Teach For America teacher blogs are on Teach For Us

Sound Bites from First Grade

actionjax — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 02:00:48 +0100

I have two students with the same name, so usually I call them by their last names. But today one came up with an interesting solution. "Ms., how about you call me Lightning McQueen instead?" While making paper plate clocks: "Hey Ms., these things really work! I control the time." Overheard at dismissal in the hallway: "Rock, paper, scissors, go!" "Rock, paper, scissors, go!" "Rock, paper, scissors, taser, go!" I look over and see two students pretending to tase each other. After a miserable Monday last week-- three different students threw up within two hours of each other-- we've moved from having actual fevers to spring fever. Spring break is nine days away, and leprechauns will be visiting our classroom during lunchtime on Friday. Last Friday, in a moment of inspiration/realization that my math lesson plan was fairly terrible, I scrapped it completely, gave all of my students sidewalk chalk, and we went to town drawing fractions. New rules that require teaching with the door locked/silent hallways and cafeteria are wearing on us and we all just needed to be outside. The lima bean plants have exploded, and they have become these vines growing up the window. (Is this how lima beans are supposed to grow? No idea.) The whole classroom kind of looks like an explosion actually, posters are starting to tilt, post-it notes are falling off charts, the floor is permanently sticky from 124 days of breakfast in the classroom. But learning has exploded too, as I watched one of my students who struggles reading every single word blend CVCe words like a champ today. And a final thought/classroom management (strategy, bribe?) from this disjointed post. Pixar short film collection on youtube. The film is called For The Birds. It is 3:24 long. My students will pretty much do whatever needs to get done the other 400 minutes of the day if they get to watch this movie at the end of the day. No candy, no threats, no tears, just "the bird movie". I don't always understand what motivates my students, but this is safe, legal, free, and (if you're like me and always looking for an excuse to squeeze in a character education/ bully prevention lesson) possibly educational. Win.

99 Problems

actionjax — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 02:59:23 +0100

On the 100th Day of School, we did some writing to make two class books. The first book was about how you would spend $100. That one was cute to read, as I have a few students who are generously planning to buy both me and their parents a new car with their imaginary money. But the other book was enlightening. The prompt was, "100 Days Ago I did not know how to_____, but now I do!" Quite a few students said read "hard words", which obviously made me smile. Others wrote about learning how to subtract, tell time, and writing in complete sentences. Two students said that they learned how to draw, which they simply didn't learn from me. Whenever I draw things on the board to illustrate a point, one or two students will encouragingly say something along the lines of, "That was a good try, Ms!" But one student wrote the following, "100 Days Ago I did not know how to solve problems, but now I do!" There are a lot of problems in first grade. Pencils break, you get the wrong color dry erase marker, a friend begs you to share your hot chips, teeth fall out, you get pushed in line, cuts invisible to the human eye start to bleed, the computers freeze during centers...I could go on. Last year, these trivial problems would add up throughout the day and end up making ME explode. As my blog title suggests, the original plan was not to teach first grade...my placement was high school English until two days before the school year started. I had no idea how to relate to six year olds and these seemingly unimportant issues. And so I just ignored the little dramas until they escalated to the point of, "I need an administrator to Room 149", only to feel like an idiot when I realized the whole mess started because one student was mad at another for "looking at him". So this year, we have been working on problem solving. When a student starts to freak out about their fake cut, I ask "How can you solve the problem?" And they remember that they can get up, get a Band-Aid, play with it for a minute before getting bored and then rejoin the group. Same goes for replacing broken pencils, asking C to fix the computer when it freezes, and well no, we haven't quite mastered the best response to cutting in line. But we've got four more months. Anyway, I seriously must ask, "How can you solve the problem" at least 15 times per day, and still walk students through an appropriate response. My students are starting to say it to each other. We role play a lot. And I can say it's the thing I'm most proud of. I'm not a "transformational" teacher. I'm not even a particularly good teacher. Nothing in my classroom--student work, my lesson plans and assessments, my data, will ever be held up as an exemplar of how to do anything. But I can say with confidence that the 19 students I have taught this year will walk out of Room 149 in June with an ability to recognize and solve problems. And that's a good thing. Because the problems only get harder after first grade...

A Tale of Two Days

actionjax — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 02:10:21 +0100

There is the day that takes place from 8:20am until 3:00pm. That day brings me a lot of joy. Today it looked like this: It was our 100th Day of School, so we began the morning by making a huge deal out of Calendar Math, presenting our 100th Day of School projects, and making crowns that read, "I am 100 Days Smarter". We built towers out of 100 cups and participated in a 100th Day Olympics. We read the story Pigs in Hiding, and when my students came back from resource they had to search the classroom for 100 pigs. We got so into our special centers in the afternoon that we completely lost track of time until D said, "Ms...that was the END of the day bell" and we hurried out the door. And then there is the day that lasts from 3:20pm until whenever I decide to call it quits for the evening, because the to do list never actually ends...it just ebbs and flows. That part of the day consisted of two no call/no show parent conferences. Six voicemails that are currently unreturned. A third version of the same email to a staff member. A discouraging encounter with an administrator. And essentially being told that unless I document it sixteen ways til Sunday, there is no evidence that I've taught anything today, this week, this year. And as I sit in my room staring at this pile of paperwork (not lesson plans or grading mind you, just paperwork) my frustration level is rising almost as high as this stack of papers. I like teaching. I love my students. I'm over TFA and school related drama. I'm tired of well-intentioned people telling me to "just focus on the kids", because the other stuff doesn't just sort itself out like they say it will. Maybe I'm just thrown off balance because I didn't want to be the only one in first grade to miss the Super Bowl, so I stayed up past my self-imposed Sunday night bedtime. Or maybe I'm just tired of feeling like I've put in two full days of work for every day, and it's still not enough.

What Will Be Your Space Jam?

actionjax — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 02:45:03 +0100

Sometimes on a Sunday evening, you need some motivation... A Pep Talk from Kid President And if that doesn't work, a funny story from last week: My school is, among many other things, a STEM magnet school. So once every four weeks or so, we go to Engineering Lab for a half hour a day to work on a project. So last week was our turn, and we were talking about robots. After the Engineering teacher showed my class some cool videos about robots used by doctors and scientists, their task was to draw a robot that could help people. Most of my students got it, and they drew robots helping them with their homework, robots that could pull people out of car crashes, and (my favorite) a robot that would help me do laundry. But there's always one student, and as I glanced over at S's picture it looked like his robot was doing battle--with a giant squirrel. "S, can you tell me about this picture?" Yeah, my robot is fighting a giant squirrel. "Wow, that's exactly what it looks like. Can you tell me why your robot is fighting the giant squirrel?" S...without looking up or missing a beat: Because the giant squirrel started messing with my robot first!

Marvelous Things Will Happen

actionjax — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 03:00:36 +0100

It was the summer of the read aloud. I can't remember exactly how old I was, somewhere between first and third grade. And I have no idea how it started, or why he chose this book. But my family has a boat, and when I was a kid we'd go out on the boat nearly every weekend in the summer. We would throw down an anchor, then jump in the bay--swimming and sunbathing to our hearts' content. But during the summer of the read aloud, before we did anything else on the boat, my Dad would read a chapter from the book James and the Giant Peach. My Dad's usually a pretty quiet, serious guy and so my family would be in fits of laughter as he would sing/scream the centipede's song and do different voices for all of the characters. I loved that book, still do, and I remember being so excited when I was able to read the words by myself, eventually devouring all of Roald Dahl's books. Flash forward to today. I caught the flu in the middle of last week, and have spent this week not-so-gracefully recovering. We were off on Monday, I was out Tuesday, and between the short week, a full moon, and my needing twice as much sleep as normal to function-- we were all pretty off our game today in Room 149. I hate ending any day on a sour note, but especially a Friday, so while the kids were at lunch I went to the school librarian and got a copy of James and the Giant Peach. I half hid it in my read aloud bin, so that the more "inquisitive" kids would find it and a create a buzz. Because the only things bigger in first grade than Justin Beiber and Blay Blays are chapter books. We ended math a few minutes early, which means agendas were signed and kiddos were packed a few minutes early, which meant that instead of the usual dismissal scramble I was able to say the magic words, "Everybody come to the reading carpet--and you can lay down." We started reading it, and about two minutes in, when I saw 18 pairs of eyes staring at the book, could hear a pin drop, and nobody moved when the bell rang, I knew I hit gold. Originally I thought the book might be too "hard" for my six year olds. But in the first chapter, James' parents die and he is sent off to live with his aunts, with nothing in his suitcase but a toothbrush and a pair of pajamas. Now granted, none of my students parents were killed by an angry rhinoceros. But two of my kids live in shelters, three are without mothers, twelve are without fathers. I thought of C, who moved in with his aunt last week when Mom went to jail. It was text to self connections galore. They get this book. So we will pack up a few minutes early over the next few weeks, and read a page or two each afternoon. Just like that summer on the boat, I won't be in any particular rush to finish it, no assignments associated with it; I just plan on enjoying this book with my students. And as we left the classroom today, everyone much calmer and less cranky than when we entered, I couldn't help but think "marvelous things will happen", just as the story says.

Hugging the Principal

actionjax — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 03:06:19 +0100

So I'm scared of my principal. Ok, maybe scared isn't the right word. But I am intimidated by her. She has a presence-- standing with perfect posture much taller than myself, with coordinating jewelry, nails and heels, make-up applied, every hair in place. I have never heard her yell, but she could do more with a look than most could do with a microphone. She would make a fantastic poker player; I have no idea what she is possibly thinking when she observes my class until I get a follow up email. At the end of the day, and hey let's face it, sometimes in the morning, I look like somebody who sits on a carpet with six year olds. There are markers falling out of my pocket, my teacher ID lanyard has Dr. Seuss characters on it, there is writing on my hand, somebody has spilled some breakfast or lunch item on me, and my hairstyle is right out of Stephanie's Ponytail. And one look at me and you know exactly what I am thinking. So yesterday morning, as I am picking up my class and the breakfast cooler and walking down the hallway, I see our principal standing at the corner where we turn to go into our classroom. I do my best Jedi mindtrick, willing my students to stay quiet. And they did. Except a curious thing happened. The principal was standing slightly in our usual path, and so I said 'Good Morning' and walked around her. As my first student walked past my principal, she stopped, gave my principal a giant hug, and just kept walking. The next student followed suit. And the next. And the next. Until all 18 students, including the one who just showed up the day before and had no idea who he was hugging, had hugged my principal. Of course, my principal is six feet tall, and so these hugs were basically my students grabbing her leg. My principal just looked at me, a bit confused, knowing I'm not a particularly warm and fuzzy teacher and that I certainly didn't tell the students, "Go give Ms. a hug." I just said, "I don't even know" and continued walking my class down the hallway. But another curious thing happened. After about the fifth student hugged her, she started to smile. And after the eighth student, she started to hug them back.

Scary October?

Cassidy — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 01:23:49 +0100

I kept hearing how horrible October is (No 2 day weekends) (honeymoon period is over) (kids are tired of routines), but in reality- it's no harder than any other day. I finally feel like my tolerance level is through the sky. The kids don't bother me as much as they used to- not because their behavior has changed, but because my tolerance level has changed. I can put up with a lot of disruptive students and a lot more talking and not paying attention than I could before. The management is still non-existent. No matter how many veteran teachers, mentors, or administrators I ask for help, nothing works. The kids just don't listen to me. At all. I hate to chalk it up to the fact that I am white, but everyone keeps telling me that contributes to it. My mentor said something the other day that made me feel better- You've been given a lot of quick fixes, but I will look somethings up and then come back to you with something else. (That and the new teacher with 18 years of experience and a former principal is have the Exact Sam Problem!) I finally feel like I have a grasp on how to lesson plan effectively (a little). And I think that I will be getting even better as I work to plan backwards from a standard more effectively. I had not considered seeing how the test specifications were written to see how they would be asked to give the answer to "compare." This take a lot more time to do, but I hope it will be more and more effective as I go on and keep learning more about the best way to have everything given to one daily objective. (Rather than assuming the textbook authors know what they are talking about!) And I have finally learned the secret no one wants to tell you: you will not be told anything you need to know about your school, your district or the children you will be teaching. Your administration is not there to support you, but rather to fact check you and to make sure all of your "i"s are dotted and all of your "t"s crossed. Regardless of what you keep asking for help with. You will be held responsible for everything, regardless of it is your responsibility. You cannot really trust the other teachers, because everything is a battleground where you need to be one better than the next person. The most important lesson I have learned this 9 weeks: Duval Co Public Schools has almost no expectations of success for their children. Children have to pass, or you will get yelled at as a teacher if they are failing- because-hey- it is your fault as a teacher that your students refuse to turn in their homework or classwork. And thus their test grades are bad, because they do nothing to attempt to help their learning. But hey- why would you? You know as a student in DCPS that your teachers are prohibited from failing you. What incentive do you have to do any work? Another important lesson that someone shared with me, and this one comes with a story. In an interview with Ryan Seacrest, Michelle Obama was asked about how President Obama is at home. She says that when he comes home, he comes Home. He leaves the work at the office. She was surprised to learn sometimes, of what he does at work that day. Then someone commented that we will burn ourselves out because we are doing too much. TFA has a lot of people who leave because they get burned out. If President Obama can come Home, why can't we? We are simply teachers! And with that, on a Friday night at 9:30 pm- I sign off....to go to bed because I am exhausted!

Updates?

Cassidy — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 21:03:52 +0100

I guess since we are in the 2nd week of school, I should give you some updates on what is going on in Jax. I thought I would be able to keep this up- but hey- I have no life, so in what part should I have time to blog. My husband is out of town this weekend and I spent the entire time on our couch grading papers. Papers where the highest grade was an 59% on our first test. Now I know that I didn't teach some of them, because they refused to listen and I can't control the classroom, but where in one class, in whcih I did teach the highest grade needed a 60 point curve to reach a 90!!!! I am failing, these kids are not learning, and my classroom management is not working. While I knew that insitute did not prepare me to be confronted with in in my ownclassroom every day. That's a bit more difficult. People keep telling me that this is a good sign and I will be the one who will end up making a difference, but I don't see it yet. I kept telling myslef that when I get my own classroom, things will be different, I CAN MAKE DECISIONS. but this is false. My AP is telling everything to do and giving me no options- she is micromanaging things and then refusing to provide support. The district provides no support and my school only does it after they relize something is wrong- not when I ask for help. There is so much CYA that it is not even funny. The other teacher and I are trying to teach, but we keep running into things that make no sense to us. Why do we need to tell every single student their FCAT scores three times (in reading, english and social studies classes)? Why do we have to ppull all of this data when I barely have time to look at the data I collect in my classroom? Why am I told to do one thing, then when I try to go do it, I am told I am not allowed? I could share stories of the kids, but most days I don't even like them. Maybe a few of them, but there are no cute stories or funny enlightening things to tell you no- my kids are just utterly disrespectful and care naught for their future. But I can not blame them- this is what they have been taught for 12 years. Why do I expect them to make a change in 2 months just cuz some white girl

These are my Reflections, part1

Cassidy — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 20:20:28 +0100

During the last week of the Chicago Institute they has structured time to reflect on everything that happened this summer. I am currently in the first part of the first session- and am being told to reflect and have personal quiet time to do so, not just ignoring the speaker!- and reading some of the key reflection questions that they suggest that we look at. One of the questions that they suggest that we look at is “How has your understanding of what [creating transformational change] will take changed since you began your pre-institute work?” For me, the only thing that changed was a deeper understanding. I knew this would take a lot of work, more work that I have ever done in my life, and I was proven wrong. I could not imagine the amount of effort (mostly all mental) required to find ways to reach these children. I’m not sure if it was just because they were summer school kids and some of them knew that they basically only needed to show up and not try to pass. Or if possibly it was my inability to grasp the math concepts I was teaching. I know I personally struggled SO hard to even grasp what it was I was teaching before I could even begin to try to teach it and work through my thought processes in front of them. I didn’t realize that I don’t know how to reach kids that don’t care, and they don’t want to care. I was always intrinsically motivated to succeed in school. I still always want to learn more every single day. I am highly disappointed when I finish a day here and don’t feel like I’ve learned anything. But most of these kids didn’t care. They never brought a pencil to school (even though every single one of them stole one from us). They never came prepared, because they weren’t expected to. Most never wanted to learn. There were 4 to 5 (out of 11) that wanted to learn every day. But they were also the ones that struggled the most. There was one girl in particular with such an attitude that she bucked every direction ever given, even if it was explained to her. She will have so many problems later in life, and I worry about her future. Not only does she not care, she also has a f**k everyone attitude. I know I haven’t lived up to what my students need from me in a teacher, but I wonder if I will ever be able to live up to that challenge. I wonder if anyone will ever be able to live up to that challenge. It is a daily struggle to know that you are not competent nor will you ever be able to live up to reach every child in your class and change the path they are on. I know that I need to seek out mentors and teachers in my region that excel in teaching social studies. I know that I will have to struggle every day to find new resources and ways to reach the kids I will be teaching. I will have to reevaluate what I expected to do and how I expected to teach, because if my kids in the fall are anything like my kids this summer- they won’t be able to meet these expectations. (As well as I have to look at changing things because how I have always been taught, isn’t apparently the “new” “right” way to teach. Bust most of all I have to believe. Believe that I will reach at least some of the kids and that I will be able to change at least one child’s path towards a much brighter future.

Hard Feelings

Cassidy — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 04:18:53 +0100

EDIT: The purpose of this post was not to bash TFA or teachers who aren't from TFA. The purpose was to express my frustration at the message they are sending to us this institute. The comments have been side tracked by union debates, if TFA is worthwhile, and bad mouthing TFA. The vision that TFA has is wonderful. I am just questioning the methods. To say I expected better from teachers and people who are in education to act in a professional and respectful manner would be a bare minimum. I ask that you consider this when making your comments. 7/12/2012 I haven’t written anything since I got to institute because I had nothing positive to say. And I didn’t want to add to the negative message out there. But today, I feel the need to speak out. I wasn’t buying the message today. TFA is telling me that how I plan for math will be how I plan for social studies. But I can’t see it. I’ve asked for help, but haven’t received any. My supposed support structure doesn’t seem willing to set up a concrete time to meet with me to explain how the math lesson planning is the same as the social studies lesson planning (which I will be teaching in the fall). I got a good look at my summer school data so far and where my kids are. They are failing. I am failing. I have failed them. There are 4 (FOUR) days left in Chicago summer school at my placement school. According to my mentor, I have actually widened the achievement gap this summer rather than keeping it the same or changing it for the better. I can’t fail these kids. They deserve better. But I’m not sure how to make myself a better teacher in a content area that I basically know nothing about and that I quite honestly stink at (Math). Every day I spend hours on the computer or looking in the resource books to try to teach myself the lesson that I am planning. I lose precious planning time trying to understand exactly what it means when the TFA/CPS provided objective say “SWBAT estimate the square root of a non-perfect square.” Today I was told that I am learning how to look up content and how to actually plan. I will give them the actually planning step- three weeks ago the lesson plan I wrote was complete garbage! Utter trash. Now they are just three day old leftovers in the fridge. But the content- all I am doing is researching- which I already knew how to do. *** This fear and feeling of being unprepared every time I walk into the classroom is why I was complaining about the Pre-work earlier. One week of training is not enough time before putting us in a classroom. Five weeks of one hour a day teaching plus sessions IS NOT ENOUGH. I am no longer trusting in the system that I will be a prepared teacher ready to make transformational goals from Day One. I was ok with thinking that “this is just institute, this is just what I have to jump through to actually be able to teach. This fall it won’t be like this. I will be teaching something I know, something I actually care about.” I got through this last 1.5 weeks promising myself that I would get to teach social studies that last week- something I am totally passionate about (voting). But then TFA changed our schedule. We don’t have a final week. We only have 2 days of instructional time next week. We had our kids for a total of 11 days. 11 DAYS. In 11 DAYS I am supposed to help these kids get 30 more points on a standardize test. In those 12 days we are only teaching 22 objectives. So even if they aced every day and got every objective that we taught- IT STILL WOULDN’T BE ENOUGH. They still wouldn’t make these arbitrary growth goals that TFA gave us. *** But what gave me pause today was that we found out that we only have 2 days of teaching that 4^th week. And I was supposed to switch to teach that with one other teacher. We would have been the only two switching. This was something I really wanted to do. I wanted to prepare myself for the fall. But as I was being told how I utterly failing my kids and myself as a teacher, I learned something. THIS ISN’T ABOUT ME. This is about THEM. What I want doesn’t matter. It is what they NEED. And they NEED consistency. Thus, I stepped back and decided to teach math those last two days. It was/is really tough. And once I made that decision- I no longer trusted in TFA’s line. They are failing and I am supposed to continue teaching them? *** I forced myself to hold in the tears long enough to make it back to my room. But on the way one of my awesome corps members stopped me just to say hi and ask how my day was going. And I told the truth. Later we started talking, and a few other corps members came over. They were more supporting than anyone else I have met here. And they helped me realize something I AM NOT ALONE IN FEELING LIKE THIS. We are all feeling like we are learning some things but not other things. I thought that going into instate that I would be preparing for the fall. And I am. But I am only learning two aspects- how to plan with a purpose (maybe not even using the same template) AND how to manage behavior. This is not what I thought I would be doing and thus had a bit of shock. I do not feel like I can teach in a classroom this fall. I do not think I have the skills to practice on these kids. I do not feel that I have that right. These kids deserve better than that. But my Jax family taught me something today. It’s good that I feel this way. It’s good that I feel like they need someone better, because that pushes me to BE that better teacher. That sense of urgency is what is pushing me to give 150% of myself. To go that extra mile to commit to them. But most of all: that I am not alone. And that is what made m write this post. If you are out there and doubting the party line, if you are feeling like you aren’t learning anything, if you feel like you need more help or more support: YOU ARE NOT ALONE. *** That alone made me feel better. Something else that would make me feel better: TFA admitting to us, to the corps, that you will not be this way for day one. That you can’t be this way from day one. That you will fail. That you will have days in which the kids don’t understand anything. And most of all you will have days that all you want to do is cry. But most of all I want the lies to stop.