technology November 11, 2009

We have a new IT guy.  The Prince says he’s one of the best in the district, and we’re lucky to have him.  He also happens to be Plum’s dad, and I’m Plum’s teacher, so I knew he’d say yes when I asked him to help me with a computer problem.

He came before school to help me figure out why I cannot open any of the documents I wrote last year.  The ones from two years ago?  No problem.  From this year?  Again, no problem.  But I’ve got a whole year’s worth of lesson plans that are inaccessible.  Plum’s dad was still in the room when the kids came in.  Plum’s eyes were wide.  “Will my Daddy be in our room all morning?” she asked hopefully.  “No,” I replied, “just for a little while.”

Right.  Plum’s Daddy was in our room all morning.  I felt bad for him.  He was absolutely stumped.  He figured out the why but he couldn’t figure out the solution.  The good news was that Plum didn’t act the way I expected — she didn’t cling or cry.  She was happy all morning and didn’t even seem to look his way.  He was just about to give up for the day when he stumbled on a solution — “I had good luck!” he crowed — and I think my documents are back.

~~~

This afternoon I worked for almost two hours writing down the evidence from a formal observation, preparing for a post-observation conference.  I saved all my work, and closed the document.  Later, when I went to open it, I couldn’t find it.  Then when I found it, I couldn’t open it.  I nearly cried.  But the media specialist figured it out for me — the computer had saved it for me under a different name.

Is it too much to ask for technology that works?

backpacks November 6, 2009

Dear Parents,

I’d like to take this opportunity to talk to you about backpacks.

It may surprise you to hear that I would like them to be empty, most of the time.  This means I would prefer it if your child not use it as a dumping ground for crayons, markers, snacks, books, coloring books, and old art projects.  Please help your child clean out his/her backpack tonight, and help him/her keep it that way.  This will also give you a chance to check for contraband such as candy, gum, or toys that cause distractions at school.

When your child comes home from school each day, please check your child’s backpack.  There might be a note from me in there.  There might be important news about something that is happening tomorrow.

On Fridays, please check for the Friday folder, and for a week’s worth of finished work.  Please remove from the folder everything that is for you (the newsletter, the school newsletter, etc.) and keep it or throw it away.  Please don’t send it back to school.  For one thing, I already read that stuff; I wrote it.  For another, if you send it back to school, I have no idea if you got a chance to read it or not, and I have to decide if I should throw it away or try sending it home again.  Please remove your child’s finished work, and do what you will with it.  I sent it home on purpose; I do not need or want it back.

In the winter, please send your child to school with a pair of shoes in the backpack, so that he/she will not track melted snow and dirt into the room with his/her boots.  On Monday mornings, please return the Friday folder.

That is all that should be in the backpack.

Thank you.

Mrs. X.

snapshots of the day November 4, 2009

*Cherry and Chutney got bus write-ups last week that showed up in my mailbox only this morning.  They were defiant to the bus driver and refused to sit down on the bus.  And Cherry called Chutney the B word.

*A staffer whose grandson is in my class told me that he had really paid attention to my lesson yesterday.  I tried to remember what lesson that might have been.  She said, “he knows all the three-dimensional shapes now.  He told me, ‘did you know that the other name for a ball shape is a sphere?’ and also told me about cubes, cylinders, and cones.”  I was tickled.  Someone was listening!

*Plum showed up after two days at home and burst into tears.  “What’s wrong, honey?” “I…want…my…DADDY!” she sobbed.  She sobbed all the way to the local library, so, for the first hour of the morning.  At the library she sat on Miss Slinger’s lap whimpering, and then fell asleep in her arms.  I spent most of story time trying to track down her parents, who finally showed up when we were back at school.

*I got a new student, who moved to my class from the afternoon class.  She knows Miss Slinger, and the room, but not me.  She was dressed in a t-shirt and a thin sweatshirt today, and it was very cold out (in the 30s).  I tried to give her a jacket to wear to the library, but she refused.  I gave her a partner to hold hands with, and she refused.  So she held my hand all the way there.  Miss Mellow told me later that the new girl is very moody, that mom didn’t show up for her parent conference — twice — and that the girl came to school once with a warm jacket, and not again since.

*Because of very poor test scores, the third through fifth grade teams were shaken up, and a few teachers were removed from classroom teaching (they will be doing supplemental teaching instead).  At least one teacher was in tears.  Emotions were running high.  I wish the Prince had done this back in June, but I think he did the right thing, better late than never.  It’s inexcusable when certain teachers’ students don’t make a year’s worth of progress.  Our students are so far behind they really need to make well more than a year’s progress.  Less than a year?  Shameful.

*We read Knuffle Bunny for the second time (I’m back to doing Repeated Interactive Readalouds), and at the end, I asked, “have you ever lost something?”  After we heard about a lost ball and a lost car, I told them about a time when I lost my favorite mittens.  Pumpkin looked very concerned.  He raised his hand.  “Teacher, I can give you my red mittens.  Let me go get them for you.”  And he was about to get up before I stopped him, and assured him that I have since replaced the lost mittens.  He tried again at dismissal time to give me his red mittens.  So sweet.

*Zucchini had so much fun at recess that he forgot to tell me he needed to go pee.  He had a change of clothes in his backpack — but the pants were shorts!  So the poor kid went home in a warm jacket, hat, mittens, boots….and shorts.

*I visited Miss Mellow’s class, with her okay, to talk to them about all the stuff in the room, and how most of it is stuff I paid for.  I talked to them about respecting books, and how to take care of them, and where to put them (the Mo Willems books go in the Mo Willems box, not the ABC box, and the farm books go on the shelf, not in the color box).  I also showed them how to clean up the house corner and where everything goes there.  Later Miss Slinger told me that they did a much better job of clean up after their centers time.

*I spent two hours finishing writing up a post-observation report.  It made me cranky.  I don’t think I want to be a mentor next year.

the little indignities of preschool October 12, 2009

Two little girls had pee accidents this morning.  One of them made it to the bathroom, but not quite to the toilet.  The other — Cherry — announced loudly at recess, “Mrs. X., I peed my pants!” from the top of the climber.  We had just enough time for Miss Slinger to take her to the nurse for a change of clothes before we had to put her on the bus to go home.

Pumpkin’s shoe was untied at morning meeting.  This meant he couldn’t stop fussing with it, and despite my warning — “Don’t unlace your shoe again!” — he unlaced it completely.  The lace was too frayed to put back in, so while I continued with calendar and the morning message, Miss Slinger relaced his shoe with a new lace.  (I’ve got a box with fresh underwear, socks, shoelaces, and some donated hats and mittens.  A preschool teacher should always be prepared!)

Miss Slinger, like all non-teacher employees of our district, had to fill out this long form about every aspect of her job and her duties.  She told me it was kind of depressing — when she writes it down it looks like her job is a lot of making copies and cutting things out (not to mention restringing laces and taking pee accidents to the nurse).  My job has all kinds of things like that in it, but it also entails reading, doing research, writing lesson plans, teaching reading, and so on.  Those sorts of things help to balance out the snotty noses and how-to-aim-in-the-toilet lessons and the other less dignified aspects of my job.

There should have been a place on that form for Miss Slinger to write down how often she gives hugs, resolves arguments, teaches art, or helps to maintain a fairly organized classroom.  But if it’s hard for a teacher to feel appreciated and valuable, how much harder it must  be for an assistant teacher.

cherry October 10, 2009

Cherry is my other problem.  (It’s funny; in any other year, neither Cherry nor Pumpkin would really count as a behavior problem, but this year, everyone is such an angel that these two do stand out.)

She keeps testing me.  She doesn’t listen, doesn’t follow directions, keeps interrupting.  It feels deliberate and disrespectful, and it irritates the heck out of me.  She has already gotten in trouble in Music, and she has had to sit in the “Take a Break” chair more than anyone else.

I called her mother on Thursday, and it was helpful.  For now I’m going to operate under the assumption that attention is the problem.  She needs attention, and will do negative things to get it, and it’s possible that paying attention to things is difficult for her.

So my plan is to keep giving her hugs (she is one of the huggiest in a very touchy-feely class), especially in the morning right when she comes in, to catch her being good and give her specific feedback about what she is doing right, and also to help her with personal conversation before transitions to let her know exactly what she will need to do.

We’ll see how it goes.

my brain is on fire October 7, 2009

I put out the fire with a nice glass of wine at the end of a loooong day, so now I’m just scorched.  Let’s look back on the day, shall we?

I started my day with a meeting.  (Always a great start.) I have a weekly meeting of mentor teachers, master teachers, and administrators.  The master teachers and administrators meet the day before to go through weekly business, and they make decisions for us to approve or not.  It cuts down on our Wednesday meeting time, so I appreciate that.

But.  Actually, I started my day at home, checking my work email, and reading an email about the agenda for the meeting.  And it made me furious.  It said that I had asked that the number of  observations I have to conduct be reduced (which I did not!) and that my request had been refused.  When I got there, we had to get through the first two agenda items, and then we got to the one that referenced me.  Here’s more or less what I said:

“I was quite surprised to read my colleague’s email about the business items to discuss.  I feel that I have been rather grievously misunderstood.  It appears that you discussed a request that I did not make, and that you did not discuss the request that I did make.  While I’m sure I said last week that I have too many observations to do, at no point did I ever request that you lower my number of observations.

“I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing, for if I did, it would mean that the rest of you would have to do even more observations than you are currently scheduled for.  What I did request — and what you somehow failed to discuss yesterday — was that you figure out if we think it is more important to get into teachers’ classrooms to do coaching, or if we think it is more important to get all the observations done.  Given that we have fewer mentor teachers than ever, we have more observations to do in less time.  I had hoped to do some actual coaching, and am concerned that it will not be possible.  At any rate, I think it is important that we make a conscious decision, one way or the other.  And I did suggest, as a creative measure, that we reduce all teachers’ observations from three to two, which would mean fewer observations for each of us to do, which would free us up for more coaching.”

Alas, it appears that the rules will not let us reduce the number of observations for each teacher, which means that I have seven observations to do in five weeks.  Given that each observation requires a pre-observation conference, a 45-60 minute observation, 2-3 hours for writing up the evidence to prepare for the post-observation conference, and then the post-observation conference itself, I have at least 5 hours I will have to spend on each one, and that means 35 hours worth of work in the next five weeks totally aside from my teaching.

AUGH!!

The meeting moved on, and we switched to looking at the rubric for lesson plans.  It was a good idea — I’m not sure I ever read that part of our handbook, and I’m sure we as a team have never discussed what makes a good lesson plan before.  One of the master teachers showed a typical lesson plan from one of our teachers one the document camera, and we used the rubric to score it.  The problem?  This lesson plan, which looks a lot like mine (although not as detailed), and a lot like 90% of my colleagues’ lesson plans, got a 1 from all of us.  (1, for those of you unfamiliar with rubrics, is bad.  3 is good, 5 is exemplary.)  It didn’t reference the standards, it didn’t mention anything about differentiation, and it didn’t show anything like closure.

On the one hand, it seems like a good idea to take a good look at our lesson plans, and see if they are good enough.  On the other hand, my lesson plan is a working document that serves ME.  It’s my road map, my schedule, my list of what to do, in what order, and when.  There is another kind of lesson plan — the kind that you write out for one activity (usually when you are going to be observed) that lists in detail your objectives, the standards you are addressing, the differentiation you will do — but really, what teacher every does that for every day, every lesson?  It’s just not possible.

The meeting ended four minutes before my babies were to arrive, so I managed to get two minutes in the room to check in with Miss Slinger and go AUGH about the meeting.  After a really busy morning (during which a little girl reported that Pumpkin had said he hated me — which doesn’t seem to fit his personality, somehow, but prompted a little discussion with him about how it’s okay to be mad at your teacher sometimes, that everybody gets mad sometimes), and a quick lunch, I found a little time to work on the lesson plan conundrum.  Ms. Mellow took her afternoon class to lunch, so I spread out at a table in the room with my plan book, my math curriculum, and my folder full of stuff about teaching Fire Safety, and sat down to write an exemplary (or at least acceptable) lesson plan.

It was fun, actually.  I have been planning ahead (I know, will miracles ever cease?!), so I wrote out the plan for the week after next.  I had to write even smaller than usual to cram everything in — all the standards that my lessons meet, all the details, my goals for the week, and so on.  I’m going to make copies of it tomorrow, along with copies of my lesson plan for this week, written before the meeting today, and give them to the rest of the team.  I figure this will give us some fuel for our discussion.

Because while it was cool that I — for the first time ever — wrote my lesson plans with the standards at my fingertips, it took me more than an hour to write them.  Since it usually takes me 20-30 minutes, I’m not too sure that I’ve got the time for this kind of detail each week.  And frankly, if we tell the staff they have to do their plans this way, I think we could have a full-scale rebellion on our hands.

I also spent an hour each in two first grade classrooms, where I saw that both teachers have worked miracles in the last three weeks, that behavior is well under control, and some terrific learning is going on.

Then I went back to keep working on my lesson plans, until I realized it was ten minutes past the time when I was supposed to pick up my 9 year old from after-school care, and take him home with stops at the grocery store and the library on the way.

The only blessings were that at the grocery store I saw one of my students, who ran full-speed down the bags/wrap/plastic containers aisle to throw herself into my arms, and that there was that glass of wine waiting for me when I got home.

loud October 5, 2009

Miss Slinger was gone today.  I used to teach kindergarten and was by myself with 25 kids, so you’d think I could handle 17 on my own.

And I can, of course.  But it was hard; I’ve gotten so used to having a wonderful assistant teacher in the room with me.  When I arrived at work with coffee and some berry coffee cake, I spun around the room like mad trying to get everything ready.

Put away the parent conference stuff, check!  Change the calendar to October, check!  (Take a bite of breakfast.)  Get the red scraps ready for our red collage activity, check!  Write the morning message, check!  Read my email, check!  Get everything needed for centers time ready in my basket, check!  (Take a sip of coffee.)  Try again (and fail again) to find Knuffle Bunny, check!  Set out the journals, change the date on the date stamps, set out the sign-in book, fill out the job chart, move the nametags, check check check!  (Take another bite of breakfast.)

And actually everything was fine.  It was just a little bit more intense.  For some reason, the children were incredibly loud today.  Cherry, who is STILL testing me to see what I will do if she doesn’t follow directions, stepped it up a bit.  I had a hard time not getting really really irritated with her.  And did I mention that they were loud?  The other weird thing was that they were more needy than usual.  It was “Mrs. X, can I do this?” and “Mrs. X, can I do that?” and they were tugging on me or saying, “Hey!” all morning long.

I’m still in a good mood, however, and I still do love them.

But I didn’t finish my breakfast until 12:30.

food September 21, 2009

So I’ve decided to name my new class (for the purposes of this blog) after foods.  Last year it was characters from children’s books, but I’m running out of ideas for those, so food it is.

First up — Pumpkin.  He is an ADORABLE little boy who in many ways seems like he is still three years old.  Or maybe even two.  He is all impulse, and interrupts me constantly.  I don’t think he has any idea what I mean when I say to him, “please don’t interrupt me.”  Sometimes, like today, he interrupts me to say, quite urgently, “I love you, teacher.  I love you!”

What can he do?  Well, he has learned quite well how to walk in a line.  Miss Slinger says he sometimes gets silly down at his end of the line, but mostly he can do it.  He knows how to line up in ABC order, mostly, and he knows where he is supposed to sit in the meeting area.  He can sit on his bottom and fold his legs, and he participates in everything we do.  It isn’t like he’s under the sand table when he is supposed to be doing a project, or sitting down for morning meeting.

What can’t he do?  He seems genuinely puzzled by the whole concept of listening.  (I don’t think he knows what that word means, either.)  He has a hard time answering questions.  It’s like I’m speaking in a foreign language sometimes.  He has a hard time having a conversation.  He has a hard time remembering what he is supposed to be doing if I give him instructions.

Today at the start of morning meeting he came up to me and said with surprise, “There’s still soap on my hands!”

“Go back to the bathroom and dry off your hands.  Then come back and sit down.”

When he came out of the bathroom, his pants were around his ankles.  (I guess he forgot why he was in the bathroom, and decided to go potty, again.)  “Teacher, I can’t remember how to put my pants back on!”  Miss Slinger helped him, and I sure hope he washed his hands (and dried them) after he went potty…..

He can’t count, either.  He doesn’t know most colors.

I wonder if he is going to end up being assessed for special needs, or if he’s just a late bloomer.

Anyway, I think he’s going to be my favorite little troublemaker this year.

our day at the park June 28, 2009

Every year, a few days before the last day of school, I take my class to a nearby park for our end of the year celebration.  (Last year I called it our end of the year party, and one of my girls showed up in a gorgeous party dress — we had to find park playclothes for her to borrow at the nurse’s office — so this year I was careful not to call it a party.)

It’s more fun if parents come along, so this year the children made invitations to take home, and I invited younger siblings to come, too.  We had a very good turnout (8-12 parents, 2 newborn babies, 1 older baby, and 3 toddlers), and it was a great morning.

We stopped at my favorite coffee shop along the way to pick up treats, and then proceeded to the park.  Everyone was in a good mood, and the weather was perfect.

There is a home daycare a block from our school, and I know the sisters who run it.  Every year when we come to the park, the sisters and their charges are there.  Still, I had a wistful feeling when we arrived.  Miss Slinger wasn’t with me last year, and Ali and Nan are gone, so I was the only one who remembered our past visits to the park, or realized that this is a long-standing tradition.  Well, Ferdinand was with me last year, but this whole year he has behaved as though everything we do is new (Marvelous Mittens Day?  Wow!  Never heard of that before!), so I don’t think he remembered.

We ate our treats, admired the babies, played in the sand, climbed to great heights, and shared our sand toys.  There were many caterpillars to be found — thrilling — and the grownups enjoyed chatting and sipping their iced coffees.

Then one of my boys shoved a toddler (the little brother of a classmate) face-down into the sand.  I walked over just in time to see a crying child, with his mouth full of rocks and sand, and some of my other boys looking shocked.  The Pusher (or so shall we call him today) looked at me and admitted doing it.

“Why did you push him?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” the Pusher said.

I put him in timeout at the side of the playground for a little while, checked on the toddler and apologized to his mother, and then went back to talk with the Pusher.

“It’s not okay to hurt other people,” I said.  “I know you are really sad about your mommy and daddy not living together anymore.  It’s really sad.”

“Yeah, it’s really sad,” he agreed.

“But you can’t hurt people, even if you feel sad or mad.”

We discussed it a little further, and then I sent him to apologize.

Twenty minutes later, he was on a climber leading up to a slide, when the same toddler tried to climb up and join him.

The Pusher shoved him off.

The toddler fell three feet and landed facedown in the sand, again with his mouth open.  He could have been terribly hurt, but luckily, he was fine, just upset.

I was so upset myself that I could barely speak.  I took the Pusher by the hand and put him in timeout again, without saying a word to him.  Then I paced and breathed while I tried to figure out what to do.

I realized that the Pusher was a danger to this particular two year old (a two year old?!  Who hurts a two year old?!) and had to leave the park.  Miss Slinger, at my request, took him back to school, to the behavior room.

It put a pall on the whole morning.  The Pusher’s parents, when they learned about it, were really upset.  They have had a very painful year, and they know that it has had an effect on their son.  The behavior lady decided to suspend him — for the last two days of school — because this wasn’t the first time he’d been violent in this way.

I was tense and depressed for the rest of the day.  It’s so hard not to be affected when one of my students is struggling.

facebook etiquette June 21, 2009

I know this is completely off-topic, but I hope you will endulge me in a brief rant.

First of all, I love facebook.  I have really enjoyed getting back in touch with people I hadn’t seen in years, and staying in closer touch with my friends-in-real-life.  The people I know on facebook are a witty, warm bunch, and it’s quite entertaining to read what they have to say.  That said, there are a few kinds of status updates that really get to me.

You might be bothered by the people who update every little thing they do:  “Fluffy McMuffin is having her morning coffee.  Fluffy McMuffin is on the bus to work.  Fluffy McMuffin had a great salad for lunch.”  Those kinds of status updates don’t bother me at all.  I read fast; I can move on quickly.

There are a few status updates that stick in my craw.   So, a message to a few facebook types:

To my colleagues at work:  It makes me feel really uncomfortable to read your constant complaints.  I’m so sorry you hate your job.  I love mine, and I love where we work, and I wish you’d keep your bitterness to yourself.

To the young teachers at my school:  It surprises me that you would be so negative on facebook, given that you do not yet have tenure.  Do you realize how bad you look when you keep complaining and posting defensive status updates about your teaching?  Be professional, please.  Keep an open mind, remember that while you may have talent, you haven’t got the years of experience that the rest of us do, and be open to learning new things.

To my wealthy friends and relatives:  In an uncertain economy, it is somewhat shocking that you would keep posting updates about your frequent vacations to exotic locations, not to mention how you spent almost $500 on party favors alone for your child’s birthday party.  I’m delighted that you have such good fortune, but wish you’d remember those of your friends who are experiencing great financial stress.

To the parents of my children’s friends:  My child may never find out about it, but it kind of hurts my feelings on his behalf when you post about the parties and excursions that you take your child and his friends on, when my child was not included.

There.  I feel better now.  Thanks!  (And feel free to add your own facebook irritations!)