After feeling better on Saturday, I completely relapsed yesterday into the raging sore throat/fever/aches combo of which my body seems to be so fond. (When I get sick, I really go for it with gusto -- no such thing as a small case of the sniffles for Miss Brave!) Last night, between bouts of fitful sleep, I kept dreaming that I was on America's Next Top Model. Coincidence? I think not. Teaching, like modeling, is a profession you can't fake. There's no such thing as laying low in your cubicle and halfheartedly shuffling papers until you feel better.
Three weeks until winter break -- bring on the Purell!
Monday, December 3, 2007
Friday, November 30, 2007
Having a pity party
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I outlined a rough draft of all my plans for the rest of the semester. For the first time since school started, I was ahead of the game. No more wild panicking on Sunday nights! No more cavalier dismissals of projects that could have been cool because I wouldn't have enough time to get my copies made! (I've read other teacherblogs where teachers complain about having to stand in line at the copy machine -- well, at my school, you have to get approval from an administrator before you can make copies, so you have to request all your copies at least two days ahead of time.)
Best of all, because I had oh-so-diligently done my planning already, I had a fabulous weekend planned out for myself. On Friday night, I was going to see Nicholas Kristof, my favorite New York Times columnist, lecture at the New York Public Library about conditions in Darfur. And on Saturday, I was taking a "chocolate excursion" over the Brooklyn Bridge to Jacques Torres Chocolate in DUMBO. It was so exciting! I finally had it all together!
So what happened? Why am I posting this at 7:48 am instead of organizing my stuff to lug over to my first period kindergarten?
GERMS HAPPENED. Kindergarteners happened. Kindergarteners with their snotty hands and their noses full of mucus and their cough cough coughing right into the open air. At least when you're a classroom teacher, you're dealing with only one set. But in a given week, I see, give or take, 425 students. That's 425 sets of germs, and 850 little hands poking me in the back and giving me high fives and hugs. Not to mention that I take the bus and the subway twice a day each.
When I think of all the germy germs I must touch in one day, I shudder.
So I'm taking my first sick day. The miserable virus of death didn't fell me, and neither did complete laryngitis, but now I have been waylaid by the common cold. (Except that this cold isn't so common: my nose went from zero to raw in about one hour, and then I had to deal with endless observations about it from my first graders. "Miss Brave, your nose is really red! It's running a lot! Are you sick?")
I suppose I should be thankful that I caught a cold from my students instead of, say, the virus of the second grader who threw up in the hallway yesterday morning. (I came very narrowly close to stepping in it, thanks.) But when I return to school, I'm returning armed with more hand sanitizer, Lysol wipes, and Airborne than ever before.
Best of all, because I had oh-so-diligently done my planning already, I had a fabulous weekend planned out for myself. On Friday night, I was going to see Nicholas Kristof, my favorite New York Times columnist, lecture at the New York Public Library about conditions in Darfur. And on Saturday, I was taking a "chocolate excursion" over the Brooklyn Bridge to Jacques Torres Chocolate in DUMBO. It was so exciting! I finally had it all together!
So what happened? Why am I posting this at 7:48 am instead of organizing my stuff to lug over to my first period kindergarten?
GERMS HAPPENED. Kindergarteners happened. Kindergarteners with their snotty hands and their noses full of mucus and their cough cough coughing right into the open air. At least when you're a classroom teacher, you're dealing with only one set. But in a given week, I see, give or take, 425 students. That's 425 sets of germs, and 850 little hands poking me in the back and giving me high fives and hugs. Not to mention that I take the bus and the subway twice a day each.
When I think of all the germy germs I must touch in one day, I shudder.
So I'm taking my first sick day. The miserable virus of death didn't fell me, and neither did complete laryngitis, but now I have been waylaid by the common cold. (Except that this cold isn't so common: my nose went from zero to raw in about one hour, and then I had to deal with endless observations about it from my first graders. "Miss Brave, your nose is really red! It's running a lot! Are you sick?")
I suppose I should be thankful that I caught a cold from my students instead of, say, the virus of the second grader who threw up in the hallway yesterday morning. (I came very narrowly close to stepping in it, thanks.) But when I return to school, I'm returning armed with more hand sanitizer, Lysol wipes, and Airborne than ever before.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Thank you for riding the MTA
Like most New Yorkers, I think my commute stinks. I leave my apartment at 6:10 am, and it takes close to an hour to travel the 5 miles to my school by subway and then bus. The bus stinks infinitely more than the subway because it's always crowded with people who think it's okay to scream into their cell phones at 6:30 in the morning. And on the way home, I always, always (and I am only slightly exaggerating here) miss the bus, in that I see it whiz by as I am still high-heeling it to the stop.
Today I was standing at the stop when a "Not in Service" bus turned the corner -- but to my surprise, the driver opened the doors and beckoned me on. We recognized each other because we'd exchanged friendly greetings on the empty bus once before. "By the way," he said as I dipped my MetroCard, "are you a teacher?"
"I am!" I said, surprised. "How did you know?"
He smiled. "I just had a feeling," he said. "You have that face."
What I think he really meant was "that face of someone who probably wouldn't be getting on the bus in this neighborhood unless she taught here," but it was still a nice moment. He told me that my job requires a lot of patience. I agreed and pointed out that his does too. I told him that about my kindergarteners who are cute but wild; he told me about his old-lady passengers who curse him out and hit his bus with their canes.
Hmmm. Maybe our jobs aren't so different after all.
Today I was standing at the stop when a "Not in Service" bus turned the corner -- but to my surprise, the driver opened the doors and beckoned me on. We recognized each other because we'd exchanged friendly greetings on the empty bus once before. "By the way," he said as I dipped my MetroCard, "are you a teacher?"
"I am!" I said, surprised. "How did you know?"
He smiled. "I just had a feeling," he said. "You have that face."
What I think he really meant was "that face of someone who probably wouldn't be getting on the bus in this neighborhood unless she taught here," but it was still a nice moment. He told me that my job requires a lot of patience. I agreed and pointed out that his does too. I told him that about my kindergarteners who are cute but wild; he told me about his old-lady passengers who curse him out and hit his bus with their canes.
Hmmm. Maybe our jobs aren't so different after all.
The wrong stuff
Samantha: "Mr. M was juggling, and all of the class was laughing!"
Alejandro: "Mr. M is so funny."
Miss Brave: "Is he funnier than Miss Brave?"
Alejandro: "Yeah! You're not funny!"
* * *
I have 18 classes to plan for, and the one that confounds me the most is my self-contained special ed kindergarten.
There are 12 students. Six of them are non-verbal, or at least not communicatively verbal (like, they'll recite the script of this morning's SpongeBob episode, but they can't tell you what they did this weekend). Three of them are still not progressing to representational drawing; give them a pencil and they'll just scribble on the paper.
Steven sprawls himself out on the carpet and rolls around; he frequently ends up crawling under the table and curling up in a ball. Antony roams around the classroom touching everything while the other students yell out, "Look at Antony! Look at Antony!" Emile and Jesus -- along with Steven and Antony -- are in their own worlds that come complete with their own sound effects: humming, tapping, scripting. And because a lot of the students mimic what they hear their teachers say, anyone who is acting out is met with a lot of stern voices from the other students -- because the ones who are verbal are very verbal and they all think they're in charge. "Antony! Zip it!" "Justine! Stop calling out!"
There are two paraprofessionals in the room, and today they both left to go change a boy's diaper, and that left me alone with the eleven kids. Remember the time I was alone in the auditorium with the 120 first graders? This was worse than that. Everyone was on their worst behavior -- including Miss Brave, who thought she was about to have a nervous breakdown.
I'm so frustrated by that class because every time I'm in there I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. Number one, the para and I have very different styles. I can say, "Steven, sit up!" from across the room until I'm blue in the face, but the bottom line is, Steven's not going to hear me. Unfortunately, I can't be in twelve places at once, so that makes it kind of difficult to attend to everyone's needs.
Number two, does this class really need an extra period of writing on top of its regular writing period -- twice a week?! From a teacher who doesn't have a special education license? In her first year of teaching? I feel strongly that these aren't kids who are "behind," who need to have extra information poured into them so they can "catch up." These are kids who learn differently, and I freely admit that I am at a loss as how to teach them. Especially because I do only see them twice a week, and their needs are so differentiated -- Jamie can write a three-page story, complete with sentences, whereas Cody still won't even trace his name, let alone draw a picture. And even one-on-one attention isn't always what it's cracked up to be; I spent a long time sitting next to Jesus today, and I spent most of it trying to get him just to look at me. Steven stunned me by immediately getting to work drawing a full-fledged person (he used to just scribble; then all he would draw was SpongeBob and Patrick) and labeling it "me"...and then he spent the rest of the period writhing and squirming on the floor with his head in his hands, an issue I had trouble addressing because I was busy trying to make sure Antony didn't destroy the rest of the classroom.
I love those kids, I do. But I have no idea how to help them.
Alejandro: "Mr. M is so funny."
Miss Brave: "Is he funnier than Miss Brave?"
Alejandro: "Yeah! You're not funny!"
* * *
I have 18 classes to plan for, and the one that confounds me the most is my self-contained special ed kindergarten.
There are 12 students. Six of them are non-verbal, or at least not communicatively verbal (like, they'll recite the script of this morning's SpongeBob episode, but they can't tell you what they did this weekend). Three of them are still not progressing to representational drawing; give them a pencil and they'll just scribble on the paper.
Steven sprawls himself out on the carpet and rolls around; he frequently ends up crawling under the table and curling up in a ball. Antony roams around the classroom touching everything while the other students yell out, "Look at Antony! Look at Antony!" Emile and Jesus -- along with Steven and Antony -- are in their own worlds that come complete with their own sound effects: humming, tapping, scripting. And because a lot of the students mimic what they hear their teachers say, anyone who is acting out is met with a lot of stern voices from the other students -- because the ones who are verbal are very verbal and they all think they're in charge. "Antony! Zip it!" "Justine! Stop calling out!"
There are two paraprofessionals in the room, and today they both left to go change a boy's diaper, and that left me alone with the eleven kids. Remember the time I was alone in the auditorium with the 120 first graders? This was worse than that. Everyone was on their worst behavior -- including Miss Brave, who thought she was about to have a nervous breakdown.
I'm so frustrated by that class because every time I'm in there I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. Number one, the para and I have very different styles. I can say, "Steven, sit up!" from across the room until I'm blue in the face, but the bottom line is, Steven's not going to hear me. Unfortunately, I can't be in twelve places at once, so that makes it kind of difficult to attend to everyone's needs.
Number two, does this class really need an extra period of writing on top of its regular writing period -- twice a week?! From a teacher who doesn't have a special education license? In her first year of teaching? I feel strongly that these aren't kids who are "behind," who need to have extra information poured into them so they can "catch up." These are kids who learn differently, and I freely admit that I am at a loss as how to teach them. Especially because I do only see them twice a week, and their needs are so differentiated -- Jamie can write a three-page story, complete with sentences, whereas Cody still won't even trace his name, let alone draw a picture. And even one-on-one attention isn't always what it's cracked up to be; I spent a long time sitting next to Jesus today, and I spent most of it trying to get him just to look at me. Steven stunned me by immediately getting to work drawing a full-fledged person (he used to just scribble; then all he would draw was SpongeBob and Patrick) and labeling it "me"...and then he spent the rest of the period writhing and squirming on the floor with his head in his hands, an issue I had trouble addressing because I was busy trying to make sure Antony didn't destroy the rest of the classroom.
I love those kids, I do. But I have no idea how to help them.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Gonna take on the world some day
Yesterday was the fabled Day Before a Vacation, in which teachers all over the country try to sneak fun activities past the watchful eye of the administration because they know their students will be off the wall otherwise.
My plan for the kindergarteners was to have them author a "Thanksgiving Book," for which they'd trace their hand on the cover and transform it into a turkey. But, all the kindergarten teachers got together and decided to show their kids a movie.
Have you ever taken a group of 12:1:1 self-contained kindergarteners and put them in a room with 100 other kindergarteners and expected them to sit still and focus on the finer plot points of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving? These are kids whose verbal repertoire consists of (a) screaming or (b) echolalia. Warning, warning: MELTDOWNS WILL OCCUR.
That's how I ended up with one very heavy, squirming 5-year-old in my lap, while I rubbed his back and whispered things like, "Shhh, nice sitting" and "Look, Snoopy's making toast!" At one point, when the music started up in the movie, my little friend started patting his hands on his lap and then clapping them together: pat pat CLAP, pat pat CLAP. Hmm, I thought. That rhythm seems strangely familiar somehow. And just as it was clicking in my head, he opened his mouth and belted out:
"WE WILL, WE WILL ROCK YOU!"
Ohhhh yeah, my students will rock you, all right.
My plan for the kindergarteners was to have them author a "Thanksgiving Book," for which they'd trace their hand on the cover and transform it into a turkey. But, all the kindergarten teachers got together and decided to show their kids a movie.
Have you ever taken a group of 12:1:1 self-contained kindergarteners and put them in a room with 100 other kindergarteners and expected them to sit still and focus on the finer plot points of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving? These are kids whose verbal repertoire consists of (a) screaming or (b) echolalia. Warning, warning: MELTDOWNS WILL OCCUR.
That's how I ended up with one very heavy, squirming 5-year-old in my lap, while I rubbed his back and whispered things like, "Shhh, nice sitting" and "Look, Snoopy's making toast!" At one point, when the music started up in the movie, my little friend started patting his hands on his lap and then clapping them together: pat pat CLAP, pat pat CLAP. Hmm, I thought. That rhythm seems strangely familiar somehow. And just as it was clicking in my head, he opened his mouth and belted out:
"WE WILL, WE WILL ROCK YOU!"
Ohhhh yeah, my students will rock you, all right.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Breaking through
Bethany: "[My sister] Kiana said she's going to see you tomorrow."
Miss Brave: "Yes, I have Kiana's class tomorrow."
Bethany: "And she said, 'Oooh, I'm so excited!'"
Sure, I know teaching isn't about whether the kids like you...but it still gives me the warm fuzzies.
* * *
Besides three of my kindergarten classes (two of them special ed) and one of my first grade classes, I only see my classes once a week, so it can be tough to tell from week to week whether anything is getting through. During the "Connection" part of my mini lesson, when I say things like, "Last time I was here, we talked about how we need to use exclamation points at the end of our exciting sentences!", I'm often met with blank stares. Dear Miss Brave: Uh, have we met? Love, your first graders.
But lately I've noticed some small, encouraging signs. I've been telling my classes that the dot at the bottom of the exclamation point is just like a period in that it reminds us that we need to stop at the end of the sentence, but it's so excited about making the sentence into an exclamation that it's jumping up above the period because it can't sit still! (...much like the majority of my classes; today I actually uttered the phrase, "Second graders, a few of you are acting too much like exclamation points right now, jumping around, and I need you to act more like periods, who sit still and stop.") And in one of my first grades, as I modeled adding an exclamation point to the end of an exciting sentence, sweet spacey Eduardo called out, "It's jumping up because it's excited!"
In another first grade -- the ESL class of green day fame -- I worked on a story I wrote about going to see the runners at the New York City Marathon, in which I shouted, "Go, runners, go!" It's been two weeks (!) since I last saw this class, and yesterday Andy announced, "I remember the story you told us. Go, runners, go!"
And then there's Marco, a first grader who technically belongs in a 12:1:1 special ed classroom (meaning no more than twelve students with one teacher and one paraprofessional) but who, due to some !@#$-up with paperwork, is languishing in a general ed class. I say "languishing" because Marco is not unintelligent, but he is the kind of kid who appears to have a magnet on the top of his head that is attracted to another magnet hidden somewhere beneath the floorboards; he is just that incapable of sitting still in his chair without doing a face plant/body check onto the floor. In short: Marco needs a para.
I played the Noun Eater song for Marco's class on October 19. And every week since then, Marco asks, "Are we going to listen to that song? About the noun monster who eats people and places and things?"
This week I created giant wearable punctuation marks. I picked the quiet, well-behaved kids to wear the periods; the wriggly, excitable kids to wear the exclamation points (Kyle was among them, and it went blessedly well); and the curious, questioning kids to wear the question marks. (I have some extremely awesome photos of this activity that I'm not posting due to privacy concerns.) Then we practiced deciding who should stand at the end of Sentences Miss Brave Often Hears In This Class ("I need a drink of water"; "Can I have a drink of water"; "It's an emergency") and reading the sentences with the right tone in our voices. I was hoping the association would benefit them: "Remember, just like Kyle makes our class exciting, Kyle is going to make this sentence exciting!"
I guess that in the coming weeks, I'll see what's broken through.
Miss Brave: "Yes, I have Kiana's class tomorrow."
Bethany: "And she said, 'Oooh, I'm so excited!'"
Sure, I know teaching isn't about whether the kids like you...but it still gives me the warm fuzzies.
* * *
Besides three of my kindergarten classes (two of them special ed) and one of my first grade classes, I only see my classes once a week, so it can be tough to tell from week to week whether anything is getting through. During the "Connection" part of my mini lesson, when I say things like, "Last time I was here, we talked about how we need to use exclamation points at the end of our exciting sentences!", I'm often met with blank stares. Dear Miss Brave: Uh, have we met? Love, your first graders.
But lately I've noticed some small, encouraging signs. I've been telling my classes that the dot at the bottom of the exclamation point is just like a period in that it reminds us that we need to stop at the end of the sentence, but it's so excited about making the sentence into an exclamation that it's jumping up above the period because it can't sit still! (...much like the majority of my classes; today I actually uttered the phrase, "Second graders, a few of you are acting too much like exclamation points right now, jumping around, and I need you to act more like periods, who sit still and stop.") And in one of my first grades, as I modeled adding an exclamation point to the end of an exciting sentence, sweet spacey Eduardo called out, "It's jumping up because it's excited!"
In another first grade -- the ESL class of green day fame -- I worked on a story I wrote about going to see the runners at the New York City Marathon, in which I shouted, "Go, runners, go!" It's been two weeks (!) since I last saw this class, and yesterday Andy announced, "I remember the story you told us. Go, runners, go!"
And then there's Marco, a first grader who technically belongs in a 12:1:1 special ed classroom (meaning no more than twelve students with one teacher and one paraprofessional) but who, due to some !@#$-up with paperwork, is languishing in a general ed class. I say "languishing" because Marco is not unintelligent, but he is the kind of kid who appears to have a magnet on the top of his head that is attracted to another magnet hidden somewhere beneath the floorboards; he is just that incapable of sitting still in his chair without doing a face plant/body check onto the floor. In short: Marco needs a para.
I played the Noun Eater song for Marco's class on October 19. And every week since then, Marco asks, "Are we going to listen to that song? About the noun monster who eats people and places and things?"
This week I created giant wearable punctuation marks. I picked the quiet, well-behaved kids to wear the periods; the wriggly, excitable kids to wear the exclamation points (Kyle was among them, and it went blessedly well); and the curious, questioning kids to wear the question marks. (I have some extremely awesome photos of this activity that I'm not posting due to privacy concerns.) Then we practiced deciding who should stand at the end of Sentences Miss Brave Often Hears In This Class ("I need a drink of water"; "Can I have a drink of water"; "It's an emergency") and reading the sentences with the right tone in our voices. I was hoping the association would benefit them: "Remember, just like Kyle makes our class exciting, Kyle is going to make this sentence exciting!"
I guess that in the coming weeks, I'll see what's broken through.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Wanna be on top?
Thanks to my new DVR, I've been overdosing on marathons of America's Next Top Model lately, and today I had a bizarre thought: What if teaching were a reality show? And every week, teachers competed to see who could teach the most compelling, engaging, enriching lesson? And the teachers had bitchfights over things like whether to go with Teaching With Love and Logic or the assertive discipline approach? And they were coached by surprise celebrity guests like Harry Wong and Rafe Esquith? And every week someone got voted off by a panel of judges like Jonathan Kozol and Deborah Meier? And in the end the winner was crowned America's Next Top Educator and rose to fame throughout the nation?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)