My Oter Car Is Pnis

Our county's newest mandate is to promote literacy in the music classroom.  I've been doing that for many years and after I got my Orff certification, I realized that this idea has been around for more than a hundred years (thanks Karl) so once again, music has been way ahead of the educational curve.

This year one of my five schools is in an achievement zone (yay), which is referred to as an AZ school because, as I've said before, educators are addicted to acronyms. (As a side bar,  I've noticed that this country has a habit of calling unpleasant things by misleading, more pleasant sounding names, e.g. The Clean Air Act, which one would think is a mandate to clean up air pollution,  but it turned out to be a bill designed to allow companies to continue polluting the environment  Or the Patriot act, which was anything but patriotic because, in the name of fighting terrorism, it allowed the government to perform illegal wire taps and search business records.)  So it's no surprise that the  AZ is the part of the county with the lowest performing schools. It's unclear what, if anything, they're achieving, unless you count high teacher turnover as a positive outcome.  As I've said many times before, schools can not be expected to fix what is wrong with the community at large. If we don't address the larger issues like poverty, unwanted and too many teenage pregnancies, drugs and crime, then schools will only be a band-aid applied to a gaping wound

The schools in the AZ community wisely decided to extend the school day because elementary students are so good at staying on task for 8 hours a day.  By the time the last class comes they are either in a super- charged caffeinated state or comatose, sort of like having Donald Trump and Ben Carson together in one room.   The longer and more productive fun-filled days allow the schools to have a professional development day one Friday a month while the students are at home trying to recover.  (I have a suspicion that the parents are not very happy to have their kids home one more day a month.)  Not surprisingly no one stopped to take into account that if you are a specialist, one third or more of your curriculum is not going to being taught on those classless that fall on Friday., especially when you factor in the award assemblies that many schools hold on one Friday a month.

 I attended my first professional development today. Luckily it was just music teachers because other schools frequently make the specialists attend professional development that has no earthly relevance to our subject area, but does allow some of the younger teachers to sit in the back and play on facebook or pay their bills.   Most of the teachers  in the AZ group are young and eager to do a good job, but I bet that in 3 years none of them will still be teaching.  One teacher said that 7 teachers quit last week.  I told her that 8 quit at the beginning of the year last year so that's a positive trend. 

Back to the meeting.  It's always nice to feel the shared pain. Everyone had war stories.   We traded funny student names.  I won again this year: Antonin Dvorjak Carter III (and his name is pronounced exactly the way you would pronounce the composer's name, minus the Carter.  I'm guessing the  familial lineage is probably a bit faulty at best.)  But that name still doesn't come close to this beauty: NVMeMzBerthaMae Jones.  When our coordinator walked in we'd return to one of our assignments, which was to share student work  I don't make my students do much writing.  I'm too busy trying to make music.  But sometimes I have them write a reflection when I send them to time out.  Here's what I go t from a third grader.  If you can decipher it, then I think it's possibly a love note to me.

 

The art teacher, who I share the room with, said I should make it a bumper sticker. I thought that was a great idea, but I'd add to it: My oter car is pnis.

*translation" You are a vagina.  I don't care.

Hickety Tickety Bumble Bee

I am welcoming myself back to my 87th year of teaching.  Summer vacation came to a screeching halt the second day of August.  I don't know why we start in August.  It's summer, damn it!   At least half of the population in my part of the county doesn't show up until after Labor Day because it's summer, damn it!   And wisely,  the county has a 10 day count so that it can play fruit basket turnover and move teachers from school to school because, God forbid, there might be classes with less than a zillion children in a room.   So after Labor Day, which is THE END OF SUMMER VACATION, DAMN IT!®   the numbers go up and there are now a zillion children in a class.  Yay.

But I do like the first week of school, or honeymoon season.  The kids are in sussing out mode and they're not going to misbehave because it isn't safe yet.  So I get to play lots of fun getting to know you activities without having to stop children from saying, "You nasty" or "Stop breathing on me" to each other.   Pure bliss.  

But kindergarten--that's a different story.   They don't know how to suss out the situation.  They're in a state of perpetual confusion. I'm positive that if you took an MRI of a kindergarten brain it would look like a ball of yarn that the cat got into.  I greet them at the door and say, "Follow me in."  Half way into the room I look back and they're still standing at the door staring at me.  I go back and say, "Let's play follow the leader.  I'm the leader.  Follow me into the room."  They stare at me, blink a few times and finally the line leader, whom I assumed was crowned line leader because he could lead the line out of troubled waters, realizes his call to duty has come, and finally follows me in.  Half way into the room I turn and the line leader is behind me, but the other children are walking around aimlessly looking for their mother ship.  I remind them to follow the leader, so they all return back to where the line is, but now they're not in the same order as when they came in so they cry.  

10 minutes later line order is restored and we make a standing circle.   I say, "Sit down where your feet are, please."  What they heard me say was, "Flop onto your belly like a baby seal or do a nose dive onto the carpet"  I stand them up and show them how to sit down.  "Excuse me.," one pipes up.  "I have to use it."  I have to use it is the odd way these kids ask to use the bathroom.  I explain the rules about specials and the bathroom.  And besides, right before this class I saw this bunch lined up outside the restroom.  Apparently they were as confused about the what the restroom is for as they are about follow the leader.  When tears appear, I allow the child to go to the restroom.  But of course, that sent a signal to the other children that right now they all had to use it.  I said to them, "If you go now, you won't be able to play my fun games today."  That seemed to satisfy their restroom need until 15 minutes later when a child who hadn't asked to go to the bathroom stood up and peed onto the floor.  Sigh.

The next game we played after follow the leader and pee on the floor, was Hickety Tickety Bumble Bee.  Will you say your name for me?  The child says his/her name and the class echoes.  I model for the students.  The first few say their names and all is going well until  one girl answers, "Bzzzz."  I said, "What's your name?  "Bzzzz," she says again.  I asked, "What does your mother call you/?"  No answer.  "What does your teacher call you?"  No answer.  I move on.  Two students later I get another "Bzzzz."  I skip over her.  A few more get the idea that Bzzz is a lovely name and they try it on for size.  I skip over them.  One bzzzzzer cries because she didn't get to tell me her name.  I said, "Then perhaps you should say your name and not tell me it's Bzzz. I decide to give her another chance.  The class sings Hickety Tickety Bumble Bee.  Will you say your name for me.  We wait  And wait.  No answer.  I say,  "I'm giving you another chance to tell me your name.  What is it?"   I never did get a response. A few more kids actually say their name until one of them tells me his first name, three middle names and last name, which of course, is hyphenated.  I ask him to just tell me his first name.  He repeats the whole deal again.  I ask him again for just his FIRST name.  I get the whole string of names again and decide to cut my losses and move on.  Two more correct answer until I get to one kid  who says, "Bee." I said, "Bee is your name?"  He shakes his head no.  I said what's your name.  Again he says, "Bee."  "I said, "What does your teacher call you? " He said, "Sir."  I was about to laugh, but I noticed that on my student roster, sure enough, there was a kid named Syr.  Thank goodness he was the last one in the circle because at this point the only name I wanted to call each one of them is not very nice.

The next game we played goes like this: Apples, peaches plears and plums.  Tell me the month your birthday comes.  First child says, "I don't know."  I ask, "When is your birthday?"  "He says, "March."   I said, Well, that's the month your birthday comes."  "Oh, " he says and then stares at me.  The next child says, "Wednesday."  I said, "Is Wednesday a month or a day of the week?"  Answer, "Wednesday." " Is your birthday this Wednesday?" I ask.  She says, "Wednesday."  I move on.  Another child says he doesn't know.  I ask when he celebrates his birthday. He cries.  I ask why he's crying.  He doesn't know.  Out of 28 students, 21 stared, 3 cried, and four answered an actual month,  even though they all told me the same month, so I can't swear that it's really the month they were born, or they just liked the way Febary sounds.

I decide to ask them their favorite color.  Surely they can give me a reasonable answer.. I ask them to think of ONE favorite color.  ONE, not two three, four, a zillion. . I ask them to touch their noses when they have ONE answer.  He are a couple of answers I got: Rainbow.  Light, light pink.  I don't know.  Green, Orange, Blue ... I stop the child.  I say, "One color, please."  She says, "Green, orange, blue."

 I should've let them all go to the bathroom because they weren't missing any fun games.