Bad Moon Rising

I see the bad moon arising / I see trouble on the way / I see earthquakes and lightnin’ / I see bad times today.  ~John Fogerty

Holy shit, if this doesn't describe my classroom today.  Maybe, also, dumpster fire.  That may work as well.  I follow Fixing Education (@WhyTeaching) on Twitter and this Tweet today nailed it: "One of my biggest struggles is having to keep from screaming profanities at my students."  When I stumbled into the lunch room at 12:30 after being called a bitch in Spanish (like I don't know what 'puta' means), I googled the moon phases.  Oh yeah, there it is, full moon. 

Why?!  Why does that have impact on people?  It's not just teachers.  Ask any nurse in any hospital and they'll tell you the same thing.  I understand the whole moon phase/tides thing, but for the love of God, could we manage to not let it control us as well?  Oy!

I'm not proud of the way I acted today, specifically this morning.  I owe a kid an apology.  No matter what he did, it's no excuse for the way I acted.  I could have let him know in a different way how his actions were effecting me and the class.  You know what?  I don't feel like apologizing.  I really don't think he deserves it.   I'll still do it because it's the adult thing to do, but I'll hate every second of it.  

I have a meeting tomorrow with the parent of the most troublesome kid in my room.  I have a list of things to talk about.  He's nervous because he doesn't want his mother to know these things, yet he continues to do them.  One minute he's all talk and bravado, the next he's begging me not to talk to her.  He's trying so hard to be the cool kid, the one who doesn't care about anyone or anything.  I still don't know which way to go with him.  I believe in natural consequences, but his actions are impacting others in the room. 

I keep reminding myself that we're only a month into the year, but at the same time we're already a month into the year.  Does that make sense?  When is this going to gel?  When will all the kinks be worked out?  Gah!  

Hubby asked me this weekend if I'm overwhelmed...If I have too much to do for this job...If I've bitten off more than I can chew.  Oh yeah, absolutely.  But I'm really enjoying it.  Last year was an extremely stressful, overwhelming year.  Probably the worst in 20 years, and I hated that job by the end.  What's the difference?  Administration.  Plain and simple.  Teachers don't quit schools.  They quit principals and admin.  Aside from being a puta (honestly, the kid's not wrong) I really love this job.  

See you next week.  

Fixer Upper

There was a discussion recently on Twitter about Pinterest classrooms, also known as TPT (teacherspayteachers) classrooms.  Pinterest and TPT classrooms are those that are decorated to the nth degree.  They have every inch of the room covered, it's all themed and matching, it looks like a page out of a Pottery Barn catalogue.  That is not my classroom.  I have neither the time, nor the money (and really no patience). 

Below you will see various pix of my room.  It's a very old school in a lower income community.  I'm lucky I have storage, never mind none of it matches. The only thing I've tried to do in addition to the obligatory teacher charts (100 chart, alphabet, etc.) is tried to make a it bit warmer and a bit homier.  Many of my students come from not-so-great situations, and I swear one is raising himself.  

He's the one that got me thinking about the feel of the room.  I wondered out loud to my assistant, "What must go on in that house?"  That really hit me on the way home that day.  What does go on there?  What must it look like?  Single mom; never home; older brother not a good influence; always on YouTube; never learned appropriate vs. inappropriate, or chooses to ignore what he's learned.

I'll be completely honest--he's not a favorite of mine.  If he moved to a new school today, I'd be totally OK with that. However, he's the kid I need to focus on, simply because of that fact. 

As you can see, we have a coffee shop theme going on.  That's solely because I love coffee, as do most teachers.  The door decor was my idea; however, the sayings on the door were a democratic effort with everyone giving suggestions and voting on the favorite.  Both of the phrases tied, so we added both.  Of course, you can't have coffee without donuts.  Our related services schedule is set up like a coffee shop menu. There are also donuts lining the top of the SmartBoard.  Maybe one day I'll bring in Munchkins for the class.  Maybe. 

The work baskets are also coffee related as I got colors in no cream, some cream, and mostly cream.  I'll hang a sign that says something about light, medium, and dark roast.  Additionally, there are two rag rugs on the floor, and I'm attempting to subtly infuse orange essential oil into the air.  I really hope this meager attempt helps the kids to feel like this is a place they can enjoy, as well as complain about the amount of work I make them do.  

So, not really a Pinterest room, but not stark either.  I just hope the kids are comfortable with their home away from home. 

 

Frolic in the Autumn Mist

Nothing makes me happier than Autumn.  After the hot, humid weather that almost defies any form of air conditioning, it's so nice to bundle under blankets while finally sleeping with the windows open. Let's face it-when you're hot, there's only so many articles of clothing you can remove and still go out in public.  Chilly?  No problem.  Keep wrapping those scarves around until you can't move. 

Occasionally I am asked to share ideas from Education.com and I am more than happy to do so.  With my new position, I'm going to be visiting this incredible site often.  I've never failed to find what I need, whether it be full lesson plans, or a worksheet I can use for a formative assessment.  

With Autumn quickly approaching, I suggest you check out their site for all things fall-related.  Here is an autumn maze worksheet for our youngest learners.  Autumn Fun

Find your way through the falling leaves in this maze from Education.com! Find more fun learning games here.

Here are some worksheet types to choose from:

• Maze
• Matching list of words with images
• Word search
• Crossword puzzle
• Word scramble
• Subtraction
• Division
• Multiplication

And we have a variety of themes to choose from, including crawlies, a school themed template and seasonal themes. You can see an example below.

Seriously, if you haven't done so, go to their site.  You can browse this activity and all the Autumn themed fun while wearing your hoodie, drinking hot chocolate, planning the hayride, and watching football (Go Eagles!)  Have a great week!

Ich werde überleben

Anyone who is learning a language on DuoLingo knows this feeling.  We are stalked by this Linguistic Strigiformes daily.  This is often accompanied by the message, "These reminders don't seam to be working. We'll stop sending them for now."  Know how long that is?  Like a day and a half.  

I'm learning German for the hell of it.  It's a part of my ancestry and I'm a nerd who likes to learn new things.  While I was out of work, I had more time to devote to this endeavor.  Now that I'm trying to rebuild this classroom I inherited, I haven't been as faithful to the owl.  I had a serious streak going for a while, but lost it.  And the bird is relentless about it.  Had I known I was going to be teaching in a school with such a large Hispanic population, I may have considered learning Spanish.  Maybe that will be the next language.  For now, I'm enjoying German quite a bit.  

Today in math when I asked my struggling third grade learners (two of which are ELL) how many toes they have, I was met with a series of incorrect answers.  When I asked how many foot fingers they have, they all knew there are 10.  You may use the terminology, foot fingers, if you wish.  I haven't patented that yet. 

Toes aside, we actually had a successful math rotation today.  I was quite proud of my para and myself.  For just meeting two weeks ago, we really gel as a team.  Her knowledge of the classroom and students from last year is a huge plus.

I had to have a hallway conversation with our newest student today. Any teacher will tell you, hallway talks are never good.  He is a Caucasian child in a classroom with 3 African-American students, and he harbors some ill will about their race.  Comments such as, "I hate Martin Luther King. I don't like African-Americans," are made on the daily.  I let him know that he doesn't have to like the people in his class, but I will not tolerate this sort of thing in my room.  That was met with, "Well you're not doing your job. They think they're better than me and you're not taking my side."  Sigh.  

Note, this child is on the autism spectrum so things need to be explained in a concrete way.  I told him, "If you keep saying these things and making them mad, they're going to beat the crap out of you. Is that what you're looking for?"  That seemed to get through. We're now working on how to ignore things we don't like.  It's a work in progress.

I really like this job. Seriously.