getting my bearings

When I was 21 I went around the world... I really had no idea what I was getting into.

I landed in Bangkok, found a hotel, and woke up in the morning in a state of total shock. My brain couldn't even process the images around me. I took my map and started walking, walked for miles before I started to feel like the world made sense again. And that was a big modern city. I was in Kathmandu a few days later and it was even more dramatic - literally like being blind - because nothing I saw made any sense to me - there was literally no familiar object in my field of vision, no familiar sounds, no words. Gradually the mist lifted and familiarity grew, and six weeks later I felt quite at home and cheerful there.

I'm sure you know where this is going. My workplace is a gigantic culture shock... but my vision is gradually clearing... I am starting to see which way is up and the world is starting to make sense to me.

I am starting to see how much I have been operating on autopilot... all my skills deserted me and I was just clinging on to survival. I have not been kind to the children. I have not connected with them. I have not thought about their success. I have just been in survival mode.

As I type that, I suddenly recall how Wong & Wong's "The First Days of School" talks about survival mode, and how it is a stage you pass through as a new teacher - but some teachers get stuck there. The goal is to avoid that fate. Heh - that was just what I had figured out this week. I have been acting like all the teachers I have hated most - capricious, unempathetic, angry, controlling, petty....seeing this is sad and difficult, but at this moment I don't find it too hard to forgive myself. It has been a hard situation. It has been a giant culture shock...

So now I begin to think. My brain slowly starts to function again... the gears start to turn. I remember how to help students who struggle. I remember how to write good lesson plans. I remember how to simply look into a student's face in a way that conveys that I see them. That always has an immediate and dramatic effect - children are so accustomed to not being seen.

The students have been reminding me of these things in their own little ways... their desperation for my attention and approval, the strange maladaptive coping mechanisms they adopt to avoid my disapproval... when I see these little defenses I remember how I used to get so angry that teachers didn't see their own power. I woudl rage that some teachers have a sort of delusion about this - they see students as huge and powerful, because students have the ultimate control over how a teacher's work is judged; these teachers and spend a lot of time stomping students down, but that's totally backward, it's the teacher who has the power and the stomping is annihiliating... I am one of those teachers now... I can't stay like this!

The other thing I begin to see clearly is that my lessons are too hard. This class of students is known as 'lazy' throughout the school - other teachers tell me, 'you don't have a good class - they're lazy - have been since first grade.' I was tempted to accept this and shirk responsibility... not in the sense that it is my fault... but in the sense that it is my job to address the problem.

They are not lazy - they are, for whatever reason, woefully below grade level. Only four are reading at grade level, and of those four, three have test-passing reading skills rather than genuine reading skills (they do not understand what they read, but can skim and match words in the text to words in a test question). Several cannot read hardly at all, and many more cannot write a coherent sentence.

Fifth grade. A lot of catching up to do. Time to start.

This morning walking the dogs, though, I saw that the morning glories are still blooming. I have time.



Step by step the longest march, can be won, can be won
Many stones to form an arch, singly none, singly none...

changes

what a week! .... three of my girls attacked one of my boys with a
belt (swinging the buckle) before school a couple days ago... the admin
transferred them out of my class.... (I heard thru the grapevine that
the security guard, who knows all the kids well, went to the principal
on the second day of school and told her she had put all the toughest
kids in the new teacher's class and they better move some of them
outta there! lol).

but now the admin are coming down on me... i'm so tired i can hardly
stand up... my boss threatened my job yest which just pissed me off, i
wanted to say, 'look, i may be a newer teacher than you but i've been
a boss before and u don't threaten ppl's job the first time you talk
to them about a problem - it fucks up morale and makes them
disengage." i decided all they know how to do is threaten, and it
doesn't mean anythiing, but it does kinda suck some energy out of
me....

still lovin the kids, they are awesome. one of the girls that was
moved out, keeps coming up to me and giving me hugs. she was my fave
too... i miss their energy and spirit to be honest. i'm not as big a
fan of the mealy-mouthed teacher's pet girls... i try to be nice to
them though...

not teaching as well as i know how, and trying not to get bummed out about it. barely ready for math by math time, and sometimes i just open the book and tell them to do some problems almost at random. another teacher told me it's like htat for the first year. i feel bad for them - they deserve better - but all i can do is my best.

ten positive things

One day last week when my students were completely nuts the assistant principal came in to yell at them. I am starting to get slightly annoyed with all the other adults coming in to yell at my kids... but anyway.

She told them for homework to write ten positive things they can do in their classroom. Most of them wrote a set of rules (do's and do not's). Some highlights...

"Don't hit the teacher."

"No throwing food in the class. No throwing chairs. No throwing school supplies. No stealing from the teacher. No writing on other people's paper."

"Never disrespect the teacher or all adults if you don't like it go somewhere else."

"We are suppose to act like we have sense."

"Do not play with other people's hair." (This one showed up on three lists - not sitting next to each other either! More aspects of that bad teen movie I'm in... the girl who dreams of being a hair stylist but is oppressed by the mean teacher... )

One girl added a small note on the back of her paper...

"Dear Mrs. _______
I am sorry what we did and I want you to forgive us and we care just give us some time. Love, _______."

poverty and richness

the kids are still insane... i was sick during the early part of the week and had a hard time doing anything more than showing up... some days were better some worse...

i started to blame myself more..... buuuuut then late in the week, things started happening that are causing me to blame myself less. for one thing, the other teachers are starting to have trouble too. the other classes are getting to be more of a mess in the hallways. fights are breaking out - i haven't had one yet - though i did have to grab two kids to stop a fight from starting. and i finally got some of my students' old records - the 'bad' ones ('bad' - it's a short-hand you end up adopting - there is no time to think in subtle terms!) have been 'bad' all along. suspensions for fighting, hitting, defiance, etc.

and now for some context...

yesterday two of them forgot books at school - one on purpose, the other by accident. they both live within a couple blocks of the school so i called their homes and took the books to them.

i parked out front and surveyed the beat-up houses. nondescript boxes to begin with - cheaply made, bad windows covered with bars, old aluminum siding. everything dirty, in disrepair. bits hanging down the siding, scraping in the wind like nails on a chalkboard. bleak.

One girl was out in front of her house with some cousins and friends. She was happy to see me and asked if I wanted to meet her mother... Mom came out to greet me, 6 mos pregnant but without real maternity clothes, so, falling out of her garments all over. She tugged at her shirt to try to make it cover her belly, and moved her arms to try to cover her breasts, looking embarrassed.

I met her gaze frankly... It used to be that when I met people who seemed worried that I would look down on them, it would make me worry that I would appear to do so, and the whole thing would become unbearably uncomfortable for everyone. I don't worry anymore... I have learned that, whatever it is they fear to see in my eyes, they don't see it - when they look at my face they are reassured.

We talked briefly about her daughter, some concerns the Mom had expressed on the phone, how to meet the daughter's needs, and then I said goodbye.

On to the next house. I couldn't find the door that had the right apartment number. A child looked out at me from behind the window bars on the wrong apartment; I smiled and s/he smiled back. I looked down the tiny gangway between this house and the next, assessed the safety situation (not quite dark yet; people about fifty yards away up and down the street - close enough to provide some protection, not close enough to give trouble), and went down the gangway to try to find #3. I knocked on some doors but wasn't heard. Inside one door I heard a cacophony of loud voices - at least two adults and several younger voices - it didn't sound like a fight or a crisis, just a lot of people living together and a lot going on, in different rooms at the same time. Sounded like perpetual tension.

I went back to the sidewalk and tried phoning a couple of times. Finally got through and my student came out to meet me--came out of the door where I had heard all the loud voices. Two big young men were strolling down the sidewalk toward me as my student emerged; I assessed them and decided they were not out for trouble, but was still glad that my student's emergence validated my incongruous presence there. The student was wearing his mother's fuzzy bedroom slippers... he hardly spoke but took the book, smiling sheepishly, and returned to his house as the men passed behind me.

This is M, mentioned previously - who doesn't seem mean but seems to strike out at other students continuously. It's like he wants to be impinging on someone else, all the time. He's always poking, throwing, hitting, bugging... every child I sit him next to, asks to be moved away from him; his records show that he often hit other students on the playground - usually not a fight, just a random attack. But why doesn't he seem mean, then?

At the same time, he is often the only student to raise his hand to answer a question I ask the class. Sometimes he has no idea what the answer is - he will say anything - but he is so eager to be called upon.

He wants something. A lot. All the time. Not sure what.

I know if I had fewer students I could start to find out what emotions send his hands out in all directions. But even at home, on the weekend, I feel too tired to think hard about it, to even form a hypothesis that I could test.

Instead I run on instinct. Several times I have taken just a few moments to speak quietly to him, just whatever comes out of my mouth. Once I saw he had written 'pimp' on his notebook in big letters. I know that means something other than the meaning I am most familiar with... not sure exactly what... but I know it's not something positive. What comes out of my mouth is something like this... "Oh, now, M, why do you write something like that? You're disrespecting yourself. You don't want to just be a pimp. You can do much better than that. You are smart, you are capable, you can do great things - I'm sure all your teachers have told you that - haven't they?" (no response, but he was holding very still, for once, looking intently into the air, not looking at me but clearly listening intently - but no facial expression or other response). "Well if they haven't, they're crazy. You can become a wise, solid, strong man, like Mr. ____. Wouldn't you rather be like Mr. _____ than just be some kinda pimp?" Another time I said "I know you are not a bad kid and you can become a good man. Don't mess it up." With emphasis on 'good man.' or something like that.

I have no idea whether this is the 'right' thing to say or not. I don't have a degree in disordered child psychology. I don't have time to think about the right thing to say. But if I stay calm and centered I do find I take these moments to say something, just hoping that it will be the right thing for someone.

The students are required to wear uniforms that include a white shirt. Friday I noticed one sweet little girl's shirt was completely filmed over with grime - every thing that stuck out, every wrinkle and crease was dark gray. Then I looked up at my class and saw a whole array of dirty shirts. One little girl was not wearing her uniform shirt and I had given her a hard time. But at least she was clean. Which would I choose if I were the mother? I think I'd be with T's mom... I would not send my child to school in a dirty shirt...

Anyway.

I walked my dogs this morning and was struck by the richness of my life. Not just in material possessions but that I have a beautiful park to walk in, and that I know how to look at the leaves, the grass, enjoy the sunlight, see the little cherries reddening and falling to the ground, see the slant of light... that I know to see and love the falling water in the fountain...

And that I have in my head whole worlds, universes, wide and rich... worlds created by literature, and countries I have visited... so much richness inside. I know my students' lives are full and many of their families are loving and supportive. But they often are not allowed to leave the house because their blocks are not safe. I don't want to make a stereotype - I spent many years avoiding saying or thinking anything negative about the lives of economically deprived children - but there is a poverty of mind: a poverty of life experience, of imagination, of flavors, of colors....

Most of them are very, very observant about people. They don't miss a thing. They see every emotion that crosses my face and respond to it immediately - when i feel strong they obey me; when i feel tired, the 'bad' ones press their advantage and the 'good' ones draw me pictures and write me notes telling me they love me. (At first I thought these were cynical attempts to curry favor, but I begin to see their weird little genuineness...)

But they aren't observant about the world. The sky. The lake. The rain. That's what feels poor...

I could make some kind of p.c. comment about 'maybe there are parts of my life that would seem poor to them.' Maybe there are. But I am sad because I want to give them some of the richness that fills my interior life, and don't know quite how... I guess reading is one way... but all the materials i have to read to them, are geared to their own frames of reference... and anything i could read them about something beyond their frame of reference, they don't seem to have the ability to grasp.

I have so much to learn.

BUt that's why I chose this job.

apologies that cannot be apologized

Today we had a fire drill. Well, it was an accidental fire drill, apparently because somebody smelled something. I was really angry, actually, because the students' disorganized dash downstairs was much more dangerous than this putative smell.

After trying to get my kids to stand silently in two lines outside in the sun for ten minutes, I decided it was both futile and pointless to continue to try (combatting, among other things, their absolute conviction that dragonflies not only bite but will drain blood from you until you pass out) and allowed them to start dancing (I spend most of my time trying to stop them from dancing... I feel like a bad teen movie plot). (The big dance right now is "Soldier Boy." Google the lyrics. It's f##king depressing.)

Anyway. So after we got outside, I realized that in my attempt to stop students from trampling each other to death on the stairs, I had totally forgotten about my student who uses a wheelchair. I exclaimed, "oh my god, where's ______?!?!?!" The class told me that one of the assistant principals had taken care of her. I felt both relieved and mortified.

When I got back upstairs, this student was waiting for us in the classroom. I just looked at her. She just looked at me. There was absolutely nothing to say. "Sorry I abandoned you to a fiery death" is just an apology that cannot be made.

Weird eh.

OTOH

Just finished my lesson plans. And I gotta tell you... today when I was calling M's mother in the hallway, the students were at first acting up and I stepped back into the room to scream at them... then back out to finish the call.

When I came back in, a bunch of them had gotten out the brooms and were sweeping the room... very intently and carefully... I can still see their intense little faces.

Is that not the sweetest thing you ever heard? Even if they were just trying to get out of doing math, or hoping I would cancel out one of their 'silent lunches,' that is so sweet.

At the time I was so flustered from the M incident that I just said, "I appreciate the sentiment but this is math time, not cleanup time! Put the brooms away and get out your math!" But tomorrow I will thank them.

just so you know...

... I am not just exaggerating because I'm morose and sick.

For the last two days, we have not been able to do social studies or science, because we could not get through math, because I could not get the volume down.

I have abandoned science altogether. I have given them all their social studies activities as homework. Needless to say they have no idea how to do them. This increases the anxiety which increases the volume.

I feel like I'm just throwing things at them too.

deer in the headlights

Forget the 'triage mentality.' I don't feel anywhere near as efficient and driven as I did when I wrote that post. I suppose this is good in that it keeps me from tossing children ruthlessly aside... but it's bad in that I feel sort of inert.

I've been sick the last two days and completely lacking not only in drive and determination, as well as devoid of any sense of humor, flexibility or patience. (It's like a little preview of mid-October - I know that I run out of those qualities about six weeks after school starts...don't know what I'll do then...)

There has been a lot of yelling. Today I drove a student home after detention, and commented, "I hate being sick... it makes me really grumpy." "Tell me about it," she said; my response: "Oh, you noticed, did you?" We both laughed.

I was so miserable I went to bed early last night and failed to submit my lesson plans for the week. I had a mild reprimand in my inbox this morning. Also this morning, the administration began classroom visits. They are very particular about what you have to have up in your classroom and what you have to be doing when they visit, and my two colleagues both got reprimanded. I'm sure my turn is coming because I had the same issues they did and worse. So the whining and resentment begin... and the feeling of being a deer in the headlights...

They are doing their job and it's good that they are, because otherwise I notice a distinct tendency on the part of both me and my students to spend longer and longer wandering the halls. But still... it's one more thing... and it does feel difficult to keep up with everything.

I feel quite discouraged tonight but all I can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other.

In other news, there is one teacher in another grade who has been very supportive of me—even put a nice card in my mailbox on one of the first days when I was crying after school (I don't know which day because it took me nearly a week to find my mailbox!). She has urged me to work on my 'mean face.' (I told the janitor (one of my biggest supporters!) what she said and he said, 'Don't do that. You're not mean, you're nice. Figure out how to discipline them your own way!' Heh.) Anyway, today I watched her lead her very well behaved class down the hall... I said to my students, "why can those [---] graders behave so much better than you all?" and they all started telling me that that teacher pinches her students and hits them with a ruler!

A lot of her comments about "you just do what you have to do, close your door and keep your mouth shut" flashed into my brain. So did some rumors about a pinching teacher, and the janitor's words... "Being around this school a long time, you learn things about the different teachers..." and his face when he said that, right before he told me not to try to be meaner than I am.

To someone far removed from my situation it might seem like a no-brainer that I should "do something" about this information. To me it is a no-brianer that I should leave it alone, although it makes me sad.

It is also discouraging. Is that what it takes to get students to line up quietly and behave? I think of Ron Clark again... damn him... he shows that it can be done... on a good day it's an inspiration... on a bad day a condemnation.

I also begin to wonder what happens when I send students to the discipline man. (I am not giving his title because it's a bit unusual and could identify the school). I get the impression he just yells at them, makes them cry, and sends them back. What about making a behavior plan? What about a contract with the student and parent? What about all the tried-and-true methodologies that I don't have time for? *sigh*

I can see all their little individual faces, personalities, what they need and want... I have years and years of experience working with this demographic! I know what to do for them on an individual level! But I feel I can't connect with them because I don't have time...

For example, there's C, who is adopted but before his adoption he was badly abused; he needs gentle reminders and connection with an adult... I don't have time for that... all I have time for is to shout across the classroom, "C---! Quit making weird noises and leave J alone! Do your math! NOW!"

There is M, who is smart, tries to participate, and yet when I turn around he is grabbing things from other students, hitting them... I am beginning to learn that if something is missing or broken, check M's desk. Today I was at my wits' end and sent M to discipline man, then called his mother. M collapsed on the floor sobbing. I was so taken aback I didn't make any sense on the phone to his mother and she started to go after me! I tried to keep in mind the other students who had been taking me aside quietly to say that M was tormenting them, but M just seemed so little, crying there, little skinny arms, hands too big for his little frame, just a little little boy—I was completely thrown off my stride.

Meanwhile the noise level in the afternoon remains high; I seem to have trained them to tune out my talking and even my shouting.

It all seems like an impossible mire into which I and my students are sinking. We feel ourselves going down and none of us seems to know how to stop it... it reminds me of the first couple days when I couldn't get them to line up quietly to go home... 90% of the noise would be all of them screaming at each other to shut up.

I am going to stop this depressing rumination and write my fucking lesson plans.

seating chart

one of the things that made me shift to a 'triage mentality' (as discussed in the previous post) was trying to make a seating chart. you are supposed to put children in front if they are troubled (i.e., if they make trouble), or if they are easily distracted, or if they have a lot of potential but need a lot of encouragement. well, every single child in my &@#%*ing class fits at least two out of those three descriptors—plenty of them fit all three.

it doesn't help that my room is too small for anyone to ever be more than 18 inches from four or five other people. so i can't get the distractible kids away from the troublemakers... or anyone away from the troublemakers.

but this was where the one girl T stood out... i realized there was NO place i could put her where she wouldn't be a problem—put her near a "good" kid and she will torment them; put her near a "bad" kid and the two of them will be four times as bad. of course, she will be 18 inches from a whole bunch of "good" and "bad" kids. that's when i started to think that she has to go...

i remember how it is when you work... sunday is depressing. i always used to cry on sundays. well... hello sunday.

first week

Wow... it's been a really intense week.

I am teaching fifth grade in a very low-income neighborhood, a tough neighborhood with a bad reputation, in one of the largest cities in the U.S. (moved away from Madison! yay!).

My students are great in many ways: they are bright (both in the sense of being quick and clever, and in the sense of being bright-eyed, spunky, sparkly, energetic, enjoyable) and many of them still want to try to succeed somehow. They are also a handful, to put it mildly. Always talking, out of their seats, and if unsupervised for more than three minutes, they are running around the room and bothering each other (taking things, shoving and pushing, sticking notes on each other's backs, putting glue on each other's chairs...).

Of course, I feel that we have come a long way in these first days—on Tuesday and Wednesday, craziness broke out every time I turned my back—never mind turning my back, I couldn't even turn sideways to write on the board, or lower my eyes from the horizon!

I've been telling them that we will get it together. That we will become known as the best-behaved class in the school instead of the worst-behaved. Their faces look hopeful and earnest. They have not yet given up on themselves.

But as I prep for Monday and try to accommodate all the things that are required of me (get them ready for standardized testing in March, stay on the pacing plans in math and science, test them all and place them in groups for reading...) I realize we don't have any more time to get it together. We have got to start working and we can't wait for behavior to settle down.

They are used to that process beginning like a train leaving the station with only a few of them on board... the rest sort of straggling down the tracks after it in a desultory manner. They don't know that I do not consider that acceptable. They must all be on the train even if some of them are in the caboose.

But I am not sure how to accomplish that. And I know if I don't it will not be many weeks before they disengage and do give up on themselves.

I must not be so dramatic... it doesn't help. Ramping up the panic is not an effective strategy.

But now when I pass a junkie on the street, I think to myself, that is the future for at least some of my students if they do not connect to school—not because of school itself, I don't kid myself that school is of such intrinsic value—but because it's a chance to develop some kind of discipline, focus, concentration, goal-setting. Somewhere in these years they must choose to grow up, to take responsibility, to engage in life. And I'm not at all sure how to help them build that bridge.

There are some things in my favor. I have a great bunch of parents (guardians etc), from what I can tell. I have talked to most of them in the last week and they really want their children to succeed. They are completely behind me. It's great.

And the kids don't hate me. I don't say that because I want to be their friend (and why is it that every time I say to an adult in the school, "I want to convey to them that I support them," or something like that, they say "You are not here to be their friend!" Is it a different philosophy or am I missing something?) Anyway, they haven't turned on me. I know mischievous from mean and they could certainly be mean if they wanted to - they don't take my things, break stuff on purpose, tear things from the walls, etc. Many of them, especially the girls, really want my approval. They look up at me with big eyes and say, "Was I better today?" Heh. Those are the moments I feel optimistic.

There's only one girl, T, who doesn't care at all. I am thinking that she has to go. The principal and assistant principal are constantly threatening the kids with expulsion and I know they have already kicked out six or seven kids—in the first week! I was shocked at first but that is changing.

This is a huge shift in my thinking. A few days ago I was saying "I am going to fight to keep every one of these kids in my class! These are my kids and I'm going to fight for all of them!" When one of my girls was expelled I actually shed a couple tears in front of the students (coulda heard a pin drop then!) and told them I was going to fight for all of them.

But when I started to think about everything I have to do (as described above)... and started to talk to parents who are so eager for their child to succeed... and started to think about the students who raise their hands, ask for help on #3, and I never answer their question because across the room someone is squeezing glue on her neighbor....

When I thought about all this, in spite of myself I shifted into triage mode... something I resisted in the days before school started... but now I'm getting there. I am starting to think, T takes up so much of my time...time that I could give to K, or N, or A, whose bright eyes watch me move around the room putting out fires... wanting my attention and assistance, wanting to succeed.

I don't know... if I were a better teacher, or more experienced, could I help them all? Does Ron Clark really reach all his students? Actually my main question is, does he really get them all to sit down and shut up all day long? Will I ever be able to?

I was in the teacher store and found some form-letter parent notes with checkboxes... your child needs to work on motivation, attitude, homework... I laughed and said to the clerk, "How about, not throwing things? Sitting down? Shutting the hell up?" I couldn't stop laughing.

Well.... stay tooned.

my first day teaching in an 'inner-city' school

wow, today was baaaaad lol. by the end of the day the kids were getting into shoving matches and throwing crayons n balled-up paper around the room, totally ignoring anything i said! fortunately it seems to be bringing out the fighter in me rather than upsetting or depressing me in any way. i'll learn... I know I will learn how to do this...and one day when their little heads are bent over their work I will look back at how far we've come and feel triumphant. actually I can see that they're a great bunch, in spite of it all....just a lot of mischief...

[two hours later]

what am i going to dooooooooooo???? lol...