Terms I Hate: Classroom Management

One of my recent reads, thanks to the recommendations of several people, was Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer. Just a quick aside, I ended up abandoning the book even though I was intrigued by it because I found it impossible not to question everything I read based on the author having fabricated quotes. Not knowing what was truthful and what was not made it too hard for me to get anything from the book. I'm sorry I didn't read it when it first came out, before learning all this. Had I done so, I would have had to rethink some things when the truth was revealed but I wouldn't likely have dismissed it all out of hand as I seemed to do when I read it.

Anyway, my point in mentioning the book had nothing to do with the above ramblings, although it does involve a quote from a source so take it as you will. There is quite a bit in the book about 3M, the company that makes post-it notes as well as a plethora of other products.

"It's a little amusing that people think Google invented this idea," Wendling says. "We've been doing it here forever. At first, people thought we were crazy. They said employees need to be managed. They said the scientists would just waste their free time, that we'd be squandering all our R and D money. But here's the thing about the fifteen percent rule; it works." (p. 30)

While I love the idea of the 15% rule, or 20%, or whatever, that's not what struck me. "They said employees need to be managed."

I struggle so much with the term 'classroom management' because it seems to suggest a level of control over other people that I have no interest in having. I use the term, hesitantly, when I talk about choices I make in the classroom to improve flow in our space and our time as well as ways I try to help students make positive choices and grow in their independence. But I don't like it. The connotations in education today simply give me the heebie-jeebies.

I appreciate the fact that this company believed in their employees and trusted them. Show people that you have faith in them, be they students or employees, and the majority of the time they will live up to that faith.

I think I may be back to the idea of treating students like people. Of course, if we feel a need to manage adults it's possible we aren't treating them like people either.

My nine-year-old loves to remind me that I am always lecturing her about the Golden Rule. She brings it up when someone else is treating her badly as her reasoning for doing the same. It never holds water with me but it's an interesting argument. Regardless of her take on it (although I am still working on that one) the Golden Rule is always there for me. If I would not want to be treated in a certain way then I should not be treating my students, my daughters, my coworkers, anyone else in that way. It's not a standard I live up to by any means, but it is a worthy goal.

The Brilliant Donalyn Miller

Just before the winter holidays I had the opportunity to hear Donalyn Miller speak. There are so many reasons I enjoyed my day - she is a classroom teacher, right now, she was in her classroom with her students the day before she was with us - she is a Texan with just enough of an accent to remind me of my home state but not so much that it drives me nutty - she sings the praises of twitter and online networks - she loves books and reading and teaching.

Donalyn is highly reflective, a quality I believe to be critical for educators. She asks herself why about everything she does. If there isn't a good reason for doing it, she stops. Sounds simple but it truly brilliant.

She's also highly reflective about her students. If a child is not reading during their independent reading time, she spends a few days observing closely. She looks for why the student is not reading and what they are doing instead. Then she is able to talk with them and work with them to create a plan for reading. She watches what students are reading in order to help them find new books, books similar and books that will stretch them.

While the basics of Donalyn's book, The Book Whisperer, should be in place in classrooms everywhere, they aren't. Sadly. However, even if all classrooms allowed book choice and instituted significant amounts of independent reading time at school there would still be much to learn from Donalyn. I just finished rereading The Book Whisperer and found myself reflecting on ways we use our time in my classroom and my expectations for my first graders. It's certainly got me thinking.

Children are People Too

A kindergarten teacher friend was chastised by an administrator because a couple of her kindergarten students were talking about Christmas rather than whatever their task was at that given moment. This was in the week before Christmas. I can't put into words how absurd and surreal this feels.

My frustration with this is immense. I am left with the sense that either this administrator does not have an understanding of five-year-olds and/or does not respect them as people. Is the expectation that students can only discuss topics of their choice during recess and lunch? Is that how human beings function?

We began our school year with the StrengthsFinder. The idea is to recognize and build on the strengths of our staff. Every teacher, instructional assistant, and administrator took the survey and identified their top five strengths. We charted those across teams and school-wide. We found similarities and areas we lacked as a staff. We talked about ways to use our strengths to grow individually and as teams and as a school.

We do just the opposite with kids. From stamping out their natural excitement about things, including Christmas, to seeing them only as test scores on whatever sort of assessment we are using at that time, we do not recognize or build on their strengths. Why on earth do we do one thing for adults and exactly the opposite for children? Do we truly think that they are a completely different species and need completely different treatment?

Children are people. They are younger than the rest of us but still people. We need to put ourselves in their shoes.

Parents are Always Teachers

Today is my parent’s 44^th anniversary.* I have been blessed to grow up with a model of a marriage worth emulating. I’m not saying that my parents have a perfect marriage. I don’t believe such a thing exists. They have been through difficult times in those 44 years but they are together and they are happy. This is clear because they just spent a good amount of the past four months traveling together around the U.S. in a Prius. That's a pretty good test of a marriage in my mind.

The saying goes that parents are their child's first and most important teacher. From personal experience I know that to be true. Even now, at nearly forty, I can see everyday things that I learned from my parents. Some of that is because I am now a parent and I watch and hear my parents in myself. I hear my father as I tease our stubborn, stubborn five-year-old. I hear my mother as I work through homework with a frustrated nine-year-old. 

I hear my parents in my interactions with my husband. This, too, is not surprising. Aside from my own marriage there is no marriage I know as well as I know my parents'. I am lucky to have that marriage be one that I want to look to rather than one to fight against. It's easy to continue a pattern that exists. I'm also lucky, I believe, to have seen some of the rough patches (likely not all of them) and seen my parents come through them. I expect rough patches in my own marriage but I also expect we will come through them together.

My mother has long been someone worth copying. I've watched her organize people at church to help one person going through a rough period or to help entire families and groups. She was, by profession, a nurse and I saw her in emergency rooms and nursing homes, patiently listening, gently caring for both patients and families. She can be hot headed and quick to anger when someone weaker has been wronged or hurt. She will make phone calls and write letters and speak out loudly and clearly. She can be stubborn (maybe we see a trend with the little five-year-old) in all the ways I hope my own daughters can be. Holding one's ground and standing up for what she believes in. 

My father has been my model as a reader (although my mother reads nearly as much). For years he took three different newspapers - mostly for the comics - and more magazines than I can count. He has cut back on those things but still has more reading material delivered to his home than some entire communities do. He will read anything you put in front of him and give you his honest opinion about it. He is also a natural teacher (as is my mother). Watching him with my daughters I see in him the reasons that all three of his siblings are teachers. He is not, at least not by profession. When my girls ask questions he responds with questions. When they say things that don't make sense he questions them, gently, carefully, pushing their understanding.

As a teacher I am grateful to have learned questioning rather than telling and reading widely and often from my father, and patience and care and speaking out and standing up from my mother. I am a better teacher for having grown up with them. I am a better wife, a better mother, and a better person as well.

*Yesterday was my 15^th anniversary and tomorrow is my grandparents’ 67^th anniversary. In case that’s not crazy enough, the other grandparents shared my anniversary.

I'm an Elementary School Teacher

Last week I wrote about what my job entails. One of my posts focused on the academic pieces, another on the students, and one more about the flotsam and jetsam that must be handled.

In all of my thinking and writing about my job, safety never crossed my mind. I’m not sure why that is, especially since I've had many conversations with my first graders in the past week about keeping bodies and selves safe (there has been a lot of very physical play at recess and some unkind words at other times).

Even when I do think about what I need to do as a teacher to keep my students safe it is focused on their emotional well-being and managing minor bumps and bruises. Life and death situations do not cross my mind.

I sincerely hope that will continue to be true in the future. After the horrifying events at Sandy Hook Elementary on Friday I don’t know. It’s not that I have any question about what I, my colleagues, and every teacher would do in such a situation, it’s simply that it has never occurred to me that such a need would arise.

I learned of the tragedy during lunch and spoke with two colleagues about it before having to teach again. I was in shock and I believe that one of the first things I said was, “This happens in high schools. This is a high school thing.”

Believing that has allowed me to live as though this could never happen to me, to my daughters, to my students. I can live that way no longer.

Tomorrow I will follow our regular routine. We will read, work on word study, go to P.E., play, and get through our day. Those routines will help all of us to believe that things are normal. But I will also be hyper award of my students’ sense of safety, physical and emotional. I will be prepared to have tough conversations if they bring up questions, worries, or stories they have heard. I will do everything in my power to keep them safe and to ensure they feel safe.

I've written twice about how September 11th impacted me as a teacher. My most vivid memories are not of that day but of September 13th, the day we returned to school. Based on those memories I am expecting tomorrow to be exhausting and emotionally draining. In spite of that, I'll just be glad to be together.

Behind the Scenes

Here comes day three of me babbling on about what a teacher's job entails. Day one was about societal views of said job, day two focused on more up close expectations (parents and such), and now we'll look at realities that most folks may not realize happen.

Now that we've covered the basics of instruction and the work involved in knowing our students we can talk about what a teacher's daily life looks like. Those first two parts of my job are what I love. I love figuring out each individual student so that I can help them find books they want to read, topics they are excited to write about, and make connections to math and science and history with them. I genuinely love digging into the skills and facts they have to learn to understand what that means for a six-year-old and how to help them understand it. Those things are challenging and exciting and keep me going everyday.

These others are not. Some are just time consuming. Just coordinating schedules with an occupational therapist and a speech teacher can get complicated. Then actually supporting the student in using the skills he is learning with those teachers is a struggle. Mentoring new teachers and working with pre-service teachers is wonderful to me because it pushes me to be the best teacher I can be. But it also consumes precious planning time and requires me to think about what those teachers need as well as what my students need.

Some of these items are both time consuming and of questionable worth. Administering the myriad of required assessments takes many days out of each year. The reading assessment we use is given two to three times a year (depending on the student) and is done so one-on-one. It is, however, a pretty useful assessment so I don't begrudge the time. The math assessment we give twice a year (I do it in small groups) feels much less useful to me. I don't feel as though I learn much about my students from it so it doesn't help me as a teacher. Then there are the other random assessments for which I see little to no value for different reasons - we don't get the scores back in a meaningful time frame or the assessment doesn't seem to be developmentally appropriate (often a problem with young children).

Many meetings also fit into the time consuming and questionable worth category. Not all, some are well worth the time, but many. I'm lucky enough to be at a school that only holds school-wide staff meetings once a month and our team meetings are once a week for an hour. There are plenty of other meetings however. Plenty of these meetings are now focused on PLCs which require extra assessments and paperwork at other times.

Finally there are the tasks that I wish I had a secretary for: collecting picture or field trip money, collecting forms, stuffing Wednesday folders, hanging up artwork around the room and in the hall, and such.

I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty of what teachers do. It's a complex job that requires one to be constantly on their toes, thinking back and ahead at the same time while still being patient, thoughtful, and compassionate. I wouldn't have it any other way.

My Job When It Matters

Yesterday I wrote about what society expects of me as a teacher. What I didn't mention there, but came to mind as I reread what I wrote is that those societal expectations all come down to getting my kiddos to pass standardized tests.

However, when society comes in contact with schools, because they have children there or volunteer or something that brings them in, their expectations change. Those instructional expectations remain, although they may not be quite as powerful, but they are joined by other expectations.

When school stops being purely theoretical, as it is for most newscasters and politicians, different things matter. Students are people rather than standardized test scores. Parents want me to care about their children. This looks different for every parent and child. It might be supporting a shy student to help them find their voice in the classroom. It might be making sure a child is wearing their glasses everyday. It might be reminding a student to make eye contact as they talk to me. It might be making sure they don't get anything with meat in it at lunch. It might be listening to their stories when they walk in each morning.

Some of these expectations are ones parents specifically ask about, such as the glasses or eye contact or meatless meals. Other expectations are never voiced aloud, may not even be conscious thoughts for the parents. But they are there and they are important.

This part of my job is about really knowing each student. Not just what they can and can't do academically, but who they are. Without this the academics don't happen.

More tomorrow...

One Facet of My Job

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what is expected of me in my job. In my mind it seems to be broken into three parts: what society in general sees as my job, what society more specifically sees as my job, and what my job really seems to look like when you're up close and personal.

For today I'm going to focus on the first one. Expectations for teachers, as seen in news report after news report, seem pretty clear. We must ensure that our students meet specific academic benchmarks. Sounds pretty simple.

When I look at it more closely it is a lot more complicated. Let's just take reading, a critical piece of first grade. There is a very specific benchmark for my kiddos in reading. Getting them there requires a cycle of assessment and instruction.

In case those words don't conjure up specific images for you, this means continually assessing what each student knows. In reading this means listening to students read out loud and then talking to them about what they read. Knowing where they are as readers allows us to then teach. The assessment tells us what skills they need more support in so we can teach for those. Then we have to assess to see if they have learned them. Assess, instruct, assess, instruct, assess, instruct, ad infinitum.

We're doing this for each student on and on. Plus, we're doing it in each subject area.

Teaching well requires knowing what students do and don't know at all times. That's no small task. Then creating instruction to meet those specific, individual needs. Another big job. Just standing up and telling students something does not, in any way, guarantee they have learned it.

Of course, this doesn't begin to cover what a teacher does each day. Tomorrow I'll tackle the more specific societal expectations, the ones that come when society actually comes in contact with school.

Weathering the Storm

As teachers (and maybe just as people) we struggle when it comes to sharing the good vs. the bad. While there are folks who seem to enjoy complaining, most of us often sugarcoat things. Teachers especially tend to celebrate the positives, even as they note and inwardly cry over the failures.

I believe recognizing the positives, talking about them, and, yes, even celebrating them helps. It's too easy for teachers to obsess over what isn't working, progress that isn't happening, and lessons that went wrong. It can wear one down.

This is on my mind as a result of reading John Spencer's post about ways to handle a tough period. Not everyone is as willing to share the hard parts and that got me thinking. (As always his thinking and writing are worth reading.) I'm not having a rough year with my class (as I've mentioned they're pretty darn darling) but we're in a bit of a rough patch as a school.

It's not something people want to talk about openly. Our problems are discussed in whispers, while eyes dart back and forth. We don't really like to admit that we're having such a tough time.

I'm in my 15th year at this school. I've been lucky enough to be a part of growing this school into a powerhouse, a well-respected school with a fabulous staff. We're feeling that slipping away and we don't know what to do.

Part of the reason we stay mostly quiet, I think, is that we aren't sure where the problems originate. Teachers are feeling micromanaged and disrespected in a variety of ways. Is that something our administration could remedy or is this coming down from our cluster or even a district-wide problem? An insane amount of our time is spent in meetings, meetings for which we have minimal control over our agendas. Who is dictating this? It's not clear.

Maybe some openness about the tough times we are in would go a long way towards improving the situation.

So Emotional

Back at the end of October Clarence Fisher tossed out an idea. I wasn't sure how to do this with my students. For whatever reason I had trouble wrapping my head around it. In spite of that I joined in. My inability to picture this (along with life in general) made me hold off for a while. This week I finally got started. Each day I sent home three flip cameras with kids to record whatever they wanted that afternoon/evening.

My reactions to this (which is not yet complete as I have more students still to participate) have varied but all been strong. Initially I was astounded by how excited they were when they returned the cameras to school the next morning. I didn't have to ask for them. They pulled them out of their backpacks with a flourish, ready to share their lives.

Then I watched a few and loved seeing what six-year-old filmographers do. The joy was so obvious and infectious. I wanted to just sit and watch but had to pick the kids up from music.

Finally when I had the chance to really dig into the videos I was overwhelmed by the generosity of my students' families. They allowed my students to record their homes and their lives. I watched them reading bedtime stories, making dinner, playing with siblings, and giving tours of their homes. My perception may be off, but I feel like I know these students so much better now than I did before watching these.

Here's a brief taste:

I did not edit that in any way. That's what you get when you give first graders a video camera and set them free. I am in love.

VSTE Highlights

I spent the past three days down in Virginia Beach with a bunch of amazing educators talking about technology (and, shockingly enough, teaching and learning) at the annual VSTE conference.

As is so often true for me lately the best moments in the conference were the conversations I had between sessions, during meals, and in every free moment. Virginia is not a huge state but it is full of wise, thoughtful, often witty educators. (Some of my favorites from around the state are Tim Stahmer, Tim Owens, Paula White, Becky Fisher, Jon Becker, and Tom Woodward.) Plus, VSTE folks don't take themselves too seriously, something I greatly respect. One more thing, I've never attended a conference with this much food.

One of the highlights this year was the first keynote. Last year that role was played, exceptionally well, by Chris Lehmann. This year it was Steve Dembo. I have followed Steve on twitter and read his blog for some time but had never heard him speak. After Chris last year, I was a bit unsure. I should not have worried. Steve was phenomenal. At 8:00 am, after traveling into the wee hours, he was far beyond high energy, inspiring, funny, and the time flew. One of the most impressive things about Steve is his ability to look at the world, notice things, turn them around in new ways, and find the humor. I would love to work in a school with him. (Of course, that's also true for everyone listed above...)

The deeper thoughts from VSTE are still rolling around in my mind. More to come.

Learning from Co-Teaching

For the majority of the fifteen years I've taught at my wonderful school I have been lucky enough to spend at least part of my day co-teaching. During that time I've co-taught with at least a dozen different people (some years I co-taught with more than one person at different points of the day). I have learned from all of them.

This year my administration partnered me up with someone new. She's not new to our school but I have never co-taught with her. She is due to have a baby any day now and today should be her last day for this year. Unfortunately I had to be out of school today. I'm sorry to have missed the last day we had as a team, at least for this year.

She has a lovely long-term substitute with whom I will work for the rest of the year. That will be fine. I will learn from her and we'll have a great time with the kiddos.

But I'm sad to lose my current partner. She has more experience with first graders than I do and has a wealth of wonderful ideas.

Even more, though, I will miss her calm, quiet nature. I listen to hear talk to the students and am reminded of how I want to sound. I watch her facial expressions and body language and try to mimic it. She has a gentle way with children that I envy.

I wish her a wonderful maternity leave with her precious baby. I truly do. At the same time, I hope I will have another opportunity to try and soak up the way she interactions with children and continue to learn how to do a better job of it.

Banning Fluorescents

Thanks to the inspiration of some fabulous colleagues in my building I have been slowly moving toward never turning on my overhead lights. A few years ago I bought a couple of small, table lamps from Ikea for cheap.

They didn't light up the room but did add some nice ambiance. The silver lamp up front in this picture was passed on by a colleague when she decided it wasn't working the way she wanted in her classroom. It gives off some great light.








This year I decided to buy a floor lamp like many teachers in my building and see how that works. When I went to get one they were on sale so I bought two. Of course.

I've got one on each side of my room and they do a pretty good job, even this time of year with our dark, dreary days.









This weekend we put up the Christmas decorations at our house and I decided to bring some lights to school. They were bought post-Christmas one year because I couldn't pass up the discount but they have never been used. (We have lots of white lights because we got married in late December and decorated the reception hall with Christmas trees as well as lights on the stairwells and bushes outside.) These lights made my class ooh and aah today when I plugged them in.

There are still two boxes at home and I think I'll bring them in to put up on the other side of the room. The inspiration for this came from another wonderful teacher whose white lights I see as I pass her room regularly.

Now our lighting seems complete.






We almost never have all of our overhead lights on. Typically I flip one of our two switches but at times we don't have either on. Hopefully we can do that even more often. Our room feels so much cozier, calmer, and more welcoming this way.

Prohibitions

Every week everyone in our school district (and that's a lot of us) gets an email newsletter with various information. It includes several sections, including About Our People (a place to highlight employees' accomplishments), Call for Coaches, and a list of employees or former employees who have died. I skim through most sections every week. I do skip the coaches one as it doesn't interest me in any way.

This week's newsletter caught my attention in a new way.

In the midst of all this fairly mundane information is the quick fact that sexual harassment is prohibited in my school district. Did we need to state that in our weekly newsletter? Is this a new policy?

Now I'm wondering if other things I assumed were prohibited might be perfectly acceptable...

So Many Great Moments

As I thought about what I wanted to post on Facebook tonight for my "Great school moment" from today I realized there were so many I couldn't possibly condense it enough for an update there. Instead, it becomes a blog post here.

First thing this morning a student came up to me asking about a coat I had promised him. A colleague offered her son's old coat to this little boy who doesn't have a winter coat. I grabbed the coat and was reminded by this fabulous colleague to tell my little guy that the coat is reversible (orange on one side and camouflage on the other). I demonstrated this for my student and his face lit up. Not two minutes later he comes up to me, hugging his coat, and said, "My coat is so soft." On the way out to recess later he stopped me to say, "I really like my new coat." I introduced him to the teacher who had provided the coat and he was excited to meet her (although that would not have been obvious to anyone watching - but I swear it's true).

The next great moment was actually many moments. As a first grade team we did special Thanksgiving rotations today. Two classes team up to do something fun and the kids rotate through the different rooms. A teammate and I had the kids making butter (you put heavy whipping cream in a container and shake it until it thickens into butter - it should only be done if you have many kids to help). The whole process was pretty exciting to the kids, but when we opened the container and showed them the butter the gasps and exclamations were astounding. (This is from the 3rd and final group when I got with it enough to record their reactions.)

In the short time we had after lunch before our next set of rotations a fifth grader came to read to us. She had earned the chance to do something special and picked reading to a younger class. She introduced herself, read the book, showed the pictures, and answered questions. She was poised, patient, and just fabulous with the kids. It also seems that when she returned to class she was really excited about what she done. A win-win for sure.

There were so many other little moments, that on plenty of days would have been my focus. Today was just so fabulous I can barely begin to recount it.

Introducing David

As I may have mentioned (ad nauseum to those who see me daily) I have a truly delightful class this year. My kids are interesting and have great personalities. They aren't vanilla ice cream kiddos, by which I mean kids who just sit quietly all the time and follow every direction. We have snags and challenges just nothing major.

One little guy sort of shows it all about our class. I'm going to call him David after the main character in David Shannon's books. We spend a lot of time being driven crazy by him but adoring him all the same.

His kindergarten teacher, in the first week of school, asked me if I'd seen his grouchy face. She said I would love it. I do. He gets upset and huffs and puffs, stamps around, and scrunches up his face. His two favorite phrases are "That's not fair!" and "Not again!"

Another teacher works one-on-one with David everyday for half an hour and she has the greatest stories to tell about their time together. She is an astounding teacher and has infinite patience with him. I'm amazed by it. Recently she picked him up one morning and he was cranky. She did everything she could to build him up and keep him going.

He got really stubborn and told her that he wasn't going to read the S's at the end of words (something they had been working on). He read an entire book without the S's. If he messed up and read the word correctly he would go back, reread, and leave it off. He worked harder to read the book incorrectly than he would have done if he had read it accurately.

He, like the rest of the class, challenges me, keeps me on my toes, and keeps me smiling. Thank goodness for them all.

Testing Us All

Administering a standardized test to first graders is as painful as it sounds. On Wednesday we did a little bit of prep so they had some idea of what to expect and what to do. Thursday morning was the main event.

I set my kiddos up all around the room to give them each enough space. Passed out the test books and freshly sharpened pencils. Read the directions and went through the sample questions. So far, so (mostly) good.

The test is non-verbal and timed. Both positive things for first graders. My role was to make sure students didn't skip questions and that they were quiet throughout. Both were a challenge.

One little friend (about whom I already have so many stories) talked to himself throughout the entire 30 minutes (shockingly he was the only one who didn't finish all the questions). I mostly tried to keep him at a whisper but did have to crack down when he actually called out to the girl closest to him. He can't not talk to save his life. I believe if he were standing behind a lion he would still not be able to be silent. (This lion has no sense of smell, obviously, or the talking thing would be irrelevant.)

When kiddos finished we checked to be sure they had an answer for every question and then gave them their book box, with a reminder to remain silent. First graders with boxes full of Mo Willems, Froggy, and Jan Thomas books can't be silent. No matter how hard they try. 

I worry about what all this testing is doing to our children. I genuinely have concerns about that. But right now, I'm much more worried about what it's doing to the teachers. My whole team was wiped out after administering a half hour test. It is absurd.

Begging for Money

Watching one of my squirmiest little guys sit in our 'meeting manager' chair (we only have the one so that's how we know who gets to use it each day - if you're the meeting manager it's your day with the chair) has me here asking for money. Sigh.

(This is not one of my little friends - just a buddy grabbed in the library one morning in order to get a picture with the chair when it was brand new.)

These chairs are amazing. They rock just enough for my squirmy kids to move a little without really distracting them. Sitting in this chair actually seems to help many of my kiddos focus more. The others, the ones who can focus without the chair, also love to sit in it. It's just fun for them. I don't blame them. I kind of want one in my size.

Today's meeting manager used the chair throughout most of the day. As he grabbed his backpack to go home he said, "I'm going to miss that chair."

If you're looking for a place to spend a few bucks and want to help out some squirmy first graders, check out our DonorsChoose project for a few more of these fabulous chairs. And thanks.

Changes

Too many kiddos can really strain a school. It means overcrowded hallways, teachers working one-on-one with kids in every nook and cranny, lunch starting at 10:15 am and lasting past 1:00 pm, long waits for bathrooms (for students and teachers), and trailers taking over every flat spot of land. Special education and ESOL teachers, literacy and math coaches, and other specialists share offices in trailers or storage closets.  That's been our reality for a number of years.

This year a new school opened. Sixteen of our darlings headed over to that brand new school. About two hundred others were redistricted to another school nearby. Losing sixteen wouldn't be noticeable. Losing two hundred definitely is.

We expected to notice a difference this year. Quieter hallways, shorter waits for a bathroom, less chaos with fewer classes on the playground - that sort of thing. That has all come true.

We've also found some other, less obvious, but significant changes. The two hundred students who no longer attend our school all live in one apartment complex. It's not a great place to live in many ways. There are adults, mostly male, standing around outside at all hours, smoking, drinking. Some are waiting/hoping for day labor work. Others are just there. A ton of kids live there but are rarely seen. Parents don't let them play outside because they don't believe it is safe. It is right on an access road for a very busy road, but I would guess that's not the main concern. Many apartments hold multiple families. These students were, in many ways, our neediest students. 

Now that they are gone we are finding a different atmosphere in our building, our Parent Center and classrooms.

Parents who come in still have questions and need help. We still provide clothes, shoes, and winter coats to students. We still translate for parents at meetings and parent coffees. So much has not changed. 

At the same time, so much has. I wrote about this before without really understanding what I was seeing and thinking. Parent-teacher conferences really made it hit home for me. I had two no-shows out of fifteen students. That's an astoundingly great rate of participation for our families. One of my two no-shows is a little boy who lives in that same apartment complex. His brother is a fifth grader (our last grade) so they had the option to remain here this year. Other teachers were saying they've never had such high attendance rates at parent-teacher conferences. 

Many of our students are still living in poverty. Many are still learning English. Yet they seem to come from families with a better skill set for school and society.

Many of us have been discussing these changes, in hushed voices tinged with shame. We feel guilty because our lives seem to be easier now, our school calmer. But we worry. How are those kiddos doing? The school they attend now has no Parent Center, no parent liaisons to translate or coordinate with families. They cannot walk to their new school. Are they getting any support?

Contradictions

I hate it when I realize that I'm getting frustrated with my students because I'm sending them mixed messages.

During guided reading groups I tend to get really irritated when students are struggling with a word and keep looking at me rather than at the word. On a good day I can remind them once before I get too annoyed. But it keeps happening and I keep telling them they need to look at the word in order to read it.

On Friday it hit me that one of the life skills we work really hard on all the time is making eye contact. I greet them at the door each morning and keep telling them good morning until they are making eye contact as we speak. We greet each other during morning meeting and work hard on our eye contact. When I conference with students about their reading or writing I work on eye contact as we talk. It tends to be difficult for many young kids to make eye contact regularly so it is something we practice often.

Then they sit down to read with me and I chastise them for making eye contact. Sigh.

This week I will work on encouraging them to look at the word they are struggling to read without frustration and without suggesting that looking at me is a bad thing to do.