I Hate My Kids, But I Love 'Em

I hate my kids but I love ‘em.
I hate my kids because they come in loud first thing in the morning, but I love ‘em because they will share their breakfast when I forget mine.
I hate my kids because they talk during CNN student news and don't care what's happening in the world, but I love ‘em because they ask random questions such as "Ms. Jones I know the Tsunami took people back into the ocean but are they really still alive?!"
I hate my kids because they come to school with no pencil, but I love ‘em because they refuse to do any math work in pen.
I hate my kids but I love ‘em.

I hate my kids because they laugh at inappropriate times, but I love ‘em because they can make me laugh even after my worse period.
I hate my kids because they slouch in their desks and act like the don't care, but I love ‘em because I know that deep down they do.
I hate my kids because if asked to do 10 problems they say "It’s slow!" But I love ‘em because 5 min later I will find them working hard and asking me if they are doing it correctly.
I hate my kids but I love ‘em.

I hate my kids because they make me feel like I am wasting my time trying to teach them anything, but I love ‘em because they always ask “Where you was?” when I take a sick day.
I hate my kids because they make me want to scream, slap, or punch someone, but I love ‘em because I know 9 times out of 10 it is not their fault.
I hate my kids because I know they can make a choice to improve their situation and leave Hollandale for good, but I love ‘em because I know really they have very little say in it all.
I hate my kids but I love ‘em.

I hate my kids because they fall asleep in class, but I love ‘em because I know how hard it must be to raise two kids and be in the 10th grade.
I hate my kids because of the intense rage that bursts out of them, but I love ‘em because they were never shown the correct way to deal with anger or frustration.
I hate my kids 90% of the day, but I love ‘em because in the end, they are just kids and have so much to learn.
I hate my kids, but I love ‘em.

Meet RP

RP is my favorite student. Well I don’t really know if he counts as my favorite student. One of the main reasons I like him is because he simply does what is asked of him. Perhaps in a good school he would just blend in. However, at my school he sticks out. So much so that I wish I could pick him up and put him back down in a good school that will appreciate him and help him grow. Not my school.

RP is in the 9th grade. He was originally placed in my advanced 9th grade Algebra class. However, due to scheduling issues, he was switched to my homeroom/1st period. He is always the first person in my room and he ALWAYS comes in and says good morning. Perhaps not always with a smile but he always speaks to me. Better yet, he always addresses me with respect.

I feel bad for RP because he was switched out of the class with his friends and other students like him that would allow him to really achieve greatness. Instead he is in a class with a love of behavior problems. I spend on average 10 min out of 50 min a day dealing with kids or waiting for people to shut up. That is 50 min a week (one class period) or 200 min a month (FOUR class periods or nearly a week of learning). I suppose I could try actually being an effective teacher and discipline students, but right now I have zero motivation. So instead poor RP loses out.

BUT RP pushes through. He asks questions when I do get the chance to teach. And because I know he tries so hard and is so smart, I make sure to check on him and make sure he is understanding what we are talking about.

Yup RP is just a nice young man that sits quietly in my class and soaks up every word that I am allowed to utter in my classroom. Perhaps not one of the funniest students. Perhaps not the most charming student. However, what I have come to appreciate is a student who just follows directions. And the thing is RP reaps the rewards. By simply doing what is asked of him, he gets better grades. It could be because there is a correlation between focus in class and grades. Or it could be because grades are subjective and completely up to the teacher, thus being a good student could work out to your benefit…I guess that’s why there was always a teacher’s pets in classes growing up. Perhaps they were really the smart kids. They just knew how to play the system!

Portfolio? What?

The final thing that we need to do before we can graduate is create a portfolio. It is suppose to be a collection of stories and what not from the past two years. It is suppose to show our growth. There are a lot of different things that go into it such as classroom management plans, descriptions of our communities, student work, etc. Well I can’t believe I am saying this, but I guess its time for me to start thinking about it…YES!

So things I probably should have been doing from day one: taking pictures/videos and giving more evaluations to my students. Sure I can do that now, but it would have been great to compare things from last year to this year. And the thing about it is, other than the people evaluating my profile, people wont be reading all the words. Hell I just went through last years portfolios and literally just looked at pictures. Starting tomorrow I need to start taking photos. I currently have about 12 on my computer…

But the number one thing I can do to have a good portfolio is to have fun. The portfolios that I really enjoyed were the ones that made me laugh. Okay so I didn’t read a lot but the ones that got me to stop and read were the ones that were funny.

Thinking about this portfolio I am not really sure how I am every going to capture my experience over these two years. Even if there are photos and videos that help me reflect over my time here, they wont be able to capture every little thing that made me laugh or cry or just gasp. They wont be able to show how much I have changed, for the better and for the worse. I am really interested to see how this portfolio unfolds

Just an FYI, perhaps first years should know about this project. I mean I recall it being mentioned, but not emphasized enough. I mean hell, I hardly know what to do now and I am a second year, Looking at these portfolios was eye opening. I think I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Well that’s all for my folks! Wish me good luck and the next time you will hear some thing about this, will be in its final form? God only knows.

Recent Life Photos...

My beautiful August door!!

I am a meat eater again (for this year only)!!!

You've got to love driving if you are going to make it in the dirty D!

Courtney came to visit and we went to the Kermit museum!! Only took 12 months to make it there...

MY FIRST OLE MISS FOOTBALL GAME!! So. Much. Fun.

I mean they had big old flat screen tvs everywhere. I didn't even understand how they got cable!

Okay so maybe I will miss things such as this come May....BUT THAT'S ALL!!!!

Day 1, Year 2

Day 1

I wish I had written this on the first day of school because I had a lot of emotions and things have changed slightly. So I will do my best to remember it all…

I remember coming home from day one and feeling happy. I had 6 out of 7 periods listening to every word I said. Yes I had 1 class from hell but I was sure I was going to whip them in shape. The thing about it is this year is all about change. It doesn’t matter that this school is still sucky because it is less sucky than last year’s school.

Things that are different:
- Kids actually listen? WHAT?! This was the strangest thing that I have noticed this year so far. I am so use to saying things five times because no one listens. But now I say them once, maybe twice and every follows suit.
- I leave 10 min after the bell rings for the kids…compared to what 6pm last year?
- I am in bed by 10 EVERY night. I have started reading before bed again. Hell one night I went to bed at 8 just because I was tired.
- I am teaching 7 50 minute periods. That first day of school was a BLUR. Kids come in, do some work, and I look up and they are gone. Its nuts!! And its longggg. I get into work at 7am and leave at 4pm. Last year I LEFT MY HOUSE at 745.
- I also only taught algebra 1 last year. Now I teach algebra 1, transitions to algebra, and a learning strategies class. Last year my big issue was classroom management and just general survival. This year its going to be question of whether or not I can actually teach. Can I get organized enough to teach all these different classes? So far so good. But ask me again in a few weeks.
- BEST PART YET….ladies and gents we went down from 40 kids in my class to an average of 15 with the biggest being 23. WOOHOO. I don’t care what you say, this is the number one reason why I am happy with my big move.
- My classroom management. Wait I actually have some? Haha. Its really hard to say what is as a result the school vs what is a result of me being a second year. I mean the children are much better behaved and generally respect teachers this year. But I would like to think that I have improved as well. I know I have more confidence. I know my voice sounds stronger. And I also can say I came from a neighboring school district that is notorious for the violence in the schools – I believe the kids are a little scared of this? Haha. But does it really matter why? My students are well behaved. (well all periods except for 4th but I will blog about that at a later point ☺)

Its not perfect., in fact its far from perfect. There are a lot of administrative issues still and a lot of the time I just hang my head . Its just slightly more frustrating here because the kids are good. They come to school wanting to learn. They listen. BUT the school is failing them. The school district and admin are just messy and not organized. They make decisions that just don’t make any sense. But nevertheless I will push forward because these kids really do care. First thing I am doing? Organizing the purchase of staff tshirts!!! We need school spirit and it starts with the staff. Haha.

More to come soon.

Dear First Years,

WELCOME!!

I am excited to meet you all and to get to know you all. I hope you are ready for the craziest, most insane, most exhausting two years of your life. Who am I kidding, there is no way to prepare for this.

I was asked to give some advice to the new class but I am sitting here and I am not really sure what to say. I mean I only completed my FIRST year. I am no expert. I mean I am changing most of the things I did in my classroom this year. But I can give you some words of advice on surviving.

1. DO WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO STAY SANE. If this is exercising or talking on the phone to family every night or traveling on weekends, do it!! This kind of falls hand in hand with finding something to do such as a hobby. Its going to inevitably happen though. You are going to be consumed by teaching at some point this year. You are going to eat, breath, and sleep school. But it wont last. You will either see the light or have a mental breakdown. When that occurs, find a hobby. My hobby? Travelling… Thanks to my neighbor. It was sometime in the fall when the one and only Charles Preacher said “we always need a trip to look forward to.” From that day one, there has always been something, whether big or small, that I have to look forward to. To me, spending money to get out of the delta is 100% worth it.
2. SLEEP. As I was cleaning out my classroom I found some goals that I had my homeroom write back in August when we were holding classes. I wrote my goals for the year down too. On my middle finger I wrote “Get at least 7 hours of sleep a night” I am proud to say that 98% of the time, I stuck to that goal. I coached soccer so sometimes it just wasn’t possible. I never stayed up late doing school stuff. You just have to realize that its not that serious. Things will get done when they get done. Didn’t finish all the grading you wanted? That’s fine, do it on your planning block. Didn’t call all the parents you wanted? That’s fine, finish it tomorrow. If you don’t sleep, I promise you that the kids are going to sound ten times louder than the actually are the next day.
3. Teaching is one big science experiment in which every day is a new day and you can change things however you want. If something is not going the way you envisioned, change it. As long as you are on board 100% and you are enthusiastic about it, the kids will eventually accept the change as well. Change the look of your classroom. Change the consequences. Change the way you teach. Doesn’t matter. Just realize that you are the scientist and the classroom is your lab. Don’t go overboard, but don’t be afraid to change things.
4. Serenity Prayer…this has been my motto all year. Once I let go and realized that I can’t control everything, my emotional well being vastly improved. It doesn’t matter the quality of your school, you just cannot control everything. I told myself and eventually I started telling my students, I don’t care what happens outside my classroom, but in here, I run things. And still you can’t control whether or not a student wants to learn in the classroom. As long as your doing everything you can do and as long as you can go home at night and say “I tried” then you are doing your job. I turned to laughter. Crying was too emotionally draining. Find a friend and just laugh about the ridiculousness. Don’t complain about. Just laugh. Realize that this whole experience is sort of what Alice felt like falling down the rabbit whole. Reason goes out the window so stop trying to make sense of it all.

And that’s it. I have no other wise words to depart on you. I am here for you though, especially if you want a good laugh…remember that time my students stuck neon green gum to my chair and I sat on it?!?!? Yeah that was funny…

May 24, 2011

Well that’s it. Year one down. Like my roommate said “it was kind of anticlimactic.” The year as a whole was a rollercoaster ride, however, waking up for the last day of school seemed no different than any other day. And when the bell rang to let the kids go, I packed up my stuff and left too. That was that.

I am pretty sure I was just in shock that I made it to the last day of school. I mean there were certainly days in the year where I didn’t think I was going to make it. Heck, there were days in May when I thought “Can I really make it another 13 days?!” But I did.

What were my thoughts on the year? Too many to rehash. Do I think I grew as a teacher? Its really unclear because its hard to discern what I changed consciously and what I changed because of “outside” forces. I do believe that I learned how to mentally deal with my situation and that’s how I made it to May. I learned how to not let everything bother me. I learned to keep my school work at school except for on Sundays. I learned to just turn my head and laugh at the insanity around me.

But what was the best part of the year? The friendships I have made over the year. I have a small group of really close friends and I am not sure what I would do without them. They make this whole thing bearable, especially my roommate and neighbors. I am not sure I would have made it to May without them. Really and truly. They make this whole ordeal worth it…

But here I am speaking as if it’s over! Ha. Far from it! Yes its true I am moving on to a different school, however, I am still in the program and I still have one fully year of teaching to go before I can truly talk of the “bonds between friends that will last a lifetime.”

Summer school starts in two days. In January I realized that I am going to have to take summer school seriously or at least more so than most second years. I need to undo the bad habits that I have picked up and re-teach myself how to be an effective teacher. But the thought of re-teaching myself everything in just three weeks is overwhelming. So I decided to focus on two things that I think are crucial to any classroom and that I personally need the most work with: consequences and rewards.

For the first three months, I did really well with following a consequence ladder and it sort of worked. It worked well for the kids who were truly good kids but stepped out of line every once in awhile. It didn’t work well with the “bad” kids and it didn’t work well once I sent them to the office. But by November I stopped being so consistent. It was a lot of work on myself and I was barely staying afloat. Come January, I was making up consequences as they came to me. You have detention! You stay when the bell rings! You go sit in the corner! It worked for the most part, however, there were major consistency issues that even the kids would call me out on and they were right! Someone would get caught eating and would have detention while someone else caught doing the same thing may just lose 5 points for the day. That’s were the issue lies. The kids need to know if they do x, then y is the consequence no matter who the offender is. Children really seem to pickup on fairness. If you treat them fairly, they will, more times than not, react appropriately. So I am going to pay close attention to our consequence ladder in the classroom this summer and make sure I am CONSISTANT.

BUT more important than consequences, in my eyes, are rewards. Ideally, I want my classroom to be based around rewards and not consequences. I want to motivate the kids to learn, not beat them down. At the beginning of the year, I plan to come down hard with consequences, but I will also come down hard on rewards. I am not sure entirely what my reward system will be like yet, but I believe its going to be centered around groups. As the second semester progressed, I used groups in my classroom more and more until I finally just left them in groups. If managed correctly and if the rules are clearly stated, groups work wonders. I do a lot less running around and the kids do a lot more working. By May I rarely had a kid asleep in my classroom and I believe its because they were able to ask neighbors for help instead of just put their head down and give up. I want my kids to take pride in their groups and I want them to motivate each other in the groups. I may not be able to practice this in summer school because everyone (the other teachers) may not want to work in groups. However, I can practice praising the kids and their good behavior a lot more than I did in my classroom this year.

There are a lot of other things I want to change and I will contemplate this as the summer progresses.