liquidwafflegirl

3rd Graders Plot to kill Teacher

2008-04-02T11:58:00.002-04:00

I recieved this text from a close friend yesterday: "Did you hear about the BD 3rd grade class in GA that plotted to kill their teacher? 9 students involved."

"Woah!- April fools?" I responded, thinking it was a cruel trick to pull.

"No! For real!"

I looked it up, it really happened. (Click on the title above to read a news article.) A class of special needs 3rd graders in Georgia came up with an elaborate plot to kill their teacher after she yelled at one of them. I have to say that this news really freaked me out, and while I'm currently writing about it, I am crossing my fingers that it doesn't get turned in to a huge national news story and give any other students ideas...

I could rant now for pages and pages about how things like this come to be, and what the teacher and administration should have and could have done; but the truth is, it scared me because while I am shocked to hear of this plot, I am not at all surprised. Our system is failing our children, and as a hard-working, dedicated BD teacher, I know that I am doing my best and that it simply is not enough.

A Cry For Help

2008-01-31T13:19:00.001-05:00

I confiscated this from E today during literacy. He misses a lot of school and today was his first day back in a while. He hates everything, but he's always hungry. He's always violent, says things a 11-year old shouldn't even know about, and generally smells really bad. This child needs a lot of help. He's reading on a 2nd grade level in 5th grade, and already hates the world. In the 2 months he's been in my class he's already been picked up by the police and brought to the precinct twice. I am really worried that if he doesn't get some serious help soon he'll never get better. His IEP was rewritten a few weeks ago. I suggested a more restrictive environment, more counseling (including individual and off-site) and a placement with more resources for an emotionally disturbed child, but it was denied. They say that the BD program I run is sufficient and the half hour group counseling session he refuses to attend weekly with all the same kids who tease him all week should help.

Rock, Paper, Scissors, SHOOT!

2008-01-23T11:53:00.001-05:00

I heard this yesterday at bus dismissal:

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

"bang. bang. You're dead. haha. I win."

(A new spin on an old game... we used to play it differently, I told them the rules though, hopefully they will stick.)

A Full Moon and a Bloody Skull

2008-01-22T15:22:00.000-05:00

I actually don't know if there is a full moon today, but judging by how it loooked last night, and by the way the school is out of whack today, it must be full.

We got another student today, number 11, and he is in 4th grade. My only 4th grader. Having a new kid made all of the other students excited to show him what they can get away with... which lead to an unpleasant sequence of events. For the most part I was able to keep the class under control. But it was E and K who really made things difficult.

They have a love/hate affair that is a little strange, but not all that uncommon amongst 11 year-old boys. They are constantly fighting, making up, laughing, telling "your Momma" jokes, and then fighting again. A couple months ago breaking up one of their love-quarrels I got hit in just the wrong way and fractured my thumb. Since then they have calmed down quite a bit (as neither of them had any intention of hurting anyone excluding themselves ofcourse), but today they started fighting and I realized that it was going to become physical. I called for security, and when the crisis teacher arrived she helped me tear the two apart. K, laughing through the whole thing wriggled out of my one-handed grasp, and punched E in the head. E then reached passed the crisis teacher, grabbed his hairbrush off his desk, and whapped K in the forhead. THUD!

K, in my arms started laughing hysterically until he saw the blood covering his right eye. That's when he got upset, stopped haughing, and tried to go after E. Luckily, when he was hit I got a better grasp of him and he wasn't able to get free. I grabbed his hand and slapped it over the open gash on his head. The crisis teacher was able to wrestle E out into the hall while I settled my class, held K's hand to his head, applying as much pressure as possible while assigning other students in my class to tasks,
J- get me some paper towels, put them in my left hand (I needed something to cover the wound with)
T- go to my desk, get my keys and call the office (I need a NURSE! NOW!)
C- go close the door to the classroom (so that E and K wouldn't be able to see one another)
N- take paper towel and cover the blood on the ground, make sure not to touch anything but the paper towels.

By the time the vice principal had arrived K had calmed somewhat and we were able to get him to the nurse and then to the emergency room. E was sent to the office for the rest of the day, but no consequences, no suspension. Once the problem left the room my students were so off-task that no work was completed the rest of the day, and my hand was a bloody mess. I still have blood on my pants, and my brace was tossed out because of the blood.

Oh what a day- I guess they showed the new kid what we're all about.

Behavior Logs- Student A Part 1

2008-01-15T12:46:00.000-05:00

Behavior Log: Student A

Week of 1.17.06 – 1.20.06

Monday 1.16.2006

• No School.

Tuesday 1.17.2006

• A was on her best behavior today. She got all of her work done in class, and was generally very respectful.

Wednesday 1.18.2006

• A was working very hard first thing in the morning. She got right to work, and completed her math message.
• 9:05am – A asked to go on the computer, and was upset when I responded that we had to get more work done before she could get time on the computer she was very upset but came to work with me at the circle-table. She began working on the math assignment, but began getting more and more upset (although I am not sure what triggered her behavior). She began to throw the math manipulatives into the box that they belong in. When I asked her to stop, and place the blocks into the box, she began to throw them from further distances, and continued in the fashion until she was standing up and throwing them across the room. At this, I told Amber that I would have to call security if she could not keep herself under control, but she only became more upset by this and started throwing blocks at another student, prompting him to follow suit, and then he also began throwing the blocks.
• 9:15am – Security came up to get A and the other student, but A refused to go. By this time she had thrown several blocks on top of the cabinets, and had even warned me that I had to “get out of her way” or she would be hitting me with them because I was in the path that she wanted to be throwing blocks in. The security guard that had to take out A's classmate sent for another security guard to come up and take A out of our room, and Amber did go with her.
• 10:45am – When A returned from the office she was very upset with me. She was short with me and extremely disrespectful. She yelled at me that I got her in trouble and repeated several times, “why do you always got to call security on me, huh, girl?”
• A did not do any work for most of the morning, but got back on task in the afternoon and did most of her work the rest of the day.

Thursday, 1.19.2006

• A had no major incidents today. She had a good day.

Friday 1.20.2006

(Note: this is A’s first day with a personal aide, Mr. J____ on the classroom. She knows Mr. J___ because he has been working in the school all year, and in previous years as well.)

• 8:35am – A was extremely loud this morning and would not get quiet during breakfast time. While she was talking I hear her repeat the phrase “sucking dick”. At this, I inquired into what she was talking about (rather than continue to ask her to stop talking and lower her voice), and she responded by asking me if I had ever seen the movie “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle”. At this I told A that it was not appropriate and that she needed to stop talking about the movie while she was at school, but she continued to be loud and talk about the sexually explicit scenes in the movie. She also got out of her seat and was running around the room. Eventually A calmed down and had a seat, and got to work.
• 9:45 am – A threatened another student in the classroom with a pair or scissors. All scissors were confiscated and put up. We explained to A the seriousness of her threat, and she seemed to calm down for a little while.
• 10:15 am – A and the same student whom she had threatened began arguing back and forth with one another and writing on each other with marker during a math project. The students in the class said that A did not start the argument, but A did cover the boys clothing with markered-on polka-dots, while being very upset. When security came to take the boy out of the classroom that she had been fighting with, he yelled back to A that she was a “football head”. At this, A got up, ran out in the hall, and threw a marker at him, and returned to the classroom much more calm than she had been during the incident.
• 11:30am – A Created a “dot-to-dot” with markers that spelled out “Fuck You”. When I saw what she was doing I told her that it was inappropriate and she quickly turned it over and explained that she was just making a dot-to-dot of her name, and spelled out her name on the back of the paper.

A Rainbow

2008-01-09T12:41:00.000-05:00

Driving to work this morning I saw a rainbow. Yes. A rainbow over Newark. Amazing. I feel like I had the chance to see a once in a life-time event.

I was observed again today. It went well.

A few weeks ago I broke my thumb breaking up a fight in my classroom, and I have a stomache ache that insists that I am going to keel over and die, but I saw a rainbow over Newark today, and I feel good about it.

wishin'

2007-09-18T19:44:00.000-04:00

I don't even have the energy to complain about how much this school year is bruising my self-esteem. I wish I loved my job. I wish I could just teach and be a good teacher. I wish that I could relate better to 5th graders and work with them in a way that got them excited to learn. Even more than all of that I wish that I wasn't so exhausted from wishing that I could do more to actually do more.

Wish me luck, and I'll give real updates soon.
5th grade is hard.

WHY ME?!

2007-09-03T21:42:00.000-04:00

I went in to school again the other day. As I walked into my principals office, the words I heard were, "Wipe that smile off your face Ms. G. You won't be grinning for long after you hear the news I just got."

Less than a week before the beginning of a new school year and my principal got e-mail... "We have made the decision to change the Behavior Disorders Program in the Newark Public Schools. Your school will no longer be hosting a 7th and 8th grade therapeutic ED/BD program. It has come to our attention that you had intended on Ms. G to teach that class but we will be placing her in a 4th and 5th grade ED/BD program which we will be moving to your school."

Yes, my principal got an e-mail that tells her that I have been assigned to teach the one thing that I absolutely DO NOT want to teach again!! The only reason that I decided that I could stay and teach another year was because they were changing the program and I was going to have the opportunity to teach a 7th/8th grade class. My principal fought for me... she showed me the e-mails, but it seems that no-one that actually has any contact with teachers or students makes the decisions that affect all of us.

I spoke with both my principal and VP and they both agreed that after observing me teach for the past 2 years that I am a much better teacher for upper grades, and that the places that I struggle the most and bring the most gain in my students has been with my youngest students... yet we have already filled all of the middle school positions, and there is nothing that they can do except place me in a 4th/5th ED/BD program. ARG! This is so frustrating.

I told my principal that I planned on contacting the Office of Special Education about this decision, and she encouraged me, but said, "Please, be professional"
A little confused I responded, "Of course, why wouldn't I be professional? I think that considering the circumstances you just presented me with I have handles this situation really well."
"Just don't use any expletives, okay?"
"What do you mean, I've held my tongue when I've been speaking with you," I reminded her.
"Well, you have, but even though a single curse hasn't come out of your mouth during this conversation, the only thing that I hear from you is a line of expletives. Just be careful when you write the e-mail. I think that you need to tell them how you feel, just be professional like you always are."

She was probably right... I might as well have been cursing. I am so frustrated with this decision, and the fact that no-one that knows anything about our school or our kids, teachers, or the way things ACTUALLY run makes the decisions. I do not shine as a 4th/5ht grade teacher! I know that I can do it. I can show up everyday to work and do my job and teach kids what they need to know from the core curriculum content standards, and try my best to keep their behavior under control. I know that this is something that I CAN DO. The thing is, ANYONE can just show up to work and do their job, I want to be able to go to work everyday and do something extraordinary. I want to do my job exceptionally well, and I want to be able to enjoy it. I don't want to have a bunch or 4th graders starting at me like they don't understand what's going on, because I just don't quite know how to communicate with 8 and 9 year-olds. AHHHH!!
I don't know if I can do this for another year. Tomorrow is the first teacher in-service of the year, and I get my 12 new 4th and 5th grade BD kids on Thursday... I think I might cry.

Starting yet another school year...

2007-08-21T10:03:00.001-04:00

So, here we go. I have spent the last couple days getting ready for school again. Last week I went to literacy workshops focused on how to make middle schoolers readers, and this week I have been setting up my classroom in preparation for the new school year. I will be switching things up a little this year, as I will have significantly older students, (7th and 8th grade), but I will still be teaching the BD classification.

As our school previously only housed students through 6th grade, a lot around the school and curriculum is changing. One such change is that all the other 7th and 8th grade classrooms got new furniture that is suitable for the age... but my room still has the 4th grade furniture that I was using last year. A little disheartening, but not at all surprising. My students would just ruin anything nice we were given anyway, right?

Although I am not excited to go back to teach another year, I am getting anxious to see a class list and see my students again. For many of them, this will be their 3rd consecutive year with me as their teacher. And even some of the 8th graders I might get could be students I had my first year teaching when they were in 6th grade... I guess only time will tell. Wish me luck!

I did it. Yesterday I signed my contract.

2007-06-21T17:39:00.000-04:00

The BIG Decision

2007-06-17T17:56:00.000-04:00

For those of you that have been looking out for me, emailing me, and giving advise, I really appreciate it... but I am getting down to the wire now and I don't know what to do. I have until WEDNESDAY to make a choice. The position that my school is offering me is for a 7th and 8th grade self-contained ED/BD class. This will be the first year that our school had opened up to 7th and 8th grades, so it is a brand new program, I will not get the same classroom aides, and I will have 4 of the same students (3 of whom I have had for the past 2 years as well). YIKES! I don't know what to do!

People keep saying, "you already know what you want to do, so just do it!" but the truth is, I thought that I knew what I wanted to do... when they offered me pre-k, i knew I didn't want it, then when they offered me 2nd grade, again, I knew I wasn't interested. When I thought that I was doing 4-6 Self-contained BD again, I had resigned myself to looking for a new job, but NOW, this is something completely different. The span is just 2 years, and 2 years where the gap really is very close as far as puberty, academics, social norms, etc. My whole mind has been spinning and I only have until Wed. to decide what i should do!!

HELP, please...

2nd Annual Carrot Day!

2007-06-08T13:01:00.000-04:00

So... that 3 day streak has extended itself into a few good weeks. This is a rare occurance, but things are going well... so well indeed that I allowed my students to celebrate their 2nd Annual Carrot Day.

This is an event that we have been looking forward to all year, so excitement has been buzzing all week. We started the day with plotting carrots onto ccordinate grids and figuring out the plot of each point of the carrot, from there we found the comparative and subjugative forms of adverbs in sentences relating to Ms. G winning the Carrot Competition, and once finished, we began the big eat-off.

We are on a break from eating carrots right now, so that the kids can attend their music class and go to lunch, but before they left, Ricky was in the lead at 8 full carrots in just over 1 hour. I on the other hand, have only eaten 4 and feel a little sick to my stomach, but I'm closer to the norm, tied with Jerry and just behind Tyler who has eaten 5 carrots. Nadia and Tay have both forfitted already, but all seem to still be enjoying this orange-themed day.

3 day streak...

2007-05-30T12:57:00.000-04:00

Amidst the sweltering heat of our 4th floor classroom, and the stinky pits of mostly adolescent boys, the Bad Wolves are currently into the third day of a streak of learning, curiosity, and fun. It seems that we have collectively gotten a "second wind" and the motivation and positive attitudes are overwhelming me.

This is a much needed break, as many of you probably know.... so cross your fingers for me. I am worried that I am cursing myself by even mentioning the classroom atmosphere.... but I just find it so amazing that the entire demeanor of a classroom can so drastically change in a short time. Even more amazing is the way that my student soak up knowledge when they let themselves. For the past 3 days, the "cool" thing to do is learn, and the only students who haven't enjoyed the past few days of school are the ones that refuse to think for themselves. With any luck, this positive class outlook will begin to rub off on those few before it diminishes.

Yesterday I had 4 parent logs go home that started like this "___________ had a phenominal morning, a positive attitude and was motivated to learn!" I love parent logs like that...

Discouraged...

2007-05-08T22:22:00.000-04:00

okay, I know I said good days, but ever since that post I have been holding out to write anything hoping that I was right, and that things were going to go as well as I had promised myself... but despite my best efforts, things aren't going well.

I have come to a point where I have almost certainly resigned myself to not teaching again next year. I am on board and committed to my students through the end of the year, but in the past few days I have decided that I am comprimising my mental health for my job, and while that can be maintained for the 2 year commitment that I signed up for when I took the position, I am not sure that I will be able to remain sane for a whole new year. I have tried everything that I know to do, taken reccomendations, changed everything I know how. I have even takedn a second job, which is the complete opposite of teaching, and while this occupies more of the time that I don't have, it also keeps my mind fresh and renewed from allowing myself to think about things that are not at all related to teaching. Still, being a 2nd year BD teacher is weighing down on me.

I don't mean to be discouraging, but I just feel that teaching has gotten to a point for me where I feel that I can't actaully impact the lives of my students in the ways that I need to in order to make a difference. By all of this, I do not mean to say that "giving up on teaching" is in any means an answer... but by the same recourse, I also cannot give up on my sanity before finding a job that will suite both me and the population that I serve.

Now I feel as though this is getting to be too deep of an entry for my mindset tonight, but for all of you out there, if you have words of wisdom, I am asking for them now. I need to ensure that I will at the very least make it through the school year.

Good days Ahead

2007-04-25T23:31:00.000-04:00

Back to good times.... for now.

Although my life is chaos right now, I must admit that the teaching thing is going pretty well for the time being. Corey Booker, Newark's mayor, is coming into our school next week to be our "Principal for a Day", so we have been having daily visits from our principal, just for good measure. So far, we have had nothing but compliments. My students have been working cooperatively with one another, responding to their behavior mods, and overall following classroom rules and procedures. This is something that we have only perfected in the morning however, and we continue to show out the bad behaviors in the afternoon, after lunch (which incidentally is when the mayor will be in the school), but I think that we have made some great strides since the break. Honestly, none of this has anything to do with the mayor coming to our school, but it just happens to correspond in such a way that makes it so that the principal is even getting the chance to observe "the bad kids" behaving positively.

Don't get me wrong... we still have our issues, and I am fairly certain that this thing we have going on right now won't last through the hot weather we have coming soon, but for now it is something that we all need.

Spring Break is Over...

2007-04-18T17:46:00.000-04:00

My kids were angels on Monday and Tuesday, and then today things flipped back again. I was hoping that the bliss of a new start after the break would help us to reconnect as a class, and Mon and Tues were promising... but today was 5 steps backwards.

We're back to threats again. One of my new students assured us all that he is going to "bring something in tomorrow to take care of all you all!" I am actually very nervous about it, and the administration did next to nothing... they're going to "check" him before school tomorrow, but my only fear is that after school might be too late. I can only immagine the things that are going through his heas to make it seem okay to do this sort of thing.

He saw a classmate with a switch blade in class, and then didn't see ramifications, because that stdent is now being home schooled, menaing that the only time my students see him anymore is when he's outside playing with his friends. Then there is the looming rumor in my room that Jerry sometimes carries a knife to school "just in case." I don't know if this is true or not, but to an extent, it doesn't matter, for the other students in the class it IS true. Then, ofcourse, there's TV, the community, and the news. I don't doubt that this student is already involved with gangs. He throws up signs left and right, talks "street" and has tremendous pride in repeating the word "bloods" whenever he's feeling perturbed. He's 9 years old. Then most recently there's the killings in Virginia. My kids heard about this, and that killer is getting so much media coverage he is like a legend already, and when my kids see that, all they can do is long for that sort of attention.

I also don't want to think about this anymore right now. I'm jst going to cross my fingers and trust that everything is going to be okay forever and ever. Anyone have any positive thoughts for me and my kids?

I told you so.

2007-03-30T22:43:00.000-04:00

I've been saying it for a year and a half now... if we don't do something about Ricky, he's going to put a kid in the hospital. I said those exact words as recently as this Monday infact, but no one listens to the teacher because no one else has any answers, and since avoiding problems usually works, that seems to be the tactic that has until today been taken with Ricky. Today, Ricky attacked a kid so bad that he had to be sent to the hospital.

Unprovolked, Ricky attacked a messenger from another class in the eye, repeatedly until I was able to pry them apart. I want to make it known that this is not the type of moment when I feel like screaming "I told you so!", but then I know that I've been telling the Child Study Team, the schools part-time psychologist, Rickys case manager, the administration and his parents for months that Jay was a danger, and then he brought a knife to school... and today, Ricky hurt a kid so bad he was sent to the hospital to get the skin around his eye sewn back on.

I am not going to add any commentary or anything... but I am posting the incident report that accompanied the attack... as always, I changed names, but all the events are the same. I guess I could talk about the situation for a long time, I have a lot of theories as to whhy Ricky did all of this so unprovolked...

Incident Report

Students involved: B.J.
Ricky

Date: March 30, 2007

Location: Room 4-- Time : 1:45pm

Reporting teacher: Ms. G----------

Incident:

Soon after lunch time there was a knock on the classroom door. I answered the door and let B.J. in the room to deliver a note from his teacher, Ms. J. J------. B.J. stood and waited for me to reply to the letter and began talking to one of my students, Tyler . At that time S------ made a comment to B.J. that I did not hear, but noticed that it upset him. My tudents were asking him about a fight that he had gotten into a few days prior. They wanted to hear the "details", but B.J. didn't want to talk about it. S----- and B.J. started to play fight, but not physically because they were not close enough. I asked S---- to be seated, but at that time he made a move as if to attack B.J. , and then the situation became more loud.

At this time, Ricky became very upset and stood up from his seat at the back of the room. He quickly ran towards B.J. , knocking over desks on his way. Ricky approached B.J. from behind, grabbing both of his shoulders and turning B.J.s body towards him, but B.J. automatically grabbed at Ricky, grasping at his shirt. At this point Ricky yelled "Get the fuck off my shirt, man" and started to physically attack B.J. Ricardo repeatedly punched Brandon in the head and face as Ms. C---- and I tried talked to the boys and tried to separate them.

B.J. was trying to cover his head at the same time as he refused to let go of Ricky’s shirt. It was as if B.J. froze, he seemed to be unable to let go of the shirt. However, Ricky refused to stop punching until B.J. would let go of him. I was standing behind Ricky, holding his shoulders, trying to keep him as far away from B.J. as possible, and although he was unable to make full contact with his punches, each time he swung he was hitting B.J. in the face and head.

I counted to three and called “break,” (a tactic I always use in my classroom to break up fights), but B.J. did not let go, so even though Ricky stopped punching for a few seconds, he continued once he saw that B.J. was not following the rules of a "break." Ricky began punching again, yelling for B.J. to let go of his shirt, repeatedly hitting B.J. in the right eye, because the rest of B.J.s face was mostly blocked by the way he was crouched holding himself as far away from Ricky as possible without letting go of his shirt. I was then able to pry Ricky’s shirt out of B.J’s hand, and as soon as Brandon felt that he had been "released," and he ran out of the classroom. I could see that B.J. had been seriously injured, as blood was already running into his hands as he covered his eye and ran down the hallway.

I worked to calm my class as they set the chairs straight. Ricky told the class that he was glad that he had punched him and wished that he had hurt him worse for pulling on his shirt and makin it wrinkled. Ricky then went right back to his seat to do his work, very casually, as if nothing had happened. When I asked him whey he attacked B.J. , he said that it was because he had pulled on his shirt, but then realized that the fight started before that and did not answer any other questions. I did not call security because I felt that anything that might have set Ricky off more would have put B.J. and possibly other children in the classroom in more danger. I instead waited for security to come to my room realizing that B.J. would return to his classroom and get help from there.

About 5 minutes after the end of the incident the building principal came to my classroom and pulled Ricky out.
_______________________________

Besides what is written there the only other information I have (that is not my long winded rants about behavior mods and discipline and theraputic programs that are needed but not in place, and the ways that we are putting young minority boys into situations where they will doubtlessly fail because we are setting them up for prison instead of productive life, etc...) is that the nurse called BJs mom to pick him up to take him straight to the ER. She said that she couldn't get the bleeding in his right eye to stop, and that she wasn't sure what they could do as far as sewing him up because it was all so close to his eye. As for Ricky, he had 3 cuts on his nuckles from punching, and his knuckles were about twice the size they should be from swelling, his middle knuckle was turning black and blue from hitting so hard. He had band-aides and an ice pack, and was extremely calm when I picked him up from the nurse to take him to his bus. Most of the incident he couldn't recall. I think that he "blacked out"... he has always said that when he gets angry all he can see is blackness.

Standardized Testing Take 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5

2007-03-23T12:08:00.000-04:00

Today was the last day of NJASK... Finally! I was testing Mon-Wed of last week for my 6th grade students, and then all week this week for 4th grade and I am just HAPPY that if is finally over!

My students have been so stressed out, and so thrown off balance from all of this that I think even they are hoping for things to go back to normal. My 6th graders haven't seen me in the morning all week, and although I give them work that is aligned with our daily routines, we all know that it just hasn't been the same. We will all be very happy to get back to our regular schedules.

I guess that is all that I have to say for now. Yesterday I was so angry that I couldn't get myself to write about testing, and today I am trying not to get angry, so I think I will just end my ramblings here. (well, one more thing I guess, to end on a positive note...) I must admit that I was slightly less frustrated by the questions and the set-up for the 4th grade tests than I felt about the 6th grade NJASK, but I still think that high stakes tests can never tell us all the miraculous things that they need to in order to ensure that "no child is left behind"...

Manifestation Determination and more...

2007-03-15T21:51:00.000-04:00

This is an update about Jay...

Last Wednesday Jay was taken in hand-cuffs by the police down to the police station. There they decided that all charges were pending depending on the parent's next steps. His group therapist for whom he attends therapy 5 days a week, reccommended that he go directly to the ER. Mom followed through and Jay was admitted to the hospital where he had been until today when he was discharged.

The behavior analysis that was done of Jay diagnosed him as emotionally disturbed, ADHD, having post-tramatic stress disorder (PTSD), and having behavior disability.

I learned all of this at a Manifestation Determination meeting. These meetings are held anytime there is a student who needs to be suspended more than 2 times in a school year for a period exceeding 10 days. Jay had already been suspended twice this year, before the knife incident. It is assumed that anytime there is a student in a situation where they need to be suspended that much, they may be in the wrong setting, or their individualized education is being comprimised. I have been saying for months now that this is the wrong setting for Jay. He needs a more theraputic componant, with a more restrictive environment, year-round schooling, and possibly a personal aide. No one listened until now, until there was a serious possibility that someone was going to get hurt. I guess the good thing is that something is finally being done, and luckily no one did get hurt.

Anyway, at the Manifestation Determination I was able to officially request a new placement for Jay, that had the signatures of the case manager and his school psychologist from last year-- so basically that means that I had some backing behind my reccomendations.

During ths meeting I was paged to the main office by the principal. I let them know I was busy, but they still requested that I come down to speak with the principal immediately after the meeting was over. When I got down there she told me that she would be providing coverage for me for the afternoon and that I should be prepared to attend the Superintendants Hearing that would be happening to discuss and determine next steps regarding Jay's incident. This was a little shocking, but I did what I needed to do to prepare things for my students to have work to do without me in the afternoon, and then rushed over to attend the meeting.

[I did really good. I know my kids, their classifications, their IEPs in and out, (afterall, I am the main author of these IEPs) and so any question they had about anything having to do with Jay in school I had covered. After the meeting the Vice-Superintendant pulled me to the side to tell me that she was impressed with my handling of the meeting. My principal took the opportunity to show me off, "and she's only a second-year teacher" and I was then invited to a upcoming principals meeting with a focus on Special Education.]

Anyway, back to the important thing... Jay. It was determined that he was going to be suspended for an additional 5 days, during which time he will be admitted into school to do the standardized testing. I interviened at this time, saying that for his safety, and that of my other students, it may not be a good idea to put him back into my classroom this soon. Jay's mother agreed, and we made alternate arrangements for him to test at another of the public schools nearby. (I don't want to go on too much about this testing situation, because I think testing is stupid.) Then Jay has a 45 day interim education program. He has the option of attending a day-program provided by a hospital in Union, a nearby suburb of Newark, or to have in-home one-on-one instruction. After the 45 days, Jay's new IEP will take effect, and he should be placed into a new program that will better suit his needs.

I think those are pretty much all the updates I have about the Jay thing... I think most of my concerns were addressed in the Hearing. Jay's mom brought a legal advocate, which was a little intimidating. The advocate seemed to be attacking me left and right, but I felt reassured by the end of the meeting that I did do the right thing durint the incident, and also throughout the past year and a half when I have had Jay as a student. I was able to show that I have been following through wth all behavior modification plans, been in contact with his therapist, have reached out to his mother, and have put forth all efforts on my part to try to ensure the best environment for Jay.

Standardized Testing Take 1

2007-03-14T20:12:00.000-04:00

Today was the final day of NJASK6.

Monday went well, it was a 2 part literacy selection. The first segment was a persuasive writing piece, which I must say that my kids kicked ass on... then a reading selection- informational text followed by multiple choice and open-ended questions. My kids weren't rockin' that quite to the same extreme, but considering it was a 6th grade selection, and my students are performing at about a 3.5 grade level, they did pretty well, if I do say-so myself. Overall time testing was about 135 minutes, with one break in the middle. I was so proud I wanted to cry.

Tuesday began the excruciating painfulness of the testing experience... a 3 part literacy selection; first reading, then another persuasive writing piece, then reading again. Total testing time was 225 min with 2 breaks in between. HELL. The first reading piece went okay, again, their levels are much lower then the reading they are required to do, but overall they used the strategies they have been learning all year, and did their best. By the time they got to the writing prompt they had used up every last ounce of energy they had left on focusing to read something way over their heads and began to feel frustrated. Still, they did well, and wrote convincing essays to the hypothetical principal who is continually infringing on their rights. (Inevitably this is the topic of every persuasive writing piece any child in New Jersey is required to write for any and all state assessments.) Then, when we had to return to the reading selection, which was no doubt racist and slanted, they lost control. Jerry began peeling off tiny slivers of paper from his test book to ball up and throw at Ray. Of course Ray was so busy telling the new kid that his momma was a "crack-baby" that he couldn't figure out what kept hitting him in the back of the head. I ended up having to have the principal come up and help babysit for the last 50 minutes of that testing round.

[I have to put in just a quick blurb about the how unfair these test are... 1. my special ed students are asked to perform just as well as their regular ed peers on the same test, even though they are classified because they are unable to perform on grade-level. 2. These high-staked tests are long, and unbearable even for people with a lot of patience, like myself. 3. These tests are manufactured to put white suburban kids at an advantage, and I refuse to back down from that position. For example... in the reading piece about a mountain climber, when they described how the climber felt, there was a quote that read, "I'm psyched" and a footnote that described that "psyched" is a term used to describe a feeling of excitement. This was the only footnote used in the text. My students use the word "psyched" all the time. They are always "psyched" about something. However, my students have never seen a mountain. They have never been climbing, or even seen a climbing wall because they have never left Newark, NJ. My students have never seen a harness, or even heard of one, let alone a clamp or a caribeaner, or any other tool that is used for climbing, yet they are supposed to "infer from the text" what all those things are when the little white 6th grader sitting up in Suburban Elite White School gets a definition for the word "psyched"? The tests are unfair. 4. there are 10 billion better ways to test student growth and school achievement, but standardized testing is not one of them.]

Then there was today; the math section. 213 minutes worth of testing broken into 3 sections that get progressively harder. From the start my students were dragging. They were not happy about a third day of testing, and overwhelmingly aware that they had missed their specials classes (art, gym, etc) for 2 days now. Needless to say, they were very unhappy about the circumstances, couldn't focus on the test, and did not do their best. This was not because they didn't know how to do the math, or at least most of the math, but rather because they were stressed and frustrated, and tired of testing.

I hated today. I was so exhausted I wanted to cry. I am glad it is over. I am glad that I get to go back to teaching tomorrow rather than being a "chief examiner" for a test I don't believe in and happen to have moral qualms about. I am proud that my kids made it through these last few painful days, and even though I can honestly say they didn't do their best today, I think that I can also honestly say that considering what this testing is, they DID do their best for the unrealistic expectations put forth by the state.

I am a teacher that refuses to lower my expectations for my students, but when I set those expectations, I always set them making sure that I am not setting up my students to fail. I think that No Child Left Behind, and the States seriously need to think about what they are doing when they set forth unrealistic goals for students who could succeed if we would just give them the chance.

I have 2 days of being a teacher again and then I have to go back to "Chief examiner" for next week, when we will be testing Monday - Friday for NJASk4&5, so I will undoubtedly be back on this thing ranting about the horrible tests they force me to administer.

Jay's got a Knife

2007-03-07T16:25:00.000-05:00

Today started just like every other day this week- hell. I was late because the lady I drive to work in the mornings was late, so when she’s late to meet me, I’m late to get to work. Lucky for me, the snow caused everything to be running late, so the buses were, of course, late. As my students started trickling in, I could tell that the walk through Little Bricks last night to talk to Nadia’s grandma had been worth my time. She was going to have a good day. Tyler was going to do her best, Jack was going to need a little refocusing, Sean was a hellian and Ricky was not feeling well, and in his own words “just not in the mood.” Jerry didn’t show when his bus got here, and Tally wasn’t in yet either. Jay was, like usual, trying his hardest to have a conflict with anyone that would drop their guard just for a second.

I noticed immediately that Jay was up to something. He was acting sneaky. He was pulling our newest student Jack over to the side to make an ally. My aide noticed something was up to when Jack said to her “I’m not getting involved with all that,” but then refused to say what “all that” was. I saw Jay slide something into his desk, and huddled other students around him to show what was going on. At this point, I didn’t want to make too much of a fuss about anything, I needed to find out what was going on.

Without actually knowing what was happening, I started to write up the incident report. I didn’t know what was going on, but it didn’t feel right, Jay was disrupting the learning in the classroom, wouldn’t do his work, couldn’t stay seated, and wasn’t his usual talk-back self. He was a whisperer. Quiet and sly. As I sat at my desk, filling out the form when Ray quickly came to my desk, almost looking away from me and said in a low, timid voice, “Ms. G, Jay’s got a knife. I think he’s gonna’ use it,” and then walked away as if he hadn’t said a word. I knew immediately that Ray was right. I wrote it into the incident report, and tried my best to keep the rest of the class calm. By this point most of them had seen the weapon, and now that Jay knew he was busted, all he was focused on was finding out who the “snitch” was. He walked around the room cursing at all the new students, he yelled at Nadia, “I’m gonna’ put you in stitches, just like them bitches!” I told my aide what was going on and had her walk Jay to the main office.

When they were gone my students started talking. Jay also had a fake gun (very realistic) in his desk. He told the others that he brought it to threaten Jerry. I was just thankful that Jerry wasn’t here today. I had the fake gun sent to the office. The police came and searched Jay to find that he not only had the fake gun, but he also had a 5 inch switch blade open in his pants pocket, and an empty clip from a real pistol. The police arrested him, took him out to their car in handcuffs. The most the school can do apparently is a 4 day suspension. (This can't actually be possible, right? Four days is just enough time to stew over the events that happened and want to really hurt someone...)

They will probably have a hearing to see what else they can do, because through the whole thing Jay was threatening people, and continued to say that he was just trying to protect himself. Jay’s mom said that the blade came from her fiancé, and that last night it was on the bed, and then they couldn’t find it this morning. Since Jay claimed that Jerry had been the one he was after, and then continued to insist that he Jerry had threatened him first, he will be searched each morning before he is admitted to class.

That's all I have to say right now...

I hate my job...

2007-03-05T22:59:00.000-05:00

Incase any of you were wondering... I hate my job. I hate that I have a practically new set of kids and almost nothing to work with. I hate that my students don't want to learn anymore, and I hate all the bueracratic BS that makes it so that all the BD kids in the district are being shuffled into my classroom at the same time. I hate that I had an observation today, and that I didn't get to teach any of my academic lessons because behavior was so bad. I hate that I have to send home nightly behavior reports, and I hate myself for not having the energy to call parents tonight.

I hate that I don't feel stable enough to get my life back in control, and that I am getting myself so upset about school that I haven't really been dealing with my personal issues for the past few months. Mostly though, today I just hate my job.

New Students

2007-02-28T17:18:00.000-05:00

They keep sending me new kids. It's 2 weeks away from standardized testing, and they just keep plopping them in my room. I officially have 9 students now, and by law I top off at 10 as a teacher of BD students. Two weeks ago I got a new student, last Friday I got another one, and I was told yesterday by a BD teacher at another Newark school that he just signed all the paperwork to send another kid to me.

My new ones are:

Sean, a 4th grader who is much smaller than all of my other students, but has the best social skills of any of my kids.

Then there's Nadia, another 4th grader, and a GIRL! My students don't have a lot of interactions with female students, and don't generally know how to handle those interactions when they do happen... so she's already caused a huge stir in the room, besides that puts her in competition with the only other girl in my classroom, Tyler.

And tomorrow, it is rumored that I will be getting a 6th grade boy who has been home-schooled by his Aunt for the past 6 months because he had too many conflicts to keep him in a classroom. I try my best not to be swayed by what I hear before a student arrives, but I hear what I hear.

I do not have any IEPs for my new students, nor any other pertinent information.

My room is starting to fall apart already with the two new students. Tuesday was my first REALLY bad day in a long time, and today was a staff development day, but I just hope that I can get my classroom management together enough to allow these changes to move my students forward, rather than shove them behind.

New students lead to new challenges, and I have a lot of them ahead of me.

a girl

2007-02-26T17:55:00.000-05:00

Bad Wolves have another new student. She is girl #2 in the classroom, and that is causing some major disruption. My students are so used to being a class of "all boys", but now Nadia has infiltrated.

(I just found this draft in my queue of posts... and it already reminds me of some of the trends I've seen in my classroom this year, so i thought that i would post it so that later I can give an update and remind myself of this trend.)

De Colores

2007-02-21T23:40:00.000-05:00

Jerry said "you teachers are always trying to make things colorful and make us draw pictures because you think that us special ed kids are stupid or something." in September of this school year. I had Jerry all last year for 5th grade, and he returned to me this year as a 6th grader. This is a direct quote too, because I was so intrigued that I wrote it down immediately.

I tried to explain to Jerry, and the rest of the class that I do use bright colors intentionally, but that it is actually because I think that they are VERY smart, and I think that the bright colors help them to recall information, and they can use the colors as parts of strategies for remembering and learning new things. I also explained that pictures are a really good tool to use, especially in math.

Jerry, at the time, didn't buy into it. He insisted that I thought he and his classmates were stupid.

Today I heard Jerry, (who has taken it upon himself to show our new student, a 4th grader, how things work in Bad Wolf Territory) explained that the colors around the room are coordinated to subject area, and that can help to remember what folder to look in if you get stuck on a problem on the exit ticket. Jerry explained that every day I put up 2 math problems (we have notes on that in the Red folders), then 2 literacy questions (in the blue section of the room), and then one question that will be either social studies (yellow) or science (green). Jerry described it so matter-of-factly. I could tell that he was using some of the strategies that I have been trying to teach all year.

I realize that this seems like a very simple thing to understand, but really the idea that we use color-coded binders and folders is something that has taken a long time to embed in my students. Occasionally I will still find a blue literacy notebook thrown in the red bin with the math work. The color-systems create structures for my students that they can begin to understand, and then hopefully use for categorizing their lives and their thinking.

Sometimes I hear them referring to things by the colors I use, for example, Rick was trying to remember the definition of "physics" and when Jay suggested the wrong answer, Rick said, "no, that's not right, it's the one that she wrote up in green." Brilliant, I thought.

Snow Day!

2007-02-14T10:05:00.000-05:00

This means that I finally have enough time to sit and post some of the updates I have been wanting to share....

Nothing spectacular has been happening in my classroom, except that my kids love learning. It is almost like I have been afraid to post anything about this drastic change in classroom demeanor because I know that this could be a fleeting moment, and I don't want to jinx things.... but my kids have collectively decided that they are at school to learn.

I caught Jerry explaining to our new student the other day that "man, the day is so much better if you do what you have to do when you get here. I mean, it sucks to stay in your seat or whatever, but when you get all your points up and get good grades it's like it's worth it." This is when Jerry noticed I was listening in, and he looked up, a little embarrassed, and then said, "I'm right, right Ms. G."

"Of course you're right, Jerry."

There have been a lot of changes, and for once I happen to think that they are all adding to the success in my classroom.... Changes are hard to make happen in a BD classroom, but as I'm sure many of you know, they are often necessary. I think that the key is that even if it's not working at first, stick with it, but whatever you do, don't get rid of old routines.

I implemented a brand new Behavior Modification plan weeks ago, but last week was the first full week that it worked the way I intended for it to work. Behavior Mods can be so tiresome and time consuming. I have changed mine so many times, but I think that thing I need to keep in mind is that it WON'T work for my students if it doesn't work for ME. By this I mean that sometimes I let the plan slide a little, or ignore the chart for a few days, because it's too much work to keep up with. In that scenario, even if my kids liked the plan, it couldn't possibly work. Right now I have something simple, inexpensive, and something that I DON'T have to rely on my aides to help with.

(I am not sure how much I have mentioned the inability of my aides to be of significant and meaningful help, but I think that I shall try to post an entire entry on that sometime...)

Behaviors in my class are guided by 4 very strong factors right now, all working together to make for a positive changes, and I have a 5th back-up plan mod, that my kids are familiar with that I use only on days when I see that my students NEED extra supports in place. The 4 big factors are:

1) work chart: This is where the learning part comes in. Students get the opportunity to fill in up to 9 boxes on their chart for the work they are expected to accomplish in a day.

2) desk stickers: Students get stickers on their desk for doing the right thing. When I catch kids seated, calm, with positive behaviors geared towards learning, I simply place a sticker on their desk. My students are in competition to see who can get their desk filled up the fastest.

3) awards: On top of awards for behaviors that are tallied at the end of the week, awards for good attendance, good test scores, and doing classwork in all subject areas, etc, I give the kids daily opportunities to get recognized in the classroom. This includes getting your name on a leaf on the "Tree of Kindness", earning a handshaped cut-out on the "Helping Hands make the world go 'Round" wall, or students can work towards a "Bad Wolves Teamwork Award" if they are working cooperatively and positively with one another.

4) daily parent logs: I have these down to an art form. I made a check-sheet with the most common behaviors seen in my classroom, (both positive and negative) and fill one out for each child for both the morning and afternoon. They are sent home nightly and expected to be returned the next day. Of course, many of my students have little to no parental supervision, but the looming threat of nightly phone calls keeps most of the parent logs coming back in.

Just to be fair, all of this love of learning doesn't come without a price... my prize bin has been something that I find very difficult to keep stocked with fun yet inexpensive prizes. Then, being me, I always try to make the prizes at least in some way educational. The way I see it thoigh, is that if the least of my concerns is that I have to spend a few extra bucks each week to fill my prize bin, then I guess I'm doing okay.

Things have been looking up again, and I hope that this stays for at least a little while. In the meantime, I am trying to take this time to determine what I am going to do with the next year of my life. I am at a crossroads, and I have learned that I probably can still apply and take classes to become permanently certified as a special education teacher. This would mean that I need to be committed to teaching again next year, and I'm not sure if that's what I want for myself.

More to come....

Bi-Polar

2007-01-30T21:54:00.000-05:00

All of my students have the disability entitled "emotionally disturbed." Most carry another label as well. Sometimes this is "OHI" (other health impairment), sometimes it is "ADD" or "ADHD”, the sort of things you would expect to see for the variety of strange behaviors you can observe in a classroom such as mine. About three fourths of my students had fetal alcohol syndrome, and about half of those students were born addicted to another substance as well. Half of my students carry the title "bi-polar" somewhere in their IEP. This also happens to be the title that best describes my classroom right now. Somehow I fear that my job is promoting this title for me as well.

I must be taking on some of the emotions that my students go through on a daily basis. As much as my students can’t decide if it is more beneficial to make good choices or to make bad ones, I can’t decide if teaching is rewarding or simply degrading.

Yesterday I hated my job. Absolutely and utterly I hated every part of being in that school and in that classroom. I wanted more than anything to be taken away to some other world where Newark didn’t exist and kids didn’t talk and people just… well, I didn’t get that far into the scenario because the important part about my daydream was that I wasn’t a teacher and I didn’t have to hate everything.

Today I was my students’ biggest advocate and I remembered why I decided to be a teacher in the first place. I got cocky and defensive when my students were assigned a new counselor that hadn’t the first clue of how to interact with BD kids. She said to me, “so what should I do?” when she walked in, and then suggested “less structure, right?” I scoffed, and I thought I might pull my hair out of my own head just to have to deal with her. I realized that I am in that classroom for a reason. I even found myself in the office begging them not to send me to a workshop tomorrow because I need to be in that classroom with my kids.

This is the point when I start recognizing my own bi-polar tendencies because I know that tomorrow I can guarantee that I will be happy to be away from the school, and Thursday I am about 90% positive that I will be miserable to have to return to my classroom.

I am beginning to think that “Bi-polar” is a classification that must be over-used, while simultaneously all too accurate for a BD classroom, and it’s teacher.

This is what it feels like to fall...

2007-01-16T19:36:00.000-05:00

4 of my 7 student are suspended. 1 was hospitalized. Bad Wolves are falling apart.

Wednesday of last week both Jerry and Ricky were suspended for bullying issues. It was a long time coming, and I guess the stack of incident reports just got so high that they decided it was finally time to do something about it. I don't want to get too far off track by complaining about my administration and their lax policies, but as I’m sure most of you can imagine, the office doesn’t want to deal with negative behaviors any more than the teachers want to deal with a bunch of BS paperwork.

It just so happens that Wednesday was also the day my cell phone was stolen off my desk in my classroom. The student whom we suspect took the phone also cleared his parents phone numbers from my aide's cell phone-- leading me to believe that he took mine to delete the phone numbers, with intentions to return it-- but never got the chance to give it back because on the way back from the restroom he was scooted down to the office and then suspended-- but again, for the sake of not going on too much about things I could ramble about all day, I won't go into detail about the overwhelming disappointment I felt when I learned that one of MY students stole my phone.

Thursday Ricky showed up to school even though he was suspended. They held him in the office for the first half-hour of the day, and then sent him up to class with a pass. As soon as he got in the room he body slammed Tay for "telling" on him and saying that he felt bullied. As you can imagine, this was not an easy day for us, and Ricky took free reign in the classroom, claiming every time he did something he new was a bad decision “I can do whatever I want. I don’t even have to be here. I’m suspended, remember?”

Friday Ricky showed up again. They didn't even try to hold him in the office-- they just sent him up… apparently they had things to deal with in the office- as if I come to school to baby-sit, and not teach. Then all hell broke loose in the classroom. All of my students were frustrated, and I think that they saw Ricky's defiance as reassurance that they could get away with anything they wanted.

Friday was hell. I couldn't get a word in... when I went to speak they screamed over me. When I went to write on the chalkboard they would run out of the classroom, claiming that they didn’t have to work. When I tried to do anything at all they did everything in their power to prevent it, and they wouldn’t even let me show them what I was trying to do. It wasn’t even that they didn’t want to learn. Sometimes they don’t want to hear what I have to say, but if information gets in, they are okay with that, and they walk away with something. On Friday, they wouldn’t even allow that to happen. They wouldn’t allow information to even seep in, because they wouldn’t let it get out of me at all. At one point I stopped talking all together. I almost lost my mind on Friday.

Then the principal suspended Jay and Ray. She didn't want to deal with it anymore either.

After school on Friday I had my big breakdown. It was my big moment of "I can't do this", "I'm a failure" and "I don't know how." That's when the night custodian walked in on me. I was beat-red and crying like an infant. He didn't say much, but I asked him to help me re-arrange my room. I figured if something was going to change, everything was going to have to change.

Today when I got to school Jay was there, even though he was supposed to be suspended. I think that he was just testing to see if he could get away with what Ricky got away with. It would've worked too, because when I told the office that he was there, they started to send him upstairs. Then he made the mistake of laughing and calling the principal a b*tch under his breath. They kept him in the office the rest of the day.

That incident left me with 3 students. Then Tally had his big moment. He went completely out of control and started threatening to take his own life. He went so far as to try to throw himself off the railing on the 4th floor stairwell. (This is another point in my rant in which I could go on for days, because this is not the first such incident this year with Tally, but again, this entry has too much already, and I’ll try to address the suicidal tendencies of some of my students in another rant another time.) We had to send Tally to the hospital. That is the first time this year that I've had to send a kid out for crisis treatment at the hospital. Last year I had police and ambulances quite a bit, but this was a first for the Bad Wolves. That incident left me with 2 students. The 3 of us had a good day and got all of our work done, but somehow I still have a hard time seeing today as any sort of success.

The room change is good I think. It's a start. They seemed a little taken aback when they saw it, they didn't know what to do-- it's like they froze in the doorway. Then they settled in. I think they know that it is time for some change in the classroom. I am going to introduce a new behavior mod. chart when they all start returning from their suspensions. I am doing everything I can think of to get things back in order. I am going to be cold for a little while towards them. I am not the type of teacher that believes that you can be unemotional to kids that NEED you emotionally... but I think that for a while I am going to have to try to be a warden and hold back all the emotions I want them to share and to see.

Ahhhh!
This week is going to be good. It has to be. They will start coming back slowly and the students that I have now will be accustomed to the new way the class runs, and then those that come into the class will either go along with the behaviors or I will have to send them out. I hate taking this attitude towards teaching, but things NEED to change. When we returned from winter break things didn't fall back into place the way they were before break, and now is my chance to pick up where we were and get Bad Wolves spirit in the classroom again. I have hope-- it's just that I have to keep convincing myself that it's there.

Technorati Profile

Usually I try to be more composed than this....

2007-01-08T20:05:00.000-05:00

Today was a bad day for us... but that's the name of the game, right? It doesn't happen so often that ALL my students are off, but today was that day. I feel like I didn't handle it very well-- somehow today I didn't know how to deal with a bunch of 6th graders cursing me out and yelling at me. Usually I am tactful, and i know what to say and do-- but almost in the same way that they seemed to forget all of our rules and procedures, I forgot what to do when Tay started yelling at me and calling me a b*tch.

I think that part of my struggle with remembering what to do, and how to handle intense BD day with my kids is that I am very stressed about work in general. I have finally come to the idea that I kind of like my job, and I have known for some time that I love my kids. A couple months ago I found out that I may no longer be working in my position for much longer. I don't think that I have had the oportunity to rant about this yet online, mostly because of the frustration I feel when I think about it, but starting Feb. I may not be able to teach in my classroom anymore due to certification issues. This seems to have been some sort of oversight through Teach for America, the school district, and myself, but what it leads to is the fact that I do not have a certificate to teach Special Ed... even though all the before mentioned parties thought that I was set through the end of the school year at least. As it turns out, the only certification I hold is good for life, but only for K-5. I teach special ed. 4-6... apparantly 2 big no-no's.

The idea that they might pull me out of that classroom only to replace me with a substitute shakes me to the core, and infuriates me to think that so much of the public education system obviously has very little to do with the children, because anyone in my school could tell you that the worst thing you could possibly do to my kids is take their teacher away and give them someone that isn't certified to teach anything... but apparantly that is out of our hands because from this point on everything is federally mandated by "No Child Left Behind".

Okay, before I get to far into this I feel that I should stop my rant (I don't want to be upset for the rest of the night), but basically, it is getting close to the wire for me, and I am worried because no one seems to know what to do to help make sure that I don't have to leave my kids behind.

coughcough*

2007-01-02T21:41:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted in a while for a number of reasons, mostly the fact that my personal life as well as my school life have been a tilt-a-whirl of ups and downs, and as it turns out, the tilt-a-whirl makes me nauseous, and if you know me at all, you know that I don't puke unless my life depends on it. Yesterday my life depended on it. Today I just feel sick again- I guess that's a step in the right direction.

Today was our first day back to school after the holiday break. I was elated to be going back (even in this coughing condition) because as much as school is chaos for me, I was longing for the thing that I know my kids need the most- routine. My life at home and on break has been so crazy that I needed the chance to get back into something that I can trust. I needed a break from the break essentially. This is a crazy phenomenon; I am not the type of person that generally relies on routine. In fact, I think that one of the hardest parts of teaching for me was that I had to become a structured person.

The thing is, I know what happens each day when I get to school. When I go into the auditorium at 8:20am I can count on only 2 of my students being there, because the other busses run late everyday. I know that this will frustrate me, and I will go through all the things that my kids could be learning in the 25 min that they are missing each morning. I know that when I get to the cafeteria with my students to pick up the breakfast, my 2 will fight for just a moment over who's turn it is to carry the bin upstairs. I know that the first thing Jerry will do when we get upstairs is tell me that the homework was too easy (even if he got half of it wrong), and Tally will try to think of a believable excuse for why he didn't do his at all. He knows that this will frustrate me, so he will then try to make me laugh, hoping I will go easier on him. He also knows that I will not buy his excuses, and I will not go easier on him and for this I think he loves and hates me simultaneously. I can expect that when the busses arrive, just as the morning announcements commence, the rest of my students will be arriving, hungry. Tay will stand out in the hall for a while and watch us, she seems to need a minute to prepare herself to enter the room, and I understand that, so I let her stand for a minute before saying good morning and drawing her into the classroom. I know that when I ask them to pass out the math message notebooks I will here numerous grunts and a few verbal complaints, but I also know that if I don’t get the math message up right away, someone will ask, “well, what about math, should I pass out the notebooks?” This is exactly what I needed today.

They missed me too, and I needed that. I was visibly ill, so all through the day they asked things like, “are you going to be here tomorrow?” and “why did you come to school today?” To this, I told Tally, “because I missed you so much I couldn’t bear to be away from you another day.” He laughed, “yeah right.” “What, you didn’t miss me?” I asked. “I missed you,” Jerry replied, and then quickly covered his self, “I mean, not really, I mean…” Ricky jumped in quickly, “Whatever man, I didn’t miss her at all. I didn’t even think about her… well I didn’t think about her until Monday…” and then he scratched his head and looked back at his paper.

Being sick sucks, and sometimes life does too, and often teaching really sucks, but it’s days like today, when even if things aren’t perfect, and your lessons don’t go as planned, and your kids have unthinkable behavior, and every last inch of your body hurts from having to stand in front of the toughest crowd in the world and pretend to be strong, I am thankful for being a teacher.

I will try my best to post again soon, because there are all sorts of shocking updates, and I have been reprimanded by my sister to keep up to date with my blog, but for tonight, all I can do is wish the best for the New Year.

Changes...

2006-11-23T22:09:00.000-05:00

As much as I am happy for the Holidays... right now I am also ACTUALLY excited to go to school. My students have been amazing. In the past few days, my kids have been in love with learning-- and that means that they have been respectful, kind, and on task. They don't want to let me down, and more than anything they want to feel like they are being challenged. This is a phenominal change, and I am loving it. I love that I feel like a TEACHER the last few days, rather than a security guard. I think this need for learning and challenge is rare in a BD classroom-- as much as kids might WANT to be smart, BD kids have a hard time not being overwhelmed when they are introduced to new things (ex: learning) and then they exhibit the behaviors that got them classified. My kids have been able to overcome this in the past few days, and all I can say is that I hope it continues this way after we return from this break.

A Parallel Land

2006-11-08T10:21:00.000-05:00

As I am visiting Cameroon, Africa, I can't help but see the striking similarities between the large cities here and Newark, NJ. Infact, after just arriving in Douala, Cameroon I had a hard time distinguishing that I was anywhere other than Newark. Albiet I was generally delerious from he overwhelming amount of travel I did, but it just seems very similar.

Douala looks much like Newark. The only difference that is noticable is that the roads here are not paved, and the dirt is red, rather than brown. The people, the buildings, the music, the rap artists, the smells... they are all very similar to Newark. They speak English here-- "special english" that is-- but even that is not far from the thick Jersey accents and the deep talking that we hear in Little Bricks.

There is much more that I want to share about this parallel land-- but it is not easy to get things done on the computers here (a difference I must add between Newark and Africa), so I will write more when I return to the States.

Raindrops on Roses

2006-10-30T19:35:00.000-05:00

Today was wonderful. I don't know what happened when I was out, but something miraculous changed the whole demeanor of my class, and today was heaven-sent. I didn't raise my voice once. I talked practically in a whisper, and if someone couldn't hear me, my students asked the others to "please listen, Ms. G is talking". They followed the hand signal, the rules, and they were respectful to me. Jerry told me that he missed me, Tay hugged me and said "welcome back", and Tyler wrote me a note over the weekend from the Bad Wolves to let me know that they were happy I was coming back. My teacher face worked today, in the same way I remember it working when my teachers used to use it on me. Bad Wolves worked together today, and tried to use all the language of a 'team' that I have been drilling them with all year.

Apparantly Thur and Fri were hell. I can only immagine. Ms. Baker (aide) is one to downplay incidents to me, so when she told me that Friday was a madhouse, I knew she wasn't kidding. The interesting thing is that even Ms. Baker, as much as she complained about how awful it was on Thur and Fri, admitted to me that it was probably one of the best things to happen to the classroom because it gave her the perspective of what I am up against. She told me that she undertsnads now how hard it is to move on with a lesson when the other aide is in the back doing he rown thing, and then today she came out from behind the table she usually stays at and helped with a shared reading group that we had formed.

Last week was a strange week for us... it looked like this:
Mon- full day
Tues- Half day
Wed- No School
Thur- No Ms. G (substitute and aides in the classroom)
Fri- No Ms. G (no substitute available, aides only (aka: extremely illegal) Weeks that are different always affect my students, but this time it was more than the average change because then I wasn't there for 2 days.

The other major issue that was affecting the level of respect that was exhibited today revolved around events that occurred in the area around our school on Sunday. If you look in the Newark Star Ledger, you can read that there were 3 drive-by shootings yesterday within 4 blocks of the school. These incidents left a 14 year-old dead, and 2 young boys in the ICU. The boys were shot literally outside the school.

My kids cling to the poeple they love when they fear it might be taken from them, and as much as my students don't recognize this as a direct correlation to the shootings, I really believe that it makes all the difference in the world to have people there that are looking out for you.

In the past my kids get pissed when I miss school, and then treat me awful for a few days until I can get tem back into the swing of things, but this time, they embraced my return. I got hugs, I was respected, and generally i think that my students learned a lot today-- which means that by the time they went home they were able to make a difference in their own lives.

I didn't yell once. I was excited and energetic. I felt respect.

Can i say again that today was a good day?

Finally, the weekend!

2006-10-21T10:03:00.000-04:00

A well deserved break.... it was a long week for the Bad Wolves. We seem to be in our first major lull of the year, and I know that we need to get out of it before things get bad in the classroom.

I have been able to attribute most of the behaviors that are creeping up to 2 very specific changes in the class:

1) The busses have not been coming on time. For the last week, "quiet fire" is the first bus to school, always earlier than all the others, even the walkers, and the 2 students of mine that are on it have a LOT of down time waiting for the school day to begin. So when school begins at 8:25, I have only 2 students. As you may be able to immagine, they are antsy and anxious because they have been waiting, but the other buses are still not there yet. Then, at about 8:30 the "pizza" bus arrives. I have 3 students that ride "pizza" but they aren't necessarily friends, so they don't come up to the classroom together, they show up one at a time from 8:30-8:40ish. This not only is frustrating, but it is hard to have a clear start to the day. Finally, at about 8:45, when breakfast is supposed to be OVER, morning announcements are done, and our Math Message for the day should be started and almost finished, the last bus, "hot dog" arrives with the rest of my students. Before this bus dilemma, when they all came ontime, we always walked upstairs together, taking short "morning meetings" in an empty classroom when needed to get our days off to a good start together-- but now SO much time is being wasted... I can't wait until 8:45 to begin the school day.

2) We have a new aide in te classroom. She is young, and attractive, and she doesn't have a lot of experience with kids, so she doesn't know how to interact with them appropriately always. I really feel for her, because I can tell that she is trying really hard to be helpful-- which is more than I can say for most aides in the school-- but she just doesn't know how to balance between helping and befriending the kids. Seeing as my class is dominated by hormonal boys, they are all infatuated with her-- and the fact that she wore pink polka-dotted underwear with green trip-- and the fact that I KNOW THAT-- hasn't been helping keep my students in the mind-set of "respecting everyone." They are all over her! So, we have daily talks about what it means to show respect for the adults in the classroom, and each and every one of them can say that they wouldn't want anyone talking to or about their mom like that, but then I still have Jerry asking her, while his arm is across her shoulders, "I like the tattoo you have on your back, where are all of your other tattoos?" He's 11 years old, and she answered him.

Needless to say, my classroom is not going as well as it was before these changes. I am worried for obvious reasons, and specifically because respect takes a long time to develop, and with my students not respecting the new classroom aide, and seeing her only as a fantasy in the flesh, I don't know what I can do to make that situation much better. Then, there is the bus thing, and I think that the only solution for that is to be creative, and complain a lot to the administration in hopes that they will do something, like TALK to the bus company about it.

Observations galore

2006-10-17T17:52:00.000-04:00

As it turns out, I got 3 seperate reviews returned from different observations I have had returned to me today...

Unfortunately, the one I care about the most was the one that I am most dissapointed in.
--This was the observation done by my vice principal- who, in my opinion ruined my observation himself. He maked me proficient overall (the options are unsatisfactory, basic, proficient, and distinguished). I don't mind the overall rating-- it is the facty that thi is possibly the worst observation I have ever had returned to me-- yet this is most certainly the best and most productive chunk of time in whih I have had as a teacher thus far. This, to me is concerning. He marked me "basic" in a few specific areas:

"Designing coherent instruction"- this one really makes me mad ecause this is where HE interferred. He didnt stay out of MY lesson. When my students were working in cooperative groups, he was working with them and instructing the-- when it was meant to be a lesson of discovery for the students. I was using all of the fancy strategies that I learn at the workshops THEY send me to... he just apparantly missed the memo on that one!

"using questioning and discussion techniques"- First-- my kids were asked to relate themselves to a folk-tale that they read by recalling a time that they told a lie that was meant to protect someone, then they were asked to write an alternate ending to the folktale and projecting how it might've turned out if the lie had not been told-- pretty frickin higher order if you ask me!! Relating yourself to the world in context of text is high on Blooms, or am I wrong? Second-- my kids were working in cooperative learning groups! If you have kids working with one another to discuss a story, i think that is pretty intense discussion going on, because it is meaningful and STUDENT generated. Isn't that where they're supposed to be as 4th-6th graders??

There was also one about not being responsive-- ad that one just pisses me off... I am in a BD class. If I weren't responsive and able to react, i wouldn't be here to complain about this-- and my students wouldn't either.

That's all-- everyhthing else was marked proficient, but some of it shouldn't have been-- mainly the one about submitting paperwork ontime... Like I said, overall he still marked me proficient-- but I still think that it was a pretty unfair assessment!

-- Okay, the next thing I got tday was a TFA observation-- basically all it said was that I am patient, and my calmness sets a good atmosphere for my classroom-- that was a good one I guess... really it just sounded SO TFA.

-- Last there was the CMCD observation-- it is the program that my school has adopte school-wide to make sure that we have "Cooperative Management and Consistancy Development." I had all of my artifacts in place, and my class was running really smoothly this morning, so I got 100% (yea, they give you a percent-- weird, I know!) Anyway, I guess that's all good... but I'm still upset about the REAL observation.

It just doesn't feel fair to me that my classroom is running better than EVER, and EVERYONE says and talks about the significant changes they have seem in my students from last year to this year, yet I am getting the worst observation review returned to me that I have ever had. I don't understand where they think these changes are coming from if they don't think that I am doing anything better this year. At the end of last year I was getting "distinguished" marks on my observations. This year things are otably different, and I am getting "basic" on some of the areas that I think are going best!

Oh, frustration....

The updates...

2006-10-10T20:56:00.000-04:00

This year is moving fast! On Friday the school year will be 1/8 of the way over-- scary!

Anyway, today I got a big surprise... I am getting a new student and he is in 3RD GRADE! Up 'til now I have been the 4-6 BD teacher in the school, but apparently they are going to make me the 3-6 teacher. I am not happy about this at all. Compared to 6th graders (middle schoolers) 3rd graders are babies. I don't think it is a good idea to put even younger kids in my room, and I am going to do whatever I have to to try to make sure that they can find a better placement for this new student. My kids will eat him alive-- it will make a 5 year age gap for my students. I am not a one-room school house, and I don't know how to have a class that is. I feel like if they really move this new student into my class they are treating me more like a babysitter than a teacher-- and that's not fair to ANY of the students in my class.

I am going to file an official complaint against the case manager for my students with the Department of Special Education in my district. I think that it will be a good first start... I know that it sounds a bit harsh, but I have only MET her once and as I mentioned, the year is 1/8th over. My students are very high-needs, and it is just not acceptable for me to have a case-manager that is only in the school a day or two a week. According to my students' needs, my case manager is supposed to counsel with each one for at least 30 min weekly... this has NOT been happening, and I struggled with this all last year with my old case manager. It is so unfortunate, because as a teacher there is still only so much that I can do to help some of these situations. Also, if I had a case manager that was on top of her game, I would think that she would do something about making sure that the age gap in my class doesn't span 4 grade levels... especially during such hormonal years for the young adolescents in my classroom.

The good news that I got today is that I am getting another aide for my class... I am hoping that this will be a good thing-- sometimes it seems impossible to know if it will cause more of less chaos, but I am excited for it. This will help to make my class a little more in compliance with IEPs.

Only in comparison...

2006-09-28T20:57:00.000-04:00

It's been a rough week. All I can think about is the constant headache I have and the fact that no matter how many (or few) hours of sleep I get, I am always tired. A bad week at school is most certainly the cause of symptoms like this; it's the cure that is a mystery.

I think part of the issue is that students had no school on Wednesday-- this made for a different week, and my kids don't handle change very well. Jerry told me that I was a "bad teacher" today when he didn't understand a question on his test. Tyler told me that I was a "bitch" and that she doesn't care about school, "that's the thing that you just don't understand Ms. G." Ray told me that "you don't understand what it means to have friends" when I asked him to stop talking to his neighbor. Then George chimed in again to let me know that I just don't understand what it's like to be a kid, and that if we could trade places then I would know that teachers aren't cool. I let him know that I was a kid once, but he just didn't seem to think that it was sufficient.

Classroom managment seems impossible at this point, but when I put things in context I start to see that even though things aren't in place yet how they need to be, I have come a long way since this time last year. I remember that it was probably the 4th week of school last year when I got so frustrated with my role that I literally left. Al-Kabir reached in my pocket to steal the keys so that I couldn't call security, and when he touched me I ran out of the classroom, told my case manager that she needed to find coverage for me, and I left the building. I spent an hour walking through little bricks in Newark, crying to my dad on the phone. When I finally decided to go back, I went straight into the office and told the vice principal that I wouldn't be teaching that day- so we spent the rest of the afternoon watching Free Willy. It took myself, my 2 aides (at the time), the case manager, the vice principal, and a security guard to hold the class down through the movie.

Comparatively, I think that I will be able to make it through; but on days like today it seems impossible that I am a teacher, and that I will be able to continue teaching.

The strangest thing...

2006-09-22T17:54:00.000-04:00

Tyler has this habit of telling everyone in the class that there is a fire outside on smoggy and otherwise "grey" days... I think that she likes the excitement it causes, and figures that there's no harm in saying something like that. When she says it all my students run to the windows looking for a fire and of course there's just a grey-looking sky. Then we all have to take some time to settle back down, but this is a continuation of behavior from last year, so it's no surprise when it happens. I recently spoke with Tyler about doing this, and she agreed that it was not a good choice to be making, and since our conversation she hadn't said anything about fires... until today.

The rest of the class had heard her cry wolf so many times that even they ignored her when she raised her hand to say "look Ms. G, there's a fire outside!" I didn't even really respond to her when she said it, I just gave her that teacher look that says 'common now, nock it off', but then Tay said "Ms. G, look, Tyler's right! There's a fire outside!" Sure enough, a few blocks down the street a building was on fire, and smoke was rising into the sky so heavily that the sky looked grey. We are on the 4th floor of a very old building, putting us high enough into the air to see most of Newark. What a strange sight... a few minutes later we started to hear sirens and see fire engines roll down the streets... it was just the strangest thing.

Welcome back to school night

2006-09-21T22:08:00.000-04:00

Last night was "Welcome Back to School Open House"-- which means that our school tried desperately to get parents into the building-- but had little luck. I had one parent show up... and I didn't think that was going to happen, but in the last 10 min she came with Tay.

It is strange to think that I am the person that a kid goes home from school talking about, and complaining about-- and I can't immagine what parents must hear about me... but most of them NEVER even see me, so who knows what they picture.

Most of my students are returning to me from last year because I am self contained and teach 4th-6th grades, so they just rotate through me. This makes a very strange setting for my new 4th graders though, because they are moving to me from a 1st-3rd grade setting where they've had their previous teacher for 3 years. This situation also makes my 4th graders seem really young. I think that being in a setting with 1st graders has made them less mature for their age... Tay is one of my new kids, and his mom feels very uneasy about having a new teacher.

Multi-grade classrooms are a strange concept to me, but parents don't seem to be bothered as much as I would have suspected. Tay's mom didn't mind it when the kids were "smaller" but she said that she worries now because the kids are mostly bigger than Tay in his new class, and "he doesn't know how to control his temper, and I don't want the other kids bothering him." Yeah, yeah--

Today was hell

2006-09-19T19:34:00.000-04:00

My students were off the wall, disrespectful, and generally mean all day. It's not that it bothers me all that much if they're mean to me, I don't like then that happens, but it happens and I expect it. What I never get over is that they don't seem to CARE about anything or anyone, therefore they are mean to everyone they encounter.

They act like they are a forgotten generation, and the only way anyone will remember them is if they blind people with spite. As it turns out, I am struggling my hardest to show them that they are not forgotten, and that I care about them... but they just don't seem to understand that THEIR own behavior affects the way their day will be. When they come to school screaming obscenities at the bus-driver because it makes the kid next to them laugh, they don't get that it will get them in trouble, and then they will be in a bad mood, and begin to exhibit the bad behavior that they CAN'T control. ARG.

I thought we were making incredible progress already... but then on days like today it seems like the Bad Wolves are just that-- BAD.

Bad Wolves hit the scene

2006-09-11T21:16:00.000-04:00

So... It's gone okay so far-- infact, I am pretty happy with the way things have been going in the classroom. I have a much better idea of WHAT THE HELL I'M DOING, considering I came into this last year without anything--(experience, curriculum, teaching degree, etc).

Today was day 3. Day one was hell. Day 2 was better, but today was pretty close to good. So far I have only 7 students, and I've determined that between 6 and 8 is perfect for a BD setting... any less than 6 and students don't think that anything matters, because it doesn't feel like school... any more than 8 and things are more likely to get out of control, and riots take place. I have just one girl (classification happens in such bias ways) and she seems to be doing alright.

We have a team name for the class, student generated. It was a close call between "the spirit squad" and "bad wolves" and to my delight, "Bad Wolves" won. I am in the process of generating a team logo for the class with my roommate, and we have already started to integrate the name into everything we can for the classroom. I think that it is going to be a great thing, I am really excited. My students don't have team pride YET for the Bad Wolves, but it's only a matter of time.

Rick is back this year and hasn't changed at all from last year- today he body slammed Tally onto the ground (for no reason except to prove that he was capable). It is strange because Rick was one of my students that did my homework packet over the summer, so when I took him on an outing as a reward, he behaved perfectly. I guess that school just sets kids off sometimes-- I just hope that we can shake Rick out of it before he really hurts someone. I am working on all sorts of incentive plans and behavior mods, so hopefully we will get him under control before too long.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am really hopeful for this school-year, and I think that I have a lot of good things going-- I just hope that it all works.

A new start

2006-09-04T20:28:00.000-04:00

Summer is officially over. Completely over. Tomorrow is a mandatory in-service day, as is Wednesday, and then Thursday it's back to school. I will be a teacher again.

This summer I did a lot of nothing-- I was not nearly as productive as I had hoped to be, but I think that this is a reoccurring theme in my life, so I am not all that shocked at the fact that I didn't do all of the amazing things I had planned. I did do a few of them, so that's a start.

I did go to a science workshop for a week. That was good. And then, for 3 weeks I worked at a YMCA summer camp as a "science specialist", which meant that I taught science lessons and experiments to 4th-6th graders in the morning and afternoons at "science camp". This was MUCH different from school, mostly because it was at a camp, but the other differences were still plentiful. Basically, the kids at science camp like science, and that is why their parents were being charged exorbinant amounts of money to send their children to this hoity-toity camp, whereas school is not only requred by law, but also free and a source of nourishment for inner-city kids.

(One of my students from North Philly (when I taught summer school last summer) was at the camp-- apparantly he had been sent to live with his Aunt for the summer, so she sent him to science camp... weird coinsidence.)

I created a mural this summer- something my friend Kelli calls an "installation piece". I did a sea-scape on the garage beside the pool of a co-worker, so when I take my students on field trips to the pool they get to see my art- that is always a good glimpse into my life for them because in the mind of a child, a teacher is not human at all. Any chance I get to make my students see me as a person, I take advantage of it.

I traveled a little this summer- I found myself in New Jersey (of course), Michigan, Upstate New York, Tennessee, Indiana, and Florida.

Besides that I took 2 field trips with students this summer, moved to a new apartment, and read a few good books this summer. That's it... that's my summer in a few hundred words. It all comes down to those few things, and that was my whole break.

Year one complete...

2006-06-23T18:42:00.000-04:00

My first year of teaching is officially over! Yay for me!

The last day was weird, my kids were really good, even though their behavior was pretty much awful for the rest of the week... I think that it finally hit them that they weren't going to see me for a while. I am leaving town for a while and they all continually asked me if I was going to come back and if I would see them this summer. I assured them that I was only going to be away for a few weeks. I also made a deal with them... Once they finish half of their summer homework pack I will take them on a field trip. And then again, when they finish all of the work I will take them out again. I actually think that they will do it, and they all seemed excited about the work I put together for them! (I was actually very proud of my summer homework packet...)

More later, now it's time to relax!

No, I'm not in 8th grade

2006-06-22T19:44:00.000-04:00

I was mistake for an 8th grader yesterday. I was in the girls bathroom on a middle school Newark Public Schools field trip to the Skating rink, when I was asked by a 6th grader, "what school do you go to?" A little befuddled, and thinking that I surely misheard her, I responded, when she said, "oh, I think I know you, you're in 8th grade, right?"

"No, actually, I'm a teacher."

Roller skating was fun, a good use of one of the last days of school. I am getting anxious for tomorrow to come and go-- I have so much to get done before then... There are a million things that have to be complete and my students are just so off the wall and crazy right now that it seems impossible to get anything accomplished! I am so frustrated with my aide that I think that we would get more work don't if we weren't working in the same room with one another, even though all of the work is in one classroom. She is driving me crazy, and she has all year, and rumor has it she is being placed with me again next year-- yikes!

Well, here's to the last day of school... The last day of my first year teaching... The last of a lot... But more importantly, here's to the first day of summer!

Ghetto Pigeons

2006-06-19T19:25:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend I took a couple of my students on a field trip to the Statue of Liberty.

While we were eating lunch, Amber threw a french fry-- and that's when all the fun started! Seagulls and pigeons flocked towards us, screeching and cawing, pecking at the food on the table. Amber was screaming, and Jerry was trying his hardest not to let his laughter turn to screams. He likes to seem tough, but he didn't look so tough as he darted from the table trying to escape the attack! I stood, scared out of my mind (I have a fear of birds) trying to play it cool-- shooing them away with my hat and repeating "go away birds, get away from out food!" This is a phrase that I don't think I will ever live down, because my kids heard it so many times they repeated it throughout the day.

Seagulls are much more daring than pigeons at the Statue of Liberty. They go straight for food, scaring away humans, to get to their plates. Pigeons on the other hand seem much more patient, waiting for dropped food, and then rushing in to get it; trying to beat the seagulls to eat the dropped crumb of food. Amber noticed this right away, pointing, and telling me, "look at that pigeon right there! Ha! He thinks he's a seagull or something! That pigeons trying to be ghetto like the seagulls!"

It was so funny, I couldn't help but laugh, and I was actually really proud of her for noticing small details about the birds.

Today when we got to school we walked up the four gigantic flights of stairs to the classroom only to find all of the other 5th graders standing out in the hallway chasing a pigeon down the corridor. The kids were screaming and yelling, and as I rushed my students into our classroom, trying to keep them away from the potentially behavior-triggering situation, I closed my classroom door only to hear Amber let out a high-pitched scream followed immediately by Ricks mischievous laughter.

"Look Ms. G, we got pigeons!" Tyler shouted, and sure enough... pigeons! Two of them. I called for the custodial staff, but they were busy with the 3 pegeons that were in the 4th floor hallway, the one in the boys bathroom, and another couple of birds in the teachers room. Amber looked to me and said "go away birds, get out of my classroom, right Ms. G?" (hinting to my reaction at the Statue of Liberty) I laughed with her, but only for a few seconds because just then both pigeons started flying in our direction. "Those pigeons is ghetto, they must thing they seagulls or something," she said again.

45 minutes, 10 piles of pigeon droppings, 3 pigeons, 2 students, and 1 custodial staff later, we got the birds out of the classroom and began our math final exam.

Awards Ceremony

2006-06-15T20:18:00.000-04:00

We had an unannounced awards ceremony this afternoon, which I was pretty frustrated about because I had a lot to get through with my students today, but as it tends to be, most teachers have stopped teaching this year, so they don't seem to think that surprises should inturrupt anyone's teaching schedule.

Anyway, I won the big award, which was really surprising. I got "Novice teacher of the Year." They even gave me a plaque with my name inscribed! Jerry called it before they awarded it to me-- he looked at me and said "this one is yours Ms. G!" I shook my head at him to let him know that it wasn't fo me... but then they called my name.

When we got back to the class Amber asked, "Well, are you going to leave it here and hang it in the classroom?"

"No, I don't want it to get ruined or broken, I think I'll take it home," I responded.

And then Jerry said, "That's a good idea Ms. G, you earned that."

I'll shoot all ya'all in 401

2006-06-14T21:51:00.000-04:00

I had a pretty normal day today, but there were a few things that just leave me unsettled...

The unusual parts came from outside of my classroom. As a teacher it seems that sometimes your classroom becomes your entire world. Then, when your doors open there is something entirely different outside of them; a school, regular education teachers and students, administrators, and more. There's my principal who refuses to admit that she is anything but super-woman, and that she really just needs some help someties to keep things together. And don't forget the self-righteous grade-level partner who thinks that she is the "savior and profit send from God himself to bring salvation to all people" (her actual words, I SWEAR!). Last but certainly not the least of my concerns, there's the students from other classrooms, who begrudgingly threaten and curse room 401 (no coincidence that this happens to be my classroom).

I can't say that I blame other students in the school for disliking my class. For most of the year my students have acted as a posse sent to terrorize the rest of the school; both students and faculty. They destroy others' projects in the hallways, knock on their classroom doors, curse at them in the hallways, trip them in the auditorium, and generally create an environment that is not conducive to anything productive. So, I get why the regular ed. kids don't generally like them. I even understand why I get the 'look-of-death' from other classroom teachers when I walk through the halls. I mean, I wish that other teachers and students could understand a little better that my classroom and my students have a very specific set of needs that our school and administration just are not ready to help effectively, but thats not to say that I don't understand their frustrations with 401. I just want them to know that as bad as it seems in 401, we really are making great strides, but I don't think that this will happen anytime soon, so until then I guess I will just have to deal with it.

Anyway, the entire point of this rant is to stress my frustration level with the fact that a 6th grade student, Remi, threatened Tyler today, saying that he was going to "shoot" her. When my other students retalliated with threats of juming him and what not, Remi announced; "you better watch out, I'm gonna come down there and shoot all ya'all in 401." I was there when this took place. I heard and saw it.

Remi was in the hall because the office said that they would not take any students today. He had been causing so many problems in the classroom that the teacher couldn't get anything done with him in there, so she sent him out. One of the security guards is on maternity leave, and the other is too old to walk the 4 ancient flights of stairs to get up them, let alone wrestle Remi all the way down them. The crisis teacher was unavailable because he he was dealing with a crisis with 2 students from the 1st-3rd grade behavior disorder class, and the school is 4 aides short of being in compliance, so there was no one to pull to supervise him.

I of course wrote up the incident immediately, but couldn't send it to the principal immediately because my classroom aide was MIA (like usual) and all of my students were too scared to deliver the note, claiming "whenever I talk to her I get in trouble, and I don't need anymore trouble." Lucky for me it was near the end of the day, so when school got out I delivered the note to the principal. This itself was a feat, but even worse was trying to get her to read it. I don't think that she did or will, and she wouldn't discuss the situation with me, or even listen to hear what it was about. She just said to me; "Remi? What does Remi have to do with your class. He should be no where near you or your students, since when was this an issue?"

"Since today, and it is very important that we deal with this right away...." I replied as she walked away and shoved the note in her pocket, without ever hearing about what happened.

Am I a REAL ware-wolf?

2006-06-10T09:19:00.000-04:00

Lemme see your hand Ms. G! ...See, you're no ware-wolf!! You don't have the mark of the beast!

Yes, she is a ware-wolf, look at her teeth.

Ms. G, do you like full moons?

Of course she likes full moons, stupid! She's a ware-wolf...

Do you really think she's a ware-wolf? She didn't seem any different to me on 6-6-06.

Yeah, but we didn't see her after school, and she changes so fast, and she has little hairs on her chin, and when she gets mad it looks like her eyes are turning colors or something.

But she looks nice right now, maybe she's only a ware-wolf when it's night time.

You're so dumb! Ha! You don't know anything about ware-wolves at all, do you? Ms. G, lemme see your hand! See, there is no mark, if you were a real ware-wolf you would have a mark!

She does have a mark, just look closer...

I don't see anything!

I know that you're not a ware-wolf because if you were you would've eaten us all by now... You're not a ware-wolf, for real, are you... Ms. G??

"I'm not getting into this one, it's up to you to decide."

What does she mean?? I mean, she's not REALLY a ware-wolf, right??

Parents

2006-06-06T23:42:00.000-04:00

"Hi, This is Ms. G from school, Jorge's teacher, is this his stepfather?.... Oh, yes, yes, I'm fine, but I have some unsettling news about Jorge's behavior.... oh, yes, I realize that he has come a long way this year... yes, but that still doesn't excuse his recent behavior....."

"Hi, is this Tyler's mother?... yes, umm, this is her teacher, Ms. G.... Well, yes, I DO have some bad news for you... Well, this time .... Yes, she DID say that to me"

"Hello, this is Ms. G, Jay's teacher, can I please speak with your grandma?......{click} .... Hello? Hello? (did he just hang up on me?)"

Teaching is hard. Calling parents can be harder.

{{ yes!! your kid did that! he has been doing it all year, and i have a feeling that he is not going to stop unless we do something about it! }}

No one ever has a child that does something wrong, and if they do, they don't want to hear the details of what happened in school, which is just as frustrating because then you feel as if they are just LETTING their kid get away with anything.

"Well, I just don't understand where she got that language from, because I can assure you that she doesn't use it in MY home!" -- well, sorry to hear that lady, but she must have gotten it somewhere, and she IS using it in my classroom, so what are we going to do about it because I am sick and tired of YOUR little brat cussing me out!

"But he's not a fighter, I just don't understand why he's always in so much trouble, my son is not a fighter" -- when was the last time you saw your son, because the last time I saw him (about 5 minutes ago) he was a fighter, and since I met him, he has been a fighter, so maybe you have a little bit of catching up to do, because ma'am, your son's a fighter!

"But you said that he was doing well!" -- yes, he WAS, that's why I'm calling you.

"She's just not like that usually, she's an angel" -- I'm sure that it was her angelic smile that got her placed in a Behavior Disorders classroom and got her classified as emotionally disturbed, I mean, you can't honestly continue to tell me that she is perfect, we will never be able to help her if we can't admit that she needs help.

'YES, I kinda knew that she would have a rough day today, I mean she left the house upset this morning, and I tried to tell her that she had to get her attitude in check before she went into the school.... yes, I understand, but you know, I try my best, but I just didn't get up early enough in the morning to make her pancakes, so she had to have cereal, and that's just not what she wanted.... and I'm really sorry about all of this..." -- You're kidding, right? Most of the kids in this school don't have food at home at all, they come to school hungryand wouldn't have any nurishment at all if it weren't for the school, and your kid is terrorizing the school because you didn't have time to make her some pancakes? Who the hell ARE you?

"No, no, he needs to stay in the behavior disorders classroom, he is progressing so much, and he is doing much better this year... We would like him to stay in your class..." -- If he is doing so much better now, I would HATE to see what he was like before because your child is a little hell-raiser!! I mean... Great!! Can't wait to have him again next year, he's been such a joy to work with!

Basically, if you couldn't tell... I feel frustrated, and I don't want to call another parent in my life, but as we all know, I will continue to call.

Sweaty Kids are Smelly Kids

2006-06-01T22:12:00.000-04:00

My school is so hot I can still feel the sweat roll down my spine by just thinking about having to go back in that building tomorrow. The fourth floor = the sauna. I like to think that this is all a part of my "lifestyle change," but it's hard to believe that when I'm climbing all 97 stairs. It can't be a good idea to sweat out every last morsel of your energy before the bell even rings when you are supposed to be a teacher. Stale air and smelly kids, combined with a generalized hatred/fear of learning make school a very hard place to be at... But the good news is that tomorrow is "Fun Day!"

As it seems, every day for the past 2 weeks has been themed:

Mon: Movie Day (Akeelah and the Bee)
Tues: Field Trip Day (holocaust Play)
Wed: Spelling Bee Day (Akeelah Style)
Thur: Career Day (Go Army National Guard, Recruit ''em real young!)
Fri: America Day (God Bless)
Mon: Memorial Day (= Beach Day for me!)
Tues: Finally take a seat, sweat on yourself, and get to work Day
Wed: Workshop Day for me (= Torture the sub Day for students)
Thur: Ice Cream Awards Day (I heart ice cream)
Fri: Fun Day! (= sweat on the asphalt errr... I mean "playground")

This seems to make the end of the school year move a little faster-- and makes the students a little more motivated, for the most part anyway.

I can't wait until Monday comes around again, I think it might be "Gather around the Fan at the Circle Table Day."

A good day...

2006-05-30T20:06:00.000-04:00

I had a good day at work today, and since I don't get to say that very often, I thought that I should write it down. This way, I can remember that things aren't always awful in the life of a teacher.

It was kinda strange even... they were all so calm. No one in my class really wanted to do any work, but they didn't mind the learning part of things. I usually struggle teaching any sort of lesson, because they are so out-of-control, and I have to do everything with each student individually, but today as I explained to my kids how the tide is the sea rising and falling as the earth rotates, they listened. They even got up and helped me demonstrate how the earth rotates, and every one of them used the magnets I gave them to feel what the gravitational pull of the moon is like. They were really into it. As I held a globe up in the air bearing my sweaty pits, I rotated it on it's axis as Ricardo held the styrofoam moon in one place and Jay held his hand as though it were the sun. At the end of the lesson they were all able to explain to me exactly how the tide works, and even Amber shouted out answers when I asked questions. (She usually sits silently, with a lot of attitude, until she has a violent outburst).

Then, at lunch time they all begged me to sit at their table instead of going back up to the classroom. I haven't eaten with them since my last post, and I didn't eat with them today either, (just because the food smelled like ass and I didn't think I could bear it combined with the stench of 11 year-olds that just got out of gym...) I figure I'll invite them to eat with me tomorrow. The strangest part about this invitation though is that it was Amber that said, "Ms. G, aren't you going to stay and eat with us?? You can sit here."

It was overall a pretty good day in 401.

The Lunchroom

2006-05-21T20:01:00.000-04:00

On Friday I ate lunch with my students in the "cafeteria"... Elementary school lunch rooms are an interesting and extremely awkward combination of bad food, smelly kid, and absurd rules. The one good thing about the lunch room is that about once every 2 months there is an excellent dish which the lunch staff calls "toodles." They are bready-crysted cheese, and they taste like heaven.

Friday, the students were being served toodles. I decided to join them in the lunchroom, and as I approached their table (they band together like a pack of wolves in the lunchroom), Amber told me to "go away!" I didn't want to intrude, I understand that the elementary school lunch room is a very delicate balance of things, and I didn't want to mess that up, so I instead asked, "hey guys, can I sit here?"

"NO," Amber yelled out.

"YES, she can!" Ray replied with an assurance I didn't think Ray was able to muster (he's not a particularly well liked student in my class).

"Hey, Ms. G, I'm not eating my salad, you want mine?" Rick said, as I started to sit down. This was obviously his way of letting everyone know that he agreed with Ray, without ever having to say that he agreed.

And then, the same way that I had been banished from the table, I was completely accepted. The climate of the table changed, and as Amber started to speak up again about me not sitting at the table, all my other students gave her a look that put her to shame.

"She CAN sit here," Ray repeated.

A few minutes later I offered Amber my bag of chips to make amends. She accepted gracefully, and seemed to enjoy my company at the table. After all, having a teacher at your table gives you talking privledges in an elementary school lunchroom... The security guard has to assume that you're talking about very important things, and not just kid-stuff.

Stickers = life saver

2006-05-17T23:19:00.000-04:00

Today I had a great morning. Weird, I know, but wonderful. My kids were excellent-- no major, or even minor behavior problems, and the only nuisance to me was that I went through 7 packs of stickers bribing them to keep up the good work-- and all I can say about that is that it was worth every sticker....

Ryan was just washing the dishes (the conditions under which I allowed him to move in for the summer) and my dog shit under his foot. He kept yelling "EIW!! Jill, you're dog reeks, what did you feed him, Gawd!" When I went to the potty pad... nothing. Then I looked under Ryans toes, and there it was, a PILE OF SHIT. Way to be, Ryan.

Crisis

2006-05-15T18:07:00.000-04:00

From the moment I got the class in the auditorium this morning I knew that Amber was a little off, and I wanted to ask her if she'd had her medication, because I knew that she hadn't. When we got to the classroom she was okay for a few minutes, but then she just got out of control... She was screaming and yelling, cursing, and generally off the walls. She had a stick and was hitting the door frame trying to make pieces of it fall down (from the numerous other times the frame has been broken by students this year), and trying her best to make me snap or something. She was standing on tables, and running around the classroom, refusing to do work, and speaking over me anytime I tried to talk at all. She was calling me by my first name, and yelling at me calling me a b*t*h and a slut, a cracker and a honky. She was asking, "Jill, have you ever been raped?" and then announcing to the class that "Ms. Glassbrook's a slut." She then stole my keys from my desk and called the office, yelling "void" when they answered, thinking that it would make them KNOW that nothing was wrong... but they got the message anyway. Then she went in the hall and locked the door, making it so that others couldn't enter the classroom, including the crisis counselor, the principal and vice-principal.

Eventually, we got Amber to return the keys, and we had to "send her to crisis." In Newark, if a child is so out of control that there is nothing any of the professionals in the building can do to help them, the police and EMS are called in and the child is taken in an ambulance, on a stretcher to the hospital. Early in the year this is what happened with 2 of my students, and it was determined that they were in the wrong placement, and that my class was not restrictive enough for them. Today, it happened for Amber, and soon I am sure that we will have to decide that my classroom is not restrictive enough for her. Coney was always saying that "as a special ed teacher you have to love to hate your job, you have to believe that there is something that you can do so that your students don't need to be in your class anymore..." The problem is, I think that I am working things backwards in my classroom. I hate my job. I know my kids are brilliant, I just don;t know that I am the one that can help them get to where they need to be-- and I just keep moving them to more and more restrictive placements.

One strand at a time...

2006-05-14T09:39:00.000-04:00

I hit a car yesterday. I was driving to alternate route, and there was a big SUV in front of me stopped at the stop-sign and I hit it. I don't know what I was thinking... I don't know how I let it happen, but I hit a car. The lady was pissed at first, "what the hell?" she yelled at me. I just threw up my arms, defenseless, "I'm really sorry," I replied, and she got back in her car and drove away. Her SUV didn't look damaged anyway-- my car looks like a wreck though.

I don't want to go back to work tomorrow. My students have been out of control, and I don't think I have the energy to deal with a 10-year-old calling me a bitch again.

My dog is being really awful. He is cheewing on everything, and he is mad at me because I wasn't here friday night. Last night he ate my glasses while I was sleeping. It will be exciting to have to spend money to get new ones.

My house is a disaster, I want to try to clean it before Ryan gets here... I haven't done dishes at least a month.

I think i will go pull my hair out of my head one strand at a time.

Will you marry me?

2006-05-12T17:45:00.000-04:00

As I leave my apartment each morning I walk past the same neighbors, taking the ususal 2 seconds to exchange grettings, and go on my way. But today there was someone I'd never noticed before standing at his stoop. As I approached, he smiled friendly, and said "hello."
"Hi," I replied, "Have a good day."
"Will you marry me," he mumbled...
"What?!" I said, not understanding, "did you just ask me if I was married?"
"No, I asked you to marry me," he replied, with much more confidance.
"Oh," I said, not knowing what else to say...
"Well, will you marry me?" he asked again.
"No," I responded.
"Okay, well can I atleast call you?" he asked.
"No," I said smiling, surprised, and not knowing what emotion I should feel.
"Well then I guess I'll just see you around?" he asked.
"Yeah, I guess so," I replied.

Then I went on my way. As it turned out, I had the worst day I've had in about 6 months, including many "incidents" at school, 2 popped tires on my car, and more worries than I want to face, but still this morning sticks with me, and as I walked to my building this evening, I looked to see if he was around...

I am NOT a mom.

2006-05-11T22:52:00.000-04:00

I get called a lot of things... and I am a lot of things. One thing I am not... A mom.
In the past few weeks I have been called "mom" on 3 seperate occasions.

Time #1:
Jerry: "But mom! I don't want to get off the computer!"
Me: "Hunh?" (with startled and confused look on face)
Jerry: "Oh Geez Ms. G- I'm sorry, I'm just so used to talking to my mom..."

Time #2:
Ray: "MOM! I need help!"
Me: "Hunh?" (with startled and confused look on face)
Ray: "Weird, did I just call you mom? haha."

Time #3:
Tyler: "NO! I am not doing this mom! This is too much work, I AM NOT DOING THIS!"
Me: "I am NOT your mother"
Tyler: "God!! It was a mistake, OKAY?? I am not F***ing doing this S***"

I am not a mom. It's strange how scary it can be to have kids call you "mom"- and for Tyler... I didn't mean to say it like that (it's how my stepfather would say it when I would yell through the house looking for MY mom), but still, I'm no mom.

Nothing rhymes with "orange"

2006-05-09T17:52:00.000-04:00

Ricardo announced to the class today that there are no words that rhyme with the word "orange." (Impressive, right?) As it goes, this prompted a slew of thought, which I promoted, because my students were genuinely interested in seeing if this were true. I was trying to think of any slant rhymes, while others brainstormed through each letter of the alphabet. In the course of all this, Ray called Ricardo a dummy... and to my surprise, Ricardo had very little reaction. He simply said "No, I am right about this. I have been thinking about it for a long time, and I know that there is nothing that rhymes with orange."

So, we went on with our work, with an occasional student giving out a possible "roaring rhymes" with the response "no, it doesn't" and on with our work. Suddenly, Ricardo stood up with a box of individually wrapped cereal bowl saved from breakfast and walked to Georges desk. He then peeled open the box, and dumped the contents out inside Georges desk. Everyone seemed in a bit of disbelief, and George, sitting at the other end of the room at the time had little reaction. Ricardo just said that he did it because "I know that it is something no one else has ever thought to do." To this I replied, "that might be true, but that doesn't make it a good choice to make."

Ricardo went back to his seat, sat down and continued to work as if nothing had happened. About 5 minutes later, Ricardo got up, unprovolked, and began punching Ray in the stomach, chest, and back as hard as he could... uncontrollably. Ray didn't even fight back, he just dropped his arms to try to protect himself. Ricardo got in about 10 good punches before Ray fell to his knees, clenching his teeth, grabbing his stomach and crying. I sent for security of course, and the nurse thinks Ray might have a couple broken ribs. Before security got to the classroom, Ricardo went back to his work, silently, as if nothing had happened.

Carrot Day

2006-05-05T21:21:00.000-04:00

Today was "Carrot Day" in room 401.

I don't know why, but my students became obsessed with the idea of having a carrot-eating competition with me... so I decided that it would be a great incentive for good behavior.

Today was finally the big day-- so I bought 4 bags of carrots, and for the entire afternoon we ate carrots while playing "states bingo" and learning the properties of magnets. I lost the competition, but it's probably better that way. My stomach still hurts though, so I can only immagine what my students are feeling right now.

Here's to Carrot Queen Amber and the two Carrot Kings George and Ricardo-- the winners of the Carrot Day Competition in room 401.

If you teach...

2006-02-25T11:39:00.000-05:00

I had to make this for Alternate route, but there are some really great websites on here if you are a teacher!

Webliography

Literacy:
Parts of speech game-site: http://www.eduplace.com/tales/
Literacy games: http://www.bookadventure.com/ki/cs/ki_cs_games.asp
http://www.starfall.com/
Cursive hand-writing worksheets: http://www.handwritingforkids.com/handwrite/cursive.htm

Math:
Everyday Math Resources: www.center.k12.mo.us/edtech/everydaymath.htm
Operations: http://www.coolmath-games.com/numbermonster/mult25.htm

Science:
http://www.k12science.org/currichome.html (look under collaborative projects for lesson plans incl. some on water use!)

Social Studies:

Other Resources for me:
http://pirate.shu.edu/~jamesjan/edresources.htm (e-mail if you have ANY tech questions!)

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