“Crow, did you hit her?”

He nodded.

“Why did you hit her?”

He looked blank and nodded again.  I started to think, maybe he doesn’t know what why means.  And explanations, cause and effect, all those things are beyond his ability to comprehend or communicate.

He hit kids all day.  Not once was he mad, not once did it make any sense, or happen after a provocation.  When he had to take a break, when I talked to him about no hitting, he smiled a little and nodded, in a friendly way.  (If I say “is it okay to hit people?” he will always give that little smile and nod, totally uncomprehending.)

It’s pretty rough if you don’t know what “why” means.

Quail sat at journal time yesterday, and wanted to be done after making a picture of his mom that consisted of a head, two legs, and hair all the way around the head.

“Your mom needs eyes,” I said.  After a stream of interruptions, I looked at his journal.  He had added some scribbles, but it wasn’t clear what they were.  ”Where are the eyes?”

“Here!” he pointed, to some tiny scribbles located where his mom’s ear should be.

“How about two eyes right here in the middle of her face?”

More interruptions.  When I looked back, his mom had two purple eyes and a purple smile.

“She is smiling because my dad’s not saying he wants people to kill us anymore.”

?!

“What, sweetie?  What did you say?”

And it all came pouring out.  He talked about people busting in through the windows, how his dad said he wanted people to kill them, how his parents were going to get married but now they’re not, how dad doesn’t want to take care of the kids, how dad got mad at mom for “running the streets” all night, how mom would leave him alone with his two year old brother “and she didn’t even lock the door,” how he would fight and hit people if anyone tried to hurt his little brother….

He didn’t want a hug, but he did sit on my lap for his outpouring.  He wasn’t upset, and seemed really upbeat and resilient, but also that he was afraid and wanted me to know about it.

Later, he and the social worker had a lovely chat, and she said that she thinks most of it is true, but that it happened in the past.  Now they live in a different part of town, and he feels safe.

But it’s so sad.  I try to think of one of my sons, at the age of 4 or 5, having experiences or fears like those, and it boggles the mind.

The next day, his wiggles were greatly reduced, and he started settling in happily as a member of the class.  I think he feels safe with me, and I am glad.

Visual clutter raises my blood pressure. My classroom is a warm and friendly and pleasing place, with lots of plants, and wonderful children’s artwork on the walls and hanging in the windows.  However, there were lots of areas of mess.

Having piles of boxes behind the kidney table made it impossible to walk back there, and piles of papers, bags, and snacks on the table made it impossible to use.  Now the kidney table is BLANK.  It is empty and clean, and we can use it for small groups, which is what it is there for.  Now that there is nothing behind or under the table, our engineer can mop and sweep under there at last.

The window sills are long and useful, and were covered in junk.  Now the front of the window sill is almost empty, so now we have a place for artwork to dry.  Along the back of the window sills, we have neatly arranged magazine boxes and other tubs with alphabet, vocabulary, literacy, and assessment materials for easy access (and hopefully, frequent use).

We threw away at least four boxes, gave away bags of stuff, and trashed/recycled quite a bit more.  We found new places to put things, and emptied shelves for the afternoon teacher to use for her stuff.  (I am guilty of not giving her enough space, and I know it.  I am trying to make amends.  I’m still working on three more shelves to empty and give to her.)  I went nuts with my labeler and labeled lots of shelves, so that cleanup will be easier for all the adults who are in my room at various times.

My hands feel like sandpaper from all the washing, but my heart is light.  I’m looking forward to tomorrow, when I get to teach in this lovely room.

On another note, I’ve been thinking about the progress we’ve made so far. One thing that I have been really successful at is the classroom climate. The children are calm, focused, happy, and kind. The room runs smoothly pretty much all the time.

BUT. Have they learned as much as they could? Or, in other words, have I done a good enough job of teaching them? I think I need to focus again on assessment with individual children to make sure they are on track, and get my small groups going again to address specific needs. So that is what I will do once we get back to school in January.

“Teacher, let’s make a train!”

“Okay, that’s a good idea.  What are you going to do with those blocks in your hands?”

“Make a train!  Yeah, make a train!”

“Okay, honey.  Put the blocks down on the floor, yes, just like that.”

“This one goes here!”

“And I’ll put this one here.  Do you want to go get some more blocks?”  And so on.

Pretty soon we had a train.  Crow could not stop grinning.  ”My train!  It’s a train!”  And jumping for joy.  ”I made a train!  I love my train!  I love Mrs. X.!”

After a while, it became clear that he didn’t know what to do, having built the train.  (Knocking it down and starting over would have been stressful.)  So we carefully took it apart, block by block, and Crow managed to put them all away in the right places.  Then he went off to the dramatic play area, his second most favorite thing to do.

Today he came in uncharacteristically quiet.  My assistant, who goes to get him off his bus each morning, was worried.  Usually he chatters all the way to class, but today he was silent.  I asked him if he wanted to sit on my lap, and he nodded.  So we had a little snuggle, and a conversation about what we had each eaten for breakfast.  After that, he was his usual self, except for the fact that he wanted to sit on my lap at least two more times, and before today, he had never been affectionate toward me.

At centers time, I rigged it so that he got to go to blocks again, and once again, he built a train.  It was joyful, all over again.  He was so proud of himself, and so happy that his teacher was proud, too.

But this week, I started watching him in blocks.  He doesn’t know what to do with them!  They hold a real fascination for him — he picks blocks almost daily.  But he doesn’t know how to build anything.  He can’t make a plan (“I’m going to build a bridge!”), he can’t copy what I do when I build something, and he can’t clean up — he doesn’t know how to find where particular block shapes go, or put them in place with the correct orientation.  He seems to be lacking creativity, planning skills, problem solving skills, and spatial relations.

So now my jobs are to help him learn in the block corner, and to have a diplomatic conversation with his mother about the importance of play.  She does a lot of drill with him, is proud of what he knows, and thinks that he will be “caught up” by kindergarten or first grade. ( I’m thinking he might start to crash and burn in kindergarten.)  Apparently there is no playing and no mess at his daycare, and I need to find out what he is doing at home.

The woman who called said that they have $200 left over which they could use to buy my kids some mittens and boots!  So wonderful.

I have to measure the kids’ feet, and get an idea of what sizes to order.  The boots we will keep at school, so that on any outdoor learning day, anyone without boots can still be toasty warm.  The mittens she will buy from the guy who has a kiosk at the mall each winter, and makes wonderful thick fleece mittens on a string.  He always gives me a discount, so I think he will give it to her, too.

(One of my students has a pair of pink mittens — no longer on a string — that look exactly like the ones I buy each year.  They must be hand-me-downs from a former student.  Nice to see they are still being used.)

When I arrived this morning, late, I looked through my classroom window and saw a meeting taking place.  Oh yes, I was supposed to have been there 15 minutes earlier to talk with the social worker, speech pathologist, and parents about little Blue and his speech therapy.  I’d forgotten all about it.  Very embarrassing.  But everyone was nice about my late arrival, and I really like Blue’s parents, and the good news was that we all agreed it’s time to evaluate him to see if we can take him off service.

Blue is small for his size, but confident, sparkly, and in love with school.  He often raises his hand to show off his English skills.  He tells me things in careful, clear sentences that he just might have practiced first, beaming the whole time.  He’s smart, and has good things to say, and is proud of himself.  Since I can understand him all the time, I agreed with the team that it’s time for him to end his speech therapy.

Late or not, it was a lovely way to start the day.

The morning ended, however, on a stressful note.  Little One kept almost losing it all morning, and kept being able to pull herself back together, until it was time to go home.  A series of little things which she couldn’t handle appropriately made her fall apart, more and more and more.  I had to call a social worker to come help.  The social worker ended up having to carry a screaming and kicking Little One onto the bus, where she and the driver then struggled to get her safely buckled up.

I called Dad to let him know, and then after I hung up, worried that she would get a spanking, which won’t help things at all.  I’m not sure what’s wrong, but she has been slipping backward for a few weeks now.

Here are some things I am thankful for:

• my students, who are incredibly sweet and funny and a joy to be around
• Little One has made more progress than I would have thought possible
• my assistant, who is kind and loyal and comes in early every day
• my Americorps volunteer, who is magically good at teaching
• all of the fantastic children’s books I get to read each day
• the Princess is a principal I can rely on and trust

And I am thankful for you, my readers!

I have been concerned that she doesn’t feel like the room is really hers.  It has ME stamped all over it, for one thing.  It’s a tiny room, and is arranged the best way I have been able to figure out to do it, and the shelves are full of my books, curriculum, and materials.  I have made some space for her, but not nearly enough.

We had a teacher work day recently, and with a little help from me, our Americorps volunteer reorganized our art supply cupboard.  She was awesome — she got rid of tons of stuff, and reorganized/repackaged the stuff we want to keep, and now the cupboard is usable.  I thought that the afternoon teacher would be happy to see it.

She was.  She also took it as a sign that she could make changes, too, so she reorganized some areas of the room.  When I came in on Monday, the small drawer unit next to the teacher chair in the meeting area was tucked into a corner where it was difficult to reach, among.  I was dismayed — I use the top of the drawer unit to place all the things I will need during morning meeting, and the drawers contain things I use daily or almost daily.  When she came in that day we had a brief, intense, awkward conversation, and she made it clear that my drawer unit had been in her way, and she didn’t want it back.  I did get an okay from her to bring in a much smaller drawer unit, so I did.

That same week I read different versions of “The Little Red Hen” to my class, and we had a lot of interesting discussions about sharing.  The kids unanimously said that she should share the bread when I got to the penultimate page and asked, “what should she do?”  But then when we got to the last page and she ate the bread herself (or with her chicks), they all said that was the right thing to do, too.  We struggled with that idea — sharing is good but sometimes it’s okay not to share — all week.

Meanwhile, I felt bad for not sharing the room more, but for still wanting my stupid drawer unit back in its old place.  Sometimes it’s hard for grown-ups to share, too.