It's Quitting Time

No, not me. I'm still here. But the return from Fall Break has been rough for everyone. It was like a respite from work reminded people of how much they give up to work as a teacher and the realization has set in a discouraged feeling. No one has ever quit the Nashville corps, but if you talked with any first year corps member they will probably tell you that they've thought about it, some more seriously than others. Coming back to starting a new graduate class that actually is trying to get us to do a teaching practicum on top of our regular job didn't make that feeling any better. Now, it's only half an hour a week, but the logistics is perhaps what made people most frustrated. I've only quit a few things in my life and let me tell you, it has not been accomplished without serious guilt and second thoughts.

Now, in contrast, I came back from a great back catching up with friends from back in college. While I know that teaching made for a difficult first year out of school, I realized how many of the things I'm feeling and going through are not unique to my job. Many of my friends feel overworked, exhausted, and are not entirely pleased with their jobs. I'd often wondered if I'd been part of the St. Louis corps if I would have been happier because I have so many friends in the city, but I realized I probably would have hung out in the same places and just felt guilty for not seeing my friends as much as I wanted to. One of the girls that I interviewed with about a year ago who was placed in St. Louis has already quit the corps there which was hard to hear.

When I came back, my uncle was in town. Now, now he and I had had dinner during week 1 of my teaching and this was week 10, beginning of the second quarter. We talked about a lot of things, including how teaching was going, and he said that he could tell from how I was talking about things that I sounded more confident. And I realized, I do feel better about teaching. I'm still struggling in a lot of ways, but since the beginning of the year I've figured a lot of things out. Do I still wish some things would change that I have no control over? Yes. Of course. Do I realize that some of the people I thought would be helpful aren't the best channel for advice? Yes. For sure. Is my data showing the kind of results I was hoping it would? No, not exactly.

They say that teachers hit a low in October, but then it begins to go back up. While I know that many of my friends here are struggling (despite being in one of the best ranked regions holla), I'm starting to feel like maybe that turnaround is starting. Did I put in an insane amount of work this week? Yes. I've taken to underestimating how much work I do for our Americorps hours out of habit as if no one would believe me that I put in 16, 17 hour days on a regular basis. But even though I'm exhausted, there's this new kind of energy that's pushing me through some of the work that I'm doing. Who knows how long it's sustainable, but I'm going to ride it however far it takes me.

So about the title to the entry? I'm quitting thinking about quitting. I'm quitting thinking about all the other things I could have been doing. I'm quitting thinking about all the things I wish were different that I have no control over. And finally, it's something I don't feel guilty about quitting.

Fall Break -- a godsend for my mental health sake

Fall Break began on Friday for the kids, but with the professional development I've been to, today was really the first day. Sleeping in was glorious and I felt ready to tackle some of the projects I've been meaning to get to. Some of these projects are a result of the professional development I've had in the last week and really had the chance to process some of the things that have been going on. I keep seeing this break as the opportunity to restart and jump start some of the things I haven't done as well as I've wanted to thus far.

I've finally taken some more pictures of my classroom to get ready for making my first donorschoose.org grant. My biggest goal moving forward, aside from the whole closing the achievement gap thing, is to get my kids excited about reading. I've spent the week trying to put together my literacy centers so that I can start guided reading.

My kids read at all different levels. Using Reading A to Z, my kids range from E to Q. What does that really mean? I have some kids that haven't quite reached first grade level and others that are practically on grade level. I love that my class includes the ELL kids on the grade level because they are so enthusiastic for the most part about learning, they just don't have the support at home. Sadly, several of my ELL kids are Nashville born and bred and 10 years later, they really don't have fully functioning knowledge in English and their working knowledge in the own language doesn't seem as though it's fully developed.

I have several stories I haven't had the chance to type up and that's my goal for break. Well, what's left of my working break. I'm giving myself an actual vacation and going back to college for a few days. I cannot wait. Many of my friends stayed around after graduation, I have a good number of friends still in undergrad, and one of my best friends will be in town from Chicago!!!

There are many times so far where I've thought that I had it better than I thought in college and I've had dreams where I'm back in school. I think going back will be odd, but at the same time, it will help me see how far I've come since graduation (aside from the scale that's told me I've lost 20 pounds since graduation)

Getting an Ejuckashon

Even though I hope my kids are learning from me, I'm amazed at the number of things that I learn from them on a daily basis. Things as mundane as their favorite colors, songs, and dances, to the truly saddening such as an already jaded perspective on life and how things are. Should nine and ten years olds really know about that? Whatever happened to the idea of childhood?

Despite the overwhelming waves of sadness I feel at some of my students offhand comments, I find myself alternating between laughing out loud and crying on the inside while I go over mounds and mounds of papers that need to be graded.

Some highlights from the different things I have to grade this weekend:

From the Language Arts section of our Friday quiz

--Directions: Write two sentences that are fact, two sentences that are opinion.
Response (from one of my girls who got really upset that her teacher crush, Mr. J, shared the same name as the example in a previous question which asked fact/opinion "Mr. Jones has two sons and one daughter")
Mr. J don't have children. You can't prove that Mr. J has children. Mr. J is a teacher. Is he cute or not.

From an assignment on writing declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences
--Is moisturizing a good thing? (from a quiet boy)
--Shut your mouth
-- W.keeps messing with me. W is in trouble for messing with me now.

From the district writing test
-Directions: You wake up as an adult. Write about what you do

Responses
-- have a child by the age of 25
--get a GED and spend 8 years in college
-- get an ejuckashon
-- have children and then get married
-- play for the Lakers. play for the Heat. Play for the Lakers
--buy a manshun
--Go get some Jordans

Don't Ask, Don't Tell: The school policy

This week and last have been rough. TFA shows you a projection of the first year teacher's satisfaction/happiness and it says that in about October it gets rough. Well, we got started second week of August so about end of September is right.

There's a lot of things that I'd like to say, but this is not the forum and frankly I haven't figured out the best way to explain them to people who don't coexist in my school bubble. My sense of possibility is diminishing at a faster rate than I'd hoped for. Right now, I just feel like a sailboat with a torn sail, a broken rudder, and a storm brewing overhead in the middle of open water.

I'd like to feel good at something. And one thing I also feel is that I haven't been a good friend. So if you're a friend and you're reading this, I'm sorry I haven't called or emailed or returned your calls recently but if you could just shoot me an email with something about your life and what's been going on, I would love that. I think living in my teacher world is starting to drive me batty and I need to be reminded that at some point, I wasn't exhausted, struggling to stay positive, or frustrated all the time.

It Keeps Getting Better...Or Not

This week has been a rollercoaster of everything. For the first time, I felt really solid about some of my plans in Language Arts and the kids seemed to respond well. My kids were happy for the most part and motivated to do well behaviorally because of parties at the end of the week.

I also introduced a new system for students to move back up the behavior chart -- they need to receive three different written compliments from 3 different students. Rather than focusing on tattling now as the issue, we're working on creating a more positive space. It's also made dismissal much faster because the kids need to wait until the very end of the day to learn whether they received enough compliments. Some kids almost always receive the compliments that they need and it's usually the kids that I felt bad about moving their color down (green to blue to yellow to orange to red) that get them. The children that are routinely misbehaving,and not so nice to their peers tend not to get enough compliments although sometimes they can. In a way, the children are really good at reflecting what I'm thinking in my head about whether or not their classmate is putting in effort to change their behavior after an incident.

Wednesday was great because I got to see one of my college roommates for a visit and it was really great to catch up. Yet again, it was a reminder of my life before teaching and made me feel social (especially since I knew the people at the table next to us!) I woke up Thursday morning feeling really good and positive.

It was, however,  a nightmare. A lot of it I can't really go into detail about, but I ended up losing my planning period and some instructional time to translate for a meeting at the last minute. While I think the meeting went well, I felt unprepared for it and lost an hour of Language Arts the day before my kids took their unit test. When I returned to class, my kids were not in the mood to actually do anything except beg for rewards. One child was in a particularly foul mood and while escorting him out of the classroom to another room for a time out, he stepped on my foot.

Now, my bad for wearing open toed shoes, but man, it hurt something awful. I've always been worried about injuries to digits since I injured my finger in a basketball game and it never healed properly, leaving me with arthritis. However, the pain was so bad I ended up skipping grad class (aw shucks) to go and get it x-rayed. Luckily not broken, but still following doctors orders for care and treatment. The shoe I had to wear the next day shocked my kids and,while dramatic, was a great reminder to them to be safe.

One of the things I struggle with is getting my kids to think about the results of their actions. I get on them about tipping over their chair because it's not safe and still I'm telling kids everyday to sit down. Way too many of my kids rush through their work and it's not until after the fact, when asked "is this your best work? Is this what you want to show to your mama/grandma/dad/uncle/significant adult in your life" that they acknowledge that they haven't paid attention or put in their all. One teacher that I worked with put it well -- they need to work on their stamina. But how to improve it?

How do you slow down kids that need to catch up?

They don't pay me enough to deal with that kind of shit

My training has made me prepared for many of the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants moments that have occurred thus far. I've had crying kids, lessons that tanked, procedures that failed, classroom discussions about not using gay as an insult, and other hormonal issues of 4th graders. Friday was, on the outset, a typical Friday: quests, kids going nuts, feeling exhausted at the end of the week, and making kids upset that their behavior report was not excellent.

Almost at the end of the day, I felt nauseous. To the point where I called in another teacher to duck into the teacher bathroom located conveniently next door. Oddly, I felt better as soon as I left my classroom. Upon my return, however, I discovered what may have been the cause of the nausea -- a brown streak smeared on the floor of the aisle in my classroom.

There was shit in my classroom. Literally.

Several kids had discovered this as well which inspired an entire class of 18 to shriek and lift up their shoes. At least three kids had also stepped in the brown matter. I moved all my kids away from the desks and ended up taking them into the hallway for the rest of day, about 15 minutes, because the smell was so horrendous that nothing could possibly be accomplished in that time. Needless, the end of the day was  bit of a mess and the room was a disaster when the janitor showed up. I apologized for the pencils strewn across the floor and that chairs hadn't been put up for the evening, but the crap on the floor was really a good excuse for not getting that done.

At Friday happy hour, which has quickly turned into one of my favorite things about the week because I get to have adult company and talk with non-teachers (although often regaling them with stories about teaching....woops), several theories came up. Was it dog poop? Seeing as it was 3:10 and none of my children had been outside all day because of the weather and lack of a playground, that option seemed unlikely. Did a child track it in from the bathroom? This is more plausible, but there seemed to be a lack of shit in the hallway that would support this option. Several kids had it on their shoes, but not really enough to warrant carrying that amount into my classroom.

So unless, dear readers, you can think of something else, I have accepted the following conclusion: someone shit in my classroom. If I taught kindergarten or even 1st grade like one of my roommates, I think I would have been more prepared for this. However, in 4th grade, you really don't expect that.

Teaching. Expect the unexpected. Especially the crap.

The Teacher becomes the Teacher...to another Teacher?

I went in to school today to make some copies and bumped into the new 4th grade teacher. My school has added at least one new teacher onto every grade level, as well as some special ed teachers. They start sometime this week which I think most of the teachers are eagerly anticipating.

I unfortunately didn't have a lot of plans to share with her since I spent this weekend mostly in bed. I showed her around my classroom and shared with her some of what my class had been working on. The grade is supposed to do everything at the same time, but we've gotten off track in several different places. As we went over things, I asked her what she had in mind for her classroom management plan -- turns out this is her first year teaching and she hadn't quite thought through that yet.

I found myself giving her tips and advice. Me, after a few weeks of teaching that I can't even say were particularly successful at this point, I was giving suggestions.

Tonight, I have almost no idea tomorrow is going to look like with my kids. I spent the weekend getting myself better, not really lesson planning and definitely not getting started on my Unit 2 plans. However, after having spent a week and the weekend feeling absolutely horrible, I feel so energized to go back into school tomorrow. Disease, achievement gap, be prepared to have your behind kicked.