week 23: "how are we supposed to know this?

I had a joint observation this week from my principal and the high school principal. I thought they were coming to my reading class, but something convinced me the night before my JO that I needed to revamp the language arts lesson plans. So I stayed up 2 hours later than normal to change everything around. I went to bed fussy, got up in the morning and went to school, only to have the principals walk in to my most challenging LA class of 21 low ability, LOUD students! Good thing someone (aka the Lord) nudged me into spicing up my plans!

Everything went fairly smoothly (for that class) - but we were making posters and spent too long getting situated and putting away supplies. All of a sudden I realized I only had 12 minutes to cover about 15-20 min worth of our novel study. Sooooooooooooo...I had a split second decision to make. Go ahead with the novel stuff and not expect much? Or, quickly come up with something else?

Being one to fold under pressure, I decided to plow ahead with our novel study. I was frustrated, the kids were frustrated, but I wasn't prepared for what happened at the very end of class. When I asked students if they had any questions, one boy raised his hand and asked, "How are we supposed to know this?"

Right. In front. Of the two principals. BLURGH.

I had never felt so ridiculous and embarrassed in my life. I acquiesced that he had a point, explained that we would finish it during our next class, and somehow sent them on their way/finished the school day.

One goal for next year: improve my timing so I can get to everything I need to. Also: don't call on any smart-aleck kids when the principals come to observe. :)

snow days = catching up on the blog, weeks 8-23, YIKES.

Well...the inevitable happened. I let life get in the way of keeping my blog updated about school happenings. Here's a quick recap of weeks 8-23 (!!!!!!!!):

• Week 8: My birthday was on Tuesday and I learned a lovely lesson: our students LOVE BIRTHDAYS. I was serenaded at least 3 times by different groups of students. Not just "Feliz Cumpleanos," but also this little ditty: http://gomexico.about.com/od/historyculture/qt/mananitas.htm I received several handmade cards, which are all decorating my wall by my desk. Adorable and so affirming. The crowning glory of the day was a surprise visit from my mom during my 6th hour Reading class. The students crowded around and said hi. One of them looked at my mom and said, "We're Ms. Branch's kids, so that makes you our grandma!" and gave her the HUGEST hug. Absolutely precious.

• Week 9: Funny that a wonderful week would be followed by a wretched one. This week was interesting because it was the Self-Esteem week. It didn't sit well with me to be preaching the world's doctrine of self-love and self-acceptance with my students. On one hand, they DO need to know they are beautifully and wonderfully made, just as they are. On the other hand, I am absolutely convinced that my generation and the following generations have been glutted to death concerning our wonderfulness. The result? An ego-driven view of life that culminates in entitlement and self-obsession. I see this all the more clearly as a teacher. Not just in my students, but also in myself. While they are aggressively countering my requests with "Why?", I am secretly fuming that they are not doing what I say. I take it personally, as an affront against my very self. Whoops.

• Week 10: This week we began our Scary Story Contest. My students' definition of scary stories? Clowns. La Llorona. Murder, blood and gore, complete with makeup. Yikes.

• Week 11: We started our Behavior Card system this week. Basically, students have 5 symbols on their cards and they get new cards each week. During the week, they can get their cards hole-punched for various things including but not limited to: tardies, untucked shirts, shouting out in class, being disrespectful, no homework, etc. Some students are thriving on this, others lose all 5 symbols on Monday before 3rd hour.

• Week 12: 6th graders finished their Holes projects and my Aztec planned their testing goals for May. The prize for the class that meets their class goal (ours is that 60% of us meet our individual goals) is a free trip to Worlds of Fun in May.

• October-early November: I attempted to run National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) with my students. One success: middle schoolers are a great age for this project - full of creativity and interest in participating, yet mature enough to handle it. One failure: I quickly learned that I did not plan for the process of keeping track of novels, editing novels, or publishing novels. The result: many students lost or destroyed their work and only a few came away with an electronic file of their story. Also, 2 laptops were stolen and I am shamefully admitting that they were most likely stolen under my watch.

• Thanksgiving Break to end of the semester: During this time I was made aware of the hormonal filth going on in adolescent boys' minds: I was poked in the rear by a male student from my homeroom during their reading class. It was one of three suspects who I turned my back to while speaking to another student, and I never found out who did it. But when I took those three students outside and shakily yelled at them for sexual harassment, the wonderful Christian man who is our orchestra teacher happened to be in the hallway. He went straight to the principal and she proceeded to see every student from my homeroom until the truth came out: We had a ring of boys who were playing a game involving levels of dares of a sexual nature directed against the teachers.

They had poked another teacher besides me and had actually poked me once already (at the time I blamed my clumsiness since I often bump into students while moving between rows).
A camera phone had been used to look up yet another teacher's skirt. Sexual gestures had been made behind many of the female teachers' backs and sexual comments had been muttered under their breath.

The student at the center of all this turned out to be one who was generally regarded as "dead weight" in the classroom: he refused to do work unless coaxed, prodded, dragged or threatened (meaning Mom would have been called) through assignments. He had a lot mroe going on underneath his vacant demeanor than anyone would have thought. With a known active gang member for an older brother, he was coercing the male students into this sexual game by threatening them with physical punishment at the hands of his brother and "friends" if they did not participate.

That student was suspended for about 40 days. Two other students were suspended for 5 days. My entire homeroom of burly boys was split up and sent by ones and twos to other homerooms. In exchange, I received many more girls. Now the gender dynamics in my homeroom are evened out and I like this new group much more.

Now for some stream-of-consciousness updates to bring us to now:

• High schoolers came and read books with the middle schoolers (thus, the new picture that headlines my blog). This was one of the sweetest days I've ever had as an educator so far. I was close to tears for most of the hour as I watched students reading, shyly, with their older partners, smiling and interacting with each other.
• I was given the opportunity to choose what I wanted to teach next year at AVMS. I chose 4 sections of 7th grade LA, and I believe I will be teaching 2 sections of Advanced Writing, or at least 1 section of that with a reading class rounding out my schedule. I am thrilled to have those marvelous 6th graders be some of my students again next year.
• We found out that we will be DOUBLING in size, from 99 students to around 200. We are still looking for a new building and it's possible we have one.
• I took on the Tutoring Coordinator position for extra hourly pay. At our school, parents and students must sign a contract stating that they understand that tutoring is mandatory if their student is requested by a teacher. My job is to make sure every teacher requests students for tutoring each week and that they update a Google doc with the day they are tutoring, the students they will see, and the priority of their tutoring session. I also make sure students get snacks to keep their brain running and work with our Parent Liaison to follow up on students who "forget" about tutoring.
• SIX. SIX SNOW DAYS IN JANUARY 2011, WEEKS 22 AND 23. I am now understanding the boon and the bane of being a teacher in the urban core: with buses unable to handle snowy side streets and students not always having reliable warm clothing, our schools are much more apt to close than others. Our school and the public schools whose weather policies we follow will possibly still be in school come August. Oh well, carpe diem for now, right?

I, Ms. Branch, do solemnly promise to update weekly or at least biweekly on teaching during this spring 2011 semester, so that I can quit writing ridiculous posts like this one and also so I have a record of the joys of "flying the plane while building it" (as our superintendent described this first year at our school).