Meet My Honey Boo Boo

That girl? She ain’t got nothing on my Honey Boo Boo.

While I do admit to my fair share of junk television watching, my knowledge of Honey Boo Boo is limited to snippets and clips that I catch online. One of my favorite clips, however, has been watching her catchphrase “A dolla make me holla”

Holla? A dolla doesn’t just make him holla. It makes him kick, scream, cry, and threaten others. BOOM – more bang for your buck, right?

My Honey Boo Boo is also famous. Well, at least at my school. Like Honey Boo Boo, he loooves attention and it really doesn’t seem to matter how he acquires it. For a while, he got it by simply not talking. That method only worked for so long. Then, he turned to theatrics.

My Honey Boo Boo loves him some sugar. Yes he does. He brings a snack or dollar to buy a treat essentially every day. The last few days, it’s been a dollar to get a snack at lunch. Except he drops it at our morning meeting and doesn’t retrieve it. I do. I’ve taken to retrieving it myself and making him earn it back. We’re still working on determining how frequently he needs rewards. Friday, without the support of my beloved co-teacher and without his parent coming to fetch him from school, it was a pretty immediate 1-1 ratio of following a direction to a treat. At this rate, he’ll be as lard-a-licious as the real Honey Boo Boo by Christmas.

So why was he supposed to be picked up?

Honey Boo Boo was in fine form. We even had a visit from unannounced observers (that’s another post in itself) and he managed to call attention to himself. He pulled every trick out of the book it felt like: picking fights, rifling through supplies, jumping off desks. I called for assistance and a member of the school leadership team came in. I appreciate it – that rarely happened in previous years. But she had places to go and work to do and left after a while.

I’ve been trying to train my students to ignore Honey Boo Boo. As if that’s really possible. Regardless, it can cause Honey Boo Boo to try even harder to get more attention.  In this case, he stands on the desk and yells “You’re gay!” right at me.

Now, calling someone gay is a hard limit in my classroom. It isn’t done. Period. Unfortunately, it’s happened every year that I’ve been in the classroom. Sometimes the word chosen is different. Regardless of the word choice, the students don’t really understand what it means.  In all honesty, that’s the approach that I take with them in the conversation. With my 4^th graders, we talked about the history and meaning of the word faggot. With my first graders, it’s more about how it’s not a bad word but when you say it in a certain way, your tone tells people that it’s an insult.

So here’s Honey Boo Boo, standing on top of the desk for the second time today, yelling repeatedly, “you’re gay! You’re gay” Breathing deep, I addressed the class and said “it’s really sad that he doesn’t remember our conversation about what that word means.” Most of the class just smiled at me, nodded in agreement, and went back to work.

Well Honey Boo Boo was NOT having that. Not one bit. He squinted his eyes and yelled, “I know what it means. It means you SUCK DICK.”

Uh, say what? I decided this was one of those rare “non-teaching” moments. 

Attraction and Seduction in First Grade

You'd think that 1st grade math would be easy. It should be, but when you haven't actually mastered kindergarten math, well then it can get tricky. Over the course of the past few weeks of school, my schedule of students in my math class has changed a few times as we figure out resource hours. One thing that is strikingly clear is that my math class is divided into students who have solid working knowledge of numbers and students who just don't seem to "get it" yet.

Working primarily in small groups has really let me get to know my students, their personalities and their abilities. My primary take away has been that they are ridiculously cute -- but that being cute has gotten some of them out of actually doing anything. Instead of attempting to do any work on their own, they just look up and stare at you with those wide eyes and wait for the answer.

Now, I've only played poker once and by some miracle I won so I've never played again, but I do have a pretty good poker face. When kids look to me to give them the answer, they get nothing. It is very confusing initially, but they get used to it. The past week, we've been working on vocabulary related to addition and subtraction. It's amazing how confusing it all is when you can't actually count up past about 7.

I was working with my low group the other day and feeling really out of it. I'm having trouble keeping all of them focused -- some of them have definitely not been taking their doctor ordered Wheaties in the morning. Our objective the other day was to identify addition and subtraction. Simply look at the symbol and say what it was.

I sat with Orlando and Belle* with the review sheet. The rest of the group had sort of caught on but not Orlando and Belle. I pointed to one of the problems.

"Addiction!" Belle cried out. Orlando smiled and nodded at her.

"Addiction?" I asked.

"No, no sedition" Orlando said. Belle looked over at him confused, back at me, and then started to smile.

"Yeah" she said.

"Which one was it Belle?" I questioned her. I like making sure students feel confident to stand behind their answer. One of those teacher tricks I HATED as a student, but find quite useful as a teacher.

"Seduction?" she said.

I looked at the two in front of me and knew I needed to give some more support. "Okay, guys, your choices are addition (repeated back) or subtraction (repeated back). Which one do we see in the problem 2+5?"

Belle just sat there, smiling back at me. Orlando's lips were pursed, as though he were deep in thought. Finally, he started nodding his head and smiling. "Attraction!" he said confidently.

We've got a lot of work to do.

Life Update: Moving to Fiji

There have been a lot of changes this summer to the point where I have no idea what I've told to different people. I feel like I've spent all summer packing boxes, unpacking boxes, moving furniture, getting on tiny plane after tiny plane. Last summer I took graduate classes and completed a practicum for my master's degree and I think I had more energy than I do now.

If you'd asked me in April what life would look like, I couldn't have told you. I was miserable at my current job, not having any luck finding another one, and it wasn't going to matter anyway because my lease was going to be up this summer and did not have a place to live in Nashville. Needless to say, those few weeks between the standardized tests and the end of the school year were crazy. I do not know how I would have been able to pack up my apartment and my classroom without my mom flying down to help me out.

After a lot of thought, discussion, hesitation, reconsideration, and anxiety, I chose to stay at my placement school for the coming school year. We have a new principal that I had the chance to meet at the end of the year who is changing things up. Based on the failing scores, the school was moved into the "Innovation Zone" No one really has been able to describe it consistently, but the best way to think of it is the district allowing failing schools to actually make changes to what their schools and teachers can provide without having to go through all the red tape (and the extra money to back those efforts). After talking with the new principal in June, I came back for training a few weeks ago ready to make the switch to 3rd grade Reading. Instead, I found myself listed as teaching 2nd grade...

...AND 1st grade.

After some serious soul searching and consulting with my favorite lower elementary teachers, I'm coming around to teaching the wee ones. There wasn't a confusion on the staff list -- I'll be teaching a combined 1st and 2nd grade classroom. Talk about a shift! I'm still wrapping my head around what that will actually look like. I've taught the past 2 years with about 30 percent of my class being English Language Learners (ELL/ESL). This year, about 30-40 percent of my class received Exceptional Education services -- a whole different department of people, paperwork, and range of teaching strategies. Luckily, I've got a wonderful co-teacher from the EE department.

So Fiji?

Part of the changes at the school have included rearranging classroom assignments. My new classroom is one of 4 classrooms ( mine, a 2/3 combined class, Special Education, Pre-K and Speech services) located in a wing of the building that is about a 5 minute walk to any other classroom. 4 classes. That's it. Most of the new hires didn't even realize there were classrooms in that wing. While I like not having to go upstairs anymore, it's been a bit isolated. For the last few years, it's been referred to as the "Special Education Hall". With all the changes, I figured we needed some rebranding. So here goes.

My new classroom is in Fiji -- like Fiji, we are a far-off island that everyone wants to go to because it is that amazing.

Tomorrow is our first day of school. Wish me luck!

The Evolution of a Teacher

It's Sunday night before the last full week of school. I can't remember the last time I felt this mentally and physically exhausted. What with getting ready to move and preparing for the end of school, there have been a lot of really un-fun real-people things to deal with.

So here's to thinking about the FUN things that have been going on recently. We took our state tests a few weeks ago and fingers crossed, we did well. That left a chunk of time where we needed to create a project for our final Open House. I took the chance to do a version of a project I've been thinking about doing all year, but wasn't sure how to implement.

We made a lapbook about slavery in Tennessee. Here is the outside

Flip it open and you'll see three parts. On the left, students got to pick a primary document and write about it. I was impressed that most of my kids actually picked the documents with text, rather than the image. In the middle is our state divided into the three geopolitical parts. On the right hand side is the vocabulary used in the unit (overseer, abolitionist, conductors, patrollers)

Not only did we include basic information, but we were able to incorporate foldables (that worked!) into the book. The vocabulary words flip to reveal the definition. The geopolitical folds share information about how the areas perceived slavery and the number of slaves used in those areas.

Surprise! The middle flips open as well. We used a timeline to look at the events that led up to the Emancipation Proclamation. We actually started further back, but it wasn't going to fit. Each of the main dates is actually a foldable as well. When you flip it up, you can see the population in the state for free blacks compared to slaves. We actually talked about population trends in math class, looking at the differences between years, various states, and between free/enslaved.

I could not have imagined doing a project like this last year. Simply put, my brain was not ready for it. I didn't think my kids could handle some of it and I certainly didn't have all the procedures in place for fun things with materials (a kid was sent to the hospital for sticking his fingers in another kid's scissors, so that is somewhat justified). I also was really limited in how my kids used color and finding ways for them to be expressive while meeting more basic expectations. I also prepared for this in advance, creating a mockup that the kids could reference AND I built it up along with them.

How much did they learn? Worlds more than they did last year on the same topic. They actually enjoyed the project and were begging to work on it. They have more pride in these projects than almost any of the other projects that we've done all year. THIS is the kind of teaching I want to be doing.

Oh hey, remember me?

It’s been awhile, I know. Every now and again I thought about writing, but after slugging through the day, the last things I wanted to do was spend more time in my head thinking about school. Also, I’m trying to follow more of the “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all” motto.

Which explains the 3-month absence.

After Thanksgiving, I got a student moved into my classroom from a teammate. In what was ruled not a case of zero-tolerance, this student (let’s call him Jump) hit his teacher and moving classrooms was an intervention. While I guess it’s encouraging that my principal thought my classroom culture was healthy enough to sustain this new member, I was terrified at the prospect.

In the first week, he got into a fight every single day. In the second week, he ended up being taken to juvenile for conduct. Each day came the critical decision: do I let him sleep and let the other students learn or do I wake him up and try to get him involved in the class culture? Talk about survival mode.

Winter break could not come fast enough. I recharged some of my batteries and felt really inspired by a TFA alum who’d led a session on classroom turnaround at one of our Saturday Sessions.  Still, I wasn’t sure what would happen. Initially, it went ok. I worked with one of the counselors to get him some basic supplies. That helped a little, but not enough.

The long and short is that after going almost a week without major incidents, he escalated rapidly during math stations to hit 3 students. When I went to the phone to call for assistance, he began hitting me. 

Needless to say, school hasn’t been the same. The weeks immediately following were a blur. I got to school close to when it started and then was leaving right after for physical therapy for several weeks. I don’t know how well my students have gotten any of the gotten in the last few weeks, but we’ve worked our butts off to get our classroom feeling safe. My students haven’t physically threatened anyone in class since, although we’re still working on taking responsibility for verbal aggression.

We’ve got 8 weeks to TCAP and 12 left in the year. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…

I've been off dreaming

I'm going to just put it out there. They say that the end of September through to November is the hardest stretch for teachers. I thought it was hard my first year but I'm thinking I may trade that for these past weeks. Last year, I had enormous student turnover and instability. That was limited in many ways to just my classroom. This year, that sense of instability has seeped out into the building as a whole. I don't know the names of all the teachers in my building, in particular those who've been hired to replace those who have already quit. We have substitutes in on a regular basis and some days the substitutes just don't show up.

Morale is incredibly low. If it weren't for dedication to the students, the ones that desperately want and need to be there, I think there would be a mass exodus of teachers from my school at Christmas. Most days, it feels like nothing's working and there's no benefit to being there.

Yesterday, I had a substitute. By all accounts, it was a miserable day in Room 207. As one particular perceptive child put it after our morning meeting, "it sounds like the students took advantage of the substitute" If "taking advantage" means throwing things, refusing to sit down, telling him things that were not true about our routine, then yes, sweetie, that's exactly what happened.

Whenever you have a substitute, you can never be entirely sure what work will get done and what work will fall by the wayside. Most days, I'm just relieved to come back and hear that no one was sent to the office, no one was suspended, and no one had to have the police called on them (all within the realm of possibility). I left a pretty cool activity for them to do related to our reading of"My Brother Martin" about
Martin Luther King based on his "I have a dream" speech. As we're in the process of creating an imaginary settlement on the moon, we're talking about what societies need to be successful and desirable.

Here are the first few dreams that I got from students
-ps2
-sweet car
-be famous from my realty tv show
-die and be buried looking beautiful
-i have all the lip glos


After reading, I did stop and out my head in my hands. What is this? Is this really the only way I can get them to think? Perhaps they would be better off with someone else in the room.

And then I got to the next chunk.

-- I have a dream that my older brother would treat me with respect
-- I have  dream that my mom would stop yelling at me alot
--I have a dream that the fourth grade would listen to their teachers
--I have a dream that my father would stay on this earth so he could see his kids get older and succeed
--I have a dream that I get old enough to teach my baby sister the right thing
-- I have a dream that my mom could find a job
--I have a dream that I become a great young lady
--I have a dream that everyone in this class gets a degree
--I have a dream that I open my own nail salon and become a successful businesswoman
-- save money to help old people (ELL, so this is a big idea to get across)

Selfless dreams, aiming high but aiming for possible -- that's why I drag my butt out of bed in the morning and force down that nauseous feeling that I'm failing my students.

Here one moment, gone the next...

On Fridays, I make a point of eating lunch with my kids. Normally, I try to avoid the din and air of madness that is the cafeteria, but the kids get so excited about it that I can compromise once a week. This past Friday, I managed to get more kids involved in conversation than ever before. That included Christian, who rarely participates in anything voluntarily.

Why the interest? One of my students has a relative with a local TV show, and she was going to be on it over the weekend to talk about September 11th.

With one or two exceptions, none of my students this year were alive on September 11, 2001. Last year, I had a child whose birthday was September 11th and I didn't have the heart to explain to her why I couldn't work up the same level of enthusiasm about her birthday as 4th graders expect.

The title of this blog makes it clear that I'm from the North. New England. Boston, to be exact. While the events of September 11th had an impact on everyone from around the country, it's been fascinating comparing stories with those who were here in Nashville at the time. I wanted to convey this experience to my students, but without frightening them or confusing them. Because truly, they've all lived in a post-9/11 world. They don't remember a world where few people had cell phones, making it hard to track people down in an emergency. They can't tell you exactly why we're fighting a war, but they know that we're at war.

On September 11, 2001 I was in the 8th grade (a detail I did not share with my students -- they don't need to know how old I actually am). We were in our first period class when someone from the office came to the door and told us to report to our homerooms. My school was very small, so all 60 of us were able to cram into one room, thinking "what is going on?". Another office person came by with a note for a classmate -- as she passed it, she said "your dad's alright" before leaving. Needless, the girl was confused and the rest of us wondered why that message was important enough to pass along and yet we weren't being told what was happening.

And when they told us, no one believed it. Then they turned on the news, and we were confronted with the truth -- this was going to be one of those moments that no matter who you are, where you were from, you would know exactly where you were at the moment you heard about the World Trade Towers falling.

That night, my family ate dinner together as we always did. Except, in rare form, we ate in front of the television, to hear updates and read for names of those who had died. A member of my church was on one of the planes leaving Logan that day. My parents knew others who had been in New York or were on planes bound for California that day. While my father's the poet in the family, my 13-year old self felt compelled to write a poem about that day, which began "Here one moment, gone the next..."

It's hard to explain how life has changed to my 4th graders. They know, like many others, that my brother is a member of the U.S. Military and I am fiercely loyal and proud of him. His deployment date has changed now more times than I can remember, and while I know he feels he should go, each time I hope that they've decided they don't need to send more troops overseas.  Without September 11th, I don't know if my brother would have made the same choice to join the military.

Around the same time 10 years ago, I began to struggle with my faith and with religion. While the arguments go back and forth about how 9/11 is actually tied in with religion, it made a young and confused teenager question how horrible acts could be committed by people who claimed to follow their religious tenets. I'm not just talking about the debates of Islam, but even "Christians" who treated other Americans cruelly based on their own perception of Islam, which more often than not seemed to have been developed without ever actually talking to someone who was Muslim.

While I still struggle with faith in a religious sense, since 9/11 I've put my faith into what I know I can believe in: helping others. I think that's why I've been drawn to education. Issues in education are pervasive, and yet regardless of where you started, people tend to agree on the primary aims: We are here to help the children, as everyone, regardless of birth or upbringing, has a right to a quality education. I wouldn't hear about Teach for America for another 2 years, but I think I would still have felt compelled to serve in some way.

A couple from college was married a year ago today. When they announced their date, the reaction was muted. "Oh" we said behind their backs "what a horrible date to be married." They clearly recognized this, as they included a section on their wedding website that explained that they wanted to remember the day in a positive way. That to them, they remembered the outpouring of patriotism and community togetherness that 9/11 created.

To some people like my students, 9/11 may just be a day that people mark like Memorial Day or Labor Day but fail to make any meaningful connection to. For those of us whose job it is to educate them, I hope we succeed to make them think more about just the 3,000 +lives that were lost on that day, but how it changed the lives of millions, if not billions, of people across the globe. And that for a moment, it wasn't a matter of black/white, rich/poor/, north/south, but rather, bring connected to something bigger and greater than oneself.