How about some more days in the school year?

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

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...

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

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

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

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...

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...

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"

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!

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?