Summertime

This summer is off to a great start! Turns out the key to getting a lot done is staying off the freaking computer. Yesterday I read You Can't Say You Can't Play, by Chicago Lab School teacher Vivian Paley. It's a pretty good (and fast) read. Basically it explores how kids exclude certain kids from play, and it's usually the same kids, and she creates a rule saying you can't say no. She also notices that kids very quickly create "bosses" for themselves, (either one kid makes him/herself the boss, or the other kids appoint someone the boss), and this boss is "in charge" of the excluding. Her rule (the title of the book) was effective in getting kids to include everyone in play but I found myself still wondering about the "boss" concept. Is this wired into our DNA somehow? One of the kids she talked to about this suggested it was a way of absolving the group of responsibility for decisions: if the "boss" said someone couldn't play, then it was only one kid not liking you, not all the kids. So interesting. Maybe I should do my own action research on this concept.

Once I finished the book (it's a quick read), I embarked on a deep-clean of the kitchen, which I am continuing today. After that I'll be starting on some web design I'm going to be working on this summer with Sean. Hopefully there will also be time somewhere for building a dining room table. I bought some old-growth 2x8s at Rebuilding Exchange, and I want to hire the guy who did some welding for our kitchen to build a base that looks something like this. I think the reclaimed wood and the dark steel base would look pretty cool. And then at some point, Sean and I want to take off to go to Estes Park for a couple weeks: busy busy!

Happy summer everyone!

mobility

One of the biggest challenges for me this year was the (extremely!) high mobility rate at my school. A couple people asked me for specific numbers and at the time I hadn't sat down and counted. Having just finished assembling our third grade yearbook, I had the chance to actually see how many students have come and gone from my class. Here's what a 39.5% mobility rate looks like:

Roster prior to the start of school: 30
First day attendance: 24 from roster
4 students transferred in within the first two weeks of school.
2 students left by the end of September.
1 more left in October.
2 students arrived in December.
3 students arrived in January.
1 student ARRIVED AND LEFT in April.
1 student LEFT THEN REENROLLED in April.
1 additional student left in April.
1 student left in May.
2 students left in June.

4 students neither started nor ended the year with us. In general, the students who transferred in mid-year had much poorer attendance than the rest of the class. They were sometimes absent whole weeks, or even multiple weeks at a time.

Total number of students transferring in (after the first two weeks of school, and not counting the same student transferring in twice): 6
Total number of students transferring out: 10

Next year I'm at a charter school. While I feel strongly about public education, as a teacher, I have to say I am looking forward to some stability in my classroom again. (My first year at Hope I had just one student transfer out: no other mobility).

Update: according to this page regarding how to calculate mobility rate, the actual mobility rate in my classroom was 47% (higher if you count the 4 students transferring in the first two weeks, which I haven't.)

8 Weeks of School Left

There are eight weeks of school left. This year was harder than my first year of teaching. That was definitely not something I was anticipating, but I was at a new school, with new students and new challenges. I feel like I learned a lot, and the experience has both helped me shape my priorities and also given me a lot to think about in terms of educational inequity and education reform. It's also been a crazy year outside of the classroom, what with the strike at the beginning of the year, and my school closing. This is definitely a time I will not forget.

As the year winds down (and/or gets crazier, but I won't depress you with the details), I've started reflecting on my teaching practice and progress, and my goals both personally and professionally. 

I have realized this year, more dramatically than last year, how important building relationships with students is. I am learning that through successes, failures, and tumult in this area, as well as the immortal spirit of my students' second grade teacher, who I feel like I know through my students. It's clear to me from the way my students reminisce and talk about her that she developed close, deep relationships with many, if not all of them. I have been hearing a lot about this since we heard about the school closing: every morning our principal begins announcements by saying, "Good Morning Fermi Family!" My kids take this assertion to heart. I can tell that it's important to them to feel like a part of a family at our school. And they definitely felt that with their second grade teacher. I have had multiple students tell me they felt like she treated them like one of her own kids. (I've had students tell me this as well. I've also had kids tell me they think I don't care at all.) The fact that they say these things shows just how important it is to my students that they feel loved and valued and cared for by their teacher. This reflection is why I'm realizing that I need to make time to talk to kids one on one, in a non-academic setting. Just to talk to them and listen to them. That's a big goal I have for the next eight weeks: make one on one time for all of my students.

I've also learned that there are goals outside of academics that need to be prioritized. And if I'm not at a level of expertise where I can accomplish multiple priorities, then I have to decide what's a top priority. This year I realized how important it is to maintain a calm environment. I realized this because of the reality that I can't always provide this to my students. But usually I can, and I strive to do that by any means necessary. It doesn't always involve the most student-centric teaching methods. But my students deserve a classroom that is a calm, safe place, and I will do everything in my power to give that to them.

I am also excited about finally having enough of a baseline of competence to be able to effectively use my summer to plan and prepare for next year. To some extent I was able to do that last year, but there was still a lot of pie-in-the-sky style planning that happened, and I was also just too consumed with renovating the house to be able to really dig in. This year I have a much better idea of what I'm going to do to be a better teacher next fall. I'm going to read every book listed in Fountas and Pinnell's Guiding Readers and Writers so that I've got a ready list of excellent books that can be used to teach various skills and strategies. I'm going to dig in to the Everyday Math curriculum, and also talk to other first grade teachers about what kids at that grade need to know, are ready to learn, and how they understand math. I want to read some books on teaching literacy that colleagues have recommended that I just haven't had time for.

On the personal side, I have learned that I need a hobby. I am still working on weekends, and I usually work between 60-70 hours a week. That's fine for now (provided I can lower my stress levels during the time I am in front of students) but I need to cultivate non-work interests. This year I still feel like I just work. I have started doing yoga twice a week which I imagine has had a positive impact on my stress levels. But there are so many things that I love and miss that I need to be doing. When you don't have a hobby, you end up thinking about work even when you're not actively working. That's not a break! I would like to join a choir again, or join a figure-drawing studio. Get back in touch with things that are both challenging and relaxing to me and also have nothing to do with my job. 

I am looking forward to ending this year on a high note and making year three the best year yet!

Makers

I am currently watching a documentary called Makers, (it's great! watch it!) about women who have shaped women's rights in our country. So interesting. What it immediately brings to mind is the current "debate" over women calling themselves feminists, or not. Or if staying at home with kids is feminist or not. And what I am struck by is how silly that dialogue is. First of all, feminism, from what I gather, is about having agency to live your own life, make your own choices, and be your own person. Yes, I am a feminist! Related to that, being self-determined and free has nothing to do with what particular choices you make, but who gets to make them. Yes, there are traditional gender roles to be considered, or thwarted, or renegotiated, but it's neither here nor there for me in terms of the essential fact that I am a human being and I am in charge of my own life. I say that makes me a feminist. We all need to stop worrying about whether that sounds good or bad or old-fashioned or militant or like we have hairy armpits, and just focus on living our lives as well and fully as we can and let others do the same.

The House: Before and After

So, as I promised you all maybe three hundred years ago or so, I want to share some before and after pictures (as well as some mid-renovation pictures) of the work we've done on our house. Enjoy!

Living Room: note the salmon color. Also: the room is about 11 feet wide. The first picture was in the listing, and it looks like you can go ballroom dancing in there. Not the case: that's why we took out the cute little fireplace.

Here's a little detail shot of the living room. Yes, it's very yellow in there. But it's a cooler gold tone than it looks here.

Dining Room: we took out the arch mainly because the arch was not really well-crafted and we wanted to open the space up a bit. We plan to put in some wood molding and possibly also wooden shelves (along these lines). Note the children's furniture in the dining room.  :-)

Kitchen: this is where most of the time and energy went...

This before picture doesn't have a window in the corner with the fridge because the window was in the then-pantry.

The second picture below is right after the contractors tore out the pantry wall. You can see where it was, as well as where the kitchen cabinets on the other side of the wall were. It made the kitchen really small, and because of the location of the hallway, you couldn't put any cabinets on the west wall (where you see a table in the before shots.)

I'm really proud of how much we were able to do ourselves, and how things have turned out. We are so happy to finally be able to just enjoy our home. There's still a list a mile long of course, but we're not living out of boxes or cooking on plywood countertops. Win!

It's Been Too Long!

Sorry, all eight of you loyal readers, that I haven't been a-posting. That last post came from what turned out to be the suckiest (aka most first-year-of-teaching-like) two weeks of the year thus far. Anyway, things are much better on the teaching front, thanks mainly to the gradual process (that I'm finally just now actually getting the hang of) of being, you know, IN CHARGE of my classroom. It's not a democracy. Sorry UTEP. It's a combination of Cesar Milan-like group energy-level management,  making ordinary things sound really exciting, and making my voice very quiet at key moments. Like when I feel like yelling, for instance. Also, never have the whole class move at once. Actually, I think that's like 90% of my happiness, right there.

Anyway, I got all excited just now because I discovered a LOAD of pictures of our house pre-renovation. That should make for some really fun before-and-after house posts, if I ever get around to actually posting those! Ha. Also, the way I discovered the pictures is funny/gross. I have this weird-looking bug bite on my leg, and I couldn't figure out what was going on with it, so before going to the doctor, I called my mom for her input, as is my custom, and she (as is HER custom) wanted lots more details about a weird, gross bug bite than most sane people would. And so she asked me to take a picture, but "not on your phone, take it with a real camera." And so that's how I discovered lots of pictures I didn't know I had. Aren't you happy you know that?

So anyway, stay tuned for house-related posts. (Not this weekend though because I am super behind on grades. Meeps!)

I Couldn't Make This Up

Today was a doozy of a day. The silver lining of it was that I didn't lose my patience. I just wanted to share for friends and family who don't always get a chance to to see the crazy shenanigans, here's a (thankfully unusual) day for your reading pleasure.

There were a couple issues in the morning: some of my usually well-behaved kids were having an off-day, and a girl who has some difficulty dealing with anger was having a particularly difficult time. But the morning actually went really smoothly. We had a great science lesson, the kids worked really well during math, and everyone was excited about Mr. Rich (our Ravinia teaching artist) coming in the afternoon. 

Then I picked the kids up from lunch. 

I arrive to find one student in tears that another student called him gay and reached under his shirt. So in the midst of dealing with this, I see three girls in line shoving and yelling at each other. So I send them to the office since we're right by there, and I've got other fish to fry. We go use the restroom which I try not to do straight after lunch because it's just a HUGE MESS of horribleness, but since Mr. Rich is here we need to do it now instead of after half an hour of reading. I'm already irritated on account of the girls and the bullying, and the kids being a mess in the hall is just too much. I tell them if they aren't good in the hall they won't go to Mr. Rich, so almost half the class is sitting in my room with their heads down instead of with Mr. Rich. Then the office pages me about the girls who I need to send write-ups down for, and since I have a volunteer in my room on Tuesdays I decide to the forms down to the office myself since my reliable students were all in a different room and at this point there's only two kids in the room (even so, probably a bad decision). When I come back she tells me that one of the girls (the one who is chronically disrespectful and disruptive) ran around the room and cussed at her, so then it was her turn to take her down to the office. I decide to hold a "girls meeting" for the girls who had been fighting, which was very productive, except that one of the girls told me she needed to use the bathroom and I told her to wait, and then she had an accident. So then I send her with her former brawlers/now-BFFs to go call home and get new pants. I clean up the mess which is thankfully not on the rug. Meanwhile, the class comes back. The student who had gotten bullied at lunch gets an early dismissal. Then the girls come back because the one with the accident couldn't get new pants brought to school in time. So I send her to the library with some books to read so she can dry off (I figured since no one but a few people saw, I'd save her the embarrassment of coming back with wet pants). Then she gets an early dismissal so I send one of the girls who already knew about the accident to go get her. All this time, mind you, I am trying to do a read-aloud. I decide that a better plan is to do some role-playing about being kind to others because it seems like we need it today, and my afternoon is pretty much shot anyhow. And then to end the day we read a little of Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, which at this point I'm wondering why I chose that book, because as much as the kids love it, I feel like I get to relive the most irritating parts of my day in book-form. 

Anyway. Yeah.