Popular when I don't want to be...

One of the hardest parts of teaching is being on the inside of issues. Up until this point in life, with a few minor exceptions in college, I haven't exactly been in the inner circle of social, academic or otherwise issues. I'm an easy person to leave out of gossip or interesting conversations.... hard to believe I know but it happens. Something I found especially being on an athletic team is that when cliques form, they tend to not break. Particularly with girl cliques. Being a teacher is like automatically joining THE most popular clique. A clique I'm learning, I'm not processing well. Knowing things about my students is like being popular in a way I totally didn't mean to be or really want to be. I'm pretty sure I found out why I did a good thing in not becoming popular today.(Read, it never would have happened and I'm totally ok with it) It makes life hard. It makes your actions conflicted. In my personal life, I don't tolerate things like what my kids are doing. But this isn't my personal life, this is my professional life and I have to see these kids every. single. day. I have to give them a clean slate no matter what. no matter how upset I am with them or what they did out at recess. Once 2:30 hits and they leave, it's over. Done. I'm not the kind of person that can do this easily. I don't know how to "forget". With my "good" kids, its so easy to forgive the little things they do like talking in the hallway because I know they'll make it up to me in class with their learning. With my not so "good" kids, its so much harder. What I learn they do out at recess affects their learning and the learning of the other kids because they are trying SO hard to make it up that they end up just talking or because they missed the instructions distract other students from their work. I don't get this balance. I don't get how to treat them like nothing happened. There is a reason I never should have been popular and I get it now. It has to do wit the fact that I shouldn't have this insider knowledge. It scares me, it's unknown and I don't know how to leave it at the door.....

Field trip back in time....

So today was a moderately awesome… Not just because we got to go on a field trip but also because I got to see how excited my kids were to see “living history.” Living history makes it so much easier for them or anyone really to understand what it really was like to live in this case in the 1860s/1890s… One of my favorite parts of the day which Mr. A and I got a lot of was “Is this what it was like when you were growing up?” Now if my father were the teacher he would say, “Yes, kids, it was, we also had to walk up hill BOTH WAYS to get to school AND we invented fire!” Instead Mr. A and I would say things like, “if we are looking at things from the 1860s and I was born in 1974/1988 do you think I was alive then?” Typically the answer was “yes” and then quickly “no” when they looked at our faces. I loved watching them, granted it was crazy at times and I finally get how… hmmmm, hard, difficult, stressful etc.; field trips are on teachers. They totally aren’t easy on those who are in charge and I apologize for all those who took my fellows and me on a field trip. We had so much fun going around to the houses and barns and seeing the animals… The sheep in particular were a big hit as you can imagine considering they roam freely around the property. The packet we gave them maybe didn’t so much get done but honestly, I don’t care. They were so happy and I loved it. All 4 of the 5th grade classes mixed during lunch and it was great to just let them take a breath and relax/play without fear of anything…. But of course, all good things must come to an end so when we got back to school… they had to finish their packets, independently read and then… DUM DUM DUM math assessment… rough rough rough…. Kind of a sad way to end the day but you gotta do what you gotta do… After school we met with John Barry, the superintendent of APS to hear what he had to say….

Take away message: TOLLGATE IS AWESOME AND Y’ALL SHOULD MOVE TO AURORA.

Be Infectious.. In a good way

Inquiry. Ask the right questions. Look deeper into the problem. Ask a friend. Ask three and then me. This week and the next we are beginning to think about how to be better learners and using Inquiry and the ability to ask questions since we start our expedition very soon! We need to get the kids into thinking more and being able to look at things with a more critical eye in the hopes that when they get started on the Revolutionary War they will have many many questions to ask and many many things to learn! For the most part today was uneventful minus a little breakfast blip… The blip being Jack, our favorite kid, was slurping Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream… Yes, you read that right. Ice cream for breakfast and NO this isn’t a dream… It was real. We had to discuss the nutritional value of ice cream for breakfast and how important it is to actually eat breakfast. It was amazing to me because having a conversation like this was totally new. We never had one like this when I was growing up. It was assumed everyone had eaten breakfast before coming to schoo. I took for granted being able to have breakfast at all; there were at least 5 of my kids who didn’t have breakfast today. I’ve been so blessed in my life all I could think about was how lucky I was and how being able to be in these kid’s lives will hopefully make them realize that they too can do anything. They are all so wonderful and I know they really will do great things as long as they stay in school. I wish there was more I could do for them. They all deserve so much support from everyone. Every kid in a troubled area needs support. We as a society need to realize that education is one of the most valuable tools we can give our citizens. Without it, it is nearly impossible to make the changes necessary for the world. We have a constitutional right to education and that means keeping our kids in schools, making sure they come to class with food in their bellies so that they can focus, and giving them the education THEY DESERVE. We need to have them realize the potential in all of them and not give up on that potential. These are the people who will inherit our pollution, our political policies, our international relations, and our culture. Do we want to show them that they can simply discount one of life’s most important keys? Sure there are some people who are able to accomplish incredible things without a formal education but they are the exception to the rule. And if there is one thing I’ve learned it is that you cannot teach the exception. It happens rarely. Instead you need to teach to the rule so that everyone has a fighting chance to stay out of jail, to not be a Teen Mom on MTV, and to be the change in the world that they see. Despite this only being week 3 these kids have stolen my heart, yes all of them, even Jack. It’s hard to when you see how excited they get just for multiplying 28x10 correctly, or identifying a poetry device well. They know they are special… do we as a society want to kill that or foster it so that it can grow into the next Internet or the next fuel-saving car? Give them a chance, give my kids a chance, and give EVERY kid a chance. Even if it’s just rounding up on the dollar at Whole Foods, somewhere in the US that $.34 is making a difference. It might be at my school and it might not be. Think back on your life, at some point someone gave you a chance, someone said you were special… Isn’t it time you gave that feeling back?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grh32BcjIRY

You can't always get what you want...

So something I learned today was that you as a teacher don’t always get to be the good guy… It was kind a sucky lesson to learn… But we’ll get to that part of the day in a bit. The beginning of the day was great, and is what I need to remember when the going gets tough. I was out on morning duty with my kids and my little boys wanted to share with me “The best thing ever” called “Takis”. Now to my understanding a “taki” is a tortilla chip rolled up drenched in flavoring, which I was told is not too spicy. However, it was SO spicy and I was dying… So naturally it made the kids laugh a lot with the promise that on Monday they would bring me the “guacamole” flavor, which isn’t as spicy. Needless to say I'm a little scared mostly because I had the flavor of regular Takis burning my mouth for the rest of the day... We had another bonding experience with our buddies after school got started and we worked with the kindergartners on Haiku poems. It was hilarious and adorable, we had haikus on zombies, mac & cheese, cats, dogs, anything you can imagine, the little ones wanted to write a haiku on. It was also so great to see our 5th graders work with the little ones and teach them about syllables and how to write a haiku. I felt like a proud mother! We then had our special friday recess and since Scott and I are on early duty we had no idea what kind of a situation we left out there. Remember our good friend "Jack" well he and this other kid, we'll call "John" both got brought in from recess for bullying and saying inappropriate things. Jack was saying this that I won't repeat online but know that it's not OK for 5th graders to know that or to talk about it. And John bullied this one kid by telling him that he "effed" Santa up and killed Santa etc; etc;. Needless to say that was the last straw for Scott and I. After we sorted this mess out came back and Scott and I quickly threw together a "lesson" on idioms... Now please imagine Scott saying idioms and me being the less intelligent person who directly acts the idioms out.. Like "kill the lights" for example had me jumping and punching the lights in our classroom... It was hilarious and the kids love it. This lesson on idioms while not something the CSAP will test for is great for second language learners and lets them get a little more comfortable with the language. As it was friday at lunch the 5th grade team leaves campus to have lunch somewhere together. It's so awesome. I could not have asked for a better group of people to work with. They are a wealth of knowledge and simply amazing. In the afternoon Scott and I drafted an email to Jack's mother and let the kids finish their awesome idioms. It was definitely hard to really recognize that I was writing an email home... When did I become someone who could do this? I sometimes forget I graduated 3 months ago from college and that this program is my life now... It's the start of my career, not just a summer job. Writing an email to a child's mother about his difficult behavior definitely slapped my reality back in my face. I'll be interested to see how it affects his actions this upcoming week. After school the staff headed to BJ's for happy hour and it was amazing. Everyone was there, and I really got to understand how much a community the staff at a school is. It was a nice way to start the weekend, I left feeling excited about these next 3 months knowing I would get to spend time with these people.

Adulthood

Here is when I get really honest with you. Today I'm not really going to talk about the kids but more about where I am right now.... I'm tired, like just sleepy slash I totally get why my dad goes to bed at 9:30... I'm spending all day actually working and it's hard. Much harder than I expected... I honestly can't even imagine doing this with more than just me to feed... The idea of even getting a dog right seems like too much.... maybe even a fish. That seems like a commitment. I'm finally understanding what it means to be an adult and be on my feet all day and be giving so much of myself. I care so much about these kids and I'm understanding how we, as teachers, can get caught up in their lives. I want so much for them and want so much for them to succeed in life. But, the reality of our world and our time period is that not everyone will succeed. I hate that. I can see the amazing things my kids will do and I just want those things to happen. I'm just trying to navigate through all of these crazy changes I'm experiencing that apparently make up adulthood. Living on my own, managing my own life, trying to keep myself floating, studying for my masters and working with kids... It's a big step... Well a lot of them. And I guess I'm just trying to navigate through all of them. It's not easy, and I'm learning.... Any advice I'd totally appreciate!

Actions speak louder than words…

We started the morning with a little wake up it’s a school day “morning math” quiz. May not seem like the best way to get a day started but really nothing gets your brain working like a little math! We sent them away to technology and planned for the day. When they returned we went over their quizzes and helped them iron out a few problems. Leading this really gave me a chance to see from the kids who would be honest about their confusion and who would act like everyone else in the class and just play along faking the answer. I found it interesting to see who, of the 4 kids who got the answer right, was willing to really slow down and help their fellows and who simply let the others take charge…. Who was a “Passenger” and who was “Crew” really stood out to me. We transitioned into what has to be one of the most challenging Crew initiatives we’ve ever done… Now when I explain it you won’t think so but I promise you, it will be difficult when you try it in a group larger than 10. The first task was to “blind” count to 10. Easy enough… 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 right? Wrong. Everyone had to close his or her eyes and simply hope that someone else hadn’t said the same number. The rules were if they opened their eyes or if 2 people said the same number we started over. The other thing was there was NO discussion time. They simply had to go round after round with a simple “start over” The frustrations became really clear and those who were willing to step up and help the group really impressed me. There were at least 3 students who had the answer of collaboration but because of the way they act in class, and the way their fellow classmates viewed them no one would listen. Scott and I were totally intrigued by it because the answers were there! When they finally accomplished this task we transitioned into the second half… The instructions were do as I do, and all you have to do is clap. Then Scott said, “One, two, three” CLAP “GO”… And all the kids clapped. He repeated “One, two, three,” CLAP “GO” and the same thing happened… everyone started talking at the same time, utter insanity broke free and one person had the answer. We tried again, “1,2,3” CLAP “GO” The kids struggled again, fighting through how to work this difficult task. Not really remembering what exactly the instructions were they continued to clap at different times and being confused. After about 20 minutes they finally got it. I’ve never felt prouder of my kids… They all got it; they worked together to complete a really hard task. It was so awesome to see how proud of each other they were as well. They high fived each other and there were tons of “YES’s” that echoed around the room. Afterwards we talked through and wrote about some prompts that I had written earlier in the day. One of them was (well something along the lines of) “what do you think the old saying ‘actions speak louder than words’ means in the context of our Crew and how can you apply it?” I was fascinated with their reactions and with one kid in particular who said, “Sorry isn’t enough, you have to really show you’re sorry.” Amazing, a 5th grader can recognize that sometimes you have to work to make sorry mean something. It really made me realize that there are so many wonderful ideas in the world. There just needs to be someone out there willing and caring enough to listen to them. Even just 5 minutes with some of my kids will make you realize the future is much brighter than many people will make it seem. The transition into descriptive writing was easy and we prompted the kids to talk a place that they could really describe. All of the senses would be present in this memory so that we, as readers, could get there. I of course, wrote about Aix and Scott wrote about Red Rocks… The kids were great listening to each other and helping each other with descriptive words and phrases. After lunch we broke into independent reading and Scott led a small reading group and it was so cool to watch him. He gave them all the tools to make connections in the material and to feel confident in their own right. I’m looking forward to starting my own reading group on Friday! Hopefully I can get them as excited as he did! He definitely used great modeling or actions to show me how to lead a small group... Check in friday to see how I do!

You HAVE to be kidding me

This morning started out with my outside duty aka watching the children before the bells ring to ensure they don't go totally crazy... My boys were telling me all of these stories about snakes... yup, snakes... Totally my favorite subject... However, despite the topic I found it was a great way to start my day, hanging out with my kids before we had to get serious about learning and school. It was nice to be on their level and get to know what interests them. Then came the disappointing news, despite it being BEFORE school and about 7:57am we already had a kid who had been in trouble… AND had been sent to the office. I tried to let it go and hope that today would get better but I should have known then it would go on to set the tone for the day. The kids went off to art and it seemed we could forget the morning drama and move on to a great day… NOT… We had to have a talk with the kid that had already been to the office… Let’s call him Jack; well Jack isn’t exactly putting his best foot forward everyday. There is most definitely room for improvement. After we talked to him the Crew headed outside to do our Crew initiative for the day, which was “string shape”. String shape is basically 21 pieces of string, one per kid (we had one absent) and they have to make a shape with the string and be able to stand inside it. But of course, there is a twist! We have “rounds” of this game and every round Scott or I would take away strings! So of course then there is sharing and collaborating involved and forced upon the children. It forces them to listen to each other and to hold each other accountable by ensuring they are inside the shape with BOTH FEET… It ends up with one 8-foot long string and all 21 of them… The task is to not fall out and to make sure everyone is there. Now according to our handy dandy teacher guidebook it says everyone should sit down and put his or her feet in. I totally disagreed with this but went along with it anyways... thinking they could simply all squish in… When they had played through and failed twice Scott and I gave them 2 minutes to talk it out, with the same leading questions “What worked, what didn’t work, how will you change it, where were you in all of this?” Then insanity ensues… THEY ALL TALK AT THE SAME TIME…. Finally, one listens to another and it catches like wildfire before they realize they have the answer… sit down! So Mr. A wins this round with his super smart book… But I shall be right too someday… maybe… well hopefully. Minus one little more incident with “Jack” the morning went smoothly. I taught a mini-lesson on nouns, adjectives, and verbs then set the kids loose to create a list of them. Then Scott and I taught the kids the magic of haikus.

Yes, you read that right.
We gave our kids THE haiku.
Haikus are true blue.

It was so much fun to see them struggle through working with syllables and ensuring they had the right form. 5-7-5… Simply magic. After lunch we did a mini lesson on book genres because today was THE day… THE day Scott and I have been talking about for weeks… Classroom library day… Now in our heads this played out in a well organized, contained mess kind of way… In reality it was more like a book bomb went off and we let our kids put it back together… We let them brainstorm how they would organize the books while we, the ADULTS in the room, dumped the books on tables. It’s right about now I realize, all that “let your kids be independent” talk I had heard was about to become real. We were not going to take part in anyway with this whole classroom library thing. They were going to do it all… Hold on, IS THAT A CELLPHONE RINGING?? YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW… NO WAY. NO PHONES IN SCHOOL. Yup, let’s call this kid “Jake” received a text message right about now in the day. Scott and I were not happy as you can imagine. Cellphones have not only been discussed before with “Jake” but it is school policy that they remain OFF, or SILENT in backpacks… So why exactly his was ON and making NOISE was so beyond me. You better believe I took that cell and started marching my way to the office… Except that, well, you see… I couldn’t get it to stop making noise!! Yes, that’s right, me a child of the golden technological age had trouble turning off an 11 year old child’s cellphone. Finally about half way to the office I got it off. There is nothing like the silence knowing you’ve turned a kid’s cell off... Seriously, everybody, right now, go turn a kid’s cellphone off. Straight up, it is a step towards adulthood. Anyways, when I returned Scott and I watched the kids take our classroom library from totally disarray to utter beauty. Categories like “series books, science, math, food, vehicles (*Right Scott?)” It was so cool to watch them get there. They were rewarded by being taken to our school library to see how it was organized and to check books out... All I can say is some kids might have Beiber Fever but our kids have Book Fever.