4.5 days and huge black eyes!

I can almost taste my new freedom, which means that magically, my desire to blog has returned. My hiatus has left me with pleanty of stories to tell both about my school life and the little bits of personal life I have managed to squeeze in over the last couple of months. While one of my grad classes has had me writing frequently during my absence, it is done and I can get back to my more casual writings about lame things that happen to me in my classroom.

My favorite of the day so far. One of my students, the same student from my previous foster care posts, walks into class late with my principal. All my principal says to me is, "he had an accident. Let him have the ice pack." Then, before I could turn to even look at the student or speak to my principal, my pricipal was gone.

I walked over to the student to see what the accident was and he has the biggest black eye I have ever seen. The socket bone is swollen, almost swelling his eye shut. It was already turing colors. The story is the best part. He and his sister got into an argument on the bus to school, mind you, this is a Metro bus. She is so annoyed and angry at him, she punches him in the face--hard! He is fine I guess. A black eye never killed anyone, right? His ego, however, is badly bruised. I'd say bruised worse than his eye.

5 too many

Waiting for the bus after school I saw 5 Dodge Magnums within a two minute period. When did this car become so popular? Is it just popular in the neighborhood in which my school is located? Is it just a DC thing? A Maryland thing?

I thought that I would never say this, but I have found a vehicle that I think is uglier than the Scion XB.

Old Ugly Car Winner (The Scion XB)

New Ugly Car Winner (The Dodge Magnum) Am I alone on the mega failure of the Magnum? It looks a little bit like a Hearse combined with a Prius with a little bit of stretch limo. I hope I never one again.

Shut Up!

Wow, even though it is my second year, I have had a few firsts lately. I had the first student ever tell me to ,"Shut up!" today.

Also, for the first time, I was hit by a projectile (an eraser) actually aimed at me. My class this year is actually way better than my class last year and they are generally very respectful of me. I guess there is a first for every thing.

I just hope no student asks me whether or not I am pregnant. I have heard so many stories from teachers whose students ask them if they are pregnant because they notice their teacher has put on a little bit of weight.

Tiny Dancer in the Bathroom

What is with the boy's bathroom this year?

Today I let a boy go to the bathroom. He follows our bathroom procedure perfectly. Raise your hand with the bathroom signal (two fingers). Wait for my permission. Sign out on the bathroom tracker. Take the pass and go.

About 5 minutes later, this student was brought back by one of our security staff members who informed me that he was not going to the bathroom, he was just dancing in the bathroom. Like full on, dance party dancing. This student left a math lesson and followed the whole procedure just to go dance in the boy's bathroom--alone! Weird. I told his mother that he did this and she just laughed and agreed that he should lose his privilege to go alone.

Monday and they are crazy

After lunch, I had one student punch another in the face because he thought the other kid was talking about him. Turns out he wasn't, but the kid got punched in the face anyway.

Also, a student put a post-it on her own back that said, "Steal Me!" (yes this is how she spelled it) and tried to blame it on other students to get them in trouble.

Also, a student wiped her nose with a tissue just so she could harass another student by putting it on the other student's desk. That's just a weird way to tease someone and this girl acted like it was the funniest thing in the world and thought she was so smart for thinking of it.

We can't stop!

The future Mr. Oyster and I have developed a tiny little habit that I LOVE. We have a game boy advance (I know it is so old school compared to other gaming systems) and we play it every night before I go to bed. Yes it is G-rated bed time activity. We both love it. We play either Life or Yahtzee. After a long day in the classroom, a boring night at grad class, and a stressful evening of planning, I'm exhausted and this is how we've been bonding. Its especially nice because he doesn't go to bed at the same time as me so it is a way for me to fall asleep with him in bed with me. I recommend it to other couples looking for a cute bonding activity.

Illegal Item of the Day

Last year it was a 7-inch kitchen knife. This year, the first "weapon" brought into my classroom was a lighter. The sad thing is that the student who brought it is the same student who has some serious behavior and mental issues and did not know that what he did was wrong. He was terrified and explained that he found it in his house and was trying to hide it so his little brother wouldn't find it and play with it. I never believe stories like this, but this student has the mentality of a 5 year-old and I am 99% sure he was not lying. I think it means he will be questioned by Child Family Services soon.

Possible Wedding Location

If future Mr. Oyster has his way. This is where we will be exchanging vows.

Rockefeller Chapel on the University of Chicago campus. I am not quite sold, yet.

I hate being sniffed...

One of my students walks up to me and nonchalantly says, "You smell like pepperoni." I was puzzled and just looked at him. He then got closer to me, actually sniffed me and walked around sniffing me. He then says, "Nevermind" and walks away.

Administration Frustration

Today, one of the six teachers/administrators who are assigned to my room* came in like usual. She was walking around while I was teaching and then after 10 minutes interrupts me and asks, "Don't you have a meeting to go to?" I told her I didn't think so. She informed me that my principal told her to come in and cover my class because I had a meeting. I was in the middle of writing conferences and about to start this awesome math lesson I had planned. I had no choice but to trust the resource teacher to follow through on my plans and execute them well. And I left to run around the whole school looking for this mystery meeting I was supposed to be at. It turns out, the meeting was supposed to be with the Open Court Consultant, the Reading Content Specialist, and the fourth grade team. In reality, the Reading Content Specialist double-booked herself, didn’t cancel anything and was no where to be found. I was the only one who showed up to this meeting with the consultant! The consultant was more than annoyed and trying to play it off like she didn’t care. I decided to use the time and set some reading goals for the fourth grade team. I think the consultant now thinks I’m in charge, which was the only positive about being ripped out of my room. The other teachers showed up about 30 minutes later. The consultant left after about an hour. Overall, it was a huge waster of time and money.

* Because I am the only teacher in first through sixth grade with less than two years of experience, I have been assigned not only as the special education inclusion teacher, but I also have 6 administrators coming in and out of my room daily to check up on me. This is beyond frustrating. I would be thrilled to have these people in my room if that meant higher student achievement. So far, it just means more inconsistency and more interruptions in my day.
1) A Math Content Specialist
2) A Reading Content Specialist
3) The Special Education Teacher
4) My Principal
5) A Math Resource Teacher
6) A Reading Resource Teacher

Foster Care Update

My student is now MIA. He goes into foster care and never comes out? What the heck? I don't understand the transition into foster care at all. I just wish that this student could have stayed with me until his foster parent had a chance to do things like buy uniforms and figure out how he/she was going to get him back and forth from school. Another frustrating part of this situation is that nobody can get me in contact with the foster family. As a teacher you have to have a good relationship with the parents, and I assume this is doubly true when applied to a foster family. Please help if you know what my next steps should be.

not related to teaching but...

Has anyone out there seen the new subway commercial. I've only seen it while up late at night planning, but the voice-over refers to the subway sandwich as a "YUM ROCKET."

I don't know what a Yum Rocket is, but I do not want one. How do they think this sounds appetizing. At the very best it sounds clownish and dirty.

Ooooooh, speaking of dirty. You will love one of my upcoming posts about an art project one of my students made.

Foster care in DC can't be good

One of my students was taken from class on Friday to be put into foster care. Here's the whole story. It's the closest I've come to crying in class.

From day one, he has been my sneakiest trouble maker. He is the kid who is always watching me because he wants to know when I am looking at him and when he can get away with his sneaky behaviors. I will catch him watching me, look away and as soon as I do, he does something like move seats, sharpen his pencil without asking, go talk to a friend, or take something from the supply closet or library. He is not a violent or really mean kid so when he gets in trouble, he gets this goofy smile on his face and says, "what?" I won't lie, the whole act is extremely frustrating and so is that way he shrugs it off like he doesn't know he was being bad. Still, I can tell he is more of a class clown than a trouble maker and he is doing it to be silly and act like a kid. Nonetheless, I have been toying around with calling this boy's mother. A third grade TA told me his mother doesn't play so I thought she could set him straight. I never made the call and I am so glad I didn't.

This boy's little sister came to school on Thursday with bruises on her back. The school counsellor told me they were so bad it was sickening. This was coming from a woman who has seen this kind of thing many times before. So the bruises were really bad. The little girl, went straight to the hospital and was removed from the home that night. My student left school on Thursday and went home to his mother and other three siblings. (Don't get me started on this bad decision). On Friday, my student came in and was a mess. He didn't want to talk to anyone and he wouldn't participate during Morning Meeting. Who knows what this boy went through that night. He got pulled out of my class and questioned by a detective and examined for bruises by a doctor. They didn't find any bruises on him, but he was the only one without the bruises. The authorities decided to remove all of the children from the house, but couldn't get them all into the same house. My student was so scared when he came back to the room to get his things to leave early. He said he had to go somewhere and wait for a while. I didn't know what to say so I told him to take a book with him in case he got bored and I sent him on his way. What even happens to a child in DC foster care? If DCPS is so bad I can't imagine foster care is any better.

The part of this story that got to me in class was the fact that he was the only one without bruises. I finally understood his sneaky, childish class behaviors. He is the good kid at home. The one sits around like an angle being careful not to do anything wrong so that he doesn't get what his siblings were getting. That's why when he comes to my class, he can't control his impulses to test my limits and push the rule boundaries. All I could think was how glad I was that I had never called his mother. I don't think I'll be making any parent phone calls for a couple weeks.

Open Court Reading Propaganda Video

I could go on and on about all of the reasons why I hate this reading program, mostly having to do with my school's implementation of it and its focus on teacher-directed, lower-level think skills, but these teachers need to spend more time on planning instruction. I know their frustrations, but instead of propaganda videos, put your efforts into actually making changes like proving that this curriculum is NOT the be all end all of literacy instruction. Little to nothing has surfaced in my research thus far that shows that OCR is an effective reading program. Hmmmm, maybe more research into this would be a grad school paper idea...



I couldn't get the video saved to post it up here so follow the link to the video. http://www.needleworkspictures.com/ocr/blog/?p=363

I would rather they all suck their thumbs

There is no other way to put this...

A STUDENT OF MINE POOPED HIS PANTS TODAY IN CLASS AND THEN SAT IN IT FOR HOURS!!!!

Maybe you primary grade teachers know what to do when this happens, but I have never had to deal with poo poo and pee pee in class. I teach 9/10 year olds. I feel like I am living in a different world and there was no way I could convince this child to go to the bathroom and check his pants. Ahhhhhhhhh!

Thumb Sucking?

My little sister sucked her thumb until she was about 15. Here's the thing though, she stopped doing it in public when she was little. I have a student who was retained last year and seems to functioning below grade level so far this year. He will understand directions and complete all of his work sometimes and really be a great student. At other times, he just sits at his desk doing nothing but sucking his thumb. He is 10 and sucking his thumb in class! Do I say something? Do I tell him to stop? It seems to be much more than an unconscious habit. I contacted the teacher he has last year and apparently he would talk about suicide a lot! How is he not in counselling. I just put in a request form, but his thumb sucking must be some clear sign that this kid is not okay. I can't believe he has to wait for this form to go through some administrative process before he can get some counselling.

On a related note, maybe I am just looking for it now, but I saw a junior/senior high student (maybe she was about 15) on the bus this morning sucking her thumb! I was shocked to see such an old girl doing this on public transit. If you know, does thumb sucking in an older child signify some emotional or developmental problem? Or is simply a habit that dies hard?

Extrinsic Rewards Work Their Magic (on one person at least...)

While I patiently and consistently attempt to instill intrinsic motivation in my students, I carefully employ a few extrinsically based reward systems. Last week, four of my students did not meet their behavior and academic goals and thus, did not get the reward. Two of them didn't care at all, not a huge surprise there and exactly why my students eventually need to be intrinsically motivated. The other two were so upset they pouted with their heads down. Dare I say they almost cried like babies when they saw everyone else in the class being rewarded and they were left out. Mind you, I am really fair about the rewards. The students know at the beginning of the week exactly what they need to do to get it and students are never surprised when they haven't earned it. They already know. I told all four students that if they earned our weekly class reward by Thursday that they would be able to choose what the class would get for a reward. Dare I say too soon, IT WAS A BIG FAT MANIPULATIVE SUCCESS! Well at least with two of them. It is only Wednesday, and one girl has almost reached the goals two days early. It is a huge change from her performance last week. I hope she doesn't break my bank with the class reward she chooses.

Karma!

My class has the biggest bully I have encountered in my short teaching career. This little girl is the nastiest kind of bully because not only does she say and do whatever she can to make the other students feel like crap about themselves, she tries to get others to join her and gang up on certain kids. She has obviously been doing this for a while because she is SUPER sneaky about it too! Her latest victim is the boy from the popsicle post. He had been having a really hard time not playing during lessons so I moved him to a table with three girls so he would have no one to talk to. Well, it solved the talking problem, but the girl bully just started messing with him every chance she got. This went on for two days with me trying to teach them to ignore each other. I guess I didn't realize how bad it had gotten until popsicle boy just lost it on the bully. It was a full on panic attack complete with crying, shaking, heaving, and yelling. This boy could not stop yelling at the bully and was threatening her with all kinds of violence while screaming in her face, but wouldn't touch her. This kid was UPSET, but luckily, he is not violent. If he had been one of my more violent students, I think the bully would have been a bloody mess from getting her butt beat up.

I could tell that this girl had never had one of her victims freak out on her before because she was genuinely shocked and scared by this boy's reaction. I had to hold and hug the boy in order to calm him down, which is a statement of the situation's seriousness because I do not normally baby my students.

I won't get into the details of my conferences with both the victim and the bully, but the best part of the story happened about 20 minutes after my conference with the bully. She was at recess playing and jumped off of a piece of playground equipment. She wasn't paying attention to where she was jumping and jumped right into a bar. Her head split open and blood started gushing. I have seen a lot of playground injuries, but none with this much blood. She had never cut herself like that before and started freaking out thinking she was going to die. As I walked her to the nurse's office and watched her get cleaned up, I couldn't help but thinking this was Karma doing its best to set the world right. She left school to go get stitches in her head. And the student she was bullying had a great afternoon and did all of his work perfectly.

My Room is Now Inclusion

At the beginning of the school year I was told that my classroom was chosen among the three fourth grade classrooms to be the Special Education (SPED) Inclusion room. If you aren't familiar with SPED language, inclusion means that students with an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) are kept in a regular education classroom and the Special Education Teacher periodically comes in the room rather than the student being pulled out into a resource room.

So far, the only thing that has frustrated me about this situation is the fact that the SPED teacher comes into my room and speaks in a normal voice with the SPED students. This means when she is in my room I am competing with her voice and the other students are distracted and think it is okay to talk. Why can't she just whisper?

Attention Seeker Update

The girl who is babied by her mother cried when her mom was leaving this morning! She came in perfectly happy. Her mom tried to sneak out once her child got settled. The little attention seeker ran out after her screaming "mommy" and cried, a lot. She had to stay in the hallway for a while to get it together. I just do not have the patience to deal with this. When asked about it, she just said she doesn't like when her mom leaves without saying goodbye. Uh, okay. I think she expected me to comfort her and she reached out to hold my hand for a while. I said, "I'm sorry. I bet that is upsetting." And left her to get it together alone. Did her other teachers really put up with the routine every morning?

Three New Students

After more than a week of school, I got three new students. New enrollements at a charter in DC are never a good sign. Unless they live directly in the area, kids only go to a charter if some crazy stuff has gone down at their old schools. If you are a high-performing charter school with a long wait list, chances are the kid is coming because their DCPS school was a disaster for that child. If your charter is and average, no-name charter, kids seems to only come because they either 1) acted so crazy at their old school, they had to leave or were forced to leave, or 2) were so low performing that they were referred for SPED and their parent didn't want it, or were so low performing that they were retained and the parent switched them out so their kid doesn't have to repeat a grade. Two out of my three new students definitely fit this stereotype.

New Student 1: Is the loudest, most violent student in my class. He has been the only one to start a physical fight, not just a shove or one hit, but punching and kicking. He even beat up a girl today because she was trying to collect his paper. The girl was punched repeatedly for not letting go of his paper. It was his second day so I decided to spare him the suspension he was sure to get and made him make her a "feel better, I'm sorry" card. He hated every second of it. He also had to say nice things about the girl in the card, like, "I am glad you are in my class because I think you are nice and smart." To top it all off, I accidentally sat him next to one of my SPED students. I didn't know anything about how big of a bully this kid was. He teased and bullied him all day and called him stupid. Ironically, he reads at a first grade level while my SPED student reads at a late second grade level. Next time this kid puts his hand on another child, he will be sent home. I'm guessing it'll be next week.

More to come on the other newbies.

Bathroom Ridiculousness

I have a student who often has this blank look like he is off on some other planet while interacting with me or the other students. He is also a new student so nobody really knows him or know how to read him. He is just about the slowest eater I have ever encountered and even after having a half hour to eat a small school lunch, he is always trying to "finish" eating. By this time, he has finished his food and is trying to eat other people's leftovers. He is the one I always have to ask to throw away whatever he is still eating while we leave.

Today, however, he snuck something past me. He put an opened, but unfinished juice bar in his pocket. Not only did he put this bright red, popsicle-style snack in his pocket, but he kept it in there for about 40 minutes before trying to eat it in the boys bathroom during a bathroom break.

When the other students told me a boy from my class was eating ice cream in the bathroom, I thought they were kidding because lunch was 40 minutes ago and no one could have hidden an ice cream treat that long. Well I was wrong and this kid walked out of the bathroom with red Popsicle all over his face, on his head, on his pants, and on his shirt. His pants were also covered in water because he was clearly trying to wash the popsicle off. To top it all off, the zipper on his pants was down. He came back to class looking a MESS! I decided the embarrassment of it all was punishment enough. I also decided he could explain to his mom what in the world happened to his clothes at school. He hasn't tried to sneak anything in his pockets since, so I guess it was a minor success.

Best Project Ever

In order to get to know each other, I assigned a project called a personal culture bag where students had to find 3-5 small objects that would tell the class something interesting about them and some students have brought in some hilarious things. Maybe some things were even border-line illegal.

Some of the best items so far:

A large screw driver because this kid likes to fix things, “like my sisters Rock Band drums”

A photograph of the student’s mother at her senior prom holding my student as a baby (Even some of my students were like, “So your mom had you while she was in high school?”)

A photograph of my student’s father in a college dorm room drinking

Attention Seeker #3:

This is actually the kind of attention seeker that bothers me the most. This child is good for no entertainment value at all, she just bugs me. She is constantly blurting out my name and asking questions without raising her hand. Nobody else is having this problem. It is only her. I will correct her, ask her to get my attention the right way, make her wait, and then take her question. Almost every time her question is pointless, like “Do you like this?” Or “what are we going to do next?” when we just started an activity and the daily agenda is on the board. She simply cannot go without asking a question or talking to me for more than one minute. If I hear, "Ms. Oyster, Ms. Oyster" followed by silence as she tries to think of something to ask me one more time, I will go nuts!

Attention Seeker #2:

I knew this girl would be trouble when her mother came with her to school, not only the first day, but the second, third, and fourth day as well. She is the kind of student who thinks everything is happening to her and cannot see how her own actions impact the things that happen to her and especially the things that other people say to her. She also relies on her mother for everything and will hug and kiss and cuddle her mother in front of her classmates, which is nearly un-heard-of in the fourth grade. Clearly this student wants me to treat her like her mother treats her and she wants me to fix all of her social problems for her, but I simply can’t. I gave her this book to take home and it is only the fourth day.

Attention Seeker #1

I knew this kid was trouble during new student orientation when he busted in between me and his mother to ask me if the chair outside my room was the time out chair. He was already looking for where he'd be spending most of his time. Today, I watched him purposely put pencil shavings in his eye so that he could come up to me and get some attention and be allowed to go to the bathroom. Who does that?

I have new students...ready or not

The first days have passed and I am trying to stay as calm as possible to keep my classroom as calm as possible.

One thing is wonderfully different, when I call out a student's name, a look of fear wipes across his or her face. Maybe not fear in all of them, but at least a look of nervousness. I have done NOTHING to make them fear me either. It is bizarre. Many of them know me from being third graders at my school and I haven't even raised my voice once. I have literally no idea why they are afraid. In fact, I even smile and laugh with them. I'm sure its just the honeymoon period, but this NEVER happened in my old classroom, not even during the honeymoon period. Or maybe I have perfected my Teacher Look. After all, I do have the wrinkles as proof.

Some students are already asserting themselves as the attention seekers.

Good News!

I finally found out that I will definitely be teaching the same grade next year. I doubt that fourth grade is the absolute best fit for me, but I have learned so much last year I feel it is best that I continue on the learning curve with the same grade. Moving around in just my second year would probably do more harm than good in terms of my professional development. Ultimately, I would like to teach older students and be a one-subject teacher rather than a general education teacher. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel that I can stay at the same grade level to improve and then start over with a different grade level when my planning, instructional, and management skills are fully developed. More to come on developments at my school soon.

"Teacher's Have it Easy" by Dave Eggers, Daniel Moulthrop, and Ninive Clements Calegari

I read this book over Spring break and have been reminded of many of its arguments lately with the DCPS two-tiered pay scale proposal. If you would like a non-teacher written description of why teacher's not only need to be paid more, but deserve to be paid more, this book is an excellent read. Highly entertaining is the chapter in which a school teacher's day is compared minute by minute to the day of a pharmaceutical sales representative.

As DCPS teachers gather with Union leaders and hopefully Michelle Rhee tonight, I can't help but root for my DCPS colleges. I really hope enough D.C. teachers will say yes to the two-tiered system. Professionals who work as hard as some D.C. teachers do, need the option to say, "Fire me at will!" And then get paid well for saying it. I would be politically more critical of the plan asking questions about where the District is going to be getting all of this extra money and if it would be worth it (I would guess a lot of it is from restructuring), but frankly DCPS needs action, needs change, and this could be it. I can't wait to read updates.

Exercise Regime

In an effort to break up my exercise regime cheaply (as opposed to taking a class at an expensive gym), I decided to check out the exercise videos available on demand. I chose a random video that was supposed to be a mix of cardio activities. It was a flashback to when I was little. Exercise videos have not changed since the 1980's! It was a group of ladies in tight work out clothes rolling their necks and squatting and waving their arms. The one piece leotards, leg warmers, and headbands were absent but the music was bad and the counting was the same. BORING. In case you didn't raid your mom's collection of workout videos when you were little to know what i am talking about, here is a visual. Jane Fonda was the greatest.

I was about to give up and go the gym when I found a Carmen Electra Cardio Strip Tease video. I've heard of it, but never seen it. How could this be boring? The video started with all the wave your arms, roll your neck stuff and there was the counting business. I was about to give up again and then we started stretching our hips and rolling stomachs. It started getting more interesting. Then we started combining some hip action moves and some stomach moves. I've never felt more uncoordinated. I guess sexy moves don't come very easily to me. I had to start watching Carmen very closely to be able follow along with all of the moves. The closer I watched, the more I felt Carmen was not at all teaching me how to get a sexy/fun cardio workout. She was simply flaunting and rolling her perfect, flat stomach, curved hips, and huge breasts. Eventually I wasn't even really trying anymore because all I could see were her breasts. That is not motivation for me to workout. Its more motivation to get plastic surgery, which was not the kind of fun I was looking for. I went to the gym and swore off all workout videos unless it is Tae Bo, because that is actually fun sometimes. I like to pretend I'm learning Karate, even though I look like a fool. Fake Karate moves come much more naturally to me than strip tease moves.

Look at her. This is a tame photo. In the video, she flaunts it.

Annapolis

Thanks to Ms. Mindless, I have now been to the capital of Maryland. Shopping in all of the little shops was a real test for my saving skills. I told myself I would not buy anymore summer clothes and save all of my money for work clothes and professional staples. I really started looking like junk at the end of the last school year. I know it may sound silly to spend money on a nice teacher wardrobe, but when I look like junk, I feel like junk. Also, as a teacher, I plan incentive systems to get the outcomes I desire. I want to feel excited about the new school year and what better incentive to ensure that than lots of back to school shopping?

Above is the view I wish I could have seen. Mindless was trying to describe how the circle around the State House is really an oval designed to make the State House look even more impressive. I love the design.

One of my favorite things about Annapolis is that the street signs in the main historic part of the city post the year in which the street was built. I didn't take any pictures, but I found one online.

One of the weirdest things about Annapolis was the Pat Sajak Birthing Center. He is a creeper and while I love the fact that he has given back in Annapolis, seeing his name on things turns me off.

I need a new computer

So my computer is officially dead and that's why I have not been writing. I only get computer time when my boyfriend isn't using his. It has caused a few arguments since he is not inclined to waste time online, unlike me. Good news, it took three days, but my apartment is clean! Photographs to come and more when my computer allowance kicks in tomorrow. Yay!

Freedom Writers

I just watched Freedom Writers and now I feel bad about myself. Great. Maybe I could just start wearing pearls to class and making my fourth graders write freely in a journal and all of my problems will be solved. Really though, some parts of the movie were unbearably corny or laughable and then other parts of the movie were pretty realistic. The most realistic parts: 1) teaching can ruin/destroy your personal relationships, 2) teaching will change the core of who you are, 3) your students will notice when you buy them something new, 4) there are bound to be some crazy teachers and administrators in your way, 5) "difficult" students will take the most interest in subjects that randomly come up in class and you have to run with it.

If you know anything about my classroom, you know that writing is a huge part of my instruction and is actually the thing my students are most invested in doing. No matter how cheesy the movie may have been, the foundation and the mission is real and I have no doubt that lives were changed in that classroom and students were put on a different life path, which is the part of the "cheesy" movie that I can find touching.

Being a Teacher in the Summer

Yuck! Why do I still feel like I have so much work to do? I still have requirements for the program I am in and it is my summer goal to plan so much that I can avoid the nightly crunch (and spare my boy the nightly bitchiness) by having all unit plans done before school starts and my first unit objectives written. The days are ticking away and I am waiting to be inspired to complete these tasks. Then, it starts happening. Thoughts of my 25 students and the hell I was going through just four weeks ago keep into my mind and I am physically repulsed by the idea of doing anything teacher-related. I guess this is the burn-out that teachers in my situation feel. Your first year in a DCPS school can take such a toll on you as a person that you avoid your job like the MRSA staph virus. It's a double-edged sword too because the reason my first year took such a toll on me is that actually deeply cared the whole time about what I was doing and how my students were doing. It is a sick thing that the teachers who care the most about and work the hardest at "closing the gap" in the District are the ones who end up near dead come summer. Near dead was a good physical description of the state of my health with simultaneous ear and sinus infections and a chronic cough that had gone on for about 10 weeks.
Now that I have been back in D.C. for almost two weeks, I must admit that the physical condition of my apartment is the real-estate equivalence to near death. The boy tries his hardest and does a great job keeping things "clean", but living in a studio with two people, a dog, and only one usable closet its the "mess" that gets us. I am the kind of person who needs something to motivate me to get things done so I am creating some self motivation by posting messy "before" pictures of my apartment. After I clean, I will take some after photos. If you start to notice too many days passing before my "after" photos are posted, please call me on it. Try inviting yourself over so I have to clean (Ms. Mindless).

Gotta love sexual tension

Each actor gives his or her best come hither look.

Geeks all over are getting excited for the new X-Files movie and I am right on board with them. Will there ever be an onscreen sexual tension as great as that created between David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson? As a kid I watched the x-files, not because I was into the alien plots (although I kind of was), but because I was just waiting for Mulder and Scully to get it on already. Please, oh please, let that happen in their new movie. I WANT TO BELIEVE they will finally get together. Here is the ridiculously extravagant website.

Redesign

I am having a problem with the look of my blog. I am not a flashy person at all and I am having a hard time picking a look for my blog. Is the redesign too much?

What I will hopefully be doing this weekend

http://www.cakelove.com/pdf/bmoreChefWine.pdf

I'm Back!

I am back from Minnesota and no longer consider myself a teacher (at least for the next 6 weeks)! My summer goal is to act a little more my age, which according to my boy means less bitchy and lazy. What can I say, working myself to the bone for disrespectful little nine-year-old monsters made me a little bitchy and lazy at home. I am trying to avoid turning a "hard-24" in October. People who know me and watch Law and Order understand this joke. Through out my visit I came to some important conclusions. The brief low-down:

1) Toe nail art can never be classy, only cheesy. I got talked into it and asked for one simple white flower on my dark pink toe nails. I thought the contrast would look very summery. The result looked like a tropical rain forest on my toe, with glitter.

2) Puppy sitting a rowdy puppy with a broken leg for two days only confirms my feelings about not having children any time soon. The puppy is possibly one of the cutest I have ever seen (pictures to come), but the only way he would sit still is if I walked him around, holding him. After doing this for hours at a time, I was getting flashes of what it would be like to have a colicky baby.

The Colicky Puppy in his cast with his momma.

The Colicky Puppy's cute, cute face.

3) At a wonderful dinner at the restaurant Oceanaire, I realized it is VERY difficult to get the Minnesota out of some one's wardrobe, mine still included as some can attest. I do however, try. I wore a simple dress from Banana Republic and simple pair of gold heels and looked ridiculously over-dressed compared to my family who swore they were dressing up too. Turns out our ideas of dressing up are--ahem--different. My outfit is below


4) Fresh Midwestern corn on the cob is unbeatable! I have never had corn on the cob here that is even half as good. I think I could make a fortune driving Midwestern corn to the east coast and then .driving Maryland crab to the Midwest on the return trip.

Upon my return to D.C. I was in desperate need for a vacation from my vacation (a concept that was mocked when I told the boy). Alas, it would have to wait because the boy's family was in town. He has two brothers that are just a few years younger than my parents so I view these brothers as his fathers. The brother who was visiting has three kids, a lovely little diva who is going into the eighth grade but to her disdain still looks like a sixth grader. Let's just say she hasn't really developed all of the way yet. Her father should just count his blessings because when she does develop, he will have to fight the boys off of her with a stick! A 10 year old boy who just finished fourth grade--I was having flashbacks to my classroom watching the way he reacts to things. And last but not least, the little cutie boy who just finished second grade. I am going to have to post pictures of all of these lovely little ones once I get my digital camera up and running. I was the perfect devoted girlfriend the whole time as I walked my ass off in D.C. in near 100 degree weather seeing the things I have already seen. There are many stories to be told about their visit and I will post two of them as separate posts so they don't get lost in this giant post.

After catching up on Ms. Mindless's blog, celebrity gossip, the Food Network, Law and Order, and napping with my dog, I am finally starting to feel a little bit better and more relaxed. However, I am still not bored enough to clean. I have promised the boy that I would (Ms. Mindless and I really are the same person sometimes) and I have yet to really truly make good on that promise. I manage to survive the studio apartment and avoid his wrath by making him dinners every night and packing him a lunch every day. I have taken before pictures of the apartment and will post them with the after pictures once the apartment gets there.
Please note: I have to decided to adopt a habit from my favorite blogger and call my law school wonder boyfriend, the boy. This makes writing about him way easier.

Bizarre nonsense student response of the day

While reading a story called, "Medicine: Past to Present" I asked, "Why did some Native Americans chew on willow tree bark?"

The response: "The Native Americans chewed on the tree bark because the bacteria told them to do it."

WHAT?

The correct response: It relieved pain.

My superior internet stalking skills get me what I want

Update: I got in touch with the high school teacher I was trying to reach. Here is is response to my email.

Absolutely you can call me M_ (first name). I am thrilled to hear of your starting out career choice and would love to hear more about it. Because my job is still based around education and their schedule, this is actually my slow time of year so I would love to get caught up over lunch or a cup of coffee. I am living in the Twin Cities still but no where near S__. However, since you will be visiting the family, I would be happy to make the trip down there and meet. Let me know what day, time, and location would work for and I will meet you there. Looking forward to catching up with you.
M__ V__ (aka [random nickname from high school] haven't used that in a while)

Now, when do I ask him about the discrepancy between his whitepages.com listing and his myspace profile. One lists him as married. The other as single. SCANDALOUS.

My Mindless Shopping (In honor of Ms. Mindless--my only blog reader)

I got two new tops today. Nothing special or otherwise exciting/unique. Both are intended as replacement items and are fairly basic. I am excited about the little white sweater though because my black sweater was starting to make my dresses look too harsh in the summer sun. White will lighten them up. Are these even showing up?

Does this make me some creepy stalker?

I am trying to reach a high school teacher of mine who no longer works at the school. We were close in high school and I looked up to him. My junior year, he decided to leave teaching. I remember him being conflicted about leaving the profession. When he left, I think he was only a year or two older than I am now. It would be so timely to get in touch with him and just vent/bitch our teaching experiences, but I have no contact information. My mom, who works in the school district still is going to see if she can get his email address for me. The issue...every email I draft sounds so creepy and when I ask to meet with him, in inevitably sounds like some sort of gross come-on. I need some feedback. Here was my last draft. What do you think? Again, I mean Ms. Mindless (because no one else reads this blog).


Dear Mr._ ,

How are you? I usually fish a little bit through my mom, who works in the S__ School District, but I haven’t heard anything about you in a while. Are you still with that company you started with after you left the classroom? Or perhaps you found your way back into the classroom?

I don’t know if you have heard, but I am a teacher. After college, I joined a program called Teach For America, which has brought me to teach in a horribly-managed, mold-ridden, emotionally-disturbed fourth-grade classroom in our nation’s capital. I am about to finish my first year teaching. I remember you were a little conflicted about your classroom experiences and ultimately decided to leave, sentiments to which I can truly relate. High school seems a million miles away, but I have been thinking about my whole high school experience from the perspective of the people who taught me. What the hell motivated them to come to work and put up with shit-brained teens all day? I now have a deep understanding that it surely wasn’t the pay. As my first year comes to a painful end, I would love to catch up and talk “teacher” sometime this summer. This rests on the assumption that you are still living in M_. I am living in D.C. now, but I will be back in M_ visiting my family from June __ to June __. Email me if you are available. Even if we cannot meet while I am home, I would still like to hear how you are doing.

Sincerely,

Ms. Oyster

Ladie's Night at the Ballpark

I went to my first National's game! Hopefully I will be able to post some photos once my friend gets me some copies. I love sports so I love watching them live. The trouble is, the boy doesn't so much like sports. It makes me feel way too butch around him to talk about sports since he really could not care less, but I'm into it. That's what other friends are for, right. I went with a friend of mine from Baltimore and plan to go again with some girlies in the D.C. region. My mindless is going to have to help me out with that one though. Here are the details.

Am I ready for a D.C. summer?

Some time back, there was a poll question in the Washington Post. Should metro make underground cell reception available. My knee-jerk reaction was, "Yes! Why wouldn't they?" I now know the answer. As a person who rides metro everyday, I have come to appreciate its quickness and its relative peacefulness (compared to the El in Chicago). In my mind, I thought yes, because I want to be able to reach someone if I am running late for work. On Friday, it became abundantly clear that some people would abuse this cell phone reception and turn the metro train into the level of hell that Dante forgot. These people are the D.C. summer interns. Riding on the metro with a Capitol Hill intern loudly blabbing away on her cell phone became the single most annoying thing I have experienced on Metro since August. And this says a lot considering I have seen all out brawls, I have been followed off the train and onto another train by a guy trying to flirt with me, I have been squashed in the doors and I have been subjected to the most obnoxious ipod play lists. Every other word was like, yeah, oh, ugh, blah, blah, blah. On top of that I had to listen to her blab about a hot guy at the office, her study abroad trip to Prague, and her opinions on D.C. so far. She even had a long conversation about what she buys with her dad's credit card. She was just in her own little world and was speaking so loudly that about six people around her were starting to get pretty mad. At one point we all jumped when she responded loudly with an, "Oh my god!" to something her friend said. After that, I couldn't hold it in. I just burst out laughing. She was sitting right next to me, and I just started laughing at her. The fabulous part is that the other people heard me, knew what I was laughing at, and joined in. The intern, was clueless. The bottom line is...

I am terrible at this...

I want to blog. I like to write. I waste a lot of time on the internet, yet never post. Hmmmm, this has got to change. I have "updates" but maybe I should just screw updates and stick with new material. I am never at a loss for topics as the instructional day alone provides me with enough material without even touching on the private life. I will be back this weekend and hopefully going strong. Obviously, I wasn't ready for a committment. Should I feel bad about that? I think not.

Special K Red Berries

So this was a post that could have written itself. In case you missed the boat, you need to know that Special K Red Berries is not only one of the most delicious cereals created by man, it is one of the most addicting--right down to the red berry "dust" at the bottom of the bag. If you eat the cereal you know about the "dust." You must also know that eating it dry is better than eating it with milk. I have gotten into this negative habit of eating while I am teaching, especially breakfast. I pack breakfast every morning, but somehow the students always sneak into my room before I've had a chance to eat it. Today, I finally paid the price for doing this. I breathed in a piece of cereal and basically started choking. It was not my most poised moment. A student, my beverage monitor which I will explain in a future post, ran out of the room to get me water. Talking was impossible for at least 30 minutes so we had a coloring contest, the opposite of standards-based instruction. Consider lesson not-learned because I plan on eating more of my cereal, probably in front of my class, on Monday.

Write about a time that you learned something new...

This was the prompt my students had on their DC-CAS Writing Composition Exam. I really wish I could have scanned all of their responses into my blog because some had me bursting out in laughter in the middle of the class. Some kids were annoyed that I was being so disruptive. Others, saw me laughing at someone's essay, took it as a good thing and then begged me to read theirs. They almost got me in trouble with the testing monitor. If there is one thing I have taught the crap out of this year, it has been writing. I don't even know why I chose it as an area of focus. Maybe it was that most of my students couldn't write a complete sentence, let alone an interesting sentence, at the beginning of the year. More likely though, I like teaching it. All of my students know how to put commas after transitions. Considering many adults have missed out on this skill, I think it is a huge success for nine-year olds.

Even though I couldn't scan in their interesting work, I did want to share with you a few of my favorite thesis statements. Here they go:

"One time when I learned something new was when I learned to trust my mom's new friend." (She is referring to her mother's new live-in boyfriend)

"At school I learned three new things in one day. I learned how to do reader's workshop, how to divide, and how to write a five paragraph essay." (I liked this one because the student was writing a five paragraph essay about how he learned to write a five paragraph essay and he genuinely didn't see the connection).

"I learned something new when my mom taught me how to braid." (This essay had me laughing out loud)

"In my first day of dance class I learned what to do when you feel embarrassed. " (This one also had me laughing out loud).

Quote of the day: "Ms. Reed, am I black?" This student did not know which ethnicity to bubble in on his score sheet. I thought it was great. We both laughed about it. And then he said, "I'm gonna mark them all." It will probably mess up the scran-tron, but I told him to go ahead if he wanted. Who am I to tell the kid what ethnicity he is?

Oh the Old Gin in the Tropicana Bottle Trick...

That's a good one right? I know you used to do it in college too. Maybe it was rum in your bottle of diet coke. Or were you a vodka in your gatorade type? Well anyway, the concept is the same no matter what your choice of liquor. You are trying to get drunk without others really "knowing." Of course you cannot conceal your glossy eyes and slurred speach as well as you can conceal your clear liquor, but the goal is to be sneaky about it. Maybe you were trying to save money at a ballgame, continuing the pre-game party on the bus ride to the real party, or preventing getting a ticket at a free concert in the park. Or maybe you were in the sixth grade trying to relax from the stresses of the DC-CAS during movie day. What? You can't relate to that last one? I don't know about you, but I totally used alcohol as a coping mechanism when I was 12. And so did all of my friends. That's why I wasn't suprised at all to be interrupted in the teacher's lounge during lunch today at my school by the crazy, drunken screaming and stumbling of a drunk sixth grade girl. I felt like I was reliving my childhood when I saw the police show up to try to control her drunken episode. On top of that, I remember that time when a girl in my 6th grade class was hauled away by am ambulence in the middle of the school day for alcohol poisoning that occured while she was at school! Really though, WHAT PLANET DO I LIVE ON? WHO DOES THIS? ESPECIALLY WHEN THIS GIRL'S MOTHER WORKS AT OUR SCHOOL!? I'm sorry about the capital letters, its just a question that begged screaming. I meant what I said in my about me section. Most of what I experience in a day is just beyond words.

How is this helping anyone!

There is nothing worse than walking past one of your struggling students who just isn't getting anything right on his or her test. It is even worse when you KNOW that this student is trying really hard, but somehow still missing the boat. To add another layer, the test they are taking is THE test of the school year and basically the only test that matters to this kid's parents and to the administrators. Even as this student tugs on my heart strings, I am still not going to cheat for the kid! I swear, I am the only teacher not cheating on the DC CAS. The whole thing is outrageous. Now, as I read Freakonomics three years ago, I thought this whole teachers cheating for their students on standardized tests was an interesting economic problem, but I have one message for Steven Levitt: most teachers cheat and they do not have to go as far as changing the bubbled in answers; it's far easier than that. Let's try calling out answers and clues in front of the whole class. But really, how is this helping the students or the schools. My students absolutely NEED to be able to score well on multiple choice/essay tests and if they can't Michelle Rhee and my school's principal and the student's parents and the student need to know. If I lower my standards now in the fourth grade, how will that help a student get into a competitive high school or how will that help a student learn to score well on a test like the SAT? I know I'm not the best teacher yet, but I figure the two things I can give my students is a realistic view of their achievements and love--as cheesy as that sounds. That is my rant of the day.

My dog's first injury

One of my favorite mottos since I've started teaching has been, "I hate everything." It sounds like an ultra negative motto, but really it helps me stop myself from putting my hands on a crazy student kicking walls and pretending to stab himself, or quitting. For some reason, saying it out loud allows me to express frustration, anger, etc. and then its gone. One thing though, that I never hate is my dog, Aurora. She is the sweetest little miniature dachshund and she has one of the best doggie-personalities I have ever encountered. This is why her first injury is more traumatizing for me than it has been for her. This morning I discovered that she has torn one of her footpads. I have no idea how it happened, but it looks horrific. I think the human equivalence to a footpad injury would be if you tore off a piece of finger skin down to the muscle. It is gross and sad at the same time. Of course I panicked and rushed to my computer to research these kinds of pet injuries. Thank you petmeds! I found out I am not supposed to let her lick the injury, but I also just can't bear to force her to wear one of those lampshades on her head. Instead, my pet-mommy skills took over and I constructed a leg cast out of an old pair of nylons that will let the injury breathe while at the same time preventing her from licking the injury. I am also staying home from work to nurse her back to health. Dramatic? Yes, but after all, she is the only thing that I don't hate. Well her and my boyfriend.

Johnathan Swift

Do I know much about this man? Nope! Nonetheless, his famous quote speaks to me. "It was a brave man who first ate an oyster." How about, "he is a brave man that first sets out to teach." And really, unless you are a teacher, this probably means nothing to you, but it takes a certain kind of bravery to face "them" everyday. Now, do I consider myself a brave person? Not so much. I had however always considered myself a patient person. After a while in the classroom, I know that this is a fallacy. I am not patient and most likely you owe any rants you read to that fact.