First week, DONE!

I feel really good about what I have accomplished this week, but I am definitely weary of what's to come. As of about 10:30 this morning, my mini-team will have to adopt a new schedule, which means I'm left to re-plan everything for next week. While I'd rather not spend my Saturday planning, I'm trying to be flexible. Flexibility and adaptability are two qualities of really good teachers, and I'm doing my best to suck it up and go with the flow.

I'm not sure that the previous post captured my true feelings about being a teacher. I had a few moments today when I looked around that made me aware of how far I've come. When I read aloud from James and the Giant Peach today, they sat there and listened so intently - some with wide eyes and some completely at peace. They did what they were told after hearing the directions only ONCE and worked together cooperatively and respectfully to start re-organizing our classroom library. And when I watched them or caught their faces out of the corner of my eye, I realized that this is what I have always been meant to do. Those kids look to me for guidance, for knowledge, for answers, and I can give it all to them. I've only known them for a short time, but I'm already attached - even to the ones that drive me crazy on an hourly basis. Each kid is special. Each kid brings an important dynamic to the classroom. Each kid tests me in different ways and challenges me to work harder to be the best teacher I can be.

But baby steps, Katy. I can't do it all at once. My biggest challenge this year will be reigning in my expectations for myself. They can't get so high that I become overwhelmed, because that is how burnout starts. I'm too set on this job to get burned out in my first year, so, I repeat...


baby steps.

It's funny. Today was my second full day as a real-life teacher and the novelty has already worn off. I find that completely hilarious.

I suppose that could mean many things:
1. I've reached my comfort zone early
2. Teaching is a crazy profession that requires an incredible amount of stamina every day
3. I'm a cynic

Now, I don't mean to say that I don't like my job. That couldn't be farther from the truth. I think I have one of the best jobs in the world. I might have trouble dragging myself out of bed at 5am on a rainy morning, but I never wish for school to be cancelled (just for 294 to be traffic-free.)

My first day went really well. I over-planned, but got through about 3/4 of the material I planned, which I thought was pretty commendable considering that the first day is always so crazy. I explained procedures and we got to know each other, organized all our supplies and took first day pictures. The kids did great, and they were obviously listening carefully because this morning (Day 2) they followed all the procedures without any reminders or any problems. This was a total shock to me, as the 3rd graders I had in the fall took weeks to perfect the morning routine. I'll give myself a bit of credit - I was very clear when I explained my expectations, and I think that made a lot of difference.

I do have to say that I am really proud of myself. I can't believe I'm really here, where I've been headed since I was in second grade. I feel confident about my role in the classroom, but I am still a little nervous about what goes on behind the scenes. There are extremely high expectations in this district, and I'm concerned about things like parent complaints/concerns/gossip, about planning a 90 minute reading block without so much as a set of clear learning goals provided by the district, about my principal not agreeing with the schedule we developed last year and waiting to throw a fit until the night before the first day of school.

Things are still up in the air, and there's a lot of worries, but I keep trying to remind myself that it's ONLY DAY 2...even if it feels like we've been here for weeks. It's only my FIRST YEAR of teaching, so I don't have to be perfect. And there are so many people in my building that are eager and willing to help me figure everything out. If there's one thing I'm the most thankful for, it's the staff in the building I work in. The welcome I have received is unbelievable, and the support that I get every single day is so helpful. I'm a lucky gal :-)

I feel like that was an unsubstantial description, but I'm so exhausted that I've run out of brain cells. Ask questions, and I'll answer them - that will be easier!

Well, the moment is almost here. I am so excited to get those kids in my room and get this year started! I left today with the thought that tomorrow is the first official day of my career. Tomorrow I get to do what I've wanted to do since I was a second grader.

I was riding my bike around the neighborhood last night to clear my head, and on my way home I rode on the sidewalk near my elementary school. I looked in the windows and was hit with deja vu. I've done that so many times before, and every time I've looked to my right into the third grade hallway windows and checked out the classrooms thinking, "that's going to be me some day." And last night, my thought was, "that's going to be me on.....WEDNESDAY!!"

To have reached this point is somewhat unbelievable to me. About 5 months ago I recall wishing desperately that I could just skip the end of second semester, skip the anxiety of the job search, skip the unknown that lay ahead of me, and get to whatever it was that my future would turn out to be. But here I am, SO LUCKY to be employed in a great district, working with people I admire already, after only a short time.

I'm ready for school. Are you?

After an entire week of unpaid training, my district has officially decided I'm ready to join the league of teachers :-)

It has been a really long week, but I think overall a very productive one. While the training got a bit tedious and occasionally redundant, it definitely got my brain working in the right direction. I tried to "take the summer off" for possibly the last time ever. I say this because no teacher ever truly "takes the summer off." Sure we get a couple of months where we're not contracted to be in school, but good teachers are always always thinking about school. In fact, most of the teachers I've talked to this year spent a good portion of their summer re-vamping their strategies, doing long range planning, or re-organizing their rooms.

One of the teachers said something the other day that really struck a chord with me: Teaching is a really easy profession to do poorly. To be a good teacher takes everything you've got. Long hours before and after school. Planning and re-planning and teaching and re-teaching. Talking to angry parents and taking kids' temperatures and grading homework. There's so many pieces, so many things to remember and keep track of, and yet, there's always more you can do.

That being said...

I love my job, and I am so freakin' excited about the kids. They arrive on Wednesday, and I know that when they walk in the door, the last 3 weeks of unpaid work, stress, and occasional frustration will all seem worth it. Seriously, it's going to be a really phenomenal year.

Professional Learning Communities (PLC) could be explained thoroughly in one hour. Today it was explained in four hours.


Reader's Digest version of my day: Long, tedious, but ohhhhh so necessary in teacher land. At least, that's what I'm told.

Today was very successful in teacher land. The second day of training definitely proved more boring than the first, but I think the administration communicated some good stuff, and achieved their goals today.

The focus of our morning was the Danielson framework. Basically, it's a program for educators that provides a clear-cut set of objectives and expectations for teachers and associates. It came about because for years teachers had been evaluated based on one or two formal observations by their principals. Unfortunately, these evaluations tended to be inauthentic and didn't involve enough dialogue between teacher and principal about what was actually happening in the classroom. The Danielson framework provides administrators and teachers with objectives so that their job is made very clear. It's used for lesson planning, teaching, and reflection and the results of these three components are the basis for the evaluation. In the end, I'll meet with my principal one on one 5 times this year to discuss my progress and present some evidence of what I'm doing in the classroom. She will also conduct a formal observation at least once, and then I'll get a final evaluation at the end of the year called the "summative" evaluation that will take into account all the other meetings/observations. It's a pretty cool system, and actually takes a bit of the stress out of the process. I know exactly what's expected of me, so I can do it on my terms.

This afternoon we went to our buildings for some time to work in our classrooms. We (the 7 new staff members) met with the principal for a while to discuss how the Danielson framework would work in our building, and other basic procedural stuff. I've actually been in the school before and know a lot of that stuff, and since my principal wasn't hired till this summer, a lot of those questions were fielded by me.

And now, enough chatter. I'm going to create a class website :-)

Today was my very first day of teacher training. It's official, I am a real live staff member. I have a badge with my face on it as proof :-)

My district provides/requires a full week of training for new teachers entering the district. This is a really great resource, and speaks to the quality of the district I'm working for. Not only does it seem to be very child-centered, but it also manages a great deal of concern for its staff. I feel like I"m going to get all the support I could possibly need in my first year, and certainly beyond.

The resources alone are astounding. Today they handed all 50 new teachers in the district brand new Macbooks (upon which I am typing this post) and explicitly explained that the use of technology in this district is NOT optional. The tech director put it this way: our kids are living in the 21st century, and if we're not teaching with technology, then we're not teaching the right way. While this is a crude way of putting it, I tend to agree. Kids learn in so many different ways, and by embracing technology and all the resources it provides we can better meet our students' needs. I already incorporate technology into my teaching, and I was the recipient of a grant through the district to have a SMARTboard installed in my classroom, so accomplishing this should be a breeze this year.

Our training today also involved a sweet road rally where I got to unleash the .5% of me that is competitive. I drove like a mad woman, heckled other teams, honked my horn, and purposely parked like a jerk to prevent other teams from getting to the place on the photo scavenger hunt list. All the while this behavior was encouraged by one of the district administrators who served as our team captain and navigator. He is a rock star.

I'm pretty sure tomorrow won't be nearly as interesting or fun, but will probably be helpful....I guess....

So, after two 6 hour days in a row, I am feeling pretty good about going into new teacher training next week. Yesterday morning I sat down and made a long list of all the things I needed to do this week. Today, I crossed off at least 5. I thought that was pretty good, considering it involved quite a bit of copying and some binding (my least favorite teacher thing to do next to bulletin boards). Oh and paper cutting, which comes in at number 3 on the things I hate about being a teacher list. That list is short, btw.

I've decided that I've worked enough hours off the clock. There are 2 other new teachers (new to the school, not to teaching) on my team, and one was only hired a couple days ago, so I definitely have a leg up. I am taking tomorrow off to go shopping and prepare for a weekend of relaxation in Wisconsin. I think I need a breather before "shit gets real" if you will :-)

Today I came to the harsh realization that the school year is almost upon us. Although, I should say it came upon me in my sleep last night - or lack thereof.

I went to bed around 10:30 like a good little teacher. I'm trying to get my body back onto a normal schedule so that I am not a zombie when the children arrive. I fell into a restful slumber that quickly turned sour. I started dreaming about whiteboards and folders and lesson planning. My dreams about school tend to be centered around me being surrounded by ideas, memories, etc. of things that I haven't done and still need to do. It's almost like in cartoons after somebody gets hit over the top of the head and when they wake up there's a circle of birds like a halo. Except my halo is post-it notes, and on each one of them is something that I forgot to do. I also tend to have incoherent thoughts about lesson planning, mostly anxiety driven. Blegh.

So, to combat this unfortunate string of dreams (which, I might add, does not leave me after school starts, but rather is a recurrence on almost a nightly basis) I learned during student teaching that I have to either listen to music while falling asleep, or read something until I fall asleep. My downfall: Reading a teacher's memoir till I fell asleep. Oooooops.

Otherwise, I think I have officially gotten to the point where I can stop doing mundane decorating tasks in the classroom and get down to the meat of it all - the planning. This strikes up a bit of anxiety since I feel rather out of practice, but I think once I get in the zone I should be able to produce some decent stuff for my kids.

Today was a very productive day in the classroom, though the tasks I completed were, for the most part, small or mundane. I got more laminating done, put up titles for the bulletin boards, set out supply boxes according to my seating chart I drafted in May, and wrote note cards for my schedule chart. I also discovered the "warehouse catalog" for the district, and made a list of all kinds of supplies for my classroom. Thankfully, that money will come out of my team budget, which, I'm told, is rather large, and not out of my own pocket :-D

I'm also back in contact with my mini-team via email (That's my next door neighboor Liz, and down the hall Nancy) about when we will begin departmentalizing. We were really fortunate to have our schedules match this year, and decided that we will use 3/4 half hour blocks in the day to teach social studies, science, and language arts. I will be in charge of all three sections of science, Liz has social studies, and Nancy has Language arts.

Here's why I LOVE the idea of departmentalization:
1. I get to plan 2 less subjects every week.
2. I have the time and energy to plan my subject really well.
3. It forces me to make time in the day for all 3 of those subjects - all of which are important to me.

Here's the scary part:
1. You really have to trust your team, because you don't get a hand in planning the other subjects.
2. You are at the mercy of how well the other members of the team teach their subjects, and if a kid isn't being successful, chances are you have to deal with the parent issues.
3. You actually have 3 classrooms worth of parents to deal with and 3 classrooms worth of report cards to manage. YUCK.

This week is off to a good start, it seems.

Do you want to know a secret?

It's a big one, and something that teachers don't usually talk about, but I definitely mean it when I say that I LOATHE putting up bulletin boards.

I know. It's wrong. But I just can't stand it. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I am spatially challenged and that I never feel struck with creative genius when I am in the middle of creation, but I really reaaaaallyyyy hate them. So, the background colors and borders may very well never change for the entire year. I promise, however, to change the content attached to said backgrounds...................at least once ;-)

In other news, I finally received in the mail 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny by Phillip Done. After reading the introduction, I thought I was going to cry. Done has a way of describing what it means to be a teacher with such sympathy. And I think the best part of this book for me is that he seems to be teaching in a very average classroom situation. Often teachers who write memoirs about teaching will write about their dramatically difficult situations in poor public schools with students who have next to nothing and with administration that probably cannot even spell the word supportive. This book, however, describes the plight of the everyday teacher - the teacher who has a good mixture of challenges and positive teacher moments on a daily basis, one who makes mistakes and learns from them, one who has piles of paper lying everywhere and uses sarcasm in the classroom and tries to be too direct on report cards.

I've only read about 1 quarter of the book so far, but I am seriously considering recommending this book as homework for the parents in my class this year. I think a lot of parents, especially in the neighborhood where I will be teaching, look down on our profession as something very simple. Phillip Done's book might give these folks an inside look into what an average teacher's life is really like. I could use that sympathy from parents, I'm sure.

My new favorite word is: (drumroll please..............................)

PROGRESS

Yes, it is coming in baby steps at the moment, but I would have to say that as far as my classroom is concerned, there is quite a bit of progress being made. I told my friend Miss G. today that today was the first day that I left my school feeling like things will, eventually, come together. Yes, this process is overwhelming, but I wouldn't say that I'm overly stressed about it. I'm a realist, I think, and I'm generally able to look at a situation and assess whether or not it is a realistic task. In this case, I'm dealing with fifth graders. They're disillusioned to a certain extent. I don't have to worry as much about the presentation of the room - the "wow factor" if you will. They don't want to be baby-ed, so I'm going to try to focus less on making the room itself perfect and more on tackling content, approach, and concept.

Tomorrow my mom is coming with me, and we will be delivering my teacher chair. An essential item, I think, and I hope it will add that missing home-like feel to the room. I will also take my first crack at laminating tomorrow! Nerd city, I know, but this is a big moment folks!! Here's hoping I don't burn down the building, laminate my shirt, or ruin my awesome posters.

I'm sitting in my classroom as we speak, trying to get things organized. It seems like these piles of books are never ending, but I'm starting to make a dent. I have to say that as overwhelming as it can be to fill a big empty room, when I walk in here, it's easy to get right down to business. Having a layout for the furniture really helps, and the more "accessories" I bring in, the easier it is to get things organized. I've been told that I'll pull it all apart and put it back together at least 3 times before the year is over, but I'm ok with that as long as everything is in it's place by the first day of school.

Other staff members are starting to float back into the building, but they don't seem to be as concerned as I am. I'm actually looking forward to next year when I can come back to my room looking exactly the way I left it. I'd love to not have to go through this again any time soon.

I've procrastinated organizing the rest of those books quite enough though. Back to work!

With a few hours of work yesterday, I am on my way to crossing things off of the aforementioned list. I hope that after putting in the hours on this stuff that I actually use it.

One of my fears about having my own classroom is that I'll have trouble with follow-through. There's a lot of steps in education, especially when you're talking about assessment. Pre, during, post, formative or summative, plus that assessment has to be authentic, and you have to use the information you gather to create some kind of grade that reflects what the student is actually capable of doing. Phew.

One of my main goals for myself this year is to be organized to the point where I can keep track of all the routines I set in place and finish everything I start. I don't want things to just peter off toward the middle of the semester because I forget about them or because we're doing something else. In order to show my students that I'm serious about consistency and quality of work, I have to expect the same of myself.

Yesterday I went to my friend Amy's fifth grade classroom for her first look at what her year will be like next year. She also has a blog (and is a far better writer than I) that will chronicle her first year of teaching fifth grade. It is: juiceboxesandcrayolas.blogspot.com. Anyway, helping her go through the things left behind by the previous teacher and move furniture around renewed my excitement about the approaching school year. In just 2 short weeks I will begin new teacher training, and I'm really looking forward to it. In the meantime, however, I've got a lot of work to do.


(An approximate floorplan of my classroom)
---------->
Projects for the coming weeks:
Create a classroom profile inventory to get to know the kids and have their info at-a-glance style.
Create a reading log, photocopy, and bind for kids.
Create a calendar for kids to keep track of minutes read every month
Draft and put up bulletin boards
Go through stuff left in my classroom - i.e. science materials, math manipulatives
Organize classroom library

And that's just the short list...

There's something so overwhelming about an empty space. While I"m not going into this position blindly by any means, there is still a great deal of unknown for a teacher. I'm hoping some of the mysteries will be revealed in the coming weeks.

I have decided to revive this blog and use it as a means to track my progress throughout my first year of teaching. I hope those of you that decide to follow me on this journey will enjoy having the opportunity to keep up. I can't make any promises about writing, but I definitely think it will be a healthy way of venting, a useful way to keep track of successes and mistakes, and a fun way to keep my "fans" informed.

I will be teaching fifth grade in the fall with a group of no more than 24 students. This class is in the middle of a loop. For those of you who don't speak teacher-ese, that means that the same group of kids has the same teacher for two grades in a row. Their previous teacher who had them for fourth grade is moving to a different classroom this fall, so I will be taking over for their fifth grade year.

Right now, I'm beginning to prepare for the year ahead. As a baby teacher ( as I refer to myself) there is an unbelievable amount of prep work to be done to feel even remotely confident when the kids show up on the first day. I'm so thankful to have secured my job so early in the game. It has allowed me to mentally prepare at least some. Now I'm down to the business of planning, scheduling, and purchasing everything I'll need to fill my classroom.

I've been working on scheduling quite a bit lately. It is crucial to keep in mind that a teacher needs to be very flexible when considering the school day. Of course I'm planning to do this- I'm a very go with the flow person when it comes to the classroom- but if I have a plan, it will be easier to stick to. Let's hope the creative juices keep flowing so that my kids aren't cursing me within the first two weeks of school :-)

So the semester is winding down in typical crazy fashion. I'm starting to put my portfolio together, which should be a good experience because it will force me to revisit my work over the semester. I feel that I have grown and learned quite a bit, so hopefully I will be able to prove that in my portfolio, through my responses, etc.

The last set of culture presentations were very interesting, especially the presentation about the ld/bd classroom. I was impressed when the presenter gave us write-ups of the current classroom structure, and when she addressed the problems she saw and potential solutions.
I have not been exposed to a special ed classroom setting, so the information she presented was relatively new. I'm familiar with the IEP process, but there are a lot of subtleties to the Americans with Disabilities Act that I will have to become comfortable with before I can be in a classroom setting where I have the possibility of having some students with special needs.

One of the things that surprised me was the layout of one of the behavior management plans used in the classroom. After reading Kozol for my lit circle book, I am very sensitive to the style of curriculum used in different settings. This classroom uses titles like "unemployed" "trainee" "apprentice" and "professional" as levels for students to work towards in the classroom. My initial reaction to seeing this system was shock, because Kozol would never expect to see these types of labels in a suburban public school, however, upon second glance, I can see how it would work well in this type of classroom. For students that crave a different kind of structure and consistency, it could be a good thing to have specific goals to work towards, and these labels could promote a more professional attitude in the classroom.

So it's been a while since I've blogged, thank you Thanksgiving.

The latest stressor for this class has been my culture presentation. I have to admit, I was very nervous going into the presentation, which for me is unusual. I guess I was just afraid with both the elements of the project that I wasn't being thorough enough about culture. However, I felt like my class presentation went well, and it seemed like it was well received. I am glad I chose to study the event that I did because it really did have a lot of interesting things to observe from a teacher/ethnographer standpoint. I also enjoyed hearing some of the other presentations that were given. For instance, I found the culture of the hallways at the school to be particularly interesting. I never really thought about the way students relate the hallways to punishment, or even extra freedom, but it occurred to me during the presentation that when I was in middle school I always appreciated being able to walk in the hallways during class because they were quiet and I could walk at my own pace. I had definite self-esteem issues in middle school, and I recall the hallways being the type of place I got out of as fast as I possibly could. It was a place for socializing, and I didn't do a lot of socializing in middle school. I would make a bee line for my class, and get there as fast as I possibly could- head down, books clutched to my chest.
I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of the culture presentations.

Observation today was a little different. My co-op teacher was a bit frazzled as she has a large research paper for one of her masters classes that she needs to write, so she is taking tomorrow off to write it. The kids were apparently complaining that she was crabby, which frustrated her. In order to help her get things done, she put myself and another intern to work filing graded papers for different classes. Though mundane, this seemed like a valuable task because it shows how much extra work there is for teachers to do all the time. There were stacks of graded papers that had to be filed for the students, and she reported that the last time she had the students file their own papers it was a disaster. I have an even better understanding now of some of the behind the scenes work that must get pushed to the wayside. It's clear that in addition to actually teaching and creating lesson plans, teachers must keep up with grading, and other tedius tasks.

RE: Observation

Wednesday's observation was nothing too out of the ordinary, but I wanted to comment on Poetry club. The club keeps growing and growing, and it seems like such a positive thing for the students. It provides them with a safe environment where they can share their thoughts with each other in a more unstructured fashion...no hand raising....so it fosters good discussion skills- respect, good listening, etc. Also, it encourages creativity and critical thinking about the poems presented. But something that interests me is watching the students interact with each other. The room is set up with all the desks in a big circle so everyone can see everyone else. The placement of the students in the desks is very intriguing. There is one student in particular, who I'll call Emily, that interests me. Emily always tries to sit very close to the teacher. She is VERY eager to talk about anything, especially poetry, her own poetry, others poetry, and how she feels about poetry. She reminds me a lot of myself in middle school, a little to eager to learn for the other kids tastes, and too interested in impressing the teacher. While it doesn't bother Emily, the other kids can be brutal. I haven't seen it much to her face, but they seem to be talking about her behind her back when she is constantly raising her hand or sharing with the rest of the class.

Watching Emily is almost an out of body experience for me. I can just see myself in her place and feel the rejection coming from my peers. It hurts me to watch her, because regardless of the teasing going on behind her back, she continues to "overachieve." You see, it's not that she's doing something wrong. In fact, she's doing something right by working so hard to do well in school. She's probably a bit more mature in some ways, and knows it, so she exercises that in school. And the fact that she's seemingly not bothered by the teasing is refreshing, though I remember myself at that age, putting on a good face at school, and being completely depressed at home. I can tell that even Ms. H senses the tension from Emily's peers when Emily is taking the spotlight, and I sense that she wishes she could do something about it. I wonder, as a teacher, where the line is. I would love to take Emily as a friend and talk to her about how she really feels about school. I would like to ask her about her friends and her experiences. I would like to find out if she is as confident away from her peers as she is in front of them.

Middle school is a tough place. I'm glad, for the kids' sake that it only lasts 3 years.

RE: Yellow reading (Supreme court decisions)

Most of the court decisions on this handout were new to me, so I was interested in seeing what kind of decisions had been made about education in the past. A couple in particular caught my eye.

I noticed a pattern in decisions having to do with the teaching of Evolution vs. Creation in schools. It seems that this debate is ongoing and there is no real end in sight. It is hard for me to say, as a Christian, whether or not students should or should not learn one or the other. I think personally that teaching evolution in schools is just a basic lesson in science. We know that science is not exact, and that even our "proof" could never be truly verified or denied. Therefore, if one's faith is strong enough that they do not allow the idea of evolution to tamper with their religious beliefs, then there should not be a problem. The issue at hand, however, is not so much whether or not it should be taught, but who gets to decide. The government doesn't have the bias of the church, and the church doesn't have the bias of the government. Neither one is really equipped to make an informed decision by representing the other's point of view equally.

The other decision that caught my attention was San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez. Here there was argument over funding and "equitable redistribution of funds across the state's school districts." The decision was that funding doesn't have to be equal across districts. Kozol covered this idea in his book, so it naturally caught my eye. I think in response to this idea, Kozol would say that ideally we would want equal distribution of funds across state school districts. That way there would be more equality of education of students. If there was equality, there would not be the opportunity for people in more affluent neighborhoods to keep all the wealth in one place, and with redistribution, everyone would be more likely to chip in and give more to educating their children. For example: Compare one wealthy high school (A) and one poorer high school (B). If there was a redistribution of funds and funding was taken away from A to make it equal to B, then perhaps the community around A would be more inclined to give to the district in general so that A could be raised, and by doing so, B would be raised as well.

I think this decision would be worth reconsidering if equality in education is valued in this nation.