Me: Today we are going to listen to a piece of music that has no words but tells a story. Do you have any ideas how that's possible?
Students: Blank stares
Me: Do you have any ideas about how music can tell a story without using words?
Student 1: Beat
Me: I'm not sure what you mean. Can you elaborate.
Student 1: Shoulder shrug
I get "beat" as a first answer to anything I ask about music. I have no idea what they're trying to say because I'm not good with mind reading, especially when I think there is probably a bunch of Taki chips gumming up their neural transmitters.
Student 2: Play
Student 3 responds to that answer by telling the air that he once saw a play.
Me: Can you expand upon that answer? Are you trying to say that plays have no words? Are you trying to say that the music is a play?
Student 3: I don't know. Maybe. Yeah. Play.
Me: So, if I acted out a play without using words, how would that work? I stand there and emote wordlessly.
Class: Giggles
Me; Anyone else have any ideas?
Student 4: High and low
That's the second answer I get after I explain that beat is not the correct answer.
Me: I need to have some complete sentences. I do not know what you mean when you answer me with one word.
Student 4: Those are two words.
Me: Actually those are three words, but those are three words in search of a sentence. Can you lead them to one?
Class: more blank stares.
I tell the class the story of Peer Gynt and lead them through a movement activity to the music. I ask the question again after we have finished.
Me: So how did the music tell the story?
Student 5: There was running in it.
Me: How do you know?
Student 5: Because you ran
Me: Yes, that's true, but did something in the music indicate a chase or running?
Student 5: Yes. You told us the story.
Me: Listen carefully to my question. I repeat my question a little louder, the way people shout at a person when they find out he is deaf.
Student 5: Beat
Me: Constantly repeating the same questions has depleted my energy source. I am going to stare at the sun.
Class: There are no windows in the room.
Me: I know. See you later.
While looking at a rhythm exercise that we were going to perform with Feurfest Polka I was pointing out some of the directions and having the students read them on rhythm syllables. The meter is in 4 and there were two measures of rest with repeat signs and directions that said to repeat them four times.
Me: How many beats of rest do you see here?
Student 1: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7.....7
Me: Count again.
Student 1: 1, 2,3,4,5,6,7 ohhhh-8
Me: Very good. The directions indicate that those 8 beats will be repeated 4 times for a total of how many beats:
Student 2: Eight
Me: I point to the two measures and say that there are eight beats here, but they will be repeated four times. Eight can not possibly be the right answer.
Student 3. One
Me: How could one possibly be an answer when there we just counted out 8 beats.
Student 3: Eight
Me: No. I said no the first time and I won't change my mind.
Student 4 : Sixteen
Me: Warmer, but still no.
Student 5: Eight
Me: Nope and still nope.
Student 6: Seven
Me: PLEASE listen to my question and then do NOT raise your hand until I say ok. I put my thinking cap on ( I have a stupid little beanie with the words Do Not Disturb. I Am Thinking Now.)
I dramatically pull off the hat.
Student 8: Eight
Me: Oy
Student 9: Thirty-two.
Me: I faint
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Saturday, June 24, 2017
And So it Goes...
1. September. A fifth grade student accused me of telling the class that,"White lives matter. Black lives don't." He also claimed that I pointed my finger like a gun, said, "Bang bang," and pretended to shoot the class. Because fifth graders are known truth tellers, the principal asked me for my version. I told her I had wagged my index finger and thumb in a pointing gesture, and mouthed"please be quiet" to a student and then put my fingers on my hip. I didn't intend for the gesture to look like a gun; I was just being a little dramatic by pretending to put my pointing finger in a pretend holster. I understand how the story got started, but it evolved into pure crazy fairly quickly.
The next day I got called into the principal's office at my home school and listened on speaker phone to a person in the county tell us that I was being accused of something VERY serious and I would be put on immediate paid leave. As my principal perp walked me out the door, I broke into tears as soon as I got outside.
The following day I was called to the county office and interviewed by an investigator.( I had been through this process last year when a student accused me of slapping his hands away from his face. He had been a pain in the rear during class so when the students were lined up I took him out of the line and told him his behavior had been awful. When I asked him to explain himself he put his hands up, covering his mouth, and I had a difficult time understanding him. I asked him to put his hands by his side and he wouldn't, so I took his hands away from his mouth in order to understand him. Luckily the entire class witnessed the even, so the investigator concluded it was a non issue.) I waited over 3 hours in the lobby before the investigator showed up and followed her to a tiny room.where I shared my story of the events. I showed her how I pointed my fingers and she said, "Do you always point like that?" I said, "Well, only for the last 38 years of my teaching career." She seems sympathetic, but I leave feeling like I wanted to work as a Wal-mart greeter.
Two days later I'm again summoned to report to the crack investigative team of Doofus and Buttssky, the investigator plus the head of personnel. They produce a bunch of papers written without the use of very many verbs in a language resembling a blend of Welch and Basque. If there were verbs they were in the present pluperfect past subjunctive conditional tense, Apparently, the entire class corroborated the story, which was weird because at the time I was facing only that one student who was sitting way off to the side of the room,and my body was turned away from the rest of the class. That meant that these little truth tellers were presenting alternate facts. My punishment was one day unpaid leave and I returned the following Monday. In total I had three days of paid leave (yay) and one day unpaid (meh).
On Monday morning, I walked by that fifth grade class in the cafeteria and heard whispers of "that's the teacher who whip (sic) a gun at us." After I signed in, the principal told me the onsite music teacher would take that class. In return I got the best second grade class. That was ok by me.
2. October: During Halloween I was doing an activity with my fourth grade using Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King." I've done the same lesson as long as I've taught elementary school. It's the one lesson the kids always ask about. I wear an ogre mask, turn out the lights and say "Boo." The kids scream and ask me to do it again and again. Bu this time I apparently "traumatized" a kid. I told the art teacher and she showed me the monster masks they were making in fourth grade, so I was kind of surprised when I was immediately removed from that school and given a 4 day work week.
3. Ongoing. I broke up 5 fights at my Friday school. Causes ranged from someone looking at someone else, an argument about a toy, and someone saying something about someone else. Sounds like reasonable excuses to lose control and go postal. During one fight, I was trying to restrain a small, but very strong fourth grader and just when I thought I had him calm, he broke loose, jumped on his target and started to pummel his head into the floor. I had to pull his hair to get him to stop before he did serious damage.
4. December. The principal at my home school called in the specialists for a meeting to tell us that we would tutor at- risk students during our planning period. She went around the table asking what we thought. The long term art sub (for some reason, the school didn't hire an art teacher this year) who was pregnant and going to deliver at any minute said she thought it was a great idea. She had nothing to lose by sucking up because she would soon be on maternity leave. The onsite PE teacher wasn't there but the poor, flustered itinerant PE teacher mumbled something about losing our planning period. I kept my head down, staring at specks on the carpet hoping that she didn't notice me. I guess that only works when there are more than 3 people in the room. When she cornered me, I said that I lacked the skill set to teach reading and math (What I wanted to say was, "I'm so glad I went to college and got several advanced degrees so I could become a music educator. Why don't you come and help me work on improvisational skills in my classroom. Isn't that what your background is in? Oh, wait I forgot. You got a degree from some online diploma mill and taught 5 minutes so that you could run a school with the skill set the size of the Trump family. ..although in my head I added lots of curse words as well) She said, Oh, that's ok." There's a script and you just follow it." So, let me get this straight. You just need a script to teach reading and math? Sounds like something Betsy Devos would say. Luckily, my principal is not one to stay on top of things--she had Happy Halloween signs on her door until the last day of school. She implemented the program a month before high stakes testing because, as we all know, cramming is the best way to prepare for a test.
5. November. 48% of the people in this country elected a traffic cone as president. Now instead of just having to teach in stressful schools, the news is filled with a daily s**t storm of wtf as he and his genetically modified army warrior ants march us into the 19th century. I stayed in bed for three days. The fall of the Roman Empire is here.
6. March. My laptop committed suicide. I had filled out the required request for service forms at least 5 times but the county has cut the number of tech people as they arm more and more small children with mobile device that they use--no kidding--to take pics of their gherkin- sized genitalia. I explained that my laptop was freezing and blacking out and making strange, gurgling noises. The county's fix is to reimage and I said it had already been tried, but it got a lobotomy again and when it came back to me the door of the CD drive broke off and my USB ports stopped working. " Couldn't I get a new one, I asked?" "No, you have the newest model," the tech answered. But that wasn't true; new teachers got the newer models. My model was considered new if you voted for Franklin Roosevelt. Finally the tech at my Wednesday school found me a working laptop . It's still the older model, so I kept the suicidal one at home as a spare. I use it mainly as a paperweight.
7 April. Stopped teaching music the first week in April because high stakes testing either obliterated my classes or they were shortened to 20 minute, which meant the kids came in, sat down, and lined back up. After testing days, my Friday school hauled my portable away so the on site teacher and I had the pleasure of having 60+ students in one room. Another of my schools announced that music classes would be showing some kind of videos from Youtube students would dance along with (i'm still trying to digest that one) I think the PE classes were doing war games and art classes were finger painting with concrete and I thanked the administration for dictating our lessons., and I use that term loosely.
8. May. The admin team has been escorting the fifth graders at my Friday school to their specials now because their behavior has been so awful. I had two admin in my room because the onsite teacher and I had combined classes .The onsite teacher and I quickly figured out that we shouldn't be showing a movie, so I decided we'd play a few music games. During the first game , a student lost a round and was eliminated so he called me a f**ing b**ch. I went to the back of the room and told the two administrators what the student had said to me. They looked up from their cell phones and facebook and said, "write him up." That was after they gave a speech to the class that they would send anyone home who was disruptive or a discipline issue. I guess calling a teacher a charming epithet doesn't belong in either of those categories. The only pleasure I got out of the situation was getting to write both words on a discipline form without using asterisks
The following week I asked the onsite teacher if that student had been suspended. She said he hadn't been. I told her I was going to the AP to follow up. The beleaguered AP said that all admin had been in the fifth grade hall daily from morning until dismissal because the students were on lock down after 18 out of 119 students had passed the high stakes test I was surprised I thought there would only have been 7. But my estimate was somewhat correct because all 18 had passed with the minimum passing scores. Now the remaining students were busy cramming for summer school so that they could pass the retest. The principal's salary and probably her job depended on test scores. At the end of the day, I finally found the AP and to my astonishment her office had the three worst students in that fifth grade group: My Potty Mouth, Mr Crazy, whose behavior is indistinguishable from a crack addict and Mr. Criminally Insane who stole stuff all the time-- important stuff like the little rubber piece on the bottom of the bongito stand or bars from the xylophone. Some day he will become a magpie. The AP apologized for not suspending Mr. Potty Mouth because she was on sentry duty in the fifth grade hall.
I found out that the principal's salary is also based on reducing suspension rates. That means that a few students in every class would hold their classmates hostage while they acted out scenes from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I suggested that they hire an in-school suspension person who would sit with the disruptive ducks and supervise them while they worked in silence. The test scores would probably improve if teachers were allowed to focus on those students who can sit still and learn. But no, there "aren't enough resources. I think there are too many administrators.
9, Late May. Got an email from my second worst school whose subject line was "students will remain inside." The body of the email said, "Gun shots were heard in the neighborhood." That's the third time this year. You can't improve schools until you improve living conditions. Period. End of discussion. You may go now.
The next day I got called into the principal's office at my home school and listened on speaker phone to a person in the county tell us that I was being accused of something VERY serious and I would be put on immediate paid leave. As my principal perp walked me out the door, I broke into tears as soon as I got outside.
The following day I was called to the county office and interviewed by an investigator.( I had been through this process last year when a student accused me of slapping his hands away from his face. He had been a pain in the rear during class so when the students were lined up I took him out of the line and told him his behavior had been awful. When I asked him to explain himself he put his hands up, covering his mouth, and I had a difficult time understanding him. I asked him to put his hands by his side and he wouldn't, so I took his hands away from his mouth in order to understand him. Luckily the entire class witnessed the even, so the investigator concluded it was a non issue.) I waited over 3 hours in the lobby before the investigator showed up and followed her to a tiny room.where I shared my story of the events. I showed her how I pointed my fingers and she said, "Do you always point like that?" I said, "Well, only for the last 38 years of my teaching career." She seems sympathetic, but I leave feeling like I wanted to work as a Wal-mart greeter.
Two days later I'm again summoned to report to the crack investigative team of Doofus and Buttssky, the investigator plus the head of personnel. They produce a bunch of papers written without the use of very many verbs in a language resembling a blend of Welch and Basque. If there were verbs they were in the present pluperfect past subjunctive conditional tense, Apparently, the entire class corroborated the story, which was weird because at the time I was facing only that one student who was sitting way off to the side of the room,and my body was turned away from the rest of the class. That meant that these little truth tellers were presenting alternate facts. My punishment was one day unpaid leave and I returned the following Monday. In total I had three days of paid leave (yay) and one day unpaid (meh).
On Monday morning, I walked by that fifth grade class in the cafeteria and heard whispers of "that's the teacher who whip (sic) a gun at us." After I signed in, the principal told me the onsite music teacher would take that class. In return I got the best second grade class. That was ok by me.
2. October: During Halloween I was doing an activity with my fourth grade using Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King." I've done the same lesson as long as I've taught elementary school. It's the one lesson the kids always ask about. I wear an ogre mask, turn out the lights and say "Boo." The kids scream and ask me to do it again and again. Bu this time I apparently "traumatized" a kid. I told the art teacher and she showed me the monster masks they were making in fourth grade, so I was kind of surprised when I was immediately removed from that school and given a 4 day work week.
3. Ongoing. I broke up 5 fights at my Friday school. Causes ranged from someone looking at someone else, an argument about a toy, and someone saying something about someone else. Sounds like reasonable excuses to lose control and go postal. During one fight, I was trying to restrain a small, but very strong fourth grader and just when I thought I had him calm, he broke loose, jumped on his target and started to pummel his head into the floor. I had to pull his hair to get him to stop before he did serious damage.
4. December. The principal at my home school called in the specialists for a meeting to tell us that we would tutor at- risk students during our planning period. She went around the table asking what we thought. The long term art sub (for some reason, the school didn't hire an art teacher this year) who was pregnant and going to deliver at any minute said she thought it was a great idea. She had nothing to lose by sucking up because she would soon be on maternity leave. The onsite PE teacher wasn't there but the poor, flustered itinerant PE teacher mumbled something about losing our planning period. I kept my head down, staring at specks on the carpet hoping that she didn't notice me. I guess that only works when there are more than 3 people in the room. When she cornered me, I said that I lacked the skill set to teach reading and math (What I wanted to say was, "I'm so glad I went to college and got several advanced degrees so I could become a music educator. Why don't you come and help me work on improvisational skills in my classroom. Isn't that what your background is in? Oh, wait I forgot. You got a degree from some online diploma mill and taught 5 minutes so that you could run a school with the skill set the size of the Trump family. ..although in my head I added lots of curse words as well) She said, Oh, that's ok." There's a script and you just follow it." So, let me get this straight. You just need a script to teach reading and math? Sounds like something Betsy Devos would say. Luckily, my principal is not one to stay on top of things--she had Happy Halloween signs on her door until the last day of school. She implemented the program a month before high stakes testing because, as we all know, cramming is the best way to prepare for a test.
5. November. 48% of the people in this country elected a traffic cone as president. Now instead of just having to teach in stressful schools, the news is filled with a daily s**t storm of wtf as he and his genetically modified army warrior ants march us into the 19th century. I stayed in bed for three days. The fall of the Roman Empire is here.
6. March. My laptop committed suicide. I had filled out the required request for service forms at least 5 times but the county has cut the number of tech people as they arm more and more small children with mobile device that they use--no kidding--to take pics of their gherkin- sized genitalia. I explained that my laptop was freezing and blacking out and making strange, gurgling noises. The county's fix is to reimage and I said it had already been tried, but it got a lobotomy again and when it came back to me the door of the CD drive broke off and my USB ports stopped working. " Couldn't I get a new one, I asked?" "No, you have the newest model," the tech answered. But that wasn't true; new teachers got the newer models. My model was considered new if you voted for Franklin Roosevelt. Finally the tech at my Wednesday school found me a working laptop . It's still the older model, so I kept the suicidal one at home as a spare. I use it mainly as a paperweight.
7 April. Stopped teaching music the first week in April because high stakes testing either obliterated my classes or they were shortened to 20 minute, which meant the kids came in, sat down, and lined back up. After testing days, my Friday school hauled my portable away so the on site teacher and I had the pleasure of having 60+ students in one room. Another of my schools announced that music classes would be showing some kind of videos from Youtube students would dance along with (i'm still trying to digest that one) I think the PE classes were doing war games and art classes were finger painting with concrete and I thanked the administration for dictating our lessons., and I use that term loosely.
8. May. The admin team has been escorting the fifth graders at my Friday school to their specials now because their behavior has been so awful. I had two admin in my room because the onsite teacher and I had combined classes .The onsite teacher and I quickly figured out that we shouldn't be showing a movie, so I decided we'd play a few music games. During the first game , a student lost a round and was eliminated so he called me a f**ing b**ch. I went to the back of the room and told the two administrators what the student had said to me. They looked up from their cell phones and facebook and said, "write him up." That was after they gave a speech to the class that they would send anyone home who was disruptive or a discipline issue. I guess calling a teacher a charming epithet doesn't belong in either of those categories. The only pleasure I got out of the situation was getting to write both words on a discipline form without using asterisks
The following week I asked the onsite teacher if that student had been suspended. She said he hadn't been. I told her I was going to the AP to follow up. The beleaguered AP said that all admin had been in the fifth grade hall daily from morning until dismissal because the students were on lock down after 18 out of 119 students had passed the high stakes test I was surprised I thought there would only have been 7. But my estimate was somewhat correct because all 18 had passed with the minimum passing scores. Now the remaining students were busy cramming for summer school so that they could pass the retest. The principal's salary and probably her job depended on test scores. At the end of the day, I finally found the AP and to my astonishment her office had the three worst students in that fifth grade group: My Potty Mouth, Mr Crazy, whose behavior is indistinguishable from a crack addict and Mr. Criminally Insane who stole stuff all the time-- important stuff like the little rubber piece on the bottom of the bongito stand or bars from the xylophone. Some day he will become a magpie. The AP apologized for not suspending Mr. Potty Mouth because she was on sentry duty in the fifth grade hall.
I found out that the principal's salary is also based on reducing suspension rates. That means that a few students in every class would hold their classmates hostage while they acted out scenes from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I suggested that they hire an in-school suspension person who would sit with the disruptive ducks and supervise them while they worked in silence. The test scores would probably improve if teachers were allowed to focus on those students who can sit still and learn. But no, there "aren't enough resources. I think there are too many administrators.
9, Late May. Got an email from my second worst school whose subject line was "students will remain inside." The body of the email said, "Gun shots were heard in the neighborhood." That's the third time this year. You can't improve schools until you improve living conditions. Period. End of discussion. You may go now.
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Why, You Ask, and Why I know it's Time for Break
I'm writing this while watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Why, you ask? Because after receiving an email from my 12 year old principal demanding that all teachers teach up until the last minute before break,she decided that today would be a Rodeo day. What's that you ask? My school's mascot is a mustang. Why, you ask,, do elementary schools need a mascot? I guess it's for the football team that we don't have. (Football dominates the south and I firmly believe that the brain injuries sustained in this wholesome activity is the reason the south supported Trump.)The Rodeo is a reward for those little mustangs who have not bucked or bitten anyone too seriously. Except that there were a few mustangs who ordinarily wouldn't have attended because they actually did bite someone (or kicked, or hit or whatever) but because this is just a babysitting venture, they got to attend the good behavior reward and brought their lovely manners with them. Within 5 minutes, those little mustangs who had been bad all semester long were doing what they always do, so they were hauled off to a tent. Why, you ask, is there a tent in the gym? I don't know. But the PE teacher gets to sit inside it and scan the audience looking for misbehaving and talkative mustangs and then makes them sit in the tent with him. To me the tent looks like more fun than watching a movie, but at this point I'm tired of asking why.
Anyway,, the specialists, who will be standing on sentry duty during while the classroom (real) teachers go to An Important Meeting that will last exactly five extra minutes too long because that's the passing time allotted to specials so that we can get ready for the next class, which is next to impossible because the meetings don't end on time and one class ends as the other class' teacher is waiting impatiently for you to take over so she can go to An Important Meeting that will last five minutes too long.
A few weeks ago the 12 year old principal told the specialists that we would have 90 minute classes for 3 grade levels and the following week the same schedule for the 3 grade levels we missed) Why, you ask? So that the classroom (real) teachers could get 90 minutes to plan. And of course, they were still 5 minutes late to pick up their students. Specials classes are 45 minutes long, which for elementary grades is 15 minutes too long,Specials should be two 30 minute blocks a week, according to things like research and facts (which have been replaced by opinions masquerading as facts) but we're not here for children. We're here for meetings. And I don't know about you, but I am not a fan of extending my classes 30 extra seconds, let alone another 45 minutes. 90 minutes with kindergarteners who have a 3 minute attention span .
One teacher suggested switching classes after the 45 minute mark. Even though I am only at that school one day a week and I would be teaching a class I didn't have, that seemed a better deal. The baby Jesusette principal caught wind of it and was unhappy. Why? I don't know. In her email she stressed that the specialists would be teaching engaging lessons for that block and the fact that we weren't going to show any movies should have been enough. Luckily, the AP, who isn't 12 years old, thought it was perfectly acceptable.
So this quarter I've missed 2 out of the 9 classes That's like missing two weeks of curriculum. I'm old school. I care about teaching. I actually do plan on teaching until the last day of the year.in April, even after the high stakes testing is over and teachers are generally involved in such educational activities as unpacking their room, stripping the walls of data and showing movies , Stupid me. I'm doing a wrap up of the year's songs. I'm finding it harder and harder to care when I'm just a glorified babysitter. I was planning on teaching until the sides of my walker rusted or I thwacked a kid in the head with my three pronged cane, but I'm now hoping to last two more years. I can't watch education go the way the rest of the country is going to go. It was my salvation for so many years. No matter what was going on the world, I could immerse myself in my profession. I loved every minute of my day. No more. All these 12 year old principals and other nitwits in charge of anything more important than emptying a dustpan are systematically destroying a once rewarding profession No wonder younger teachers are bailing. Heavy sigh.
Other Fun Stuff: When I was growing up, I used to watch a TV show hosted by Art Linklater called Kids Say the Darndest Thing. Mr. Linkater would interview wholesome, fresh-faced kids who would unwittingly say something with a double entendere or unintentional meaning. Change the word darndest to insane or really weird and we're now updated.
Student: I have a scratch on my gum and it hurts.
Me: What would yo like me to do about it?
Student: Shrugs and walks away
Student: I cut my finger and I have to go to the nurse.
Student: Really?
Me: Now it's my turn to stare
Student: Ohhhhh. You're kidding. ....right?
Student: upon entering my room: I have to use it.
Me: Use what? ( I know full well what the kid means. I just hate that expression. ) Do
you need to use a tissue? Pen? Paper? What do you need to use?
Student: The bathroom.
Me. Why didn't you ask your teacher on the way here.
Student: She said to ask you.
Me: You can ask her when she comes to pick up your class.
Student. My stomach hurts
Me: Do you need to use the restroom?
Student: No.
Me: Do you feel sick?
Student: No.
Me: Do you feel like you might throw up?
Student: No.
Me: What do you want to do?
Student: I don't know,
Me: Well that makes two of us.
Student turns around and deposits his recently consumed lunch on my carpet.
I'm guessing she did feel like throwing up.
Student: My head hurts.
Me: Ok. Take it off
Student: Ms. J, then I couldn't see
Me: Or talk.
Me: Ok students. Let's get to our spots for story time. Today's story is about ...
Student: Ms. J my sister's birthday is tomorrow.
Me: A child who gets bitten by a dinosaur for not raising his hand in class.
Student: Are dinosaurs real?
Me: Yes. And they bite.
Me: Fifth grade, let's make a sitting circle so I can teach you the dreydl game.
Student: Ms. J you said we were going to play the dreydl game today.
Another student: Ms. J, can we play that game with that clay thing you turn?
Me: I changed my mind. Today we're going to silent as a rock and still as a road
kill..
Me: Ok second grade. Let's find our way to story time. My story today is The Old
Woman Who Swallowed a Pie (sung to the tune of the Old Woman Who
Swallowed a Fly.
Student: Ms. J. My mother said I can't hear that story.
Me: What? This story? Your mother has read this story and has forbidden you to
hear it?
Student: I can't hear it. I can't be in the same room.
Me; (Wishing he would be in another room)...Fine. Go put your head down
on the desk in the back of the room and cover your ears.
When the teacher comes to pick up the class I ask her about this.
His teacher: He's a pathological liar. Don't listen to him.
Crazy B: (from the pathological liar child) appropos of nothing: I can't talk to white people.
Me: Why?
Students: My mother says I can't.
Me: Why?
Student: Because
Me. Why?
Student: Because they can take me away.
Me: (to myself) If only
Me: I'm white. You've been talking to me for five months now.
Student: I know.
Me: You know, it's offensive to say things like that.
Another student: That's racist
First student: What's that mean?
Entire class: It's when you don't like people because of how they look.
Crazy boy: : I'm not racist. I just can't talk to white people.
Me: Go to the back desk so that I can't talk to you. (hopefully never again)
Anyway,, the specialists, who will be standing on sentry duty during while the classroom (real) teachers go to An Important Meeting that will last exactly five extra minutes too long because that's the passing time allotted to specials so that we can get ready for the next class, which is next to impossible because the meetings don't end on time and one class ends as the other class' teacher is waiting impatiently for you to take over so she can go to An Important Meeting that will last five minutes too long.
A few weeks ago the 12 year old principal told the specialists that we would have 90 minute classes for 3 grade levels and the following week the same schedule for the 3 grade levels we missed) Why, you ask? So that the classroom (real) teachers could get 90 minutes to plan. And of course, they were still 5 minutes late to pick up their students. Specials classes are 45 minutes long, which for elementary grades is 15 minutes too long,Specials should be two 30 minute blocks a week, according to things like research and facts (which have been replaced by opinions masquerading as facts) but we're not here for children. We're here for meetings. And I don't know about you, but I am not a fan of extending my classes 30 extra seconds, let alone another 45 minutes. 90 minutes with kindergarteners who have a 3 minute attention span .
One teacher suggested switching classes after the 45 minute mark. Even though I am only at that school one day a week and I would be teaching a class I didn't have, that seemed a better deal. The baby Jesusette principal caught wind of it and was unhappy. Why? I don't know. In her email she stressed that the specialists would be teaching engaging lessons for that block and the fact that we weren't going to show any movies should have been enough. Luckily, the AP, who isn't 12 years old, thought it was perfectly acceptable.
So this quarter I've missed 2 out of the 9 classes That's like missing two weeks of curriculum. I'm old school. I care about teaching. I actually do plan on teaching until the last day of the year.in April, even after the high stakes testing is over and teachers are generally involved in such educational activities as unpacking their room, stripping the walls of data and showing movies , Stupid me. I'm doing a wrap up of the year's songs. I'm finding it harder and harder to care when I'm just a glorified babysitter. I was planning on teaching until the sides of my walker rusted or I thwacked a kid in the head with my three pronged cane, but I'm now hoping to last two more years. I can't watch education go the way the rest of the country is going to go. It was my salvation for so many years. No matter what was going on the world, I could immerse myself in my profession. I loved every minute of my day. No more. All these 12 year old principals and other nitwits in charge of anything more important than emptying a dustpan are systematically destroying a once rewarding profession No wonder younger teachers are bailing. Heavy sigh.
Other Fun Stuff: When I was growing up, I used to watch a TV show hosted by Art Linklater called Kids Say the Darndest Thing. Mr. Linkater would interview wholesome, fresh-faced kids who would unwittingly say something with a double entendere or unintentional meaning. Change the word darndest to insane or really weird and we're now updated.
Student: I have a scratch on my gum and it hurts.
Me: What would yo like me to do about it?
Student: Shrugs and walks away
Student: I cut my finger and I have to go to the nurse.
Me: I look at the finger and decide I need an electron microscope. I rummage through
my desk and bring out my(imaginary) electron microscope and peer through its
powerful lens. I notice that yes, indeed, there is one red corpuscle that has gone
rogue and left its cohorts who were safely nestled under the skin. I put the
microscope away and say: I suggest we amputate so we can save the limb.
Student: Blank stare
Me: Well, should I call the OR and schedule the surgery or just saw off the finger
off so we can save the limb. I have a rusty pair of scissors right here.
off so we can save the limb. I have a rusty pair of scissors right here.
Me: Now it's my turn to stare
Student: Ohhhhh. You're kidding. ....right?
Student: upon entering my room: I have to use it.
Me: Use what? ( I know full well what the kid means. I just hate that expression. ) Do
you need to use a tissue? Pen? Paper? What do you need to use?
Student: The bathroom.
Me. Why didn't you ask your teacher on the way here.
Student: She said to ask you.
Me: You can ask her when she comes to pick up your class.
Student. My stomach hurts
Me: Do you need to use the restroom?
Student: No.
Me: Do you feel sick?
Student: No.
Me: Do you feel like you might throw up?
Student: No.
Me: What do you want to do?
Student: I don't know,
Me: Well that makes two of us.
Student turns around and deposits his recently consumed lunch on my carpet.
I'm guessing she did feel like throwing up.
Student: My head hurts.
Me: Ok. Take it off
Student: Ms. J, then I couldn't see
Me: Or talk.
Me: Ok students. Let's get to our spots for story time. Today's story is about ...
Student: Ms. J my sister's birthday is tomorrow.
Me: A child who gets bitten by a dinosaur for not raising his hand in class.
Student: Are dinosaurs real?
Me: Yes. And they bite.
Me: Fifth grade, let's make a sitting circle so I can teach you the dreydl game.
Student: Ms. J you said we were going to play the dreydl game today.
Another student: Ms. J, can we play that game with that clay thing you turn?
Me: I changed my mind. Today we're going to silent as a rock and still as a road
kill..
Me: Ok second grade. Let's find our way to story time. My story today is The Old
Woman Who Swallowed a Pie (sung to the tune of the Old Woman Who
Swallowed a Fly.
Student: Ms. J. My mother said I can't hear that story.
Me: What? This story? Your mother has read this story and has forbidden you to
hear it?
Student: I can't hear it. I can't be in the same room.
Me; (Wishing he would be in another room)...Fine. Go put your head down
on the desk in the back of the room and cover your ears.
When the teacher comes to pick up the class I ask her about this.
His teacher: He's a pathological liar. Don't listen to him.
Crazy B: (from the pathological liar child) appropos of nothing: I can't talk to white people.
Me: Why?
Students: My mother says I can't.
Me: Why?
Student: Because
Me. Why?
Student: Because they can take me away.
Me: (to myself) If only
Me: I'm white. You've been talking to me for five months now.
Student: I know.
Me: You know, it's offensive to say things like that.
Another student: That's racist
First student: What's that mean?
Entire class: It's when you don't like people because of how they look.
Crazy boy: : I'm not racist. I just can't talk to white people.
Me: Go to the back desk so that I can't talk to you. (hopefully never again)
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
My birthday is This Month and Other Non-Sequitors
Random thoughts. It's testing week at one of my schools. I have to teach my music classes and not make any noise. Seems like a reasonable request. 38 six year olds in my tiny hamster cage sized room sitting in total silence for 45 minutes. There isn't nuch in my rom except a wonderful set of Orff instruments that the onsite teacher doesn't use because she does QUAVER all the time. ( I am going to resist the opportunity to fulminate about that idiotiic, hypercaphenated, annoying Brit who has developed a cartoon-based instructional music program) My xylophones look so sad; I think they know they can't be manhandled today. Or maybe they're just relived that no one will dig mallets in between the bars or lean their entire body strength on top of the bars and bend the pins.
Because the entire building had testing going on, I couldn't even roll into the classrooms and do the fun, but noisy, Halloween activities I always do (don't worry. I always check to make sure that I donb't have any religious objections. If I do, I call it a fun fall activity) I'm bored. I can only watch Peter and the Wolf so many times, eveb if I rotate all six versions. To combat my boredom and fill the FOUR second voids in between telling my students to BE QUIET I thought Id jot down some of the things that make my job so rewarding.
1. Every week one of my principals sends out at least 3 emails like these
Greetings:
Please keep Mr. Roberts and his family in your thoughts and prayers. His uncle was funeralized (sic) on yesterday (sic again)
Because the entire building had testing going on, I couldn't even roll into the classrooms and do the fun, but noisy, Halloween activities I always do (don't worry. I always check to make sure that I donb't have any religious objections. If I do, I call it a fun fall activity) I'm bored. I can only watch Peter and the Wolf so many times, eveb if I rotate all six versions. To combat my boredom and fill the FOUR second voids in between telling my students to BE QUIET I thought Id jot down some of the things that make my job so rewarding.
1. Every week one of my principals sends out at least 3 emails like these
Greetings:
Please keep Mr. Roberts and his family in your thoughts and prayers. His uncle was funeralized (sic) on yesterday (sic again)
Greetings,
Please keep Mrs. Russell and
her family in your thoughts and prayers. Mrs. Russell recently lost a cousin.
We ask you keep her lifted at this time.
This has inspired the poet in me (please sing it to the tune of 99 Bottles of Beer, and better still, drink all of them bottles.)
99 people have died on her watch
99 people in all
Turn around
One more in the ground
99 people have died on her watch
2. Got this gem of an announcement today
.....School Fine Arts Program presents…. THE WIZ’LAKE!!
Really? Wiz Lake? (The two exclamations points came with the message. ) Did the Swans pee into the lake?
Really? Wiz Lake? (The two exclamations points came with the message. ) Did the Swans pee into the lake?
3. Last week I was reading a book to kindergarten called Noises. Three pages into the story a hand goes up. I say, "Is this a question about something in the story you don't understand or do you just want to share?" Stupid me. I forgot you can't ask kindergarten children a compound question. Child says, "It's a question." I signed and asked her the question. "My birthday is next month."
4. Why my job is so fulfilling
Future refrigerator repairman who apparently doesn't like my class
Class must have been too strenuous
I think I'll just sit this one out
Inspecting the carpet for unknown reasons
Mork from Ork joins the class
5. Its time to start drinking heavily while operating heavy machinery,
Saturday, October 8, 2016
Whad I do? and I Dint Do Nothing
Since this is a blog about teaching music I have refrained from posting about anything political. I couldn't help myself today. Teachers are trying to help students make connections about what they're learning to real world applications. Here's my connection.
Whenever I discipline a student, I can usually count on one of four responses: 1. a shrug with arms held out and an open mouth 2. "I dint do nothing " 3. "Whad I do?" 4." But ______ (insert another student's name) did it, too." My answers: 1. Close your mouth please and use some words. My mind reading abilities, like my cell phone, don't work inside the building. 2. Use correct grammar please It's I didn't do anything. And yes, you DID do something. .3. If you don't know what you did, please go to time out until you can figure it out. 4. Yes, it's true, ____ (insert another student's name) was doing it, too. But if you and a buddy rob a bank and only you get caught, do you think you will not be convicted because your buddy didn't get caught? Go to timeout please and you can take ____ (insert another student's name) with you. I hope _____ (insert other student's name who is now visibly angry) is happy that you tattled on him.
These are the responses I get from students ranging from 5 to 9 years old. Here's the thing-- all of those responses are remarkably similar to the way Trump and his supporters responded to the newly leaked video of his (no shock here) hot mic comments about women. He and the people that support him are clearly not even as smart as my fifth graders. And many of my fifth graders read at or below a third grade level.
sigh.
Whenever I discipline a student, I can usually count on one of four responses: 1. a shrug with arms held out and an open mouth 2. "I dint do nothing " 3. "Whad I do?" 4." But ______ (insert another student's name) did it, too." My answers: 1. Close your mouth please and use some words. My mind reading abilities, like my cell phone, don't work inside the building. 2. Use correct grammar please It's I didn't do anything. And yes, you DID do something. .3. If you don't know what you did, please go to time out until you can figure it out. 4. Yes, it's true, ____ (insert another student's name) was doing it, too. But if you and a buddy rob a bank and only you get caught, do you think you will not be convicted because your buddy didn't get caught? Go to timeout please and you can take ____ (insert another student's name) with you. I hope _____ (insert other student's name who is now visibly angry) is happy that you tattled on him.
These are the responses I get from students ranging from 5 to 9 years old. Here's the thing-- all of those responses are remarkably similar to the way Trump and his supporters responded to the newly leaked video of his (no shock here) hot mic comments about women. He and the people that support him are clearly not even as smart as my fifth graders. And many of my fifth graders read at or below a third grade level.
sigh.
Saturday, September 17, 2016
My Oter Car Is Pnis
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.
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