teaching school: the learning teacher

At the end of Year Two: Consistency! Professionalism! Humor!

2011-05-26T11:42:00.000-07:00

We're wrapping up the 2010-2011 school year, and I'm feeling great. My second year teaching has been a lot smoother and more productive than year one. This, despite some upheavals in my personal life that have perhaps been a distraction (aka divorce!).

As an intervention specialist at Rural Charter School, I work in small groups and often one on one with students needing remedial work in reading and math. (This is where the possibility of a math specialist endorsement starts to look good. Maybe a reading endorsement later on down then the line. Then... PhD?) In addition to getting to know these kids really well, I've been fortunate to see some real and measurable improvement from many of them in these oh-so-important skill areas. Despite my mixed feelings about standardized testing, I have to say I like to see some good solid at-or above-grade level scores!

I'm so impressed with the work being done at Rural Charter School that I've enrolled my youngest daughter here for next year's kindergarten class. Her older sisters will stay at their respective schools, Favorite Elementary and Urban Middle, mainly because of their friends and the fabulous music and theater opportunities they have there. Both older girls play in the band/orchestra, sing in choir, and participate in musical theater. Their academics are strong (straight A's in 4th and 7th grades this year!) and they like their schools. Ain't broke, so no fixing required. However, the budget stinks so bad I have no adjective for it. This will mean half day kindergarten in the city and probably about 30 kids in a class. Not so awesome for my special snowflake of an almost-5 year old. I'll bring her with me to work at Rural Charter and she'll get a ton of individual attention, differentiation, and a really wholesome atmosphere. No gang graffiti here! Yes, the other schools my kids go to have such ugliness on the playgrounds. I don't want them growing up unnecessarily naive, but that's a bit much. Plus, I have a tradition of taking my girls to school on their first day of kindergarten and then sitting in the car and crying. With Littlest here, I won't have to give that up! And with all the commotion in our lives of late (aforementioned divorce and an impending move to a new house this summer) being with Mom at school will probably be good for her.

I saw the principal of Favorite Elementary and let him know whose class I'd like Middlest to be in next year (the one with the awesome tech grant for iPads!). I also informed him that I'd enrolled Littlest at Rural and he was completely understanding. He said that when he could hire me for Favorite she and I could both come back! Such nice affirmation!

So I'm winding down the year with a comfortable sigh of contentment. Job well done, kids are reading, daughters are well taken care of, and I can spend the summer settling into the new house, probably working part time, addressing my ongoing reading list, and enjoying the anticipation of 2011-2012!

Education update...

2011-04-10T22:34:00.000-07:00

I'm back in school this spring! OK, it's just for one class, but it sure feels great to be pushing my education forward again. I'm beginning a graduate level certificate course called PrISM Oregon (stands for Preparation for Instruction in Science and Math). I'll be getting a certification in K-8 math education. This may lead toward a future math specialist endorsement with TSPC. So this term I'm enrolled in SED 595 through OSU. That's Science Education 595, and it's also known as Assessment and Evaluation in Free Choice Learning Environments. The focus is more on the design of educational components of institutions like museums, national parks, zoos, etc. These are places where the "students" are the general public and they are freely choosing to encounter the institutions' offerings, as opposed to a classic school situation and the approach to teaching and learning that would happen there. I'm finding this interesting and informative both to my work as a teacher and to my other life in which I'm a visual arts curator for a nonprofit artists' collective. Looking forward to more of this! Also excited about math education and moving toward what might someday soon be an actual endorsement in Oregon.

Ahhh. Spring is In the Air. Smells like... State Assessments!

2011-03-08T09:47:00.000-08:00

new cut scores are upping the
rigor of Oregon's state assessments.

In a rare showing of silence and the appearance of focus, the kids in third through eighth grade here at Rural Charter School have been tiptoeing into the computer lab to tackle their Big Fat State Assessments. Round one should be finished tomorrow or the next day (they get three tries here in Oregon to meet the benchmark scores; our district requires all students to take the tests all three times or until they earn an "exceeds" score). I was feeling pretty optimistic about our student body overall, until the day I had to monitor the testing session. Some people just don't test well, and it's heartbreaking to watch them click on wrong answers when you know a simple conversation would get them thinking about the questions and would lead to a much better score.

As an intervention specialist, I spend all my time with the kids who won't pass, or who will but by the skin of their teeth. Some of them are just so close, but won't stick it out to keep their attention focused for the last quarter or so of the test. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

This year 70% of the kids have to meet state standards (in other words, "Pass the Test") for the school to meet AYP. In our tiny school, each kid is a big percentage. No more than 9 kids can fail either test (reading and math) or we don't meet AYP! Third grade looks good so far, though. They all passed their math tests and only one didn't pass his reading. And he was really close.

On always needing to help...

2011-02-25T11:53:00.000-08:00

The desire to serve the common good must without fail be a requisite of the soul, a necessity for personal happiness; if it issues not from there, but from theoretical or other considerations, it is not at all the same thing. -Anton Checkhov

How is it that this need to get inside students' heads and analyze their intellectual development in order to help them never seems to die down? I just want to understand, because I just want to help. Maybe that need is something integral to the human condition. How else would a species become so successful and so dominant? We do well because we do good; we help each other as a contribution to the common welfare.

This month, I really just want my second graders to move past counting on their fingers (that one's complicated; a caveat: I do it too, but want them to increase their range of strategies) and my fourth graders to really grasp syllabication.

On a nuts and bolts level: great news. I no longer do weekly progress monitoring. It just might not be a great use of my time. I do it periodically as needed, but not on a strict schedule anymore. This leaves significantly more time for actual teaching and it's just more fun. After the Month in Heck that was our winter universal screening I'm more than happy to give up some testing. Fairly sure the students are OK with it too!

Winter Benchmark Screening Time

2011-01-12T08:55:00.000-08:00

Back to school this January has meant mid-year benchmark screening for the entire student body at Rural Charter School. While I don't exactly relish the role that tests play in our school year, I do appreciate the access to data that these assessments give us. I've gotten pretty used to administering the tests now and can see the overall structure of our school's RTI pyramid. Though there are always a few kids to worry over, the student body in general looks pretty good so far. The majority are at or above their grade level benchmarks and only a few in each class are in Tier 3. I'll spend the remainder of this week and all of next (which is only three days) wrapping up all the tests. I can't wait to get back into lessons with my students. Doing this sort of work is informative, is a crucial element to public schools in the NCLB era, and is great experience for me. I'd still rather be helping kids learn to read and spending time encouraging them to work hard.

Meanwhile, back in town at Favorite Elementary, I'm moving forward with the after school math classes. The principal there asked me to go to last night's school board meeting and share some of the work I and the other after school teachers are doing. It's developing into a great program. Favorite Elementary is a Title 1 school with a large population of English Language Learners and a history of a shaky relationship with AYP. Thanks in part to an intervention program we did last year (which I was part of) we met AYP, but are still in the danger zone for a couple of small demographics. So this year the interventions are after school, and I like what I'm seeing. I'm able to spend 45 minutes to an hour with my students, and we have great conversations about strategies and skills that should help them in math in general and on their state assessments in particular. I'm glad my kids go to Favorite Elementary. I guess if we lived further out, I'd opt for Rural Charter though. That place is growing on me! In a nutshell, I really love my work. I'm grateful to be working, even if it's still not quite full time, and I just love the jobs. I feel so fortunate!

How I Spent My Winter Vacation

2010-12-28T23:50:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm still not a full time employee of any one school (though I do manage to work approximately forty hour weeks between my three or so different gigs); this means I'm paid hourly and therefore am coming up $hort this month, what with that whole ~~Christmas~~/~~oops: separation of church and state~~ Winter Vacation thing. Not that I'm not loving it. In between the hacking cough, runny nose, achy head, and sore throat, I've managed to squeeze in some nicely spiked egg nog, some gift wrap tearing extravaganzas, and some mighty late mornings.

Of perhaps more interest (to myself, obviously, as no one reads this blog as far as I can tell) is the lesson planning I've been working on for math. I teach math interventions for first through eighth graders at Rural Charter School and in an after school program for third and fourth graders at Favorite Elementary. I've had my students take the easyCBM progress monitoring tests to get a handle on where the holes are. These came out this year from the University of Oregon and are aligned to the new Oregon math standards, which are in turn aligned to the NCTM common core standards. Bureaucratically this is tricky this year, but it's essentially a good idea to move to the common core. The tests the kids took can be pulled up in a usable report with details of what skills are lacking. I've been going through the reports for all my students at both schools and generating documents with areas of concern listed out. Then I can target their weaknesses with select activities and worksheets (yay!! worksheets! who doesn't love 'em? but it's what I do). My biggest complaints with this approach are that it's tedious to pull all the data for the twenty five or thirty kids I teach and that the management is a bit tricky when I've got a group of students all doing different pages and all honestly needing my attention in order to pull it off. And by attention, I really mean that often that's the primary thing they need. When not given the option of spacing out, passing notes, or otherwise picking answers willy nilly in order to just be done with it, my students tend to do well and to show improvement.

So I'm getting prepared both for Monday back at school and for this Friday evening, when we host our New Year's Eve party. We've done it enough times now to call it our Annual New Year;s Party. Better go get rested up for it while I can. In the meanwhile, I think I'll feast my eyes on my lovely 1965 retro My Favorite Careers Barbie (aka The Teacher with the "PhD in Fashion"). Check her out at the top of the post. Other than the horribly Not Sensible Shoes, she's pretty rad. Thanks Dave! Made my xmas cheerier!

Examining the pedagogy of rti

2010-11-27T10:44:00.000-08:00

I've thoroughly settled into my role as an intervention specialist. I do about 30 hours a week in Rural Charter School, doing direct instruction on reading and math at-risk kids in grades K-8. Then I hustle back into town to do an after school math intervention at Favorite Elementary. Then about three times a week I rush over to the local Young Adults Transitions House to tutor college kids who are in a residential treatment/ finding yourself/ figuring out how to grow up program. So it turns out that though I thought I was getting my master's degree to teach sixth grade, in fact it was so that I could work with all manner of at-risk youth, ages 6 to about 22.

The tutoring is quite simple; I just keep track of the students' syllabi, assign them the reading they're supposed to do anyway, make time management and study suggestions, edit papers, and give moral support. No outside prep required and I enjoy it.

The after school math at Favorite Elementary is slightly more complex because the goal is to boost kids who didn't pass their state assessments last year into the passing category this year. And this year we have a fully revamped set of state math standards (finally aligned with NCTM standards and generally well thought out) and a new state assessment to go with it. So materials that worked well last year aren't quite right this year and I'm doing a lot of research and cross referencing to get the right stuff to these kids. But their attitudes after school is quite good and my Middle Kid gets to join us. So of course I like it.

My main job at Rural Charter is going well. I'm given a lot of autonomy and professional judgment about how to run my interventions and progress monitoring. The part that's on my mind right now is trying to be sure I'm following the spirit of the Response to Intervention model while working within the limitations of a tiny budget. I pretty much have one program for a given skill/grade level, and if it doesn't work the only response I can think of is trying to apply that program differently. I've managed to tweak the schedule here and there to give certain students one-on-one time. This works well, I think, for kids with certain distracting behaviors, or a certain type of noncompliance. I'm still relying on the same curriculum to reach them, so I'm pretty much just crossing my fingers.

I am seeing some gains though. A couple of seventh graders have been graduated out of my groups due to dramatic gains in their progress monitoring scores! And I feel like I'm hitting a good rhythm with the majority of the rest of my students; I can tell how to express to them that we're sticking with high standards. Basically, if you're not 6 or 7 with a certain level of unmedicated hyperactivity, I'm going to use that "SLANT" technique. In a nutshell, this is requiring students to sit up, participate, and show that they're paying attention. It's amazing what a difference in performance I see when I require them to scoot their chairs in to the table and sit straight.

Any thoughts or recommendations on RTI out there? I'm basically a general ed teacher by training who is sort of functioning as a special ed teacher, so I'm constantly looking for good ideas.

Off to school I go

2010-09-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

Getting really into the new year (and kids haven't even started yet). I even had another job interview yesterday and was offered the position, but I'm going to turn it down and stay with Rural Charter. (It was a preschool teacher job, with future expansion into kindergarten and, probably, other elementary grades as this new school grows into a full private elementary school. Not for me though- I'm a bit too immersed in my mission as a Title 1 teacher- and the pay is half what I make now, so it's not an option anyway. Great to get the offer though.)

So it looks like I'll be the intervention specialist and an instructional coach at Rural Charter. Not sure what exactly this will entail, but it looks like it will be things I've already been doing, like getting the new math standards out to all the teachers, and so on. Very interesting work, and hey- I'm up to 27+ hours a week, which unfortunately still looms large as a worry. I need about 50 hours, but whatever. With some tutoring and possibly an after school intervention deal at Favorite Urban Elementary, I'll be significantly closer to full time this year than last.

Got to get ready for work now. Today is the first meeting for the Title 1 transition team: we're going from Targeted Assistance to Schoolwide this year (as in, 2011-12 will be schoolwide) and have to jump through a ton of hoops along the way. This morning, hoop #1. Bring it on.

Back to School

2010-08-21T15:31:00.000-07:00

Well, I was lucky enough to get interviews for two different jobs here in town, but got neither one. So I'll be heading out to Rural Charter School five days a week (versus the three a week it was last year) and keeping my spirits up by doing an after school program at Favorite Elementary and possibly adjunct teaching at the community college. I like the charter school OK, but it's 45 minutes away and I don't have my own classroom up there. I've been too adrift for the past few months what with it being summer and all. Even teaching summer school in July didn't anchor me enough. I'm ready to go back to work. I won't get my own beautiful perfect classroom this year, but I might be able to almost pay the bills without leaving the profession. We have a number of folks living with us who will pitch in and help take up the slack on money, so maybe we'll survive this worst year yet of the recession. Worst for us anyway. The states have received their stimulus money, but the districts are holding on to it, so probably no hiring.

Anyway, off to think about intervention plans.

Summer's wrapping up. Time to look forward to September.

2010-08-01T08:39:00.000-07:00

I've agreed to return to Rural Charter School and continue my Title 1 interventions. This year the job will be about 20 hours per week (last year it was 14) and the board was going to buy a reading curriculum, so lots of improvements. Frankly, I was looking for full time work, but those positions are few and far between around here.
One of my main hopes is that I can establish myself with a set classroom. This would improve the flow of students through the day's schedule immensely. Last year I sort of camped out in the director's office and then moved around the school, pulling kids out of their classes at the appointed times. This wasted a lot of time and the older ones (7th grade) often put on a big show of resisting coming with me. This is sort of understandable; if you don't feel great about being pulled out for extra help you're likely to try to resist. If you're 12 years old anyway. This year the school is adding 8th grade (so it's now complete as a preK-8 school). I see even more of this silliness unless I change my methods. The school is housed in two converted houses, and space is at a premium. They're working on grants to convert and take possession of a third house on the property, but I don't expect it to be ready by September, or maybe not even this year. However, if I could stake a claim on even a small room, probably in the primary grades building, I could pretty much have the older students show up for our sessions on their own and I could get the younger ones from their classrooms across the hall or whatever without wasting any time. Then my transition time between sessions could be spent on work instead of on walking back and forth across the property.

I'm also hoping my 20 hours a week at the charter school can be condensed into three days, so that I can have two days for other work. This could bring my weekly schedule much closer to 40 hours. I may have an intervention gig at my own kids' Urban Public School, prepping students for their state assessments. If that's two full days a week, I'm in great shape. This scenario is basically how last spring semester went, only with more hours per day. I did about 5 hours at Rural, three days a week, and about 3 hours at Urban, twice a week. That added up to around half time, but spread out in such a way that it was pretty tricky to do any other work. If I do my 20 hours at Rural over 3 days and get two other 8 hour days at Urban, voila! I'm working full time! Still no benefits, but whatever. I'm going to push for this schedule. The Urban job likely won't start in September, but could be lined up to start in October. I think I'll contact the principal at Urban and propose this. It's based on an idea he presented to me back in May or June, and this would be a great solution both to my own income and career needs and, I think, to both schools' intervention needs.

The recession has thrown everything into a tizzy. I started grad school thinking that if I just applied myself and presented myself well to the powers that be, I'd be given at least a couple of job offers and my biggest dilemma would be choosing which grade level I wanted to teach. Then, while I was in school on my way toward my degree and teaching license, everything went south and no one's retiring and the few teachers who do leave aren't being replaced and some are even getting RIF'ed and someone like me who's just entering her second year is pretty low on the totem pole. As a result, this blog has become much more about the job hunt and the economy and ohmygod how am I going to pay the bills than about education. Now that I'm somewhat at peace with the direction I'm headed for 2010-11, I will allow myself the luxury of talking for a minute about Actual Teaching. How novel!

I spent the month of July teaching summer school at Urban Public School. A caveat: I use the word urban rather loosely. I do not live in a big city. I live in a rural county; I'm in the downtown area (really downtown in a loft in a converted commercial building) of the town that is the county seat, and my kids' school (which I'm calling Urban Public School) is a few blocks away in the 'hood of our community. I like this and wouldn't have it any other way, but truly my town has a population of about 40,000 and is not contiguous with any other towns. It's the smallest place I've lived for more than about three months. It's not a big city. But within that context this is the most urban area of the whole county and we have a proportionate amount of the ills of most cities. Heck, I live directly next door to the local Gospel Rescue Mission- basically a soup kitchen and homeless shelter. I hear a lot of sirens. My daughters are familiar with gang graffiti. It's by no means a bad place, and I'm not going to make it out to be truly Inner City or anything.

The rest of the language arts block was spent reading The Lightning Thief to the class, with required brief written responses each day. Then during the second half of the month I brought in a dozen books from the public library on Greek mythology, and the students did a small written description and a portrait in markers and construction paper collage of their favorite character or type of creature from the myths. We had quite a few Medusas. The draw of decapitation was too much to resist. Poseidon also loomed large. It was sort of an abbreviated version of Project Based Learning. We read some literature, did some research on pretty freely chosen subjects (any character they wanted was fine) and created a final presentation that was then put on public display at the district office. If I ever find myself with my own classroom of kids around this age I think I'll do a more in-depth version of this project. It was tons of fun, but the subject is so huge it would be better with more than a few hours worth of time.

All in all I was pleased with how the summer session went and how the kids responded to my lessons. It was really valuable.

Summer School rumination

2010-07-12T17:54:00.000-07:00

It's funny. I think "rumination" comes from the same root as "ruminant" which is a cud-chewing mammal, like a cow or sheep. I've been chewing over a few ideas regarding my work right now, and you, dear reader, are the Oh So Lucky Recipient of my conclusions.

I started this blog as a class assignment in grad school and continued it, thinking it would be about lesson plans and great readings and cute things kids said at school. In reality, it's been more about my career in general, recession, the resulting lack of jobs, and the weirdness of working lots and lots of extremely part time jobs right after getting a *&%&*#@$% master's degree... but I digress. It's pretty much been about my own navel.

So, as I examine the aforementioned navel, I find that I tend to freak out a little sometimes. I was grading papers last night, after a lovely summer weekend spent largely not grading papers, and when I sat down to get to work I pretty much dissolved in tears over the ridiculousness of the scene. I felt a bit like a fraud; I don't know how I'm going to teach these kids what they need in four short weeks and I'm not being told I have to do any particular thing, so all I'm left is "professional judgement". I'm thoroughly enjoying every minute with my class, but I worry that they're not going to show improvement on the post tests. Not that I have serious reason to worry based on their performance thus far, I just worry in general. Just ask my dear husband.

This summer session is like a regular school year in microcosm. Assess. Instruct. Allow some free exploration. Instruct again. Assess (and hope like heck they've improved so a good statistic can be reported on a spreadsheet somewhere). I just hope it's being done well, and above all else that the kids are getting what they need. I do have an awfully good class, so I have reason for optimism.

Summer School!

2010-07-10T14:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I spent the first month or so of summer break doing a combination of relaxing and stressing about my job prospects. It has been nice to stay up at night with my husband and the other grownups around here (we've had some house guests), sleep late, and of course to have more relaxed time with my daughters. Fortunately, though my work situation for the fall is still in limbo, I did have summer school to look forward to.

Said summer school started this week. I'm teaching the fourth grade, and I love it! I already knew many of the students, or at least recognized them. Most are from Favorite Elementary School, which is where classes are being held. Students from the whole district can attend, though, so there are some new faces. This summer session is targeting Title I, Migrant, and Title VII students; this means basically no change in demographics from the regular school year, so it feels just like home!

This is the first time I've taught summer school, and for starters I'm so grateful for the opportunity! I was lucky to be hired: the administrator running the show approached me about it during the spring and I immediately told her I'd been hoping to teach in the summer and would be thrilled to do it. As it turns out, those jobs were never even posted on the district's personnel site, so I doubt I would have had a chance if I hadn't already known and worked with Ms. Administrator.

From a professional standpoint, though, summer school is an interesting opportunity. We have only 16 half days: four, four-day weeks. I have to do superquick assessments and dive in to targeted reading and math lessons as fast as possible. There's not a lot of time in which to make a difference for the kids, but on the other hand there's not the rigid, punitive air of the regular school year either. I want to show growth between pre- and post-tests, but what I choose to do and how I do it are largely left up to my professional judgement.

This is an interesting point. As a recap for readers who may not care to re-read my posts of the past two years, I got my master's degree and teaching license in the summer of 2009. I then entered the worst job market in memory (the Great Depression being outside most people's memories by now). I was fortunate to be hired as a long term substitute teacher, a gig that ended up lasting fully half of the school year (pretty great for subbing!) in one of my own daughters' former kindergarten classrooms. It was great. The second half of the year was spent rushing about between four part time jobs: Occasional Substitute, Title I Academic Interventionist for Rural Charter School (K-7), Math Interventionist for Favorite Elementary School (prepping students for their state assessments), and Tutor. Whew. All these jobs and still not more than 25 or 30 hours a week! But they were all in my field and what with the way the schedules and the travel time lined up there wasn't room for any other gigs.

So with my interventionist work, I was quite beholden to state and federal guidelines, and found myself administering a number of assessments and generally fitting students of all shapes into neat square boxes in order to satisfy said state and federal requirements (such as compliance with Title I or getting enough of them to pass their state assessment that the school would get out of AYP jail). While I have absolutely no complaints about the administrators with whom I worked last spring, and while I do feel they treated me respectfully and as a professional, the way I had to run my classes was entirely different than summer school. Did you wonder if I was going to bring it back around to my main topic? But yes, I did have a point!

Summer school is up to me. If the kids attend to my lessons, some improvement can be recorded, and we all have fun, then it is counted as successful. So week 1 for my 4th graders consisted of some pretests, a number of cursive and grammar exercises, math facts memorization, and some arts and crafts. And a lax attitude about how long recess should be. I'm used to developing plans more slowly, but now that we're 25% through, I feel that I know where we're going. I'm going to throw the decoding lessons out the window; it's all about comprehension. I'm going to back off on the worksheets on equivalent fractions or ratios and probability; we'll focus on the multiplication table and then probably drill on all basic facts, along with some online math games. The kids will do some silent reading, but most of that time will be used by my read-aloud: The Lightning Thief. I hope to also share a whole bunch of books and graphic novels I picked up at the library on Greek Mythology as an extension of the read-aloud. And at the end of each week we'll do some art projects. Last week it was pop-up cards; I'd found a reading comprehension exercise where they read a page of instructions and then answer questions. Naturally I felt they should be able to actually make the cards. I think next week it'll be origami. This will require a lot of preparation, and the parapro and I will have to know what we're doing ahead of time. Maybe I can find animated how-to's on the internet. If I can incorporate some reading and written responses in the activity like with the pop-ups, that would be great.

I think I'm off to google origami now. And then a late afternoon iced coffee. Ahhh.

A new season commences

2010-06-09T06:58:00.000-07:00

The beginning of summer. Our icky weather has finally warmed up. Climate change has done a number on my area this year. First we had such a drought that the governor officially declared it a disaster or emergency or whatever it is he declares things so as to make available money to help the victims (in this case the victims are farmers who are trying to grow stuff in the high desert and will now be paid not to grow anything.). Then we had snow and rain all through the spring, which may or may not have been enough to officially change the drought situation but at least it made my dandelions happy. I'm talking Seasonal Affective Disorder in May and even the first of June. Now the sun has come out, the temperatures are in the 70s, but it's humid. I mean, we're east of the Cascade mountains, in the high desert beginnings of the Basin and Range Province. It's a dry place. But for the past couple of days it felt like East Tennessee in the spring: humid but not especially hot yet. At least I can go without a sweater now, but it's still weird.

School's out today. My sixth grader graduated yesterday, with tons of awards and a real live diploma. I cried through the whole thing, especially when the superintendant was reading Oh the Places You'll Go! as a last story for the sixth graders. I remember their first day of kindergarten so well, and now she's off to middle school. Sigh. At least I don't have any grey hairs yet.

In other news, the annual job hunt is in full swing. Got a "thanks but no thanks" letter from one of the elementary schools I'd applied to, and nothing yet from the other three. I'm branching out into not-as-much-in-my-field type jobs in this search. Our local theater and cultural center has an Outreach & Education director position, another social service type group has an education director, there are a couple of preschools on the radar, and I still have a lead on a not-yet-posted 5th grade position at Favorite Elementary. And adjunct teaching at the community college. So we'll see what develops.

I started this blog almost 2 years ago as a class assignment (ed tech, first quarter of the MAT program). I continued it mainly because it's kind of fun, but I can't help but notice that a disproportionate amount of the entries are all about Employment rather than Education. I guess our state's budget crisis (an additional 9% sliced off all state departments including Dept of Ed, on the heels of some other sort of big nasty cuts) means this will be a point of obsession for a while. At least I'm qualified if anything does open up, not that that was enough with any of the jobs I've applied for yet. Ugh.

Well, today's my 14th wedding anniversary. Enough doom and gloom. I'm going to bake a cake.

The end is nigh

2010-05-24T06:51:00.000-07:00

The school year is almost done! I'm not looking forward to most of June and August without work. But I'll be teaching summer school in July, and needless to say I'm really looking forward to it. I'll be doing 4th grade, which is exciting (one of my own daughters is going into 4th, so it's personally meaningful too as I intend to help her along the way while I'm helping all those other people's children). It will be held at My Favorite Elementary School, and I'll get to collaborate with the sixth grade teacher my eldest had this year. The guy rocks. He's all about pushing the kids, creating poetry and sculpture (he has a kiln at home so they did a lot of pottery) and dramatic performances and pop-up books and so on to summarize their learning on all sorts of topics from forest biodiversity to Shakespeare. My daughter definitely grew in his class, and working with him will be fabulous. Also, if all goes exceedingly well, a sixth grade position could maybe possibly, but hush it's Not Official Yet, be opening up at that school and the principal told me this in secrecy and it sounds like he'd like to hire me but it's Not Official Yet so I can't count on anything (story of my life lately). If that sentence made any sense at all I'd eat my hat. Not really because it's still snowing around here and I'll need the hat.

Anyway. My daughter's 6th grade teacher was great and I'll be working with him this summer and possibly next year. There. Sheesh. There was also an elementary position at another nearby school that was posted in the middle of last week. I applied, and tomorrow (unless I get called to work) I think I'll pop in and cold-call the principal over there. I could walk to that school in about 15 minutes. That would be sweet. I don't really care what grade level it is, though I'm thinking I'd like upper elementary. I've been reading a lot about writing strategies and would really like to put it into practice. I know, I know. My day will come. It's just very frustrating right now because I'm not making anything like enough to pay the bills right now, the nest egg is rapidly depleting, and even with a full time contract job I probably will have us breaking even at best. I haven't earned any brownie points around here lately in the fiscal responsibility department. But full time work (I mean actual full time, not this working 5 days a week and somehow only netting about 19 hours routine) would be a big step in the right direction. I'll need a second job though. Sigh. At least in my state all the gas stations are full serve. I could put that master's degree to work pumping gas after school. And there's a station a couple of blocks from here. Sheesh.

Testing may suck, but on the other hand, WE DID IT!

2010-05-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

My job at City Elementary is over, as today is the final day of state assessments. Since I've been prepping kids for their second and third tries at the math test and proctoring testing sessions, my work there is done. Despite mixed feelings about the whole testing ethos, I have to say that I came out of it better informed about the realities of what's expected of kids and better prepared to ~~teach to the test~~ help kids succeed in the future. It's not that what's on the test isn't important knowledge and skills. It's just that the standard multiple choice format only measures so much; I had a lot of students who I know can do more than what their scores show. Don't even get me started on the whole punitive high stakes philosophy imposed on us by the former administration and sadly not yet reversed by an otherwise decent new one.

My little Jump for Joy picture atop this post, then, should be taken with a grain of salt. The joy, caveated though it may be, is on account of WE MET OUR AYP GOALS!!! Just enough SPED and ELL students passed the accursed test for My Favorite School to get out of jail. For now. And not for Free. The principal and teachers there worked hard all year, and I was fortunate enough to be able to join them for the spring for my little intervention sessions. (So there you have it: without AYP and state assessments I wouldn't have had that job.) The thing is, those educators ALWAYS work really hard. I know. My daughters have been attending that school since 2003. They just had to put a certain type of attention on a certain type of performance this year. But because they're all such dedicated public servants (seriously), and because they gave me such useful materials to use in interventions, meeting this goal was doable. Irritating, but doable.

In other news, I have a second, very tentative job offer for next year. It will probably be an upper elementary grade (a teacher is moving away), but it could end up being any grade level if someone with seniority wants to do the classroom shuffle. The principal at Favorite Elementary asked me what my preferred grade level was. Naturally I responded "K through 8". I mean, it's a recession for cryin' out loud. Upper elementary is probably my preferred level right now, but if I've learned anything on that subject this year it's that there's something to love about every grade. And of course unique challenges to every grade as well, but so what. My own classroom is my own classroom. I'll love it no matter how big or small the kids are. That job and the other (also a little tentative) one are in Wait Mode. Won't know anything firm until mid to late June. More hurry up and wait. I'm pretty good at that by now. Not that I like it or anything. At least I'll have a month of work teaching summer school.

In the meantime, it's off to work. Interventions still need to happen, even though the clientele is a little squirmy with the whole end of school year thing. The oldest kids are in full-on hormone mode (girls in inappropriate warm weather clothes, boys having a heck of a time dealing with said outfits, noone wanting to stay on task, and at least one older middle schooler having announced that he's dropping out anyway so why do any more work.) The younger ones just want to get out and ride their horses (Charter School is a very small rural one, so a lot of the students have horses; most have serious outdoor access anyway, so lots of tree climbing and lizard catching is needing to be done right about now). I may resort to bribery to get it done.

Last week of state assessments. Finally.

2010-05-10T15:34:00.000-07:00

I honestly came really close to falling asleep while proctoring a fifth grade reading test today. My job was to listen as the student read the selections aloud and occasionally tell her to "do her best" because I "know she can do it". ZZZZZ. At least when we proctor the math tests we do something, even if it is just to read the questions and the multiple choice answers to the kids.

Did I mention I'm looking forward to having my very own classroom and not having such a focus on tests?

The good news is that a lot of the kids I've sat with for their tests have passed! Most, in fact. And this is the last week for testing, so for good or for ill it'll be over soon. Sigh.

Yes, the middle school job looks very appealing. Actually it's not technically middle school, since it's multiple subjects in a self contained classroom. Regardless, the students and the curriculum are really appealing. I've started stocking up on Nancie Atwell and thinking about standards and units and all the writing we'll have to do. I'm hoping it does in fact pan out- the school has a board of directors (charter school) who asked me if I'd take the position but who also haven't officially signed off on anyone's jobs for next year or the budget. That's probably happening next month. All the teachers (all 4 of them, 5 including me) are crossing their fingers while waiting for the Official Word. But I'd be surprised if staffing changed at all other than, of course, me moving into a classroom and someone new filling the Title 1 interventions position. I'm wrapping up the school year by assembling reading intervention program samples that the board could consider adopting for next year. I like Reading Success from SRA. It meets the federal guidelines of being a research based program, it's fairly inexpensive (I think it can be bought with this little school's little Title 1 fund), and it's designed for 3- 30 minute sessions per week which is in keeping with the most likely schedule of the interventionist. At least it's what my schedule has been this year. And it includes levels for older kids (grades 4-8) who are struggling with comprehension and a little bit with decoding. Anyone have any thoughts on this program? It might not be fabulously satisfying work, as it's strictly direct instruction (as far as I can tell), but it's probably user friendly and will probably work well for RtI. The school really needs to adopt materials for next year!

Mid-Spring Update... I'm still here!

2010-04-28T14:55:00.000-07:00

It's been almost two months since my last post. I've been up to my ears in assessments and progress monitoring and data entry and report generation and, occasionally, teaching kids some reading and math. I especially like the math. This is noteworthy for a humanities-focused art major, but it's true. I am tutoring a middle school girl in math (as well as English and history, but mostly math). I'm doing similar small group work with third-through-seventh graders in math, helping them with whatever lesson they're working on that day. My oldest daughter just started Algebra, so I've been helping her with her homework (and getting quite a review myself). And I've been doing a Testing Intervention in which I pull third-through-sixth graders for half hour test prep sessions in which we review math concepts a little and good test taking skills a lot. My head has been spinning from all the running around and all the different levels of my students! This intervention work is actually fascinating in a lot of ways, but I'm spread out over three part time jobs (while parenting and, lately, trying to help my husband get a house totally repaired for tenants!). It has been educational for me but it leaves me longing for my own classroom.

This brings me to the Employment News of the season (so far). I've been sort of offered an honest to goodness job for next year, teaching a 7th and 8th grade class at the little school where I've been doing Title 1 work. My only concern about accepting this position is the commute: 40 minutes on dry pavement (of which we get very little during the school year). But that's no deal breaker. I remember thinking about the older grades my teaching license covers when I was student teaching. I was really drawn to 6th, 7th, & 8th grades in theory, but of course have been staying flexible this year as I run all over the place working with all ages. The board of directors for the school in question extended the invitation this week, with the caveat that enrollment is not yet finalized and of course there's always budget stuff to wait on. I definitely responded in the affirmative! So I'm thinking a lot about the middle school age bracket, and have even allowed myself the luxury of imagining writing and social studies and scientific inquiry projects. I already know what the math will look like.

Assessment time: round two

2010-03-08T11:53:00.000-08:00

Most of my time is being spent on test preparation for kids who didn't pass the state assessment the first time around. As is the case all over the country, these tests are high stakes; in some cases it seems the stakes are higher for the schools than for the students themselves. Because these are mainly the kids who struggle at least a little more than others, it's sometimes dispiriting work. A lot of walls get put up so these kids can reject the whole process, the whole idea of school, before it can reject them by informing them that they don't meet benchmarks. I wonder what the future holds for some of these kids; most will eventually master these skills but a few will end up dropping out or barely making it through school. And then what? Young people have few enough options these days; kids who self-limit by blowing off scool end up with even fewer. If only their frontal lobes were developed enough for them to comprehend the impact today's actions and decisions will make.

I have to both coach kids who need more work on test taking skills and convince the reluctant participants that it really is a good idea to take these assessments seriously and actually do their best. I go home tired at the end of the day.

Lots of number crunching.... is this teaching?

2010-02-28T16:49:00.000-08:00

As a part of my job as Title 1 interventionist, I am also serving as the Title 1 coordinator for the school. This is by no means an official job title. It's just that now I am assembling/writing the school's Targeted Assistance School Plan. Seems that the person who resigned and who I replaced had not really assembled this year's binder of plans, schedules, data, etc that make up this Plan. So now I'm working on it in addition to helping students. Overall I have to admit that I kind of enjoy the work. Not that I'd like to do just this all the time, but it's informative and a good counterpoint to the hands-on work with kids. I think it's good for educators to have some insight into the needs and responsibilities of administrators, kind of like I think everyone should hold at least one service job. Gives you perspective. I'm not an administrator, but working with some of this federal government paperwork does give me a broader perspective on the work I do in the classroom. I just wish more pencil pushers had a chance to see how their work impacts children. It's a good experience overall.

Working on reading and math interventions

2010-02-11T08:55:00.000-08:00

Things have gotten underway in my new job. I'm doing small group interventions for reading and math at a rural charter school. The whole school is only about 55 or 60 kids, and my groups are all four or fewer students at a time. The challenge (for now) is streamlining my curriculum. I'm working with five different levels for reading, and using as many different programs! There's a fair amount of prep involved on the front end to get this all figured out, but I feel like I have something coherent and relevant for each group now. The littlest ones are using Touch Phonics to review and incorporate some remedial phonics skills. The next level is using a Sight Words and Syllabication system. The next two levels of intermediate students are reading short high interest nonfiction passages and being tested for comprehension. I think I'll soon be adding Dolch word drills to their work as well. And with the oldest students we're timing their reading speed on short passages, repeating three times per passage, and charting the results on nice little graphs. They seem pleased in spite of themselves to see the improvements they make each time.

This is all a great learning experience for me. I have to deal with such a huge age range (7 to 13) that my classroom management skills are tested daily. But I'm loving the challenge and as I get to know the kids I think I'm doing a better and better job. Tomorrow is an inservice day and they're sending me to a training for Renaissance Learning. I'm looking forward to it because their systems are widely used in our local districts and it will be good to know better how to use them, and because I think the Accelerated Math component could be useful for interventions. Plus it will be nice to sit and learn in that format for a day.

All in all it's going well.

2 jobs = more than twice as busy!

2010-01-31T15:08:00.000-08:00

I've worked a week now with the (for now) real schedule. Three days a week I do academic intervention at the rural charter school about a half hour from home and the other two days I'm in my beloved kindergarten class. The new job is solely under Title 1 and has been mostly paperwork and assessments so far. The routine hasn't been quite set yet, so it's still a little hectic. I do feel like I'm learning good things through all the reading tests I've been administering! Each is a one-on-one session with a student and it's giving me a chance to get to know the kids a little and start crafting my strategies for the actual interventions once that really gets started. For example, I'm identifying who needs remedial phonics lessons (mainly 2nd graders) and who needs a fluency oriented curriculum (everyone else). The next challenge is going to be applying pre-approved, research based programs in an engaging way. I like the 1:1 ratio, but it won't stay that way. I'm most concerned about a very reluctant seventh grader who doesn't want to participate in anything. He's a challenge, but most of the other kids are pretty happy to be learning. My kindergarteners are great as always. It feels like coming home to go back in there on my Tuesdays and Thursdays. I really loved being there full time. I'm still adjusting to this new routine! Now I've got to go make up a homework packet for the week. This week we're learning the letter K!

OK. I'm back!

2010-01-18T08:06:00.000-08:00

Curses. It's been nigh unto a month since I posted here. What have I done since the middle of Winter Vacation? Well, we had a nice little New Year's Eve party that pretty much consumed my life for a number of days. You wouldn't probably guess it to look at me/my home/ my wardrobe, etc., but I am, according to a new self-help book from the library, a perfectionist. This doesn't mean I do things perfectly. It just means I expect myself to and get all bunched up if (OK, when) things don't go that way. But New Year's was fun; a couple dozen friends came, there was a LOT of food, kids watched Up and lit fireworks at midnight out in the snow. The weird building that's become our sort of loft apartment cleaned up pretty good, and I drank champagne.

School started back up with me working mornings and Official Teacher coming in from lunch on. There were some minor annoyances (homework folders neglected, books rearranged, a new penchant for boy lines and girl lines instead of one we're-all-one-class line) but the big stuff has been going OK. One poor little soul has been freaking out and "rearranging" the furniture (read: knocking over bookcases, throwing around little chalkboards, and generally resorting to the Civil Disobedience 101 method of physical noncompliance). He hates Official Teacher, hates her new rules, hates her as-yet undifferentiated methods. He's the brightest and academically most advanced kid in the class, but he's a total pill. He gets bored to the point of anger with tracing letters with a marker when he can already read. I've been pulling him out of groups the moment I see that little scowl forming around the eyes and giving him stacks of books and writing paper to use instead of the worksheets or magnetic letters the other kids are using. In addition to preventing meltdowns/ overturned crayon cases/ shredded papers, it gives him the challenge he needs.

And I don't insist he hang up his jacket on a hanger. He can just wear it. He really doesn't seem to bathe often and he's pretty guarded, so just keep the jacket on and read about the New Dog or whatever, I say. But Official Teacher has these opinions about life skills that sound pretty, well, sound. The kids have regular plastic hangers and must hang up their jackets every time they come inside. Between having the manual dexterity of 5 year olds and the broken zippers and the crowd of bodies all trying to get to the jacket area at the same time, this little detail uses up a good 7 minutes every time we come inside. It drives me bonkers. I yearn for little hooks where hoods can just be shoved so the jacket's owner can high-tail it over to the story rug. Seriously, 7 minutes. By the time we're back to work, we've lost a ton of time. We come in from the outside at least 3 times every day. This is a ton of lost minutes, and I'm not convinced that this is a skill they really need. No other classroom uses hangers, for example. I just hate it. But hey, I'm not there to hate!

Report cards are coming up next week, so we've been working on our assessments. During the first week back from vacation, Official Teacher and I decided that I'd do the math portion and she'd do the language arts. I got started by the end of that week, and am now about 95% done with it. I'll finish on Monday, I expect. She didn't start until about a week later for some reason, so I'm concerned that we won't have data on Grade Prep day (this Friday). Ugh. I am getting paid to do a full day on prep day, so I can get all the report cards done and then maybe work on more prep.

Official Teacher has been talking a lot lately about wanting to work Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and have me come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If this is what ends up happening, we'll have a lot more planning to do because we'll need the week to flow consistently. Doing mornings and afternoons like we have been has meant that I do certain subjects and she does others, and if our own lesson plans are altered or extend to another day or whatever, it's fine. With someone else teaching the next day that will become problematic. And frustrating. So we'll have to plan together and stick to the plans so that it all makes sense from day to day. If this grade prep day goes like the last one, I'll be done with report cards early (maybe 10am) and we can focus on planning.

The other good thing about this possible schedule is that it fits perfectly with my new schedule for academic interventions at Little Charter School. I'll be there Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This would be extremely good. Actual work five days a week!

I met with the director of Little Charter School last Thursday and we discussed the schedule and the general program I'll need to do. I'm going to be paid out of Title I money, and it turns out they had enough of that to give me more hours than they originally expected. The pay is low by professional standards, but seriously. $20 per hour is not bad pay, even if it is only part time. I mean, one day of work a month and my phone bill is paid. One day and my electric bill is paid. This is certainly not bad pay. If I combine it with Tuesdays and Thursdays with my kindergarteners, I'll be very close to Making Enough. Wow.

Anyway, the interventions work will be challenging and very interesting. They have no curriculum or specific program in place due to some sort of personnel hullabaloo during the fall, so I get to establish a system from scratch. They prefer that I use a standardized program, something research based and established. They have a few different programs on hand, and next month they're sending me to a training on Renaissance Learning so I can institute Accelerated Reading and Math. This is exciting because I will be the house expert on these programs and will be able to use them as much as they are appropriate for my students. I think this will be helpful, especially for the math for which there is little in the way of materials so far at the school. Let's just hope that's not on a Tuesday or Thursday!

Well. I've been busy. In addition to all of this, I had two out of three daughters home sick this week with the pukeys. My husband and I are hatching plans for insulating our walls through an incentive from our natural gas company, and I've been working valiantly to Get Caught Up on laundry. I go to bed Tired at night. But it's way better than being unemployed. Way better. I love this work. I just hope to continue to get enough of it that I can focus on pedagogy and stop fixating on money. So far the new year's shaping up pretty decent in that way. Who knows- at this rate I could be on contract by September!!!

job job job

2009-12-22T09:10:00.000-08:00

I officially accepted the interventionist position. The only real drawback I can predict about it is that it's a bit of a drive from here, in the snow, uphill both ways. It's about 30 miles from my home, and I need to allow for at least 45 minutes to get there, especially in the snow and ice. And I have to call my husband each time I arrive at the school to let him know I got there OK (there are some notorious stretches of road along the way) and again when I'm on my way home. And I'll be doing it in the 20-something years old pickup truck with No Radio because he needs the Regular Car for in-town work and child chauffeuring. This will be difficult. I will have to Be Alone With My Thoughts for like two hours each day I go up there. Alone with my thoughts but unable to write down lists. Gonna have to fix the radio situation.

Anyway, I think it's going to be a good thing. If I thought teaching kindergarten on short notice was a challenge, how's intervention support for grades K-7 going to feel? I think it will be exciting. Reading is the main focus, but because of bureaucratic stuff it will be kept to less than half of my time there (probably hovering around 45%). For kids with tons of need in reading, I may be able to incorporate reading skills into some math work, as that will be around 45% of my time. Writing will likely round out the remaining 10%, and of course that's got some overlap with reading so it should be a system that can meet the kids' needs.

I want to start researching and preparing for this, but I'm not sure where to start. I don't know who the kids are, what they need, or what kind of work load I'm really looking at. I hope I can accomplish a good deal of it within the alloted hours, as it doesn't appear I'll be paid for prep time. I'm already used to a lot of unpaid overtime, but when it's one's own (even temporary) classroom it's a little different. Then again, the director says I'll be free to craft my own program, and I'm sure I'll have a designated work area if not classroom, so I'll come up with a workable system. If I can just capture that commute time for productive lesson planning somehow, it could be great. I can't see myself talking into a little recorder, and obviously writing in a lesson plan book is out. Any ideas on how to work while driving and not end up in a ditch?

One must steel oneself to work in at Title I school

2009-12-20T09:41:00.000-08:00

I was just reading this post from Elementary, My Dear...

She mentions hurting for her students who are so impoverished that a foam snowflake is enough to make their day, seeing as how they'd otherwise have no gift at all. I can relate. My students (and my daughters' classmates, as they attend the same school) are a struggling lot. Homes filled with extended families or multiple families. Parents without jobs. Parents in jail. Older siblings and cousins in gangs. Parents who've lost these kids to foster care. (Some parents who perhaps should lose the kids as they're not doing a heck of a lot of active or healthy parenting, but I digress). Homes without heat, where the baby's formula freezes solid when you set it down for a half hour. Immigrant families who don't speak much English and are hoping for something to improve for their children. Hard working, underpaid families surviving through the food bank and thrift stores and pawn shops and food stamps and unemployment (for as long as it lasts) and the free clothes closet at the school and Operation School Bell. Dustboard furniture and chipped plates and dollar store barbies and no time or energy for checking the kids' homework folders or reading a bedtime story.

And local legislators are planning to vote against tax adjustments on the wealthiest that would not improve the schools' budgets but would just maintain them at their current too-low levels. Disgusting.

OK, not exactly the end, but changey-changey

2009-12-19T17:48:00.000-08:00

Today was the first day of our winter vacation. I about got "Merry Christmas"ed out by the end of Friday, but when in Rome...
   Anyway, I'm hoping to do very little work in the classroom over the break. I'll have two weeks worth of lesson plans to write (from home) for reading and writing. And number corner (for the Bridges Math calendar and numeracy work that happens in "my" part of the schedule). After the break I'll be doing mornings for the first 2 weeks, and Official Teacher will probably take over full time after that. I know I'm repeating myself, but I'm sorting this all out and hoping it will come out looking like gainful employment soon!
   So today I got a call from the charter school I interviewed with back in the summer. (shameless self promotion: I heard from an acquaintance that they'd had around 200 applicants for the two positions. Making it to the Final Four is pretty awesome. If 200 is accurate. But still.) So the director of the school called me to offer me a part time position with them as an academic interventionist. This is sort of a reading and math specialist, but slightly altered because I don't have a reading certification. And no one with the certification is likely to want to work 10 hours a week. At a little little town half an hour from my already fairly small town. So anyway, they found a way to revise the job description so it's kosher to have any licensed teacher doing it, and then they called me. Cool, as far as I can tell.
   My husband and I are discussing this and sleeping on it before I respond to the offer. Though some guaranteed hours each week would be good, and the work itself would be great, we're hoping it wouldn't get in the way of my ability to accept subbing jobs, since I'd absolutely need them to survive! I'm kind of thinking that it would be a doable scenario, though, because the director said they could adjust my schedule as needed so that I could take sub jobs, provided I had enough notice.
   The job does sound interesting. It would involve working with small groups, no more than four kids at a time, and focusing on reading and math. There would likely be a bit of writing in there too. The school is K-7 (probably adding 8 next year or the year after), so I'd work with a wide age range. I think it sounds really challenging and interesting, and I would pretty much get to design the curriculum. I kind of think I'd like it as long as I can cobble together enough other gigs to keep the bills paid. I'm off to google response to intervention. Crossing Fingers!

The end is near

2009-12-12T13:55:00.000-08:00

Well, the day I knew all along would come, has come. It looks like I get one more week with my little kindergarteners, then winter vacation, then two weeks of half days while we "transition" Official Teacher back into the classroom, and then I sub. I substitute my ass off. I substitute like it's my calling, like it's the greatest way to spend the second semester. I sub like I'm so grateful for the wide ranging learning opportunity that is not knowing when you'll work a day and when you'll stay home trying to not fight with your spouse because you're both really worried about money and why did this whole go into debt to get the degree so you can NOT get a job thing sound like a good idea anyway? I'll sub. OK. I'll sub like I don't miss the class. My class. Like I don't miss making lesson plans and going to staff meetings and hanging up the poster for the Letter of the Week. I'll sub like there's no tomorrow.

Or maybe I'll teach preschool. Head Start (a wonderful and valuable program if ever there was one) is hiring. If the pay is approaching OK, maybe I'll do that instead of sub. Which of course would mean stepping out of the school district a little and maybe not being quite as well set up for getting a contract if anything does open up. ARGH!

At least everyone was nice to me. A few teachers and paraprofessionals privately told me they thought I was doing well and should be there for the whole year. The principal was nice; he said I'd be #1 on the sub list, and so would be called first any time one is needed. That could pan out well, but there are no guarantees. We don't know when someone will be out. I can't figure out what to do. One more week of being their teacher. Better make it a good one, even if I seem to want to cry about four or five times a day.

Assessment time ... and holiday art?

2009-12-07T06:20:00.000-08:00

Ten days to go, starting in about an hour, before winter break. Four days to administer assessments for progress reports. I sure hope a) I didn't forget anything critical from the 2nd quarter report card when I was writing up the assessment forms yesterday at my dining room table, and b) the little monkeys scholars can demonstrate more knowledge than last time they were formally assessed. I have a hunch they will; a bunch that started the year off in the "intensive" category from our DIBELS testing have shot right up to benchmark status in emergent reader skills, which is Very Promising. And of course there was Friday's awesomeness. General good learnin' all around. If only my little Bound to Repeat Kindergarten girl could wake up enough to understand that "cat" does not, in fact begin with /m/, nor do most of the other words I throw at her in our practice sessions. M was the very first letter of the week way back when, and it seems that it's never clicked for her that other sounds exist out there too. Breaking apart words into phonemic segments is weirdly challenging for kids this age, but Everyone Else in the Class has grasped it to some degree or another. Sigh. Upping her interventions so we can document all this in EBIS.

And if I can squeeze in two handprint calendar pages a day for the holiday craft/gift we're making, we will have it done in time to be all put together and sent home with the kids before the end of next week. And we have the annual winter concert this week, with much disruption in the schedule. Oh, and I need to put up some sort of holiday crafty art thing in the hallway display area before Thursday. I'm thinking poinsettias made from red paper and maybe some glitter. Seasonal yet secular.

Woo Hoo! Monday here I come.

We are a Well Oiled Kindergarten Machine

2009-12-05T10:43:00.000-08:00

So we start every morning in my kindergarten class with a routine of letter and number practice (with the kids all sitting on the rug, of course).

Disclaimer: Actually, we really begin the day by taking a trip through the cafeteria, grabbing take-out "food", trouping back to the extreme opposite side of the school (including climbing a staircase with food in hands-- no way to use handrails there!), setting down food, unpacking backpacks, stowing backpacks on backs of chairs, hanging up jackets (on hangers...ugh. Takes forever.), eating breakfast, wiping up spilled milk, opening those maddening little foil topped juice containers, pouring out unfinished drinks in the sink, stacking the paper "boats" all this glory came in, putting wrappers and unfinished food in the alotted trash bucket, setting the bucket in the hallway for easy pickup, and finally settling down on the rug for some learnin'. And I take attendance and occasionally wolf down a granola bar during this period.

Then the day begins for real. We have a calendar routine which is part of our math curriculum and which is pretty comprehensive. It includes, in addition to the expected purely calendar aspects, pattern recognition, counting and numeral recognition, some science, some art, and so on. Quite cool actually. Then we go into a fairly rote but useful alphabet and phonemic awareness routine. We focus on a different letter each week and review it and the rest of the letters, along with our growing word wall of high frequency words. After this we take a bathroom break and get ready for an hour of literacy center rotations.

Most of these exercises are designed for whole-group choral response. We've been doing this since the first week of school, with its current, revised and improved format since about a month in to the school year. Of course, I haven't always had full participation, or heard everyone in unison. But yesterday, the Kindergarten Goddes was smiling upon us. Everyone assembled at the appointed time, enthusiastically offered answers and predictions at the calendar, moved around the area (mostly) smoothly, and recited the admittedly rote material Perfectly and In Unison. Without me reciting along with them! I was so proud of the little ~~monkey~~s scholars! And best of all, one of our building specialists (the speech & language pathologist) was there to observe it! I think we're getting somewhere with all this learnin' business.

Next up: progress reports. Then, start using the new digital projector. Which of course doesn't have its outlet wired yet, meaning I'll have to rig up an extension cord. But if I can get 28 kids to perform that well on their ABCs and so on, I can string a cord across the ceiling and down a wall of windows to get it plugged in. (We're back to 28. 3 days after Poor Little Ward of the State moved away, a new student arrived. He brings with him what appear to be good foundational skills, especially considering he doesn't speak English!)

Shiny new things for the classroom!

2009-12-01T18:23:00.000-08:00

The good news: I'm getting a digital projector installed in my classroom tomorrow! (a Smart Board is "soon" to follow. read: sometime this school year).

The not as great (but ultimately insignificant news: we have to relocate to the computer lab for the day! I have to take a bunch of portable activities and squirmy kindergarteners out of our fortress of solitude and somehow teach them something in the process!

I think we'll be taking periodic walks outside to burn off energy that can't be sustained around that expensive equipment.

Maybe with enough crayons (and the aforementioned exercise breaks) we'll have a good day. Hope so!

Now I'm starting to think about things I can do with the new gear. Air PBS (or similar) video clips of phonics-related material? Make a class video (something with counting maybe?) My husband suggests collaborating with older classes to have them make Power Point presentations about the alphabet, or other appropriate stuff, for my class. It could then be easily shared with other classes, and the tech-centric teachers in the upper elementary grades could have good assignments for their kids in the process. So cool!

Losing Sleep

2009-12-01T06:43:00.000-08:00

My little guy who's been moved around with one of his siblings was moved again yesterday. They called the classroom from the office telling me to send him down there after school. Later I found out that he and a sister were picked up there by DHS workers and taken to a new foster home outside of town. This time he won't stay at our school. I kept waking up last night thinking about him and his siblings; two of them are still with foster parent #1, while he and the one other sister have moved to #s 2 and now #3 just since the school year started. I don't know why they couldn't stay at #2, or why the siblings have been separated. We were holding steady for a while there, since they still all attended our school and could see each other a bit. I had all his sisters dropping into my classroom during the day, when their classes were at recess or just when their teachers OK'ed it. They'd sit with my little guy and work on his projects with him. He just glowed whenever they got together. Now I don't know what will happen to these kids. If I'd known they were sending him away, I'd have at least given him a hug on the way out. They must be so scared, and angry and lonely. It just makes me want to cry. In my delerium at 3 am I pondered the possibility of becoming a foster parent so I could just magically step in and make everything better for these kids. But now's not the time for that, and of course I couldn't be his teacher and mom. I guess what it boils down to is that all I can do at this point is care, and that does very little.

No more procrastinating.

2009-11-27T15:30:00.000-08:00

All my pencils are sharpened. My highlighters are in place. I have my lesson plan book and teacher's editions at the ready. I've read through the blogosphere and even posted an update on my other big project. Time to get to work. I'm going to have to go into my classroom today, and the day's getting close to being over! I've done nothing but eat leftovers and surf the internet. OK, I did wash some dishes, but not all of them! Sigh... I'll still be taking care of those Thanksgiving dishes on Sunday. Our plan is to buy a dishwasher when I get a contract. As long as I'm in temporary worker purgatory, it's not a justifiable expense. I'm looking forward to automating that chore, though the hot water does feel good this time of year!

I'm spending a lot of time thinking about reading groups and reading center actiivities. I found some good ideas here and here, so now I'm off to fine tune the system! I need some hot chocolate.

In other news: Pumpkin Pie!

2009-11-21T14:30:00.000-08:00

I got talked into joining some other kindergarten and first grade classes for a Thanksgiving feast on Tuesday. We're making, among other things, a no-crust, no bake pumpkin pie. I found this recipe and we'll mash it all together in a big ziploc bag and serve it like custard in little cups. Yummy, tactile, traditional. And fattening. I love it!

Sharing Is Hard, and other news from the Kindergarten Front

2009-11-21T14:21:00.000-08:00

The weird experience of having the Official Teacher "volunteering" all week kind of threw me off. Generally, we get along well, and when I'm looking at it as a sort of team teaching venture it's actually pretty great. The class is large (though at 28 it's not the biggest kindergarten in either the school or district), so extra hands are always welcome. And of course she knows (mostly) what she's doing, so the kids will absolutely benefit. She got the "bucket of frogs" that is one of our math centers to actually straighten up and ribbit right! As a student teacher, I was shown all sorts of techniques that my cooperating teachers used, with great explanations of their purposes. Working with Official Teacher could be more beneficial in a way, because I've been trying a lot of things and will understand better what a new system can offer. She thanked me on Friday for sharing the room and letting her come in. I just answered that, hey, it's a weird situation and we might as well approach it as a team. If all goes well and she does return to work this year, I may be able to stay on in a team teaching position.

Everyone talks about how it would be hard for the students to get used to a new teacher. They are, after all, only 5 and 6 years old and I've been their teacher all along. I think the truth is that since Official Teacher is coming in a bit at a time, they'd do fine with her later. They'd get used to it. I'm not saying I'm OK with that. I'd miss the kids and the work a lot. And I frankly need the paycheck. So I don't really want her to come back. But it's out of my hands and if it's going to happen but as a team teaching or job sharing situation, well I think that would be just dandy. Then maybe something will open up for next year. Someone could retire, or relocate for a spouse's job, or whatever. I know a first grade teacher in our building has a husband who's getting a high-tech bachelor's degree in June and would certainly have to relocate to find work in his field. I'd be happy to move into her classroom! The bottom line is that the rosy picture that was painted of the profession when I started out working on my degree and teaching license is no longer accurate. No one's retiring. There are no open positions. When a position does open up, it's usually as a one year temporary job instead of a contract position.

In other news, I'm wrestling with assessment. Kindergarten doesn't have much in the way of papers to grade, and a lot of the assessing is through observation. The district now wants us to administer big math assessments in January for the next report card. The official assessment is eleven pages long. With our average class size of about 29 or 30 kids, that's HUGE! I like the idea of collecting good data on the kids, but I have no idea how to pull that off. These aren't third graders or older who can actually work on something while one kid at a time is pulled aside by the teacher for a little test.

Of course, if we're team teaching it'll be cake. ...always look on the bright side of life...

Job security stress

2009-11-14T13:00:00.001-08:00

I'm having such mixed emotions. I met with the principal and the teacher I'm subbing for Friday afternoon to talk about her coming in as a volunteer a few (as in, 4!) days a week so she can start flexing her muscles a bit in preparation for returning to the classroom. The accident left her with brain damage that is mainly showing itself as memory problems. Lots of them.

The negative feelings: I feel threatened. My space and my authority with the students will be undermined or even usurped. She might get all the way better and I may then lose the job altogether. I'll have someone looking over my shoulder, which doesn't always lend itself to my best performances. It'll be like being a student teacher again.

On the other hand, she'd a great woman with tons of experience She taught one of my daughters a few years ago. She wrote my letter of reference when I was applying to graduate school. It's so weird and not right to see her as an adversary. We will probably work well together and the kids will probably benefit. She's got a nice sounding Thanksgiving project in mind, which I'm more than happy to let her lead since, as I've mentioned here, I have no interest in diving into what I see as a can of worms in teaching that particular history. The curriculum for kindergarten is so simplified, though, that it ultimately doesn't much matter. She tends to have a generally multicultural approach to most everything in the classroom, so it'll be fine. I'd still like to do the gratitude tree though.

I suppose this volunteer thing will go one of two ways. Either she'll prove to be significantly on the mend and ready to return soon or it'll show her what is still too difficult. We briefly discussed the idea of a job share down the line if she is ready to return during this year, since the kids of course see me as their teacher and the work load might be manageable for her if it were shared. My bottom line would likely be affected by that, but it would sure be better than unemployment, or than regular subbing with the constant question of "will I get called?", not to mention the chaos of subbing all over all the time, with little consistency. God I want a contract! I can't help but think that the uncertainty of this situation will serve me well in the long run. Someone's got to retire eventually, and I should be able to step in when that happens. It's just so hard to stay upbeat some days, feeling like it could end anytime, and then what? I've got some serious bills to pay!

This is not a typical first year teaching experience. But it's not a typical economy either.

Sometimes hugs aren't enough

2009-11-10T06:21:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I was monkeying around with this blog and I added the phrase "Phonics, counting, singing, and hugs in a Title I school" to the sidebar. I had hugs on the list because little people are all the time running up with waist-height hugs. It's sweet, and it's a perk of teaching primary grades. Yesterday I really had to put my hugging skills to the test, though. My little guy who was just moved to a second foster home broke down at the end of the day. It's been a couple of weeks since the move, and he's mostly been just a slightly bouncier version of his normal 5 year old self, but as we were preparing to leave school for the day I noticed him sitting with his chin on his desk, all red in the face. I sort of told the class to talk amongst themselves (they're quite good at that) and called him over. Before I knew it, he was curled up in my lap, sobbing that he missed his sisters (one was moved with him, two stayed behind). All I could do was hold him and whisper to him that it will be OK, that lots of people are on his side and making sure he's taken good care of, and so on. I hugged him like I hug my own daughters when they're sad: a real, solid, I'm not letting go kind of hug. Granted, my kids get upset about things like a skinned knee or a squabble over a toy or frustration over learning subtraction. This little guy has the world on his itty bitty shoulders. The irony is, all his sisters are in our school. It's just hard to pull them out of class to get them together. I'll track down their teachers today and see if we can do something. In the meantime, I'm a good hugger. And I've gotten good (thanks in large part to my husband's influence) at being consistent and reasonably strict with rules. I hope that can help the little guy, as well as the many many others in my class who are in stressful situations. We're a Title I school, and with high poverty tends to come a high level of stress for a lot of people. Sometimes it's heartbreaking, but I'm grateful for the chance to be a spark of positivity (and source of necessary skills and knowledge!) for so many kids.

In other news, I think for Thanksgiving I'll just do a kindergarten version of a Gratitude Tree that my mentor teacher did last year with 6th graders. I'll make some sort of tree image to go on the wall and the kids will give me quotes about things they're grateful for that I'll put on leaves. There. That's done!

What to do about Thanksgiving?

2009-11-07T13:04:00.001-08:00

On the one hand, the holiday generally delights me. It's secular. It's focused on those most important 3 F's: family, friends, and food (my three favorite things, really). We're supposed to be with our loved ones and think about gratitude. Nothing wrong so far. Oh, and we get a little time off. Always nice.

On the other hand, the prospect of teaching about Thanksgiving and its history worries me. I'm not one to buy into the whole Earnest Pilgrims and Helpful Indians thing. Not without mentioning the smallpox or the complex and pervasive societies that predated said pilgrims. Not without mentioning Europeans' treachery and general ignorance. Not without some sort of caveats.

And these are kindergarten students, so most of that would be frankly inappropriate and difficult to understand.

And the district apparently has an official Teach Thanksgiving policy, though how specific this policy may be I don't yet know.

And a significant portion of my students are Native Americans. And I'm not. And this is a politically conservative community. And I'm not. AAAAArrrrggh.

We made hand print turkeys, though. Can we call it good?

In which a first-year teacher survives her first Parent Teacher Conferences!

2009-11-06T07:53:00.000-08:00

Well, we did it. After two 12 to 13 hour days, parent-teacher conferences are done. OK, technically I had a few no-shows, so I should be wrapping it up after school next week, but still, Whew! I learned a few things. Don't forget to let the office know when your own daughters' conferences are, so rescheduled appointments don't get piled up at all the wrong times. Block out a dinner break. And just plain go more quickly. I went a long way past the allotted times, partly due to folks arriving late in the middle of the day, which snowballed into everything running late after that, and partly due to me wanting to explain every last item on the report cards to the parents. Granted, my speech got quicker and more precise as I went along, and I got good at writing key benchmark goals upside down as we sat across the table from each other, but still... shorter and sweeter would have been good.
More pertinent to the children's actual education: in an effort to include positive feedback for every child I may have ended up sugar coating the news in some cases. I had our building's instructional coach sitting in with me for a couple of conferences, and when the parents left she seemed amazed at how they didn't register that so many "needs improvement" marks really means their child isn't up to par.
Good news: after going through each report card in detail (after, of course, having created each one less than a week ago) I have a good idea of where the class stands, what skills are commonly lacking, and what I need to emphasize. In addition to the daily routines that are already in place for phonemic awareness and letter recognition, I'm going to have to set up small groups to work with a paraprofessional regularly to drill on letters and numbers. And colors and shapes in some cases. Sheesh. If the kids with the lowest skills would just participate, I think we'd see some growth.
More brainstorming will ensue. In the meantime, I have a three day weekend and I intend to only spend it with my family! There's storytime at the library to take the three year old to, some area rugs to haul upstairs in the interest of warming up the cold cold loft, maybe some real cooking to do... Sounds pretty good!

Boooooo!

2009-10-31T08:08:00.000-07:00

A festive good time was had by all! Note that 3-year old zombies tend to be messy when eating brains: she's got it all over her face!

watch it here... if you dare
got some candy too!

Report Cards

2009-10-27T05:26:00.000-07:00

I'm preparing report cards. The news overall is not good. These children on average don't know what a letter or number is, let alone which ones you're pointing to or what sounds they make, etc. I had little ones saying everything but a number when identifying numerals 1-15. I have some kids who recognize not a single letter or its sound. This is after ten weeks of daily, and often twice daily or more, drilling. We chant the ABC song. We recite it again with phonics added and an "alphafriend" to help remember. We practice phoneme segmentation with picture cards. We make silly sounding "starts with" noises all day long. I am seeing growth, but a lot of kids are still getting a "needs improvement" on their first report cards. And I mean everything pretty much needs improvement. We've got our work cut out for us. And speaking of "cut out", right when these kids need it the most, a quarter of our sparse paraprofessional hour is cut in favor of the special ed room. I said I was fine with that, since the school is under some AYP scrutiny and SPED is especially hurting. It's in the school's best interest for those kids to get that support. But it's certainly not in my students' best interest! I have no idea how to proceed with one of our four reading rotations sans adult. The kids can't do it independently! I don't want to raise a stink, but I'm going to have to ask the administration for help.

On the other hand, my kindergarteners rocked starfall.com yesterday! I spent their entire morning recess booting up and logging on to all the machines in the computer lab. They were all over it, finding apps I hadn't ever noticed, helping each other, totally loving it! We have an open sign-up policy for the computer lab, and I noticed that the whole month is me and the 5th and 6th grade teachers. My little buggers are going to be rocking it by June.

Which is looking more and more will be my class in June. After all, I am a substitute teacher who's preparing report cards. Next week is parent-teacher conferences. I really want to stay put here. Beside the fact that I need the work, it would be awfully hard on the kids to suddenly have a new teacher. Especially the ones with abandonment, attachment, or change issues. Which is a lot of them. Foster care is rampant in my class, and a consistent adult at school shouldn't be too much to ask. Out of my hands though.

Dare I Say It?

2009-10-14T17:52:00.000-07:00

I think the kiddos are getting the hang of this whole school thing. Today went wonderfully. Granted, it followed on the heels of a Terrible Tuesday in which a Bus Evacuation Drill, chock full of Important and Useful information that the five year olds neither could nor should understand, took up the best part of my reading time and threw me and the schedule off for most of the day. I mean, really, do we want the kinders operating the special yellow emergency brake button? Should they use the CB to call anyone, and if so would they remember to a) say specifically "bus 86 to base" and b) take the finger off the button when they're not talking so they can hear this mysterious "base", whatever that is? No. The answer we're looking for is no they should not. No problem, though, because they didn't understand anything other than that I wouldn't let them sit anywhere they wanted and it Had To Be Three To A Seat.

Digress much? Now that I've got that out of my system, on to the Good Day that was today. No, when I teach writing conventions we won't put Random Capitals throughout an otherwise charming bit of writing.

Today the kids came in in the morning, put their homework folders in the correct color-coded boxes (no one forgot and left it in a backpack!) went to their tables, and immediately began writing in their journals. Which I'd cleverly set out with pencils before they came in. This without me reminding them what to do next, or describing what quiet writing looks like! I was such a proud mama duck!

I've taken to thinking of myself a bit as a mama duck because the little ducklings have imprinted on me as Teacher (which, at the kindergarten level includes a little bit of Mama too). (Just a little though. I have daughters of my own thank you very much.)

The day continued thusly, with a general theme of cooperation and good will. My squirreliest little trouble maker even made, and kept, a promise to be good all day. He was rewarded with a coveted Red Ticket, even though I maintain that learning is its own reward, we don't always get goodies for just taking care of our responsibilities, natural consequences, blah blah etc. Red tickets work though, and in truth he didn't even kick anyone all day, let along give me his sulky "you've wounded me by insisting that I sit on the rug right now for a story" stance. Not loving that stance, by the way, but deciding to catch more flies with sugar or whatever. Poor guy probably gets shamed enough at home, so maybe if I accentuate the positive, what there is of it, we'll see more good behavior. At least the fella can excel academically if he wants, unlike most of his peers at this point!

On the cuteness scale, though, they all excel.

Kindergarten Rocks!

2009-10-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

On paper, it's still not my own classroom. But I'm the only adult who's been there since before day 1 and to the kids I'm certainly the teacher. I'm beginning to approach it as if I'll be there all year, knowing full well this might not be the case. I have a big pile of a reading unit to prepare for Monday and the ongoing busy festivity that is Math, and I'm loving it! Sure, most of my students eat the occasional booger, and most can't tell the difference between the letter A and, well, anything. But they're getting better already! One little guy started off the year writing his name in "cursive". This strongly resembled a looooong line of zigzags to me, but what do I know. Now it's 3 or 4 squiggly but recognizable letters (the correct ones, even!) followed by some zigzags for good measure. The one who only cried for about the first five days now is all hunky-dory and making friends. Next step: paying attention in class! The mute one who wants to hide his little face when I ask him to say the abc's or count for me... still does that, but at least he says goodbye to me at the end of the day now!

I'm becoming organized. I know where (most) things are in the room. One little kiss-up politely raised his hand at the end of the day on Friday (the most tired and ornery time of the week typically) and announced that I'm the best teacher ever. Best. Ever. Granted, I'm the only teacher the little guy has had so far, but I'm willing to trust his judgement. Just like when my sweet 3 year old tells me I'm a beautiful mommy, well, it just must be true! I guess in her alternate reality dark circles under the eyes, weird hair, and a well padded tummy DO equal beautiful.

Honestly I don't believe these little guys when they say such hooey, but I am sure they mean it, which means I'm in the right profession (slash lifestyle if you count my own offspring in that). I still wonder from time to time how it would be with the older kids, wonder if I might one day land a position with big ones who can sort of sit still and, if they're texting in class, at least it means they can read and pretty much write! For now, though, I have in fact tapped into my inner Kindergarten Goddess, and she takes the kids for a walk outside to sit under a tree next to the school and sing alphabet songs. And she rocks.

Probably not the swine flu, but...

2009-09-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

Boy was it a nasty 32 hours. Four of the five of us got it (mercifully the three year old was spared, so far!) but I really think I had it the worst. At the risk of treading into the Too Much Information zone, I was up two or three times an hour from 1am to about 7. Then it was about another 24 hours of not really being able to comfortably get out of bed. Ugh. No fever, though, and no other symptoms aside from the intestinal ones! So whatever it was didn't require a report to the health department. I had to call in sick, which meant I got to figure out how to get a substitute while panicking that a) it wouldn't be arranged in time and that b) I didn't really have any good lesson plans in place for the sub. I'm spending the rest of the weekend doing house chores and outlining next week's lessons!

How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Kindergarten

2009-09-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

Starting a new school year with about two working days' advance notice and another two or three days of prep time is A Challenge. Doing it in kindergarten, where the clientele is squirmier, wigglier, and generally needier than is typical in other grades is a Super Learning Experience! Doing all this while still unpacking and living out of boxes from the Big Move is a bit much, but I digress.

Now, however, I've begun to hit my stride. I don't exactly have a year's worth (or even a semester) of lesson plans or anything, but I know my students, I can remember the daily routine, and we're getting familiar with the great mystery that is How School Works. We line up. We sit on the rug. We raise our hands, occasionally, when we have something to say. We even give passing recognition to Directions. Not bad for ten days of experience under our little belts. I've begun elaborating on the basic Reading and Math curricula and can start introducing some science and art. We did little handprint paintings that became a flower garden. I remembered to sing with them, and they liked it. I'm going to do a seed unit soon (something I spotted in a recent NSTA article). We're getting it!

Friday was so sweet (especially as it came on the heels of a decidedly sour Thursday). I was introducing the class to the idea of writing stories. They would be given a paper with space for a picture on top and three or so lines for their literary masterpieces below. I started with the overhead projector and modeled thinking through ideas, writing them down, and making a picture. Turns out probably none of the kids had seen an overhead projector before, and they were so blown away by watching me draw in one place and having it projected on the screen that they not only stopped goofing around, they actually burst into applause. I kid you not. They clapped for me. Granted, my picture of a princess and her new friend the monster was pretty awesome, but still... That plus the one little guy telling me my hair looked "cute" totally made up for Thursday. Which was draining and worrisome.

Long story short, I think I like kindergarten!

no news is good news

2009-09-06T15:43:00.000-07:00

...and by that I don't mean that there's no good news! Just that the lack of posts here is because I've been working. A lot, actually. I just finished week two of a long term substitute job which is likely to last through the fall and could go longer than that. I'm starting the year for a kindergarten teacher who dropped her motorcycle in July and can't work yet. Though of course this is bad news for her, it's great for me. I'm learning a lot, working in an almost-mine classroom, and not stressing about the paycheck for now! Plus, it's at my kids' school, so I get to walk to work with the girls in the morning and see them a lot more during the day than I would otherwise.

Kindergarten is a wild experience. The kids came in in groups of six or so Monday through Thursday last week, and Friday was the first For Real day of school for them. It's amazing: I'm already able to assess a lot of their abilities and even personalities. Some are shy and just haven't warmed up yet, but others are already wild and crazy. Quite a few can't write a single letter, or write completely backwards. One obviously bright girl has serious stamina and perseverance issues. As in, she has none. Her inability to stay interested and on-task longer than it takes to write her Aa once or twice screams "TV watcher". Then there's the over-sharing, both from kids and parents. I've already heard all about a mother who was in jail, a father who's never around, a pit bull, unexpected pregnancy (that mom is 23 and already has four kids, with #5 on the way). The non-English speakers, the criers, the mommy-missers, the hypoglycemics and breakfast-skippers. I came home tired on Friday. Next week we're focusing on writing our names and identifying colors in English and espanol. Fortunately, the classroom came equipped with a number of books in Spanish, so I've been able to read a few to certain kids. This helps them feel more comfortable.

All in all, I'm loving the job. Since actual open teaching positions were few and far between this year, subbing is great and this gig is great great great. I love the school and I feel like I'm actually contributing to my community by being there.

Mission Accomplished: summer birthdays all done!

2009-08-19T13:59:00.001-07:00

Big news from the home front: all our birthdays for the year have been successfully accomplished! The eldest turned 11 this week, and our as-yet-unfinished upstairs made a fabulous roller rink for her party. The area will soon be our actual home, but for now it's one big big big room with no furniture and a nice smooth floor. Great fun was had by all.
In other news, I've got no news to report. Still job hunting, still looking at substitute teaching, still haven't heard from the charter school. Hoping I can stand the suspense until it all gets settled within the next few days.
Fingers crossed. At least they say I come highly recommended (they being people who've checked my references)! If it were a normal year I'd have a job or two by now. It's not normal, so I'm just grateful for the affirmations.
fingers crossed

No news...

2009-08-11T16:32:00.000-07:00

I'm waiting (patiently, I swear) to hear back from Cool Charter School about how my second interview went.
Good news: out of 45 initial interviewees, 4 were called for second interviews and one of those had already taken another job or some such. So it was me and two others applying for not one but two openings. Good odds.
Bad news: It's been like two whole business days (4 days if you count the weekend) and I haven't heard anything. I still could be the one who didn't get the job. Ugh.
Sure, it's very validating, especially in a tough year like this, to get this far in the first place. I try to play it cool. I tell myself that substitute teaching for four different local districts could be just dandy for the next year or two. The truth is that yes, it would be fine, but I really hope I get the job. I like the mission of the school, I like that it's still a public school serving a high needs community, and I like that since it's a charter there is a lot of customization in the curricula and small class sizes.
So at this point I know that I'll be doing either the subbing or the charter school, and that's fine. I'm just hoping hoping hoping I get my own classroom and don't have to worry about the uncertainty of not working full time. Whatever the outcome, just knowing one way or the other will be good.

nice things

2009-07-23T10:20:00.000-07:00

Nothing's guaranteed, but I just got an email inviting me to a second interview for this groovy-sounding school not far from here. Next week: teach awesome science camp. Week after: dazzle the hiring committee. A week or two later: start work???

This is me trying to be "upbeat and optimistic" without crossing over into "getting my hopes up".

A little bitty good start

2009-07-21T17:30:00.000-07:00

Next week I'll be teaching a fabulous science summer camp for elementary kids (and one of my own very favorite daughters will be attending). Today I got to go in and set up "my" classroom. This was no big deal, but the feeling of Control was sweet. I'll be one of four or so teachers, with three classes of kids rotating through our rooms each day. The camp has a full curriculum with pretty much all the supplies provided, so it's a great opportunity for running the show without having to invent the show. In my room the kids will be working in teams to construct "land sleds", along with other activities, leading up to a grand prix on Friday involving an obstacle course outside and water balloons. In fact, water balloons figure prominently throughout the week. Games involving throwing them and getting points for being driest will allow kids to buy gear for their sleds with the points. Note to self: don't wear white blouses next week. I'm sure to get hit at least once.

Meanwhile, Operation Move the Family of Five continues unabated. Right now I'm looking at my living room overflowing with those 5 gallon plastic storage tubs. There are around twenty of them filled with books, kids' stuff, and baking dishes. Oh, and my "office". I managed to go through an entire graduate degree program using the dining room table as my work space next to a weird bookshelf I built full full full of textbooks and binders. The dining room is smack in the traffic pattern for the house. It was not ideal. Literally the day after my last class, we started moving. Once the dust settles and we're all moved in I'll have my very own office and art studio suite. With doors. And no homework to do. Let's hope I get work and need to do lesson plans in there!

On a side note, I figured out how to review comments. Wow am I a modern gal. This had never come up before, but now I see that someone actually reads this and I'm not completely talking to myself. Which I've been fine with. I must say, it does add a little something to the blogging experience, knowing someone's reading. Thanks!

In keeping with the ongoing spirit of forced optimism I've been enforcing around here (here being my own head, of course) I'm proud to say that I did not shy away from finding out what the bleep was up with my recent student loan statement. A got this little paper in the mail, and though I've largely ignored them all year because nothing comes due until 6 months after graduation, I figured what with the graduating and all I should open this one. And it says I owe about $28,000 more than I was expecting. Oh, the emotional roller coaster. Oh, the wtf, the lost sleep, the "how do I break this to husband?". I added up the tuition estimates on my school's website, verified that my math wasn't crazy, and working against type I actually called the Direct Loan folks (that's federal student aid, for those lucky enough to not have incurred such debt). Turns out this was the one statement I should have ignored: sort of a typo-snafu resulted in bad info. It's all cool. And I love this administration. Thanks to the brand spankin new Income Contingent Repayment plan, I could be enjoying low low monthly payments of like $15 or $20 for ten years. Then, I believe, the remainder is likely to be wiped clean. Anyone out there, especially K-12 teachers, with federal Direct Loans: look into this. It made me go from freaking out to cool as a cucumber. OK, I'm a kind of hot, tired, and unemployed cucumber, but still. Finally some good news. I'll take what I can get from the stingy Good News Department.

summer at last

2009-07-19T21:27:00.000-07:00

Classes ended on Thursday. I stayed up late and got up early so I could be done for real when the final class came; some papers could be turned in over the weekend, but I walked out of there for the last time and went to a family celebration with nothing left on my plate. My mom cooked some of my favorite comfort foods, my girls were ecstatic, and I ended up sleeping for twelve hours! It was heavenly. The next day, we started our move. We're moving about eight blocks down the street, into an amazing commercial building we just finally bought a week ago and are semi-renovating into a loft for the family upstairs and art studios, office, and workshop space on the main level. The thing's huge, I tell you. The girls were roller skating around the embarrassingly big living space while Dave and I cleaned up lots of dust and debris to get ready to move in. Until the county planning department signs off on it, we won't be officially living there, but we're getting ready as much as possible, and we took as much as we could down there today. So so so tired, but in a good way. Now I'm preparing to teach a week of science camp for elementary kids, back at the same school where I did my student teaching. And there was a promising interview earlier in the week for a teaching position at a really exciting school, so I'm hoping and waiting. So far so good for July!

Viva Arts Education!

2009-07-01T14:21:00.000-07:00

Did I mention how proud I am of all the drama queens (and one very stoic drama king) in my family? Check out these amazing highlights of the spring musical theater extravaganza on our very own Mills Elementary's homepage. Anyone who knows me in real life may recognize the grandfather (narrator), granddaughter (sitting with narrator when not up and dancing), and pink mama monster.

Happy Birthday Katherine!

2009-06-29T14:12:00.001-07:00

Attitude Adjustment: Day 2
Project Glass Half Full is on track. Aided by an adorable daughter's third birthday, a kite, a swimming pool, and cake, everything is GREAT.

New plan: attitude adjustment

2009-06-28T10:44:00.000-07:00

Today begins Operation Looking On the Bright Side. It's a survival thing. I hope it works. My glass is half full, by golly.

Bitterness probably won't help me survive this recession

2009-06-26T19:08:00.000-07:00

Good news: got a call for a job interview.

Bad news: it's in a town about 4 hours away from here and we've decided that come heck or high water we're staying put. (In this context that sounds foolish, but it makes a lot of sense for our whole family's long term, big-picture plans.)
Good news: had an actual interview for an actual job not too very far away from home.
Bad news: didn't get the job. found out when I ran into the girl who did get it (a perfectly nice person if not as deserving as I- I who have five people to support versus she who has a dog. And then I found out that the job pays over twice what I need to support my family. Twice. Grrrr. But my bitterness causes digression...)
Good news: there's still some hope for two local jobs I applied for recently, but both are in limbo until the middle of August; depending on enrollment figures, the jobs may or may not exist. Does that even count as good news? I'm thinking not so much.
And in the same vein (the "does it count as good, bad, or indifferent?" vein): I applied for a part time, minimum wage job yesterday. Again, won't know anything until probably August, but that's fine as I'm booked through July anyway. The job involves books and nice people, so it's good. It may have a flexible schedule that can fit around substitute teaching and, maybe, part time adjunct-ing (one of the aforementioned local jobs). That's good too. And it's not actually minimum wage: it's a whopping $0.73 above minimum. Yep. That's what a master's degree gets you in 2009. Gets me, anyway. Apparently if you're 23 and you're from these parts and you say "like" a lot you're golden. Not so much for me: the chunky matron, heading in to middle age and trying to start over like I'm brand new or something. I'm not brand new. And I'm not from around here, and this is a small town, with a handful of outlying smaller towns where people know each other and they don't really know me.
This week has been incredibly depressing and demoralizing. Six months ago I was confident that I'd make a great teacher and some school district would be happy to get me. Happy. Now it's looking like going back to school was the biggest and most expensive mistake of my long list of regrettable mistakes in this glorious life. So in between trying not to cry all day I'm angry and just plain bitter. Just what HR people want in an applicant. Grrr.

teaching my favorite students

2009-06-22T17:40:00.000-07:00

With the oldest daughter away this week at SOU's Academy camp for fabulous above average talented and amazing kids (I'm so proud of her!), it's just the little big kids here at home. And with grad classes only two days this week (plus an interview on Wednesday! Crossing fingers!) I have a lot of time to spend with my 8 and almost-3 year old girls.
My 8 year old is a willing guinea pig and experimental mathematician, so we've been playing with multiplication and trying out some new (to me) ways of finding these types of math facts other than rote memorization and the old fashioned standard algorithm. She eyes me skeptically when we try the array model I learned recently, but she's game and lo and behold the answers are correct! I think she'll do well in third grade next year.
Littlest kid is mostly running around sans pants and working on remembering about that special potty chair in the bathroom. I'm trying to introduce some more alphabet games, but the formal education stuff is mostly mom reading to kid. That's the most fun anyway, and it's like finding out that your most favorite comfort food is nutritious and slimming. We'd rather just read a good stack of library books anyway. To her credit, Littlest has been exhibiting some good self analysis. When questioned on her reasons for a half hearted bite she gave her poor sister, she allowed that she'd been bothering 8 year old and should go play by herself. After a mandated apology, she happily bounced off to her play kitchen, and peace again reigned in the living room.
My sweet husband's out filling a box full of helium balloons to send to Eldest Daughter at camp. What better way to be reminded that your quirky family misses you than to open a box and have a swarm of balloons randomly fill your dorm room?

Happy Faces!

2009-06-16T17:36:00.000-07:00

Me, my mom, and my older kids on graduation day at Southern Oregon University. Everyone got a chance to try on the cap!

happy graduation to us...

2009-06-14T14:16:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I participated in the commencement ceremony marking the completion of my master's degree. (OK, my cohort and I are not quite there yet, but we're mere weeks from complete and got to walk anyway.) I have always valued higher education and am proud of this accomplishment; I'm even proud in advance of the good work this degree will allow me to do.
But.
There are no jobs. There is no money to go around. I am not qualified to be an RN or a long haul truck driver, and these are really about all my local paper is advertising for. Somehow my worries have been overshadowing my pride in a job well done. A Wall Street Journal article is highlighting the way the baby boomers have, well, basically ruined the country and maybe to an extent the planet for us, their children. Leaving school doesn't look so good when unemployment is this high. For about eleven months now, I've been second guessing myself, and it's only gotten worse as the year dragged on. Was taking out these student loans a good idea, when I could (presumably) gotten a job a year ago and been making money all this time instead of accruing debt and angst? Boomer commencement speakers this year are on record apologizing to this year's graduates for the world we're inheriting. As Judy Berman puts it, "too little, too late". Sure, there are individual examples here and there of baby boomers who I value and like (mostly my parents and one or two professors). As a whole, though, they've really done a number on us.
I'll be lucky to be working part time pumping gas after summer classes are done. I'm not exaggerating either. (Pumping gas is an actual job here in Oregon, btw). The glow of graduation day is definitely gone already.

Bad economy, good time to be creative

2009-06-10T15:18:00.000-07:00

I'm at loose ends. With no long term writing projects hanging over my head, this week off is actually a week off! My older children finished up their school year on Tuesday, and I spent the whole day doing family-errands. I visited the high school to pay my oldest daughter's band teacher for the flute that looks like it won't be abandoned. Then I took the almost-3 year old to get on a preschool waiting list (good news: they're not worried about potty training status; bad news: it may be a year before she gets in). Then it was on to big kids' elementary school, where I procured a loaner violin for 8 year old to play over the summer, watched 10 year old receive many many awards for being an all around good kid and serious scholar, and make friendly, sort of "hire me someday" chitchat with as many folks at the school as possible for one last time. Then, toddler and I hustled home as fast as possible, as we were running all these errands on the bike and a rain storm was threatening. Rain. In the high desert. In June. Wow- this global warming is treating my area all right so far. More biking and less driving is in order anyway.

The strange thing right now is, I suppose, economically driven. Because we're in the toilet as far as the state budget goes, there are literally No Teaching Jobs. None. Like teachers are being laid off. So I'm forced to get creative with the whole job/career thing. It's looking like I'll be substitute teaching for our two local school districts next year. This is fine with me; I've gotten used to the idea of not getting a full fledged job and there are advantages to subbing. The pay won't be good, though, because there is a large pool of subs and I'm a newbie. So I'll need another job that starts around 4pm, so on days when I do get a subbing call I'll be able to accept it and still make it to the other job. This could make for a weird and even hectic school year, but we gotta do what we gotta do. This is where things get interesting, in my current mood of cautious optimism. What will I do for work in the after-school hours? I know there aren't a million jobs to choose from that will fit the bill, but maybe something good will surface... I've actually sent out two resumes today, and the one I'm hoping works out would be in that after 4 bracket (most likely) and would involve education and my undergraduate area of expertise and is right here in town and would be fun. While paying the bills. And not interfering with that keeping-my-toe-in-it substitute work. Fingers crossed. Please please please. If this works out and I'm hired, and subbing, and our big exciting new real estate pursuit pans out, well then I think 2009 will be a Good Year. Actually making a living at this stuff would be a dream come true.

writing conventions are important!

2009-06-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

They may be small, but apostrophes, semicolons, and especially commas really do matter. So there.

2009-05-22T05:44:00.000-07:00

This school year is coming to a close. Next week we're only in session three days, the following week four days, and that's all she wrote. Though I have a few weeks of course work to follow that before I get my pretty letters to stick after my name, it's safe to say the end is in sight. So, in the interest of adhering to the central theme of this Master of Arts in Teaching program (reflection, reflection, reflection), I thought I'd ponder the enduring understandings about the profession of teaching that I've gleaned this year.

Inside the classroom, my biggest focus is on classroom management, with general organization being a close second. I've found that when I'm on a roll with the kids and they're responding well to my instructions, amazingly we get a lot more learning in! When I came to the first grade right after spring break, on the heels of almost six months with sixth graders, it took me a while to get into the rhythm. Obviously, with such a large age gap, a lot of management techniques have to be different. Some things are the same, whether the students are first graders (or, I'm sure, preschoolers) or graduate students. We like to chat with our friends. What we're talking about and how we carry ourselves while doing it may look different at different ages, but a good teacher/ professor/ workshop leader acknowledges this and works with it instead of against it, using age- and setting-appropriate ways to pull every one's attention back to the task at hand.

In the beginning of the term I spent a lot of time (which felt like wasted time, though it had its educational merit for me and for the kids) just getting it quiet enough that I could move on to the next part of the lesson. Some days it was excruciating. Even while teaching my work sample, which overlapped with my full time takeover of the classroom for the student teaching requirements, I never had a whole day of attentiveness. I'm not expecting perfect silence, or everyone sitting in rows with hands folded and backs straight. It would be weird if six year olds never squirmed or giggled or picked their noses when the teacher's talking. Of course they will get off task. But I know that when I have developed enough gravitas and authority it will go more smoothly.

After a week of ups and downs, Friday was an especially up day. Previous days had included some especially squirelly behavior. This included a lot of running and sliding in the classroom, nasty words exchanged, tattling, and general jokey noisiness during instruction. There were some moments of successful first grade work, but I was so tired after each day.

Then we got to Friday. Sullen Malevolent Boy and Hyper Hateful boy were both absent. That left only Manic Rude Girl to stir the pot. The day was like a dream. They were still wiggly and excited because it was the Friday before a four day weekend, followed by only a few days remaining in the school year. We had practice for the class play. We made costumes. We watched the movie Babe to wrap up our big unit (actually from the amazing math curriculum!) on farms. We had a bike parade to wrap up our school's two-week Bike to School extravaganza. We even got to have our long awaited cups of ice cream to celebrate some good behavior points earned long long ago (which I noticed even the Jehovah's Witnesses accepted!). My mentor had to do one more formal observation of my teaching, so I led the math lesson of the day, and it went beautifully. Every last one of them was engaged, they were excited about finding as many different methods as possible to solve the "how many legs on three cows" story problems. A few of them spontaneously worked in pairs (actually worked, not just got together to avoid) and came up with creative and accurate answers. Then they all finished up more than we'd expected in the time allowed and sat on the rug reading. It was awesome. It was only later that I connected the aforementioned absences with the awesomeness that was my lesson, but I'll take what I can get. It was so nice to leave school for the long weekend with a sense of a job well done instead of wearily feeling like I need this break just to survive the rest of the year! Despite the providence of those absent fellows, I am feeling significantly more able and skilled when it comes to directing the kids and maintaining (or quickly regaining) appropriate order. I was thoroughly charmed all day long by the sweetness and enthusiasm and just general cuteness of these children. I felt like I'd finally gotten to the level of proficiency I'd reached around February with the sixth graders. Thank goodness!

Now, on to my four day weekend. Lots of sleeping in and hanging out with my own kids!

The end is in sight.

2009-05-15T06:12:00.000-07:00

Nine weeks to go and I'll have three fancy new letters after my name. The spring term is winding down; after one more weekend of probably sixteen hour days, my spring work sample will be done and turned in. Then we proceed to finish up with one action packed summer term. Then it's all over except for the worrying about finding a job in this economy. Substitute teaching never looked so good.

Last night we presented our portfolios to faculty (what I think of as a baby-version of a defense of dissertation for master's degree students). These huge binders exhibited work from the whole year so far, with a long and detailed list of specific accomplishments and professional traits to exhibit. The presentations went well, and I was really proud of my cohort. I would be happy for my own daughters to be in any one of their classes: they'll all make great teachers. We all will. I can't wait for my first for-real classroom.

Spring (and change) is finally in the air!

2009-05-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

Despite the slow pace of economic recovery and the stressful tedium of the waiting game, I'm feeling optimistic. Cautious, but optimistic. My husband and I have firmly decided we're not leaving our quaint little town to search for jobs. I'd been sending out resumes all around our region (the whole state of Oregon, some of Washington, Idaho, and California) just to see what would surface for a first year teacher like me. So now, even though the only local leads are outside my authorization areas (like special ed or high school math), I feel OK about the wait and see. First of all, something great could still open up between now and September. If it doesn't, plan B (substitute teaching) is OK and would have some up sides. Yes, I'd need to scramble to fill in the economic gaps if I don't get enough work as a sub. But I'd have more time with my youngest daughter who'll be only 3 during this upcoming school year. We also have a little bit of an interest in a piece of real estate down the road that would be an amazing and thoroughly positive addition to our lives. If we get it, there would be projects going on and it would be helpful to be home a bit next year to work on them. I must not say more, lest I jinx the whole thing. More on this later if it pans out. Probably most importantly, if I'm not hired into my very own classroom, I'll be needing to get creative and be open to new possibilities, both as a part of meeting my family's financial needs and as a part of pursuing my budding career as an educator. If I don't yet have my very own most perfect and permanent classroom, maybe I can teach something after school. Maybe parents would like their children to have art classes or experiment with science inquiries once a week. I may be continuing my education with additional graduate courses to add on an endorsement. Though I'm no fan of the uncertainty, at least I'm open to the creative possibilities. Maybe I'll be subbing occasionally and pumping gas (an actual job here in Oregon, though of course not well paid). Who knows? All I know is that right now I know we're staying here in Cute Small Town and something great will eventually happen.

Signs of Spring: green beans and job worries

2009-05-02T17:51:00.001-07:00

The first graders planted green beans, and it worked! Here they are on my desk in front of the big window. My, my, that window looks so clean, it's like my desk is outside! In the road! Actually, that's just the blacktop- the playground is just out of view. Kids pass this window going to recess from the cafeteria, and we get a constant stream of interested little faces checking out the progress of these great plants. A few seem not to have sprouted, but then good sir Eric Carle warned us that not all seeds sprout. It'll be OK.

Judging from the consistent Zero next to where it says comments on here, I'm pretty sure it's safe for me to say just about anything I want to and no one will ever be the wiser. I mean, wow, what freedom! I really am just talking to myself.

So, the truth: I'm terrified every day. I think I've burdened my family with a huge ol' load of student loan debt and will never be able to get a job in this economy. I'll be lucky to get anything resembling regular work as a substitute, and even that online Connections Academy isn't hiring anyone for elementary positions in my region. A lot of teachers say they got hired in August. I fear, though, that letting myself think "oh, August. So this is fine. This is normal. I'll totally get hired right after summer school." will be setting myself up for major disappointment and stress.

What used to look like a not-so-good-but-it'll-do Plan B is now what I'll be lucky if I can pull off. It consists of subbing (a little) next year and taking more classes so when something finally does open up I'll be a little closer to an extra endorsement (probably reading). It all just feels so sad. I just want my own shiny room with my little charges all ready for the learnin'. My calendar time. My book clubs. My dodge ball games. My counting by 2s and spelling quizzes.

For now, though, I have green beans. I'll be living in the moment now.

How about some more days in the school year?

2009-04-18T06:31:00.000-07:00

I just read a couple of interesting posts at In Practice about the merits of an extended school year. His general premise is that if that would just mean more of the same for students, it wouldn't be at all beneficial. However, if more hours and days to work with could mean more time dedicated to sports, more arts, more science and social studies (all at the elementary level- secondary schools have a different situation), then he's all for it. I'd have to say I agree. I think having some nice contiguous weeks off, especially when the weather's nice, is still great, but a calendar that is more toward a year-round school with slightly fewer days off overall would offer some wonderful opportunities. Imagine:
... organized athletics (at the elementary level): team sports and/ or PE classes
... visual arts twice a week instead of maybe once a month
... weekly performing arts (musical theater, dance, orchestra, etc.). I was an art major, so naturally I support these. Realistically, I think increased participation in the arts is measurably, academically beneficial to kids. Plus it's fun, which increases the good associations with school that contribute to a good attitude about everything else at school.
... a school garden! This one is especially appealing to me. I live in a cold, high desert area and I love to grow food. Our growing season is very short: I can't put much in the ground before the first of June, and by the end of September it's about all over. While this means I could spend my own summer vacation tending my home garden, a lot of kids will never have that opportunity. If school were in session during the growing season it would make sense to include some biology lessons around growing food (not to mention the social studies involved). As it is, it's pretty much a snow covered world for most of the school year around here. Imagine the Inner City Elementary booth at the Farmers' Market every week during the summer! Fresh tomatoes and peppers!!!

This won't happen any time soon. All across my state, and especially here in my county, districts have had to cut days off of this school year in order to save money. Maybe five or ten years from now there will be a little more cushion in the budgets and some of this could be introduced. As a small step, just having a couple of extra weeks in the year could mean significantly more hours across the year of organized athletics, arts, and sciences.

And a big sigh of relief marks the vernal equinox

2009-03-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

A few key points. The winter term has finished. I completed a 175 page work sample (sort of part 1 of my master's thesis- part 2 to follow in the spring term). I accomplished my research project on assisting students spiffy up their organizational skills, complete with cool graphs and charts. I finished the student teaching with the sixth graders, and only teared up that one time. I accomplished all nineteen credits, from Implications of Poverty to Human Relations to Special Methods in Science and Math to the aforementioned Action Research.

And here's the kicker: I still want to be a teacher! The winter term was full of twelve hour days, including many weekends when I had to leave the house to get work done. It was full of unwashed dishes and laundry. It was full of thirty distracted minutes a day with my kids. It was full of my husband getting really annoyed with me for being so busy and distracted and not asking for help enough! And then my car broke down! I certainly don't want to relive anything like the past three months, but I sure do still want to be a teacher.

So spring break is here. The weather is nice, sunny-snowy-sunny. I've been spending all day every day with my beautiful daughters. We made banana bread. We started digging our garden (a good faith move on my part, seeing as how we may end up needing to move away for work and I don't want to and maybe if I'm invested in the veggie garden that will somehow mean a school here will magically hire me). We walked to the library. In an hour or so we're going to visit my parents for a couple of days. In short, aaaahhhhhhh. Sure, I'm bringing the laptop along, so I can do some revisions on papers for my faculty adviser and streamline the social studies unit I'll teach in the spring. But I'll be doing it sitting in the sun by the creek on my parents' farm while the girls run around with the dogs!

Spring term will be a most welcome change, as predicted by faculty back in the summer when we first started this adventure. Student teaching for the whole school day (only a little more than I was already there, since the schedule ended up being about 2/3 of the day during the winter) and one class. One! And as much as I don't want to move away from my little town, my little hometown, my kids' only home, I am going to Portland in two weeks for a job fair (wow, we art majors never got anything like that!). I'll get to see old friends, and I'll get to give the whole applications to other towns' schools thing a shot. If we have to relocate, we're prepared for that (although packing up this house will be nuts). But I'm hoping that veggie garden does the trick.

Feeling the love...

2009-03-13T05:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was an absolute high point in the term. Most of my course work is done now for winter quarter, with only a couple of finishing touches left, so I'm completely focused on this great group of kids I've been working with, and who I'll be with only another week.

These sixth graders will spend a week in May at an outdoor school on the coast, which is of course a very big deal to them! No one with disciplinary problems or any Fs on their report cards can go, though, so a lot of attention has been paid to grades lately. I've been fielding hourly questions about their grades, working through lunches with our "math club" to get those kids boosted to a passing level, and generally been completely consumed with this room full of personalities.

My cooperating teacher, who's been out for a number of weeks recovering from a car accident, had arranged to swing by yesterday so we could sign a few papers and so she could see the kids for a bit. So I wasn't surprised when she showed up, but when she began instructing the class to stand and read clearly as they took turns sharing the cards they'd made, I was confused. What was she talking about? I'm with the class for about two thirds of every day, and I knew nothing. They sent me to sit on a desk at the front of the room, and one by one all twenty six students and my teacher read thank-you cards they'd made for me! The kids shared their favorite projects that we'd done together and said kids would really want to be in my class and that I'll make a good teacher! One sweetie sitting up front passed me a box of tissues, which was a good thing because I was a teary mess from the get go. I don't know how to describe how touching it was. A mother who volunteers with us every week gave me a quilted flag she'd sewn, with each student's name stitched onto the stripes, and the substitute teacher we've had for the past six weeks gave me a book on developing reading programs. Then my teacher gave me a beautiful big basket with instructions to put any especially great work from students, or letters from parents, or nice cards from kids into the basket over the years. This will be more than a memento stash: it will be a source of inspiration and comfort I can draw upon whenever the going gets tough. It now has a beautiful pile of colorful, handmade cards to remind me of the powerful experience this year has been.

I really love this class, and though I'm looking forward to working with the first graders when we get back from spring break, I'm going to miss these guys! They've taught me far more than I ever expected.

The Big Words, They Keep On Coming

2009-03-08T08:07:00.001-07:00

My friends ask me if I have to study this weekend, and although I say "(sigh)yes", the truth is it's all writing now, not really studying per se. I've been thinking about so many different issues related to both education in general and the specific issues of my local area in particular that my head is spinning. Now I'm just trying to write it all up for the completion of the current term.

On my mind, put down here in the hopes I can clear my head enough to finish this week's workload, in no particular order:

Poverty and its impact on kids' educations: poor kids have always had the deck stacked against them, and nowadays more and more of our children are living below the poverty line. In my county, 25% of children under the age of 18 lived below the poverty line in 2007. Since the current recession pretty much started that year and things have only gotten worse, I'd say we're approaching some pretty catastrophic levels of poverty in our schools. The vast majority of public schools in our two local districts qualify for Title I funds. The difficulties faced by these children when they arrive at school are significant. I'm still working on wrapping my head around effective interventions; I've only just begun to identify the symptoms most commonly seen in poor populations. Not that I'm unfamiliar with poverty; understanding it through common sense and being able to objectively identify symptoms and their causes are different skills of observation.

And speaking of the economy, the other main thing on my mind is the job market, specifically for teachers. With state budget shortfalls, most if not all districts in Oregon are cutting school days this year to save money, which is disruptive and stressful to teachers, even though there aren't really any alternatives that I know of. In my town, two elementary schools are closing in June. With less money in the system, I imagine that larger class sizes at the remaining schools will be seen as a sensible response. This means fewer teachers needed, which means a brand new, fresh out of school teacher has a fairly low chance around here of finding any kind of first year position, let alone anything that might be preferred or best suited to the teacher's skills and talents. I really don't want to move away. We're raising a family here, we've put down roots, we're finally starting to work on fixing up our own property (after renovating the rentals over the years to a pretty spiffy state). How can I think about painting my kitchen when I know I have to go to Portland for the big educators' job fair next month and be prepared to jump at any job offers that may come along? I would so much rather stay here and be a part of my own community's future. Maybe substitute teaching won't be too bad. Maybe I can even make it great!

winter quarter prose poetry

2009-02-21T18:15:00.001-08:00

Just like its season, the winter quarter of the academic year stretches long and cold, a bleak foreshadowing of years of toil to come.

It is said that this will pass. Yet it will certainly come again. Same time next year. Same cold car in the mornings. Same stuffy noses. Same. Same. Same.

My frozen toes groan the melancholy of my never ending nineteen graduate credits.

Oh woe.

future focus

2009-02-14T08:42:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot about the future lately, and it's made me aware of the calendar-centric nature of academia in general, regardless of the level. Because I'm a graduate student working on a degree in elementary education, I'm completely immersed in the world of education at both ends of the spectrum. For my personal work as a student, the focus is on my own growth and my future career. For my students, little kids who are just starting out, it's as if their lives are nothing but future! Preparing them for their lives as participants in our society is the whole point, and we accomplish this bit by bit within the yearly calendar. Sometimes I feel like everything is about tomorrow. But, as a stay-at-home mother for a decade, my focus was on the present so much of the time that it mostly feels refreshing to look up and out and think about the grand scheme of things more.

In other news, though there is the expected whining from those whose standard of living might be affected if they can't adjust and live within their means, Congress has placed stricter than expected caps on executive bonuses. As someone who's hoping to see some of the stimulus package dollars make their way into my local classrooms, I can't help but be a bit pleased by this. I'm cautiously optimistic that our schools could end up benefiting from this bill. And it's pretty hard for me to work up much sympathy for someone who'll be "limited" to only half a million dollars a year income. My school district sure could hire a lot of highly qualified teachers for one of those folks' yearly pay. *sigh*

In other news...

2009-02-01T17:23:00.000-08:00

My winter student teaching is going smashinly well. Unfortunately, my brilliant cooperating teacher/ mentor had a rough car accident and will be out for a month or so. Fortunately, she'll be fine and is in good spirits. Unfortunately, this means that I'm taking over every last bit of it right away, starting with the report cards I completed the day after said accident. Fortunately, the long term substitute they hired is fabulous, just retired after teaching for 30 years, and can definitely help guide me, especially on classroom management.

All in all, I'm feeling more fortunate than un- lately. The kids are responding well to my instruction and rules and so on. I've been receiving wonderful support from the administration at the elementary school, all the other teachers there, and my university faculty advisor. All of this is making me feel pretty confident about my chosen profession!

Only vaguely related to education, but still...

2009-02-01T16:49:00.000-08:00

Americans have a complex relationship with babies and breasts. Having just last week weaned my third child at the age of 31 months (about the same age her older sisters each stopped nursing), I know that continuing to breastfeed a child when you're apart for some days is difficult, but certainly not impossible. Ultimately, I'm grateful that I was always able to be with them full time when they were very small and only had to spend daytimes away after they had each reached at least two years of age. Leaving my youngest to go off to grad school was not exactly easy, but leaving her with her loving daddy made it just fine for her, even if I did miss her during seminars and so forth. But now she's a big girl and is just fine with hugs and kisses and no nursing. *sigh*.

No, this has little to nothing to do with my standard topic, which is education. Bear in mind,though, that studies have shown a correlation between extended breastfeeding and increased intelligence. I have some mighty fine anecdotal evidence studying cuttlefish in my living room right now to back that up. I'm just saying. Parental involvement probably counts for more than what babies are fed, but let's not discount nutrition. I'm not even saying that the diet has to be ideal. I've rarely been able to afford what I'd consider a perfect diet (totally organic, local, fresh, always balanced...) but I know enough to mix it up with the food groups and avoid the obviously unhealthy prepackaged foods.

Long story short, my youngest is officially no longer a baby, and I'll be keeping a stash of granola bars in my desk at school just in case anyone skipped breakfast. And kudos to all the mommies and daddies and grannies and thoughtful daycare providers who are making the world a better place, one well cared for child at a time!

the taxonomy of my winter "vacation"

2008-12-22T17:41:00.000-08:00

It's all or nothing around here. I'm either wrestling with defining and reproducing the necessary elements of the portfolio and the instructional unit I'm preparing for next term, or I'm whizzing away with the designing (backwardly, of course), developing, and creating of what I'm sure will be mind-blowingly fabulous pieces of pedagogy. For real.

what a relief!

2008-12-07T09:06:00.000-08:00

good to know...

You Passed High School with an A+

You have the brains of a high school graduate... at least!

Could You Pass High School?

focusing on poverty issues in education

2008-12-06T09:36:00.000-08:00

I've been researching the effects of poverty on young children in terms of their experiences in school, academic achievement, and the correlations between low socioeconomic status and low achievement/graduation rates overall. This issue is of great importance to me because my community is not a wealthy one, and my children attend one of the region's highest poverty schools. That said, a warm, inclusive, and intellectually rigorous and stimulating atmosphere exists at that school; that's why we send our girls there.

As a soon-to-be teacher, I'm very interested in finding ways to address the needs of children from low income (and perhaps high stress) homes. There are as many reasons for the lack of intellectual stimulation and overabundance of stress that we commonly see in impoverished populations as there are families living below the poverty line in our country. This is not a blame game; this is about acknowledging difficulties in our own communities and identifying the tools needed to address them.

Recent brain research suggests that best practices in education, including as much family involvement and communication as possible, can stimulate young brains in productive ways to compensate for early years in which children may not have been read to or talked with as much as is needed for optimal neurological growth and development. Dramatic play, plentiful access to books, and ample opportunities for verbal self expression in the classroom can begin to rewire the brain; these are obviously conducive to enhanced further learning. In other words, we as teachers can somewhat make up for some of the deficits with which our neediest students come to us.

I can't do much of anything about a family's financial situation. I can, however,positively impact the mental and emotional resources of my students. I can offer them a positive relationship with a nurturing and productive adult. And I can help them learn the implicit rules, basically middle class values, that too often go unspoken and yet to which students are held accountable: rules about volume and violence and mental focus and taking turns, for example.

I really want to offer a rich environment to the children living in poverty in my community. I want my classroom and my techniques to stimulate their brains while establishing foundations of knowledge and skill upon which they will then build more and more understanding of their worlds. Because the tools exist to do so, and because educators can make up for an understimulating environment at home, I have a duty to use those tools and do that work. And it will be a joy to do so.

2008-11-25T09:28:00.000-08:00

I have a nice life. So not perfect, but obviously I have the obvious things to be thankful for. Here is my Less Obvious Gratitude List :

Youngest child is currently sitting on the potty, singing the memorized words to a picture book. We may be a long way off from no more diapers, but this is still good.
Last night Oldest had to be told to stop with the flute practice already, it's bedtime.
Middle wants to learn Spanish. She's starting with the happy birthday/ feliz cumpleanos song. In fourth grade she'll be able to study it in school like Oldest does.
Husband has joined a book club. And something online has tickled him: I keep hearing laughter coming from his office. That is good.
I have a like-minded cooperating teacher for my student teaching assignment, and I've been able to lead art lessons; who says that bachelor's degree is being wasted?
One day of cleaning should be all it takes to be ready for Thanksgiving. And since my stamina and motivation are low, by "one day" I mean about "one hour, mostly spent nagging the kids". That is good.
A lighter than usual schedule this week means I can get ahead on coursework! So good!
We're having friends over for Thanksgiving, so Husband can have a turkey and won't have to do the vegetarian type we usually have; it's not worth cooking a bird when he's the only meat eater in the house. And even though I'm not interested in eating the thing, it is kind of appealing to be all traditional and stuff.
Neither we, nor anyone we know, is in danger of foreclosure. At least not this month. And that too is good.
Even though our furnace is still not working and has boggled the minds of both Husband and three different Repair People, we have plenty of fire wood for the time being. Good.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.

The teaching has begun: I love these kids!

2008-11-17T05:28:00.000-08:00

I have now taught an art unit to the sixth graders, and it was a great experience. I was able to employ some principles from my Special Methods in Art course, it was integrated with math and science, and though parts were direct instruction, the nature of the unit (abstract painting) was very student centered. First, for a math problem solving lesson, the students made scale drawings of how their lumber would be cut to construct the stretcher bars (wooden framework); adults cut the wood, and students then hammered their pieces together and stretched the canvas on them. A color wheel lesson followed, stressing that it was design and not art, with a discussion of the difference. The kids did well on the assignment, but my classroom management was mediocre: some kids decided to get really messy, and overall cleanup took so long we couldn't go to the computer lab for our scheduled time! My cooperating teacher gave me some hugely helpful hints on tightening that up, and the next lesson went smoother. For the first painting lesson, I modeled mixing the paint (acrylic) with a gloss medium to create glazes and instructed the students to use at least two colors that day, at least one of which they needed to mix themselves. The results were remarkable! Their behavior was much improved too, and I had a strict plan and schedule for cleanup, so the whole thing was a dream. The second session of painting began with a review of vocabulary (such as abstract and nonrepresentational) and a color theory lesson with examples of analogous and complimentary color schemes, and of how colors change in relation to each other. The kids then continued painting with these ideas in mind. For this second session, my cooperating teacher stepped out and my faculty advisor from the university sat in and did a formal observation. All in all it seemed like things went smoothly, the kids behaved themselves, and I was able to deliver the content in a coherent way while managing the class. Now I can't wait for some math!

2008-11-11T10:30:00.000-08:00

Quote of the day: "Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.”-- William Gladstone

thanks to Ms. Cornelius, a favorite of mine in the blogosphere.

What a wonderful morning!

2008-11-05T05:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning, my seven year old popped up before the alarm clock and announced from the top of the stairs, "It's election day!". Like it was maybe that much awaited holiday in December or something!

By the time we were all home and able to turn on NPR, it was already being projected that Obama would carry Ohio, which would pretty much seal the deal. I began making dinner with a ridiculous amount of tears of joy interfering with my work. Later on, my husband and I watched Obama's acceptance speech, and I was again awed by his articulate delivery and inclusive, hopeful, organized message. What a refreshing change from the insulting and damaging idiocy and inadequacy of the Bush administration.

So I'm starting off this morning with, frankly, renewed faith in my fellow Americans. 2000 was an offensive coup, but 2004 just made me feel like I was living in some sort of twisted parallel reality where common sense was out the window and the worst available option had actually been chosen by our citizenry. No landslide, at least, but Bush was actually elected '04, not just appointed. But now, we've pulled our heads out of wherever they were lodged, declared that we no longer want to be the ridiculous yet dangerous nation we'd become. Obama has proven he can engage and inspire on the international stage, and at home he's offering us all the dignity and tools for betterment we desperately need.

In addition to economic revitalization, I look forward to changes in education policy under President Obama. Let's stay tuned to see how our nation can fulfill our obligation to our young people with extensive and authentic educations, instead of inch deep, memorized, discrete facts that are inapplicable to students' lives. Let's have vitalized educations for our children that truly prepare them to think critically and to become involved citizens of our United States, a nation that is flawed but full of promise.

procrastination

2008-09-27T06:36:00.000-07:00

To procrastinate, also to dally, defer, delay, loiter, postpone, prolong, stall, wait...
Note to self: current events may be important, and certain voices may even be articlulate and informed, but investigating last night's presidential debate is not the same as researching county housing and unemployment statistics for my Instructional Setting Analysis, due a mere four days from now.
Note to self the second: publicly chastising self via blog for procrastinating is still procrastinating. We all know it's true. Back to work now, before the kids wake up!

taking time to breathe before the fall quarter starts

2008-09-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

It's a rare quiet weeknight tonight, one of the last for a while with a fairly light workload hanging over my head. Classes start in five days, and though there's a paper due on the first day of one of the four classes we're taking, there's not much else to do this week but turn up for the fall practicum hours in the classroom. I've been squeezing in some volunteer time at my daughters' school, getting caught up on the family's eBay business, and trying to give my two-year-old as much extra attention as possible after a month of being away forty hours a week!
I'm enjoying the peace immensely: my husband crashed out really early tonight after a long day of running all sorts of errands, taking my car to the mechanic, and putting the finishing touches on a rental house before the new tenants move in this weekend. I'm letting my ten-year-old be distracted from practicing her flute because the distraction at the moment is working with the seven-year-old to scrub clean the stairwell! Weird but true. And the two-year-old who spent all afternoon fussing and insisting on constant attention is making abstract art with her crayons, and actually on paper this time!
This week has been eventful in the sixth grade class where I've been assigned for the fall practicum (and where I'll begin student teaching in a few months). One boy in particular has been acting out like crazy: milking a minor injury (perhaps even faking a bit... I'm just saying...) whenever he thinks it might get him out of work, throwing fits and crying when he gets called on it or reminded to just do his assignments, and even pestering and kicking one or two classmates. I'm hoping to be able to give him a little attention when he's not being naughty; I told him the other day that I'd caught him being smart (I really had: he had some insightful and even almost philosophical answers to what could have been a super simplistic assignment) and that now I'd know what to expect from him!
Time for bed; got to manage the kiddos and be fresh in the morning!

Beautiful video

2008-09-06T08:30:00.000-07:00

I found this video when searching for one described by my cooperating teacher for my student teaching assignment. Let's see how the embedding works:

In the classroom soon!

2008-08-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning I'll start my fall field experience in a 6th grade class. Can't wait! I'll spend this week working with the teacher to set up the classroom and get ready for the kids, who start next week. All the volunteer work I've done has been for preschool through 5tgh grade, so this is the one age I haven't worked with yet. This will be a great education for me!

On getting riled up about public school

2008-08-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

I just read an interesting article advocating for the public school system and more or less against private schools, and realized that this exact dichotomy has been on my mind a lot. I'm a product of the California public schools, through the university level, and I'm currently a graduate student at a public university in Oregon. My children, the ones who are old enough, attend a public school. It's imperfect but worthwhile. We've exercised our district-approved right to choose their school, and have never regretted it. It's not our neighborhood school, and the commute is the one thing that bothers me about sending them there, but it's a small town and the drive is actually only about six minutes long and we walk or bike when weather permits. We chose this school initially because they offered a bilingual immersion program; this has been amended a bit over the years, but Spanish is still being offered for fourth graders and up, which I certainly appreciate. They also have a full time music teacher and the most culturally diverse population in the district. I don't think my kids would be exposed the variety of experiences and socioeconomic realities anywhere else in town, and I see this as a valuable attribute that private schools, at least the ones in my community which are all expensive and religious (neither of which would describe me!), can't offer. I'm finding that I just really believe deep down that though there are plenty of challenges, our public schools are not broken and that with enough enthusiastic involvement from teachers, parents, and other citizens the schools can be vibrant and inspirational centers of our communities.

Pardon my accent; your new country is charming.

2008-08-14T00:40:00.000-07:00

In his two part essay Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Marc Prensky offers some valuable insights into neuroscience, contemporary technology and media culture, and education. The youth of today are the natives, having grown up immersed in high tech devices and media of all kinds. Reading this, I immediately began to try to place myself along this divide. I’m 36, and came to computer literacy much later than the natives, well after college. But if I’m an immigrant, it’s with what would be called a mild “digital immigrant accent” (Prensky 2001). My first inclination is generally to look for answers online, for example, and I’ve never printed an email. But I’ve also sent one text message in my life; I’ve just never had the need. So I’m speaking with a slight accent, in a world where the standards of pronunciation are evolving. If I don’t seek out and embrace new developments, especially as a teacher, what seems slight in 2008 will be a speech impediment before I know it (but not before my students do!).

The ISTE’s NETS for teachers and students (iste.org 2007), outlines standards with which teachers should comply, and which align nicely with the assertion that educators must embrace technology and learn to use it to engage their students who are already tech savvy in order not to lose their attention altogether. “Their attention spans are not short… for anything… that actually interests them” (Prensky 2001). All of the NETS standards are relevant in one way or another to this argument, but some especially salient ones for teachers are:

2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments: Teachers design, (and) develop authentic learning experiences…incorporating contemporary tools and resources… (a): Teachers design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.”

(c): Teachers customize and personalize learning activities to address students’ diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources.

5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership: Teachers continuously improve their professional practice, model lifelong learning, and… (demonstrate) the effective use of digital tools and resources.

(d): Teachers contribute to the effectiveness, vitality, and self-renewal of the teaching profession and of their school and community.

(www.iste.org 2007)

While teachers are addressing their own skills, attitudes, and values through these standards, the ISTE is also recommending holding students to high but achievable standards. Some especially relevant NETS standards for students are:

2. Communication and Collaboration: Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.

(a): Students interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.

(b): Students communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.

6. Technology Operations and Concepts: Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations.

(a) Students understand and use technology systems.

(d) Students transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies.

(www.iste.org 2007)

As nostalgic as any of us, whether veteran teacher or novice may wish to be regarding the schools and society of a few decades ago, this genie simply can’t be put back in its bottle. Computers, ipods, cell phones, and video games are a fact of life. The internet will be an ever changing, ever present entity in our lives and should be that in the classroom as well. Not to teach through contemporary technology shortchanges students who have less access and bores those who have more.

references:

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, from On the Horizon. NCB University Press, Vol. 9

International Society for Technology in Education, NETS for Students 2007. www.iste.org

The Purpose of School: an Investment in Human Capital

2008-08-08T22:52:00.000-07:00

In order for large numbers of humans to coexist, culture and agreed upon societal norms must develop. For the successful perpetuation of a set of societal standards and practices, we must share this knowledge with children so that they will mature in the manner we generally prefer and will be able to participate in our society. Education, therefore, is indoctrination. The purpose of schools is redefined by different peoples at different times, depending on what that culture sees as its needs. In the beginning of the twenty-first century, we largely see schools as serving both individuals and society: the individual is equipped for future productivity, and that productivity is seen as beneficial to the social order.
Shepherding young people into participation in the ongoing experiment that is American society requires agreement and a system. Though this is a pluralistic society, necessitating a diversity of educational approaches overall, we can agree on enough to formulate coherent curricula and standards. While it could easily be called un-American to treat children (or any citizens) as cogs in a wheel, cooperation and consensus are undeniably important and helpful. This view of the purpose of schooling has been described as human capital, creating “economic benefits for the society as a whole through greater productivity and for individuals through greater earnings” (Tyack, 1976). It is noteworthy that

“…Economic growth closely depends on the synergies between new knowledge and human capital, which is why large increases in education and training have accompanied major advances in technological knowledge in all countries that have achieved significant economic growth.” (Becker, 2002)

It is not necessarily only formal schooling that contributes to human capital; informal or on-the-job training, and even medical care are also seen by economists as investments in this resource (Becker, 2002). Education, though, is by far the greatest of these predictors of future economic success of the individual.
In addition to the benefit of education to individuals, “the wealth of a nation is embodied in its people and…only an educated people can adopt new technologies” (Goldin, 2008). After all, the whole is roughly the sum of its parts; if a nation’s people are its parts, individual enhancement benefits the group similarly. These benefits are not necessarily only economic, but the more esoteric advantages probably correlate to economic measurements. Satisfaction, contentment, and perception of heightened quality of life surely increase with increased education for most people. In some cases this is purely because of the increased comfort provided by higher economic status, but personal fulfillment can be measurably beneficial to the individual and therefore to group stability and productivity. A stronger nation made up of educated citizens is a worthy purpose for modern schooling, for reasons relating to both economics and personal satisfaction.
References:
Tyack, D. (1976). Ways of seeing: an essay on the history of compulsory schooling. Harvard Educational Review, 46 (3), 355-389.
Becker, G. (2002). Human capital. Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, retrieved August 2, 2008 from http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/HumanCapital.html.
Goldin, C. (2008). The human capital century. Education Next, Hoover Institution, retrieved August 2, 2008 from http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/3355201.html.

Getting a Headache: thinking about the problems of inner city schools

2008-08-03T08:17:00.000-07:00

Reflection on Boys of Baraka

Watching The Boys of Baraka was eye-opening. While the dire situation in America’s inner city schools is not news, it is something that many of us, even when dealing with the school system in general, don’t see very much. I was touched by so many moments in the film: heartbreaking scenes of parents separated from their children, kids shouldering awful burdens, whole communities turned into wastelands. Watching these shell-shocked boys venturing bravely out to the other side of the world was inspiring. These children knew exactly what was in store for them if they stayed in Baltimore, and of course it wasn’t pretty. Their courage in trying out such totally unfamiliar territory as a foreign boarding school put a lump in my throat.

Aside from the emotional aspects of this subject, I was also left contemplating the plight of our poorest urban schools, and was pleased to find some bright notes in researching the film updates. Because the home and community environment these students live in is at least as much of a problem as is their school, a new solution is being tried out now which looks very promising in the wake of the closing of the Kenyan school. The SEED Foundation is now operating a co-ed public boarding school in Washington DC, and a second campus in Maryland is opening this fall. Feasibility studies are going on for opening more campuses around the country. This organization focuses on urban youth in grades 6-12, who would benefit from a rigorous academic environment and a removal from their troubled homes in the inner city. The DC campus has been running since 1998 and reports that 97% of its graduates go on to college. In a community where just convincing kids to even bother entering high school can be difficult, let alone graduate, this school’s program is exciting. In addition to its academic credibility, I see a couple of elements of the SEED schools as beneficial. It is co-ed, meaning that more students are eligible and can take advantage of the resource, and for more years than at the Baraka School. Also, the campuses are relatively local to their students’ home communities, so family involvement is possible and highly encouraged. This ongoing connection with positive elements of students’ lives strikes me as healthy for both the kids and their families.

As we saw with the Baraka School, relocating at-risk students is a valuable tool for turning around their worldviews and getting them on track academically. For those students who remain in the conventional public school, clearly more must be done to facilitate learning and ensure safety. What is this “more” that is needed, though? Frankly, I don’t know. Obviously money is a factor, but throwing cash at an institution that is in such chaos that resources are likely to be squandered by the recipients is not reasonable. Some scenes in The Boys of Baraka suggest that this would be the case: kids hollering and carrying on, ignoring a teacher’s calls for order, fighting and spinning around on office chairs instead of having a conversation with an advisor. And ultimately, though the responsibility for children’s behavior rests on themselves, it’s not really their fault that things have broken so far down. Trapped in chaotic and dangerous circumstances everywhere they go, misbehavior and detachment from responsibility are pretty much inevitable. Those who stay on track and graduate from high school are applauded because they are noteworthy exceptions and because everyone knows what extreme dedication it takes in those circumstances, and therefore how uncommon it is. Exposure to a wider world, whether it’s through travel to Kenya or crossing the county to attend boarding school, is more than enriching for kids from the inner city. It could be life saving.

Clear and to the Point: aligning Power Point design and presentation with NETS Standards for Teachers

2008-08-02T22:14:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1 of Clear and to the Point (S. Kosslyn, 2007) outlines eight basic principles for successful PowerPoint presentations, many of which align with the ISTE NETS Standards for Teachers . The basic premise of the chapter is that by being cognizant of simple elements of human psychology we can avoid common pitfalls in the design of Power Point presentations, thereby streamlining the learning process for the audience. Following are the relevant standards and design/psychology principles.

Standard 1, part a: “Teachers promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.” I will be teaching at the elementary level, where the use of Power Point is still somewhat innovative in and of itself. Regardless of authorization level, a teacher who uses this medium as outlined in this chapter will be exhibiting inventiveness and creativity.

Standard 2, part b: “Teachers develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own progress.” While all eight of the principles outlined in the chapter relate to this standard, the principles of Relevance and Appropriate Knowledge are especially related. When the presentation is customized for the knowledge level of its audience (a classroom of students), they will be easily able to be active participants, simply because they will be able to follow the lecture.

Standard 3, part c: “Teachers communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats.” Simply put, a clear, concise, and well designed presentation, whether it’s for students or colleagues, will accomplish this standard. Designing the bones of the slide show according to Kosslyn’s principles is a straightforward way to be sure that your message is not obscured or misunderstood.

Standard 4, part b: “Teachers address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner-centered strategies providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources.” Conscientious use of design elements in a Power Point presentation, such as perceptual organization or compatibility will ensure that the lesson addresses the needs of all learners.

It seems to me that many of the principles outlined in this chapter are relevant to teaching in general, regardless of the medium. Assessing the audience before the presentation is vital; the teacher must understand what the students already know, and must provide just the right amount of information to be engaging without either boring or confusing the class. The basic design elements covered in this chapter are also very helpful; keeping relevant information easily accessible by the audience will obviously make for a successful presentation.

Claymation Movie: NETS Technology Standards for Students

2008-08-01T16:38:00.000-07:00

In our recent claymation exercise, we went through a three step process: first we decided as a group what our topic would be; next we collaborated in Cmap to create storyboard plans for our movies; finally, we created the stop motion movies using digital cameras and modeling clay, stitching it all together in Quick Time. We packed quite a bit of learning and experience into a short time! My group created a kindergarten safety lesson: how to tie your shoes. A number of standards from the ISTE’s NETS for students were realized in this assignment.

Standard 1, parts a, b, and c: “Students apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes… create original works as a means of personal or group expression …(and) use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues.” In our project, the information that the movie expressed (re. shoelaces and the importance of keeping them tied) was already well known to us. We used a series of technological processes to generate a new product (the movie itself) by applying this knowledge. Our original work was the movie, and we used it to express our vision of how best to inform young children about this basic safety principle. The Cmap file we created served as a model for the final product we created, which was of course much more complex than the Cmap itself.

Standard 2, parts a, and d: “Students interact, collaborate, and publish with peers… employing a variety of digital environments and media… and contribute to project teams to produce original words or solve problems.” Through the group format of this project we accomplished the interaction and collaboration required by standard 2, and we published our original, digital final product after using multiple media (Cmap, modeling clay, digital camera, and Quicktime).

Standard 4, parts a, b, and d: “Students identify and define authentic problems and significant questions for investigation…plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project…(and) use multiple processes and diverse perspectives to explore alternative solutions.” In the original group meeting, we had to discuss options for the subject matter of our movie and arrive at a consensus; our decision was based on a reading of the Oregon Department of Education’s standards for injury prevention under health education (HE.03.IP.01 and HE.03.IP.02) and an understanding of the skills needed by young children (particularly kindergarteners). While the overall system we would use to produce this movie was outlined for us, we did plan and manage the particulars of the claymation itself in consultation as a group.

Finally, we experienced elements of Standard 6, parts a, c, and d: “Students understand and use technology systems… troubleshoot systems and applications… (and) transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies.” We entered this project with foundational computer knowledge which built on to learn new software applications. In the post production phase, some troubleshooting was necessary, and our movie was eventually successfully saved in three sizes on the university’s server.

This was, despite some sticky situations in the computer lab, a successful project which made full use of the NETS Standards for Students.

The project begins...

2008-08-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

I'm off and running on this great madcap adventure called Becoming A Teacher! Graduate studies at Southern Oregon University began two weeks ago, and though a lot is being squeezed into this short summer session (as much work as a regular length term in only four weeks), it's doable as long as I don't spend too much time on other stuff. Like my kids, the family's online business, the renovation of a rental house we're working on, bathing, you know. While I'm a bit sleep deprived right now, I think it's under control.
So far, I have to say that I'm pleased with the direction my courses are taking. The curriculum design we're working on is pleasantly difficult. That sounds weird, but what I mean is that while it takes a lot of effort and a different way of looking at the material, it's fascinating to me to get into the methodologies behind unit planning. Even when dealing with the youngest children, it's complex.

And, I'm also happy to report that so far my suspicion seems to be correct: that the five years of elementary classroom volunteering I've put in have given me a pretty good idea of what I'm getting myself into, and so far I still feel prepared! Let's see how I rate that after the "September Experience": a month long practicum in an elementary classroom. Looking forward to it!