I am glad I am at the end of my career. I don't think I'd become a music teacher if I were starting out now. I don't like what's happening to education in general or music education in particular. I used to work 12+ hour days including weekends and vacations. I loved every minute of my day. I loved my students unconditionally. I loved everything about my job. Now the joy is slowly seeping out of my day and it's not because of the students.
We had a faculty meeting the other day that started with an activity in which we were asked to describe our personality in terms of north, south, east or west. They lost me right there. Someone is getting paid to think up these activities that will neither improve my teaching nor add to the value of my classroom. They will, however, add to my scotch bill.
It was determined fairly quickly into the activity that I was a north personality, as if my Yankee roots weren't already evident. The person who dreamed up this activity read us a description of the four directions. I forgot most of them, but when I heard that opinionated was a characteristic, I knew I was in the right place. My group had the fewest number of teachers. Everyone else gravitated towards the groups with descriptors such as caring or loving. We were told that each group had to list 4 adjectives to describe ourselves. Someone suggested impatient. I agreed wholeheartedly. When we were at a loss for 3 more, I said, "Why not leave it at that? We are impatient and don't need to list anymore." I was overruled, but only because we didn't collectively have the nerve to be that snarky.
After we all shared our adjective search, we had to then figure out which other directions/personality types we couldn't work with. I was thinking that I wouldn't want to work with the southern care bears, the eastern detail-orientated nitpickers nor the western big picture folk. After all, I'm northern and I'm impatient and I don't have any patience for these types of activities. If you put me on a committee, I'm not about to ferret out which directional personality I'm dealing with. I am there to work and get things accomplished and I will try to keep my snarkiness under wraps (an ongoing battle) and try to be productive. I was relieved when this part of the meeting ended, but then I was in for a real treat. We were taking a FIELD TRIP.
I was soon disappointed to learn that the purpose of our field trip was to view the data walls in teachers' classrooms, mine included. I teach in a bunker below sea level, so I don't get to go up into teachers' classrooms very often, but when I do, I am always uncomfortable because they remind me of the first floor of Bloomingdale's in NYC--shiny stuff everywhere. When I walk into these classrooms with not a bare spot anywhere, I have to avert my eyes from the visual vortex or risk system overload.
When I was in first grade there was a large photo of President Dwight D Eisenhower on the wall. That was it. Just his bald, shiny dome and flinty eyes staring at us as we sat in our neat, orderly rows. Now, I will admit that my first grade wall wasn't all that enticing, but at least it wasn't a kaleidoscope of hyperactivity. If a kid has OCD, I bet these hyper decorated rooms trigger all sorts of anxiety.
Our field trip was supposed to help us get new and fresh ways to put up data walls. In the beginning of the year, one of the admin team, someone in a position whose chief responsibility is to send "hey look at this awesome website" emails, told me that she was trying to figure out a way music could have a data wall. I asked, "Why?" She looked at me the way you look at someone who has just stomped on your foot. "Because," she said, "It's a non-negotiable." I asked, "Why is it non-negotiable?" She said, "Because it's something you have to have." (This interchange was reminding me of this funny bit from the Airplane movie--Rumack: You'd better tell the Captain we've got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital. Elaine Dickinson: A hospital? What is it? Rumack: It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now.) I said, "Why do you have to have it?" She sighed, looked off into the distance probably thinking about her next website to send out, and said, "Well, I think your recorder karate wall could be a data wall." I said, stifling another Why response, "Ok. If that works for you, it works for me."
So, two things struck me. Why are things non-negotiable? That sounds very paternalistic and intimidating. You WILL have a data wall, young lady, or else no cookies and ice cream for you. This is not the way to treat teachers. It's not even the way to treat a child. It's just plain demeaning.
There are other non-negotiables such as--you MUST post your standards, which I find really silly because 1. They are written in professorial language that our students can not begin to understand and 2. When a kindergartener comes into school the first day, will he really be able to read the standards? Will he even be able to read it by the end of say, 1st grade? Why do we even need standards posted? Show me the research that says posting standards means you are an effective teacher or has any effect on student outcomes.
The other non-negotiable that bugs me is posting the essential question and referring to it at the beginning, middle and end of your lesson, which is contrary to everything a Kodaly and Orff teacher would ever want to do. Besides, even when I ask higher order thinking questions, I have a hard time eliciting more than one word answers. Most of the questions I ask the kids are answered this way, "Beat." "Beat?" I respond. "What do you mean by that? Can you use more words than that?" They will answer, "Because it's the beat." So please tell me how posting my essential question and referring to it will do more than be a bullet point on an administrative check list. I have been known to have one EQ up all year and no one notices (How is music organized for grades 2-5 and How can we move to show steady beat in grades K-1).
Last year I had my final evaluation the last week of school because my principal had more important teachers to evaluate the rest of the year. She came in while we were doing the cup game and my EQ, which I had thrown up on the boards moments before her arrival said, "How do music games teach us cooperation?" She gave me a great evaluation but noted that I had not written that EQ in my lesson plan. When we met for my summative assessment she asked about the EQ not being in my lesson plan and since she was leaving our school, I said, "To be totally honest, I don't even write lesson plans. I have a curriculum map and I refer to it from time to time, but I don't write lesson plans and i don't give a rat's two front teeth about the EQ. It's only there so you can check it off your list. You're the first person that's even read my curriculum map. But if you think my teaching will be improved by writing lesson plans or posting EQs, then by all means, tell me how. She smiled and we left it at that.
Back to the data wall. It seems to me that the data wall is a horrid idea, let alone a probable violation of the Federal Privacy Act. I'm sure the kid who does well and has his data posted at the top of the wall feels pretty good, but what about the kid whose data is below desk level? I know it would make me feel stupid if my name was at a cockroach's line of vision. And again, I would like to see the research that shows that this is has a positive effect on student learning.
I actually did a lot of reading about data walls after my field trip and I was heartened to see that there is a lot of blow back from teachers. For one, I don't think the best way to measure student achievement is by an extensive use of data because the data that is being accrued is mostly gotten from the type of assessments that use short answer or multiple guess questions and then run through a Scantron machine. We need more performance assessments that require students to apply their knowledge or student portfolios but that's harder to post that on a data wall. Data collection doesn't measure more than recall. What about analysis, comparison, inference, and evaluation These are the necessary skills of a literate twenty-first-century citizen.
And what does a data wall o have to do with music, or art or PE for that matter? How will data collection drive my teaching? I have two eyes and two ears and they tell me what I need to know. Maybe my years as a choral director have impaired me, but I would like to think that I can assess most of what I need to know by what I see and hear. I know who can and can't read notes on the staff; I know who can and can't use head voice; I know who can and can't keep a steady beat. I don't need data to drive my instruction. I have a zillion and one informal assessments that don't yield any data but I bet I know my kids pretty darn well. I know when they are totally lost and I know when their little light bulbs are turned on.
If there is no research to show me that these latest and greatest educational dog and pony shows benefit student achievement, then I'm all for it,but until then I can only ask, "Why?"
Friday, October 31, 2014
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Saturday, October 25, 2014
September 2014
This has been a difficult year and it's only September. The tenor of our school has changed completely. Previously, about 30% of the school was comprised of kids who had started with us in pre-k and stayed until they graduated fifth grade. Not surprisingly, these were the kids who were either in TAG (talented and gifted program) or at the very least, performed at or above grade level. Students that transferred in during the year quickly caught on that good behavior was the norm and and within a few weeks they became part of the school's fabric. Don't get me wrong; there were still many difficult kids, but they were manageable.
But the balance of our school has shifted now that many of the better students left to attend charter schools or private academies like KIPP . Unfortunately, this year we got in many families from\ some redistricted apartments. The kids from these apartments are from, to put it mildly, very, very dysfunctional families. It is a high crime area and many of the parents are employed in rather questionable professions. The atmosphere set by our "core" students is no longer existent. The new atmosphere is chaotic and rowdy.. There were more fights in the first two months than the entire number we had last year.
The new crop of kids come to school in mismatched, tattered and unwashed clothing because no one at home is caring for them properly. They are so far below grade level it's hard to figure out what they do know. The kindergarteners are almost completely non-verbal; they point at things. Those that do speak are difficult to understand because they barely pronounce words correctly. Their attention span is non-existent. It's like teaching gnats to tap dance.
We also have some sort of karmic vacuum thing going on. If you have a kid who wears out your last fiber of patience, you generally just have to wait a few months and he will move on. But within 24 hours the karmic vacuum police get a call and immediately fill your order with a new one and sometimes two new ones with even worse problems. Chair throwers, tantrum kings and queens, runners--you name it, we have it in octuplet. One day I walked into school and a tiny pre-k girl was throwing a tantrum in the middle of the front hall. When she's not screaming she's busy running the school. Every time I see her she's being dragged by the arm by some adult trying to shepherd her back to wherever she escaped from. Seems like a successful way to get an adult to notice you.
One of the ways to deal with very difficult children is by positive reinforcement. I am all for that. These kids get so little of it at home and punishing them all the time for their behavior ends up being counter productive. We use positive behavior charts. They do seem to work and I am supportive of this effort, but I am also exhausted by them. I have to divide most of my classes into 10 minute sections where I walk around inserting smiley faces and/or stickers on the laminated behavior charts that the tiny terrorists bring to me, as I try to catch them when they are doing something right. I feel like cutting out pictures of little chairs and pressing them onto their behavior charts indicating how many times they've thrown a chair in my class. Some of the kids are so awful that one of the special ed teachers has a safe word to let the kids know it's time to exit the class and find a safe haven. The word is cake. Kind of ruins all thoughts of dessert for me.
These behaviorally challenged children suck up all your energy and make it almost impossible to pay attention to the rest of the class who is there, ostensibly, to learn something. What to do with these hostage takers? First, it's important to make sure you have administrative support. Luckily I do. But that wasn't always the case. A few years ago we had a principal whose first line of questioning always started with, "Well, what did you do to provoke that behavior?" I used to answer, " I tried to teach."
Warning: I'm going to go off on a tangent for a moment. Talking about this principal made me remember some of our more memorable exchanges.
This principal called me into his office one day to ask me if I had heard one of my first grade boys ask a girl if she wanted to "touch his nut sack." I stared at the principal for about 15 seconds, my jaw hanging slack in disbelief because he hadn't bothered to rephrase that tasty morsel more delicately. The principal continued by asking, "Did Talaisa (this is a made up name, but most of the names I come across already sound made up) tell you what that little boy had said.?" "Um, no," I replied. " If she had I would've reported him. I think what happened was that Talasia had tried to tell me, but I thought she was just going to tattle, an activity that is of paramount importance to most kids. I told her to ignore whomever was bothering her." "Oh," he said, "I guess that explains it." Yeah, that explained why I didn't know what happened, but didn't address the fact that this first grade boy had probably been molested and was acting out. And why in the world did he say nut sack and not pee pee or something else a first grader might say? Where the hell did he come up with nut sack? That's what I wanted to know. Well, that and if someone was going to call DFCS.
This same principal called me into his office a few weeks later to tell me that one of the parents had called him and wanted to know why I was worshiping Buddha in my classroom. She had gone to a Chinese restaurant with her child and he saw a plastic Buddha statue and said that Ms. Jove worshiped him in her room. That was another jaw dropping moment. I looked at him and said, "I don't understand what that parent is talking about. First of all, I don't discuss religion with my kids and secondly, you don't worship Buddha. Buddha isn't a god. He was a philosopher and people who follow his teachings aren't worshiping; they are following his teachings. And thirdly, you've been in my classroom. You've seen that I don't even have a Buddha in my room." Then it came to me. I told him that I had a gong in my room that I used for transitions. When I struck the gong the students would stop what they were doing, fold their hands in front of them and wait for my directions. Perhaps the child thought this was worshiping Buddha.
The next thing the principal said was even odder, and I already thought he was a nut sack. He said that he had never met a Jewish person before he was in college, so I stopped him there because I didn't want to have him finish that sentence with the usual thing people in my community say when they find out I'm Jewish: (note: I am the lone Jewish person in my work place. ) "I had a Jewish friend once and he/she was really nice," to which I always respond, "Yes, my people are very nice;" so I said, "What does my being Jewish have to do with anything?" He didn't answer that question. He countered with, "Well, you have to be careful about what you say in the classroom." I said that that was always a good idea, especially for principals.
Back to the hostage situation. The second line of defense is time out in another room. I found a kindergarten teacher who will make the older ones take part in the activity she is working on like learning the days of the week or tracing letters. This is not a particularly thrilling lesson for the older ones and the next week they are usually ready to return to my class. However, one year I had a fifth grader who was very large for his age--I'm guessing he was almost 5'9 and weighed in at over 200 lbs. I sent him to the special ed kindergarten because there was a male parapro in the room and he had a good rapport with the boys in the school. I walked into the room to fetch the kid only to see him standing in the midst of the the little ones saying a poem about colors. I told him it was time to leave and he didn't want to go. He said he was enjoying working with the kindergarten students and asked if could he please help out again. I arranged a time for him to go to their classroom and help out. A pleasant unintended consequence. Perhaps he will want to work with kids in the future.
And if all else fails: Ring the buzzer.
This has been a difficult year and it's only September. The tenor of our school has changed completely. Previously, about 30% of the school was comprised of kids who had started with us in pre-k and stayed until they graduated fifth grade. Not surprisingly, these were the kids who were either in TAG (talented and gifted program) or at the very least, performed at or above grade level. Students that transferred in during the year quickly caught on that good behavior was the norm and and within a few weeks they became part of the school's fabric. Don't get me wrong; there were still many difficult kids, but they were manageable.
But the balance of our school has shifted now that many of the better students left to attend charter schools or private academies like KIPP . Unfortunately, this year we got in many families from\ some redistricted apartments. The kids from these apartments are from, to put it mildly, very, very dysfunctional families. It is a high crime area and many of the parents are employed in rather questionable professions. The atmosphere set by our "core" students is no longer existent. The new atmosphere is chaotic and rowdy.. There were more fights in the first two months than the entire number we had last year.
The new crop of kids come to school in mismatched, tattered and unwashed clothing because no one at home is caring for them properly. They are so far below grade level it's hard to figure out what they do know. The kindergarteners are almost completely non-verbal; they point at things. Those that do speak are difficult to understand because they barely pronounce words correctly. Their attention span is non-existent. It's like teaching gnats to tap dance.
We also have some sort of karmic vacuum thing going on. If you have a kid who wears out your last fiber of patience, you generally just have to wait a few months and he will move on. But within 24 hours the karmic vacuum police get a call and immediately fill your order with a new one and sometimes two new ones with even worse problems. Chair throwers, tantrum kings and queens, runners--you name it, we have it in octuplet. One day I walked into school and a tiny pre-k girl was throwing a tantrum in the middle of the front hall. When she's not screaming she's busy running the school. Every time I see her she's being dragged by the arm by some adult trying to shepherd her back to wherever she escaped from. Seems like a successful way to get an adult to notice you.
One of the ways to deal with very difficult children is by positive reinforcement. I am all for that. These kids get so little of it at home and punishing them all the time for their behavior ends up being counter productive. We use positive behavior charts. They do seem to work and I am supportive of this effort, but I am also exhausted by them. I have to divide most of my classes into 10 minute sections where I walk around inserting smiley faces and/or stickers on the laminated behavior charts that the tiny terrorists bring to me, as I try to catch them when they are doing something right. I feel like cutting out pictures of little chairs and pressing them onto their behavior charts indicating how many times they've thrown a chair in my class. Some of the kids are so awful that one of the special ed teachers has a safe word to let the kids know it's time to exit the class and find a safe haven. The word is cake. Kind of ruins all thoughts of dessert for me.
These behaviorally challenged children suck up all your energy and make it almost impossible to pay attention to the rest of the class who is there, ostensibly, to learn something. What to do with these hostage takers? First, it's important to make sure you have administrative support. Luckily I do. But that wasn't always the case. A few years ago we had a principal whose first line of questioning always started with, "Well, what did you do to provoke that behavior?" I used to answer, " I tried to teach."
Warning: I'm going to go off on a tangent for a moment. Talking about this principal made me remember some of our more memorable exchanges.
This principal called me into his office one day to ask me if I had heard one of my first grade boys ask a girl if she wanted to "touch his nut sack." I stared at the principal for about 15 seconds, my jaw hanging slack in disbelief because he hadn't bothered to rephrase that tasty morsel more delicately. The principal continued by asking, "Did Talaisa (this is a made up name, but most of the names I come across already sound made up) tell you what that little boy had said.?" "Um, no," I replied. " If she had I would've reported him. I think what happened was that Talasia had tried to tell me, but I thought she was just going to tattle, an activity that is of paramount importance to most kids. I told her to ignore whomever was bothering her." "Oh," he said, "I guess that explains it." Yeah, that explained why I didn't know what happened, but didn't address the fact that this first grade boy had probably been molested and was acting out. And why in the world did he say nut sack and not pee pee or something else a first grader might say? Where the hell did he come up with nut sack? That's what I wanted to know. Well, that and if someone was going to call DFCS.
This same principal called me into his office a few weeks later to tell me that one of the parents had called him and wanted to know why I was worshiping Buddha in my classroom. She had gone to a Chinese restaurant with her child and he saw a plastic Buddha statue and said that Ms. Jove worshiped him in her room. That was another jaw dropping moment. I looked at him and said, "I don't understand what that parent is talking about. First of all, I don't discuss religion with my kids and secondly, you don't worship Buddha. Buddha isn't a god. He was a philosopher and people who follow his teachings aren't worshiping; they are following his teachings. And thirdly, you've been in my classroom. You've seen that I don't even have a Buddha in my room." Then it came to me. I told him that I had a gong in my room that I used for transitions. When I struck the gong the students would stop what they were doing, fold their hands in front of them and wait for my directions. Perhaps the child thought this was worshiping Buddha.
The next thing the principal said was even odder, and I already thought he was a nut sack. He said that he had never met a Jewish person before he was in college, so I stopped him there because I didn't want to have him finish that sentence with the usual thing people in my community say when they find out I'm Jewish: (note: I am the lone Jewish person in my work place. ) "I had a Jewish friend once and he/she was really nice," to which I always respond, "Yes, my people are very nice;" so I said, "What does my being Jewish have to do with anything?" He didn't answer that question. He countered with, "Well, you have to be careful about what you say in the classroom." I said that that was always a good idea, especially for principals.
Back to the hostage situation. The second line of defense is time out in another room. I found a kindergarten teacher who will make the older ones take part in the activity she is working on like learning the days of the week or tracing letters. This is not a particularly thrilling lesson for the older ones and the next week they are usually ready to return to my class. However, one year I had a fifth grader who was very large for his age--I'm guessing he was almost 5'9 and weighed in at over 200 lbs. I sent him to the special ed kindergarten because there was a male parapro in the room and he had a good rapport with the boys in the school. I walked into the room to fetch the kid only to see him standing in the midst of the the little ones saying a poem about colors. I told him it was time to leave and he didn't want to go. He said he was enjoying working with the kindergarten students and asked if could he please help out again. I arranged a time for him to go to their classroom and help out. A pleasant unintended consequence. Perhaps he will want to work with kids in the future.
And if all else fails: Ring the buzzer.
Weevily Wheat
Process:
Sing song a few times until the students are able to join in. The B section is a multiplication section that starts with 5x5.
Words:
Don't want no weevily wheat
Don't want no barley
Take some flour, in half an hour
And bake a cake for Charlie.
B section
5 x 5 is 25
5 x 6 is 30
5 x 7 is 35
5 x 8 is 40
Ask for suggestions for other multiplication tables.
. Many of my students have no concept about how wheat is made into flour and what type of food you can make/bake with flour. They usually come up with fried chicken and then are stumped until I show them a photo of some baked goods. They also have never heard of a weevil, so I show them photos of wheat, wheat germ, sprouted wheat and flour. I also show them a weevil. It's a nasty looking critter.
On with the process:
1. Clap on the syncopa don't want. The students will likely keep clapping the pattern they think will follow so I stand with my hands behind my back until they get it correctly.
2. Add patting too the rhythm of weevily wheat
3. Add chest pound on barley and Charlie
4. Add a jump on flour and cake
5. Once they have learned the song with movements, audiate and do only movments
6. transfer to either non-pitched percussion or orff instruments.
7. Ask students to decide which instrumental timbre will fit for each body percussion/movement
This activity worked nicely in a circle. I put out four instruments and they rotated the circle on the B section.
I've done this lesson with grades 3-5
Another lesson plan format for Weevily Wheat
Weevily Wheat Lesson Plan format 2
Tideo
process:
Students enter room in a circle.
I ask them to identify the mi-re-do in the song by holding up their hands.
After they correctly identify and isolate the mi-red- I sing the song a few times and have them join in by singing mi-re-do.
After a few more times singing the song, the students will be ready to join in with the rest of the song and then I demonstrate passing by windows.
After several demonstrations I invite a few more students into the circle and until I have formed a double circle.
Here's where I modify the dance a bit. My students hate holding hands, especially if it's two boys and with many of my lower academic classes, the boys outnumber the girls by a large number. My students can handle holding hands in a moving circle, but if there are multiple partners I can guarantee that there will be some disruptive behavior when partner A doesn't like partner B. It's not worth the hassle so I modified the partner turns on the B Section to be a partner hand clapping that echos the rhythm (clap your own hands twice and then your partner's once. On the jingle at the window, they pat the sixteenth notes and two eighth notes, followed by the same hand clapping pattern. I learned the hard way not to bother with the partner turns. It was much more successful with the hand clapping/patting and that also transitioned nicely into a rhythm decoding activity I did with colored popsicle sticks.
After the dance and rhythm decoding I played a game with a sign that I made that has MUTE, BEAT, WORDS, and SOLFEGE. It's similar to the radio game where you turn the sound on and off--this just adds other components. It's a great way to reinforce the difference between beat and rhythm and solfege from rhythm syllables.
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Friday, October 10, 2014
The Yin and Yang of Teaching
October 2014
I was a superstar twice this week. I got difficult classes to behave and be productive. On Monday I got the worst fifth grade class to pay attention for more than 4 seconds. When they played a song on the recorder I could actually hear, at times, a melody. When they lined up, no blood was let. I wanted to run up to the all the teachers I saw in the hallway and say, "Man, I was, like, you know, da bomb today."(Insert Helen Reddy tune now) I am teacher hear me roar; I am in VIN cible. I am teeeee -cher." I decided I was going to write the kind of book I hate ( one that has a number in the title) Ten Terrific Tips to Teach Tots or The Five Things Fabulous Teachers Do To Be Fabulous.
But as I drove home that afternoon I knew what was going to happen. The next day I would suck all the air out of the room.**
And I did.
Not only did I suck all the room, I replaced the air with the smell of failure. My classes didn't go according to plan. About a third of the fifth grade class twirled their recorders in the air or practiced banging them on the carpet. The fourth grade came into my room like wildebeests. I screamed at two kids.
I am generally pretty patient and only have to use my stern voice to get a kid's attention, but after watching that fifth grade class murder their recorders and the fourth grade class act like clown college dropouts, I had run out of patience by the time the younger ones came in.
I don't remember what the first kid did to get me riled up, but the second one, a first grader who is apparently making a career out of being in first grade, was fooling around so I sent him to the time-out chair, which for some reason, seems to elicit a shouting out behavior from most of its occupants instead of coaxing out a self-reflection activity. Why I think a hard, plastic chair facing the wall will make the child, one who's brain is busy going blahblbalbahlbah I can't hear you, think about his actions and return to class as a new and improved model, is something I need to get reflective about.
I guess this is the time for the rest of the class to not so surreptitiously stare and/or smirk at the time-out victim. Looking at someone is a cardinal sin. You can't LOOK at anyone.( I am imagining family dinners where everyone stares at the wall.) It's worse than skipping someone in the line. This is the kind of offense that needs to be handled by either the Special Forces or the SWAT team. So here's Mr. I - love- being- in- first- grade, calling out, "STOP LOOKING AT ME," until the last hair on my neck was sizzling. I tried burning a hole in his forehead with my laser teacher's eyes but he just gave me a blank stare. Then I started to move towards him in my most threatening manner. If I were a dog, the hairs on my tail would be bristling and a low growl would be emanating from my bowels. Still nothing. I walked over to the desk, slapped my hand down so hard that the clasp on my metal watch unclasped. My hand stung. The kid repeated his vast repertoire of facial expressions, which included a blank stare and another blank stare and then...he...SMILED?
The smile could've sent me over to the dark side, but then I thought about the research I had been reading dealing with poverty's negative affects on cognitive development in children. It also takes a toll emotionally.. We are hard wired for emotions like love and hate, but those like embarrassment and humility have to be taught. My students lack a repertoire of emotional responses. This little boy didn't know what to feel when I slammed my hand down. He wasn't being disrespectful. He was just using his default factory setting mode.
After I got home and decompressed (i.e. drank), I felt pretty awful. I lost control and I shouldn't have. I fretted all night and slept fitfully. When I got to school the next day I saw the kid in the hall and he ran up and hugged me. I was relieved, yet guilty. I went back to being a superstar that day...but I know I will most likely suck all the air out of the room again. I just hope I do it without screaming at a kid.
** It's a Jewish pessimism thing. After you admit something is going well, you are supposed to say/spit "Ptuey Ptuey" so you don't tempt the hands of fate. Apparently I played with fire."
October 2014
I was a superstar twice this week. I got difficult classes to behave and be productive. On Monday I got the worst fifth grade class to pay attention for more than 4 seconds. When they played a song on the recorder I could actually hear, at times, a melody. When they lined up, no blood was let. I wanted to run up to the all the teachers I saw in the hallway and say, "Man, I was, like, you know, da bomb today."(Insert Helen Reddy tune now) I am teacher hear me roar; I am in VIN cible. I am teeeee -cher." I decided I was going to write the kind of book I hate ( one that has a number in the title) Ten Terrific Tips to Teach Tots or The Five Things Fabulous Teachers Do To Be Fabulous.
But as I drove home that afternoon I knew what was going to happen. The next day I would suck all the air out of the room.**
And I did.
Not only did I suck all the room, I replaced the air with the smell of failure. My classes didn't go according to plan. About a third of the fifth grade class twirled their recorders in the air or practiced banging them on the carpet. The fourth grade came into my room like wildebeests. I screamed at two kids.
I am generally pretty patient and only have to use my stern voice to get a kid's attention, but after watching that fifth grade class murder their recorders and the fourth grade class act like clown college dropouts, I had run out of patience by the time the younger ones came in.
I don't remember what the first kid did to get me riled up, but the second one, a first grader who is apparently making a career out of being in first grade, was fooling around so I sent him to the time-out chair, which for some reason, seems to elicit a shouting out behavior from most of its occupants instead of coaxing out a self-reflection activity. Why I think a hard, plastic chair facing the wall will make the child, one who's brain is busy going blahblbalbahlbah I can't hear you, think about his actions and return to class as a new and improved model, is something I need to get reflective about.
I guess this is the time for the rest of the class to not so surreptitiously stare and/or smirk at the time-out victim. Looking at someone is a cardinal sin. You can't LOOK at anyone.( I am imagining family dinners where everyone stares at the wall.) It's worse than skipping someone in the line. This is the kind of offense that needs to be handled by either the Special Forces or the SWAT team. So here's Mr. I - love- being- in- first- grade, calling out, "STOP LOOKING AT ME," until the last hair on my neck was sizzling. I tried burning a hole in his forehead with my laser teacher's eyes but he just gave me a blank stare. Then I started to move towards him in my most threatening manner. If I were a dog, the hairs on my tail would be bristling and a low growl would be emanating from my bowels. Still nothing. I walked over to the desk, slapped my hand down so hard that the clasp on my metal watch unclasped. My hand stung. The kid repeated his vast repertoire of facial expressions, which included a blank stare and another blank stare and then...he...SMILED?
The smile could've sent me over to the dark side, but then I thought about the research I had been reading dealing with poverty's negative affects on cognitive development in children. It also takes a toll emotionally.. We are hard wired for emotions like love and hate, but those like embarrassment and humility have to be taught. My students lack a repertoire of emotional responses. This little boy didn't know what to feel when I slammed my hand down. He wasn't being disrespectful. He was just using his default factory setting mode.
After I got home and decompressed (i.e. drank), I felt pretty awful. I lost control and I shouldn't have. I fretted all night and slept fitfully. When I got to school the next day I saw the kid in the hall and he ran up and hugged me. I was relieved, yet guilty. I went back to being a superstar that day...but I know I will most likely suck all the air out of the room again. I just hope I do it without screaming at a kid.
** It's a Jewish pessimism thing. After you admit something is going well, you are supposed to say/spit "Ptuey Ptuey" so you don't tempt the hands of fate. Apparently I played with fire."
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