. She's grumpy and disorganized and difficult. She matters because when I walked in to her apartment last week -- annoyed because I was running late and she should have just remembered to bring her application form for the high school we're trying to get her into to school with her -- I saw a mess and I heard her mother tell her that the reason she had yet to sign the form was because she lost it.

She lost the only piece missing for getting Natasha into a good school. A school she was afraid to apply to because of the distance away from home. It's a 10 minute drive if that. But again, remember how different her life is from yours. I was never afraid of 10 minutes because my parents would take me anywhere if it was important. Her mom has yet to show up to sign the third copy of the application I've printed out and I'm taking her home again today to get the application signed.

So Natasha matters because of all of that. She matters because she asked for help. She matters because someone has got to fight the odds with her -- there is no question she will not make it if she fights alone. Someone has got to say that this kid is not going to be a statistic. This kid is not going lose her chance.

I've realized over the past two years that there are kids who are just downright hard to deal with. Hard to love. You do what you can and you work hard not to hurt them. There are kids who live in this neighborhood and have a family and a network and are doing okay. You help them and you push them and you know they'll get by. Then there are kids like Natasha who need someone to help them so badly it can break your heart. I can't help all the kids I teach, but I can help a few. And Natasha is one.

Here is the letter I wrote to include in her application. The deadline has passed and the spots are now on a first come first served basis. I hope and pray that by some chance or miracle they let her in. She deserves so much more than the path she's on and the life she's living.

---
To Whom It May Concern:

I have never been one for slow and steady. In school and in life, I have always lived full-out, top speed all the time. I think this comes out naturally in the way I teach and the students who gravitate toward me. Except for Natasha.

I have known her well for the past two years. She worked diligently in my seventh grade English class, has applied herself in her 8th grade AVID program and has been a hardworking star athlete for both the girls’ basketball team and the girls’ soccer team (of which I was the coach). As an educator, if I had to pick one student who deserves a chance — a shot at something different—this girl is it. This is the student to take a chance on. What your school will gain from having Natasha as a student will match the impact it will have on course of her life.

Natasha is anything but over the top, over emotional, overly exuberant. She is quiet, focused, steady to a fault. She is not the student you would expect to be sitting in a classroom early one morning as her crazy English teacher runs around the room preparing for the day. And yet, there she was day in and day out. Stapling papers, reading her reading book, sometimes just sitting. Silent.

What I initially mistook in Natasha’s silence as a lack of interest, I have come to recognize as a true strength in a remarkable young girl. Natasha lives in a loud world. Her friends are loud,; her apartment complex is loud,; the halls of her school are loud. While she participates in jokes and conversations like any young girl would, she also takes the time I see adults twice her age give up: the time to sit back, to look and to really listen. What she can tell you about the world would startle you.

In all her silence, she sees the way students act and she understands why. She sees their pain, their cries for help or attention. What’s more, she understands. Sometimes I feel like I have to pry out an answer to a simple question like, “How was your day?” with a crow bar and sometimes she blows me away with her insights in moments when I hardly realized she was in the room.

That’s the kind of student and person Natasha is. She has depth — and experience — beyond her years. She’s fighting hard to overcome the struggle of a hard life and I urge you to be the next educators who fight hard to help her grow and utilize the depth and understanding that has already begun to show in her young life.

Natasha will be the first one to tell you that life is hard. She will also be the first to tell you that she is fighting to get out of the place she lives and that the first step in that fight is getting into a good high school. I never was a fan of “slow and steady wins the race” until I met Natasha. I guarantee you that if you find a place in your program for her, you will soon learn what I mean.

What I do in my off time

2008-05-12T07:46:00.002-05:00

Well... I don't know that there is such thing as off time for a teacher, but I carved out some time for this.

thisordinaryday.com

A little while ago I heard an amazing talk from a really amazing woman and she inspired me. She got me reading again (okay, reading more) and she got me writing again. After that I decided it was time to try out this crazy idea in my head that I had about creating a place to share good writing.

On this site you're going to find good words from good people. Some of them you know, some of them you might not. They've got good ideas and good hearts and I hope you'll find their stories inspiring and their words helpful. The goal of this ordinary day is to encourage everyone (the readers and the writers) to consider the everyday good things that can be so easily missed in the hustle of what we sometimes consider our important, busy lives.

Take a minute.

Make a cup of coffee.

Sit and give it a read.

There will be one post each day, so it won't even take that long. Give it a chance and see if you get inspired.

I hope you enjoy it. Either way, I'd like to hear your thoughts and comments. And please pass this site on to anyone who would like to read some good ideas and good stories.

A picture is worth a thousand words

2008-05-07T12:43:00.016-05:00

And at least a thousand memories. Lucky me, I got to play with Barrett's class camera this weekend. A pretty sweet Nikon. Now, of course, my photo obsession has returned.

Here are a few moments from the weekend.

Christina doing her favorite thing... talking on a microphone.

Group shot in front of The Almo

Lluvia finally stopped running from the camera and smiled for a photo.

On the top of a hill on our hike.

Me, nailing a kid in dodge ball. If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.

Dodge ball is pretty much the best sport ever.

Sometimes kids leave stuff behind.

One of my favorite students, Devie, in the river.

I think Christina ate her body weight in s'mores.

I would like it known that burnt marshmallows is a preference, not a result of a lack of patience.

I was lucky enough to convince Laura and Oliva (my awesome friends/future roommates) to come with me. The kids asked if we were sisters because we all had those weird shoes. My feet are the pretty ones.

If you didn't know, I think Buckee's is probably one of the best places Texas has to offer. Christina agrees.

Top three

2008-05-06T21:17:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty much at a loss for words to describe this weekend. It was without a doubt one of the top three things I've done in my entire life. It definitely contains the highlight of my teaching career.

Not only did we not lose or break any, but we had the best time.

This weekend without a doubt showed me that I made the right decision to stay teaching next year. I walked around camp with a bunch of screaming, joyful kids and I just knew — beyond a shadow of a doubt — that I was meant to do this. I was meant to be here. I think of how different my life could look if I hadn't applied for TFA and all I can think is thank you God, thank you God, thank you God. I'm so glad I'm here. I'm so glad I got this past weekend with my kids.

I only want more. More kids. More moments. More challenges.

Currently, I'm so tired I can barely move. I thought all day that my contacts were in the wrong eyes because everything is a little blurry, but really, I think that it's just that I'm really really tired.

I've decided that I'm sticking to just five or six of my own kids. Ninety is definitely too many.

I took literally 1000 photos this weekend. I will post more to commemorate my top three life experience later.

Now I have to go to sleep.

My personal goal

2008-05-02T12:30:00.000-05:00

We leave for our seventh grade camping trip tomorrow morning. 6 a.m.

It is my personal goal not to lose or break any children. I feel like losing or breaking children would seriously undermine my confidence in rearing my own. It might also prevent the state from allowing me to fulfill my dream of adopting rainbow babies. I want five or six, I really don't want to have them all.

So lets hope for the children's sake, and that of my future offspring, that I can hang on to all 90 of them.

Really, though, I'm so excited. Today the financial clerk was talking about how some of these kids have never seen stars outside of the city. I nearly started crying. A year ago Christina and I went to the HEB camp with our church and decided the kids had to see this. She made it happen. I was the sidekick as usual. That feels pretty darn good.

We'll see how I feel after three days in the woods with seventh graders.

Please pray for my goal.

Test me, test me

2008-04-29T16:34:00.000-05:00

I hate silence. There I said it. I have a serious problem with silence. Always have.

Testing weeks are like some sick form of torture. Stick me in a room where I can't A)read, B)sit, C)be on gmail chat or D) talk. Oh and make sure there are 30 of the most annoying kids in school in there with me. As soon as we're done with the torturous A through D list they get to talk. And since they haven't talked all day they are significantly louder.

TAKS testing wears on my nerves in more ways than one. I have always hated standardized testing because it requires silence and boredom and doesn't really test the part of anything that matters. As a student and a teacher I just found it all very monotonous and boring.

I know, I know, there has to be accountability somewhere. In some ways I applaud the effort. I really do. In other ways I have a thing or fifty to say to idiot legislatures. State testing is largely unregulated. Study after study has shown that states' vary so widely that you education level can be as much as three grade levels apart based on ability. That means a seventh grader passing an English test in Texas may be no better academically than a fourth grader passing an English test in Washington. Yet we hold everyone to the same standard. Until we start holding more consistent standards (and higher standards for that matter) we're not really putting pressure where pressure needs to be put.

And another thing about the great state I test (oh, and teach) in. We're not really doing a great job with all this testing stuff. What's really sad about that is that we're the model. Our state test is in the bottom 10 across the nation as far as difficulty, so that's pretty sad.

Today when I picked up Luis's test I noticed that he missed the sample question. I said the answer out loud three times. Concerning.

I'm going to go sing really loudly in my car now. Because. I. Can.

teaching in style

2008-04-29T16:29:00.000-05:00

So it's spring and to me spring means dresses and skirts and pretty things. I don't know what it means for you, but that's what it very distinctly means to me.

To my students it apparently means I have man.

They are obsessed with the dresses I've been wearing. They don't read the board (a fact I know because they more often than not shout out "Miss, what are we doing?" Lets see... you could do the DO NOW, you could read THE AGENDA, you could even read THE OBJECTIVE. All of these things could give you a pretty good idea of what we're doing... but you prefer to shout). So every day I write all of these things on the board and every day they notice my sun dresses instead of the daily objective.

My favorite question of the week has been "Miss, whys you dressing up so much? Yous got a date?" Leonardo there are so many things wrong with that question that I just don't even know where to begin.

Maybe I write the objective on my skirt they will do their warm-ups in silence.

Maybe?

So true

2008-04-23T13:52:00.000-05:00

I often feel like my students truly want me to bang my head against a wall.

I look at them and think "If you only knew how crazy you make me and how hard I continue to try and how pretty much I've wanted a beer at the end of every school day for the past three weeks... if you only knew."

Yesterday after I started this post, I read this from Anne Lamont: "Sometimes I think Jesus watches my neurotic struggles, and shakes his head and grips his forehead and starts tossing back mojitos."

Okay, Jesus probably wins.

I have no doubt that I am worse than my kids. At least me and the big guy have this little shared frustration in common.

Today...

2008-04-22T13:10:00.002-05:00

Fist to five scale, there's no telling what today might come out as. But it's going pretty well and my little ball of moments is getting bigger.

Today Daniel, who previously was one of my most challenging readers, came in boasting how he had finished all of the fourth book of the Artemus Fowl series yesterday. One book. In one day. "I didn't clean my room or nothing Miss..." It's like the lights of heaven came down around the two of us. That's how happy his words and his reading and his excitement made me.

A little later I walked by Isabella's desk to see a pile of boys id cards on it. Isabella sits at a table of all boys. Oh the amount of times my name will come up in her future therapy sessions for bestowing that little treasure on her. Apparently besides being the only girl, she is also the only one who brings a pencil. She decided to take a page from Miss Thompson's Handbook On Not Losing Your Stuff and charge the boys their id cards for a pencil. When I commented on how clever she was and how I should just send all the kids to her instead of my grubby pencil drawer, she smiled at me. For Isabella a smile is a lot. Maybe I won't make the greatest hits of her therapy reel. One can only hope.

Even today during silent reading when I got a text from my dad telling me the minor surgery my mom had this morning had gone well and that she was in recovery, I couldn't help but smile and sigh deep because there's just a feeling that is like none other when you're worried in the pit of your stomach about someone you love and then you get told it's going to be okay. All will be right. And then Gustavo asked me why I was texting my boyfriend during class. Yep, even that gets to be a moment today.

Because fist to five today, every thing's going to be okay.

Somedays...

2008-04-22T08:48:00.000-05:00

On a fist to five scale, yesterday was a -3.

Really.

Five minutes into first period Leonardo spilled my coffee. I have a yearbook deadline looming over my head that feels something like the weight of the world pushing down directly on my shoulders. Houston weather decided to remind me (and my sinuses) why I can't live here for the rest of my life. Gmail has decided that I need more ads (not less) for penis enlargers and "five minutes for the best thighs ever!" I think I ate my body weight in chocolate and commiserated with a friend over nasty, nasty phone calls a very sick student made to her which resulted in him getting arrested and expelled and just left her bewildered. And me sad.

Then I broke up a fight on my way out of the parking lot.

Really, an anvil falling on my head could have probably only made my day better. We were well past chocolate and on to tequila as the only thing saving that day.

I was just in one of those funks where you want to just allow the grossness of everything to wash over you. You want to fester in the students not listening, the administrators (still) seemingly working in every way against you. You want to seriously question why you got out of bed today. If you're me, you add junk food and coffee and soda to that mess and then you are emotionally and physically clothed in junk.

And then a four-year-old got out of line to come over and compliment my shoes. Because she really thought they were neat.

And two new guys at the coffee shop made me laugh (probably because I was the only one in the place, but still.)

And my roommate watched bad bad television with me and didn't make fun of me for only have the brain capacity left to watch something stupid on MTV.

So as I went to bed last night, I decided I take those moments and ball them up and think of them before I fell asleep last night. And I thought maybe if I held on tight to them then tomorrow might be different.

And it will be.

Because when you take the good moments and you hold them tight then you're bound to see the other good things before you see the bad. The more you focus on the bright shining moments the less the bad moments hurt when they hit (because they certainly do hit). So that's what I'm banking on today.

It will be different because I'm not going to dwell in the grossness, I can't drink tequila on a school night and you can't count in negative on a fist to five scale.

Lets play charades

2008-04-19T18:44:00.002-05:00

When I was little my grandpa would ask me if my jaw ever got tired. I was young and didn't really get what he meant so then he would tell me that as much as he liked hearing about "how Joey had stolen the jelly beans from David and made him cry and then the teacher said that was not nice becauseniceboysdon'tsteal..." he actually called to talk to my mom.

Life hasn't changed much now except I get to talk about how Marcus got into a fight with Miriam in my class in the first five minutes of the period on a Friday and I was really mad becauseniceboysdon'thit. Then I lost my voice.

If you don't know how hard it is to teach a room full of 12-year-olds with no voice, let me tell you.

It's REALLY FREAKING HARD.

I was out from school on Wednesday because my body went into shut down mode and fever mode and lets swell my throat shut mode. I basically slept the entire day and when I woke up I realized I had no voice. Nothing. No talking. Nada. Barely an audible whisper.

This is hard on many levels because I'm a very social person and because sometimes I have trouble with silence. I found myself singing in my head, clapping my hands and snapping my fingers throughout the day just to fill the air with something. The amazing amount of mocking I received at bible study that night should have been indication of how a day at school would go with no voice. Should have thought better.

Since I was generally feeling okay (besides not being able to swallow anything solid) and my kids are taking their stupid TAKS test in something like nine days I went back to school on Thursday with no voice. This was, arguably, not a good idea.

My first period is an okay group. Sometimes they're a little rowdy and my voice often comes in handy. When the kids discovered I couldn't talk they took a good bit of time mocking me and then proceeded to be generally confused about what to do. Come on. We have a routine. Granted, we don't have a routine just in case Miss Thompson loses her voice, but we do have a routine. I elected Leonardo as my translator and whispered instructions to him. He decided that the appropriate thing to do with the whispered instructions would be to translate them into Spanish for the rest of the class. Hi, Leonardo, I speak Spanish. Miss Thompson did not just say "I can't talk today so you get to have a party and do whatever you want." GositdownbeforeIhurtyou.

After that I pretty much texted my co-teacher every five minutes to say "hey, I don't care what kind of minor melt-down one of the other SPED students is having I CAN'T DO THIS WITHOUT YOU" and mimed signals for read and write and stop it before I lose my mind. It went pretty okay.

Pre-AP mocked me too. But they were moderately concerned that I would be gone again this week and not let them read The Outsiders with the sub. Yes, I want to know if Johnny lives too kids.

By Yearbook I pretty much just pointed at the computers and didn't bother whispering. I didn't know you could get lighted headed from whispering, but oh you can.

I decided by the end of the day that I my body, throat and head hurt too much to do the same thing tomorrow. My kids are not going to miraculously pass their tests if I come in and whisper to them on a Friday. So never mind. I stayed home and clapped to myself.

Because nicegirlsdon'twhisper.

that did not just happen

2008-04-16T10:36:00.006-05:00

On Monday Devie dropped my computer on the floor.

And a part of my soul died.

He didn't mean to do it, and it was my fault too, but oh it was painful. I nearly cried.

I had set my computer on a desk so I could send an email while the kids in my tutorial period did their silent reading. It was just ever so slightly resting on the edge of two other desks. I told Devie to pull up a desk next to me so we could read together and we both pulled the desks at the same time. I guess the momentum was enough to bring my computer crashing to the floor.

MY COMPUTER.

THE FLOOR.

I just stood there with my hands over my eyes begging God for a do-over. (This was much like the mom in Cheaper By the Dozen when Fedex breaks the cups — I think it should be noted that we cannot be friends, or at least not close personal friends, if you do not like this movie. It is my comfort movie. I am not ashamed to admit that.) If we got three do-overs in our entire lives I think that moment would have been one of mine. That's how totally trauma-free my life has been. And how much I love my computer.

The silence was deafening. When I opened my eyes Devie was doubled over holding his hand over his mouth in utter shock and terror. He understood the gravity of what had just happened. He understood that Ms. Thompson has no children and loves her MacBook like it was her own flesh and blood. Everyone else understood too because they just sat there in silence staring at me and Devie. They're never that quiet.

Luckily, I did not have to kill my first student ever (and dispose of the body where?) because I turned my computer on and it still worked. The LCD panel was sitting funny, causing a gap in the edge of the computer, but when I took it to a Mac Genius (oh how I dream of someday falling madly in love with a Mac Genius) he did scary things like unscrew the top panel pop out everything that seemed vital and important never to remove. But he fixed it. Everything is okay. Blood pressure is returning to normal.

If it wasn't okay, that would be okay too. I could be lying in a drug induced computer-less haze right now. Christina gave me strep throat on our wild weekend with Shaq and I am at home debating the wisdom of taking the vicodin the doctor gave me for the grape fruit that is currently lodged in my throtal-area.

If I take the vicodin I wonder if I will wake up not remembering the awful noise my computer made when it hit the ground?

How much would you pay me?

2008-04-14T07:02:00.000-05:00

Teacher contracts for next year came out Friday. I'm so tempted to turn this into my principal.

Don't worry Mom, it's a copy.

...And then I saw Shaq

2008-04-12T15:04:00.006-05:00

As teachers we get a crap-load worth of mail from a bunch of different places that basically want us to buy their program, book, material or stuff. The really smart places realize that every time I open my mailbox and find a catalog/letter/other annoying mail that I definitely think counts as spam I simply throw it away without reading it. Their attempt at my business moves from the mailbox to the trash in 5 seconds flat.

This place was different. They decided to be really cool and call Christina and offer to put her and guest up at the Four Seasons for the night so we'd listen to their little spiel about their programs. It worked. Free totally sweet hotel room? Open bar? Free food? Sold.

Christina and I met up with some other teacher friends, had good food and totally classed up the joint with our beer drinking (I don't do wine, even for the Four Seasons), but before any of that even got started... we met Shaq.

Yes, Shaq. And when I say met, I mean, TALKED TO.

So here's the back story:

I arrived before Christina (as I always do) and sat in the lobby waiting for her to show up. There was an olderish guy sitting on the couch by me and after a few minutes he says "Man, that guy is as big as a shack." I smiled politely and thought that was a really weird conversation starter.

He continued with "I mean, he's really big. Big like Shaq." At this point I realized he wasn't saying shack, but Shaq and I still thought it was a weird way to start a conversation with a 24-year-old girl.

At some point in this process he managed to get me to see that he was actually talking about Shaq. He had walked by us and was standing outside waiting for a car. I stood up to look out the door mouth all agape because (damn) he's big. Like big, big. He's huge. Television does not do this man justice.

By this time Christina has walked in and completely neglected the fact that she has just walked by a massively big basketball player — because she's Christina and this is part of the reason I love her. When I asked her to take a moment and just acknowledge that she has walked by said player she looks around all confused and says "where?"

Um, he would be the big huge black guy standing 5 feet infront of us. I realize he's very easy to miss.

At this point we decided it would be a great idea to get a picture with Shaq because neither one of us have very many cool points with our students and we felt like this might help us out in that department.

I walked outside and stared up into the sky searching for the head attached to the neck attached to the shoulders I could barely see.

And then he smiled at me.

And said "hi."

I said "hi" back.

That's my conversation with Shaq.

He then walked back inside and as he passed, Christina made some type of plea about us being lame teachers of poor kids and "coolness points" (see how we're not at all above guilt trips? Great, right?). He said "no, sorry, I'm too busy."

He was a lot less cool after that part of the conversation.

He was apparently too busy getting ready to lose to The Rockets. Too bad Shaq, maybe if you had been nicer to two really great teachers God would have shown favor on you. I think we're lucky there were no wrath-filled lightning strikes last night. You are the tallest thing, well, anywhere in sight.

I realized after all of this that even if Shaq wouldn't smile for a photo he could be forced to take part in a photo. If I had taken out my phone like any other rational star-struck person would do. But no. Phone stayed in purse. No photo to commemorate the time I talked to Shaq.

Here's a photo of Martha Washington and Thomas Jefferson. They were part of the program the next day. Oh yes, you better believe I had my camera phone out for that.

How cool am I now kids?

You threw away MY SANDWHICH?!

2008-04-10T08:28:00.000-05:00

I don't understand the lack of refrigerator etiquette in this world. I really don't. Last year people used to drink my sodas and use my salad dressing. The kicker was when someone apparently dropped my food on the floor and then put it back in the fridge. Really?

Luckily Christina and I got a fridge and have had no common refrigerator issues ever since.

Until yesterday. I made two pans of enchiladas the other night to take to Karen's house on Wednesday. I covered the pans and put them in a large bag and brought them to school because I was going from soccer to Karen's to bible study and I live completely out of the way from everything. I was very careful to shove them in the back of the fridge in the faculty lounge when I arrived in the morning.

When I went in to the faculty lounge to retrieve the food I saw that the foil was slightly dented so I took a peek inside. Someone had eaten one of the enchiladas. Out of the middle of the pan.

I. Kid. You. Not.

I simply cannot understand how someone walked into the faculty lounge at lunch time, saw a bag turned all the way around and thought "hmmm... I'm sure someone brought this just for me and forgot to email, call or tell me in person that it was in here. Good thing I'm nosy."

I'm going to consider this forced sharing because it's better than anything else I can think of right now. Maybe someone was desperately hungry. Maybe they had to have chili cheese enchiladas or fall into a diabetic comma. Maybe I saved their life. Yes, that's what I'll think.

One more life saved and all it took was an enchilada.

The cylce

2008-04-09T12:11:00.004-05:00

I've realized a sad cycle that occurs with the kids I teach. They don't realize the tragedy of death. They don't realize the uselessness of violence.

I realize now this cycle has always been with my kids and I've known it is there, but I didn't really think about it until I walked into a funeral at my church and saw the face of the dead boy plastered on his friends t-shirts. He was flashing a gang sign in the photo. To them, that was honoring him. They didn't see the perverseness in the knowledge that what they were holding up as good, had been what cost him his life.

And it's always like that.

Maybe not always, but my roommate, who teaches in the same neighborhood where Karen and her sons live, pointed outthat for something like this to have an impact, it has to be unusual. And this death is not unusual because it happens all the time.

I hate that my kids view the world like this. Like death by shooting is just something that is bound to come around and you're just lucky if it's not you. That is not a life to lead. That is not a world I want to be a part of. There has to be more than that.

After the funeral Laura and I talked about Karen's second oldest son Pablo for quite some time. Apparently he's been missing in action since the death. He's running with a gang and his mom is a wreck, so it's just happening. We worry that if someone doesn't do something then she's going to be burying another son before we know it.

The thing about Pablo is that he's going to have to make a choice. He is going to have to choose to either take what has happened to his brother and make it something different in his world. Make it something unusual. Or he's going to choose to break his mother's heart all over again by falling into the same life that has already stolen one child from her. The church plans to support her and move her, but anywhere they put them, Pablo can find trouble. Pablo can find violence. Until he wakes up and realizes that enough has got to be enough, nothing will change for him.

Laura had a talk with someone from the church who I dearly love and respect and he, rather jadedly, said that this was inevitable. Single, illegal mother of six living in a bad neighborhood. Statistically this was bound to happen.

The logical side of me understands that. There are statics and numbers and logic that tell you how the world works. The faith side of me refuses to accept it. This is what redeeming love is all about. It is the idea that everything in the world can be against you and you can still be saved. It is the belief that everything can be wrong and hard and then with one choice — one sacrifice — anything can be made right again.

I will not stop praying for Pablo. I will not stop fighting for my students. They deserve to wake up in a place where death is not something typical and expected. They deserve to wake up and realize the beauty and joy in this world and the utter importance of protecting it.

There comes a point where the choice must be made between logic and faith. Between reason and hope. For many of us that choice is made all too quickly. When we allow reason to win out and faith to fade to the backside, then we only feed into the cycle these kids are already living.

We are only forsaken when we accept the world as it is and refuse to see the possibility of a change. Of a chance. Of hope. Statistics will never break a cycle like this because all they do is tell you what you already know: that it exists and that it will happen again. The only way the something like this changes is when we say enough. When we choose to look at reason and then bank on hope. On faith. When we do that, no number will matter and no cycle will continue.

currently missing...

2008-04-05T13:58:00.000-05:00

All week I was the sad kid who had to sit on the couch in the main office and wait. I was never that kid in school (I was the antithesis to that kid in school, actually), so it was interesting to get the confused, sad, disappointed looks from people as I sat on the couch and waited. I think they were actually thinking "oh look at her, sure she shows up early but can she hold onto her keys? No sir. I bet her desk is a mess too. She's the type who leaves lunch food and soccer shoes in her car past the point of acceptable standards as well. Tsk, tsk (head shake)."

I lost my keys on Tuesday. It's really hard to get into your classroom without your keys or a crowbar. Every morning instead of walking the halls searching for a janitor I would just wait until someone higher up then me would show up with a master key for me to let myself into my classroom. By series of confusing events I actually have a master key, but that's neither here nor there since I couldn't find any of my keys.

I found my keys on Friday and it was really nice to not have to spend anymore time sitting on the couch being judged by my co-workers. It was also nice to not find out what happens when you lose a master key to a school building.

I am now currently missing my power supply to my computer. I think that it is in my car, at Laura's house or somewhere in my closet at home. I'm not sure when I'll have time to find it, but I do have a test saved on my dead laptop so sooner rather than later would be good.

I'm also missing my smiley face pen. This saddens me most of all because it was one of those pens that just writes perfectly. It made your handwriting look the best it could ever look and you liked it so much you actually enjoyed writing notes to yourself that began with "call so-and-so's parents about..." It was that good. I think one of my students stole it and I have been doing random pen checks since its disappearance on Thursday.

And then it all pales in comparison...

2008-04-03T08:20:00.004-05:00

I've been trying really hard recently to find the humor in life and to be positive about situations. I realize that I am happy and loved and able bodied and strong minded and these are things I should be happy and joyful about.

And then Marcus throws a tantrum.

And my principal says something petty.

And the copy machine eats my last good copy of my worksheet after I stood in line for half a lifetime to make 10 copies.

Unfortunately, I, like everyone, lose perspective on the things around me that are good and worthwhile and wonderful.

An amazing woman in my church lost her son this morning. He was 16. He wasn't doing anything wrong or bad. And someone shot him anyways. I don't know Karen very well. She works in the children's area at church so we've come across each other. When I first heard of the shooting all I could think was "oh Karen, the happy lady in the children's area." Regardless, my heart breaks for her. I look at the faces of my students and even Marcus and Marco who, on a regular basis, make me wonder why I became a teacher, are deeply embedded in my heart. I don't want my kids to be come the victims or the victimizers in this world. That's why I'm here. That's why I love them so much. I could not imagine losing them to such violence. I would never wish that on their family or loved ones. I think of how much I love my students and how much I would grieve if I lost one of them and I cannot fathom the pain that translates to when it is your own child.

I can't do much for Karen right now, as I imagine healing this kind of hurt is quite out of the realm of our ability. I will pray for her and think of her son. And I won't let Marcus's mean comments get under my skin or roll my eyes at my principal or even have a minor hissy fit when the copy machine breaks today. Because the simple fact is I woke up this morning and everyone I loved was still breathing and safe. That is enough to make everything else pale in comparison.

Go home tonight and hug your roommate or your friend or your mom. Appreciate that they are there and that they won't always be there. Thank God for the life you have and pray for Karen and her family as they certainly need our thoughts and prayers more than we need to focus on the negative things in our world.

You win universe, you win...

2008-03-31T17:08:00.001-05:00

So here's a tip for future teachers out there. Don't introduce your boyfriend to your students. It will seem like a good idea. He will think it's good idea. You'll do it and then— because this is just the way life in my world works — he'll break up with you and come sub at your school.

The great mystery of children is what causes them to remember some things and not others. I can't get Brandon to remember his homework, his pencil or his assigned seat, but he can remember with basically no problem the face of a guy he met for two hours four months ago and let me know that he was his gym teacher today. Awesome.

I don't really care that the ex-boyfriend, now-friend is subbing here. I told him to sub here. He told me he was going to sub here. I said "ha, gym class, have fun." Then he taught my students and I realized that four months ago I should ignored the sad hurt puppy dog face that he gave me when I wouldn't hold his hand in front of my students and gone with the initial gut reaction of: they are 12, they in no way at all need to know anything more than I am old and lame and here to teach them. Yeah, boyfriends make you do stupid things.

Unfortunately, Brandon is not the only one who met him or the only one he taught in gym class. I was met with a litany of "Miss, Miss, your boyfriend is here." today as my kids rolled into third period.

All of this sends me into a mental conniption fit because now my personal life is in my classroom and it's not even the correct and up-to-date version of my personal life. The response in my mind ends up something like this: Yes, I know my boyfriend is subbing in your gym class, but actually, no, he's not my boyfriend anymore and I'm fine. I'm really fine. I swear. It was a mutual decision. Best for both parties. Yes, we're still good friends. Yes, I'm fine. I'm sure I'll find someone else. A guy at the gym asked me out, so don't worry, I'm not sitting at home eating chocolate and watching soap operas and thinking up names for all the cats I'll own to keep me company. I'm fine by the way, please don't give me the sad face and the arm pat — whoever thought that up as the appropriate response to a break-up obviously married their high school sweetheart, has 2.5 kids and doesn't have fat days. Wait, why am I having this 'justifying my life conversation' in my head with a 12-year-old? Oh yes, because you're 12 and 12-year-olds can basically remember nothing of importance, but THIS, THIS YOU CAN REMEMBER.

What actually ended up coming out of my mouth after a few deep breaths was something that resembled a shrug combined with an "I don't know" combined with the urge to shout out "Am I on candid camera?! Because it's Monday and I haven't had any coffee and this is just mean." I probably should have just stood there opening and closing my mouth and having the aforementioned mental conversation for all the good it did at changing the subject.

At least I'm learning from all of this that nothing, and I seriously mean nothing is out of the realm of possibility or the realm of humor. Who would have thought Brandon would discover his skills of recalling and who would have thought it would be over something like this? If I can't laugh at this then the world is going to be hard place to face for the next 60 or so years. Oh universe you are a funny, funny place.

Maybe tomorrow Brandon will remember to bring his pencil.

stupid conscience

2008-03-29T23:39:00.002-05:00

I decided yesterday... after Laura gave me the look that said "I'm not judging you, but you lied, so enjoy hell"... that I'm going to tell my principal the truth about my plans for next year. Well, maybe I won't tell him that I'm moving to a competing school down the street, but I will tell him I'm not coming back.

The worst thing that can happen is he's a jerk to me for the rest of the year or I have to resist the urge to roll my eyes at his backhanded compliments that mention how I'm selling out or some other nonsense. I don't really think he's crafty enough to get me where it hurts -- my kiddos.

I need to be honest with him and he does need to replace me. That's going to be a fun email to write. I think I'll save the utter honesty about why there is no way I could work another year for him for my goodbye letter and just stick with: I will not be returning for a third year. Thankyouverymuch.

a moral delima

2008-03-28T13:26:00.002-05:00

I had the oddest conversation with my principal today. The jaded side of me says that he had a life coach walk him through our conversation before we had it. There's a tiny part of me that thinks maybe he means some of what he says.

It went something like this:

Mr. Arredondo: I just want you to know I think you're an amazing teacher and you do amazing things for this school. Blah, blah, blah. You're really great.

Me: Thanks, I really appreciate it.

Arredondo: And I want you to know that any mistakes I've made this year I really apologize for. I know the working environment hasn't always been great, but the work you've done has been.

Me: thank you for your apology.

Me in my head: woah, hold the heck up. Did you just seriously apologize? You just acknowledged personal fault? You just allowed for the fact that maybe you made this a not fun place to work? Woah, hang on, I think I need to take some cleansing breaths here. I'm in shock.

Arredondo: I'm just wondering if you'll be returning and I hope you're thinking of the children and how much we need you here next year.

Me: I've yet to decide what my plans are for next year.

Me in my head: crap that's a lie, I'm a bad person.

Arredondo: Well, I know you've got one foot out the door. You've taken a lot of personal days and such...

Me: I am fully committed to my teaching here and resent that I have to justify taking a sick day.

Me in my head: see, this is where you want to decide never to go off what the life coach tells you because then you become your totally offensive, condescending self and make me not want to work for you or believe anything you say.

Arredondo: well, again you're great. Blah, blah, blah. Anything we can do to keep you, let me know.

Me: thanks, I will.

I feel kind of horrible about lying. I've been waging an internal battle with myself all day because I don't like being dishonest. My reason for being dishonest is because my principal is so petty and I really don't want it to come back on my students. Right now he thinks there is still maybe a chance he can keep me so he's really watching his step. If he finds out that not only am I leaving, but I'm leaving for a school down the street, I can't imagine how personally he'd take it. Petty and vindictive are words I would use in a character analysis of him. I'm pretty sure I can take anything he's got, but I don't want my students to suffer because I get put on the bad list.

But then I go back to the lying and how that's not the type of person I want to be. And I can't shake it.

What I want to be when I grow up...

2008-03-27T12:25:00.003-05:00

When I was a kid I wanted to be a doctor. I realize now this was kind of a bad call because I get white and cry (yes, still as an adult I cry) when I see needles. I think what really prompted me to want to be a doctor was the fact that we were studying Elisabeth Blackwell. Even at the ripe old age of 8 I was a feminist. Who knew?

Blackwell, if you don't know, was the first female doctor in the United States. She blew the field wide open for us women folk and she didn't really have a grand old time in the process. I remember thinking "that is amazing. I want to do that. I want to be like her." I don't think my wanting to be like her thought was really about wanting to be a doctor, but wanting to be a strong women who refused to back down in the face of oppression. That's a pretty great desire to have.

I'm still struggling with what I want to be when I grow up. I go back and forth and all over the page. For a long time I wanted to be a journalist. Now I want to write, but I don't think it has to be for a paper. I like teaching and I like impacting students, but I don't know if I want to do it forever. A huge part of me wants to start an all girls school, but an even larger part of me wants to have a big family (think two and then add three or four to it) and I don't know how you do that and run a school. I'm thinking about occupational therapy and masters in social work. I'm thinking more and more about practical things I could take into the missions field for months at a time.

I don't really know. Or maybe I know too much.

This I do know:

1) I want to do something that matters. Something that truly matters and impacts the future in some way.

2) For me, I think that thing has to do with children. Low-income children, girls, orphans. Any and all of those groups.

3) I don't want to wake up in 20 years and realize I chose a vocation based on selfish ambition. I want to know that even though my job undoubtedly has residual benefits for me (you know, like a pay check) that it is helping people. I want to contribute to the world in a meaningful way and I also want to push the world to change.

4) I want to always be in a place where (in my actual life and my heart), if God called, I could pick up, move out and change my life drastically.

You know, for a 24-year-old who is still figuring out this real life stuff, while daily trying to survive the beat down of 12-year-olds, those are pretty good things to know. http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

For more on vocation, check out what my friend Mr. Blair and Thomas Merton have to say.

15 miles continued

2008-03-26T13:56:00.003-05:00

I don't think I did very well with the post below, but I'm tired and this whole "getting up for my life" thing is really taking it out of me.

My original thought with the 15 miles thing came not while I was in Mexico, but when I was in a movie theater on Monday. I grew up in Kansas. We don't really have border issues or lots of really strong thoughts or experiences with immigration. Enter TFA and Houston and I'm thrown right in the mix of it. My students are basically all hispanic. Some are legal, some are not. Most were not born here.

I don't need to get into an endless debate about immigration. I know we can't allow everyone and their brother to come and stay in the US and strain the social services we have available. I also know that I look into the faces of the children I know are not legal. Children who didn't choose to come here, but are no less "American" than I am. I know I would not send them packing. I would find it unconscionable.

The movie I saw on Monday was called La Misma Luna/ Under the Same Moon. It was about a mother who had left her son and crossed illegally to find work. Her son eventually follows at the ripe old age of 9. I watched it with a lump in my throat. I saw the lives people lead in Juarez and I could see why they would do anything to have something different. To have just the chance at more. I am not a mother, but I know I will be and I can only image the lengths to which I would go to make the world a better place for my child. Like the mother in the movie, there is no border, no heartbreak, no pain I would not bare for a better place for my child to call home. Imagine what you would suffer through or sacrifice if it was your brother, sister, best friend whose very future was on the line.

I read a study recently that said the influx on the Mexican/American border had not significantly changed in over 30 years. It was pointing out that with the ebb and flow of immigration policy the amount of people coming and going had not been significantly impacted. What had changed was the amount of people who died each year trying to cross the border. And the story goes, as border restrictions are tightened, deaths increase. As they loosen, deaths decrease. Crossing doesn't really change. So feasibly, if we did not tighten our borders endlessly, the same amount of people would come, but they would do so legally. Meaning, among other things, they are not dying in the desert and they are not working illegally, not paying taxes and at times ending up desperate and without access to programs.

Hmm... I'm reading this book called Jesus For President and he talks about God's people being outside the Empire, being set apart. He points out that Jesus did not preach in the cities, but out in the nothingness, not clothed in gold like a King, but in rags. He describes a Jesus who is radical because he reaches out to undesirables, to the rejected and to those in the empire (so long as they leave the empire for him). I wonder what we would look like as Christians if we set Christ's call to reach all --to help all -- above our views of "protecting the border and saving American resources"?

If we are all to be a part of God's kingdom and we all live under the same moon why does 15 miles make such a difference in our world?

15 miles

2008-03-26T12:41:00.003-05:00

I went to Mexico last week, but not in the typical "what happens in Cabo stays in Cabo" spring break fashion. My friend Laura has missionary friends in Juarez (which I apparently horribly mispronounce to the point that no one in my front office had any idea where I was going until I came back). Juarez is not what I would call a vacation destination. It's surrounded by mountains -- oh sweet mountains I've missed you -- so it's cold. It's also a desert, so it's dusty. Basically I was cold and dusty the whole time I was there. It doesn't really matter, my point in going wasn't to vacation so much as to help out and be with Laura's friends.

The three of them live in what basically amounts to a shanty town outside of the main city. The roads are dirt, the buildings are simple and built out of cement bricks. Things are not clean by any means. I'm amazed by their ministry. I've been struggling a lot lately with the things I do for my own selfish interest and to see people who basically gave up everything to live amongst people they feel called to minister to is stunning. And the impact they've had is also amazing. It is apparent that the people in the community love and trust them and that they feel very much the same. I love teaching, but even TFA had some major perks and ego boost points when I joined. It would be a tough pill to swallow if God was like "oh yeah, give up your nice bedroom and swimming pool and Gap card and head on down to Mexico and live amongst the poorest... because I said."

What is striking about Juarez is it's proximity to the United States. On the second day we were there we hiked up a mountain-hill and sat on a ridge that overlooked both El Paso and Juarez. The difference that 15 miles makes is truly striking. I hardly think that United States social services are perfect and I hardly think that everyone in Mexico is desolate and doomed, but the resources avaliable on the US side for a child are not able to be matched in Mexico. Laura's friend Delelah lives in Juarez, is 17 and has two children. Right now she stays home with her sons and her mother's new baby girl. Her mom brings in $40 a week and they live in a loaned house. To feed her son formula it would cost Delelah $30 a week. She is currently feeding him what amounts to strawberry nesquick. A mix of lack of funds and lack of education has caused this little baby to be fairly undernourished and it's just sad. Even if Delelah had made similar fertility choices in the US, the resources and education could be there for her. She could at least be able to get her babies formula and whole milk. I've worked crisis pregnancy and while I know the system is not perfect, it is at least there.

As we met with people and watched 13-year-old cholos hang out on street corners and huff paint, it seemed so easy to see how fast you can slip and how hard you can fall. When your basic expectation is to join a gang or get pregnant, you really aren't going to have many life plans going for you or much hope. Whether this is due to the border or the way we treat the least of those in any society or the economic market and the cheap jobs found in Mexico, I don't know. But it hurts to see that 15 miles or three shades of pigment or even a year or two of education can so drastically effect your life. It does seem fair that an imaginary line decides so much of someone's life.

I'm back... sorta

2008-03-24T10:47:00.001-05:00

It's been a very interesting/relaxing/tiring/fun spring break. I'll be back in blog mode soon enough with thoughts on Mexico, education, weariness and (duh, duh, duh) the future. More specifically my future.

Hold your breath kids, I've got one day of hooky (from professional development) left in me and then I'm back to the daily grind.

Words can change things

2008-03-14T13:19:00.001-05:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about how powerful words are. Given my journalism degree and my current profession of all things middle school English, we should be glad that I believe this statement. But what do we mean by this?

Do we mean that if you write it down it makes a difference? Do we mean that you have to write to communicate and therefore, duh, things change when you infuse words into the situation? Or do we mean that words are powerful — thoughts, lyrics, books and phrases matter because they can profoundly effect the way you look at the world or look at yourself or look at others?

All of the above, I think. Here are a few examples.

NightJohn

I think because I like to torture myself I decided to teach two separate books to my English classes. Regular English is reading The Outsiders (which will be a post unto itself soon) and Pre-AP is reading NightJohn. I love NightJohn. It is a hard book to read, but it's important. It brings up topics of control, education, justice, freedom and, possibly most important, words.

We've been reading it this week and my students are utterly appalled at the way the slaves are treated. They shudder at the images, but more importantly they are truly impassioned by the story. They are asking questions and making statements that you don't usually hear everyday in the hallways of my school. This story is challenging them to believe that education really can change things. We got to the part where NightJohn explains that he was free — he had been there, he had tasted freedom — and he came back because this, slaves learning to read, was more important. It's a beautifully written scene and often hard for me to read out loud to them. When I stopped reading they were silent. I asked them if they could do the same thing. If they could knowingly give up the freedom from pain and persecution for someone else. I asked them to think about the fact that he didn't give up his freedom for someone else's freedom or for someone else's life — things that are more tangible, if not just as difficult — but simply so others could learn to read. The struggle he was fighting was not an immediate reward, not an immediate solution, but a piece of a grander scheme. That is a sacrifice I'm not sure many of us could make, but in their childlike minds they said they could, they would, make it. Reading and writing have power they told me and if that power would help someone else then we would do what it took to give it to them. I hope they hold on to that though. I hope they remember those words because they are some of the sweetest promises I've ever heard.

An Endless Ring of Light

One of my soccer players has been in a funk recently. A really bad, make me want to hunt her down and make her regret ever daring to cross me by not coming to practice funk. We had a very serious discussion about her continued placement on the team on Wednesday before our game. What is possibly so frustrating about her funk is that, first, she's an amazing girl with a beautiful spirit. It hurts me to see her so angry. Second, it's hard to see her like this because she is a good player. She's talented and smart and can use sports to keep herself out of trouble and focused on a larger goal. I don't want to see her give that up.

After a particularly well played game on Wednesday she found herself without a ride home, so I drove her. As we were headed home I started asking her why she was so angry and why she was being so mean and disrespectful to her teachers, teammates and me. I really expected the typical "I don't know. Nothing. (shoulder shrug)" response, but I'm a stubborn teacher and I can't help these questions. Instead of the typical student answer she told me her grandfather had died recently and since then she couldn't help but be mad. That being mad hurt less than being sad. In an eloquence I have rarely found in myself she told me of regrets of not being able to say goodbye and wanting to talk about him and remember him but hating the pain and tears it caused her mother to talk of him. Her life is hurting and broken without him and some days being mad and being mean is all that she has to hold onto. It's moments like that in my car with a kid, late for my busy important life, that God gut checks me back into the reality of what I'm really doing here and why my life is not nearly as busy or important as I like to think it is.

Later that night I mentioned her in prayer request at bible study and a teacher friend of mine instantly said I had to give her the book he just finished. I have yet to read this book, but he swore up and down that she would like it. The story is about a girl whose grandfather is dying of cancer. I went to the library the next day and checked it out for her. I hope she will find some peace in the story. I hope she will see that she is not the only one who has lost or hurt or been scared. There are specific books I have read at specific times in my life that have truly moved me and shaped me and helped me to take that pain and move it into something better. The note I sent with the book yesterday told her not to swallow the pain and not to make it something dark within her because she has too much to offer the world to be like that. I hope the book or my prayers or something will help bring that to light for her.

Just Let Go

Last night I went to a show to see The Autumn Film, a truly great band that I love. One of the openers was a group called Evangeline. I had heard talk of them and was pretty sure their lead singer has lead worship at my church before. I really liked what I heard as they played, but I was not expecting what was to come.

I moved here nearly two years ago. I quickly found my church via my old church (they're friends). The first Sunday I attended I was exhausted and overwhelmed with my move and pretty much at the end of my rope. As I stood singing they started to play a song that spoke so clearly to the place I was in at that moment that I couldn't hold back the tears.

The song goes:
Sing, oh sing, like no one listening
Dance, oh dance, like no one is watching you
And live, oh live, like you don't know what's coming
Because you don't and you won't, no you never quite will

Just let go
Just let go
just leg go
I know it's hard
Don't hold on
Don't hold on
When I tell you to move on

Breathe, oh breathe, the coolness of morning
And dream, oh dream, so softly
And wait, oh wait, where are you going?
I am here
I am here
Wait, I am here

That song in that moment was exactly what I needed to hear. That's the beauty of words, of music. Sometimes you need to hear the right thing. You need something to connect to, something to make you feel a little less alone. That song made me believe that I had found a place and that God was reaching out to me.

I have not heard that song again until last night in a dingy little bar waiting for a different band to play. I asked around about it after that first church service, but no one really knew what I was talking about. It wasn't the regular musician and it wasn't a song we sang regularly. I googled it and searched for it, but I never could find out whose it was. Then last night the first lines started and I realized I knew the words. I knew the song. It was the same song and I'm fairly certain the same singer I had heard that first time I visited my church. It's actually kind of interesting. I needed to hear that song that first Sunday in Houston for very specific reasons and I needed to hear it last night for different reasons, but it carried the same power as the first time I heard it.

And that is the power of words. They meet you where you are and carry you where you're going.

Oh sweet release

2008-03-13T10:23:00.002-05:00

Tonight I get to be 24. It's really exciting. I have lived under the assumption that I am actually a 60-year-old running around in a 24-year-old's body. I mean really, I knit and bake and read and get head colds when the temperature changes. I really like being in bed by 10 p.m. and I naturally wake up around 6 a.m. If that doesn't sound like your grandma, I don't know what does.

But tonight, oh tonight friends, on a school night, I am going to a concert at a bar! I can have a beer (because in my 60-year-old state I really can only have one before I get a little tipsy) and listen to good music and stay out way past ten. The great thing about this is I can do this because I don't have school tomorrow. Or the next day or the day after that. So exciting.

I always thought life after college when I wasn't taking a full load of classes and working as an RA for needy sophomores or an RA for even needier pregnant teens would mean going out on week nights and in some ways being more irresponsible (with my newfound income) than I had been in college. Yeah. Then I became a teacher and became exhausted and that never really happened. I am fully looking forward to a week without students, soccer players and administrators. Five days in Mexico and then a weekend to bum around the house, spend extended hours on the patio at Central Market reading and eating their humongous veggie sandwiches. It's going to be pretty sweet to be 24 again.

here's something

2008-03-11T14:09:00.007-05:00

I like this guy. Besides having a cool name he's got good tunes and he gets local charities to set up at all his concerts because he says "music is the magic of change." That's great.

When I play him for my kids during SSR (super silent reading) or during journaling they don't complain. They don't call me old. Okay, they still call me old. Today I caught some of them singing along.

In Pre-AP we talked about what the lyrics meant. Here are my favorite two:

1. Oh the glorious
after all these tears have dried
these knots are gonna come untied
and when I climb down from this tree
to walk on land will be so heavenly
and if I don't know what to do
oh, I swear I won't follow any of you
because all thats wanted by us
to lay our tracks in the settling dust
all that's wanted by us
mhmm, is the glorious

The last time I cried really really hard I was listening to this song and it made me cry even more. And I don't cry in those cute little Resse Witherspoon type droplets. Oh no, when I cry it is a full on snot and runny mascara kind of deal. It's all raw and unrefined. So I cried and I thought how much I liked the idea that I wasn't the only one who had felt those knots before and I knew that it sucked and was a snotty mess now but it really was going to be okay.

2. The One Who Loves You the Most
When the sky is falling from above you
And the wind is raging from the coast
And you want someone who truly loves you
I will be the one who loves you the most

When the masquerade and burlesque balls
Become too ordinary to boast
You complain about the parade and curtain calls
I will be the one who loves you the most
Yeah, I will be the one who loves you the most

When the women with their stolen graces
Don’t invite you to play host
To their daughters with fake faces
I will be the one who loves you the most

When all the debutantes desert you
And all the doorways are all closed
And all the harlequins have hurt you
I will be the one who loves you the most
I will be the one who loves you the most

When your suitors sneering swank beside you
And leave you hollow like a ghost
And you just want somebody to confide to
I will be the one who loves you the most
I will be the one who loves you the most

See, when you forgive your imperfections
And you’ve auctioned all your clothes
And look to see your true reflection
You will be the one who loves you the most

This song is beautiful and wonderful. The fact that a 12-year-old can listen to it and tell me they think it means that no one is perfect and even the best of people need someone to love them when they're awful and beaten down, but they also need to love themselves is truly an amazing thing. Yes, yes it is.

Darkness and light

2008-03-11T08:30:00.002-05:00

When I first started teaching it was rare for me to make it into my classroom after the sun had risen. I am a morning person. My body wakes itself up and says "Come on, the day is here, lets get on with it." I think I've been running at break-neck speed since I was a junior in high school and my body just went with it. I'm really one of those annoying people who can actually say that they get more done before 8 a.m. than most people do by lunch time. I know, I suck.

As of late I've really struggled getting out of bed. It's probably the cold and the time change. It's easier to make myself get out of bed when the light is already bleeding through my window. My mind starts going and I think of all the things I need to get done today and wanting Marco to finish his worksheet for the first time in a week and needing to pray for Marcus so I don't kill him instead and how I've got to figure out a way to make sure my girls come to our soccer game on Thursday and not the school dance (genius timing on our parts). There's something about being wrapped up in my comforter with no light anywhere that makes me not want to get up, not want to face the day. If I just close my eyes and go back to bed maybe the sun won't rise and my kids won't throw pencils and teachers won't choose to ignore emails that specifically state the plan for the ELA mock test and I won't have to deal with any of it.

It never really works like that though.

The sun does rise and I do will myself out of bed. And now, thanks to springing forward, I once again get to my classroom before the sun has broken the horizon. It's nice though. Me and my classroom and the orange light of the morning. Some day if I stop all of this and actually sleep past sunrise I think I might miss it. There's something nice about knowing that when I'm fighting the darkness and my need to keep sleeping what's running through my head isn't numbers and figures and quarterly earnings, but lesson plans and children's names and faces. When I'm sitting in my room with the cup of coffee I stole from the main office watching the sunrise I'm not thinking about staff meetings or accounts pending or anything like that. I'm thinking about the drill I'm going to run with my girls at practice today and the fact that I'm so excited to teach journalism next year and convince kids that they do have a voice and it is beyond powerful.

If I could wake up everyday for the rest of my life thinking of things like that I don't think it would matter much to me whether the sun had risen or not, all of this would be enough to keep going.

14 days without fear

2008-03-10T18:26:00.002-05:00

I heard the most amazing speaker at my church last night. It's quite funny how that big guy upstairs lines stuff up just right so that I can learn some pretty mighty lessons. Besides working on pride and ego, He's been hitting me pretty hard with fear (namely the things in my life I do or don't do because I'm afraid) lately. Last night this lady shows up and starts talking about giving up fear for lent and what can happen when we lay down our fear and are truly obedient to the opportunities God lays out before us. I don't do this very often. Okay, lets be honest, I almost never do this. So this lady comes in and she's like "hey, put down the fear. Stop it. There are 14 days of lent left. It's time to make some space for God and see what life looks like without your fear."

I have taken up the 14 day challenge and am amazed by the utter expanse of space available when I stop with all the fear. Stop with all the worrying. Stop with all the anxiety about my future and my life and my plans. I slept hard last night. Real hard. I didn't wake up until my alarm clock ripped me from my sleep. I don't know the last time that happened. There's a calm in my head (which doesn't mean my mind isn't going a thousand miles a minute. I have no idea what will stop that) that I really like.

I've been reading her book that I got last night after church and it is amazing. It's more than that, it's witty, heartfelt, open, deep and basically all of the messed up thoughts that go through my mind on a daily basis. As I was reading today I was looking at my students and wishing they were striving to live without fear. In my moments of clarity and faith, few and far between as they may be, I feel a deep longing for my students to have the same feeling. I wish for them to look up from the clutter and frustration that many of them call life and know that there is more out there for them. I wish for them to know God (and some of them do) and to know themselves (very few of them do). That's why I'm here actually. I want them to stop being afraid and to live into their lives. I would have previously written live into their lives before it's too late, but I'm realizing that's part of my fear complex: that I'll wake up one day and life will have passed me by and it will be too late. I'm not going to buy into that anymore and I want to find a way to convince them not to buy into it either. I want to leave them with not just an understanding of verbs and a love of The Outsiders, but a deep belief in themselves and in the world around them. I want them to realize these moments and these everyday ordinary things that so many of them fill up with negative actions (towards themselves and others) are never coming back again and are wasted on fear, despair and loneliness. I want them to see the shining moments of good that I see in them everyday, be it as simple as Deivie chuckling at his book or Gustavo grinning ear to ear at his essay score. Those moments help drive out the fear in my world and I hope they can find their own moments in life to drive out their fears. It's never going to be too late, but now is certainly not a bad time for them to begin.

Charters, sex and education

2008-03-08T12:00:00.002-06:00

Here's some interesting stuff to ponder.

Given my newfound thoughts on running a girls school some day, I find this article interesting (if not a little off topic with the brain activity stuff). How exactly is creating an all girls leadership school anti-feminist? Someone tell me.

This would also be pretty freaking sweet. I think that one of the downfalls of the education profession is that we don't take ourselves seriously. That old adage "those who can't do, teach"? That's lame. Teaching is hard. Real hard. Why do we think that it's cool to say "well, if I don't have the guts to do it in the real world, or if I want a long summer vacation or if I'm just not sure what to do then teaching must be the option"? It's not. If you look at teacher education systems in other countries you'll see a high level of competition. It's as if they're saying that education is so vitally important to the well-being of the country that they will accept nothing but the best. Wild thought. I think you would attract more high quality teachers if you paid like you meant it and truly expected the best. If I am intellectually stimulated and make good money and feel respected in my profession, why would I leave?

What happens when I'm alone at lunch time

2008-03-07T14:20:00.003-06:00

I made a pretty drastic decision last Friday. I did it during lunch. Usually I eat lunch with Christina and Blair (and more recently Mr. Bowman). Last Friday Christina and Bowman were actually doing work so I took my spinach and two peices of fruit and wandered back down to my room to think heavy thoughts.

Before I get to the heavy thoughts, lets rewind a bit.

Wednesday (of the week before): I interviewed at KIPP 3D charter school. I have to admit, it was super sweet. I'd been there before to observe and liked what I saw. I like the English team (something that is vitally important to me since I'm still working on earning that "plays well with others" label on my report card), I like the principal and his honesty a lot. I liked the offer. English and Journalism. Ohmygoshthatwouldbeawesome.

Monday: I went to Wilson Elementary School to meet with the principal and the coordinator. I had contacted Wilson because they are a Montessori magnet program that is starting a middle school next year. Wilson is a beautiful school that is truly a wonderful environment. I'm a big fan of Montessori for the simple fact that I was Montessori baby (I still miss my carpet square). I think the concept is genius for low income kids because it requires so much self-direction and self-paced instruction.

So anyway, I liked them and they seemed to like me. My day was not nearly done after that meeting. I hopped a plane to New Orleans for a marathon interview day on Tuesday. When I got to New Orleans I had a phone interview for a summer institute job with TFA. It was not so fun. I hate phone interviews. I also hate role playing. On my phone interview I got to role play.

Tuesday: TFA doesn't like to do anything sparingly. It's not enough to do a two hour interview with three people. Oh no, we are TFA, you must interview from 7:30 to 4 p.m. including four different interviews with at least half a dozen different people. Needless to say my brain and my smile hurt after all of that. They asked me at the interview if I would be interested in any other TFA jobs other than the recruitment job I was there interviewing for. I told them yes and before the end of the day I had an email about anther position.

Wednesday: I got the job at KIPP! It was pretty great to hear Dan tell me that when he called my references the word natural came up more than once. I told him I had to wait for the TFA offer, but that I would be in touch.

Lets bring it back round to Friday at lunch...

I had been thinking since I got back from New Orleans that I was wanting to stay in the classroom for next year. Talking about TFA and my commitment to education made me realize that I'm just not done. Of course I had this realization and then the competitive side of me decided to squash it down and tell me to wait until I heard from all the other schools and TFA.

Lame.

Someone pretty smart told me that at the end of my life there won't be a score. True dat.

So I'd been praying and contemplating and had been stumbling over some verses and some thoughts and suggestions that were leading me to see that my worth should not be placed in job offers or my competitive nature. KIPP was a great thing and they were offering me what I want and I was waiting because I wanted an ego boost. No good. No good at all. So when Christina and Bowman were all talking about Texas History and I found myself alone with my thoughts I realized that it was time to stop waiting and get on with where God was leading me. So I emailed Dan and took the job. Then I emailed TFA and withdrew from the running. Then I emailed YES (the other schools) and Wilson and withdrew from those jobs too.

So now I'm teaching 5th grade Reading and starting a journalism program at KIPP for next year. It's going to be a great thing. It's amazing what you can do in a single lunch period.

seriously Jacky, you're such a stalker

2008-03-07T13:35:00.002-06:00

I posted my update post and low and behold five minutes later I got an email from my friend Jacky in NYC asking about my new job. Creepy McCreeperson.

It's nice to know someone is reading.

Back in the saddle

2008-03-07T10:53:00.004-06:00

I'm sure I've lost what few readers I ever had because I essentially stopped writing. I know, shame shame. I will attempt to back-date some posts and catch up a bit. I also have some posts saved in draft form that I suppose I could let see the light of day.

But lets re-cap shall we? Yes, lets.

November was a hectic month. My soccer team won both their fall season games by, I don't know, 8 points. I am surprised they didn't leave blood on the field. Jamie got married. It was great. I started getting a lot less sleep, but putting some more time into my personal life (what? teachers have personal lives? Well... sometimes.)I won a grant to start a book club. Sweet. I battled with my principal basically all the time. It was sad and I sunk down to a level I'm not proud of. It's difficult not being difficult with someone who talks to you like you're five because you have a uterus. I suppose I should be the bigger person and show him some undeserved grace and peace. Yes, yes, I should because I am not perfect either (even though I do poses a uterus).

December rolled in with a cold weather and lots of busy days. My motivation in December? Oh, slightly waining. Unfortunate but true. Further battles with the principal and another ELA teacher. Luckily the ELA teacher stuff is fine and dandy and not a problem anymore. Must continue to think happy thoughts about the principal. I don't remember much from December actually. I was busy and sleep deprived and I lost some trouble making boys to CEP (which makes me sad).

January (Happy New Year!) appeared with state testing - duh, duh, duh. I hate state testing for a myriad of reasons, but mainly because standing in silence all day just plain stinks. It's painful to be quiet that long. It's painful to be quiet that long with 8th graders. I try to think back on my days in school and my experience with testing... I can't remember. I really can't. It was such a non-issue. I should be careful here, my thoughts on testing really do deserve their own blog. I also came back from break wondering if I wanted to teach next year. This was probably helped by break and by testing, but the thought was there nonetheless.

February - oh candy and heart induced February came in with a bang and left me pretty darn sore from the punch it packed. I'm still recovering from last month... I bruise easy you know.

And here we are with March and the first of my kids' state testing over and done with (praise the Lord) and me with some mighty big news. I have a job for next year. I have a job that I'm so excited about and truly feel called to do. It's been a rocky road to get here, but I've really leaned into my faith on this decision and I think it is what God wants for me right now. That's pretty stinking cool. I don't have a very long track record of making life choices based on what God has set out for me, so it's very close to my heart that I'm trusting God on this and truly feeling like this is something I want, but more importantly this is something He wants. Again, something for it's own blog. This is a recap, just a recap!

So there you have it. Four months of teaching all wrapped up into one very ity-bity post. I'm not really doing it justice here, but like I tell my kids when they whine about not knowing what to write on their essays: you've got to start somewhere.

Nothing but options... too many

2008-01-30T13:21:00.001-06:00

So I've been contemplating a change in scenery. Not really, locale, but scenery. I'm not so sure about this teaching thing right now. I don't know what it is. I was in full teacher mode and then I kind of slowed down and started thinking life options.

Hmmm... what do I want to be when I grow up? I honestly don't know. I don't do well without a plan. Nope, not at all. I like plans. I like structure. I like boxes. I wish I could be cool and fun loving all the time. I think I'm sometimes like an 80-year-old in a 24-year-olds body. Though I guess an 80-year-old probably has the hindsight to know you don't need a box. Point being, I'm a little lost at the moment. Needing some direction.

I've applied for two full-time Teach For America jobs and a handful of other teaching jobs. I've got a phone interview for one job and some emails flying around for others. I guess I just have to decide if I want to teach next year. It's hard to say. I know I can't stay here. Part of me wishes I could, but I can't stomach school without my teacher friends. I don't like not liking my environment. Love my kids, hate my school. Sad times.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see what comes of all these job options.

Am I really a grown up?

2007-10-04T20:09:00.000-05:00

Today I got just one more indication that I am, officially, a grown up. My best friend from college (and former awesome roommate) is getting married. Today I got her invitation. Yep, it's official. People in my world are getting married. Are we really old enough to be doing that?

So besides my friends starting to join the marriage party, I also control when people pee. This is weird to me. It always has been. I look at the kids when I say "no, you can't go to the bathroom" and they turn around and just go sit down. Really? Really, I said no so you're not going to pee? That's weird.

I don't know, I'm almost 24, maybe I should get used to being an adult. It's just weird to look at these kids and feel like yesterday I was 13 and insecure and too tall and wanting to go to the bathroom.

Now I'm looking for a dress to wear to a wedding.

tough stuff

2007-10-02T21:50:00.000-05:00

Why does all the bad stuff seem to come all at once?

One of my students was attacked in gym class on Thursday. That's scary enough, but she's not dealing well and it breaks my heart that of all the places she was supposed to feel safe she has become a victim.

I have three separate CPS caseworkers for three separate children. It has been suggested that I don't report behavior problems (which there are a lot of) to one student's father because of all this.

I am reporting notes to three other psychologists for three other children.

It's all becoming a bit overwhelming. No matter how bad I want to I can't fix their lives, but I also can't stop trying.

Please pray for my kids, they need it.

No Miss, not the song...

2007-10-01T18:19:00.000-05:00

I think Victor has a crush on me. Or at least that's what I tell him is the only reason I can think that he would keep being tardy to my class and keep getting detentions for it.

Since my administration is completely incapable of having anything resembling strict rules I'm kind of ignoring their half hearted attempt at lunch detentions for tardies and I simply give my own. If you're tardy twice in a week you get to come in and clean, organize or write an essay.

Oh yeah, and you get to listen to Sara Bareillis. I discovered this amazing singer about three weeks ago. This is about the same time I made a mix which I started playing during detentions (lets be honest, I don't have be giving a detention to be listening to her). Typically I play my music or polka music during detentions. They're both painful and annoying to 13-year-olds so it works.

Victor was tardy three times last week so he had to work his detention off today and as I hit play he said "Oh no Miss, not the song again. I've been singing it in my head during class. You gotta stop."

Well, one of us has gotta stop.

a little coverage

2007-09-29T14:14:00.000-05:00

My school was featured in a NY Times Magazine story on TFA (thanks for passing on the link Matthew). As I read, I chuckled at the references to chicken places (man it's so normal that it's not weird anymore) and then was totally surprised when I read a part about some students in summer school. The reporter referenced a student named Arturo. I have an Arturo!

I printed off the article and gave it to him and he got very excited when he realized the article was talking about him. Now I just have to remember to go out on Sunday and get him the actual magazine.

The article makes some good critiques of TFA, but I think the reporter takes an odd stance at the end by seeming to criticize TFA for not fixing districts. I find this odd because it's TEACH For America, not ADMINISTRATE For America. Either way it was interesting and I think it's good to be self-critical.

Here's the link:

TFA Article

Why are you such an angry little man?

2007-09-26T22:06:00.000-05:00

In the grand mystery of teaching, some times you have students who are awful and make your days basically the most challenging things ever and then one day they just stop. They simple cease being bad. In my world, when one ceases another begins.

I don't really think my poorly named SPED student will actually cease having classroom management problems, but at least for right now he has had a good week. Jose, on the other, has not. Jose is a challenge because, like the other student, he is just unbelievably angry. Ridiculously angry. I have had kids who I genuinely didn't like. I have had kids who were just mean, frustrating people and pretty much planned on going to CEP the day they walked into the classroom. The thing is, Jose isn't this kid. He's just not. He's a total creep and today I wanted to hit him in the face (and I thought he was going to hit me in the face), but there's something about him that makes him different from Brian and Jimmy (my CEP boys from last year). There's something in all that anger that is just different. It hurts me to see him that mad. It drives me crazy that I can't figure out why he's that mad. It makes me want to fix it, fix something, for him. If he'd only stop being such a jerk.

We've had good moments, me and Jose, he's interested in the mentor program I'm starting. He's responsive when he doesn't come in in a bad mood. He smiles when I tease him about missing him when he's absent. But then he shows up like he did today with a chip the size of Mexico on his shoulder and the attitude to boot and I am at a loss. From observing Jose with other teachers, I've noticed that his defense mechanism is to piss you off so you will simply stop pushing. He does anything and everything to make you mad. He does it very well. My current plan of response is to do everything in my power not to get mad. I will out will him. I was a stubborn 13-year-old once, I will channel that girl. I'm not going to let him push me away.

I find it fairly amusing that all of my special cases often turn out to be boys. I like teaching boys. Even bad boys. I think this is because, for the most part, middle school girls simply annoy me. They are what I hated about what I was at that age. Self-conscious, insecure, mean and ashamed of knowing anything that would make them "smart." I suppose I should be channeling my old self and using that time in my life to help these girls, but I struggle with this. In many ways I struggle because my bad girls, unlike my bad boys, don't do anything. Literally. They won't work, they won't speak, they won't try. My bad boys fight against everything and you fight back and eventually you can crack through that wall of anger and angst and you've got them. It's such a satisfying feeling. It's not the same for girls, it's harder.

I don't know what's to come of Jose, I do know that no 13-year-old should be this angry. And like most anger, there is a root that doesn't have much to do with my classroom or verbs.

Man Down...

2007-09-24T18:47:00.000-05:00

About five minutes after I lectured Blanca for being so whiney at practice and finished telling her the ball would not hurt her, she got slammed in the wrist. Perfect. Now she's afraid of the ball and might have a broken wrist.

My season was looking pretty promising, then two of my players transfered (one being the best middle school goalie I've ever seen), two got kicked off for grades and behavior, one quit and three are paying their dues on the basketball court. This all comes along with park and rec. changing their soccer program to a fall "development season" and a spring "game season." It's kind of hard to give my dual sport athletes a hard time about not showing up when they don't even get to play until the spring.

Does it make me a bad coach that I'm bummed about not being able to play? I got so much out of sports when I was a kid, and most of it had nothing to do with the score at the end. And yet, I still love the competition. I feel like my kids are missing out.

Right now they're missing out on whiney midfielder and I may be making a trip to the ER.

What do you make?

2007-09-20T21:12:00.000-05:00

I have amazing people in my life. They believe in me and the work I'm doing. They believe in my kids because I believe in my kids. They send me books and school supplies and happy thoughts. More than that I know that when they hear someone say kids like my kids don't care and deserve what they've got and that teaching isn't that important, they set the record straight.

It's the rest of the people who still think that the kids who I teach — who are on average two to three grade levels below behind in reading by the fourth grade because of the color of their skin — just don't care enough to try, who drive me crazy. It's the people who think that teaching isn't the hardest, most challenging thing you could ever imagine that make me fight the urge to share some of my best teacher lectures.

To those people I say this... What do you make?

I heart them

2007-09-13T21:03:00.000-05:00

My Pre-AP class is amazing. Absolutely amazing. I love challenging kids, I really do. I like when the punk kid discovers that Walter Dean Meyers is kind of one of the coolest people on earth. And this kid suddenly discovers he likes to read and maybe he doesn't need to tag desks all period. I love that look on those faces. But getting that look can be totally and completely exhausting. In case you were wondering, it's not as easy as it looks in all those movies. You don't just show up and tell them you love them and suddenly they like school.

My pre-AP class is like no other group I've ever had. They challenge me in ways I didn't know 12-year-olds could challenge me. Alejandra asks me higher level questions before I ask the lower level questions. They ask for tutorials and extra credit. Every single time I give them an assignment they're sharing answers, ideas and thoughts with each other before I can finish my breath. They're actually talking about the assignment.

So, that said, I'm still fighting the good fight with my bad-asses, but I love my pre-AP class. Some days waking up every morning trying to find the magic switch of motivation is completely draining. I think it makes me a better teacher, but I think having kids who walk in the door motivated will also make me a better teacher too.

Now if I could just get Marcus to read Walter Dean Meyers my life would be at peace.

Guess Who?

2007-09-10T17:20:00.000-05:00

The first day has come and gone and I've discovered something in my second year. Kids are pretty darn similar. I mean really. I looked at this kid today and I almost called him Juan. He threw paper like the Juan I had last year. He snickered when I called him out on in it, he even spells like a third grader the way Juan did. His name isn't Juan, but it might as well be.

I was very attached to my students last year, but I'm finding it a tiny bit difficult to build up the same attachment this year. Last year was my first year. Everything was new and great and unbelievably hard and even though they drove me crazy, I adored my kids. This year I'm finding it a little harder to get so attached. I know that even though I like Cesar he is probably the source of my current spit ball problem. And even though Sarah is sweet I know she'll turn. I see it in her eyes. And then we'll go round and round and I'll call their parents and some days they'll hate me (and tell me!) and some days they'll think I'm the coolest thing ever. Then TAKS time will come around and we'll bond because we worked so hard. And some of them will leave me and some of them will make me wish they would leave. And by the end of the year I'll have a knot in my throat as I send them off to the eighth grade and I'll have forgotten — most of — the stuff that drove me crazy about them all year. See, I already know what's going to happen.

Perhaps I'm just being pessimistic. This way if all this stuff does happen then I'll still be sad to see them go and if instead I get surprised along the way it will mean even more because I wasn't expecting it.

Either way I've got to learn my non-Juan's name. He keeps tagging my desks.

I don't hate you, I don't even know you

2007-09-07T20:44:00.000-05:00

This year our school has switched to special education inclusion into regular education classrooms. I was extremely nervous about this because I worry about my ability to scaffold material and reach all levels of learners. I feel like it is my biggest weakness as a teacher. I don't want to fail kids who are already behind. One of my partners in crime, Mr. Graham, is an amazing special education teacher and took his students so far last year. I worry about undoing some of that. I am not like some unfortunate teachers at our school who think that special education students can't or won't learn. I also don't believe they're lazy or bring down the general class room environment (really, seriously, how can you be an educator and say stuff like that about children?)

That said, I have one SPED student who is probably going to work on every last nerve in my body. I can't say his name on here, which is kind of sad because his name is just ironically unfortunate and sure to set him up for plenty of teasing when he gets to European History. Regardless, he is extremely ADHD, a chronic liar and highly aggressive. Apparently he's worse this year than he's ever been and we're worried about his home life. In the five days I have taught him he has made it through my entire class period one time. Typically he comes in asking one of four questions:

"Can I go to the bathroom?"
"Can I go to the nurse?"
"Can I go to Ms. Colon?"
"Can I go to Officer Mapp?"

The answer to all of these is no because he doesn't have to pee, he's not sick, he doesn't really need to see Ms. Colon or Officer Mapp. The no response tends to elicit some type of temper tantrum, which is thoroughly ignored by me, my co-teacher and the other students. Once he realizes he's not getting our attention he chooses from three action plans:

Throwing something.
Screaming something.
Generally being mean to someone (usually me).

At this point he usually gets moved to a back table so that the lesson can continue. Two of the days he was asked to leave he verbally assulted/tried to start a fight with someone. One day he wouldn't stop screaming. Today he threw three dictionaries off the back table in an effort "to clear his workspace." I sent him down to the office to wait for my co-teacher. On his way out the door he screamed "You hate me, that's why you're so mean. You hate me."

Yes, in the five days I've had you I have decided that I hate you and that is why I won't let you threaten others, throw books or generally verbally assault me. I'm trying hard here, but I'm losing steam pretty fast. He just sucks up so much of my energy I can hardly believe it. I feel like I'm doing an okay job for most of my special education students, but this one is most definitely going to be challenge.

Mix Master Fresh

2007-09-05T17:40:00.000-05:00

We have a thing at McReynolds called Team Time. In its essence, it is supposed to be an hour long tutorial time built in to the end of our day. It doesn't always work like that, but that's what it's supposed to be. Right now, we don't have schedules set, so I have a bunch of kids who aren't mine. No biggie, I've got plenty of basic engish/grammar stuff to work on. I also have the best motivator of all: a Mac.

My kids never fail to love my computer in every way shape and form. And why shouldn't they? Macs are cool. Every day after about 45 minutes of work I let them spend the last 15 minutes on the class computers and playing with my computer. The other day I opened up my itunes to find a mix courtesy of my kids. It's entitled "Because Miss Thompson Needs to Learn to Get Down." So true kids, so true. It's actually a pretty good mix. It is a little awkward to have my students pick out Dem Jeans and Smack That for me though. I realize that I have those songs on my computer, but still. Weird.

Capitalizing on their creativity I asked them to make a few more mixes. I have a very diverse group of kids so they like all sorts of music — even some of mine. They got really into having people in my life to make mixes for. It was funny to watch and I think I'm going to use their mix making love into a lesson about tone in writing.

They've made two mixes so far. One for Laura entitled "Because I Said So" (she's a foster mom) and the other for Nick entitled "Mr. Williams' Hang Tough Mix" (he is still in the first year teacher pit of despair).

The great thing about these mixes is hearing them fight over what songs to put on. There was heated debate about the inclusion of one song on Nick's CD because the boys thought it was too depressing and you shouldn't give someone who is already sad a sad song. I had to go with the guys on that one. There was also questions about whether or not Laura could appreciate some faster tempo songs... because she has babies and all. On both mixes they put the song Walk it Out. Apparently that song has universal meaning.

My favorite explanation of song inclusion came when they put Eye of Tiger on Nick's mix. I was actually shocked that they knew what that song was. I told them as much and Esperanza looked at me and said "Well, duh, Miss. He's a gym teacher. Coach Arriaga plays that song in gym class like every day."

Silly me. Eye of the Tiger also has universal meaning.

Lets do some math

2007-08-27T18:43:00.000-05:00

Our counselors are crack-ass-crazy. I feel like there is no other way to describe them than that. Lets do a little word problem shall we?

Ms. Thompson has 27 students on her roster. When second period begins, the 27 students show up to her class and then three others with "mock" schedules also come in. Within five minutes, eight more students show up with mock schedules. In the following 55 minutes (oh yeah, they also extended second period), 12 more students come in with mock schedules. Ms. Thompson only has 26 desks in her class room. By the end of second period when Ms. Thompson's principal comes to see her with the superintendent of schools how many students does she have in her room, how many chairs has she borrowed from other teachers and how royally pissed is she?

You can email if you'd like to check your answers.

For some reason, the person who's job it is to make logical schedules decided that the most "logical" approach to children not having schedules would be to create one — yes, just one — mock schedule and send those children on it all day. If you paid attention in the math problem above that means that 50 kids are all going to the same place all day long.

Nerves of steel

2007-08-26T20:00:00.000-05:00

I am totally and completely in shock. It is the night before school starts and I'm not scared. Not scared at all. I don't think I slept the night before I started teaching last year. I was terrified.

Here I am, round two, and I'm ready to go. Excited even. I feel like I know where I've been (and what didn't work) and where I'm going and I'm pumped. I'm a little heart broken that my mentor and generally fixer of everything, Ms. McClinton has taken a job at the district office, but I think I'll make it through.

I feel like this is some kind of blind optimism — perhaps a little something leftover from TFA brainwashing — my class schedules aren't set on the computer, my room isn't decorated and I'm not quite sure what my introduction activity is. But hey, at least my copies are made.

Round two starts in T-minus 12 hours.

Don't drink the kool-aid

2007-08-18T23:59:00.000-05:00

Today marked the return of my TFA life. It is amazing what a year can do for you. I think about this time last year I would have voted for Wendy Kopp for about any public office, named a pet after Justin Meli and gotten some type of TFA oriented tattoo. No more my friends, no more.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still a fan of the organization and I'm still glad I'm doing this, but TFA does tend to be a little brainwashing for first years. You still have the lingo, you're scared beyond belief and you've yet to have a 12-year-old make you cry. After my first year (and first summer vacation) I found a bit of personal autonomy.

Enter Professional Development Seminar #1. The best way to get me back into rah-rah TFA mode is not to make me go to a seven hour professional development session. But alas, this is what one must do to get that sweet Americorps grant at the end of the year. So I headed out to the YES North Central campus (read: school I want to work at next year and am being mildly recruited for by my friend Nick, their new health teacher) for my day of fun. It wasn't really that bad, just long. I had a lot of planning time and made some good connections with some of my 06 friends. The 07 still have that deer in the headlight look and aren't really that good for pimping resources out of. TFA has expanded their tracking and planning for this year. Helpful, but a lot of planning. I plan to spend basically the whole day at my favorite coffee place, Taft Street Coffee, consuming large amounts of caffeine and 10,000 pages of planning.

The one thing I'm a bit annoyed with TFA about is their new student growth measurement concept. Essentially, TFA uses this thing called "significant gains" to show how effective their teachers are in the classroom. Sig gains is 80 percent mastery of basically anything you're looking at/teaching and/or 2 years growth in reading or math. There is some flexibility in there, but it's pretty much that. So this year to put it in really generalize terms, sig gains are anything you make them. If I make my sig gains 80 percent mastery of my class objectives and another teacher in the same grade and subject makes hers 60% growth on objective mastery and my class makes 78% and her kids make 70% (but grow 60%) then she has sig gains and I don't. Sounds like someone has figured out how to massage statistics doesn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a large jump in corps member effectiveness by the end of this year.

It's a little disconcerting that we're all not being measured on the same standard. I think I'm going to drag my heals and make my sig gains 80% again.

I do that. I'm difficult. I wouldn't drink the kool-aid either.

Lost box equals heartache

2007-08-17T16:24:00.000-05:00

I have been given a significantly bigger classroom this year and Friday was the day i set aside to beautify it. Too bad I only got about an hour in to my crafty plans when I discovered that I have lost perhaps the most essential box to the aesthetic joy of my room. I have lost a box containing every motivational quote, poster and wall hanging item I own. I have also lost over 30 college pennants that I wrote to college last year to get. I was close to tears today when I searched the ELA storage room. All is not lost, I'm holding on to the hope that my box has fallen prey to an attack from one of my department chair's 2,320 boxes currently taking up residence in the storage room. These boxes are basically full of 30 years of stuff (and probably a dead body or two) and since they are all over the storage room I'm thinking my poor box may have fallen under there and is still in hiding.

Lets hope Monday proves more fruitful in my search for my lost box.

Laura says I never post...

2007-08-16T22:17:00.000-05:00

I'm not really sure what I should be posting about while on summer vacation. This is, in essence, a teaching blog. I am, in essence, a vacationing teacher. But I suppose since she said it in her "you live in the nice apartment" tone I can dig back in my respective memory and create some back posts about my summer.

I should also get back into the routine of blogging the general experiences of this crazy thing I call a job. I'm going to set some simple reminders for myself:

1. sometimes breadth can beat out depth

2. photos are a good thing and they are easy to post on here

Tomorrow I get to see some of my kids. They're coming up to help me with my classroom. What a weird thing, they're not mine anymore. They belong to Mr. Ortiz or Mr. Harris. So very strange.

That's all for now. This going back to school thing is wearing me out. I'm going to bed.

A lesson in indifference

2007-06-29T20:40:00.000-05:00

Summer school is officially over. My 20 days are up and I am sad to say it is a little bitter sweet. I feel like this month was a lesson in the tragedy of indifference.

To recap, through a series of unfortunate events I did not get to work at McReynolds this summer and did not get to work with TFA. My next best option was going on board at Ryan Middle School which is about five minutes from my house. If McReynolds was in turmoil this year then I would say Ryan is the new McReynolds.

These were some of the hardest days of my teaching career yet and much of it was caused not by the children, but by those teaching them. Ryan is a sad example of frustration gone bad. My co-workers this summer were wonderful, smart and funny people, unfortunately they were also quite indifferent to the culture of the school. Like anything negative, indifference spreads like a rash. Before I knew it I was frustrated, tired, bewildered and not willing to day in and day out challenge my students for every little thing. As one teacher told me "honey, some times it just ain't worth the battle." I think I actually started to believe that — or at least tried to believe it to make myself feel better.

The thing is, is that it is always worth the battle. It is always worth the fight. The way the kids at Ryan behave is inexcusable, unfortunate and downright depressing. What's worse, is that it's not their fault. When you grow up without structure, without positive goals and in some cases without love, you can't be blamed for being a product of your environment. I'm not saying that they are without fault for their behavior. Yes, Demarquis is the biggest baby I have encountered in my 23 years of life. I wanted to buy him a rattle. And yes, Tenevoleesha has a tone in her voice that would cause my mother to smack me across the room, but what happens to them when they behave like this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing at best and a back handed insult or jeer at worst. How do you learn when you're not being taught?

Beyond being frustrated by the school, I'm frustrated with myself. I let myself fall prey to the idea that things can't change. Things can always change. That's why I do what I do. What I have discovered is that things change faster (and it's easier for the changer) if there are others around open to creating that change as well. Of all the faults I saw in McReynolds this year, it took going to Ryan to see that what I need for change I have in the people around me. They are much like the people I worked with at Ryan, wonderful, smart and funny, but they haven't given up hope. They believe (some in misguided ways) that the children can be different, that they can achieve, that there is a different way for our school to be.

I only wish I had seen then about my school what I see now. I suppose indifference can spread before you really realize what you've lost, but that's why holding on to hope — holding on to the belief that the way it is now isn't the only way it can be — is so vitally important. Without hope you simply have a summer like mine: 20 days with not much taught and even less learned.

Three more weeks

2007-04-29T18:56:00.000-05:00

Hello friendly blog readers. I realize it has been a bit since I've last posted. I've been dealing with ear ringing, soccer tournaments, TAKS and general child craziness. This weekend I went camping with my church. I don't know if it really counts as camping because we had cabins and plumbing, but it was still amazing. I didn't know Texas could be so pretty.

Now I'm headed back to the land of middle school drama and I'm kind of dreading it. Three more weeks of whining, fights and lunch detention. Three more weeks till summer. I am again convinced that teachers enjoy school breaks much more than students ever will. I am going really enjoy this break. I'm going to enjoy it more of it outdoors after this weekend.

In other news, Laura, my wanna be bad child came back from CEP. I was so happy I hugged her. I'm officially teaching a section of yearbook next year. I'm going to be working summer school and then staying on as a TFA adviser (called FAs). I get to see what I looked like last year. It's going to be interesting.

I'll try to be more diligent in chronicling the final weeks of my first year teaching, but no promises, life is catching up to me.

Reading, Silent Sustained

2007-04-13T22:20:00.000-05:00

I used to really like reading. I read newspapers, I read books. I used to get in trouble for hiding my book under the dining room table and reading between bites. Unfortunately, one of the many things I kissed goodbye when I became a teacher was the ability to read things not connected to curriculum or children. Luckily, what I've recently found is that reading for pleasure very much follows Mr. Newton's theory of motion.

Once you start reading regularly, you'll find the time somewhere in your day to finish the book and move on to another.

In an effort to prep our students for the reading TAKS (t-minus five days) we've been doing three days a week of silent sustained reading for about a month and a half now. This is something I should have been much more diligent about, but like all things from my first year, live and learn. On the advice of one of our reading gu-rus I began reading with my kids every time they did SSR. This has lead to my discovery of the reader in motion theory.

I've managed to pack back three rather sizable books since spring break. I just can't put them down. I most recently made it all the way to a book called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, a great book where a woman chronicles her whole life in encyclopedia form. I have to fight the urge to laugh when I read it in class. I can't put it down and thanks to SSR I don't have to.

When you take into account that SSR is 20 minutes a day and I have three classes, that means I'm reading — at minimum — sixty minutes every other day. This is if my kids don't beg for more time, or I don't whip out my book while waiting for a meeting to start or sleep to take me over at the end of the day. More than once this week I've woken up in the morning with my book in my lap and my glasses still on. I guess sometimes sleep gets to me before I finish the chapter.

I love it. This is why I loved school. This is why I majored in Journalism and minored in English. I love reading. I love words, I love the world that a good story can transport you to. I love what I'm seeing out of my kids right now.

Deundre has been a constant challenge since the start of the year. He was most definitely my most difficult reader in that I literally had to sit beside him and tap on his desk every two minutes to get him to simply pretend to read and not disturb his neighbor. Then I found the magic switch. Walter Dean Myers. Deundre loves everything this man writes. He loves the stories, loves the black characters, loves that I bring him books I've nabbed from half price books every weekend. Last week when I showed up with four new Walter Dean Meyers books he tried to convince me not to give them out to other kids until he was able to read them. He wasn't done with them he said and it wasn't fair to give away books he loved. The child used the word love.

Another morning in the same week I came back from the copy room to see Laura lingering outside my door. A while ago I shnazed up my classroom door with quotes about reading and writing. My favorite one talks about books making us all immigrants by taking us far away from the world we know. Given my kids background, I found this thought to be very fitting when I choose it. Apparently so did laura. "Miss," she asked. "this quote, it means that you get to escape right? It means that even though I'm from Mexico and I live in Houston when I"m reading I can be in the same place as my character. I can go there even if I really can't." Yes Laura, that's exactly what it means was what I meant to say, but I really got out was a nod and a smile as I opened the door and let her curl up on my couch with her newest bookshelf discovery.

My last story of the reading success was catching Angela not paying attention in class yesterday. I thought she had skillfully tucked a note under her desk and was sneaking glances at it when she thought I wasn't looking. Oh yes Angela, I see you and oh yes, I'm going to take your note. When I reached down to snatch the note up I came up with a copy of The Princess Diaries instead. I only have one set of the series and Angela had been waiting for two weeks for it to come available. I guess I"m not the only one who tries to read under the table when the story is too good to stop reading.

a rocky end to an interesting season

2007-04-11T21:41:00.000-05:00

My girls have come a long way this year. My total lack of understanding soccer paperwork and their lack of history with anything resembling organized sports didn't help matters, but we made it through.

We had our last game on Wednesday, returning to our seemingly only competitor this season, Clifton Middle School. In some stroke of genius from the athletics department, they decided that since McReynolds didn't have a boys team and Clifton didn't have a boys team then the logical choice would be for all of our district games to be played against each other. Excellent. After a few complaints from my principal we managed to get our uniforms (three games into the season) and one more team to play.

After losing miserably to Clifton the first game, we pulled out two ties and a win (versus Deady). Then came our last game, four players out for various reasons and my goalie not eligible to play because she refused to serve Mr. Graham's detention. This, this is the game my principal decides to show up to. Yes, please show up after not being around for the past eight months and criticize the fact that I don't have any subs.

Given the fact that half the field was underwater, I was illegally playing a sixth grader (a point that Barrett made infront of my principal) and I had a girl in the goal who didn't understand when she could pick up the ball, I'd say we did not horribly bad, but just mildly bad. We lost 2-0. Kind of a depressing end to our season. I wanted more for them, I wanted them to see that all their hard work paid off, but unfortunately that wasn't in the cards for us this go round.

If anything I feel like this less than stellar season result will push my returning seventh graders to work harder and pay more attention next year. Like anything else in my life these days I seem to be making long term plans and big goals for soccer as well. I want to find a way to send some of my more dedicated players to soccer camp and I'm also wondering if there's a way to get the city to sponsor some type of city league play during the summer.

Anything to get better than 2-0.

Martin can't read

2007-04-04T20:35:00.000-05:00

Martin Can't Read

I have a really sweet kid in one of my classes. He's really sweet. He's really quiet. He can't read. And he's 16. Another day in the life of a teacher hating the education system and wondering how kids just fall through the cracks. Martin has more recently become complacent with not being able to read anywhere near grade level. He doesn't come to tutorials anymore, he barely does his work and he refuses to read during silent reading time. I was pretty much at a loss for what had caused this behavior so I called his sister and asked her to come in.

It is amazing what a little bit of information can do for your insight on a person. Turns our Martin is 16 and in the seventh grade because his father never let him go to the summer school programs that he was always asked to attend. He always failed TAKS, so he always had to go to be promoted. Because he didn't go he didn't move on to the next grade. Now he is in a place where he is the oldest by far of all his peers and still academically trailing them.

I guess sort of luckily, Martin's father's health has been failing so his sister is now in control of his education. She is determined to see him graduate high school and do something with his life. Her sympathy and passion for his situation is touching in a very sad "you have no idea the kinds of hurdles your brother is up against" kind of way.

I'm trying to find Martin a school that will help him catch up in his reading level, but right now there's not much to be seen. Good schools which actually catch you up and aren't just a holding tank for public school drop outs are few and far between.

When home isn't home

2007-03-30T06:23:00.000-05:00

In perhaps what is one of the saddest ironies in the neighborhood I teach in, I found out a few months ago that the biggest crack house in the area is actually located on Coke Street. More so, you can pretty much score whatever you might be looking for in the Coke Street Apartment Complex.

This the sort of thing you laugh over and shake your head at as you ask yourself "do you think the drug dealers were purposeful in where they set up shop? Like free marketing or something?" You do that, or let your friends do that, until you start taking your students home to the Coke Street Apartments. Then you feel awful, and helpless and angry all rolled into one because this is where they live and there's nothing ironic or funny about it.

One of my students also plays soccer for me and often times doesn't have a ride home. My assistant coach and I have gotten pretty good at getting the girls to be proactive and get rides with each other instead of having us drive them all over town, but Natasha more often than not finds her way up to my classroom about 20 minutes after soccer asking for a ride.

So I take her home. And it takes every bone in my body not to turn the car around the minute we enter the gates and take her somewhere else. Anywhere else.

The Coke Street Apartments contain about 25 blocks of small, two-story brick buildings. They face inward on various court yards. If I had to guess I would say there are about 100 units in the complex, maybe more. The minute you drive up the complex you must slow down considerably because there are people everywhere. No matter what time of night I've taken Natasha home, there have always been people. People in the street, people on the sidewalk, people sitting on cars. Usually the people surrounding the roads are older, but once you enter the complex itself the courtyards are littered with children. I often see my own students running through the parking lot or sitting on the stoops. Yesterday, I saw a baby sitting in a diaper on the sidewalk, far too close to the road for comfort.

Besides people, a common feature of the complex is trash. Denver Harbor and McReynolds are not clean places by any means. Garbage seems to go in a trashcan if one can be found and on the ground if it can't. The level of garbage in the complex shows that either there are no trashcans on site, or that a trashcan simply isn't any kind of prerequisite for disposing of what you don't want. There are broken down cars, trash along the fences and in the courtyards. It's like a bad movie that gives the rest of the world an ill-perceived concept of what the ghetto is like. Except it's real.

Up until this week Natasha and I didn't really talk about where she lived. She asked for a ride. I took her home. But on Tuesday when I was taking her home I asked her if the large gates that surround the complex ever closed. "No," she told me, "It's just for show. It's not safe here. I hate it here." Natasha isn't one for long drawn out explanations or any real shows of emotion, so her answer to that question was actually quite shocking. I asked her why she hated it there and her answer was simple. "It's dangerous here. People are always out. They shoot and fight. This isn't a home Miss. This isn't where I want to live." I wasn't quite sure where to go with a 13-year-old telling me that her home wasn't her home. Middle class, white and safe doesn't really give you a lot of shared experiences with lower class, black and miserable. We reached her door and I left the subject alone.

Yesterday when I took her home she brought it up again. "Miss, this isn't like where you grew up right?" I told her vaguely what my neighborhood was like: a mom and dad in every house, big green lawns, nice car and a mini-van in the driveways every night and parents sitting on the front porch watching the kids play tag before dinner. No Natasha, this isn't like where I grew up. She sighed after that and told me she hated it here, the men were creepy and everyone was so loud that she felt like she was drowning. Just being in the complex for a few minutes gives me a tension headache so I could understand how Natasha could feel like she was suffocating in all the noise.

I can't fix Natasha's life. And no matter how much I want to take her somewhere better and give her the start she deserves, that's not my place. What I told her instead was that she could make a choice in her world. She could decide starting today that this wasn't her home and while she might stay here now she could leave eventually. That's why I came here after all, to give these kids the opportunity to leave or the choice to stay. I came to help them see that where you're born doesn't have be where you die unless that's what you want. Unless that's what you choose. We talked about next year and applying herself and about finding a good high school, one that will really prepare her for college. She was excited to know that I would help her find a school, that she could choose and not just be like the rest of the kids in the complex and go across the street to Wheatly High School. Perhaps when you've got close to nothing having a choice means more than anything.

As I drove out of the gates last night I was struck by another twisted irony of Coke Street. Next door to the complex, in all it's dilapidated glory, is what looks like something similar to the neighborhoods I grew up in, a small cul-de-sac of about 10 houses, two-story, neat with pretty green lawns and nice cars. It's almost like one of the comparison problems we do in English class. Natasha, if we put the childhoods you and I had side by side will you be able to see the similarities and differences? Are there any similarities at all?

YES you can

2007-03-27T21:47:00.000-05:00

I had the opportunity to observe at a YES College Prep school recently and I have to simply say: wow. Yep, that about covers it.

Wow.

I had sixth graders come up and in the most articulate manner introduce themselves and welcome me to their school. This is coming from a world where I have seventh graders I've been teaching since August who still won't look me in the eye. It was amazing. And that's just the glossy stuff.

I've been struggling with motivation recently. I think it is because I see so much I would do differently "had I only known... (fill in any number of things I was clueless about)." Because I feel like it would be so much easier to correct this error by starting fresh I think I've been reluctant to pretty much try anything.

I was kind of thinking my visit to Yes would be depressing and make me wish I was teaching anywhere but my school. In fact, it had quite the opposite effect. I went into my visit with a little bit more background knowledge than some of the corps members who were with me. I knew a few folks who worked there and understood a lot of the routines. I'm also fascinated by charter schools and would love to make it part of my research focus whenever I find myself back in school. The concept of charter schools is a hot topic in my apartment as well, so we've ended up looking up some articles and stats and such. Since I already knew some of the stuff that was part of the Yes routine, I wasn't really blown away by it all. More so, I just left feeling like i have to do something more.

I have to give my students a chance to have something like that at McReynolds. What choice do I have? Yes is a growing movement, but small in idea. They have to raise money for their own buildings. They cut a lot of overhead to do what they do. They don't take on 600 kids a school, so my kids can't just transfer in whenever they want. My kids deserve that kind of environment as much as anyone. I feel like I can't control the stupid things my administration does, I can't control the environment outside my door, but I can be the positive force in my room. I've been letting myself off the hook a lot lately.

The thing is, the teachers at Yes aren't these amazing fantastic teachers plucked from the Columbia School of Education (though they are cool). They don't have kids who were certified geniuses at the age of two (their demographic is the same as mine). They don't even have a real school building (it's an old church). They're just dedicated people in a better work environment. Yes, they do have better organization and focus, but that doesn't mean I can't do more in my own classroom. Does environment control everything? No, it doesn't. If it did then I'd be wasting my time with most of my students.

Today when I returned to McReynolds to find that my kids didn't have a sub and then did have a sub who fourth period decided to terrorize, I sat down at my desk amidst the chaos left in my room and took a deep breath. Frustration isn't getting me anywhere but tired. I'm going to focus on a couple of main problem areas, bite the bullet and really revamp my motivation system and have a very long conversation with fourth period about the way they treat strangers. Yes, tomorrow will be a new day.

Motivation Mystery

2007-03-20T17:10:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure what has happened to me.

I have sneaking feeling that it has something to do with developing something looking like a normal life, but my motivation is just not what it used to be. Maybe I'm burnt out. Maybe I'm running out of ideas. Maybe I'm just still tired (oh yeah, I'm really tired). Whatever it is, it has to stop.

My kids are not motivated. I tried to dive back into class by finishing up with The Outsiders and it was like pulling teeth. My students love this novel. I love this novel. It kills me that they won't analyze it. There is so much there to talk about and they just won't talk about it in any kind of meaningful way. It actually kind of hurts.

How have we gotten so of course that they won't do anything more than the bare minimum? At one point I thought that I had them. I was even getting really hopeful with the attitude shift I've seen in my popular girls (they think I'm cool), but it all seems to have gone downhill again.

I think what is more disappointing than my students lack of motivation is my response to that lack of motivation. I get so frustrated in class that I almost feel like I'm bullying them. I don't want to be that teacher. I hated that teacher. That teacher sucks.

But how do I avoid it? There is no end to the pressure that you feel when you're standing up in front of 30 students, you ask a question and 30 pairs of eyes just stair back at you. Silence. That silence is so painful. Then the panic sets in, how do you rephrase, readjust and pull out a meaningful answer on the spot? In my world, you very often don't. And it hurts even more than their silence.

I am completely convinced that if I can motivate myself I can find a way to motivate my students. I do not believe for a second that my students can't be pushed to dig deeper, think harder and get to the heart of material we're covering. Teachers who say that are, for lack of a better phrase, copping out. If you are going to blame a 12-year-old for not putting in the effort on material he doesn't understand or particularly like then you are seriously in the wrong line of work. I refuse to look at my kids like that. They are not stupid or smart, they are kids. You can't just be born stupid or smart, it's how much you work, how much you're offered and how much you take in.

My kids aren't lazy, they're unmotivated. There is a difference. Laziness falls to them. Motivation falls to me.

Somewhere along the line I ended up with a Neil Diamond song

2007-03-18T21:04:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning to a terrible thing. The alarm clock on my phone.

I have gone exactly eight days without an alarm clock.

I am truly amazed at the effect that a little freedom can have on your ability to get back into a routine. There's a rhythm to my life that is guided by bells. I wake up to an alarm clock at 5:40 every morning. I get myself to school by 6:15 to make copies, do grades, tutor students and just be around for others who wander in to sit on my couch. By 7:55 my day is off on a mad dash until the final bell rings at 3:30. Then there's soccer practice, more planning, dinner, cleaning, planning, grading and off to bed. The bells start over far too soon the next morning.

When I left school last Friday I thought this would be like any other break. I would travel a bit, sleep a bit more and do a bunch of planning. But spring break has been an entirely different experience. Thanksgiving break was simply needed to keep me from losing my slim grip on sanity. I went to Kansas and slept. Christmas break was complicated for a myriad of reasons and involved far too much traveling. This is the first break I've been in Houston (or at least Texas) for the entirety. This is becoming a place that feels so much more like home and staying here for break certainly cemented that feeling. This break I just let go.

I suppose letting go is why it has been so much more difficult to reengage in the rhythm of life that is quickly catching up with me.

So back to the alarm clock.

Since I got very little work done yesterday (despite my best efforts starting with 8 a.m. coffee at Dietrich's) I set my phone alarm for 8 a.m. and planned to be out the door on my way to the Daily Grind by no later than 8:30 a.m. When the alarm went off and I realized it was Sunday, the day before life was going to begin again, something halted inside of me. I turned the alarm off and rolled back over. Maybe if I refused to acknowledge tomorrow it would not actually come.

When I finally got out of bed around 10 a.m. I had no interest in making a stop at The Daily Grind, but instead tinkered around my apartment looking for things to do. When I get like this I start baking. And cleaning. Since I'd had such a carefree week I had already baked cookies, muffins and bread and cleaned the carpets, kitchen and bathroom. This left me with nothing pressing to occupy my time and thus allow me to avoid planning for the rest of my week.

It is amazing what you can do to avoid. Not only did I bake more bread and muffins, I cleaned — and I mean cleaned — my closet and bedroom. I also attempted to put up curtains, but it really didn't work out. While I should have been planning my lessons, entering grades and creating powerpoints I found myself putting together a package for my college roommate and then found the need to decorate the entire box. Then I had to check facebook for the fifteenth time, at which point Jacky had added a new artist to her growing list of ipod playlist songs (good thing I checked) so of course I had to go download it. Once I was in limewire I was reminded that I wanted to download a Corrs song that had been in my head for a few days, the Corrs reminded me of another song and before I knew it I had a Neil Diamond song.

My steps to procrastination were quite shocking. It's hard to truly track how I ended up with Neil Diamond, but I know it started about eight days ago with a little relaxation, was exasperated by the return of bells to my life and finally found it's way into my playlist reminding me that, like it or not, the rhythm is coming back to my life.

No, you cannot simply roll over and ignore the bells, all you end up with is a bunch of muffins and Neil Diamond.

this could be the very moment i'm aware i'm alright. all these places feel like home.

2007-03-16T00:39:00.000-05:00

I've spent the past three days not being a teacher. It has, in all honesty, been amazing.

Just me, a good book and a beach. I'm not sure you could ask for much more.

I'm laying here tonight by my open window listening to Snow Patrol, with a Blue Moon and the warmth that your body holds after you've spent three days in the sun and I'm thinking this is really really nice. I love being a teacher. I love TFA and every single ounce of purpose I've found in the educaiton movement, but sometimes it's just nice to sit here with 10-year-old t-shirt on and summer on the horizona and remember what it's like to think past tomorrow's grammar lesson or what I'm doing in soccer practice after that or how many grades I have to enter before I go to bed.

Believe me, all of that started looming in the air the minute I got back to my apartment tonight, but like the warmth my body is trying to hang on to and the freckles that will fade from my eyelids in a day or two, I'm trying to hold on to this feeling. Tomorrow I will start grading papers and I will show up at school for an 11 a.m. soccer practice, but tonight I'm going to finish my beer and my book and think about this summer and sleeping past 6 a.m.

Since I'm feeling all non-teacher like and someone asked, I'll go ahead and slip some non-teacher type info in my education blog for this post.

James Lipton's 10 insights into your soul

1. what is your favorite word?
digress

2. what is your least favorite word?
fuck

3. what turns you on [creatively, spiritually or emotionally]?
creatively - intelligent conversation, that connection with another person keeps me going for hours after
spiritually - humbleness
emotionally - being watched

4. what turns you off?
cruelty, arrogance and smoking

5. what is your favorite curse word?
bastard

6. what sound or noise do you love?
laughfter and sleep

7. what sound or noise do you hate?
anger

8. what profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
writing books, advice columnist, flipping houses (is that really a profession?)

9. what profession would you not like to do?
bee keeper

10. if heaven exists, what would you like to hear god say when you
arrive at the pearly gates?
My grace is sufficent.

I had two good mornings on the beach by myself waiting for my travel companions to wake up to think about my answers. Funny thing is I've been asked these questions before and I didn't realize until now how much they had changed in just a year. It's funny how you can barely recognize yourself in such a short time. How one road over another can make you a completley different person. One different turn and I'd be in Michigan or New York or Boston. I certainly wouldn't have my window open or even have spring break for that matter. I hope I'd be happy. I am now.

It's 3 a.m.

2007-03-12T03:05:00.000-05:00

I have sufficiently become addicted to coffee since I became a teacher. It just came with the territory for me. Unfortunately, I'm not superhuman. I can't do it all. I can't teach and plan and grade and pretend to have a social life without a little assistance. My assistance is caffeine and it come steaming hot out of my classroom coffee pot every school day.

When I go on vacation so does my coffee addiction. Then come the headaches. I made it two days before I started hurting for caffeine. Usually I try to nurse myself off the coffee while on break, but when the headache hit today I just gave in. I was having a great day and I wanted to bake and clean and none of that would happen without coffee. I had a cup at 9 p.m. Now it's 3 a.m. and here we are in blog land.

Some days I wish I was superhuman.

Today my pastor was talking about his kids whining (and the Israelites, but his point about the kids is better for this example since the Israelites die) and it made me start thinking about my students. He said that you know what you should do when they start to whine is sit and talk with them rationally to solve the problem, but what you end up doing is saying "you have to stop doing that, just stop whining..." and then they keep whining. They keep whining because you're not solving their problem, you're just being annoying back to them. I never thought about that.

I'll admit, I needed this break. I've been worn out. My kids are worn out. And we've got a lot to get done before their next big test. So I needed a weekend where I could not do work and stay up late and not feel like I was ruining the future of 68 small children. Now that I'm awake at 3 a.m. with no end in sight, I'm kind of wishing I hadn't purposefully left all of my planning material at school. That phrase my pastor said keeps sticking in my head. "That's what we should tell them, but it's never what we say."

Why don't I think of these things? Why do I watch my grip on my classroom slip away and not just think "maybe your response is just making it worse."? Now I'm a bit more motivated to find a better solution for the disruptions that have been finding their way into my classroom. I'm more motivated to figure out what the heck to do with Tony and Isabel and Deundre and Saul.

Of course tomorrow when I'm up at school to finish up some work my caffeine high will have worn off and I'll be exhausted, but I'm going to remember my pastor's parable. God killed some of the whining Israelites, but we don't kill the children. We find a better way to get the message to them.

I need to find a better way. And stop drinking coffee at 9 p.m.

rodeo revelation

2007-03-10T18:39:00.000-06:00

I learned something very important at the 2007 Houston Rodeo.

I am not ready to be a mother.

Yes, I realize that I've skipped a few steps in my road to motherhood (namely a stable man with a ring and a white dress and a church), but before we find all of that I'm already sure of one thing: I teach children, I can't have my own. At least not right now.

My forge into my first adult spring break began with a trip to the Houston Rodeo with Christina, Barrett, Mr. Matthews and 10 of our students. Christina brought about this little trip as a way to reward some of our behavior achievers and to give the kids a glimpse of livestock life. It was fun. It was exhausting. It didn't smell as bad as I thought it would.

I know you might be asking yourself how we go from carnival rides and cattle to delaying motherhood. Patience, we'll get there. We began our journey a little under an hour later than we planned to begin our journey and surprisingly this was not because we had to divvy children into cars or make sure everyone went to the bathroom. As many things as my dear Ms. Wallace is, she is not all that efficient. But I digress.

By the time we reached downtown and headed toward the metro train I had already counted the children some five times. Downtown equals cars and bars and people. My internal sensor rose a notch or two once we left the cars and hit the street. Ten kids. Ten kids who aren't mine. Ten kids I don't want to break or lose or generally traumatize in any way.

It's a whole different ball game when you're teaching children in the confines of a school. It's kind of like being in a bubble (or at least it's supposed to be). You have to take care of them in a whole different manner when you're in the school building. In the confines of the school building you don't generally have to worry about random strangers, crowded ride areas or knowing about the things that can happen when you lose sight of them for just five seconds. Also, inside the school there's a shared sense of responsibility. Yeah, we might break one or two on school property, but there's a good 50 other adults to share the responsibility.

At the rodeo there were just 3 other adults. And really just Christina and me to share the responsibility, we were the masterminds of this little field trip.

Besides my constant counting and wishing they would all walk at the same speed and cluster more, we actually had a really good time. They rode rides, ate greasy, greasy carnival food and attempted a few overly priced carnival games. We never made it to the animal section of the rodeo, though we did see a pig race.

Although it was fun, it seemed like every five minutes I had a minor anxiety attack and felt the need to count. And then you count and you wonder if you counted them all right or did you double count one and another has already wandered off? Then you see that drunk guy walking near the girls and you wonder if he's just walking or if your need to move closer to them is correct. After that you have to look around for Rodney because he wanders. Then there's the counting again (it's been five minutes). Of course you have to count twice because you might have mis-counted.

So here I am at the end of the night, happy and tired and thinking that if the level of anxiety I have from watching someone else's children is anything near the level of anxiety I will have when it's my own 4 foot nothing miracle then I'm a long way off from being ready for that.

My mentor, who happens to be a mother and a teacher says you learn to stop counting. You teach the children to self-monitor and you trust them a little bit more. I don't know about that. I worry about breaking the one's who aren't even mine, how will I ever trust myself with someone who is half of me? That's a lot of pressure.

I suppose this is nothing I need to worry about right now.

No boy.

No ring.

Not even a cowboy.

Definitely no baby.

Miss what are you?

2007-03-04T12:04:00.000-06:00

My students don't have a huge grasp on appropriate racial terms. I hope this is true of many 12-year-olds and not just my students.

One of my students was trying to describe a character in our book and she looked all puzzled and then this conversation followed.
"Miss, what are you?'
"What do you mean what am I Nicole?"
"I mean... well... like... I couldn't just call you a white girl."
"Actually Nicole, the un-technical term for me is white."
"Really? I thought white girl was an insult."
"The real term is Caucasian, but white works as well."
"Caucasian? Miss, that sounds weird, are you sure that's not an insult?"

At this point in the conversation Isabel decided to shout across the room that Jessica was a Caucasian. This goes down as 5,236 inappropriate thing Isabel has yelled out in my classroom. Last time I checked Caucasian was not an insult, but leave it to Isabel to turn it into one. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this child.

My racial conversation of the week doesn't even compare to the one Christina had. One of our students asked her if she was Pennsylvanian. You know, because people from Cuba are Cubans. Our student is convinced that Pennsylvania is a part of Canada and therefore Christina is her own nationality and race.

That's more than I got. I'm now apparently an insult.

And this is when things are going to be okay

2007-02-27T21:15:00.000-06:00

Now that I've come out of the haze of the first semester of teaching I'm starting to realize how frustrating my job truly is and how much I internalize that frustration. If it's not losing students to their own misguided need for attention or dealing with a less than well run administration or discipline issues that consume my life if I let them, it's some other thing that makes me shake my head and say "only here."

Recently I've felt like I'm burning out and fast. I'm so captivated by my students and my need for them to succeed that it tears me down a little bit inside each time someone does something stupid or makes another illogical plan that does nothing but disrupt their chances to make gains in their lives and get somewhere with their education.

It all seems too much sometimes.

Then you have days like today.

Today wasn't even a school day for me due to an endlessly long doctors appointment, but I found myself at school anyways. After soccer practice I was torn with going home to get food or staying at school and getting work done. All of those options were quickly turned down the minute I saw Barrett in the parking lot. Welcome to one third of my dinner party at least once a week. A quick hunger check with him and then running into Newsome and Micheal in the hallway secured my dinner plans. All of this could have made my evening better than my day, but then three of them occupied themselves while I went up to my classroom to get my bags.

I returned to the back of the school to them playing basketball with five students who had hung around school for LCDC practice. There are days when everything sucks at my school and I just want to leave. And then there are days when come outside to find three grown men playing basketball and acting like they're 12 again. These are the people I teach with, respect, and have come to count on for general sanity in my day and they were genuinely happy. It was a really nice thing to see.

It was one of those moments that is so simple you don't notice it until it's almost gone. And then you sit there on the pavement in February in 80 degree weather and you watch the three of them laugh and smile and you think this is a memory I need to keep. This is something I need to think of the next time I'm giving up. This is a memory that will matter to me in 20 years when I think about my first year of teaching.

When you can spend your day fighting through masses of special education paper work, getting cursed out by your students or simply being exhausted from testing children all day and still find your way outside to trash talk a couple of 12-year-olds then life is really not as bad as it seems. Hope is not lost and doing this, day in and day out, kind of seems worth it.

what do you do when you can't fix it?

2007-02-26T15:45:00.000-06:00

I felt like a pretty awful person when I signed check-out papers for Jimmy and Brian and a rush of relief came over me. I couldn't deny it with those two. I felt like I was drowning in a sea of inability to cope with both of these students and there was nothing more I could feel when they finally got themselves sent to CEP and out of my classroom for good.

Today I signed papers for another student to go to CEP and then I shut my door just before the tears came. This feeling is so much worse than the guilt that relief brings. I failed those two boys. I tried and I got frustrated and in a lot of ways I gave up on them. With Laura I'm not sure what else I could have done. I have given her chances, I've been hard on her, I've been easy on her, of late I've taken to requiring her to shadow me after school and getting her on the soccer team, nothing worked. Laura is beautiful and intelligent and horribly insecure. She's the kind of girl who doesn't understand for a second how amazing she is and spends so much time worrying about others thinking about her that she wastes everything she has going for her.

Christina and I had reached a point with her where we were basically playing runners between her and the administration trying to keep her from losing her last chance and getting herself sent to CEP. I thought I was making progress with her, then she went to math class and called her Math teacher a stupid liar. That was the straw that apparently broke the camels back. She is going to be spending the next 30 days at CEP instead of in my classroom, on my soccer team and generally getting as many self-esteem boosts as I can offer. And there's absolutely nothing I can do about it.

I just don't understand. Why do we hit this mass saturation with these kids and just get rid of them? Is there nothing more we can do with them? I know there has to be a switch with all of these kids. I think I couldn't find the switch with Brian and Jimmy. That's the part of me that feels so horrible about them leaving. I found the switch with Laura. I know what it is because in so many ways it's the same switch in me. And still, it does no good, she's gone.

And the all-star award goes to...

2007-02-20T18:33:00.000-06:00

Marquis. My trooper who got so sick during today's test that he projectile vomited in the hallway before I was able to drag him into the women's restroom to continue emptying his stomach. As we sat on the floor of the teachers restroom together and he begged me not to send him home because he wasn't done with this test I knew that this child was amazing. He spent the rest of the day sitting in the counselors office puking into a trashcan and taking his test.

This is my story from my first TAKS test ever. Marquis and the trashcan.

Besides that I can't believe the actual physical weight that has been lifted off my shoulders now that this test is over. I can actually breath again. I'm sitting here tonight feeling like it's going to be okay again. I feel like I know how to prep them better for the next test. I feel like I'm going to get more sleep again. All of this makes me very happy, but right now I'm going to go think about how much he is my hero.

tomorrow is the day

2007-02-19T20:02:00.000-06:00

There are moments when it really is unbelievable how much time has passed. It's like when you start freshman year of college and you walk through your dorm hallway feeling all alone and you think: four years. Four years is so far away. How will I ever make friends and a life and be ready in four years? And then you blink and four years is over and you're getting a diploma and leaving friends you'd never thought you'd find and now can't imagine living without.

That was college. Now, happily, my life is based around 68 children. Sadly, my life is also based around those 68 children passing a battery of standardized tests. The first of those tests is tomorrow. I actually kind of thought this day would never come. I knew from the moment I walked through the doors of McReynolds that testing was the major player this year. With threat of closure if our students don't pass, all anyone seems to be thinking about is tests. Just add that to the pressure of being a first year teacher and it's an interesting ride. As any first year teacher can tell you, the word does two things while you're learning how to teach: it goes by at warp speed and it also moves painfully slow.

Regardless of the twilight zone I was living in during the fall, time did in fact keep moving and my students are indeed testing tomorrow. It's a crazy thing to think that all the work we've done, all the writing prompts they've written and re-written, all the tutorials and all the grammar lessons all get boiled down to tomorrow. Or at least so says the state of Texas and that fine president of ours.

I think my students are as ready as they can be, but given the weakness they came in with and the time I lost just figuring out what the heck I was doing I don't really know. I hope they're ready. They deserve that much. They deserve to not feel like failures, to have the skills required to pass a grade-level writing test. So, I guess I really don't know.

I know that six of them have already called me tonight. There's something that sits in the pit of your stomach and makes you want to change the world when a 12-year-old calls you to ask "Miss, if I fail the test are they going to close the school." There's also a part of your heart that breaks when you lie and say no.

Sometimes I can't believe how fast four years went by. I'm starting to get the same feeling with this year. I can't believe how fast the end of the year is coming. Unfortunately for my students, it would be better if time really did go as slow as you think it will at the start the year.

LIke whoa...

2007-02-15T19:55:00.000-06:00

I was a very precocious child. I liked to say things that would get at people. I was nosey. I was observant. I was anything but shy. This usually meant I said pretty much whatever I was thinking and then paid the consequences when my mother finally got me home.

I feel like I'm retroactively paying the consequences now. These consequences are named Isabel. Isabel is the embodiment of every nosey, curious, pushy comment I ever made. Times ten. Isabel not only has no internal sensor, she has a serious need for attention and a serious aggressive streak when it comes to my personal life. I'd really love to find out why, but this may just be another mystery of the seventh grade mind.

To preface, my love life has always been fodder for my students. They have been seriously convinced of my love affair with Mr. Graham (the teacher across the hall... who has a serious girlfriend) since early August. A comment or two every once in a while is not really anything that gets to me anymore. Perhaps I've let my guard down a bit because I was seriously not prepared for the wrath of Isabel when I made friends with a new teacher at my school.

Barrett is a new eighth grade teacher at my school and besides being a Mac snob (yes, I'm not alone anymore!) he's good people and good company. We've become friends and so see each other at school... usually to throw around insults and for him to lose to me in a constant battle of wits. Unfortunately, my school is so small and chatty that being friends and being in each others rooms apparently means we are dating (or so my assistant principal and like half the adult staff members assume).

In my students world, Barrett bringing me a soda in class when I didn't feel well means we are most definitely an item. I have apparently left Mr. Graham in the dust and upgraded for an 8th grade teacher. My students total unabashed comments and "ohhs" and "ahhs" when he was in the room took me so off guard that the minimal control I hold over my blushing was completely lost. Thus, securing in their minds forever that I am indeed in love with a social studies nerd. I could deal with this misguided interpretation of my love life if it weren't for Isabel.

For some reason this child thinks it is appropriate to call Barrett "Ms. Thompson lover" to his face. She also thinks that the best thing to do when Saul asks me if I feel better is to shout across the room "Yeah, I bet Mr. Doke made her feel better." Thus causing more blushing and more loss of control in my classroom. The kicker came this week when, again, I was asked if I was pregnant (wonderful for my self-esteem) and Isabel decided to yell out "Oh my god, you're having Mr. Doke's baby?!" Um, not even close, but thanks for that.

Now my students are in a constant battle over who has the correct facts. Am I dating Mr. Doke or Mr. Graham? Am I having a baby? Could I possibly also be dating Mr. Orduna or Mr. Martin? With Isabel constantly fueling the fire I'm unsure this debate will ever end.

I'm still trying to gather how we went from sentence fragments to dating another teacher to pregnancy to pregnancy by a man I've known two weeks in less than four sentences before I call Isabel's parents and tell them if they don't do something about their child I'm going to drop kick her out a window. What an akward parent phone call to make.

The only thing that I find slightly humorous about all this is that there are probably a lot of people out there who find my darling Isabel to be a very fitting and amusing form of cosmic retribution.

I can't wait until someday when she gets hers. And boy will she get hers.

37 is too big a number

2007-02-12T18:23:00.000-06:00

To most people outside the world of teaching, 37 might seem like a very reasonable and understandable number, but in my world it represents the illogical approach my school takes to just about everything.

Our big writing test (TAKS: the awful standardized test that apparently determines the future of my school) is coming up a week from tomorrow and suddenly everyone is getting worried. You would have thought we would have been worried in the fall with a group of seventh graders who collectively have a very challenged notion of grammar, but no, not here. Instead the TFA teacher who had two classes worth of these students quit in the fall and they replaced her with a temporary sub and then replaced her with a particularly wonderful man who they then decided to move to seventh grade math, bringing in the students' fourth teacher from an eighth grade social studies class. Hmmm... my thoughts on the newest teacher aside, four teachers in four months is anything but positive or productive for these children.

Because it is obviously too late to go back in time and not give these students four different teachers we took the next step in this little thing I like to call "McReynolds Logic" and decided that for the last week before the test we should not only teach EXACTLY the same thing, but we should co-teach by splitting the failing classes into mine and Ms. Reece's classes. Um... really?

I know I'm supposed to be a team player and I know I"m supposed to care about the entire seventh grade, but these are my babies. My 69 students are my all and all. They are the reason I get out of bed every morning, they are the reason I stay late. They make me laugh, they make me mad and they make me cry (only a few times). Their success, for better or worse, is going to be a major marker for this year of my life. I don't want to see even one of them risk failing so that I can have 15 extra kids in my room who need more attention because they've been screwed over. I realize this is wrong on so many levels, but I'm handicapped with the feeling that I can't save them all in a week and I've made a commitment to the ones I already have with me.

After being very upset last week about all this being thrown on me I decided to go with hopeful instead of despondent. On the upside, having all of our activities planned out isn't so bad. It gives me focus in a time when I'm simply desperately trying to figure out what to teach my students in our last week before the test. I was also able to split the classes so I had control over what students were coming into my room and most of them were students who were mine in the beginning of the year before my classes were leveled. I was regaining control and trying to be positive.

Then 37 students walked into my first period class. Wait, first 15 extra desks got shoved into my classroom, then 37 students walked in. No co-teacher, just me. Me and 37 students. I feel quite horrible complaining about this considering some of my friends actually teach in schools were 35 students is the standard class size, but really, 37 is a lot to take. I think I would be somewhat prepared to deal with a larger class size if it was a standard thing. In my world, the way you gain control is by setting up a classroom culture and creating a motivation system for your students. I didn't realize how well I had done this until I had 15 extra students walk in who had no interest in my motivation system (because they wouldn't be around long enough to earn the reward) and no real understanding of the classroom culture or way of acting. My kids were a little put-off by the attention being taken from them and the behavior of my new students. Needless to say, it was anything but constructive or functional.

Thankfully, I'm not alone in my thoughts that this is a horrible way of doing things. Not only could I not teach any of the students I already had, but I was even less helpful with the ones I attained because I had to spend so much time getting them to behave and learning their names. I wrote a rather wordy email to our principal and content specialist about how this is an ineffective plan for the week before TAKS. I'm sure he won't like my comments, but at this point i don't care. I'm not here to please my administrator, I'm here to help my students plain and simple.

37 students a week before this test is not helpful.

I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul

2007-02-10T01:02:00.000-06:00

It's become unseasonably warm in Houston over the past week. I don't actually think the rising temperatures are unseasonable, they're actually quite normal, but it's nice to think that this is a little reprieve from a cold winter like I used to find in places north of here.

With the warm weather has come the return of one of my favorite things: sleeping with the window open. There is something about the sound of the night and a cool breeze with a heavy comforter that has always made me sleep sounder. I used to hate it in the summer when my mom would finally decide it was time to turn on the air conditioner and force me to close my windows until September.

The sounds have changed a bit from those nights in Kansas. I'm closer to the highway now, so there's more traffic sounds, but I don't care. It's quiet enough to feel the rest in the air and that's nice. One of my balcony neighbors has a wind chime hanging up that I only hear when the balcony door or my window is opn. I love the sound.

I can't even figure out why I like the wind chime so much, but I'm laying here now (warm comforter in place) listening to it blow in the breeze and I actually just feel better. There's something about the noise that makes me think of travel, of the places I'm going and the places I've been. I like that.

I've spent a lot of time this week being frustrated and angry. Frustrated with my students, my administration and myself. It's hard to keep perspective in the world I work in. Sometimes I legitimately have to ask myself what I'm doing in my classroom. Am I there to get them to pass a test? Am I there to finally make DeUndre see beyond himself or teach Isabel some compassion? Am I there to teach them how to be people or to motivate them into making life better for themselves? Or am I just there to babysit and pass them on to another teacher who has far more to teach in far less time than seems remotely fair for anyone?

These days it's all about the test. Ten days. We've got ten days until the biggest measure of my first year as a teacher. But that's not really true. My test scores matter to me, they really do. I want all my students to pass. I want to be a successful teacher, but more than that my scores are just a stop on the road.

I lie here tonight and I think about Ireland and the wind on the Cliffs of Moor and the exhilaration I felt walking to the edge. I think of the mist settling in the valleys in southern Indiana as I drove to work every morning. I think of New York and South Carolina and Spain and Nipro and every other place I've ever been. The memories rush back when I hear that chime in my courtyard. It just makes me wonder how many of my students have ever heard of those places? How many of them have a want to go elsewhere? To look elsewhere? How many of them would dream of anything else?

I think about a conversation I had about respect and honesty tonight. It was very similar to a conversation I had this week with one of my students who is willfully trying to get pregnant. She is fourteen. She is in seventh grade. She can't see beyond the love she feels for her boyfriend. I don't mean to belittle her feelings, but it saddens me to think that her horizon is so shortsighted that his feelings and his "want" to have a family are more important than her own interests or the way in which her world will change. I'm struck by how unfair it seems that experiences of opportunity and choice created in me a person who is willing to walk away, but chooses to stay and created in her a person who doesn't know the difference.

Frustration and anger only seem to tear me down and make me less of the person I want to be. Tonight, lying here listening to the chimes and the night, it's a wish to change my students ability to dream that makes me want to get up tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. Frustration at testing and changes and DeUndre and Isabel won't carry me nearly as far as the feeling I have when I close my eyes and listen to the night.

So I suppose I'll just go with that for a while; after all, it seems I might have a few more nights with an open window.

Where would I be without you?

2007-02-03T15:11:00.000-06:00

It amazes me what we take for granted in our lives. Humans, by nature, seem to be creatures of comfort. Once they gain that comfort they often seem to lose perspective on its value. I could offer you a long list of examples from my kids to prove the truth in this statement, but I'm guilty of it myself.

Teach For America has gone into heavy recruitment mode since their final deadline for the 2007 corps is on February 18th. Due to this, I've been sending some emails to folks back at IU and answering some other general questions that have been sent my way by interested prospects. Sometimes it's really hard to put this whole experience into words and really feel like you're doing it justice. Every night as I sat in front of my computer screen answer a question about how hard life at my school really was, I was torn. Yes, my job sucks in a lot of ways. Yes, I go home frustrated. Yes, I do work more than I actually get paid. But yes, I also love my kids more than I could ever imagine. Yes, I feel like I'm doing something with my life. Yes, I love some of my co-workers and could not imagine my world without them.

It's the kids and the co-workers who have been on my mind when I write those emails. Every negative thing I have to say about my experience is coupled with five positive things to say about my kids or friends at school. I really didn't realize how close I had become to my students or Christina, Michael, Blair, etc. What would I do without Martin coming in every morning just to sit around? Or Saul just coming by to say hi after school and ask for his daily rating ("Miss, on a scale of one to ten, how was I today?")? Or Michael always being there in the morning just about ten minutes after I show up? I guess until I put down in words for someone the good or the bad I forget about the good.

I've been talking with a new teacher at my school this week too and have really come to value the unified force that the TFA teachers came in with (and added a few teachers to the mix). McReynolds is just hard. There is no if, and, or but about it, but going at it together has made it so easy. I think we've reached a point in the year where we're in a groove with each other. Their faces, jokes and support are something I've come to count on in ways I never imagined I would. Being out of the loop and new to the job is never easy, but it was most certainly improved by being out of the loop together and helping each other to figure it all out.

Now that I know how good the good things are I can only hope for more. More TFA, more generally dedicated people to share my waking hours with. The more frustration they throw my way, the more I need Mr. Graham's smile, Ms. Wallace's inappropriate and unprofessional emails and Ms. Thompson's general dry wit.

Um... shoot me in the face

2007-01-26T17:26:00.000-06:00

When I first accepted my position in Houston as a teacher, quite a few older teachers made some comments about Texas being the birthplace of high stakes testing. I didn't quite understand why they were so bitter about testing and a state they didn't even teach in. I didn't know better. Now I do.

Texas is the birthplace and proliferator of high stakes, standardized and generally mind-numbing testing. Add to Texas's general warm and fuzzy feelings towards standardized testing the fact that I am teaching at a school which is on the chopping block and you are looking at a world where I am pretty confident they should change my title to tester and not teacher. In one week I have plied my students with three separate tests. This is on top of the three tests I've already administered this semester. That brings our testing total up to six tests in three weeks (less than that if you count our ice day and MLK Jr. Day).

This testing is depressing for multiple reasons. Number one, my kids are simply over tested. They're on testing burn-out. It's like no adult in charge of any of this has ever taken a psychology class. No one seems to remember what it was like to be a kid or what constant testing pressure does to the mind of an already stressed out 12-year-old. Besides the over testing, administering tests cuts into my instructional time, both by having to give the tests and then by having to deal with the uselessness of my students after the tests. I have effectively gotten nothing done this week.

What is probably the most annoying thing about all of this testing is that it is completely unnecessary. I give my students the same types of assessments over and over again. Why is it that the same curriculum assessment data taken by the HISD English department can't be shared with the head of the North region. Why is it that we take these curriculum assessments and they don't even provide adequate data because they fail to test some objectives or fail to ask more than one question for some of the objectives? We haven't even given a writing CBA, so we administered our own. This is what is wrong with the system, the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing and they're doing the same thing.

Next week we're going to try a novel approach: I'm actually going to teach the material instead of test on it.

Ice, ice baby

2007-01-17T17:18:00.000-06:00

Today I got an ice day, no school. This is funny for one major reason: we spent days talking about the "ice storm" that was set to hit Houston and nothing really hit us. Yeah, there was a bit of ice, but when I say bit I mean by 2 p.m. there was absolutely no sign of ice. And yet the news casters covered our "ice storm" like it was the coming of the Apocalypse. I swear, the temperature maybe dropped to 30 degrees and the weatherman was calling it an Arctic blast. Arctic blast? Really.

So here I am, sitting at home, sipping hot chocolate, thinking about the fact that my students will be useless blobs tomorrow because they already had Monday off. Oh well, there is a kind of interesting joy in having an unexpected day off.

Sixty percent is not okay

2007-01-13T07:39:00.000-06:00

There's a simple thing any former honors student can tell you: sixty percent is not okay. Sixty percent is anything but okay. I don't get Ds, I don't even get Cs. As far as I am generally concerned, sixty percent is like barely even bothering to show up.

Sixty percent is exactly the rate of passing my three ELA classes have shown on a mock TAKS test (called a benchmark exam) my students took this week. We take the actual writing TAKS in one month. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but this certainly wasn't this. Yesterday as I was leaving school (heading towards two days in San Antonio for our All-Texas TFA conference) Hector, one of our content specialists, asked me if I wanted to see my scores. Since I am quite the TFA convert and love data, I didn't hesitate to take a look. Sixty percent of my students met the standard on the multiple choice grammar and editing test. Forty percent of my students are not passing a test they take for real in thirty days. Talk about deflating my three-day weekend.

There are so many things that go into the fact that my students aren't passing their test, but it's still hard not to just blame it all on myself. In all reality, I am dealing with students who have serious holes in their grammar background. When a seventh grader can't automatically identify a noun, you know you're in trouble. How am I to teach my students the correct way to combine a sentence when they can't readily identify a subject and a predicate?

I have to admit I take quite a lot of the blame in my scores. I was aware of much of my students' deficits, but had so much on my plate that I taught to my strengths. I have to say I am a much stronger reading teacher than I am a writing teacher. This might seem strange coming from a journalist, but really, have you ever tried to unpack years of knowledge? It's hard. I understand English grammar to the point that I can identify correct and incorrect sentences without being able to tell you exactly why it's wrong or right. It is hard to explain the dynamics of a complex sentence when you've been writing them for years. And when you have to explain them to someone who doesn't understand very many of the basics and, in many cases, isn't a native speaker, things get even more challenging. So given my strength in teaching in reading and the enormous pressure from the district to perform well on our (mainly) reading tests, I've focused to heavily on that subject.

Perhaps what is more depressing is my administration's response to my scores. Because my scores are the highest of all of the seventh grade ELA teachers, I'm golden. Technically, my scores are already meeting the state passing standard of sixty-one percent if you take into account the students who just didn't test in the most ideal circumstances and after another 30 days of prep will most definitely pass. I don't know what is more depressing, the fact that I have a sixty percent pass rate or the fact that this is acceptable.

I'm rather depressed about my scores, but I think this is simply because I've yet to formulate a plan. Right now I've got data, but no plan. This means I'm in the black hole of no hope. But, as any overachieving honors student can tell you, the black hole of no hope only lasts as long as you let it. Sixty percent ends today.

violence played to my advantage

2007-01-09T14:16:00.000-06:00

Sometimes convincing my students to read can be like pulling teeth. From a grizzly bear.

I think most adults, myself included, have only a hazy recollection of what it is like to be in middle school. Status is everything and what's expected is nothing. I spent too long first semester expecting my students to do something because that was the expectation. It doesn't work that way in the middle school mind. It is much more effective to find a way around the road block of defiance my students set up in my path and get them to do something because they want to do it (and simply don't realize it is also good for them).

Enter Freedom Writers and the way it has transformed my classroom. I started seeing previews for the Freedom Writers movie just before Christmas break. Intrigued by the true story aspect of the movie I took a gander at Amazon.com and snag myself a used copy of the book. It is phenomenal. Not only are the stories heart wrenching and thoughtful, but they are powerfully written. I decided with the mess my schedule would be for the first few weeks back and the fact that The Outsiders has yet to appear at school yet that I would start my own Freedom Writers project with my kids.

From moment one my students were hooked. And when I say hooked, I mean Tony, who won't do anything you ask him to do, but everything you tell him not to, was stone silent and staring directly at me as I read. Freedom Writers is so effective in my classroom not just because of the MTV hype surrounding the movie, but also because of the mentality of my kids. My kids want to be gangster. There are a whole myriad of reasons I think this is stupid, but bear in mind: I'm going around the roadblock of defiance. The first three pages of Freedom Writers start with someone getting shot. Hook, line and sinker.

The beautiful thing about all of this is that my students are writing, begging to read and actually talking about violence, bullying and racism.

Getting around that roadblock is an exhilarating feeling. And so much easier than pulling teeth.

who likes peanut butter and jelly

2007-01-06T20:18:00.000-06:00

I was always a big fan of Pavlov and his dogs. I thought it was mighty clever that this man could find a reaction to a bell and then correlate it to humans. Plus, knowing about Pavlov makes for mighty clever comments at various points in the day.

The unfortunate thing about my school is that it seems to be a Pavlov-free zone. We have bells that ring all the time and yet they don't seem to mean anything to anyone. Our students seem to hear the bells, but they don't seem to care. After a semester of all this bell-ignoring behavior, the seventh grade hall has had enough.

Starting the first day back to school we began a little thing called lunch detention. I hold lunch detention in a special place in my heart because it marked a turning point for team Wallace-Thompson. Christina and I had particularly had enough of all the tardies and the snails pace at which anything gets accomplished at our school, so we took point on the lunch detention plan. Now, if you are tardy to class, you are automatically given lunch detention. Lunch detention involves PB&J and silence.

Day one of the new semester and people were running to class. Running. This is what success feels like. What used to be chaos in our hallway has suddenly turned to silence. I can see the teachers at the end of the hall, you can move in the hallways, kids um... go to class. It is amazing.

What I guess this means for Pavlov is that bells matter, but food connections matter more.

some parents have all the hook-ups

2007-01-05T19:56:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I worked at a school with kids who come from wealthy homes. I hear people talk about nice gifts from parents for Christmas and the last day of school and think "that must be nice." And then I'm waiting outside a club on freezing to death on New Years Eve and my choice of employment seems to be worth it. You see, kids whose dads are lawyers don't work the door at clubs downtown. But my student's dads apparently do. As we were shivering outside waiting for them to let us in I realized that Gino, the guardian of one of my students was working the door. In this case, guardian equals quick entrance into the club.

Thankfully, the student is fairly discreet. It wasn't until day two back at school that I go to hear about me and Ms. Wallace clubbing. When I deferred probably the 20,000th question about my relationship status with "I don't have any time to date." I got back "Yeah, but you have time to go clubbing with Ms. Wallace."

Oh well, at least teaching has some perks.

sleeping pills are for whimps...

2006-12-27T20:13:00.000-06:00

Once last semester I was interviewing for a newspaper job and the editor I was talking to looked at my resume and said "when do you ever find time to sleep?" I laughed her off and made a comment about dedication to my work giving me energy enough to go on lack of sleep.

The truth is sleep is very, very important to me. What I didn't tell that editor was that I'm not one of those people who runs on four hours of sleep and still manages to look good and rock a pair of heels. I most certainly require a large amount of sleep and still, very rarely, rock a pair of heels. Although my need for sleep is quite high on the priority list, my ambition still nudges past the snooze button most days of the week. My true answer for that editor would have been that to grab as many hours of sleep as possible I very rarely ate meals without walking, during particularly bad periods I helped up the stock in the Coca-Cola Company and I was more often than not found going to class with hair pulled back and no make-up (this would be a prime example of why my mother thinks I will never produce grandchildren).

Although I thought I had pretty much hit my limit when it came to ways to push myself with my final year of college, but all of that was just a preparation for the life sucking force known as teaching in the inner-city. I honestly did not think I would be one to devote 60 - 70 hours a week at work without getting some type of professional journalism gains. Who would have thought I would give up the journalism food chain for a bunch of middle schoolers who pretty much hate every good thing I do for them (hw, discipline, calls home) and aren't afraid to share with me how lame I am?

So how does one keep going when they have even less time to sleep than they ever have before? Apparently if you're my body you keep count of all the missed hours of sleep and you make it all up over Christmas break. It is actually kind of startling how much I've been able to sleep this break. If my sister isn't waking me up or I don't set an alarm, I've easily been sleeping 11 or 12 hours a night. What kind of person sleeps this much? I go to bed at a reasonable hour at night and once asleep I seem to fall into this "make up sleep" coma and wake up 12 hours later. No one needs this much sleep. Not even me.

I really don't think I can come up with some convincing way to play off my sleep deprivation in a future job interview. Perhaps I can just add "hibernation skills" to my resume and leave it at that.

back home again in Indiana...

2006-12-16T07:56:00.000-06:00

Well, I've made it through my first semester as a teacher. And I made it back to Indiana.

My winter break began by shipping the kids on home Thursday at 12:30 (when the principal came on the announcements and said that there were no after school activities and all students needed to leave the building I actually laughed out loud. Those kids wouldn't have left faster if the building was actually on fire). After the kiddos ran off we had professional development, something I'm not going to discuss since I want to stay in the holiday spirit. Friday I rushed like crazy to get my winter check-out list done... hi, welcome back to my RA days... and rushed off to the airport to catch a plane to Indiana.

Problem with catching a flight to Indiana is you have to fly through Chicago. Problem with flying through Chicago? Their radar went down. My flight out of Houston was an hour late and my flight out of Chicago was two and a half hours late. Besides the fact that I went the wrong way when I got of the plane at O'Hare and ended up walking basically the entire airport, the whole travel thing didn't go so badly. All of this scheming and traveling was perpetrated to surprise my dear friend and former college roommate Jamie for her graduation. And boy was she surprised. She called me when my friends and I were on the way to her apartment. I kept her talking and then her roommate let me in and I walked into her bedroom still on the phone with her. Yes, I am sneaky.

Now, I'm sitting at good 'ol Bloomington Bagel killing time until I go pick up former roommate number 2 and head over for Jamie's graduation. It is so weird to think I was doing this whole cap and gown thing just seven months ago. It simply feels so long ago. I'm now in charge of children. I'm now a working adult. I'm not totally turned around and passionately committed to the education movement. I love where life takes you. It's so cool.

All of my buddies have come back for the weekend so I'm getting the chance to catch up with a lot of friends I've sadly neglected throughout my whole teacher indoctrination program. Hopefully I can table the up-speak for a bit and act like a normal person (no promises though). Being here just reminds me of how lucky I am. Not only did I grow up in a stable and safe environment, but I had the foresight to see that this place was a possibility for me. I spent four years at a school that my kids can't even fathom. I mean really, most of them can't see to next week, let alone college. The one's who can see to college don't really see out of state or anything more than community college as an option. From the time I was in the seventh grade I knew I wanted to leave Kansas and go out into the world. How different would my life be if I hadn't looked at the world like that? If I had looked at it the way my kids do, all closed in and limited? I want my students to see there is endless possibility in their futures. I want them to know that IU or any school of their choosing can and should be a possibility for them. They should be able to choose to stay in Denver Harbor, not be forced to stay because they see no other future. I just have to figure out how to get them to see all of this.

Perhaps some grand idea will come to me as I schmooze with old friends and IU folks. Maybe the answer is closer than I think. Either way, it's cold and I'm sipping on a warm cup of coffee in a place that definitely feels like home. If good ideas and hope can't come to me here then they can't come anywhere.

this is why we need structure

2006-12-10T16:59:00.000-06:00

Second chances are wonderful. Second chances are what so many of our lives are based on. Second chances can also be one of the most damaging and costly things in the world.

I have often complained about the lack of administrative discipline at my school and I still find it frustrating that lack of control from the top of our school equates to more work near the bottom (the teachers like me and some of my co-workers who make endless calls to parents because we refuse to allow children to simply spiral out of control. Now, I am more disheartened than I am generally mad. My principal and I disagree on discipline on some pretty extreme levels, but my frustration is not in our differing views, but in the effect it has on my students.

I haven't been given the whole background story from my principal, but I've gathered that he had a somewhat troubled youth and believes that if he had not been given the second chances he was, he would not be where he is today. I think this is a wonderful sentiment for an educator to have, but due to the effects it has on his management of our school, I think it is the most damaging.

Because he believes so heavily in second chances and has yet to instill anything resembling the long arm of the law at our school, the students generally don't respect him. Since they don't respect him, many of them don't respect us. What happens when the top of the food chain is the least threatening of all? You're not really scared of the middle of the food chain. Students are loud in the hallways, talk back to teachers and have little or no regard for any kind of rules at our school because they have a 50-50 shot of not getting in trouble. We have a man who runs in school suspension who refuses to take more than 4 students at a time. Students who have him for afternoon detentions play on their cell phones. Our assistant principals have so much paper work that the punishment rarely seems to fit the crime.

My problem with running a school based on second chances is that you are ruining a student's opportunity to do well with their first choice. By insisting on not coming down hard on our worst behavior problems, by maintain an employee who does an awful job with discipline and by continuing to allow an ineffective system of punishment to be used, you allow all the students to spiral out of control.

At McReynolds, as in anywhere, there is a behavior bell-curve. There are students who despite all logic, influence or means will simply be good and follow all the rules. These are the students who defy the typical attitude of a dysfunctional school and simply follow the rules for the sake of following the rules. At my school, these are the students who get beat up. The other end of the bell curve are the students who, for a myriad of reasons, are bound and determined to fight every rule you put in front of them. They are the ones the Principal's secretary knows by name. At my school, they are the ones that everyone knows by name. Everyone left over is in the middle of the bell curve. In middle school, being in the middle of the bell curve means you can go either way. You generally just go the way of the crowd and don't think much of it. In fact, much of the population outside of school is made up of the middle of the bell curve, but that is an entirely different post.

The downfall in my Principal's "second chance" system is that he is allowing the far left of the bell curve set the culture of our school. Where the far left goes, the middle follows. The far right stays well-behaved by default, but they are not given the chance to influence the middle of the curve due to the overtaking by the far left.

I don't think the solution is to kick out everyone falling on the far left, but today I signed two exit slips in a ten minute period. Roy and Nathaniel. Hardly more than general problems in the classroom, these two had been getting into fights and other such problems for about a month. Now, Roy has returned to his old school and Nathaniel has been shipped off to alternative school. These are two shining examples of the middle of the bell curve moving in the wrong direction. These are two students we could have managed had everyone in the building not been too busy chasing around half the student body. Instead, the solution becomes getting rid of them.

This is particularly disheartening for Nathaniel. He was definitely a challenge when he first arrived in my classroom. I often found myself getting frustrated with him when he would sit in class without pen or paper and have to be told more than once to start his work. I soon found that Nathaniel just needed a little bit more coddling than the rest of the group. He could function, but was definitely slower and more distractable than the average student. After placing his notebook in a separate spot in my classroom and incorporating him into all of my examples in class he started improving greatly. Now, he's at an alternative school that I highly doubt will offer him that kind of support. If he's smart, he'll put his head down and stay out of trouble, but Nathaniel (like most 13-year-old boys) isn't always one to operate on a wealth of wisdom.

Nathaniel and Roy worked through a number of chances, none of which would have been necessary if there was more discipline and structure at my school. The thoughts at first seem contradictory. Why do we need more discipline to prevent students from being sent to alternative school? I turn again to the middle of the bell curve. By refusing to offer a strict and consistent discipline plan our school makes the middle of the bell curve move from their first chance to their second, third, fourth and so on. Students who would choose to follow the right are now choosing to follow the left.

The results are an ineffective system of discipline that is costing us, and students like Nathaniel and Roy, much more than we're gaining.

Goodbye Jimmy.

2006-12-05T14:54:00.000-06:00

When I was in the seventh grade I wanted to be a doctor. I was completely ignoring the fact that I hated math and science and still cried when my mom took me to the doctor for a shot. I think I'm very lucky that my parents and teachers allowed for a little freedom in my career path and didn't pin me down to a career of needles and tears.

I'm having a moral dilemma of sorts. Teach For America basically brainwashes you all the way through training to believe you can reach every kid. Every kid has a switch that can be flipped on or off based on the behavior of the teacher. In many ways I think this is strikingly true and I understand the need to convince as many people as possible of it. In my school there is a group of teachers who simply write kids off. They don't bother to call home, look at past test scores or even simply talk to the kid. In their line of thinking there is nothing wrong with the kid other than they just don't care and won't amount to much. It hurts to think that there are people who actually believe a child's entire world and outlook is set before they reach the seventh grade. My students, much like myself at that age, are not solid and complete human beings. They are still discovering who they are, deciding where they belong and what they want. In some ways, this time is the most vital for their future. This time in their education could make or break where their future goes. My roommates both teach high school and the differences between student responsibility are drastic. Do I think that you should be responsible for turning in a unit project that you've heard me talk about every day for the past four weeks? Yes. Do I think that you should be responsible for getting yourself to class and therefore if you skip I'm not going to call your mom? Absolutely not. Although my seventh grade stupidity didn't involve ditching class, I certainly had my moments and my students certainly have theirs. I owe them everything that my teachers gave me: guidance, support, lessons in positive choices and several phone calls home to mom and dad. Unfortunately, more often than not that is not a mentality I see in the classroom management of my co-workers.

This is why losing Jimmy is so much harder. I try everything with my students. I move them, I lecture them, I have heart to hearts, I have their parents come in, I call their grandmas, I send them to the counselor, I find them a buddy, in Isabel's case, I put them on weekly behavior contracts. I've tried everything with Jimmy and nothing has worked. Since the moment he has walked into my classroom the only thing he seems to want to do is disrupt the general environment. It's even more unfortunate that a month and a half ago he was assigned to my fourth hour (by far the most difficult class). Tomorrow he leaves my classroom for good. Part of me feels wonderful about this. The other part of me feels twice as bad.

With all of this, I'm left with the question of whether or not all children can be saved. Jimmy is just 13, but he is far beyond the life experiences of his peers. He was arrested in 5th grade for selling cocaine at his elementary school. He was removed from his home and placed with his grandmother after child and protective services decided he could no longer stay with his mother. He is actually quite smart and charming when he wants to be, but unfortunately something in his life has caused simply stop caring and stop bothering to even try. Is there a point where I am allowed to stop trying too? Do I get justification in my relief at his departure by saying I don't just have Jimmy to help, but 68 other students as well? Jimmy not only made it difficult to help those who needed it, but he made it seem cool not to care, not to try and not to want to learn. This is fine for a child who tests at 7th grade level in the 4th grade, but not as cool for a child who is two to three grade levels behind and doesn't yet realize how hard this fact is going to make the rest of their lives.

I honestly don't know the answer to all these questions. The fact that I'm not dealing with kids who have misdirected medical school dreams, but students who don't understand the utter inability they will have to graduate college with their current knowledge base, is what hurts the most in this situation. Seventh graders should be allowed to fantasize about their futures, but graduating high school shouldn't be a fantasy for any child and selling drugs at 10-years-old shouldn't be a reality.

my cell phone doesn't go on vacation...

2006-11-24T12:19:00.000-06:00

The thing about opting not to get a land line in Texas is that the only number I have to give to people is my cell phone. I take my cell phone with me places. I leave my cell phone on when I sleep. My cell phone rings at 7 a.m. on Wednesday morning when the father of one of my students finally decides to call. I'm on vacation and school is following me.

I guess I'm not really upset about this (although I was not so happy about the 7 a.m. wake up call). Nathaniel is kind of a big pain in my class and the annoying thing is that DeUndre follows him around like a little puppy. So whenever Nathaniel is in trouble, you can bet DeUndre is too. Nathaniel is in trouble a lot. For whatever reason, Nathaniel lives with his Aunt. She is a very nice woman, but she's very very old so her bark is much worse than her bite. Apparently after last week's suspension she had enough and finally got Nathaniel's dad in the mix. He decided to call me on Wednesday to discuss Nathaniel. It's very hard to remember your own name let alone details of one of your students when someone wakes you up at 7 a.m. when you're on vacation. Apparently things are going to be different, apparently Nathaniel is going to improve. At least now I have his dad's cell phone number.

One of my students also called me. Isabel called to see if we had homework over the break. I'm not really sure how she missed the big seventh grade homework packet that went out on the last day of school, but I'm not going to question it. I think she was just lonely. Her parents were working and she was home alone. Her behavior isn't amazingly better, but she is improving. I wonder what her dad will think about her calling a long distance number from her home phone.

My favorite "you can never get away from your job" message came on Thanksgiving day from my little nerd child, Irma. She sent me a text message (many of my students are too shy to call so they text me and then I call them back) wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving and telling me I didn't have to call her back. So cute.

So here it is Friday and I've had plenty of communication from home sweet home to remind me that I really need to get on the lesson planning train and get some work done. The munchkins will be waiting for me when I get back... heck, they're waiting for me now.

Thanksgiving rolls in with a 7th grade victory

2006-11-17T16:16:00.000-06:00

I really can't believe the words I'm about to write: it's Thanksgiving break. In August I never thought this day would come. I have an entire week off school and it feels great. I get to go home, I get to sleep in, I don't have to fight with 12-year-olds for an entire week. Yes!!!

Although Wednesday was very frustrating, I got all the papers graded and my conferences with the students went very well. The kids were really self-directed and I think it helped a lot of my shaky writers to sit down and talk about their writing with me. I hope to see more improvement with our next prompt. Things are going so much better with my classes because they're very interested in the book they're reading. I've got kids who are jumping ahead and kids who are never really interested who stay engaged throughout the whole class period. My tutorials are going a lot better too. I have kids who bring their breakfasts in to my room and hang out, play English games and do tutorials with me. It's fun to have them around. I've put up a zero list of names of kids who haven't turned in their weekly homework packet. If all the zero's get worked off then the class gets a Friday reward. So far 3rd hour is rocking out and have gotten rid of 7 zero's. They also were the only class to turn in ALL their homework today. I think this zero list may just work out for me.

The day rolled to a final conclusion with our academic pep rally. We spent all week working with the seventh grade to get them ready to win the spirit stick. Their cheer was awesome. Beyond that, they self-policed when people started to boo (they lose points for that). It may seem minor, but self-policing from a "follow the herd" seventh grader is a minor miracle. At the end of it all the seventh grade won the spirit stick by one point. It was a great way to go out.

Now I have an entire week to sleep, hang out, plan and generally regain my life. I'm so excited to have the time off. I'm also in total disbelief that I'm not going back to school tomorrow, but getting on a plane to go to Kansas. I love my kids, but I need the break and I never thought it would come. I'm just a few weeks short of being half way done with my first year of teaching. Weird.

I'm very angry right now

2006-11-15T17:04:00.000-06:00

Once again, I'm contemplating how wise it is to be writing in my online journal when I have just sent a text book flinging across my classroom in hopes of minimizing my rage. The textbook will recover, but I'm still very very angry. We make plans here at McReynolds and I get excited about those plans and I commit myself to them and I have a positive attitude about them and then all the plans get shot to hell and no one really seems to care. If you have gathered by now, I'm quite anal retentive. I like plans. I like structure. I like to know what I'm doing, when I'm doing it and why it's important. I am definitely not working with people who feel the same way. Over two weeks ago we made a TAKS writing plan (the written composition test that takes place in February for our 7th graders) that involved them writing a prompt, revising it, us spending a day as a team grading it and then individually conferencing with them over their work. The plan involved us (me and the department chair since Mallory's sub doesn't do time after school) spending our professional development half day doing the grading with some consultants we've been working with. I thought this was a great plan. I thought maybe for once we might follow through. Anyone not getting that I thought wrong?

Instead of having all the time allotted in our professional development day to work on grading the essays, we got an hour. Yep, that's right. One whole hour to look at 165 written pieces of work and give productive feedback. Instead of being released to work on grading, we got to stay in a staff meeting which was 20 percent productive and 80 percent big waste of time. My department chair made it clear that she was going to church tonight and therefore would not be staying after 4 p.m. to grade. Instead of reading the prompts together we are to read them separately and make a list of the number of 1 papers, 2 papers, 3's and 4's. So much for our first significant attempt at working together. I'm frustrated with this school, with my principal and with her (some of her kids only wrote a paragraph because "they're lazy". Maybe if you got off your freaking butt and worked with them at all they would have had more. The only child who gave me less than a page was Jimmy and that was because he refused to write anything. I still think this is my fault). I'm also frustrated with myself. We picked a writing prompt that I thought was good, but as it turns out is rather non-open-ended. This means I will have a harder time showing my kids how to improve their writing because I gave them a prompt that gave them less to work with. This on top of my benchmark scores being considerably lower than my last scores equals not a very good teaching week for Ms. Thompson.

I should really start grading the 65 prompts I need to have read by tomorrow, but right now I'm just too angry to do anything. Some days it just feels like I'm running around in circles. Why is my school so set on teamwork and collaboration when they don't give us any time to do it? Why does my department chair think that complaining about time restraints and lazy children is an effective use of any meeting time? Why do I find it so hard to just express my true opinion to her instead of hiding in my classroom? Maybe we would be able to collaborate if I would just push her to be more proactive. Some days all of this is just so exhaustingly frustrating.

I think I'm going to go down and watch some of my students at their basketball game before I get tempted to have more of my books defy gravity.

10 freaking weeks

2006-11-09T18:13:00.000-06:00

I've been on a roll recently with calling parents. Parent meetings have become my new best friend. Literally. Christiana (another TFA teacher) and I have the same students and we've been tag-teaming them for a couple of weeks to improve behavior. It's actually working. Today I hit my limit with one of my students, Gaby. Gaby is a sweet kid. I can't say I'm overly attached to her because she's basically never in my class. She is one of my two students who is perpetually late to my first hour class. I only have her for first hour every other day (the other day she is in Christina's first hour) and she is literally 20 minutes late every time I see her. She'd been telling me that her brother always dropped her off late. I found out today she's been lying. For 10 weeks. I called her mom in today and she said she'd been dropping her off early for breakfast every day. Seriously, for ten weeks this girl has been sneaking off somewhere to be with someone or do something instead of coming to class. I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm still frustrated at the ones who are getting under my radar. With Gaby, I honestly just had bigger fish to fry, couldn't reach her mom and had to use a translator since she speaks Spanish. It wasn't until now, when she's failing and stilllllllllll.... tardy that she finally got caught.

I'm still trying to figure out a suitable punishment. I'm thinking since she's been coming early to "eat breakfast" she can now come early to work in mine in Christina's classrooms. This way, she won't be confused when the bell rings because she'll already be in our classrooms.

We'll see what goes down with Gaby, but I have to say I've seen some major results with these conferences so far. Alejandro is on task and has stopped wearing bulky sweatshirts. Saul is doing his work, is helpful and respectful. Elsy and Isabel are still being total pains, but a bunch of kids have shaped up. I'm calling home to three more kids tonight.

Other than that, things are a little sketch as far as schedules go. I lost three kids to the GT switch, but two are still on my roster. I've yet to see them. I have no idea who the GT kids are. I also have some random girl on my roster who is in the other teacher's class. Weird. We haven't hired a teacher to replace Mallory. I'm worried about her kids. They're just not getting the support they need. They deserve better than that and it's really frustrating to see.

I've had two Jimmy free days since he cursed at his math teacher yesterday and never made it to my class yesterday. He was suspended today and will be in SRC tomorrow. I can't say I'm sorry. He was being a pain because he'd already read half our book. Now, by the time he gets back to class... we'll be caught up to him! Funny how that works.