hipteacher

Wha??

My morning has been chock full 'o surprises.

The other day I bought two bookshelves at Staples. They were so cheap I couldn't resist--tall, 5 shelf ones for $25 a piece. I drug the boxes into my classroom, but I didn't have the energy to put them together, so I left them propped up against the wall.

I felt all tired and grumpy this morning as I unlocked my classroom door. I entered and turned on one of my lamps and looked up to see my bookcases, both my bookcases, put together and standing against the far wall. Somebody came and put my bookcases together! No one has fessed up yet, but I'm on the case. Soon, I will find my fairy god-friend, and chocolates will be in order.

Then, I was worried because today is the first day of sentence diagramming with my 9th graders. I really thought they were going to whine and possibly revolt--possibly because I'm sure that's what I'd do if someone tried to make me diagram. But, they loved it! Really, really loved it. Like, I have a list of who gets to diagram  tomorrow because I ran out of exercises for all the people who were chomping at the bit today.

Wonders never cease.

Bush's "Failureness" and World Literature

I paid attention in my linguistics class. I know how to help AAVE speakers translate their grammar into formal, school-style writing. I use a portfolio model in my class, so students can work up to good grammar and word choice with effort.

But, sometimes, I hardly know where to start.

We read Swift's A Modest Proposal (I could see their heads jerk up each time I said something loudly about "eating babies!"), a selection from Ionesco's The Bald Soprano and a selection from Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, and then they wrote up their own modest proposals. This one is from a senior in my class:

During the 2002 Year, the world has come to a change, when an terrible tragedy happened in New York, Our most beloved, beautiful sight seeing, twin towers, Were knocked, Well actually they collapsed, there were so many passengers who Boarded the plane and were killed as the plance crashed into the second twin tower, throughout that Following week So much confusion was Going on. Some feel that it waas an alert awakening For most of our troops, the president (as he would think in his own piece of the world) But we Really can't blame our sick president, who is suffering from an illness of "Failureness" if you Really shall thing, there are not so much meaningless faults of what he things Goes on in our world today, as a Result of higher taxes, high Gasoline prices, and not too many Jobs are available to the unemployed, making it difficult for many low income people to purchase homes (of their choice) which leaves the president with nothing but sickness in the heart, making things so complicated throughout the Nation, why are there so many soldiers dying, does bush know? Why did we start having wars when Bush became our president? Why there wasn't any wars with the president well ever since I was born? what you thing? if you feel this way then why not Register to vote?? If I could I definetlly would for the better to make life as hard as It doesn't suppose to be. Our country needs at least an Great awakening throughout the present and future, the present, president, Bush, is not there to be made fun of but to make better Government , which as I don't see, Do you?? I'm Guessing you are supposed to be living his type of lifestyle if you want his support.

Usually, even if there are a million errors, the kid is still communicating. Her essay, though, leaves me guessing.

After looking at it for awhile, I think she just likes to capitalize "R" and "G," not that she doesn't understand capitalization.

She doesn't talk much in my class, but she probably doesn't speak like this reads. It seems like maybe she is trying to make it sound schoolish and is losing her meaning in the process.

Beyond that, where to start? With a senior? That has to pass the graduation test?

I don't know.

Here are the comments I left on the top of her paper:

Try separating your main ideas and creating paragraphs--each one should contain a main point. Try writing it like you would say it if you were talking to me. Read it out loud and see if it sounds right.

Gmail

I have 4 gmail invites if anybody wants one. First come, first served!

PS

I would like to ask a favor of those who link to me or talk about me. If you know my name, I would prefer that you remove it from your blog and refrain from using it in the future. This blog functions as my reflective teaching log, not as a source for professional recognition or for use in the classroom.

I choose not to mention my school's name on purpose, and I don't want my students to be able to find my blog by searching my name. Thank you for your help in preserving my anonymity. I appreciate it.

Dear God, It's Me The New Teacher

Dear God,  It’s Me The New Teacher

I know it has been a really long time, and we don’t really have much of a relationship, but I need some help.

I knew classroom management would be a struggle for me. Assertiveness is not exactly one of my expressed character traits. But, I’ve risen to the challenge and kept my head above water. I face my classroom each morning dressed professionally, calm and somewhat prepared.

Two weeks.

Fourteen days. Each one I survived. Barely.

My boy rubs my head at night as I cry and cry. Thank you for sending me this wonderful, understanding and supportive man. He is my rock.

And I am his tsunami.

Why did you send me, on the very first day, the severely EBD kid who was accidentally placed in my class and who freaked out, stared me down and, I thought, might take me down? Thank you for holding me still until I got home that night, knees knocking. Thank you for keeping my voice quiet as later I learned raising my voice, or reacting in anyway, would have “escalated” the situation.

Thank you, at least, for first period. My angels. They write, they try to write, beautiful stories. They vary from “Horse Camp” to “My First Time To Jail.” They think I’ve lost my mind when I tell them that they are writing books, but go along with my demands.

Well, that was my entry for last week which I never got around to posting. If there is one thing I've learned about teaching (among the millions of things I feel like I am learning by the second), it is that every single day is a whole new game. As long as I get up in the morning and keep going to face first period, it will get better and I will get better. That doesn't mean the first few weeks have been easy.

It's been three weeks now. 21 days.

My head peeks out above the water. I write in my blog again. Resolve to make time for myself.

Once I write again everyday, it will be easier to explain. For now, I sum up via a list.

1. I like my mailbox.

2. Having a classroom on the special ed hall is very interesting. The EBD room is next to mine. The kids bang for much of the day--bang and bang on the walls and floor. One girl, the only one I find really threatening, likes to wander into my room and tell me, "It's a good thing for you that I'm in a good mood today, 'cause otherwise I'd fuckin' kill you bitch," when I ask her politely to go back to her classroom. I've decided to ignore the "open door" policy of my school. My door is locked.

3. I attended my very first ever football game. I am not a football person, but I loved it. The band, the cheerleaders, the kids getting down in the stands. So now, I'm a regular.

4. I really enjoy the "bad" kids. They are often pains to have in class and disrupt learning every five seconds, but I really like them--even the ones who want to grow up to be pimps.

5. I've come up with a few lessons that I'm proud of.

6. No matter how "teacherly" I try to appear, I cannot help laughing. It is a completely involuntary reaction.

One day, while standing up at the board, a student I'll call Big Boy (because he is a BIG boy, especially to my 5 foot self) took some of my whiteboard clips and clipped them onto his chest and started gesturing in a very inappropriate way. My jaw dropped in shock. A student I'll call Pimp since that is his ambition (he said he'll being taking over his dad's girls when he turns 18), suddenly gets out of his desk and rushes the front of the classroom. He literally ran at full speed from the very back of the classroom to the board where he, BAM!, hit the floor and slid across the floor like he was sliding into home base.

I stared at him and said, "Pimp! What in the world are you doing?" He held up two hands, cupped as though to hold water, and said, "I had to catch it. I had to catch it. Your jaw dropped so far down, and I just had to catch it."

Would you have been able to remain stern?

Well, maybe you could have, but I couldn't. I laughed real hard, but that didn't stop me from giving my friend Pimp detention for the third time that week.

7. I am bad at taking attendance.

8. Once you are in your twenties, it is time to leave high school.

9. My kids really loved writing essays inspired by their favorite songs. We read a story by Toure' from the book Lit Riffs edited by Matthew Miele called "I Shot the Sheriff" inspired by the Bob Marley song of the same name. Each kid picked their favorite song, wrote a story inspired by the song and then presented the song and read the story to the class. They were so into it--even one of my kids with a 70 IQ turned in a brilliant, 3 page, typed, narrative essay. My heart grew a little.

10. The only students that I am a loss for how to approach are the quite smart, but terribly lazy and nonplussed, 11th and 12th graders who are in my World Lit class. Apathy annoys me.

11. You would think getting a "6" on a multiple choice quiz would be a statistical impossibility. It's not. Nor is getting a "7" or "8". God bless.

12. I've been invited to join my very first committee. That's right, I am now the official representative for my school on the district instructional technology panel. Watch out.

I've never worked this hard in my life, but I feel really alive everyday, and I'm sleeping like a little baby.

And on Friday, when Pimp found out he made a 100 on his vocab quiz (probably his first ever 100, and following a 30ish last week) and did a "touchdown" type dance around the classroom, I thought, maybe, just maybe, I am a real teacher.

I've developed a crick in my neck.

Say hello to my massive headache. Warning: This will be a disjointed post.

Somehow it took me all day to accomplish the following:
1. Get a blue binder with important stuff in it.
2. Sign onto the computer and then get kicked off. (repeat *many* times)
3. Make an appointment to get fingerprinted.
4. Eat. (Something I don't ever see veteran teachers doing, that and going to the bathroom.)
5. Conspire with cool janitor fellow. Teacher desk and filing cabinet will be delivered tomorrow.
6. Dealt, I think, politely with the teacher-who-got-kicked-out-of-my-classroom when he accused me of taking his supplies. He sullenly rifled through my stuff taking little bits of Sharpies and index cards and whatnot. Very annoying and completely illogical. Trust me. He's just pissy 'cause he got kicked out of his room.
7. Hung up one poster.
8. Turn in some papers checking off what supplies I got. And then didn't get.

That's it. I'm not sure where the whole planning for my actual classes thing is supposed to happen. But, I'm not freaking out. Yet.

I met with the special ed teacher who will be doing the inclusion class with me. He seems sort of just like me but a boy. He taught last year, but as a self-contained person, so this class will be a new experience for us both. I was a little nervous about our combined lack of experience, but after chatting, I think we have the same concept of best case scenerio. We'd like to team teach so that the kids aren't aware that one of us is the special ed teacher and that some students are special ed. It will probably require more work for both of us, but I hope it will be more "inclusive." On Friday, we'll go through a training that outlines best practices for inclusion, so I'm sure we'll understand more then. For now, I'm glad we seem to have the same kind of teaching vibe.

I also learned a little about new state end of course tests. Once they are up and running, I think it will work something like the Regents exams in New York that have been around since my gramps was in high school. Along with the measures proposed to deal with the 50% graduation rate and the major achievement gap at my school, the test will force us to perform more as a unit. Each deparment, so I gather, will need to grow towards doing things in a more uniform way until we are all doing sort of the same thing at the same time. I feel very glad I am new. Anything will be unfamiliar to me, so I don't have the issues about adopting new methods. Others, not so much.

And, last but not least, I am in the one "dead spot" of the school for wireless access. Why me? Can I hijack the school's airport and make it work for me?