Thursday Highs & Lows

Highs of today:

• Runnings 5 miles with only slight pain in my tibia and calf muscles (hooray!)
• Binding the books my kiddos have worked so hard to publish for our school's reading event next week, and reading some of the amazing stories they have come up with
• Making time for read aloud after lunch

Low of today:

• Laminating more damn sentence strips with objectives and sentence frames on them to post in the room...I feel that about 30% of my time these days is occupied with either writing on the sentence strips, laminating them, cutting them out, posting them, or taking them down to make room for new ones.  THIS is a good use of my time... :-/

Lowest of today:

• Calling DCFS with the social worker about a student... :( I don't think I'll ever get used to this type of thing...

Definitely a full-moon kind of week...

Oh my, another long day.  You know it's going to be a rough one when you get into the car and are greeted with this:

Actually, it continued to drop to -6 by the time I got to school.  Yikes!!!  And yet, some of the kiddos still showed up with unzipped jackets and no hats and gloves...parenting at its finest... For a four day week, this week certainly was insane...but isn't that always the case?  Plus it was a full moon on top of it all.  I will never understand how full moons and kids' behavior are linked, but trust me--they are!!!  (For example, Mrs. Literacy Specialist was told by a student today that she was going to "punch her in the face."  f'real.)

This pretty much sums it up

Today, though, it wasn't so much that my kids weren't behaving.  It was just that they all seemed to develop partial hearing loss.  For example:

Miss Teacher: (passing out the math extended response) You'll see on here that it asks for the mean (average) number of letters in the names of the group of students.   Who remembers where the poster is in the room with the formula for mean?  (kids point)  Very good.  Plus, we just took a quiz on finding the mean so you should all be experts at it.  A good first step here would be to count the number of letters in each kid's name.

[60 seconds pass]

Student: Miss Teacher?  What does it mean by "find the mean"?
A very disgruntled Miss Teacher:  Are you kidding?  I'm not going to be answering that question, I'm sorry.
Another student: Miss Teacher?  What do I do?
An even more disgruntled Miss Teacher:  *sighs in disgust*

Thank goodness it's Friday.  All I have to say is that this day started with copying a million ISAT practice pages and ended with being screamed at on the phone by a lunatic parent.  I still don't actually understand what her problem was, but I did successfully convince her not to come into school to continue the discussion...or just flat out tell her, "No, you can't come to school now.  Absolutely not."  Can we say CRAZY??

I've had a couple of complain-y posts in a row now, so let me share some "little happys" of today and yesterday:

This one almost brought tears to my eyes today--that should be an indicator of how stressed I am!  I have a computer cart in my room with 12 laptops in it.  Students from another class have been in and out all week borrowing them, and they were just plugging them into any random power cord or shoving them in.  They were A MESS!!!!  The disarray was killing me, but I knew that fixing them would take longer time than I had to spare.  So as we were packing up at 2:50 I had the brilliant idea to ask which students walked home and wouldn't mind staying 10 minutes to help me.  I was shocked when at least a third of the class raised their hands!  An untapped resource!  Why hadn't I thought of this before?!?  I picked two girls to call their moms, and then put them to work plugging the power cords into the correct outlets, winding up the cords, and arranging the laptops.  They finished so quickly, and here is the final product:

They must have thought I was a lunatic with my reaction to this--I practically hugged them and wept. :)  Then I proceeded to show off my beautifully organized cart to two other teachers.  God, is it sad that that was one of the highlights of my week???

Another little happy was this spelling error on a quiz.  The question asked which type of figurative language was used in the text, and the answer was simile.  Or, smiley as the case may be. :)

And okay, yesterday wasn't a COMPLETE train wreck.  Actually, it had a very happy part.  One of the wonderful things about my district is a literacy initiative they have to help teachers build their classroom libraries.  Every month they have a "book room" day that the newer teachers can go to and take up to 100 books.  You can do this until you have gathered 1,000 books!  Technically the books belong to the district and if you leave you are expected to donate them to another teacher or the school library.  But I don't think there are exactly book police....Well, the books are usually a collection of gently used cast-offs plus some new titles.  But this month I'd been tipped off by Mr. Principal that TONS of new books had been purchased and would be available!  My loot:

100 brand spanking new books, including new copies of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the entire Percy Jackson series, several Maximum Ride books, and too many others to count.  Part of why I was at school so late last night was that I was putting my name in all of them and hand-picking a new book for each students' book box.  Yeah, it's tedious, but they LOVE when I tell them, "I picked this book JUST FOR YOU!"  And I love it too :)

So the week wasn't a total wash.  But let's just say it's a good thing it's the weekend, because if I had to endure 1 more day I might have strangled someone...

(Weekend dilemma: Do I attempt my long run this weekend if my tibia is still acting up?  I'm thinking give it a good rest tonight and see how it feels tomorrow...:-/)

Today's little Sad and today's little Happy

Sad: Monday, I wrote about my student who moved, much to my disappointment, regardless of the fact that in doing so he left my room quieter, more controlled, and me with more time to actually teach. Well, this morning, an hour before school started, another teacher found him outside wandering around with a light jacket, no hat, and no gloves. Obviously she brought him in. After a few minutes we deduced he'd been put in a cab by his mom and had been driven from the new house (2 towns away) to school! What??? Mom was informed that he was no longer a student at the school because they do not live in the district anymore. Our itinerant police officer was going to drive him home, but mom said no one was there so he had to stay. I was so glad to have a chance to see him and say goodbye, but nothing is as unmotivating for a kid as having to sit in a classroom with no supplies, having missed the past few days, knowing your work no longer counts! I'll be honest--at one point I handed him a Time for Kids and told him to go sit in the bean bag...
I hope we don't find him wandering tomorrow or getting out of a cab... :( poor kid. I had a few tears after giving him a hug goodbye and making him promise to try his best at school and to be nice to his new teacher...

Happy: Other than THAT craziness, I started my morning with a big smile when I read this email from Mister Principal:

"Hey Miss Teacher, I was just thinking today how much I appreciate what you do!  You have done such a terrific job over the past two years and have gained A LOT of experience.  Thanks for doing more than hanging in, and really doing some great stuff.  I’m really proud of all your hard work.  You are turning into a world-class teacher and we are lucky to have you at School!"

In a job when you are constantly giving everything and frequently feel undervalued and under appreciated, notes like this really mean so much. Definitely made my morning, and was such a wonderful surprise.

oh what a day

My current stresses: ISATs, conferences, kids who don't turn in their work, kids who turn in crap work, kids who lose their work and have to start over...and over...and over, ISATs, having to bring treats for the teacher's lounge tomorrow, ISATs, the pile of papers I need to grade, oh did I mention ISATs...

What made me smile today: free books from the book room (woohoo!), birthday student bringing pizza and cupcakes for the class, the kids semi-comprehending our crazy hard reading this week about politics, and when my water bottle spilled and one of the kids jumped up, ran to get a paper towel, and helped me mop it up as though it were the natural thing to do...

Yikes, this teaching business is sure something...but I have to say, I think I'm gonna stick with it a little while...

more good & bad

Well, when I wrote Friday that the day sucked, I wasn't being dramatic in the least.  I'm not even going to get into what happened, because I honestly don't want to think about it.  The general picture is this:  we took a field trip, and of course my little behavior problem child was in my group.  While at the museum, his behavior was so inappropriate that I you wouldn't believe some of it.  I spent the entire trip praying for it to just end and praying that he wouldn't just grab something and break it.  It was the most disruptive, defiant behavior pretty much ever.  And on a field trip, of course, there isn't much you can do about it. 

Then, the cherry on top was a student from another class was in my group, and was being bothered by my student.  When I leaned close to him and put my hand lightly on his shoulder to whisper, "Why don't you move away from him if he's bothering you," he snapped, "Get your dirty hand off me."  Yup, it was quite the day.

After school though, I went out for a drink with a veteran teacher on my team and two other young teachers.  My team teacher, Mrs. P, reminded me not to let one child ruin my career.  She reminded me that no matter how horrible he is, I can't quit on the other 23 students who need me.  She also stressed the importance of going home and thinking about those wonderful kids in my class, NOT thinking about the one kid who makes my life hell. 

So, in the interest of taking her advice, I'm going to share a couple happy thoughts.  My school does an evening called Celebrate Reading & Writing, at which each class shares a book of writing they made.  Most classrooms do class books, or all write a poem, or something.  In the interest of time, I assigned the project as homework and asked each student to go home and write SOMETHING.  It could be anything they wanted.  I also really just wanted to see what they would choose to write about on their own.  I received stories, plays, narratives, informational paragraphs, poems, and even a comic.  As I was typing them up last night (again, knowing it would be so much faster for me to just type them), I read one student's mystery story about Miss Teacher and her missing diamond. :D  I love when I'm a character in the kids' writing.  (And what is this about a missing diamond?? I wish!)  I also read a student's acrosstic poem called CLASS, in which the second S was "Stunning Teacher."  These two little moments made me smile. 

I love so many kids in my class, and I love being their teacher.  It's just so hard coming home depressed every day about the kid who is terrorizing everyone, especially me.  I can't help but think how many easier jobs there are out there: waitress, barista, florist, nanny...I bet those people don't come home on a Friday night so bummed out by the day that they just lay around reading.  I'm trying to remember that I teach for the kids in my room who love learning and who work hard every day.  I can't let them down.  But man, I just don't know if I can take this crap anymore from this one student...

just another manic monday

Last night I set my alarm for 5am. After staying up a good two hours later than usual scrambling to get some last minute grading done, my lesson plans finished, and writing post-it notes in my leveled readers for my aide to use when he met with a guided reading group (if I don't write out word for word EXACTLY what I want him to say, it's a disaster. This being said, it is sometimes a disaster anyways...), I didn't exactly wake up on time. Let me rephrase that. I woke up at 6:23. I left my house at 6:35. I know, I'm awesome. I didn't exactly shower and putting on makeup really just involved me smearing (literally) on some foundation and brushing on a little mascara, but somehow I got in my car with my coffee and mug of oatmeal to eat on the way. Phew!

Anyways, after that FRANTIC start to the day, I assumed that the whole day would be a nightmare. However, it actually went just fine. The kids were only marginally chatty today (with the exception of two who are making me CRAZY with their attitudes...when I tell you to stop talking, just stop. Don't say 'what did i do???' and groan), which for a Monday, is a small miracle.

Some of my favorite things today/recently:
1. Starting element 2 of the Daily 5: We started Work on Writing today, which is going well so far. Just like Read to Self, it is a miracle that the kids can actually sit and work quietly. I LOVE IT. I know that they're going to love being able to choose what to write about, and they love the opportunity to sit all over the room and quietly work. And I love the quiet too. :)

2. One of my girls brought in her "fashion notebook" to share with me in which she has all her clothing designs, divided into sections of dresses, pants, skirts, vests, sweaters, church dresses (i know.), bathing suits, and pajamas. There might have been a few more sections, I can't remember. Each section had a page of drawings of the clothing, and then pictures of the outfits on models. It was AMAZING. She showed me the entire thing page by page and pointed out her favorites. Not only was it adorable, but it was a wonderful reminder that I really have built a relationship with these kids.

3. My student who is incredibly bright but has done little to no quality work this year had a very serious parent-teacher conference. When I shared with her and her parents last week the samples of her "work" (by which I mean lack there of), she was visibly upset and her parents took it very seriously. Today, when she wrote her reading response letter for the week in her journal, she showed it to me when she was finished, and was so proud that she'd written an entire page. This was HUGE for her, and it meant so much just to see that not only had she put forth the effort, but that she actually was proud of herself.

4. I added some new books to some of the kids' book boxes this morning, and some of them were really excited to see my picks for them. That will never get old. I don't care that it's more work for me to choose the books, I love it and they do too. Which I guess I understand--I know I would feel pretty special even now if someone brought me a book and said, "I chose this JUST for YOU." :)

So, once again, it's the little joys that pull me through the manic mondays. Things still really suck from time to time (especially when the copier breaks for the millionth time...seriously, aren't we a Title 1 school? Can't we use some funds for a freakin copier???), but sometimes there are things I just love. I'm reminding myself to focus on the little things. There are rarely perfect days, but there can be perfect moments. They are what are getting me through this.

highs and lows: made it through another week!

I made it through another week :) And things did get better as the week went on. This will just be a brief recap because it's after midnight (I can hardly remember the days when I used to stay up until 4 or 5...), and I'm getting sick. Thanks, kids. Thanks.

Anyways. Monday was a tough day. One of my challenging students gave me hell all morning and then when I kept him in at lunch to discuss, snapped at me and really just pissed me off. During lunch I almost cried and seriously didn't want to go back to my classroom. Then, the kids were crazy chatty and that was about the last straw. Thankfully, Mrs. J helped me come up with a new seating arrangement, a new motivating behavior plan, and a new perspective. My kids now have table names (peace in different languages--the goal is a "peaceful classroom," but we'll start with that!) and earn table points. So far it is highly motivating. Let's hope it lasts! Miss R (school miss r, not iwu) and I enjoyed some much needed margaritas and chips at our friendly neighborhood Chili's and vented about school and the kids for a good hour and a half after we finally left the building. As much as I hate complainers, I'm realizing how absolutely necessary it is to just vent once in a while with someone who truly understands what you are going through. I swear, if I didn't have another first year teacher in the building who is feeling just as lost as me most of the time, I would lose it.

Well, Tuesday I came in with high hopes and high expectations. Thankfully, the new system helped, and we proceeded to have a great rest of the week. The fish didn't die, I didn't have pink eye afterall, and I made it through with no more tears. Just the regular old stress, perfectionism, and emotionalness that this teaching thing makes me feel! I even survived curriculum night! Thank goodness my school decided to shake things up this year and turn curriculum night into a student-led scavenger hunt through the classroom and building rather than a teacher presentation that so often turns into a parent interrogation. The night was fun and the parents were nice. Phew!
Some highs and lows from the week:

Highs:
-a curriculum night that actually turned out to be a lot of fun
-surviving Friday's "soft lockdown" (thanks, escaped prisoner who hijacked a car on the street next door to my school!) with no significant problems
-the fish NOT dying!!! (note to self: model, model, model the correct procedures for feeding the fish...)
-having the kids love the new book bins that we set up for them this week and seeing how excited they were to discover new books
-some of the kids actually doing really well on their math tests yesterday--no tears while grading! yay!
-finally making it down to the teachers lounge for lunch a couple days this week
-having my student show me the correct way to "finger skateboard" (see right) and having the kids cheer when I correctly executed a "trick"
-grading some really beautiful letters in reading response journals today about my students' "something beautiful"
-Introducing Daily 5 read to self and having it go AMAZINGLY (to be blogged about soon!)
-dancing the Cupid Shuffle with the class--best "stretch break" ever.

Lows:

-Monday (and almost everything about it)
-writing up one of my kids for the third time
-feeling about one step behind everyone on my team all the freaking time
-getting to school at 5:45 one morning last week, and still be scrambling at the bell to have my act together
-leaving school Wednesday and Thursday right away to go do autism therapy/babysit, and coming BACK to school after, not to leave again until 8pm...
-getting this cold...

Let's hope next week is even less stressful...*fingers crossed*

laughin and crying

Okay, I know I said I was going to bed, but I had a second wind and just wanted to share.

Some days I think, "Man, I wish that I had an easier job." Then, I stop myself and rephrase that: "I wish I wanted to have a job that was easier than teaching." It's weird because I don't want any other job--I just wish the job I did want were easier! Rock - me - hard place, I guess.

But anyways, I digress. Last night I was completely frustrated by so many, many things about school. Certain students making me crazy, school in general, just everything. I almost cried at lunch. Today, like I said, was much better. And even after a 14 hour day (including curriculum night), I'm in a great mood. Isn't it amazing how on a bad day I am ready to quit, and how on a good day I love love love my job?

This got me thinking. Sure, no other job has workers putting in countless hours of unpaid overtime. Most other jobs don't keep you up at night, give you nightmares, or make you cry. Few other jobs involve becoming so emotionally invested in your work that you are constantly thinking about it. But then again, how many other jobs can you leave after your 14 hour day and feel energized rather than exhausted? How many other jobs can you feel literally elated when a child tells you that you are a great teacher because you make learning fun? As I'm certainly learning, teaching is EMOTIONAL. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. But like I told my dad today, yes, I do wish my job were easier. But I know it's the job I'm meant to do, so I'm just going to keep doing my best and crossing my fingers that we all make it through the year and (hopefully) ALL learn something. :)

Tomorrow I will update on:
-daily 5 read to self
-table points
-curriculum night
-my grading dilemma

I teach for moments like this

After the crying at my desk episode last night, today was better. :) I am falling asleep (actually, I have already fallen asleep, on my friend's couch, and been woken up and sent home, and am now falling asleep again...). However, I want to share a few highlights of my day. Now, it was still a stressful day (as they all are), and I did have to yell a little about not talking during a test and a firedrill (yes, we had both today. lucky us...). But what I'm remembering as I think back about the day are these moments:

1. I noticed a student who is very into graphic novels was reading a Garfield comic book during independent reading. I have no problem with graphic novels or comic books, but I think we need some regular text mixed in there too, don't you? Anyways, I called him over to my desk and asked what the last novel he read was. He told me a couple of graphic novels, and I shared my thoughts with him about variety. He told me that he had read Holes by Louis Sacher, and that it was his favorite book. I immediately brought him over to the reading center and pulled two other books by the same author: There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom and Sideways Stories from Wayside School. He thought both sounded good, brought them back to his desk, and decided on Sideways. About 10 minutes later, he came up to me and said, "Hey, Miss Teacher, this book's good!" I teach for moments like this.

2. A student with whom I've been engaged in a power struggle for the past week (his mom and I are already practically great friends) has been noticing how I made puzzle pieces from a Simpsons puzzle into magnets for my whiteboard. The magnets are small and only show tiny bits of Simpsons characters, but this guy spotted Bart's legs immediately. He has been asking me if I had the extra puzzle pieces all week, and today I pulled them out of my desk drawer. After explaining to him that, because I had made some pieces into magnets, it was an incomplete puzzle, he was still asking if he could have some. Then, my aHa! moment of the day occurred.
Me: If you get no check marks for the day, I will give you a puzzle piece to keep. Deal?
T: Deal!
And guess what. NO CHECK MARKS. I thought it was impossible. This kid shaped up to earn one lousy piece of a puzzle with Lisa Simpson's face on it? Man, I'll buy a 1,000 piece Simpsons puzzle if this will help! *Fingers Crossed that the motivation continues next week*
I teach for moments like this.

3. I had three students this week who missed multiple hw assignments. As is my rule, I kept them in 10 minutes at recess to "strategize" a way to get their assignments done on time. Our conversation was fabulous. All three students supplied ideas for both themselves and each other. One even stated that having their parents sign their reading logs each month was their responsibility, not their parents' responsibility, because it was not their parents' reading log. I wished I had a big gold star to give him. :) I teach for moments like this.

4. I gave a short writing "quiz" today related to our shared reading selection of the week. All I asked was for the students to write a short paragraph about a mistake they had made. As I was skimming through them tonight, two of my students who are not my strongest writers did truly exceptional jobs. Just reading that little paragraph made me so proud of them and so excited about the possibilities that lay before us this year to continue developing as writers. I teach for moments like this.

highs & lows

Once again reflecting on the first week, I decided it might be nice to think about the highs and lows:

HIGHS:
-getting my new computer :)
-reading aloud Thank You Mr. Falker and having the kids give me complete 100% attention
-helping the kids write their bio poems with piano music playing in the background (and having my principal peek in right at that time)
-when we wrote our class rules, having one student suggest that we sign them, frame them, and then refer classmates to the framed rules any time they break one (amazing)
-calling parents just to tell them how much I'm enjoying their child
-meeting with my most challenging student's mother, and finding out that she's incredibly supportive and down to earth

LOWS:
-the centers disaster (I won't discuss it again...)
-spending my entire weekend making work packets for the kids to work on during guided reading
-realizing every single second that there are at least 100 things I need to do but never even thought of before then
-waking up at 5am every morning, then falling asleep at 9 on Friday night

Hopefully this week goes smoothly, and the kids didn't forget their carefully practiced routines and procedures over the weekend!!