Total Physical Response

Religion, again

2008-04-10T21:15:00.002-05:00

Today's Top Serious Fourth Grade Question: If you don't have a religion, then do you just not believe in anything?

My response: I believe in joy. I believe in my own mind and the things I can do. I believe in my relationship with you, and your relationship with me. So I think I believe in a lot of things.

They responded with smiles and we moved on.

(Also, I told them that homosexuals were targeted in the Holocaust along with Jews. "What are homosexuals?" one kid asked. Half the class called out, "GAY!!!")

Apparently, today was Controversy Day in my classroom

2008-03-31T18:24:00.002-05:00

The novel the class is reading had a part in it about a rampaging ox. The kiddos weren't entirely sure what an ox was. I told them. They asked if it was the same as a toro and I said no, they were neutered. So of course they asked what neuter means. Then they asked what testicles were. Sometimes I'm really glad that the administration doesn't pop in randomly.

Later, one of the kids asked what racism is. The class consensus was that they all had some vague idea, but didn't really know for certain. Some of the kids thought that racism was using the n word. Of course, several of them (remember, bilingual class, first year in English) didn't know what the n word was-- and this is where I hesitated. But I answered. One of the girls raised her hand and said, as she was cringing back into her desk with embarrassment, "Ms. Güerita, I'm not trying to be rude, but what does nigger mean?" This whole discussion was making my skin crawl in a way that the testicle talk ever could. I told her that it was a word that has been used for many, many years as a weapon to hurt African Americans (the kids were using that phrase at this point, so I stayed with it), and that it was very hard to give it a specific meaning. THEN one of the kids asked why it was okay for African Americans to call each other the n word, but it was bad for someone else to. One of my boys said he felt like he understood that, but he couldn't put it in words. I let them talk amongst themselves about it, then I told them that that question was very controversial, and that people from every race disagreed about it, including blacks. Then I asked them how they'd feel if a white person came up to them and said, "What's up, raza?" (Yes, J, this one is dedicated to you!) That got several pairs of eyes narrowing, then lighting up. Then we had to get back to prefixes and suffixes.

They did ask me if we could find some reading materials with a racism theme, so if you can think of anything appropriate for late elementary students (non-fiction, novels, short stories, graphic novels, anything), then put it in the comments.

My Classroom, the Dadaist Theater

2008-03-26T19:50:00.004-05:00

Today was out of control, non-stop silly.

I've been very hoarse, so my student teacher has taken over teaching a little early so I don't fuck up my voice any further. So this is the rundown of today:

1. Within 5 minutes of the kiddos coming into the classroom, one of my Special Super Sweethearts, Suly, started singing a song I didn't recognize about killing all the teachers. I could tell it was more something stuck in her head rather than any actual hostility or naughtiness. Well, perhaps some naughtiness. Anyway, she had the trashcan next to her seat, so I walked over, casually picked up both her feet, and deposited them in the trashcan. She immediately quit singing and nearly fell out of her chair laughing.

2. My student teacher was picking on me, telling the kids that they should pester me all day because I can't talk back. So I picked up the conduct sheet and added the student teacher's name to it and a list of her offenses. Mute teacher strikes back!

3. Student teacher was complaining about something or other while her back was to me. My computer monitor is hooked up to a tv screen above my desk. A few moments with google image search, and I put the crybaby image on this post on my screen. I pointed at baby, then at student teacher. Hilarity ensued. I suspect she will attempt retribution. I'm ready.

4. There was a turtle in the classroom. Or rather, there was not a turtle. I refuse to acknowledge this creature's existence. The turtle IS. NOT. THERE.

5. Something else that is not there: food in my classroom. Our lunchtime is ridiculously early, so everyone is hungry by the afternoon. I eat, they eat, I ignore it until they don't pick up their trash. So now and then they will tattle on each other for eating (usually when they want what the other person is eating) and I just look at them blankly and change the subject.

I can't believe how happy they were to see me after the break. I already knew I'd be happy to see them. And I was.

One Hurdle Jumped

2008-03-05T20:04:00.002-06:00

The writing test is done. There were no obvious disasters. I was on my feet eight hours. I am tired as shit.

Tomorrow

2008-03-04T21:03:00.001-06:00

Tomorrow is the first major standardized test of the school year. It's the writing test, which is unique to 4th grade. I want to write more, but I have a headache and my asthma is bothering me. I guess this is what they call stress.

Jesus H. Christ

2008-02-21T22:02:00.001-06:00

Today was chock full of drama. Non-stop. I will have to detail it later because I am too damned tired right now.

Unintentionally Hilarious Spelling

2008-02-19T22:09:00.002-06:00

There was a question on the latest science test about animals that can be trained by humans for some specific tasks (I forget which, I'm not the science teacher). The correct answers were dogs and monkeys. Only, in reading class, there was an article about miniature horses being trained, too. One of the kids who is, shall we say, not one of our best spellers filled in her answer blank as, "dogs and small hores."

Years ago, when I taught private school in Hare Krishna land, one of the students was writing an autobiography. She was, apparently, born in "West Vagina." That was the queen mother of all misspellings. I should've kept it to have it framed.

The Things We Do To Kids

2008-02-15T20:41:00.003-06:00

There is a girl in one of my classes who I will call Shannon. I care about all my students, but there is always a handful of them who I just click with. Shannon is one of those. She's infinitely precious to me. I have pieced together a little bit about her family situation. Her parents are divorced and her family is poverty-stricken. One time the class was reading an adaptation of a Poe short story. I gave them a little background on Poe and mentioned his alcohol abuse. Shannon raised her hand to comment, but instead of commenting on the story, she started talking about how her mother had a boyfriend who would do drugs and drink and then they would all have to take care of him. I had to gently (if abruptly) steer the discussion elsewhere.

Shannon has serious trouble with being wrong. When she misses something in her work, she becomes angry and incredulous. If she is wrong when answering something out loud, she seems disproportionately affected by it. She is intensely competitive. Also, she is exceptionally bright. Hard-working. Aware. Sensitive. Creative. Eager to please.

Yesterday the other teacher who works with her said that Shannon had been very rude during class. She had pitched a fit over getting a bad grade on some math work.

I took Shannon aside and I guess she could sense it was a serious thing, because she became uneasy. I sat her down on the stairs with me and said, "You can miss every question and fail every class, and I will still think you are smart and I will still love you."

She immediately burst into tears. She just lost it on me, sobbing and red-faced and leaning against me. She told me that her father said if she wasn't the best, she'd never get into a good college. She's ten years old and already a hard worker. Her father probably had the best of intentions, saying that to her. He's setting her up for some misery, though.

"I love you because you are Shannon and you are so lovable. Not because you get all As or because you beat everyone else with your scores."

I feel like I am indulging myself here, to an extent. I needed to hear those words when I was ten. And it feels good to say them to her, it feels good to mean it. And, most of all, I think she really needed to hear it.

Another Lesson In Cussing

2008-02-14T19:45:00.003-06:00

I gave a lesson on "dammit" today. Also, "damn" and "goddammit." See, many of my kiddos have no understanding of the connotations of certain words. After Héctor's inadvertent pottymouth episode yesterday, one of my girls dropped something in class and let loose with a "godDAMMIT!" and not one child so much as batted an eye. So I pulled the door shut and said, "Okay, guys, time for a talk. The words "damn," "dammit," and "goddammit" are not school words. You know I don't really have much of a problem with that sort of thing, but I am afraid that one of these days someone from the district office or a teacher who really does care will be around when you say it and you won't understand why they flip out. "Damn" is as bad as saying "maldito," okay?" There was a collective gasp as I said the word. Héctor got to look all wise and say, "I knew that!" I didn't reveal to the class that he had only learned this important fact yesterday.

Last year I gave a similar lesson on "fat-ass."

I told them that I dare them to go home and tell their parents their teacher was cussing in class, because if they did that I'd have to tell them all the delightful things their children had been spouting, unintentionally or not. "WE WON'T!" they chorused. So, yes, a lesson on "dammit."

On an unrelated note, Valentine's Day gives more loot than Xmas! My desk was piled with a veritable mountain of chocolate-related goodness. I am astounded at the sheer amount of truffles I have been awarded. I couldn't carry it all home so there is a small mountain (a hill, I guess) remaining on my desk for tomorrow. I don't feel like writing about this now, but there was also a "pay a dollar to send someone a carnation" sale that pissed me off badly. Ten-year-olds do not need to be sending each other Valentine's Day flowers. It led to hurt feelings and the childish beginnings of calling a girl who inspires your jealousy a slut. They didn't use the word slut, but if they were thirteen or so, they would've. It sucked and I am not going to let it happen in my classroom next year, school policy be damned. God-damned. Dammit.

A Play In One Act

2008-02-13T18:18:00.002-06:00

Scene: After school math tutorials. About eight bilingual students are in the classroom.

Student: [chatter chatter chatter chatter] BASTARD!
Teacher: Héctor! You can't say that at school, that's a naughty word. [ed. note: Can you tell I was not the teacher present?]
Student: (pauses, looks confused) DAMMIT!

Ha. After I heard the story, I explained to him what those words meant in Spanish. He was mortified, not just because he had said those things, but because I told him exactly what they meant in Spanish and I used the full words. I don't think he'll be saying any of that again within earshot of the teachers.

Update

2008-02-09T09:59:00.000-06:00

We had a field trip. It was dumb. I got a sunburn (wtf?!). My students think my inhaler is absolutely fascinating. I use a spacer with it and they have taken to referring to it as la teta. Teta literally means "tit," but it's what people colloquially call a baby bottle. The Big Writing Test is very fucking soon. I have a small handful of students who are going to fail no matter what anyone does to help them, and that is always sad. Maya seems to be improving. She isn't red-eyed every day now. I am still watching Nsima for anything I can report. Anything.

One of my students, Sandra sat with me at lunch during the field trip. We talked a little while and she said, "I don't feel like my father cares about me at all."

Anyone reading my other blog knows I Have Issues. So hearing her say that made me tense immediately. I asked her why she felt that way and she repeated some things he said that sounded careless to my ear. And on the tip of my tongue was, "Oh, of course your father cares about you. I'm sure he loves you very much. You just misunderstood." But, Jumping Christ on a pogo stick, what does that really tell the kid? "You are wrong, wrong, wrong." And what if her father really doesn't care? Mine didn't.

"I care about you very much, Sandra, and I am enjoying your company right now for our lunch. Do you feel like you can tell your father exactly what you told me? You don't have to, but it might be good to let him know how you are feeling instead of keeping it all inside."

I don't know if it was the right thing to say, but it was definitely better than telling her she was wrong.

One of my boys was afraid to go up in a high elevator, but he decided he would do it. I would have had no problem with him remaining below if he wanted. I went with him and held his hand. He said it was really scary and horrible, but he felt okay that he had done it. The other kids were really good to him about it and there was no mockery of his obvious fear. Meanwhile, a boy in another class stayed down below with his mother. He was scared of the elevator too, and cried. She decided to protect him from the terror of the elevator. I see her at school every day and I like her very much. I wish I could tell her how she is completely smothering her son with her need to take care of him. The child is morbidly obese and is having a great deal of trouble doing anything for himself. If she doesn't stop it, he's going to hate her.

The Creeping Crud part 3948207825702834298

2008-01-30T20:55:00.000-06:00

So it seems like half the school is sick. It can't be half, because that'd make the news, but it's roughly a zillion people. Anyway, I have an acute case of the creeping crud myself.

Today some of my students asked me what I wanted them to do, in regards to some classwork. Instead of answering their question for real, I more or less howled at them, "STOP COUGHING ON ME." Yes, I spoke in all caps. They were momentarily speechless with shock, then they seemed to reach a sudden consensus that it was sheer hilarity.

About two minutes later, I accidentally (really!) sneezed all over a table full of kiddos. They were completely wide-eyed with horror and the indignity of it all. I threw my head back and spoke (in all caps again), "VENGEANCE IS MINE, SAITH THE LORD!" Sadly, they did not recognize the quote. And they are almost all católicos, while I am a scandalous non-believer. Tsk.

Today

2008-01-25T16:46:00.000-06:00

I had to make a report to child protective services today about my student, Maya. Her mother indicated to me that there is alcoholism and verbal/emotional abuse in the home. Maya has been very subdued and withdrawn lately, constantly saying that she feels sick to her stomach. She's even vomited. I always feel really shitty when I have to make these reports. Like it's a betrayal. I told Maya's mother that she and her daughter didn't have to deal with this alone. I hope CPS can get them into contact with some kind of help. The mother seems to want help.

Ah, shit. No, no, really. Shit.

2008-01-23T16:04:00.000-06:00

All right, I've had some radio silence here about a student I mentioned awhile back, Nsima. For the longest time, I've just been too disturbed (and irked) about the situation to write anything down about it, but today was kind of the icing on the cake. The shitty icing. On a shitty cake.

I don't know what it is about this class, but they can't keep what's within from coming out. It's not my homeroom, it's the other class I teach. They have had more puking incidents, RIGHT ON MY FLOOR, than I even want to recount here. Smelly puking incidents that the custodians were too busy to come in and clean up for, oh, an hour. Can you study Main Idea while there is a pile of hot, steamy, reeking puke two feet away from you? I didn't think so. Me neither.

Anyway, this didn't happen in my class (it's about time), but rather in my co-teacher's room. I saw some of it with my own horrified eyes, and she filled in the rest.

Nsima asked to go to the restroom in the middle of a lesson. This is a common ploy on her part to wander off. Our standard practice is to tell her to wait until break or at least until the lesson is over, but if it's an emergency, she can go. Only, she didn't go. Well, actually, she DID go. Just not to the bathroom. Yet. She instead crapped her pants. Anyway, she ended up in the restroom and no one had quite figured out what had happened yet. Fast forward to her skipping back into the classroom, carrying something in her hands that was dripping water everywhere. And with, um, messy pants. "What's that in your hand, Nsima?" asks her teacher, while the other students are starting to catch on and freak out. "Oh, that's my underwear!" the cheerful, unabashed response. Turns out, Nsima had some diarrhea and decided to wash her panties out in the sink and return to class. Her teacher sent her down to the nurse and threatened the students with DOOM if they dared speak a word of it further. Then, during the restroom break for the whole class, they got to survey the carnage in the girls' bathroom firsthand. Nsima had let loose all over the toilet and stall, and when she washed her panties in the sink, left several obvious deposits in said sink. All of which I was privileged to witness. Jen, the class' bathroom monitor, is a studious, gentle, mature girl. She gagged, looked at her watch, and told the teacher, "I just can't! I'm... I'm on my break now!" and exited the bathroom.

The punchline (or something) was when Nsima came literally skipping back from the nurse's office in new pants, her wet and soiled panties in a clear plastic bag that she was merrily swinging around. She was absolutely chipper. "Sorry for disrupting your class!" she sings out. She got her things to go home and skipped away, just as gleefully.

Now here is where I quit laughing. This child is so desperate for attention that I honestly think she let loose on purpose. All eyes were focused on her for a time and she is constantly aiming for this state of affairs. I have fears and suspicions about this little girl's life that are too nebulous for me to call in help, but distinct enough that I know something is going on. Something bad. I have called CPS numerous times in my two years with my own classroom, but I can't call until I have something concrete. And I hate feeling like I'm just sitting here, waiting for a tragedy to reveal itself.

On a somewhat related note to the story, when I took my class to a different set of bathrooms for their break, the boys entered their bathroom and immediately started screeching. I walked in and someone had flung shit onto the ceiling. I told the boys I was impressed and to try not to stand under it in case poo flecks fell down from the heavens.

Whatever works

2008-01-21T19:57:00.000-06:00

Someone I know was selling the entire seven seasons of Buffy tolerably cheap, so I bought the whole mess. It makes a most excellent backdrop for grading papers and planning lessons. We have an hour mid-day where I work with two homogenous groups of higher-ability students, a half hour with each. So I'm going to do what I wasn't allowed to do at my last campus: read novels. In fancy teacher talk, it's Literature Circles. Whatever, we're reading novels. Anyway, one group is doing Among the Hidden and the other is doing Tuck Everlasting. When we finish with those, I am hoping we'll be in the routine enough so that the kids can choose their own books to read together. I picked these two novels because I'd read them, there were class sets in the library, and I think the kids will like them both. One dystopian novel and a speculative/fantasy kind of thing. Here's hoping it goes well.

One down...

2008-01-18T20:27:00.000-06:00

This week marked the first round of standardized testing. It was the one I called the little test last year. It went a million times better than at my last campus, but I'm still not feeling so hot about it all. It's me, though. This week was very stressful and I'm having some trouble coping with stress right now. I was really not the kind of teacher I like being, these past five days. I've raised my voice more than I have all year. I've been terribly short with my students. They are a forgiving bunch, but I'm still unhappy with how I've behaved. It's important to me to speak to my students with the same respect as I'd speak to anyone else and I've not lived up to that this week.

I'll do better next week.

Letters I'll Never Send

2008-01-09T19:17:00.000-06:00

Dear Josefina,

I'm sorry that you found your parents' divorce papers in a drawer. I'm pleased, though, that you are bright enough to understand what they are. Good reading comprehension skills. Anyhow, I'm having a meltdown of my own here. You see, when I was a kid, I thought that by age 30 I'd have my shit together. In fact, I thought I'd have it together long before 30. I thought that I'd get married to someone as brilliant as I was at about 25, have kids a year or two later, have a house, and have a good job. I have one of those things, so I guess I managed to do something right. But my point is, Josi, that it would be a good lesson to learn that adults are fallible and make really awful decisions, just like kids.

Also, I'm sorry that you know about your dad's sex life, and that he hasn't been faithful to your mom. When I was your age, my father was in the throes of his alcoholism and there were some nights he didn't come home. I knew that meant a couple of things: he wrecked the car and died, or he was with someone who wasn't my mother. Regardless of how alienated I was from my mother, I hurt for her. And I hurt for me, too. I mean, if he could fall out of love with my mom and run around with some woman I didn't even know, did that mean that he could just have new kids, too? And not want me anymore? Well, Josi, maybe it does mean that. But that's not your fault. If your dad doesn't know what a great kid you are, then he doesn't deserve you. You won't believe that, now, but maybe someday you can. I've only had you half a year, and I love you.

I'm sorry your dad's girlfriend is a horrible person, too. When you told me that she had been throwing dog shit at (and in, wtf?) your house, I admit that I wanted to do this nameless, faceless woman a little violence on your behalf. Instead, I'll just repeat what I told you today: Never forget how it feels to see a woman hurt another woman over a man. Or for any reason. Because if you remember that, then maybe you won't perpetuate it. You are such a loving person, Josi, and I hope you hold onto that.

Baby, it's okay to be scared, and it's okay to be really, really mad at both your parents. And it's okay to cry as much as you need to. And you aren't betraying anyone by telling me. Thank you for trusting me and loving me back.

Love,
tu maestra

Misc.

2007-09-23T15:33:00.001-05:00

I really, really like my co-workers. I like them more than I thought you could like people you work with. Also, they make good margaritas.

One of the teachers at my school is out as gay. He brings his partner to staff get-togethers like Xmas parties and whatnot. I am ridiculously happy about this.

I am still in love with my students. But that happens every year. I do have my, um, moments, though. Last week had some of those moments.

I have two classes. I teach reading, language arts, and social studies to my homeroom. My homeroom is the bilingual class. Then my class goes to science and math and I teach the same subjects to the ESL/mixed class. My homeroom has a reputation for being angelic. The ESL class is the roughest class in 4th grade. I don't know what it is, it's just a wild group with more than its share of quirky kids.

One of the quirky ones is Nsima. The girl just can't seem to function in the classroom. She habitually loses things, but it's beyond absent-mindedness or even immaturity. I can hand her a paper and ask her to put it in the backpack right at her feet. She'll then lose that paper on the way from her hand to the backpack. She loses everything. I find her things all over my classroom, even in the sink. It's immensely frustrating. I even gave her a special bin to keep under her chair to store her things in. But it hasn't helped. She also has almost zero impulse control and doesn't get any social cues. She's pretty much a basket case and the other children just can't stand to be around her.

Last week at recess, a bunch of kids in Nsima's class came running up to me and their other teacher, freaking out and saying that Nsima had bitten Lydia on the thigh. I looked down at Lydia's pants and, sure enough, there was a ring of saliva on them, along with red residue from the hot chips all the kids eat. Nsima hadn't made it up to us yet, and before we could even look for her, another group of kids started howling that she'd slapped a boy. We hauled Nsima to the office.

It turned out that the kids had made up the biting incident, complete with fabricating evidence on Lydia's pants. She really did slap another child though, a boy who had nothing to do with the set up. Fully half the class was involved. The administrator who had to deal with the whole mess left right after giving them all detention. She just went home. I can't say I blame her.

Yesterday I had my very first puking incident. Right in the middle of a test, a kid in the ESL class just started projectile vomiting all over the fucking place. It was amazing. It was some kind of super-puke, I swear it was. I am not very squeamish about that particular thing, but one whiff of it sent me gagging uncontrollably. I really thought I was going to add to the mess.

Next week has to be better.

Quick Post

2007-09-23T00:46:00.000-05:00

I really need to update this thing for real, but it's late and I have a bit of alcohol in me, so I'll just say this:

There are kids whose first language is Spanish, but their parents chose to opt out of putting their child in the bilingual program. We call them waiver kids, since their folks sign a waiver. Anecdotally speaking, since I don't know the research, these kids are worse off academically (especially in language) than the kids who went through the bilingual program. Even though the bilingual program kids had pre-K through 3rd grade in almost all Spanish, their English is better than the kids who, despite speaking Spanish, were placed in an all-English classroom for those years.

That pretty much tells me that, flawed though the bilingual program may be, it is doing its job.

Two Weeks Down

2007-09-09T13:25:00.000-05:00

Two weeks of non-stop action. I come home and my SI joint is screaming, but what the hell, right?

I can't stop crowing about how much I love my new campus. I'm constantly astounded by the difference it makes when a student's parents are actively involved in their children's education. My school is, like the previous campus, a Title I school, which means it serves a large population of students in poverty. It's also a school populated overwhelmingly by racial minorities. But even amongst the poorest kids, there isn't the same feeling of despair and desperation.

And my kids are smart. I have almost 1/3 gifted/talented kids in my class, and those are just the ones who have been identified officially. But, aside from that, they are all very aware, inquisitive, and alert. They ask a lot of questions. Pertinent questions. They notice everything. I have had to reset my expectations completely.

This year is going to rock. I am so incredibly happy.

Pet Peeve

2007-08-28T22:31:00.000-05:00

I will write a real post about my first week with my new kiddos soon. As for now, I'm up way past my bedtime, so I'll just say what's on my mind.

I am so fucking sick of ignorant, racist, privileged shit-for-brains people criticizing bilingual education. They see brown children with vowels on the end of their names and all the sudden they start howling about how Learning English Must Be Mandatory Because THIS IS AMERICA!!11eleventyone! "Bi" means "two." Two languages. In this district, English and Spanish. If a bilingual program is properly instructed, students exit the program fluent in BOTH languages. My current students are almost all fluent in both. Those who are less fluent are at least conversational enough to hold their own with a native speaker. Every single child wants to learn English, and every single child IS learning English.

If you can't discuss at least three variations on the bilingual model of education, then don't fucking comment on the subject at all. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

Kids and Laptops

2007-08-26T18:47:00.001-05:00

There is an update on 60 Minutes right now about the One Laptop Per Child program. I am a big ol' sap (and a geek) because watching it makes me just a teensy bit teary-eyed. I wish that the kiddos at my former campus could be a part of this project.

They just said that next year the program will be available in the US! The caveat is that when you buy one, you have to buy two. One for your kid, and one for a child in a poor country. I wonder if there will be exceptions for US children attending Title I schools. I hope so.

I know there are cricitisms regarding the project, but I'm having trouble being critical, for once. I know what it's like to grow up thinking that the world is passing you by, and that by the time you are grown up enough to leave your homeland, you'll be so hopelessly behind that catching up won't ever be possible. I'll be watching how this goes, and maybe a kiddo will be getting a new laptop. From me.

Countdown: 6 Days

2007-08-21T17:14:00.000-05:00

School starts for the kiddos in less than a week and I am completely unprepared. I know, you're shocked. I'm still loving my new campus. I hope the honeymoon is never over. But, seriously, teachers at this school actually read. Books. If I mention an article on education I read, a lot of times someone else has read it too! Same with children's books! I feel like I'm on a campus where I can learn things from other people. The last campus... not so much.

On a unrelated note (well, maybe related, I was shopping for school clothes), I set foot into a Gap store for the first time in my entire life last weekend. My friend looked at me funny today when I said that.

I am practically peeing my pants here

2007-08-09T16:52:00.000-05:00

... with glee, that is. GLEE.

My new campus is a whole slew of adjectives that boil down to awesomeness. I haven't seen a single rat! Or cockroach!

Okay, y'all. I am really excited about the new school year. Yesterday, two things happened. I will call them Happy Event A and Happy Event B.

Happy Event A: I saw my new classroom. I had to struggle not to bounce up and down while anyone was looking. Our grade levels are organized into clusters. So to get to 4th grade you open a door and enter a large common area. It has big benches, a TV, nice bulletin boards, etc. The classroom doors all open to the grade level common area. It's bright, spacious, and just really friendly looking. The classes all have reading lofts! Big ones! They also have counter space with an industrial double sink. Anyone who has ever taught kiddos will understand the GLEE factor here. GLEE. And my bulletin boards have already been covered with fabric and borders and stuff. That saves me hours of being annoyed! GLEE!

Happy Event B: I went through training with a woman I like very much. She has the same intellectual capacity and many of the same leanings as I do, but is completely different in personality. This, of course, means I really, really like talking to her. She went through a terrible year last year as she is an immigrant and, like most immigrants in the certification program, could not get a fucking work visa. A process that should have taken a couple weeks took an entire year for her. But she persevered and went through the program courses, even though she couldn't teach. She got her visa a couple weeks ago, finally, and has been feeling kind of frantic about finding a position so late in the summer. A position opened suddenly and unexpectedly in my cluster when the person I was to be teaming with decided not to return this year. I gave the administration her name, she interviewed, and she's in. She's going to be teaching math and science, and I'll be doing reading, writing, and social studies, while we rotate between two groups of kiddos. I am now extra super happy.

This school differs fundamentally from my campus last year in that it is a magnet school. That means students have to apply to get in, and are selected via lottery. They are there because they want to be there. From what one of my co-workers says, some of these kids and their families resort to staggering measures to get to school every day. So, while it's still a school that serves high poverty students, it's a school for kids who really, really want to be there.

Did I mention that the building is beautiful?

Goodbyes

2007-06-27T20:16:00.000-05:00

I said goodbye to a lot of people today, but the one that's catching in my throat is Esperanza. I'm happy to say that she has been promoted to 5th grade. All my kids were, in the end. After school we went and sat on the bench together and she put her arms around me and laid her head on my shoulder and just held on for awhile. I love that girl so much. I hope she makes it out into the world and has the best of lives. They say there's one every year who is just yours, somehow. Espi was mine. I hope I have a daughter someday, and I hope she's at least a little like Esperanza.

The End of Days

2007-06-25T20:03:00.000-05:00

Today my principal and I were talking and the subject of identity theft came up. She used a phrase that immediately set off my Jeezer Alert System. Beep beep cashless society beep beep. Oh dear, I thought, here it comes. And then she said it: In the bible, before there was even cash money like today, they predicted this. This is all End Times stuff, right here and now. I wanted to ask her to name the verse. I also wanted to ask her why she was discussing this with me, her employee, an atheist, at work.

Despite some of the issues I've had on my campus, I personally like my principal. When I was a cult member, I was deeply hurt by people not accepting my faith. But it works both ways. She knows I'm adamantly not religious. But because of the work environment and our relationship as superior and subordinate, I have to entertain her comments. It's hideously disrespectful and I resent it.

On a totally unrelated note: Holy, shit, I'm watching HBO's Big Love, and this kid on the show is getting a straight edge tattoo on his back. I am laughing so hard. He's pressuring another kid to "pledge" straight edge. Giggle.

Sometimes I really wonder...

2007-06-18T15:21:00.000-05:00

... how administrators can get away with some of the things they do.

Summer school, with about a week and a half left to go, has been a fiasco. I am teaching the class of bilingual 3rd graders who are about to enter an transitional, almost all-English 4th grade in which they will have to pass their standardized tests (Reading, Writing, and Math) all in English. The group I had last year were pretty strong in their English ability, but for some reason this group has maybe four kids who are anywhere close to ready for this transition. I am also, in the afternoon, teaching 4th grade reading for a group that includes a couple of enrichment students, a whole bunch of special ed. students, and a hell of a lot of kids who will fail the 4th grade if they don't do well in summer school.

It isn't going so well.

Because of this school's high turnover rate (I'm not the only teacher finding a new campus next year), they are having to interview to fill several positions. But apparently they are completely unable to conduct any interview that isn't being done by committee. In other words, for the first two weeks of summer school (which is a 20 day session), teachers were being pulled out of their classes every day, for hours at a time, to sit in on interviews. I had to watch other peoples' classes as well as attempt to teach my own, and my class is already at maximum capacity. They were scrambling so hard to cover the classes during these interviews that at one point, they had a staff member's fifteen year old daughter doing it. This week, without any warning, one of our teachers was pulled for a week-long conference in another city. They haven't found a substitute. I was given his class today. As well as my own. If I were a parent of a child who, if they don't pass the test at the end of the session, will be retained, I'd be raising hell.

2007-06-15T23:10:00.001-05:00

Oh, yeah, I'm teaching summer school. Yes, I am a masochist.

How To Ruin My Day...

2007-06-15T18:03:00.000-05:00

... in one easy step:

Don't hire a sub for a teacher who is out that day. Today sucked.

It's over.

2007-05-24T19:34:00.001-05:00

Today was the last day of school for the students. It was all just a whirlwind for me. All last night I was up with a dying kitten. She didn't make it and it was a pretty painful, horrible death. My students knew I had a kitten who was sick. When I came into school this morning a little teary-eyed, my kiddos figured out what had happened and some of them started crying in sympathy. They wrote me little "cheer up" type notes on the sly. They are such great kids, and I will miss them all so much.

Well...

2007-05-18T17:47:00.000-05:00

I have been hired at a new campus, so I won't be returning to the same school next year. I didn't actively search for a new position, but I put in applications at two schools I had my eye on before I even moved to this district. One of them called me within the hour. So next year, I will be teaching 4th grade ESL in one of the best public schools in my region. I'm kind of floored right now. This could be a very good thing for my career. I'll be teaching at the kind of school I'd like my own future children to attend.

I am pretty broken up about leaving where I teach now, despite everything. I have some other things to talk about, but I'll leave it at this, for right now.

In Brief

2007-05-12T14:54:00.000-05:00

I interviewed at another school, a school I wanted to teach at even before I moved to this state. I have a second interview on Monday. However, my principal asked me directly if my intentions for next year had changed, or if I was looking to transfer, so I had to answer her truthfully. I can tell she's angry. She has already done something I consider retaliatory in nature, and that really sucks for me. I had mixed feelings about the possibility of going to the other campus, but now I don't. I want to go there.

In other news, I had a meeting about Isaiah (aka Stabbity), with his mother in attendance. Hooboy. That will have to be a whole other entry when I'm not on my way out the door.

Addendum

2007-05-06T18:22:00.000-05:00

On a brighter note, my divorce was final last Friday. This is the Best Thing Ever.

Why Title I Schools Cannot Keep Teachers

2007-05-06T17:53:00.000-05:00

I was ---this close--- to quitting last week. Not quitting teaching, but quitting at my school. After two weeks, I am still so angry I can hardly type this out. The bottom line is that I will be staying one more year at this campus and I will be spending all next year scoping out new schools and trying to make some connections. I am frustrated and so, so angry. Here is what happened:

I may have explained this before, but I don't feel like looking back at old entries. There are two standardized tests (well, more than two, but for the purposes of this post...) that the students take. One, the Big Test, is criterion-referenced. That means that it tests them on what they know and they pass or fail. Period. Special ed students take it on the grade level as stated in their Individual Education Plan (IEP). So if they are reading on a kindergarten level, that's where they will test. Then there is the Little Test. It is more of a local thing, but it's norm-referenced. Students are ranked by percentile, against other students on their grade level. Special ed students take the same test as anyone else.

All this translates to: Ms. Güerita is majorly fucked.

Fourth grade has been shuffled around a bit, and it ended up that 75% of my class roster consists of special needs students. Seriously. Exactly 75%. Our school bills itself as an "inclusion school." That means that special education students are educated in the regular classroom. Only, this is patently false. At the beginning of the year, I tried very hard to keep the special ed students in my classroom. I planned extensively around them so that our activities could include them in meaningful ways. I was chastised for it. From the months of October until March, the special education students were pulled from my classroom (with the exception of Corazon, who I kicked and screamed to keep). I was, simply put, not permitted to instruct the special ed students.

My Little Test scores were, predictably, dismal. When you have a class of almost all special needs students, they aren't going to score on grade level, much less above grade level.

At the beginning of April, we began receiving our formal end-of-the-year performance reviews. They have two parts. The first is based on direct principal observation in our classroom. I received my review and it was stellar. In several areas, I was ranked as exceeding expectations. The principal told me I was doing everything right and was doing a great job, she was really happy with me. I left the post-review interview feeling really good about the year and looking forward to next year.

Two weeks ago, we received the second half of our reviews. This half is based on policy, procedure, alignment of objectives and teaching, etc. She called me in for the interview and the first thing I saw was on the review form, she had marked me as below expectations in several areas. I was shocked. She explained to me that my Little Test scores were a huge disappointment and were way, way too low. I told her flat out that I didn't think it was a fair assessment, that I have almost entirely special ed students and, furthermore, I hadn't even been permitted to teach those students for five months.

Her response was pretty much, "Well, sorry, but this is how it is."

Now I know why this school, and other high poverty schools, have such sky high turnover rates with their staff. It isn't the kids or even the neighborhoods. It's shit like this. It is hurting my career to stay at this school. Other principals, when I try to transfer, will look at my performance reviews and see a mess of "below expectations" and they won't hire me. If I ever try to move on to be, say, a reading specialist or a bilingual content specialist, they will see that I failed to meet basic expectations and I won't be considered a good candidate. This goes in my permanent file. With the new proposed rules regarding teacher performance, if I keep getting these kinds of reviews, I can be summarily dismissed.

I have had a very good relationship with my principal all year, until now. I feel personally betrayed. She has been telling me all year how well I have been doing. I have received nothing but excellent reviews from my principal, mentor, and certification supervisor. And now this.

There are two teachers leaving the school already. I am teaching one more year there, and then moving on.

2007-04-02T20:45:00.000-05:00

Big Testing starts in just a few days.

In the mean time, since spring break the special education kids have been in full inclusion mode. That means that I have them during all of my reading and language arts classes. It also means I am put in a terrible, unfair position and so are those kids. I think I've mentioned here before, I have students who are pretty much every grade level of work, from pre-K to 4th. In addition to that, I have students with all levels of English competency. The magic word that everyone throws around all the time is "modifications." It means that you take the regular 4th grade work and change it up some to make it do-able for the special education students. But the reality is that I have to service students on so many levels that it just isn't working. And just as bad as the academic side is that there are a lot of kids in special education with serious behavior problems. I have two students who I feel should not be in a regular classroom, ever. I spend a great deal of my instructional time having to re-direct them. There is a school-wide behavior plan we have to follow that, for these kids, essentially means that I spend all my time warning, relocating, isolating, calling parents, etc.

All of this while I am supposed to be preparing my students to take the reading standardized test, which, frankly, is hard as hell.

The model the district is moving towards is having nothing but full inclusion for special education, all the time. I just don't know what to do. I don't think that when they came up with that stuff they figured we'd have schools with 50% of a grade level in special ed.

I never do anything special with my gifted/talented students. I don't have time. It makes me feel sort of sick when I think about it.

I feel kinda nuts

2007-03-08T20:14:00.000-06:00

Spring break starts Saturday and not a single fucking moment too soon.

The good: My fifth grade reading class passed the hell out of their state reading test. I had four fails, and two are new students who do not count against me. Our school in general did very, very well on the testing and that is good for everyone.

The bad: I am feeling completely, horribly overwhelmed by work. In so many ways.

The ugly: Things amongst my co-workers are strained past the breaking point. It's a big part of why I have not updated this blog in awhile, because it's bothering me a lot, but I don't want to talk about it even anonymously.

The sad: My Esperanza is having serious emotional and academic trouble again. She is failing in reading, despite being very capable, and is creating drama in the classroom. Tonight she called me, weeping, and said that her mother had left her. She is cared for primarily by her grandmother, and it looks like her mom just ditched them all. I hope that isn't the case. I really care about this child but her family and emotional situation is beyond what I assist with. I was hoping the year could go by without having to call child protective services.

Too tired to even yawn

2007-02-19T20:08:00.000-06:00

Suspended two kids today. Fighting. I had to physically break it up and ended up taking some of the blows. The other kids were impressed. Sent two other kids to the office for behaving like shitheads. None of these kids were my homeroom. I'm stuck with dealing with everyone else's students. Goddammit.

My kids take their first in a battery of standardized tests tomorrow. Writing. I feel like I can scarcely breathe.

It is 8pm and I am going the fuck to bed.

Well howdy to you too!

2007-02-13T18:03:00.000-06:00

Right as class begun this morning (I had the entire 4th grade, minus special ed, again), Edgar shouted, "I'm gonna fuck you in the ass!" to no one in particular. This kind of awesome hush descended over the classroom. I guess they thought I was going to erupt. I was too taken aback to do anything but call one of our admins to come get him. He didn't yell it out at anyone in particular, but there was a weird note of triumph in his voice. Yesterday, I had to write him up for running and jumping at the wall in the hallway and turning a backflip. Today he got suspended. It was sort of a shit day all around.

This week has been depressing

2007-02-07T21:20:00.000-06:00

My kids think Martin Luther King, Jr. freed the slaves. They don't know what the Constitution is, much less a constitutional amendment. They don't know what Congress is or what it does. They don't know what Jews are, either, and I had a hell of a time trying to explain what anti-Semitism is.

I am so frustrated and saddened by all this that I don't know what to do. I have some vague idea in my mind where I work with the kids brainstorming about the stuff they do know, because I am afraid I made them feel kind of stupid with my incredulity about what they didn't know. And that wasn't my intention at all. I'm just angry that they haven't been taught these things. It's not fair. So much of my teaching experience has involved me wanting to stomp my feet and cry about how fucking unfair everything is.

Speaking of unfair, they take their Major Writing Test next week.

Sick Day Blues

2007-01-31T18:44:00.000-06:00

Last Friday, one of my students went home sick with fever, sore throat, etc. By Friday night, I had a scratchy throat. I went in to teach Saturday school and, aside from my sore throat, the only symptom I could pinpoint that I had was that I felt insane. One of the kiddos stared at me and said, "Ms. Güerita, you look like you fixin' ta cry." I immediately burst into tears. I made it to the end of the session and my friend/co-worker was going to drive me home. Only, she herded me near the principal's office on a pretense and they all ambushed me and made me to go the emergency care. I ended up sobbing in front of everyone and I might be a little mortified.

At the emergency care, they did exactly what I predicted and ran a strep test and wrote me a scrip for antibiotics. I was negative for strep, so the antibiotics were of no use. I was pronounced a sad victim of the flu and told to lie down and drink a lot and please make your co-pay now. I am so broke. At least I know why I felt insane. My temperature was 102.

Anyway, I meant to update this thing days ago, but today is the first day I have been able to walk. I am not going to school until Friday. Esperanza just called me because she does not believe the other teachers' updates on my wellbeing and needed to check for herself. She is very impressed by my croaking voice and says she will give a full report to the 4th grade. I love that kid.

Last week, pre-plague, was interesting. We had a serious Mean Girls problem with the girls. It culminated with me rounding up all the girls in 4th grade during ancillary and taking them to my room for a discussion. I told them some of the things other girls had said to me/about me when I was their age, and then I told them some of the horrible things I had said to/about other girls in return. And how ashamed I was and how much I regretted it. I don't think anyone has ever tried this particular tactic on them before. Half seemed shocked, and the other half cried. They all ended up apologizing and Esperanza (who was, of course, at the center of the conflict) wrote me a letter the next day. The letter was the most interesting part, for me. She said that she liked how I try to help them solve their problems instead of just getting them in trouble. I don't think that my discussion with them was particularly life-altering or inspiring or anything, but that was a nice letter to get.

I just got a phone call informing me that three of my kiddos were suspended today. Dammit.

Request

2007-01-21T07:18:00.000-06:00

On top of teaching 4th grade, I teach the 5th grade reading and language arts. As I mentioned a couple months ago, I am discouraged by the powers that be from teaching novels. Instead of using nothing but short, boring test prep passages, I would like to use songs. I used Nick Cave's Where the Wild Roses Grow to teach the elements of a narrrative and point of view. Next week I'm using the Decemberists Yankee Bayonet and The Mariner's Revenge to teach drawing inferences and conclusions. The latter has a semi-naughty word in it that none of the kids will be able to pick up by listening and I could just omit from the lyric sheet. I hate it that I have to do that, but it's either that or not use the song.

So my request is this: Do you know of any songs that tell stories? Songs that I could use in a classroom full of 5th graders, that would be enjoyable but not get me in trouble? I like using the indie rock ballads a lot because they'd never hear anything like that otherwise. But I'd also love to find some hiphop I could use. So far, every time I think I find a good hiphop song, there ends up being something in the language that I can't cover up that disqualifies it. Anyway, I'd love to see some suggestions. Anything that keeps the kids from having to read about Milton Snavely Hershey or whatever.

Made my goddamn week!

2007-01-14T08:57:00.000-06:00

I mentioned Tara in other entries. She's not my student, technically, she's on the other 4th grade teacher's roster. But that doesn't mean a thing. I am pretty much teaching the entire 4th grade now. Anyway, Tara is almost 13 and this is her third time in 4th grade. She has a very obvious learning disability.

She was tested (finally!) and since her teacher was performing administrative duties, I was called down to the meeting with her mother and the special ed committee to discuss the results and her placement. I have no idea wtf I am doing at these meetings. Seriously, the special ed system and procedures are draconian and strange. There are so many legal issues to deal with. So I always feel like I'm talking out my ass. A few minutes into the meeting, after we were informed that Tara did indeed qualify for special services, I said, "I have no idea if this is inappropriate, but since she qualifies for resource, can't we advance her to her own grade level and finally put her in middle school where she belongs?" Her mother actually cheered. It got kind of quiet for a little bit, and then the committee members said they didn't see why that would be a problem.

Tara starts middle school Tuesday. They let me be the one to tell her. I took her out in the hall and she started crying and then reached out and hugged me. She has a chance to make it through high school, now. Sometimes things work out.

Sometimes

2007-01-05T19:34:00.000-06:00

I am having one of those days where I think about my job and start trembling and my eyes start tearing up. I can't get over this fucking rat thing. This isn't one rat. Or two. Or twenty. This is a goddamn motherfucking RAT COLONY. We have roaches, too. I saw some on the staircase today. WTF is going to happen if one of my kiddos gets bitten? Our principal is genuinely phobic of rodents and she is about to lose it. She is doing everything she can to eliminate the problem. It's just that rat-removal is not exactly her field of expertise, nor should it have to be. I am not a baby about creepy crawlies, but this is a fucking rat army that produces turds that make me wonder exactly how big are the rats that only come out at night.

We have a significant number of kiddos who I despair over them passing the standardized testing that is coming up next month. It seems like every week I learn something new about the intricacies of the testing system and I can't help but conclude that the system is just set up to ensure that the maximum number of students fall on their asses. Here is the latest example: The standardized testing in math is not simply numbers. It is heavily based on using reading comprehension skills to solve complex, often multi-step word problems. When a student is working far, far below their grade level and is experiencing serious difficulties, we refer them for diagnostic testing. This serves two purposes. First, the student will get the help and specialized services they need. Second, it protects the school from not meeting their AYP (adequate yearly progress) and accountability standards when the child fails a test that they simply did not have the ability to pass. The problem is that we are having kids bounce right back from the diagnostic testing with the verdict that they are doing just fine in math. The reason? The diagnostic testing is nothing like the standardized testing. It's all straight up simple numbers operations, no reading comprehension necessary. So the kids pass the diagnostics, then fail the hell out of the high stakes standardized tests. This is just one of the many ways the educational system sets these kids up for miserable failures.

Every Saturday from now until... April?... we are having Saturday school. I feel a little unhinged at this point.

My campus the horror flick

2007-01-04T19:36:00.000-06:00

Our campus is full of rats. No, this isn't an oh so (un)clever metaphor or anything like that. The buildings are massively rat infested. It's so bad that they are devouring (and shitting all over) classroom materials, like books. Since rats can't control their bladders, they are pissing all over everything as they crawl around. I've seen them. The kids have seen them. Everyone has seen the fucking rats. They have no fear of humans. We can't keep any food in our rooms, even packaged items stored in thick bins. The rats chew through them. They eat right through tupperware, no matter how sturdy.

They eat they kids' art work.

It's finally gotten bad enough that our district has made it a priority to exterminate. Usually it takes a long time for the district to send someone, but we got someone today. He said our rats drag food along with them and hoard it in hidden places. It all gives me crazy visions inspired by role-playing games of wererats with disease-spreading bite attacks.

My kiddos don't deserve to go to school with rats. They don't deserve to live in a neighborhood that is so rat-infested, either, but, goddammit, school is their haven and it shouldn't have a teeming mass of shitting rodentia.

Bien orgullosa de ella

2007-01-01T20:46:00.000-06:00

Esperanza calls me every break/holiday. She called today to tell me she missed me and missed school. She did all her homework and checked it to make sure it was her best work. For Christmas, she got a telescope and has been using it to look at the moon. It's almost a full moon, she told me, and it's just so big in the sky.

I love her so much my chest is aching with it.

Extracurricular

2006-12-24T19:34:00.000-06:00

Being alone isn't always bad. It's stark, though. There is a small stack of divorce papers sitting at my side, signed, waiting to be filed next week. There is something very white and clean and good about them. But stark.

I don't have any roots here. Any family. I left my family when I was still a minor, and never went back. I fled the mountains, the hills and hollers, went back, fled, went back again, and now I am far, far away, never to return as anything but a visitor. I have friends here in The Big City, but nothing that runs too deep, I don't think.

There are two very hard things about leaving a cult. One is admitting that you were wrong, wrong about everything. The other is suddenly having no community. My community dropped out from under me and I've never found anything to replace it. All those years that people spend, during their late teens and then twenties, building up their personal and professional lives, I lost those years. I lost them all.

Don't pray for me

2006-12-20T04:17:00.000-06:00

It's 4am and I woke up for some reason.

The Jesus stuff at work is making me insane. I don't know why people seem to think it's acceptable to insert their faith into every conversation (both casual and in formal meetings) we have. For all the talk we have about tolerance and diversity, I'm not really feeling it.

Typical Conversation (a template, if you will):

Co-worker: La la la God's plan for me, la la God led me to say this, la la la there's a bigger plan.

Me: Insert statement of not believing in any religion/deity/whatever here.

Co-worker: Oh, I don't believe you. You're just going through a phase or something. I will most certainly be praying for you.

Me: ...

I wonder what would happen if I said I thought all their Jesus stuff was just a cute little phase and that no one really bought any of that crap about the virgin getting knocked and that I would so totally be having my next ten abortions in their name. By "I wonder what would happen" I mean "How long would it be until I were hauled into the principal's office?"

We have not had a single faculty meeting where someone didn't bring up religious matters. Not one. I'm feeling pretty damned surly about it and I know if I said anything, no matter how respectfully phrased, everyone would look on me like I were some sort of crazed puppy-killer. But I'm pretty pissed off that I'm expected to have some deep respect for their religion when they think it's acceptable to tell a thirty year old woman that her non-belief is ridiculous and that they'll be exercising their religious faith upon her whether she likes it or not.

Gratitude

2006-12-17T21:13:00.000-06:00

When my father was a kid, the government sent (Americorps) VISTA workers to West Virginia to help the poor, benighted hillbillies. Denise Giardina's The Unquiet Earth has a scene where aid workers come to the protagonist's school and distribute shoes to the poor, needy students. The kids hate the shoes and don't act properly grateful.

I was thinking about that scene all last week, while my kids were getting presents donated by local businesses. One event wasn't bad at all, it was put on by people of color who were comfortable with the kids. The biggest gifts were presented to the kids like they were things they had won (even though the reality was that we teachers selected the poorest kids to receive the most extravagant items).The kids had to, in a sense, earn their gifts by writing an essay to qualify for the event. It was exciting and didn't injure the kids' dignity. The other biggest gift event, however, wasn't quite like that. All my kids, plus all the kids in their grade and another grade, were given the same gift item. It was nice enough, if unimaginative. The people from the company dressed up all Christmassy and handed out the presents and smiled and took pictures. It was part of my duty to make sure every child said thank you and to try to drum up excitement and holiday cheer and all that. I wasn't very good at that part, I guess. My kids were as polite as they knew how to be, but acted subdued, almost silent. For one thing, I think it was more white people than they'd ever seen at the school before. The kids seem to be kind of intimidated by lots of white folks. It gave me a weird pang to see them get reminded over and over about how grateful they had to be for the gifts. When they had to write their thank you notes to the business, more than a few of the notes had a distinct tinge of sarcasm to them that I'm not sure the recipients will pick up on.

Gratitude can be a kind of sickness. It can make your forehead sweat and your guts twist. It can really hurt to always be in the position of having to be so fucking grateful for handouts, especially handouts from people who really didn't do anything special to get put in the position of the great benefactor. They just happened to be born into privilege, when you just weren't. When you're poor, there are always things that you can't afford to turn down. You have to swallow your pride and accept the handout, even when it comes from someone you hate, someone who hurts you or your community. Or just from someone who has no understanding of you and the only dealing they ever have with people like you is when they are doing charity.

Extracurricular

2006-12-16T12:46:00.000-06:00

Two years ago around this time, I was in Spain, then Germany. I think I'm always going to miss the castañas and the glühwein.

I remember when I was a kid and none of those places seemed exactly real. Or if they were real, they weren't for people like me. I see this in my students, too. When I tell them I lived in Spain, they get the same look I think I used to get when my French teacher told me about visiting Provence. I think the only place my students have ever been, other than where they live now, is Mexico. But some have never been there, either. Quite a few of them have never seen the ocean. I didn't see it until I was ten.

I'm looking at a winter break alone and I'm trying to tell myself that it will be nice to have a couple of weeks to rest or whatever. But, like someone pointed out to me last week, I'm thirty years old and living on my own for the first time.

Hazards I didn't even think about

2006-12-15T19:57:00.000-06:00

My school is right by the highway(s) and surrounded by railroad tracks. The tracks are a huge pain in the ass because every time a mile(s) long train comes by, you get stuck waiting to cross the tracks. It makes me late for work, it makes the kiddos late for school. I had a good long time to contemplate this yesterday as I pulled up to the tracks right as the engine was approaching and the bars were lowered. But one aspect I never considered was, "Oh, shit, they are hauling some nasty stuff two blocks from the school."

Things hauled by the school yesterday in large tank cars: phosphoric acid, sulfuric acid, liquid petroleum gas, and something labeled "technical inedible liquid animal fat - not for human consumption."

Nice.

I also want to say that this has been probably the worst two days at school since I started teaching. One of my students said he hated me (prompted by my refusal to allow him to strangle himself with his backpack cord). My first inclination was to tell him that it was unacceptable to say te odio to me and that if he needed to say it, then he better goddamn say se odio a Usted, but not only would that have been inappropriate, it'd not have been very in line with my anarchist principles. Hilarious, though. At least, I think so. Goddamn, it has been a bad week.

Too tired to think of a title

2006-12-08T21:38:00.000-06:00

I spend my days teaching kids to fill in bubbles. It's so important to pick the right bubble. And to not make any stray marks. Stray marks are bad. This is their life. Follow directions, learn the objectives. Be still and quiet.

Every bit of joy and discovery I can inject in the spaces between those bubbles means something to me. It's just never enough.

I'm tired and very, very cold and waxing a bit maudlin, I guess. I haven't even been drinking. Maybe I should be.

Tomorrow we take the kids on a field trip that will end with them getting Christmas presents. Four of them will be getting new bikes. Three of our kids, all siblings, can't go get presents because they are goingn to go visit their dad in jail, instead. I have been getting choked up every time I think of it. The program doesn't let us collect gifts for the kids who can't attend. I'm not mad at the program, or anything, I am just worn down and everything is really getting to me in a way it usually doesn't.

I have a student whose father has been in jail for seven years. This kid is nine years old. His little sister is seven years old. Every year they tell him his dad is getting out of jail. Every year something happens and he stays incarcerated. I wondered why my student was being such a holy terror lately and then I talked to his mom and she told me that was going on. I had a hard time talking, after that. For awhile.

On an equally dismal note, the faculty had a meeting this week about (what else?) standardized testing. In previous years, recent immigrants were defined, for testing purposes, as students who had been in the States for up to three years. They still took the tests, but their results weren't counted against the school. This isn't just because of language, it's because we get a lot of kids who, for example, were living in a remote village in Honduras and had never attended school before. This year, however, any child who has been in the country more than one year will be tested at the same standards as every other student. In English. We are so very fucked.

G/T

2006-12-04T20:34:00.000-06:00

So I lied about the signing off for the night part.

I mentioned that Carmen is a G/T child, one of our few. She knows she's "G/T," but wasn't really sure what that meant. I gave it my best shot of explaining it to her. I told her that everybody has their own gifts and talents, that we are all good at different things. I said that she just happened to be very, very good at school. We talked about what the word academic meant (it was a vocabulary word for my class). I told her that since she is academically gifted, that it meant we needed to do things together so that she could be have more academic challenges and use her gift to the fullest.

I was a G/T child. I have incredibly mixed feelings about the entire thing. Growing up working class, female, and Appalachian doesn't mix easily with being academically gifted. Despite the differences in our race and culture, I know a lot of what Carmen will face as she grows, especially after elementary school. It hurts very much to have the mixed love and loathing for your family, your community, to know that the only way you can be successful is to eventually leave them behind. And the people around you are as painfully aware of that as you are. They hate you, they fear you, and they are so damned proud of you, all at the same time. I see it happening to her already.

The elementary school I attended, as a child in the 1980s, had a significant class divide. The presence of the wealthy children ensured that there was a gifted program. My IQ made me one of the few non-wealthy children in the program. The program was fucking awesome. With the exception of my college Spanish classes, I learned more from the elementary school gifted program than I learned from anything else at any time during my education. The set up was that once a week we were bused to another campus along with gifted children from every other elementary school in the district. It was rather collegiate in a way, we had some required core classes to take and then we could sign up for numerous electives. Core classes were one unit of research skills, one unit of foreign language, and one independent study per year. Electives were things like ancient Egypt, impressionist art, chemistry, technology and computer programming, logic and problem solving, sketching, advanced mathematics, and typing. Through the gifted program, I discovered that I had a talent for language. I never would have had that exposure otherwise. It was like that with a lot of students, we all discovered abilities that we never might have found, otherwise.

It is getting late (for me, at least), so I guess I should wrap this up. Something I have learned as an educator is that there are so many ways of being intelligent. There are so many gifts a student can have. It wasn't fair that, just because I tested above the IQ cut-off, I got opportunities that kids with an IQ under 132 didn't get. Fast forward to the present day, to my classroom. It's not fair that Carmen isn't getting all those opportunities that I had as a gifted child. And it's not fair that all the other kids aren't getting to explore their talents, either. I keep finding myself daydreaming about what I would do if I came into a huge sum of money. Most of what I daydream about includes taking my kids on trips and paying for them to take the $125 per session art classes at the place down the street from my house. How sad is that?

Extracurricular

2006-12-04T20:32:00.000-06:00

In the month since my husband has left, I haven't regretted him being gone for a single moment. This is a very good thing. This is one of the best things ever.

There is nothing like being free.

A Number of Things

2006-12-04T19:43:00.000-06:00

I'm overwhelmed by everything lately. Yeah, I know. For a change, right? Anyway, I'll ramble a bit before I sign off for the night.

This is a testing week. It's a common assessment for our region. Today we tested in reading and language arts. I tested Corazón on grade level, without modifications. She passed with a strong score. I am going to save every goddamn thing she does forever and then push for her to get out of special education next year. This is totally off-subject, but last week we discovered that her hands and feet are bigger than mine. She asked me to try on her boots, so I did. They almost fall off my feet!

My Carmen got a freakin' 98%. It's her first year in an English classroom and she outscored every child in the grade. I'm so proud of her. She qualifies as 4th grade's only gifted/talented child. I asked her last week, if she could learn about anything she wanted, what would it be? She told me that she would like to read a novel with me, but didn't know which one, so could I please pick a good one. I was obsessed with ancient Egypt as a child, so I am going to try The Egypt Game, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. It was one of my favorites. I'll see how her English goes with it. I am so goddamn proud of my girl.

I am worried and sad about Esperanza. She got commended scores last year and is without a doubt very, very bright. However, this year she is screwing up, big time. I am pretty sure that it's at least 75% emotional. I have no idea what to do about that. I am going to start sending her to another teacher she likes a lot for some extra tutoring and hope for the best.

I just realized I never talk about my boys. I only have two boys with me during the day, the rest are in special education (more than half my students are special ed). Alejandro and Amado. It took a long time for us to warm up to each other, but we have a good thing going, I think. They are best friends and have a sly, sneaky, oddly subtle sense of humor. I am sort of obsessed witih octopuses, so I have a few stuffed ones in my class. They sit up on a shelf (we call it the ocean) with the other monitos (stuffed animals). Amado likes to put one of the octopuses on his head. He calls it his thinking cap, and lets the tentacles hang down all around his face. Both of my boys talk about gang violence and shootings in a very casual way. I worry about them a lot. Alejandro's brother(s?) is/are in bootcamp right now. He talks about it with a mixture of unhappiness and longing that makes me hurt.

My kids have filthy mouths. They really do. It cracks me up. On a more serious note, I honestly do believe that they are (partially) just exploring their new language skills. But they also enjoy feeling naughty. What the hell, who doesn't? I secretly love hearing what they come up with. As long as they aren't trying to hurt or intimidate anyone, I seldom interfere. They have kind of caught on to that, too.

Happy Thingie

2006-11-24T07:25:00.000-06:00

It's funny, even when I'm not busy anymore, I'm busy. I don't know what to do with myself when I'm not doing school stuff. I'm still very happy with my job (despite some aspects), but I still have no life.

I called my students on Thanksgiving. They sound so very much younger on the phone than in person. I have never been a holiday person whatsoever, but it looks like I will be this year. Ha, I'm not even a parent and here I am, celebrating shit "for the kids." But Christmas is a big deal for them. People from all over the community (various communities) give them things they never get, otherwise. I know they are going to give me things and that my heart is going to break a little because having anything to give doesn't come easily to any of them.

I asked the instructional coordinator if we could order some novels. SHOT DOWN. No novels. They do not teach testing objectives. VERBOTEN. Sigh.

I won and I lost and maybe Corazon will win

2006-11-12T08:16:00.000-06:00

Friday after school the bilingual and special education folks met about Corazón and I had to bring every piece of work she'd ever done all year to be scrutinized. I have mixed feelings about the outcome. Basically, she's going to stay in special education, but since she's categorized as "inclusion," I can keep her in my classroom whenever I feel it's appropriate, which will be all the time. This year they will test her on a second grade level, as far as standardized testing goes. But at the end of the year, we are going to re-test her for special education. If she can progress enough, she has a shot at leaving special education entirely, which was my hope.

She has, for the first time ever, been having friends. Her teachers from previous years said that because of her family situation, she was more or less a social outcast every year. But recently, she has been playing with Carmen and Esperanza, and even going to Esperanza's house after school. Her grades have been going up since all this started. I have a lot of hope for her. And it's great to see her smiling and laughing every day now.

On the run...

2006-11-10T06:18:00.000-06:00

I have four minutes before I have to catch the bus for work, but today is the meeting that decides Corazón's fate. I'm nervous. I put my neck out here, so we'll see what happens.

This week has been the week of melt-downs at my school. The non-bilingual class made the substitute cry yesterday. In my opinion, it was richly deserved. I got a bit weepy this week myself, but not because of the kiddos. Another teacher, one of my closest friends on the faculty, had a small breakdown. The special education teacher is pouting and stomping around and didn't come in yesterday. In fact, I think everyone I've come into contact with at school is counting the days to Thanksgiving.

More later.

Mi Corazon

2006-11-04T21:40:00.000-06:00

Corazón is my girl. She is my special girl and I love her very much.

At the beginning of the year, she was quiet and withdrawn. When I asked the kiddos to write something about their families in their journals, she flat-out refused. She wasn't defiant. There was no drama. She just shook her head quietly and refused. I asked her if she'd just tell me who she lived with so I'd know who to talk to about school things. "I live with my older sister," she told me. She wouldn't say anything else. She is frequently late to school and rarely does her homework. Whenever confronted about those things, she becomes flustered and ashamed. Her grades are not dismal, but tend to go up and down.

I was able to piece together a little about Corazón's world. From what other teachers tell me, she and her little sister, Paloma, were both forcibly removed by the courts from their mother's custody and put in the care of their eldest sister. There was definitely neglect and outright abuse in the household; I heard something about an abusive father. They have one or two brothers who are incarcerated. When they were in their mother's custody, they seldom made it to school. Both of them failed a grade. Corazón was put in a Spanish-speaking classroom from kindergarten through 3rd grade, though her English was stronger than her Spanish. Even though it's already November, I just found out last Thursday that she is a special education student. No one gave me the paperwork or even told me that it existed. I had no idea, all this time.

I am seeing, more and more, how students are slipping through the cracks. I'm starting to understand how it happens. I don't want to see Corazón put into special education. The goal of special ed is to bridge the gap and move the students back into mainstream education. But how often does that actually happen?

I've so lost momentum with this post. It's just that Corie is my girl. She's not withdrawn or quiet anymore. She is wildly funny and has a quick, biting wit. Her antics, along with Esperanza's, had me laughing so hard I was crying last Friday. Legally, I think I can keep her with me as long as I make modifications to her instruction, since she has "inclusion" on her IEP. I feel that she has a real shot at catching up and making it out of special education, but ironically it won't be the special services that will help her. I think that being put in a bilingual classroom was not helpful to her, and in fact hindered her learning to read. And she's my girl and I want to look out for her learning because she's just too fucking bright and special to be left so far behind. She's had far too many people abandon her and I can't be another one of those people.

Training just didn't prepare me for this

2006-10-30T20:02:00.000-06:00

Esperanza: What is Viagra?
Carmen: Yeah, Ms. Güerita, what's that? I heard of it.
Me: Um.
They look at me in total earnestness and suddenly the whole class is very focused on me.
Me: It's something adult.
Esperanza: But what?
Me: It's not something I can really discuss with my students. It's something that can only be used by adults.
Carmen: I'll look for it on Google.
Corazon: Me too, I know how to look it up.
Me: Please don't do that.
Everyone: Why not?
Me: It's something for adults and it has to do with sex.
Everyone: Ew. Not gonna Google that.
They abruptly lose interest.

Sometimes I am terrified of what they tell their parents about goings on in my classroom.

I got home at about seven tonight. Had a three hour meeting with the principal and my team teachers. It was the very rare meeting that actually feels productive. She says that she is really pleased with all of us and she told me that I am doing well beyond what she expects from a first year teacher. It's a huge relief. As hard as some of my job circumstances are, my colleagues in the certification program seem to have a lot less support and general well wishes of their principals. I definitely plan to stay at the school where I teach for a very long time.

Two things to discuss in the next entry:

1. Dual language vs. traditional bilingual programs.
2. Corazon. I wish I could keep her as my own child.

Extracurricular

2006-10-28T15:39:00.000-05:00

He's gone.

Extracurricular

2006-10-27T10:41:00.000-05:00

This weekend, my husband of eight years moves out. Next month, we file papers.

I am at an inservice whose content I've already had.

I think that's enough for this pseudo-update.

Happy Friday the 13th

2006-10-13T22:20:00.000-05:00

Ms. Güerita is beautiful.
We love her so much.
She is a wonderful teacher.

-Tara

There is very little as humbling as turning around and seeing that had been written on my blackboard when I wasn't looking. Tara is thirteen years old and in the 4th grade. She has an undiagnosed reading problem (I spent about four hours doing and redoing the paperwork last week to try and make sure that she finally getsdiagnosed and helped). If I read a selection to her and ask her questions about it orally, she does fine. If I give her a selection to read by herself and have her answer written questions on her own, well, that's another story. She slipped through the cracks. And when she is sixteen and has (maybe) just made it to the seventh grade, she will most likely drop out. Who the hell wants to graduate high school at... well, she can't graduate before age twenty at this point.

It touches me really deeply that Tara wrote that. Tara is a girl that I suppose the typical middle-class white American would see as a hardened ghetto girl. I haven't done anything out of the ordinary for this girl, except treat her with dignity. I don't want to think that treating her with respect is something out of the ordinary.

There are two other thirteen year old girls in 4th grade. One is Demetria. Demetria failed first grade twice, second grade once, and fourth grade once. I am also working on the paperwork for her special education referral. She was transitioned out of a bilingual classroom at some point in her educational career (at another school), but she still can't speak English at an academic level. Since she has transitioned, though, we are not permitted to put her back in even a transitional bilingual classroom, which is what I teach. She is with my team teacher in an English-only class. She is actively asking for help with her English and for Spanish support in her studies. She is quiet and gentle and beautiful.

Rosario is fully bilingual, fluent and unaccented in both English and Spanish, as are all her brothers and sisters. She is respectful, responsible, and engaging. She is the other thirteen year old 4th grader. Every child in her family has a reading problem that is yet undiagnosed. I am also doing her paperwork for special education services. She has, like Tara and Demetria, failed several other grades.

I don't know what to say. I really love these girls and the future I see for them includes dropping out, having babies way too young, working shitty jobs, and becoming their mothers. This shouldn't be happening. Someone should have caught this sooner. They should be going to their first middle school dances and dreaming of high school. Or sitting in the bleachers talking about what a bunch of shallow jerks the football team and cheerleading squad are. But here they are, with me, in elementary school.

Oh, yeah, they took down the razor wire from around my school because someone is filming a documentary in the area and it doesn't look nice. Not sure how I feel about that.

Brief update

2006-10-11T20:30:00.000-05:00

So far this week, I haven't made it home before 7pm. Two nights I got home at 9, today at 7. Jesus Fucking Christ.

We have three 13-year-old girls in 4th grade. I'll explain that later.

I just got home

2006-09-28T21:37:00.000-05:00

It's 9:30. That would be 9:30pm. And I just got home. Fuck me gently with a chainsaw.

I am so tired that it took me like five tries just to type in the URL so I could update this thing. So I'll be brief. Today was a nightmare hell day. We have a lot of teachers out sick. Our school has no money, so we cover each other's classes a lot when people are out. We have been having a writing consultant come in to help us get the writing under control (4th graders write a composition as part of their standardized testing), only she has changed her days she is coming without notifying us and on top of that, she's been late. So that's a headache. We had a terrible day as far as discipline goes, and I am not picky about that. I actually yelled at my students, which I feel terrible for. I don't DO that. Only, well, I did. After I'd calmed down, I told them that some of the choices they were making were not wise decisions and that today I felt like the kind of teacher I hated. That seemed to get to them a little.

She isn't in my class, but I work with a little girl who I am having a lot of trouble with. Her name is Keisha and she is the child who I mentioned in a previous entry, whose mother spanked her at school. Whenever I have to talk to her about doing her work or about her behavior, she shuts down. She stares straight ahead, won't make eye contact, and won't react or answer me in any way. I think that at home when she's in trouble, she gets sort of browbeaten. I've seen parents do that thing to children where they scream questions at them and, no matter what answer the child gives, they get in more trouble. So the safest thing to do is to say nothing and to not even move. Because anything you do is seen as disrespectful or bad. I take extra care to state my expectations clearly with her and be gentle, but firm. I can't seem to get through to her though. I'm not sure what to do. Keisha is going to fail this year if she continues as she is.

A girl got suspended today. She hit another girl and threw stuff around the room. One of my team teacher's students. She sees her grandmother and mother fight physically at home. So, yeah.

Isaiah seems to have bonded with me. I am both pleased and cautious. He asks me every day if I'll be at school tomorrow. I smile and tell him that unless I get sick, of course I will be there. He has quit startling when I touch his arm or shoulder to get his attention, and he is actively seeking my approval. He is really eager to answer questions and was astonished and happy today when I used his name in a sentence on the overhead. I really, really like this child. But I'm also a little frightened of him. I am not huge on medication, but I wish his parents would give him his. He so desperately needs it. He doesn't want to twitch and make faces or hurt people or spit.

Tomorrow I have the, um, privilege of doing home visits. My school takes the position that if we can't reach a parent or a parent is uncooperative, we go to their house and talk to them in person. So I will be going during school hours with one of my team teachers. It should be... interesting. My friend said it sounded scary. I told her that these folks would probably be afraid of my relatives, so it all works out. We'll see what happens.

Bad Teacher, No Dry Erase Markers For You!

2006-09-25T21:56:00.000-05:00

I was bad and gave my kids candy today. It was just a little bit, but I feel naughty nonetheless. We are barred, in our district, from distributing "food of minimal nutritional value." It was organic honey candy, dammit! Because, clearly, they don't get enough sugar at home! Ha.

They were darling angels. I had one of those days where teaching just went really well and the principal came in at precisely the right moment where every single one of them was obviously engaged and learning. I pretty much always am confident that I want to stay with this line of work, but days like today reinforce that. With the support of my team teachers, I rearranged the 4th grade reading into small groups, seven students to a teacher. It was a lot of work, since I put together every bit of material for three teachers, but it was worth it. It's fun to have seven students sitting (or lying) on the floor of my classroom, being excited about a book we're reading.

I have discovered that this is one of the best resources for an Anglo bilingual teacher such as myself. I absolutely could not think of the Spanish word for bead today, and none of my Spanish speakers could figure out exactly what I was talking about. Safe search is automatically on in the schools, so I didn't have to worry about, say, images of anal beads popping up. I use the image search a lot to reinforce vocabulary and the kids just love it that they get to use the internet at school.

I did do something bad today, aside from the candy. One of my students, Belinda, got flustered with Esperanza and said something to the effect of, "Get your fucking hands off my stuff!" I tried hard to pretend I didn't hear it, because, frankly, Esperanza deserved it, and it wasn't said to her with any maliciousness, more like exasperation. Esperanza, of course, tattled, and was confused when I asked her why she was messing with Belinda's stuff instead of getting onto Belinda for saying the almighty Effword. Hell, I was rather proud of her for using her English words. Then Esperanza dropped her pencil box and immediately said, "Dammit!" I couldn't help it. I cracked up. Esperanza asked me why I was laughing so hard and I told her that she had just tattled on Belinda for saying you-know-what and turned around and let a dammit slip but a moment later. She blushed and Belinda gave her best neener-neener face.

Extracurricular

2006-09-21T22:41:00.000-05:00

Some things regarding my white-ness have been coming up at school, but I'll write about that later.

I hope that this is the last time I have to start my life over again. I'm almost thirty years old and I want to live. I just want to make it through this year and then maybe I'll feel alive.

Time for bed. Past time.

A bit of an ass-beating

2006-09-19T18:01:00.000-05:00

We had a parent spank one of the 4th grade students at school this morning. No one knew what the hell to do. I wasn't in the room, thankfully. Our principal has now informed us that we are to intervene as politely as we can manage, which is good. The poor kid was humiliated and angry all goddamn day.

Ugh. I don't want to talk about that anymore.

I keep promising myself...

2006-09-18T20:52:00.000-05:00

... that I'll post something positive, but clearly that's not happening this week.

I had to go to the administration about our special education teacher. There are a lot of exhausting issues, but a discussion between her and one of my team teachers today led to her threatening the other teacher with so-called policy in an attempt to bully the woman into doing what should be her own job. It sucks. It also sucks that she's not supervising this kids to the point where they are disrupting other classes. I tattled about that as well.

Our instructional coordinator reamed me once again. She's the one who said to throw out the novels. She asked for writing samples from our students. I gave her some compare and contrast essays. She came back and told me in a very hostile tone that she didn't know what I was doing, but that we are supposed to be teaching the standardized test writing and that those essays were not that sort of writing and were therefore useless. The only writing she wants us to be doing with them is based off a writing prompt such as, for example, "Write about your favorite place to visit in the whole world." I am to forget teaching them expository writing, reports, reviews, etc. and to focus solely on writing off a prompt like the one above. Period.

Sometimes my job makes me cry a little.

The Good, the Bad, no Ugly

2006-09-14T18:03:00.000-05:00

Good:

In my certification program, we are subject to surprise visits with observation and written performance reviews. They are really semi-surprise, because we know one will happen within a certain amount of days. We are reviewed by our principals, our program supervisor, and any district high administrator who cares to do so. Today my program supervisor came in while I was teaching 5th grade reading and language arts. The kids were awesome. They are fairly easy anyway, but I couldn't believe how angelic they were. There are four possible scores in every area of professional expertise, with most falling in the middle: proficient or below expectations. It's expected that an intern will receive mostly proficient scores with a couple of below expectations in areas they need to work on. All proficient is a good review. Well, I had several exceeds expectations along with a nice row of proficients. She told me I was doing a great job, especially considering it's only September, and that I stood out amongst her group of subordinates. I'm a little floored and very happy. It kind of made my week.

Esperanza self-managed her behavioral issues today. She came up to me during class and asked if she could have a time out so that she could write in her journal and talk to another teacher (I'll call her Mrs. Future Awesome Principal, or Mrs. F for short). I gathered up her things, told her what assignment I needed her to complete, gave her the journal, and escorted her to Mrs. F's classroom. Mrs. F was very receptive and supportive. While I don't like it that Esperanza is missing instructional time, it's definitely preferable to her sobbing in fetal position on the floor or harming herself.

Bad:

I don't want to call him anything stupid like Psychotic Child or whatever, so I'll refer to him as Isaiah. Isaiah was having a very hard time today. He is in constant motion; twitching, facial tics, gesturing, and flailing. He's muttering, too. He has a very exaggerated startle response. He has hit a couple of children, though it's the result of a flailing limb rather than any malicious intent and so far no one has been harmed at all. I have tried talking quietly to him to calm him, but it's really not working. He can't control the actions. I have been having him walk at my side between classes or to the cafeteria. I've also been approaching his other teachers before he gets to class to warn them and make sure he is seated near them and that no other students are within arm's length. All the teachers are being very caring and conscientious and I'm happy to say no one is treating him as if this is willful misbehavior (however frustrating it may be to us all). But I am still very worried.

Extracurricular

2006-09-11T21:45:00.000-05:00

By the way, on September 11th, 2001, I was living in Alexandria, Virginia, near enough to the Pentagon that my house shook and rattled in its foundation when the plane hit. I do not give a fuck what anyone who didn't live in DC, NYC, or didn't have a loved one die has to say about any of it.

I already called in sick

2006-09-11T21:12:00.000-05:00

I called in sick for tomorrow at 4:30pm, while I was signing out for the day. Here, I will number my paper for your ease of reading:

1. My partner teacher person was out at yet another inservice. Please stop training us and let us use the training and, y'know, teach our classes.

2. Another teacher was also out at an inservice. It was a bilingual class, which usually means they don't call a sub. This means that the one teacher who could be assisting me was watching this class instead.

3. The principal was out at an inservice.

4. So was the instructional coordinator.

5. Guess where our secretary was! You got it! Inservice! Gold star for you!

6. Everyone who wasn't at an inservice? They were sick. Including myself. I would have called in today, but, you know, with the inservices and all. Students, too. We had what seemed like half the students complaining about headaches and stomachaches. One child was vomiting in the bathroom. I sent her down to the nurse, because when I went into the restroom to check on her, she was indeed hurling into the toilet. So the vomiting child was quickly sent back to my classroom. Why? Get ready for it.

7. The nurse was at an inservice. I shit you not.

8. Esperanza is not okay after all. She, completely without any visible provocation, burst into tears mid-class. She crawled into a corner, curled up, and sobbed. She was unable to quit or to speak or anything. Eventually, I just let her stay there and cry. Instead of sending her to ancillary, I kept her with me and gave up my planning period. After about a half hour, she started writing me notes saying she doesn't know what is wrong with her, only that she feels very sad all the time and that her heart and her chest hurt badly. She and I exchanged notes back and forth for awhile, until I asked if I could take her with me to talk to the principal, who I didn't know was at an inservice. I had previously requested support over the intercom, but they didn't send anyone. We ended up having a conference with one of the senior teachers. Esperanza says she is self-injuring at home and thinks that she is crazy. We tried to help her think of some strategies to deal with her emotions. When the principal got back, after school, I had a conference with her. The outcome is that I am to refer the child for family support, but the whole process takes about two months. In the meanwhile, we are trying to get her mother to put her under psychiatric evaluation, which is a three day process. I hope she agrees. This is beyond my capabilities.

9. That new child I got? The one who spit and brought a knife to school? I found out today that he is psychotic, paranoid, possibly schizophrenic. He was in an inpatient treatment facility. His parents tell people that he was treated and released, but the truth is that they took him out before he could be treated with any success. They refuse to medicate him. He has stabbed other children. He hears voices and holds conversations with these voices at school, during class. It's heartbreaking (as well as alarming) because this child is trying very, very hard to behave well and do good work. He is trying to hide his twitching and the stuff with the voices. He is extremely eager to please and get along. But he is seriously troubled and, frankly, I am afraid something is going to trigger him to snap. Obviously a nine or ten year old child (or anyone, really) is unable to control psychosis. He wants to be a good student, a good child. I can see him trying. But his family is interfering with him getting the help he needs. I don't know what's going to happen. The school administration is scrambling to try and get him help. But, in the meanwhile, what the fuck do I do? This is way beyond my area of expertise, to say the least. Does one of my kids (or me) have to get stabbed? Will people blame the school (blame me) if something does happen?

10. My voice fucking broke in the middle of reading class.

Sunday Night Blues

2006-09-10T20:37:00.000-05:00

I want very badly to call in sick tomorrow morning. I still have a sore throat and aches. But my partner is going to be at an inservice all day, and we just can't afford losing a day's instruction to a sub. As it is, I'll have to deal with my partner's sub tomorrow, and that sucks. The one that they keep calling in is a pain in my ass. While I certainly respect the thirty years teaching experience she keeps telling me she has, I don't like how she uses that to tell me over and over that I'm doing everything wrong. What I really want a subsitute to do, especially in a team teaching situation, is to support me. Help me keep the kids on task, pass out papers, walk them down to the lunch room, help monitor bathroom breaks. General support. I know they want to flex their teaching muscles, but it just isn't appropriate in this situation. This particular sub also demands the respect of the students. And when I say demands, I mean that literally. She gets in the face of a couple of our black female students, especially. She doesn't seem to get it that my students in particular are English language learners and don't always understand her commands or directions right away. She interprets their confusion or failure to comply as disrespect and then I'm thrust into the position of having to either contradict her (which she interprets as undermining her AUTHORITEH) or to just quietly let her browbeat my kids. I prefer having no assistance to having a sub like her.

On a completely unrelated note, only one of my 4th graders knows who Hitler is. I guess it wasn't a testing objective for 3rd grade.

I have caught the creeping crud

2006-09-08T19:13:00.000-05:00

I went home early today. I wasn't going to go in at all, due to waking up with a sore throat and a general hit-by-a-truck feeling, but my partner teacher was out until noon for an inservice. So here I sit, feeling assy.

Esperanza is much, much better today. Her mother is has taken tangible steps towards getting the appropriate care. I think Esperanza is realizing how many people care about her. She was smiling and talkative today.

My Fun-Filled Day

2006-09-07T19:58:00.000-05:00

7:35 - Got yanked out of the cafeteria, my kids sent with another teacher. Interpreted meeting between a group of irate parents and the principal.

8:15 - Consoled principal. Irate parents did not get it that their issue was legitimately out of her hands and she agreed with them on every point.

9:00 - Noticed one of my students, Esperanza, is crying again. She started the year as an outgoing, engaging, sunny child. Last week she began crying at school, but said she wasn't ready to tell me what was going on. I decide to let her know that when she is ready, she can come to me.

9:30 - Reading lesson with an unusually misbehaving 5th grade class. Administrator entered the room during the literally five minutes I spent without something covering my tattoos and gave me the hairy eyeball. Goddammit.

11:00 - Reading with my kids. Esperanza had her head down and was sobbing and unresponsive.

11:45 - I tried to arrange it so I could eat lunch alone with Esperanza, but I had other obligations I couldn't get out of. I made arrangements for her to eat by herself in a peaceful place.

12:10 - I collected my students. Esperanza was completely freaking out and other students informed me that she was self-injuring by scratching her skin in the cafeteria. I took her to my classroom while the other students were elsewhere and attempted to talk to her. She broke down completely and said she wanted her mother and her grandmother and that she wanted to die and wanted to kill herself. I had told her earlier that the only conversations I could not keep private were ones where she told me someone was harming her, she was planning on harming someone else, or that she planned to harm herself. Since she went and suggested suicide and had been self-injuring, I took her straight to the principal.

12:20 - Conference regarding Esperanza.

12:30 - Watched Esperanza's former teacher from last year's class while he assisted with the situation in the principal's office.

12:55 - More conferencing re: Esperanza.

1:05 - Watched other teacher's class while he assisted again.

1:15 - Returned to my puzzled and worried class.

1:20 - Tried to catch my breath while other teacher graciously took over instruction.

2:15ish - Conference in the hallway with Esperanza's mother. Realized that, oh shit, my students were late for ancillary with The Republican. Sent them off with profuse apologies. Couldn't tell if he always smirked that way or if he thought I was an asshole.

2:30 - Got my class ready for Open House.

3:15 - Meeting with department. Got in trouble for not having my gradebook in compliance with instructional coordinator's specifications. Not only were these specifications never revealed to me, but when I looked at every other teachers' gradebooks, they were just like mine.

3:30 - Was informed by instructional coordinator that teaching novels was a waste of time and instead I should just use short reading selections followed by questions modeled after their standardized tests.

3:35 - Developed deeper understanding of why most teachers quit before 5 years of teaching.

4:00 - Thought about completely overhauling my lesson plans to eliminate novels.

4:05 - Thought about throwing a full on, kicking and screaming tantrum on the floor.

4:10 - Thought about weeping piteously while clutching a copy of Bridge to Terabithia in one hand, my lesson plan book in the other.

4:45 - Met with my partner teacher person and wailed a little. Was instructed to smile, nod, and keep doing what I am doing. Felt marginally better.

5:00 - Open House began.

5:30 - Not a single parent set foot in my classroom.

6:00 - Department breakaway. My department met with parents of our students. One parent dressed me and my partner down in front of everyone for sending her child home with difficult vocabulary words to study and having the test the very next day. Her child neglected to mention that we taught them the words, used the words in various lessons, prepared study guides, and went over the words again the next day during tutorials (all four to six of them, the horror). I informed her of the facts and she was still displeased, but backed down.

7:05 - I finally left the school.

7:30 - Home.

A few things before bed

2006-09-06T21:42:00.000-05:00

I can't believe I'm posting a link from WorldNetDaily. This is a jeezer saying why there shouldn't be prayer at a football game. I wish I could get away with forwarding it to my principal.

I told my students about how my brother has been to jail twice. A lot of them have incarcerated family members and other kids sometimes rag on them about it. Ever since my revelation about my own family, I haven't heard any more of that kind of teasing. Here's hoping.

I am so tired I want to commit small acts of violence. Also, I have taken to clenching/grinding my jaw. Goddammit.

My students don't get health class. They need it. Badly. Some of them are already firmly in the throes of puberty.

Tomorrow is open house. I have to help interpret Spanish. I might be a little nervous, more about being the white girl on display than the actual Spanish part.

I am so goddamn tired that I forgot everything else I wanted to say.

Ain't and whatnot

2006-09-04T15:10:00.000-05:00

I just discovered I have to teach a lesson on Appalachian dialect to the fifth graders (I team teach their reading block) next week. For those of you who don't know me, I consider myself an ethnic Appalachian. It's a pretty strong part of my identity. Anyway, the students are reading Bridge to Terabithia and the lesson on Appalachian dialect is to illustrate language variation in novels to support setting. The model lessons suggest bringing in some bluegrass and showing pictures of Virginia and West Virginia. I wonder how the kids will react when I tell them it's where I'm from. I think I'll use the Library of Congress interviews so the kids can hear the language spoken.

Argh.

2006-08-31T20:08:00.000-05:00

I am at that point in stress where I am fucking exhausted down to my bones yet my mind just won't stop racing.

Monday is a holiday and I go to a day long in-service on Tuesday. Friday is just one day. I can do just one more day. Really. I can. I think.

This is not a drill.

2006-08-31T17:04:00.000-05:00

I just got home after the worst day since school began. Yesterday was an in-service on how to enact a "shelter in place" in case of danger or disaster. So of course, when they announced over the intercom that we were sheltering in place until further notice, I thought it was a drill. Nope. The teacher I was team-teaching with got a call from the police (she's an ex-cop) asking what was going on at our school. Not a drill, in other words. Turns out, some fifth graders saw a man with a gun and he brandished it at them. We were under lockdown for an hour. So much for reading class.

The day was also shitty due to some personnel type issues and special education, but I don't want to talk about it.

I guess this means I am officially an inner-city teacher, when I've gone through my first real lockdown.

¿Que estas comiendo, maestra?

2006-08-30T21:47:00.000-05:00

I brought some veg. sushi for lunch today. My kids were utterly fascinated. I had to tell them every ingredient, in English and Spanish. They are amazed by my vegetarianism (I'm about 98% vegan). Enrique informed me that hippies are vegetarians and didn't understand why I cracked up and almost fell out of my chair.

The things they eat alarm me, though. Pretty much everyone gets free lunch (I think it's over 90% of the school) or reduced lunch (the other 10%). Breakfast is free for all students in my district. For some of my students, I suspect most of them, those two meals are the cornerstone of their nutrition. The things I see on their lunch trays make me shake my head. Milk is a staple, of course. I don't think that my concern over that is just because of vegan sympathies. When I have girls in 4th grade who have never failed a year, yet have breasts and are menstruating, I really wonder what all these hormones are doing to them. But not only is dairy a problem, it's the sugar. The school offers highly sweetened chocolate and strawberry milk, as well as reconstituted fruit juices (20 grams of sugar in 4 ounces). At breakfast I see Frosted Flakes and sausages floating in grease pools. The fruit, when they get it, consists of apples (hard, small), bananas (questionable ripeness), and small, poor quality oranges. Lunch is completely meat-centered. I see entire tables full of children with not a single vegetable on their trays. Today they had sausages and eggs on biscuits, with an option of a chicken patty that was more breading than meat. They also had red sausages. So it was sausage with a side of... sausage.

In the meanwhile, research is telling us something everyone already fucking knows. When super-refined grains, added refined sugars, and processed, low-quality meats are the foundation for these kids' nutrition, it's no wonder they grow up to have diabetes and heart disease. Look at the instances of those illnesses amongst blacks and latinos. That's what my students have to look forward to.

Miscellaneous

2006-08-30T19:16:00.000-05:00

The more I learn about my students' family and home situations, the more my heart sinks. My Enrique has two younger siblings and a single mother. They all live in one room in the grandmother's house. The grandmother's husband does not like the children much, and throws a fit if they make any noise, so they just stay in their one room. My impression of Enrique's mother is that she is a very caring, conscious woman who is just overwhelmed by life, poverty and her responsibilities. She told me flat out that Enrique has very little stimulation beyond television and video games and no real hobbies, and that he doesn't get out of the house much. He used to have karate classes, but she can no longer afford them.

I spoke with our instructional coordinator. Her recommendation was cub scouts, because a local church often will pay for the uniforms and outings for low income/at-risk children. Personally, I dislike the boy scouts. For one thing, they don't belong in public schools, being a discriminatory organization. Second, I hate anything that smacks of paramilitary bullshit. But, like with many things in my professional life, I compromise. Enrique needs something outside of the classroom that I can't give him. He has no friendly adult male influence (that I know of). And he needs to get out of his house and find something positive to do. So this week I am having two of the male teachers talk to him about their experiences in boy scouts, and when the recruiters come, I will just hope.

Speaking of at-risk children, I may have a new student tomorrow. New to me, at least. He was expelled from our school last year. He is a bright boy with some sort of behavioral issue. Issues. He spits on people. On purpose. Constantly. He gets up in the middle of class and takes off. I know the teacher he had last year. That teacher is absolutely brilliant, he's not one of the authoritarians or jeezers. And he had this child for two years and had a whole slew of problems. The crowning moment, however, was when this student brought a knife to school. When my kids saw him being re-enrolled, they all came up to me and told me they were scared to have them in our class. My principal seems to be on our side about this. I don't know what will happen. My principal did announce to us before an in-service that Satan was coming at us from all sides. I guess that explains it all, huh?

On a completely different note, I'm constantly being stricken by how much No Child Left Behind has damaged our educational system. I had art, music, library class, and P.E. several times weekly, if not daily, when I was in elementary school and junior high. Not only are these things essential, in my opinion, to child development and cultural understanding, but they were a time for kids who had different talents to finally have a chance to shine. Sure, I want every child to be an effective reader and to comprehend mathematics. But there will always be kids who struggle in those areas, while other kids excel. Having music, art, and physical education gives children with a wide variety of talents to not only get a time to be the ones who excel, but to discover talents in those areas. It's painful for me to think that my students could have some great musical gift and because they are poor and in a school without those resources that they may never develop or even discover that specialness. My school is instituting before-school clubs for the children to choose from. One of the clubs is arts and crafts, but it's just not the same. Children who are not making the test scores are barred from these clubs. These kids' families, for the most part, make less than $1,000 a month. They need every opportunity they can get. I try to incorporate these things into my lessons as much as I can, but I only have so much time. It's frustrating and I just want to stomp my feet and scream that it's not fair, it's not fair.

We start after school tutorials next week. Three nights a week. And, starting in September, we are doing Saturday school twice a month. What was that about teachers getting paid too much again? Life? What life?

Dashing off to class...

2006-08-30T07:13:00.000-05:00

Heard yesterday in the hall:

Teacher: We must always follow the rules. If we break the rules, that leads to chaos.

Students: (intimidated silence)

Teacher: And that leads to ANARCHY.

I so wanted to cheer. I didn't. I was, however, wearing a paper hat one of my students made me, emblazed with "Captain Güerita, the Chief!" across it. Actually, it said "Cheef." I am a bad anarchist.

Special Ed. and a word I hate

2006-08-26T12:46:00.000-05:00

I hate the word retarded. It's something that instantly makes my lips press together and my muscles tense. If one of my students bumps his or her toe and the word shit tumbles out of their mouth, I'm 100% likely to ignore it. But woe to the person in my classroom who calls someone else a retard or describes something or someone as retarded, whether the speaker be adult or child.

Seriously, is it so fucking much to ask that a blameless segment of our population be treated with some dignity?

Anyway, I have at least three special education students in my classroom. I may have another whose family refuses to sign off on it, which puts me in a frustrating position as an educator. But special education has changed a whole lot since I was in elementary school in the 80s. I remember special ed as being kids who had significant, sweeping developmental difficulties. Down's kids, for example. Nowadays, special ed encompasses a lot of issues. A student can be both special education and gifted/talented. I have one boy in my classroom who sort of encapsulates the new version of special ed, at least for me. I'll call him Enrique. Enrique is a hyperactive kid (ADD diagnosis) with hands in constant motion and eyes that refuse to look directly at me. He's a complete smart ass who is entirely too cynical and negative for a ten year old. Maybe that's why I like him so much. Everything I introduce is greeted with a groan and a "but I hate that..." from him. Yet during classroom discussions, his hand never goes down. He wants to answer every question and when I call on him, he does so thoroughly and insightfully. He comes up with observations I consider very mature even for a student several grades above him. Then I saw his journal. Enrique writes on an approximately kindergarten to 1st grade level. His handwriting is the scrawl of a much younger child, as if he is drawing a representation of the letters instead of just writing them. It all runs together, with no real breaks between sentences and no punctuation to be seen. All I get are a list of modifications to be made (preferential seating, allow use of highlighter markers during reading, shortened assignments, more time for completion, etc). I don't know what the actual issue is.

Enrique is just one example of what special ed means now. It's not so easy anymore. To make it even more complicated, I have two sides tugging at me over what to do with my special ed students. On one hand, I have my principal saying that we want full inclusion. That means keeping special ed students in the classroom with non-special ed students for every subject. But then I have the resource teacher pulling them out, or trying to, for every subject. And the principal doesn't seem to have a problem with that. Honestly, I have no idea what to do with them. Enrique's English is excellent. He doesn't even have a trace of an accent. I'm not sure why he's in the bilingual class. But my other two special ed students are extremely limited in English proficiency. The resource teacher speaks some Spanish, but isn't bilingual. We pay a lot of lip service to the concept of "No Child Left Behind," but I have the terrible feeling that two of my students are going to be left in the dust, no matter what I do. I can't teach them if they keep being pulled out of my classroom. But, even though they keep getting yanked over to resource, I'm still held accountable for their testing.

And that leads me to a bit of terror about the testing thing. There is a shitload of testing kids have to take, to the point where I think we spend about a month of combined days of what could be instructional time taking standardized tests. Since my kids are 4th graders, they now have to take their tests in the same level of higher, academic English that native speakers do. They are graded by the same standards. From what I understand, the special education students are also required to be tested, the only difference is that they receive a test with fewer questions. I have been told that some of the tests don't count towards our school ratings (and my personal accountability), but that some do. I can't seem to get a straight answer about which is which, though. So, in a nutshell, I have limited English, special education students who, despite being severely under their grade levels in reading and writing, are being held to the same standards as regular education students. And, despite them being constantly pulled out of my class, I am responsible and accountable for their scores.

Maybe I should start taking steps to prevent ulcers right away.

Things I need to post about...

2006-08-24T22:20:00.000-05:00

... when it's not my bedtime:

1. Using the threat of the Wrath of the Baby Jesus as a classroom management strategy
2. How I ended up giving a lesson about the Chief Amongst Cusswords
3. Less than two weeks of school, and we already handed out a suspension.

Anarchism in the classroom

2006-08-22T21:52:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to put together a post on authoritarianism in public schools and how I try to use anarchist principles in my classroom, but I'm afraid it's not coming out as very coherent. Maybe I'll get into it another night. For now I'll just say that so far my students are responding very well to how I conduct myself and what I expect of them in the classroom, even if they do seem to be very, very cautious about things. I've noticed that when I give them freedom and choices, they tend to stop everything and look up at me for reassurance that, no, they won't get in trouble; that yes, I do mean it when I say they can decide for themselves when they need to leave the room to go to the restroom. It's a sort of sobering experience for me, to have a concrete example in front of my face of how kids are only being taught to "think for themselves" under extremely limited, controlled circumstances. I know that part of it is them feeling out what my limits and their limits are, but I also feel that they honestly haven't had the opportunity to make any real decisions in a school environment. No one has ever extended them any trust, and without that, I don't know how they will be able to develop the good judgment we in education keep saying we expect from them.

On another note, one of my students has been talking about a lot of gun violence in his journal. He is a small, bright, boy who has been writing very frankly about seeing friends and family members get shot and shoot back in return. It amazes me, how quickly I start to care about my students. One week and I am already worried. I write back to them in their journals, but I was at a loss about this entry. I just told him that if he wanted to tell me how he felt about seeing those kinds of things, that I would listen.

[note: Our classroom rule about journals is that other students must ask permission first before looking at any part of someone's journal. However, the teacher may show it to or discuss it with other adults. My classroom came to a consensus that the rule was something they could live with. I believe in following my own classroom rules and wouldn't ever mention, even anonymously, something that was in a student's journal unless our class agreement allowed it.]

Total Physical Response

2006-08-20T09:50:00.000-05:00

I realized that most of the people reading this (all, what, five of them) have no idea what the title of this blog means. Total Physical Response is a method of language instruction that uses the physical body. An example of a TPR practice would be, say, in a pre-kindergarten class where the teacher tells a group of children, "Let's raise our hands in the air," modeling the action herself, and the children would respond by raising their hands. It engages several different learning styles. They hear commands, see their teacher and classmates responding to the commands, and use their bodies (kinesthetic learning) to respond as well. It allows children with all levels of language skill to participate. There's a lot more to it, but that's a basic example. I liked the name because it sounds pretty dramatic for such a simple concept.

Dame un burro, por favor

2006-08-16T22:12:00.000-05:00

Do you have any idea how heavy teachers' editions of textbooks are? The other teachers in my hallway lug around these hilariously ridiculous carts and keep trying to convince me to get one as well. Alas, I ride the bus home and must strap these enormous tomes to my back.

I gave my class their first real homework assignment yesterday. I think that when they turn it in, I will open my backpack and show them that I did my homework as well. It's only fair.

Lordy lordy

2006-08-16T18:00:00.000-05:00

I've always kind of wanted to smack people who wail about prayer being illegal in public schools. Any time I venture into right-wing blogania, I run into folks who think that it's time we put god back in schools, where he belongs, so that people quit shooting each other and copying homework and all that stuff.

Well, I would like to inform each and every one of those people that (at least at my school) they have gotten their wish.

At the (endless) inservices held before school officially opened its doors to the students, I quickly figured out that my school had a strong contingent of what a friend of mine likes to call jeezers. My principal casually threw the words "I'll pray on that" around and was answered by a chorus of amens. I was feeling less and less comfortable when the bomb finally dropped. My principal asked us to all join hands. I thought it would be another one of those hokey team-building exercises. Nope. She nodded towards a teacher who was firmly in the jeezer camp and next thing I knew, all heads were bowed and my jaw was on the floor. I might have been able to (grudgingly) deal with it, had it been an interfaith-y sort of positive feel-good thing. It wasn't. It started with an "Our heavenly father" and ended with an "In Jesus' name we pray, amen," and blessed everything you can think of in between.

So, yes, I can tell you with 100% certainty that there is indeed prayer in public schools. Or at least one public school.

What gets me is the sheer in-your-face nature of it all. Prayer is brought up frequently. Everyone is, apparently, praying for and about everything. One of the teachers brought up, at a meeting for the entire faculty and support staff of our school, that she had anointed her classroom's desks with oil and prayed over them to drive out the devils. This statement was received as it were as normal as her discussing how to covering a bulletin board, with approval and encouragement. Our principal talks about having faith and doing great works in the name of our faith. Our faith. Because everyone at our school is apparently under the same umbrella of faith. Even the Hindus, new-agers, agnostics, and atheists.

It's not something I've discussed amongst the general faculty of my school (nor will I ever do so), but publicly, I am an avowed atheist. I guess I would describe myself as a political atheist. Having grown up Pentecostal and then running off, joining, and eventually leaving a cult, I am officially Done With Religion. I am also pretty done with spirituality, to tell you the truth. The only thing along those lines I really have any interest in are some of the folk traditions of marginalized groups (voudoun/voodoo, for example), but interest does not necessarily equal faith. I have to admit, though, that I was sorely tempted to wave the red flag in front of the bull. I have some voodoo oils in my possession. Jeezers aren't the only ones who anoint things with oils. It was so very tempting to casually inform the group that I, too, had performed rites in my classroom. I don't think that anyone I have in mind as I'm writing this would fail to see what I'm saying here. When people say they want god and religion and prayer in public schools, they invariably mean their god, religion, and prayer. I know that's what my mother means, at least. She told me I was being religiously intolerant and not respecting diversity. It's funny when the jeezers start to learn that vocabulary. It's even funnier how when a jeezer is shouting about being marginalized, it's usually because someone is refusing to allow them to shove religion in their face.

It isn't just on the school level, though. At an inservice for the several hundred teachers in my region (the district is zoned into internal regions), there was an amen corner. One of the presenters outright asked the assembly, "I know religion isn't supposed to be for schools, but can I get a praise the lord?" She certainly got it. People high up in the district's administration were present, watching, and participating.

I could complain. I am within my legal rights to complain, though anyone who knows me knows I don't care much about legal anything. They can't fire me for complaining. Not exactly, at least. I can, however, have my classroom scrutinized with a more critical eye. I can have increased visits to my class for observation. I can face the seething resentment of my colleagues for forcing the issue and making everyone stop something that is painfully uncomfortable to me but joyously positive for them. I'm very angry to be pushed into a position where I am expected to participate in a religious expression. I feel that my colleagues are genuinely well-intentioned, but it upsets me that a group of educated adults could behave so inappropriately in a workplace, especially in an environment that is meant to be accessible to people from all cultures and backgrounds. It also upsets me that I would be taken more seriously if I were a member of another faith with enough numbers behind it to lend an air of legitimacy to my complaint. A Muslim could raise a complaint based on how practicing another faith's rites is against their own faith. I, however, would just be seen as someone who has something against religion. Public education pays an enormous amount of lip-service to diversity these days, but I'm not seeing it.

The first bell has rung

2006-08-14T21:19:00.000-05:00

It's 9:15 on a Monday night and I've finished my first day as the official teacher of record in a 4th grade pre-exit bilingual class. I'm tired enough that I think I could lie down right now and be out, but I'm trying to hold off a little while longer.

The impetus to start this blog actually happened a long time ago. A friend of a friend, one of the Corcoran Brothers made some comment about teachers being overpaid. I had taught private school years ago, so of course I knew he was essentially talking out his ass. But since then, I've heard a lot of comments from people who aren't even libertarians to the effect that teachers have a cushy job. It's a hard thing to address. On one hand, I love my job. I love school and all its trappings. I love educating. I love books and desks and boxes full of crayons. I have always felt very at home inside a classroom, even when I hated my teacher and the other students. But there are also plenty of things that make my job very difficult.

As far as being paid too much goes, let me break down how much time I spend with my job:

My official duty schedule is from 7:30am until 3:15pm. I am, however, expected to be there before duty starts, and to stay until well after it ends. So my hours, at their least, are more like 7:15 until about 4:00. I supposedly have a half hour for lunch, but by the time I get the class down to the cafeteria and then go to pick them up again, it's more like 20 minutes. And, at any time, I can be called to duty during lunch if whoever is supposed to be watching the cafeteria can't. So scratch lunch. This is the basic, a bit more than 8 hour day.

But there's more. I work at a school that has struggled monumentally to achieve not only an "Acceptable" academic rating, but the much-coveted "Recognized" status. For an extreme low-income inner city school, this is a nearly miraculous feat. I'm not a fan of the obsession with standardized testing, but it's a reality I can't change. And the Recognized tag has gotten the school some good things. To achieve this status, though, has meant an even bigger time investment for teachers. Last year, there were after-school tutorials at least twice a week, plus many of the staff gave up their lunch periods to tutor right at the table. There was also Saturday school. On top of the regular duty hours, this adds up to about 10 more hours a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Admittedly, it's a crude average.

Now add in the take-home work. It's the first day of school, and I just spent about an hour going through my students' writing journals and penning responses to them. I promised them their journals would be interactive, and I meant it. As the school year moves forward and I am doing more assessments, I will probably spend a minimum of an hour a night grading them. Likely, I'll spend more time than that.

There is still more. While we have a certain amount of days on the calendar set aside for professional development, it doesn't cover all that is required of us. There are all sorts of conferences, meetings, and classes to be had. Since I am on a probationary certificate, on top of everything else, I have to spend every Monday night, after teaching a full day, at the certification center in training. Every Wednesday night I have to go to a graduate education class (I took three of them over the summer). There are also some Saturdays I will have to give up to training. Some of the costs of training sessions we can get our schools to cover. Some, we have to cough it up ourselves. Our math specialist spent $700-$800 going to a special training update last month.

When am I supposed to plan? Oh, yeah. I have a 45 minute a day planning period. Only, this planning period is also used for parent conferences and the seemingly endless meetings with the principal and other teachers. So I will be doing this at home a lot, too.

What about summer? In my district, we start school mid-August and end it the last week of May. Teachers report to duty early August. So there are really only June and July. But then you have summer school. Sure, we get paid extra if we teach summer school. But sometimes it's not as much of a choice as we'd like. It's all about testing, remember? And summer school is for kids who did not pass the standardized test, or for English Language Learners. And my students will all fall into at least the latter category.

Every single teacher I know purchases classroom materials with his or her personal funds, un-reiumbursed. This is a fact of teachers' lives. In some states, teachers receive an automatic tax credit based on this fact. That credit has been taken away recently where I live. I still buy things, though.

So that is the financial life of a teacher, and now I am bound for bed.

Please note that I am requesting anonymity from any commenters. Any reference to my district or my name will be deleted. Thank you for understanding.