One more teeny post

NaBloWriMo ends today. This is my 30th post, so I made my goal to post 30 times in 30 days. It would have been better to blog daily, but November is a month filled with no-school days and sometimes the well ran dry. As I continue this blog, I'm going to try to write more about the joys of teaching instead of bellyaching about things out of my control. I'm going to be positive, positive I tell you! At least, I'm going to try.

A Good Monday (and that's rather surprising)

I'm not a big fan of Mondays. I hate having my weekend end. It's so hard for me to get up, get the boy up, and pull it all together to get out of the house in a timely manner. But I do, week after week, because preparing for a sub is worse than facing any Monday! However, I rather enjoyed today.

It was November walk-about day--nice timing, princiPal--waiting to the last day of the month! (I guess it snuck up on her.) My princiPal, academic coach, fellow 4th grade teacher, and I visited 3 classrooms during our reading block. As much as I hate the game of trying to decide which quadrant each teacher was teaching in (if you don't understand "quadrant" then, please, go and kiss your princiPal tomorrow for not rushing headlong into the whole Rigor and Relevance rigamarole the way our district has)--long parenthetical pause there!--as I was saying, as much as I hate determining the quadrant, that's how much I love observing fellow teachers. I always learn something or find something that provokes admiration or horrorification. Today I admired the way one teacher was using a picture book to enhance student knowledge of hurricanes and tornadoes. She did a bang up job and landed in quadrant D! (Um, that's good, in fact, the best quadrant, for all that it sounds like an admirable bra cup size.) The other 2 teachers weren't quite up to a D level, but they weren't bad. Except one had a handmade division chart on the wall. She had labeled "divisor" and "dividend" incorrectly! (Shock! Gasp! Oooh!) Not good. And in a school where math practices are suddenly under intense scrutiny because of lousy scores, extremely NOT GOOD.

Okay, back to the day. I did a good job with the science lesson. Students were active and engaged and excited to learn about static electricity. Then my math lesson went even better. I wish I taught everything as well as I taught that lesson. I had energy (don't know from where!) and enthusiasm and perfect examples and they learned, finally, how to do a simple division problem. They finally saw the value of the Teacher-Approved Handy Dandy Division Device and used it! (You don't know about Teacher-Approved Handy Dandy Division Devices? Cut an index card to make two almost-squares. Give one almost-square to each student. Keep one for yourself and model using it. When beginning the division problem, cover up all of the dividend except the greatest digit with the T-A HDDD. Look at that first digit. Can you get a group of the divisor from that digit? How many groups of 3 can you get from 8? Using the T-A HDDD helps students keep their problem lined up and makes certain they put digit in the right place in the quotient. Try it--it works!)

Okay, that was my terrific day. Got to be nosy in others' classrooms-check! Got to teach a good science lesson-check! Got to teach a fantastic math lesson-check! Enjoyed myself and my students-check! Check! Check!

All days should be so good.

Not my favorites!

Everyone does a list of favorites. I've decided to be different.

Least Favorites:

• Book: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne--I would rather be beaten with it than ever read it again.
• Movie: Sorcerer. My husband and I saw this when we were dating (1977). Trucks, mountainous terrain, and nitroglycerin. I kept hoping everything would blow up.
  
• Food: fish or liver, take your pick. Both make me want to hurl.
• Color: Aqua, the predominant color of my childhood, in the 60s. Everything in the kitchen was aqua, even our counter top. Yuck, yuck, yuck.
• Thing to do: Clean. I'm defeated by a mess. Overwhelmed doesn't begin to describe how I feel about my house.
• Gift: Anything from a particular sister-in-law. We draw names and the number of times she's gotten my name is uncanny. She has a knack for slights and insults, even through the guise of a gift.
• Genre: For books, romance. For movies, horror flicks.
• Dessert: Pumpkin pie. It just tastes bad and no amount of whipped cream can save it.
• Candy: Licorice--so vile it's hard to believe it's a candy.
• Soda: Root beer or Dr. Pepper. They taste the same to me. Bad.
  
• Magazine: Consumer Reports. Geez, how boring can you get?
• Thing about myself: My weight. Or my big feet.
• Favorite child: I'm not that mean. I don't have a favorite, either. I love them all.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I've only cooked one Thanksgiving turkey and that was more than 25 years ago. For every other Thanksgiving since I've been married, we've gone to my in-laws to enjoy the day with them. To my children, this IS Thanksgiving--playing with cousins, eating the bountiful meal cooked by their mammaw, and playing with cousins some more. Even though the cousins' ages range from 14 to 29, they all still play together. Today they had us in stitches as we watched a covey of them play Curses. Hilarious!

So today, I'm thankful for the 19 family members and 1 boyfriend (not mine--husband definitely wouldn't approve--the boyfriend was my niece's!) I spent today with. I'm thankful for my nearly 73 year-old mother-in-law who can't imagine not hosting Thanksgiving (and Christmas and Easter) dinners at her home. I'm thankful my mom is here, because I don't think she will be for many more years. Mostly, I'm thankful that my husband (53 years old today!), kids, and I celebrated another holiday together. It's a rum old world and I treasure every moment I enjoy with my family.

Finished!

I've finished reading First Lord's Fury by Jim Butcher. I greatly enjoyed it and am now saddened because it's over. Of course, the fact that I read it in about 15 hours means that my eyes hurt and I need to reread it to answer some questions about some of the stuff that happened.

That's okay--I'm a great rereader. There wasn't a lot of money in my family when I was growing up, and the few books I owned I read and reread to pieces. I enjoy a book nearly as much during a rereading as when I first read it--the experience isn't at all spoiled because I know the outcome. In fact, I find that I really enjoy knowing what is to come; I'm able to see the author lay out the groundwork for character and plot development.

When it comes to reading Jim Butcher's books, rereading is a joy and a necessity. His books are always page-turners. In fact, I stopped today and marveled at how he was able to make me want the book to shift the scene back to the previous one while simultaneously not wanting the present scene to end. I didn't know if I should slow down and savor or speed up and satisfy my curiosity. That, friends, is a good book!

Today

I've been working on math ideas for my princiPal. This isn't at her behest; it's because our lousy scores have to change and I know she expects me to be helpful. I've been interneting, looking for ideas to improve elementary math instruction. I ordered Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma and received it today. A cursory look makes me think I'll never get the other 4th grade teachers to want to read it--they are all non-readers and there ain't no pictures. That boggles my mind--how can you not be a reader if you're a teacher? I'm excited about this book. It looks at the differences between US and Chinese math instruction and focuses on depth of understanding by the teachers as the reason for the disparity in scores between our 2 countries. I'll try to blog later about how it goes.

As I continue to blog over the next few days, it likely will be more about family and less about school because it's Thanksgiving break. I'm beyond happy that I'll get to see all of my children on Thursday. It has become a too-rare occurrance.

Monday's post

Moses came bounding into my classroom on Monday morning. "Mrs. Matters! Mrs. Matters! Mrs. Matters!" he said, "I fell ten feet and landed on my back yesterday!"

"Oh, Moses! Were you hurt? Did it knock the wind out of you?"

"Yeah, it did, but what I really want to know is why did it take so long to fall? I mean, I know it didn't take very long but it seemed to take forever! I just fell and fell and fell! Why did it feel like it took a long time?"

"I don't know, Moses. I'll have to think about that one."

Three hours later. . .

"Mrs. Matters! Mrs. Matters! Mrs. Matters! Did you think about it? About why it took so long to fall?"

See why I like him so much? Never dull, always excited. He fell ten feet, knocked his breath out, and he's wondering why it felt like it took so long. That's Moses. And I actually did think about it. I told him about my car wreck last spring. It, too, felt like it took forever. I think that happens when we're in danger--our brain speeds up and the world feels like it has slowed down. I explained this to Moses (and the rest of the class) and Moses was so excited about the idea of having a "speeded-up brain".

Moses and a speeded-up brain. That would be interesting!

Sunday's post

We went to Son's piano performance on Sunday. In some ways it sucked big time--crowded, parents had to sit in the balcony, and some carols were played many times by different groups. A little boring.

The premise of the performance was unique--duets on multiple pianos played simultaneously. It was terrific when it worked--it sounded like one big, rich piano. When it didn't work (when students weren't playing at the same pace), it sounded like a bunch of cats were loose in a piano store. Son's group played Pachebel's Canon in D Major flawlessly. There were some other great performances--the Christmas bells one that my older daughter sings "Ding! Fries are done! Ding! Fries are done!" every holiday season was my favorite piece.

The only thing that really bothered me was the decision by the teachers to play at the end of the concert. C'mon, folks. We're parents and grandparents and siblings of the kids performing. We don't need to hear you showing off playing 2 pieces that added an additional 15 minutes to what was already a long concert. I was beyond ready to go by the end.

Saturday's Post

If I'd taken the time to post on Saturday, I would have written about:

• driving my son to his rehearsal and stopping by our favorite deli, the only place I can reliably get to in the Big City. We made rehearsal with time to spare and then enjoyed a Reuben (me) and a grilled cheese with bacon sandwich (son). This almost qualifies as BIG NEWS since it's the first time in ages Son has eaten anything besides chicken fingers/nuggets/lumps. Maybe someday he'll try ketchup.
• feeling proud that I actually washed, dried, and folded 3 loads of laundry. I knew I wouldn't have time on Sunday.
• ordering another book from Amazon. That makes 18 so far this month: one for son, one for school, let's see, um, 16 for pleasure. But, hey--that will be weeks of reading pleasure. I'm good until about the end of January. :)
  

Finally, Friday!

Today marked the first week since fall break where I've taught for 5 consecutive days. It was exhausting. I guess, in the interest of full disclosure, that I should admit that I left 30 minutes early to take my son to a rehearsal for a piano performance.

The rehearsal is in the big city, about an hour away from here. In order to be sure to get there on time for the 4:40 rehearsal, we left at 3:05. We were going along at a fine pace until we hit the big city's Friday afternoon rush hour traffic--egads, how do people (my daughters!) stand to live and drive there every freakin' day? The last 6 miles took 40 minutes. My stupid GPS must be stuck to "scenic route" or something because we were traversing back roads and byways to get there. Finally got to the campus and couldn't find the music building. A kindly safety worker led us there and we ran into the building only 10 minutes late. Sigh.

The scheduled 30 minute lesson lasted less than 20 minutes. Son was on stage with his duet partner for, oh, about 8 minutes.

Crap.

We left, quickly snagged in the same rush hour traffic (it was just 8 minutes later!), and got home about 90 minutes later.

Let's see--100 minutes there, 8 minutes for the lesson, 90 minutes back.

It just doesn't add up.

And we get to do it again tomorrow.

On Thursday, I pissed off a few colleagues

Last week, we received our teacher-effect scores (see post) and I was yippee-skippy about my effectiveness as a teacher. This week, we met (in the always dreaded after school faculty meeting) to discuss our sucky-poor teacher-effect scores as a grade level. The average gain for 4th grade math was negative 7 point zero. That's a little more than 10 points below my average gain for math. A score of 0.0 means that a teacher (or school, if that's what you're looking at), on average, brought students forward one grade level. It's the expected gain. Positive scores show more than a year's gain. Negative scores must mean you walk by and suck brain cells out of the kids. My score meant I brought my students forward more than one grade level. Given all of that, why did I have to sit at this meeting to be chastened with the others? It's not my fault that we're floundering.

The tone of the meeting was ugly--we were shown sucky data and then repeatedly asked, "How can you explain this? What do you believe is the reason for these poor test scores? What are you going to do differently because whatever you are doing isn't working." I finally asked, "What do you want us to say? Do you want me to admit to kicking back, drinking coffee, as my kids ran amok? Let me say--I don't know what everyone else's score is, but my score was a positive number. I know what I'm doing--I know how to teach math." Surprisingly (sarcasm, okay?), no one patted me on the back for my great scores. I was shot a few hate-filled looks from the teachers who must be responsible (and who have negative scores, natch) but not a word was said. Oh, well. Maybe they'll all come to observe me teaching math. And I'll be voted teacher of the new millenium. But I'm not betting it.

(This meeting could have been a positive experience if a let's-all-roll-up-our-sleeves-and-brainstorm-teaching-ideas attitude had been adopted. Instead, it was all about "what are you doing wrong?" It was demeaning. I told my princiPal that a few more meetings like that will drive everyone to cheat on the test. She, pal though she is, was. not. amused. At. all.)

It happened on Wednesday

One of my students wet herself--thoroughly. Puddle-on-the-floor wet. Guess who told her she had to wait until after the science test to use the restroom? Yeppers-'twas me.

To be fair to myself, I'd like the world to know that we had just passed the restroom on our way back to the classroom and some students went at that time. It's a frequent occurrence that we pass the restroom and students (see the restroom, have sudden urge to pee) ask to go and I always say yes. Always. Why didn't she ask then? And, if she had to go so badly, why wasn't she doing the pee-pee dance when she asked? Why, oh why?

Thankfully, because God takes care of children and idiot-teachers, no one noticed. When we went to lunch, she remained seated--that's when I noticed her dilemma. After the line left the room, I got her to the nurse's office, unseen by anyone. Mom was at work (an hour away) and so the bookkeeper went to the dollar store and got her a new outfit. It all worked out.

She'll get to use the restroom whenever she asks for the rest of the year--my husband and I decided she's got a "golden ticket" to go. Pun intentional.

And I still feel so bad about it.

Moses

Moses is one of my favorite students, perhaps even on the short list of all time favorites. He's smart and enthusiastic and eager and totally out-of-control all day long. He never remembers to raise his hand (until asked numerous times) and he shouts out off-the-wall questions. All. Day. Long.

I knew that today would be one of his more interesting days when he entered the classroom with a Puff the Magic Dragon picture book. He was singing along with it, loudly and enthusiastically. The other students immediately, in unison, swiveled their heads toward me with widened eyes and open mouths. Written on all of their faces was the mute plea, "Please, save us!" I laughed and then they laughed. And Moses finally stopped singing after being told to stop half-a-dozen times.

He was the most irrepressible he's ever been. All. Day. Long. But he was (as he always is) so danged cheerful about life, that it's impossible to dislike him or be angry with him. So, I just laugh and enjoy and, sometimes, tell him to put a fist in it (meaning put your fist up to your mouth so you'll stop talking.) One of my co-workers has a student who keeps trying to put her eye out with a pencil. I can live with Moses and enjoy a unique perspective on the world: you can be happy if you choose to be, even when you've suffered a year of loss and change (Moses has) that has rocked your world. IF you choose to, you can forget the pain and look for the happier things in life (Hey, teacher, look at the neat fuzzy seeds I found on the way to school!) He has a special place in my heart.

Yet Another Sunday Spent Working

There's a load of clean laundry waiting for me in the dryer, but I've just finished my lesson plans, and I'm taking a breather for a few minutes. Lesson plans have taken quite a bit of my time today; I'll still use the old basal this week and that necessitates creating quite a few things on my own. A vocabulary chart to introduce this week's words, a center activity involving a written response, a detailed example page of the written response (a friendly letter). All of this takes time and I'd rather be reading than working on reading, but I'd always rather be reading. There are 17 notebooks awaiting grading, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm knackered.

Darn, it's past midnight

I'll just pretend I'm in another time zone. . .

My mom's home from the hospital. She had a calcified stent (one of the old ones) that was removed by an inventive use of a balloon angioplasty and replaced with a new stent. She's tired, but doing well.

I've been a bad girl today--ordered 13 books from Amazon. Once upon a time, I read mostly mysteries but now my tastes run to fantasy. My favorite fantasy author is Jim Butcher, and I'm currently rereading his Aleran Chronicles because the sixth and final book will be released on Nov. 24. Oh, that's another book I have on order. Today I ordered the first nine books of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Later, when talking with my son (the one in grad school), he mentioned a book series he's reading (A Song of Ice and Fire), so I ordered that too. Damn Amazon--it's just too easy!

My house is full of books, despite the fact that I gave over a hundred to the local library about a year ago. That was a mere tip of the iceberg. My 2 six-foot bookshelves in my bedroom are double-stacked and double-faced. I have stacks of books in my living room and my kitchen. I usually keep a book on the toilet tank. I cannot not read something bound every day. (An awkward sentence, but I like it.)

Anyway, I hope I like the new books. I've read a lot of crappy fantasy in the past year--I do not like Ann McCaffrey's Pern books much and I gave them a fair chance (borrowed from grad student son's shelves.) I tried a British youth series, The Dark is Rising--bah! Lots of potential but it managed to be just plain boring. I've read all of Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series but it's gotten so darned convoluted that I don't think I'll read the next one. Oh, who am I kidding. I'm a book addict and I'm sure I'll buy it just because I have all of the rest.

The Catch-Up Post

My favorite EA sent my princiPal a handwritten letter of complaint yesterday. She's upset that I've changed basal reading series (doesn't have the test book for this one!) and said that I wouldn't let Rotney take a copy of the book home. So NOT TRUE. My princiPal called and left a message that Rotney was, indeed, allowed to take the book home and that I would be teaching frequently from this basal. The EA never returned the call or the second call made today.

I wonder what the point of the letter was. Did she think that I'd be in some sort of trouble for switching series? Did she think I wouldn't advise my princiPal that I was doing this? One reason my princiPal is my Pal is because I've always kept her from being surprised by anything I've ever done. Confession is good for the soul and good for keeping your princiPal happy--every goof or misstep I've ever made, she's heard it from me first. And there have been several over the dozen-plus years we've worked together. Additionally, she, by my request, vets my emails for me when I'm dealing with a difficult parent. No sense in going out on a limb on my own.

Stay tuned. Will Rotney finally return to Nirvana School where students are handed A's and B's? Will the EA shoot me in the parking lot? Will I be sued for harming his self-esteem? Any and all of these outcomes is possible on next week's episode of I'm Tired of Rotney's EA. Stay tuned!

Another Sub, Another Three-Day Week

My mother, who visited the cardiac cath lab last week and received a stent, had to go back today for another visit. She had angina pains on Monday and Tuesday and that's just not supposed to happen again so soon. So, another sub day for me, and Mom and I were off to the hospital at 6:15 today. After check in and all that entails, she went off to the lab at 8:45 and stayed in there for nearly 4 hours. That's a long time--last time she was in and out in 2 hours. They found a calcium blockage in a artery and had to work hard (but carefully, they assured me) to remove it.

Was it there last week and they just missed it or is it possible to get a blockage in less than a week? If I ever see the doctor I'll ask. And now I have Cookie, her dachsund, dogging my every step again. She's always on the hunt for food. I'm always eating. It works for her but I'll never understand why that dog doesn't weigh 50 lbs.

Teacher Effectiveness

I teach in one of the few states in our glorious union that rates teacher-effectiveness based on our students' test scores. Yep--scary and a good reason not to like Obama and his minion Arne Duncan, which actually makes me sad because I liked Obama so much last year. I had foolishly thought anyone besides Dubya would see the ridiculousness of NCLB, but it seems that ain't so. And now Obama wants to pay teachers based on their students test scores? Seems mighty unfair to me, but my scores are an argument in favor of this--darn it all.

I have referenced it before, but let me state it again--last year was the most difficult year of my teaching career. If I had to do it again, I would resign. I had huge behavior problems and half of my class was special ed-inclusion, which means it really wasn't an inclusion class--it was a modified CDC (Comprehensive Development Class, I think it means--typically a CDC class has MR and severely autistic students. An overstatement to call it a CDC, but it FELT that way. Everyone was so low!) Imagine my surprise when I signed for and received my white envelope.

Getting your Teacher Effect scores is a big thing--someone from downtown comes and distributes the envelopes. Teachers rip them open and study the results with furrowed brows, but no one shares with anyone else. It's PRIVATE with all caps. I'm dying to know how one of my co-workers did, but to ask would be a huge faux pas--darn it. My scores were good. Above average gains in science--I don't understand this because I hate to teach science. A positive score (indicating more than a year's growth) in mathematics. A year's growth in reading. Finally, a below average score in social studies, but that doesn't matter because it doesn't count toward NCLB. It hurts, because I love teaching social studies, but it doesn't matter. Now, the big question--how did that group of knuckleheads I had last year achieve this?

Some things are impossible to grok.

Stupid Science Book

We have a new science book this year and it sucks for air. The publisher guaranteed that it would be fully aligned with our state standards and, by cutting out all extraneous material, they've done it. However, since the uncut material wasn't edited to account for the excisions, the text is choppy and leaves out information that would be helpful in understanding just what the hell the book is talking about. Additionally, money woes for the district means they bought a stripped down experiment kit (no doubt thinking teachers could purchase the missing items with their personal money) and the least helpful workbook (thin, thin, thin--nothing but test practice and nothing for specific lessons.) Finally, can you imagine my joy today when I discovered that the test for our current chapter had items on it that aren't found in chapter 6? WTH! I had to write yet another test, then write 4 pages (one per lesson) of study guides for the chapter. I'm so sick and tired of writing tests. And study guides. (thanks, EA!) I did try to construct study guides that were less "fill in the blank" and more "Be able to define:". I'm tired of giving the game away just to satisfy Rotney's EA.

On a mean and personal note, I have to admit that when I switched to the old reading series today, I really enjoyed the surprised expression on Rotney's face. Poor kid--I bet he spent all of our three-day weekend memorizing questions for the wrong test. Oopsy!

No school today

We were out of school today for Veteran's Day. Yeah, I know--Veteran's Day is on the 11th, but I guess my district prizes 3-day weekends. Of the 16 weekdays since Fall Break, I've been out of my classroom for training or personal leave or a holiday 6 and a half days. No wonder I can't come up with something to write about today. Stay tuned--Rotney's EA or Billy the Bully are sure to provide fodder in the coming days. Or, heaven forbid, something else will come up--that's the spirit!

About me and mine

I graduated from high school in 1975. I was the first in my immediate family to go to college and the first to graduate, even though the matriculation was spread out over 20 or more years. Life, especially having my family, intervened. Also, my major (biology) was fairly poorly chosen. I hated dissections and the smell of formaldehyde. I'm not a great memorizer of scientific names. Chemistry is not a subject for which I have an affinity, and it's required for biology majors. After 3 1/2 years of screwing around, aiming for a "Gentleman's C" in all courses (how liberated I was!), I happily left for marriage and kids. But when I allowed myself to think about it, I felt like a failure.

So, with three children happily in school, I re-enrolled and changed my major to elementary ed. A good fit and the shortest track I could find to graduation. I did glance at psychology as I took 2 core classes there--I think I would have excelled there, but the financial strain I was putting on my family made me take the more immediate track to a pay check. In what would have been my final year, I became pregnant with my fourth child--quite a surprise, but he's been a blessing, so I'll not argue with God over that decision. So, finally--graduation, student teaching (a horrible experience--saving for another day), and employment. I was 40 when I began teaching fifth grade at my school. I had already lived a lifetime of experiences.

My own kids had prepared me poorly for teaching. They're all very bright and gave me an inflated sense of how good I was at teaching. I worked with my older daughter for a week on her addition facts--bingo! She was good to go. That's really the only thing I had to help her with, and the other kids seemed to learn by osmosis--they learned every concept the first time around. I did keep tons of books in the house and made frequent trips to the library with them. They're all readers and all, by any measure, successful. The oldest three are out in the world and I so miss them! Here's what they've chosen to do with their lives:

• Older daughter (and oldest of all) is BSN/RN, working as a charge nurse in a regional cancer center. She's witty and wonderful and beautiful. I think she'd be a perfect nurse to have because of her cheerful attitude and deftness. I love watching her put away groceries or load a dishwasher--poetry in motion! The Cheaper by the Dozen parents would have studied her! She and her new husband make quite a pair.
• Younger daughter is my DETERMINED child. She was a National Merit Scholar, valedictorian, and actually made money going to college because she had quite a bit of excess scholarship money. She's a Latin teacher, living with her husband in the same city as her older sister. She completed a half-marathon yesterday in less than 2 hours. She, too, is witty and wonderful and beautiful but she's also the opposite of her older sister. She's fair; the other is dark. She's short; her sister is tall. She's shy; the other is outgoing. Just these 2, born 19 months apart, taught me that all kids are different and that comparisons were impossible.
  
• My older son, my former baby, is a graduate student at a very nice university in another state. He, too, was a valedictorian. He's a very talented mathematician but he loves literature. He's studying English Lit, emphasis on Medieval Literature, and he hopes to be a university professor. And, considering the 5-year program he's in is paying him to go to school, he should be able to achieve his dream. The most amazing thing about all of this is that he had a serious language delay disorder when he was small because of repeated ear infections. He literally didn't talk much at all until he was 5 (and had had 3 years of speech therapy.) I've dealt with language-impaired children in my classroom, and I have to say they are the most difficult children to teach. Language is everything in a classroom. A child who is not processing language can't learn. My aspiring professor was able to overcome his language delay and excel.
  
• That brings up the baby--now 14 and in high school. He's the brightest of a very bright bunch--he taught himself how to read before the age of two. Literally. I was changing a diaper when he was 17 months old and he asked if "stop" is spelled s-t-o-p. He would read newspaper headlines as we walked by. He used to amaze the check-out girls at Wal-Mart by reading their name tags to them. He's always been very gregarious and would walk up to just anybody at the store and start a conversation. After begin chastised repeatedly for talking to strangers, he then began conversations with them by saying, "Hi, my name is _________ and this is my friend, Mom. What's your name?" His reasoning--if he knew the stranger's name, then the stranger was no longer a stranger. He, like his brother and father, excels at mathematics. He's not so good at turning in schoolwork and that is maddening and tiring for his father and me. Dang-it, his brother and sisters turned their work in. Sometimes I feel too old for the "did you do your homework" crap, but it must be done.

Well, that's my kids. I didn't raise them alone; my husband has been here with me, a true parenting partner. He's the one my kids get the intellect and math ability from. I often wonder what I gave my kids--I think I'll be content for making them readers and lovers of words and learning.

Supernanny

Does anyone else out there love Supernanny as much as I do? I wonder if she does classroom visits--some days I could use her.

I really could have used her last year with my zoo of a classroom--twelve behavior problems. About three of those were hard-core, well, jerks comes to mind. The other nine were followers of the three, but would have been a handful in anyone's class without the influence of three others. Talk about a long year.

By fourth grade, the parents of my hardcore jerks have already heard about their precious child's issues since kindergarten. They know that little Willful is doing what he's always done (whatever the hell strikes his fancy) and they are beyond caring. It's my problem. One meeting with a parent produced a hug for me (!) but did not stop mom from continually selling her son's behavior meds every time the prescription was renewed. (Of course, the drug-selling was not discussed. It was the cow in the room that everyone pretended not to notice. We did ask that she send the meds to school so that the nurse could give her son the meds and she promised to do so. Promises are so easy, aren't they? Are you surprised that she didn't fulfill her promise? Not I--I've been played too many times.)

This year, I have about three behavior problems. Skippy isn't on the list--his behaviors are his out-of-control actions when he doesn't have his meds, but thankfully he does have them most of the time. And he doesn't hurt anyone when he's not medicated--he's just incapable of working or sitting still.

One of the three boys is socially clueless--insults others and then is so sad that he doesn't have friends. Well, duh. I've been coaching him on appropriate/inappropriate things to say and he's doing better.

Rotney, crazy EA aside, is also a behavior problem. He's a tattle-tale and will interrupt instruction to tell me (and the class) that someone did some minor thing. Constantly, as in multiple times an hour. I've tried the "Don't worry about it--that's why I get the big bucks" speech. I've tried ignoring him, but that's difficult since every tattle is preceeded by a long "Oooohhh" as in "Oooohhh, Mrs. Matters, Sprout is sticking his tongue out at Sweetie." I'm now at the point where I say, "And that's your business? Why is that your business? How is Sprout's action harming you?" Still doesn't do any good.

My third behavior problem is subtle. He's the one who has been bullying (sorry--must be PC--he has been exhibiting "bullying behaviors") to several students in my class. I thought I had this kid pegged--he's lazy as all get out, asks when recess is multiple times a day, and is the first one to always ask, "Do we have to write the sentences?" (Yes, because you asked and didn't read the directions.) I've met mom and I know she won't believe that he would do such a thing, so I've been gathering evidence. I wrote an account of what he was doing to bully Skippy. The other day, he was bullying (exhibiting bullying behaviors to) another classmate, accusing him of wearing a bra (What?!). I made him write an account of what he said and sign and date it. I told him that the next time he exhibits bullying behaviors (is a bully) I will call mom in for a conference and show this to her and let his explain his actions to her. (He also lost recess--the one thing he enjoys about school.) He visibly blanched, so maybe this behavior will end. Maybe.

I have one more kid who might be considered a behavior problem in someone else's class, but I enjoy the heck out of him. All of the goals on his education plan are of the "Will sit down and shut-up" variety. He doesn't realize that there are others around him who are trying to learn too. He will yell to me "I'm having trouble with number 9," and be really confused why that's a bad thing. I think I like him because he's had a rough year at home, but he's unfailingly happy about everything. And I do mean everything. New fact learned--happy! New paper--happy! New friend--happy! Find an unusual seed pod on the way to school--indescribable joy lights up his face. Just thinking about his joy makes me happy--how can that be a bad thing?

Burning with Resentment

I'm still playing games with Rotney's EA (Educational Administrator-my fancy title for his crazy relative who is the family member in charge of his education.) He again achieved a high score on this week's reading test. Next week, I'm switching to the old basal (I kept a class set when we changed adoptions)--let's see the EA come up with a copy of that assessment! Lest you think I'm just an ol' meanie, it's not that I don't want Rotney to pass. If he passed a reading test on his ability, I would be the happiest person in the building. I just don't want him to pass because he has been taught the answers but not the skills. And this knowing he can pass because EA is teaching him the answers situation has made Rotney a worse student, not a better one. He comes in with the reading workbook pages memorized and flies through them. He won't slow down to process what he's doing--he just regurgitates answers. It's maddening.

I've also decided to give a weekly reading quiz. It will have 2 short reading passages, and each passage will have 5 questions. The quizzes will test understanding of our weekly skill--next week it's discriminating between fact and opinion. This will enable me to assess Rotney (and my other students) in a non-biased way. It will also prevent skewing of grades because having that category in my gradebook and not using it is making the weekly tests more than the 40% of the total grade that they should be.

What this all means is more work for me. It also means abandoning the worksheets and centers I created specifically for our current basal and trying to reinvent the wheel in order to teach the old basal. So, yeah, I'm burning with resentment. EA has increased my workload and if I ever find the person who gave her the reading assessment book, I'm going to jerk that person bald. At the very least, I'm going to try to get her certificate.

My mom's home--tired but doing well. That means her dachshund, Cookie, who peed, pooped, and vomited on my carpet this morning (some surprises are hard to wake up to!), is back home as well. Bad Cookie!

Evidently, my class thinks having a sub is a license to forget all of the behaviors I've worked so hard to extinguish this year, particularly talking nonstop and getting out of their seats to visit whenever the heck they want to. Three people had to go into my classroom yesterday to tell them to shut up. The lead teacher blamed it on the sub, who doesn't have enough presence in the classroom to get them to stop. That may be, but I still expect them to act like my students whether I'm there or not. They really let me down. And, maddeningly, they couldn't understand today's effect (loss of recess) was due to yesterday's cause (misbehavior).

Is it just my students or do all students forget the classroom procedures we've had all year after one day with a sub? Every single day we've been together, my students have kept their math and language arts assignments so that we can check them together the next day. And even though my sub notes state this, the subs still take up the work and my class tries for days afterward to turn it in instead of keeping it to check together the next day. Why? What is so hard about understanding this?

Okay, that's all for today. Progress reports go home tomorrow, so I must grade and grade tonight. I wish teaching was a 9 to 5 gig because I'm tired of working for 1-2 hours at home, daily.

Another day out of class

At this moment, my mother is in the hospital cath lab, having another stent put in one of her heart's arteries. I'm in the hospital waiting room, fairly amazed that free wi-fi is available here. Back to mom--she's had 5 bypasses and now I think she's up to 5 stents--possibly more, almost certainly not less. In case you haven't realized the fact of it, my mom is proof that getting older sucks.

I teach at a really small school--2 grade levels (4th and 5th) and 9 classrooms. When I started here as a brand-new teacher 13 years ago, we had 16 fifth grade classrooms. While there are quite a few staff members still here, only two teachers have been here longer than I. I'm not particularly close to either of them, but we get along okay. I'm closer to 3 of the fourth grade teachers, but my closest pal is my special ed co-teacher. Her schedule has changed this year, so she's only with me during math, and we miss each other so much! Besides being a great supporter of what I do in the classroom, she's my reading buddy. And laughing buddy. And understanding buddy. Everyone should have a co-teacher as wonderful as mine. The days are long without her.

I've always had a touch of Asperger's when it comes to dealing with people. I have a quick temper I inherited from my father (Thanks, Dad!), and I seem to be cluelessly insensitive. Sometimes, I've had to keep a Post-it on my desk, cautioning me that "Sarcasm is not a tool to be used here". Some people here really don't get me but thankfully my princiPal does. Which is why I went to her last spring to clarify something that had come up at our grade level meeting.

When the data from our second quarter benchmarks was made available, we found that the fourth grade (my grade) had done poorly in math. We had 4 (yes, FOUR) meetings where we were asked "How can you explain these scores?" Uh, dunno. We taught it; they didn't get it. We retaught it; they still didn't get it. At one of these meetings, the academic coach stated, "Your scores were the lowest of the district. You were at the bottom." Quite shocking, especially for me. I'm supposed to be a great teacher of math. At least my value-added scores say so.

I spoke about it with my co-teacher. I talked it over with my fellow fourth grade teachers. We all felt like, um, losers! So, finally, I went to my princiPal, who is as much my friend as she is my boss, and reminded her about what had been said (she was at the meeting) and asked her if we had truly been at the bottom. She didn't remember that comment, but said that we had been below average. It was a good discussion--she calmed me and made me feel less negative about the scrutiny we had endured over the scores.

Read on--the point is coming! A few weeks later, benchmarks rolled around again. I wanted to do a quick review of similes and metaphors on the morning of the Language Arts benchmark. I wasn't sure how kosher this was (I couldn't do it directly before the state assessment), so I asked the academic coach about it. She said it was up to my conscience and professional opinion. Well, I said, I don't want to be criticized again for having really low scores, so I guess I will give a quick review. And, hey, my inflection was light-hearted. In the whatever-do-you-mean discussion that followed, it came out that we fourth grade teachers had all felt bad about the criticism we had received and that I had felt so upset that I had gone to the princiPal following the coach's remark that we were the "lowest". She denied ever saying it and lit into me about stabbing her in the back. She said, "Your actions were not the actions of a friend. A friend would have never done what you did." She was irrational and nothing I said soothed her.

So, well, she's not my friend anymore. I don't understand her reaction. Was it me? Was it her? I know she's always wanted praise and recognition from inside and outside the building. I guess I underestimated how much her self-esteem depended on being perceived as "perfect". I will say hello as she passes me in the hall, but I'm rather an unbending type. The friendship is over.

Another Successful Day

Suprisingly, this day--a MONDAY--turned out to be a good one. This morning, I quickly constructed a math test to assess multiplication of 2- through 4-digit factors by a 1-digit factor. Amazingly, they did well on this test! I had 8 100's, 4 B's, 3 D's, and 3 F's. Okay, so I'm not so happy about the bottom 6, but the top 12 rocked! Two of the 100's belonged to students who go to Title 1 Math--I'm so proud of them!

After the test, we did 2 math lessons which is what one does when one is a chapter behind the pacing guide. One might think that I could keep up with the pacing guide, since I was one of 2 fourth grade teachers PAID to make it for our district (21 elementary schools), but it turns out that I can't. An overloaded pacing guide is what one gets when one tries to cram 10 months of math into 8 and a half months of instruction, so I sincerely doubt anyone can. And, please don't tell anyone outside of my building that I helped make it--I already get enough ribbing about it from my colleagues, who are sometimes mean to me! ;)

I love November--we get so many days off that it's the month besides May that I enjoy the most. Students are off tomorrow for election day; we have a staff development day. (I don't know what we're electing--not senator nor governor nor congressman--guess I'll show up at the voting precinct and find out tomorrow.) We're off next Monday for Veterans' Day and we get the 25th-27th off for Thanksgiving. Yay, November!

NaBloWriMo

Look for daily posts throughout November--I'll be participating in National Blog Writing Month.

Another Sunday

Sometimes I think I enjoy Sundays less than any other day of the week because I have so much to do. It's laundry day and lesson plan day and get-some-grading-done day. It's definitely not Funday or Lazy Sunday or anything I would prefer it to be. And I think that's mostly because I have acquired a negative attitude about my job.

Last year, I was surprised to learn that workman's comp only covered injuries incurred during the school day--not before 8:00 or after 3:30, unless one is attending a school event (meeting, open house, etc.). Hmmph. Since I think this is unfair--a district-level decision designed to protect their pocketbooks but not their employees--I've changed my work habits. So even though I will get to school early (between 7:00 and 7:30), I will no longer stay late to work in my classroom. If it doesn't get done at school, it must be done at home so this is really not working so well for me. So this is one factor affecting my attitude.

The other, larger factor is the loss of autonomy I've experienced in the past 3-4 years. For example, I don't have any say-so in how or when I teach reading. I have to have "literacy stations"--no different from the centers I did years ago. Centers didn't work then and they don't work now to make students better readers. Reading makes better readers, but I've had my hand slapped too many times for having my students just read self-selected text instead of doing a center with a product and I've given up. When your princiPal asks you to stop being the "toxic member of the staff", it makes you realize you're tilting at windmills to think that complaining is to going to change the new district vision. The curriculum for all subjects has been mapped and everything must be taught (covered is more like it) before the state assessment. This means that everything has to be taught at a breakneck pace, especially since we have new, more rigorous standards. There is no time to expand or enhance the learning through projects or other activities. It's become all pencil and paper.

I need to give myself a pep talk and quit longing for yesterday. I need to find a way to work the system to be the best teacher I can while teaching in a way that's alien to me. I've been trying to do this, but today it's hard. Tomorrow I'll be back in "sheep mode" and I'll get it done.

Bullying

I was out of class 2 days last week for bullying prevention program training. It was time well-spent, and I can't wait for us to go school-wide with this program. It's probably because I'm newly aware of bullying that I noticed that Skippy is being bullied by his classmates. All of them. One student is leading the bullying effort--he has influenced the others to not stand beside Skippy in line and to say something impolite whenever Skippy walks by. I learned about all of this on Friday after the bullying leader (let's call him Billy the Bully) had been dismissed for the afternoon. I told my class that I was ashamed that they would treat someone the way they had been treating Skippy. I gave the whole "How would you feel?" lecture. Amazingly, they showed remorse. At least, my girls did. They went over to Skippy to tell him that they were his friends and sat down with him during inside recess (it was raining) to play a game with him. Skippy was radiant. I definitely have to have a talk with Billy the Bully on Monday but maybe, just maybe, my class will be kinder to Skippy from now on.

Skippy is very bright and (you may recall) sometimes not medicated. When he's not medicated, he spins around the room, out of control, and does annoy everyone. Even when he is medicated, he takes things from his classmates, but I've always sensed this was a self-esteem-building trick for him--he wants to believe someone is his friend and jumps all the way to "this is my friend and he will share things with me." It's sad that his inconsistent medication makes his classmates wary of him because he CRAVES friendship--companionship, really. He has only his mother--no father or siblings. She's ill (or perhaps strung out on something--it was hard to tell). So really, he's alone at school and alone at home. Just imagine.