False Endings

I still have 3 days with them.
We're making memory books (I spent $70 getting pictures printed) and finishing their portfolios and cleaning the room. Some of them have essays to finish, we have presentations to give....the days will be busy, and the kids are excited about everything we're doing.
So why, now that grading, report cards, and all of my IEPs are done, does it feel over? Why do I get a huge lump in my throat when I think about not seeing them every day, even though I know how much I need the break, both personally and professionally? They've accomplished so much, we've all learned so much, and it's time for the year to be over, but there's a little part of me,the part of me that felt like it would never end, that is not ready.
Today on the train I was worrying about who would watch them during the day.
Then I remembered - they have parents. The amount of responsibility that we take for them during the year is so substancial that to have it all taken away at 3:40 on Wednesday will feel a little...a lot...there's no word to describe it. My whole life here, for the last year, has been them, and now I'm given 2 months to reclaim it, for me, and it's daunting.

While teachers across the country are on vacation, we are still in school. I'm not sure why...I have many theories, and when I am free of the confines of TFA I will probably voice them here, but until then I will just say that we are still in school.
My para got another job, which means I have a different substitute everyday. They always show up 20 minutes late. Sometimes they speak english. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they stay awake for the whole day. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they do what I ask them to do. Most of the time they don't.
"Man, I wish it was just us," Kevin said today. "We don't need anybody. It can just be us. We like a little family."
The sub came in and everybody groaned. I felt bad for her. On the inside I kind of groaned too.
I've tried including their names in word problems and giving them time to introduce themselves to the kids. The fact is the kids are tired of different people everyday. They don't even let the sub help them any more. They'll wait 10 minutes for me to help them while the sub just stands and watches. We're all tired...me....the kids, and we long for the routine that worked for us all year. Being forced out of it day after day is uncomfortable and instead of adapting we all rebel, me and my 13 babies.
5 more days...5 more days...5 more days...

Staying

I decided to stay. Slowly, over the last 2 months...for 13 reasons. Joshua, Adony, Adrielis, Amanda, Mario, Elvis, Julius, Christopher, Jose, Iran, Malik, Kevin, and Yahkemp. In spite of the fights, and the weapons, and the times I've been hit.
Things have changed. Not drastically, but things have changed, and I'm learning the things I need to learn to be able to produce more change.
In the last 2 weeks I've spent 20 hours planning for next year with the 2 other teachers who are on the 5th grade team. I'll be looping with my kids so I'll be teaching 4th/5th grade students, mostly 5th grade curriculum.
It feels good to be going in to September with so much under my belt curriculum wise and knowing my kids. There's a big part of me that can't believe I'll be at this school for another year. There's an even bigger part of me that is so relieved that I will not be leaving my students for good in 17 days.
It's not time to go yet. They've made huge gains but we're not done. They're not the people they need to be for me to leave them. I want to see them graduate (5th grade, mind you, but it's a milestone to all of us none the less).
I want to leave and be ready to leave and be able to tell them.
I wasn't able to tell them.
Year 2 is 4 months away...

TFA End of Year Reflective Guide

Qualitative Analysis: What are you particularly proud of in terms of your students' achievements this past year that are not captured in the quantitative data?

I am proud of the way my students learned to work together in a classroom. The culture in my room has done a complete 180 since September. From the way my students participate in games and behave during lessons to the way they treat visitors, my students are different people. Just the other day we had a visitor in my classroom and after my students left the visitor complemented me on their handshakes. I hadn’t even realized that they had all greeted her with a handshake. For the most part, they’ve learned to live and work together. They’ve learned how to laugh and let go of anger. They’ve learned how to trust. They’ve learned that there’s more to life than what they see outside of their window and they’re working together to get it. They’re growing up to be amazingly inspiring people. It doesn’t fit on a spreadsheet, but I’m so proud of that.

Minus 1 Makes 13

Loucchie was sent back to his old school.
"He needs to be sent to a home for bad kids," said his mother.
"He needs to be taught how to read," I said (to my Assistant Principal).
I'm scared for him, for his future, and for society in 10 years when he is angry at all the wrongs that have been done to him.
But he was only unofficial.
And I still have all the officials to worry about.
But still...I worry....about the one who left....and now instead of avoiding his building as I walk to the bus I look for the kid with the attitude and the beat up knuckles who saved his ice pops to show his grandma and who doesn't know all the letters of the alphabet and I walk slowly past his window, hoping he'll see me and shout my name, but there's only the sound of the ice cream truck and kids playing in the street and busses honking and the silence of one more kid....forgotten.

Still Unofficially Mine

Even though today was an off day.
Even though he was repeatedly disrespectful to my para, who none of my kids dare disrespect.
Even though he fought with kids, even my kids, during recess.
Even though he broke stuff in my APs office (where he was sent when he fought during recess.)
Even though he refused to work, or do anything, when I left for my prep, and in fact chased me down the hall and stared at me through the window, demanding with his eyes that I return to the room.
It broke my heart to see the old Loucchie and know that our relationship was not yet deep enough for me to pull him out of what ever monster had a hold of him. "DON'T TOUCH ME, DON'T TOUCH ME!" he screamed. The rest of my kids would have wept in my arms. But this is not June for us. It's September. And in September they would not have wept. You can't buy time...time is what we need.
Tomorrow we have a field trip. He cannot go, because he, at the end of the day, is here on a suspension.
I pray that he stays home....just tomorrow...and that on Thursday we build again.

And Loucchie Makes 14

He threatened to punch my face in once. Told me to watch out because the next time he saw me on "the block" I was "going to get it." I see him almost every night when I walk to the bus.
I can't count the number of times he's ran in to my classroom and cursed me out, then stood outside my locked door and screamed "F*** YOU!!!" at the top of his lungs.
2 weeks ago he called me a "stupid white bitch" and kicked another teacher as we walked to the main building.
I've written up every incident and requested time and time again that he not be allowed in my classroom or near my students.
He doesn't even belong in our school. He's on a superintendent's suspension from another school. None of that mattered on Wednesday when the suspension teacher was gone and they needed a babysitter. An aide attempted to bring him in to my room.
"He can't be in here," I said. "He's threatened me numerous times, I've written it up and requested that he not be put in here."
"They told me to have (my para) watch him."
"Well she's not here right now and he can't be in here," I said.
They left, and as soon as my para came back so did the aide, with the student.
He was ours for the day. I gritted my teeth and tried to hold back my anger. My students sat silently. I had just been defied and they all knew it.
"One word from you and you are out of here, do you understand me?" I asked him.
"Yes," he said.
And he worked. And worked. And worked. Silently. All day.
And I realized what I should have realized all along. He acts the way he does because he cannot read or write or add.
He stayed that day, an hour later than he was supposed to. He did work while my class played games and at the end of the day he asked if he could come back tomorrow. I told him we would see.
The next day he came back.
He worked....and worked....and worked.
I let him play a game with us. He tried. He couldn't. He couldn't read the words for sight word bingo. I don't show my kids the cards. He couldn't multiply for around the world. My kids have come so far. He's only beginning. His spirit couldn't be broken. He asked to come back tomorrow. I said okay.
He came back with pencils and notebooks and paper and asked to be in my class. I told him we would see. He asked for a clothespin (on our negative consequence chart) and for his name to be added to our reward system. He wanted to know what table to sit at for table points. He wants to belong. He already does.
I tested him for reading. He doesn't know all of the letters of the alphabet.
The kids have adopted him like one of our own.
I can't stop thinking of ways to help him.
People keep peeking in my room, in disbelief that I have Loucchie sitting down and working.
Actually, Loucchie has Loucchie sitting down and working.
If only it wasn't June already.
He's unofficially mine, I think. Not on my roster, but mine. Out of all the lessons I've learned this year, the power of forgiveness and second chances may just be the most powerful.

3 of my students are getting superintendents suspensions that start tomorrow. Malik was upset about his, worried about going to suspension "court" and having to defend his actions in front of a judge who would decide how long his suspension would be.
Tears ran down his face and he pounded his fists into his desk and through clenched teeth he asked, "What if the judge is white?"
"What?" I asked?
"White people lie and they never believe me. What if the judge is white?"
Yahkemp, who has returned from his superintendent's suspension believing I am the best teacher in the world, was giving him advice like stay calm and tell the truth, but Malik kept saying, "The judge is going to be white, white people hate me, they never believe me."
"I'm white, I don't hate you, I do believe you when you tell the truth, and what you're saying is very racist, Malik," I said.
He looked at me, confused.
"You're not white," he said.
"I'm not?" I asked? "Then what am I?"
"I don't know. You're Ms. Gronquist. You listen to me. You know when I'm lying."
"Now I do, but that's because I know you like you're my own kids. In September I didn't. We've gotten to know each other. You know when I'm having a bad day just by looking at me, right?"
"Yeah," he said. "And when you want to laugh but you're trying not to," he said.
"Exactly," I said. "But the relationship that we have doesn't change the fact that I'm white. If anything it proves the fact that not all white people are out to get you."
"Yeah but see you're not white," chimes Yahkemp. "You're white on the outside but black on the inside."
"What?" I ask.
"Like, you get sunburned and you can see your veins but you're not like white people," he said.
He was completely serious.
It was an incredible segway to so many conversations that happened 2 minutes before it was time to go home and now they will be gone for at least 7 days.
It will come back up. It needs to. They need to learn to live in other parts of the world.

This Week...

Mario got arrested for assaulting a student who attends the other school that shares our building. In the process he also incited a riot and hit the other school's principal.
Adony and Malik jumped Jose at lunch. The ambulance was called. There was blood in his urine. It's not just play anymore.
I wasn't there for either incident. Lunch. Before school. After school. They wouldn't do it in front of me.
It doesn't take away the responsibility I feel because they are my kids.

We're doing running records again - this time they're making HUGE gains. Last time they didn't and I lectured them for 45 minutes. I guess it worked...
It's such a mix of intensely positive and negative that at the end of every day I am exhausted.
It only grows more exhausting as my relationship with each one of them grows but the relationship is what they need so I give...and give....and give....and when they leave at 2:50 on Friday I put on my sneakers, shuffle home, collapse on my white fluffy comforter and breathe....breathe....breathe....and think about them.

113 + 70.
Today Joshua completed this problem correctly, by himself, on the board.
We all clapped. We gave him 2 cheers instead of the usual one. I got out my cell phone and took a picture of him next to the problem. What I really wanted to do was cry but I couldn’t because they wouldn’t understand why I was crying.
The para in my room (my usual para has been on jury duty for a week) didn’t understand the big reaction.
“I used to sleep on the rug,” Joshua explained.
(And when he wasn’t sleeping I was begging him to sleep so I could teach, I thought to myself.)
“And when he stopped sleeping he couldn’t add 3 + 5,” I added.
“Not even with cubes,” he chimed in.
He was beaming.
So was I.
He’s come so far.
I’m not even sure how. I can pick out little mile stones, like the day I put a frog number line on his desk and he took it upon himself to keep it spotless, even though the inside of his desk is a disaster area, or the day we were playing a math game and he shouted, “6 times 6 is 36!” and I said, “How do you know that?” and he replied with a simple, “I was just thinking what you said about tallies and I got it.”
Somewhere it started clicking for him. He can add and subtract with regrouping and is beginning to multiply….and he used to use my fingers to add…progress requires reflection.

5.1.07

No internet this week - this is from May 1st.

If I don’t say this now I will surely break
As I’m leaving the one I wanna take
Forget the end and see the hurry up and wait
My heart is starting to separate
The Fray

My meeting on Friday, which turned in to more than one meeting, didn’t go at all as I thought it would. In spite of all that has happened, I thought that we could go in, have a discussion, and come up with a solution to the situation. I envisioned coming up with a way to stay at my school, educate my kids in a safe environment, and keep nurturing the relationships I’ve spent the last year building. When it comes down to it, I want to stay. I want to fix things, but I can’t do it by myself.
It didn’t happen. 2 hours later I realized I am young and naïve and have a lot to learn about how education systems work. They can’t split my class by grade levels. We don’t have the physical space and the region wouldn’t do it even if we did. I also realized that nobody in the room (except for my Program Director) had the passion that I did for my kids. It’s easy to say you care about the kids. It’s hard to live like you do.
This makes it even harder to leave. I went back to my room and cried to another teacher for the entire lunch hour, then spent the next 2 hours teaching kids who will feel abandoned in September if they walk in and I’m not their teacher. It doesn’t matter that everybody else leaves them. I’m not everybody else.
But then today was Yahkemp’s first day back from suspension. In 20 minutes I was hit by a book that was thrown at another student (he missed and hit me, bad aim?), cursed at, and he pretended to jerk off in front of me. “Can I go back to suspension now, please? My seat is still open there.” he informed me.
“No,” I replied. “You need to be here. You’re part of our class.”
He spent the rest of the day threatening students, yelling at me, and rapping at his desk.
I’ll fill out the reports, and if anything happens it will be weeks from now.
Already the room is different.
Already other kids are fighting.
Already other kids are angry.
Already I’m reminded of why something needs to change.
Already I remember why it’s not abandoning them. It’s demanding that something be done to ensure their safety, and mine.
So why does it feel like it’s the wrong thing to do?

*Update: Yahkemp got a 5 day superintendent's suspension and a 5 day principal's suspension, which means he's suspended at another school for 5 days and at our school for 5 days.
Finally something is happening. 4 of my other kids are suspended in school next week, and 5 are suspended in school the week after that. Not that suspensions are the answer, but consequences are, and they need them. Better late than never, and late is at least a place to start.
The world will not know or care if they had an IEP. It's time they be held accountable for their actions, and it's time that we bring the focus back to learning.

The Three Musketeers

The three that are the biggest bullies, for whom there are little or no consequences, who sing and dance and fight and refuse to do what anyone tells them - they were magically suspended this week - the week that I have my meeting with my principal about transferring.
Funny how things work, and funny how quickly I forget about the chaos. The fights, the bruises, the fear my kids felt just a week ago seems gone with them down the hall. All of the sudden I'm able to make it through all of my lessons again. I have students who participate, laugh, listen. They are not perfect, but things work again. Table points, pats on the back, the teacher look. Everything that used to work....works.
They're not angry when they walk in the door.
My head doesn't pound when I leave.
I haven't thrown up all week.
I like my job again.
I've learned to forgive them again.
If only I could learn to forgive the three down the hall...and stick to my guns (bad choice of words) when I go in to that meeting tomorrow.
They gave me a good week on purpose.
They implemented consequences this week, after not doing it all year, for a reason, and it's not because they had some big epiphany about the need to be consistent.
Be strong....be strong....be strong.
This is your life, too.
It's hard to remember that sometimes.

I've been getting nosebleeds and throwing up randomly for 7 days now.
I get headaches and my heart beats fast and I dread going to school.
For the first time in 8 months it's hard to shake my kids' hands in the morning and forgive their actions the day before, knowing the effect that it's having on my physical and mental health.
But with 8 weeks left, I would not trade this experience, or any of them, for anything.
I have seen the system at it's worst, and I have done my best to fix it.
I have had kids work extremely hard for me, and because of it have numerous students leaving reading and doing math on grade level.
I have grown both professionally and personally more than I ever thought possible in 8 months.
I have remained calm in times of intense chaos.
I've showed up, day after day, to shake their hands, smile, and greet them with a cheerful "Good morning!" when others would not.
But still....it hasn't been enough....and it continues to fall apart in front of my eyes.
They curse and fight and yell and throw things and refuse to work or listen or even take home their homework, let alone turn it in.
They're more concerned with gangs and who's jumping who after school and who's looking at them funny across the room than anything school related.
Somehow, in March, it fell apart, and it's slowly turning in to something that feels like failure staring me in the face every single day.

And So It Spirals

I'm not sure what happened today, but I know it involved rocks, windows, the suspension room (where they were supposed to be during my lunch break), and their names being announced over the loud speaker.
They were out of my room for the next hour with my para, my AP, security, and the parent coordinator. Parents were called, voices were raised, many tears were shed. It's what should happen in situations where kids are out of line. Get what happened next.
My para left. The kids started to get out of control. (Still in the hallway, mind you.) The rest of the parents didn't show up. So they bring them in my room. Never mind the fact that I'm teaching. Never mind that kids are engaged. Never mind that I have no clue what is going on with the angry, out of control kids you're bringing in to my calm room. Never mind that you have no respect for me as a professional or a person. "Sit down at your seat and do your work." they said.
"THEY CAN'T DO THE WORK BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T HERE FOR THE LESSON" I wanted to scream! I gave my AP a do not even bring them in here and leave them like that look and she got the message - she stayed. Malik flipped out on the rug while Yahkemp flipped out at the table, mostly at my AP. Her presence instigated anger but I needed a witness. They would go off on anybody for anything. If she was leaving she needed to take them, and she wouldn't do that, so she needed to stay.
My AP and Malik went back and forth across the room. Don't engage, don't engage, it's not worth it, you've been having such good days I said, almost as a mantra as I rubbed Malik's back. He circled the rug like a lion in a cage. I circled with him, ready to stop him from running. He didn't. Instead he cried. Tears of anger...frustration...tears from being caged by emotions and so much that he can't control.
I don't know how to leave but I can't stay.
Stories from earlier in the week include fights and objects being thrown and students threatening suicide - they can't take the fear and constant threats and bullying...a student stormed another teacher's classroom and demanding that she not press charges for a PSP he stole proclaiming "I'm from the streets, you don't know who you're messin' with."
We called the social worker - she removed the student and brought him back to my room.
I'm so attached to them.
I don't know how to leave and it's not healthy.

Last week we had a week off of after school, which meant I was done teaching at 3:40 everyday. I could plan, or go home, or schedule meetings. It was amazing to feel so free.
Afterschool starts again this week, which means I teach until 5:00 again. I didn't realize what a big difference it made in my spirit until I had the week off.
2 and a half more months. Stay focused. It's the only way the kids will stay focused. We are not done. We can't be done. Our goals are not met.
So why does June feel so close that it's all any of us (first year teachers) talk about?

My PD

I don't know how much she gets paid, but it's not enough.
On the day my para quit and my kids went nuts, she was at my school. She came by during lunch, just out of coincidence, and sat with me for an hour while I cried, and told me, over and over again, why I was needed in that school. I didn't believe her then. I do now.
She was the first person I called when Elvis grew over a year and a half in reading.
She was the first person I emailed when my class actually mastered a math objective on our tracking sheet.
And she's the person I go to with stories of fights and security that doesn't come and a principal that has no control over his school.
She listens and brainstorms and fights...for my kids...and for me.
She meets with my principal and stands up to him in ways I couldn't. She has an organization behind her. An organization that is willing to send me to another school if things do not change at mine.
I am not on my own. I was not sent in there to drown, and I will not be forced to stay in an environment that is not safe.
She listened and in 45 minutes she made all of the chaos feel manageable.
And then she drove me home.
I would have quit that day in October had it not been for her, and now she's saving me again.
Whatever she gets paid...it's not enough to be a hero to 51 people.

Today my Adrielis asked me if I was going to be her teacher again next year.
"I don't know sweetie," I said. "That's not my decision."
"If I work really hard and I go to the 4th grade will you?" she asked.
"I don't know yet," I replied.
"I hope so. I pray every night that you'll be my teacher again," she said.
I knew she meant it.
I wanted to cry.
Or cancel the meeting I have tomorrow about transferring.
If only I had 13 of her.

Beginnings

Today we began again.
We started new reading and writing units...new math unit that is fun (with transparent mirrors). They love beginnings. Something about the possibility and all that is to come excites them, and me.
We took time to set goals for the end of the semester and talked about why it's important to set short term goals. We need focus if we're going to make it through the next 54 days together.
Today was, for the most part, better. There were only little fights. They were engaged. Nobody forgot their homework.
So why am I so...tired?

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."
-James Baldwin

In spite of a week off, a trip home, green grass, lots of sleep, and a stack of work that was finished I still do not feel ready to face my classroom.

Options

Green grass and clear skies and just not seeing them brings clarity.
This is not how people work and learn and live.
On the Friday before break my para was knocked down, hitting her head on a desk and twisting her ankle. My para is a solid, prison-guard-like lady. One of my students was on top of her. Accidentally, on his way to charge another student, but still, she was injured just the same.
No one came to my room.
They need to be separated. Their parents have been saying it for years.
They are not safe together.
They are not learning what they need to learn together.
I am not able to be a sane person with them...together.
If I wanted to break up fights all day, every day, I would not have been a teacher.
We were at a meeting for IEPs and they were talking about how decisions about students should be made by a team and I wanted to laugh. TEAM? Security doesn't come to my room. Parents don't show up for IEP meetings. Half of the time administrators don't show up for IEP meetings.
There is no team. It is me, my para, and the kids that nobody wants, and it is too much.
But they are my kids, and how do you just leave them?
But it is my life, and my career, and I could be teaching kids that listen instead of fight, working with a team of people instead of struggling, all the time, on my own.
This isn't how schools are supposed to be.
This isn't how jobs are supposed to be.
This isn't how lives are supposed to be.
So the smart thing to do is to transfer at the end of the year. I could be so much more effective somewhere else.
But how do you leave them?
Maybe you don't.
Here are my options, at least as I see them now, for next year.
1: Stay at my school and teach another class. (This would never happen because none of the other special ed teachers would take my kids)
2: Stay at my school and demand that my class is split. The 3rd graders stay with me, the 4th graders move to a different class. This would stop some of the fighting but also open up a lot of spots and who knows what kind of kids we would get in.
3: Request a transfer. TFA doesn't normally do this, and I'm not sure it's what I want, but I cannot teach in an unsafe environment for another year, nor can I bear to place my kids in an unsafe environment for another year.
Between a rock and a hard place. Do you stick it out and see if it gets better? This is my career. This wasn't just a 2 year thing for me. I can't imagine staying at this school for another year and having the spirit to ever teach again.

A New Low

"F*** Ms. G" was written in huge letters on the inside of the closet.
It happened during the school day.
Most likely during the transition before or after lunch.
It was brought to my attention by my para as the kids were packing up to go home.
No one admits to it, of course.
There was no punishment, not today at least. I don't want to punish the innocent or accuse someone who didn't do it.
I showed it to my AP, expecting a reaction at least for destruction of property.
"It was probably one of your nasty children," she said. She closed the door and left the room.
Nothing.
I took a picture of the door and left.
No planning.
No cleaning.
No grading.
No extra investment in a system where I'm constantly abused. Did I mention I got hit in the lip by a kid's head yesterday? Yeah, bloody lips are now all in a day's work I guess.
This is not what I signed up for.
This is not a healthy work environment.
I have two more months and then I have some big decisions to make. So much of what goes on in my classroom is illegal. Not only did I have my 13 today, but I also had 2 kids who were supposed to be in suspension. Paras don't come when they're supposed to. Security never comes when called.
The program I'm in is a 2 year commitment. They don't like to transfer people from their original school. I don't want to leave the program. I also don't know if it's mentally healthy for me to be at this school for another year. Kids don't know that there's any other way to be educated...it's so incredibly sad.
Teachers...any suggestions on what to do about the whole closet situation? It's still up, for now. It's the first time those words have ever been written, or said, to me in my classroom, and I don't want it to set a precedent.

Is It June 27th Yet?

Because we all need a break.
My kids and my para and my feet and my brain and my spirit.
Today we were multiplying decimals. I was talking them through a 2 by 2 digit problem on the board. Part of the problem said 2 x 4.
"What's 2 x 8?" I asked.
"16," someone answered.
"What's 2 x 8?" I asked.
"16!" they answered again.
I was annoyed. They know this. Why are they saying 16?
"What's 2 x 8?" I asked I could feel myself glaring at the kids who weren't speaking up. Why aren't they giving the right answer? I thought to myself.
"16!" they answered again with blank stares.
"Someone please use tallies or count up or do whatever you have to do because you are not focused," I scolded. "TWO TIMES EIGHT!" I said, obviously annoyed, tapping the marker on the board like I do when I'm frustrated with them. It's a habit they, too, have picked up.
Finally the speech teacher in the back spoke up.
"You mean two times four?" she asked? I looked at the board.
"Yeah," I said. I apologized to the kids.
"Okay, two times eight," I said.
I wish it had been on purpose.
The kids laughed. They joked that I needed to be on first warning of our negative consequence system.
I need a break.
A very long one.

Buckled In

Ups:
Jose stayed after school. We laughed and learned and I realized that I spend more time with him than I do my family, friends, boyfriend, or any other person in my life. He's 10 and emotionally disturbed and incredibly bright and he sits with me every day while I write my lesson plans, and writes a book on the computer next to me.

Yahkemp responded to me without yelling. His mother told me I was an angel from God.

My kids got so in to the multiplication game I made up they were jumping up and down. My assistant principal walked in to see what was going on. She saw 13 kids incredibly engaged. I didn't ask them to keep it down. I shut my door.

Downs:
I was spit on on my way to work this morning and called white cracker. I kept walking and couldn't help but wonder why some people think we're doing a disservice by being here.

There was a fight between a 9 year old boy and 10 year old girl today in the lunch room. The boy is one of my after school kids. She knocked him down, picked up his head in her hands and beat it repeatedly against the table while aides and students watched. It took paramedics over 20 minutes to revive him. The kids went on like nothing had happened. The adults were scared. I'm not sure if it was for the student or their jobs.

My para isn't showing up or calling in, which means sometimes there's someone in my room and sometimes there isn't, and it's never consistent. My kids are having a heyday with all the new faces and personalities. The revolving door needs to stop.

**We have 3 months left. So much progress needs to be made. I'm tired. Today, for the first time since I started teaching there, I felt like my school was an unsafe place to be. The kids are not protected from each other. The culture of disrespect is scary. To see it spiraling out of control and to be somewhat responsible for the outcome is terrifying. How can one affect change in this type of environment? I came here to do just that...but saying it and knowing how to do it are two very different things.**

My Poets

One of them, at least. We're in the middle of our poetry unit and my kiddos are coming up with some pretty good stuff.
Here's one of Malik's. More to come if I remember to post :)

Why?
Why in a big world
Is there fighting and tears in people's eyes?
I can't think that you can just be born in a world
Where people fight
Fist in your face
Why and again why do people do gang banging?
That is the question no one knows
So I ask why.

I wish I could scan the picture he drew to go along with it.
We're doing free verse, focusing on content rather than rhyme or rhythm or anything like that. That will come this week when we start writing raps. They can't wait....

What Goes Up Must Come Down, Over and Over Again

I'm realizing that this is a roller coaster.
That in September I shook the hands of 13 kids, asked them to sit down in seats that were (then) randomly assigned and we began a ride together. I knew there would be good days and bad days, but was in no way prepared for good months and bad months.
I'm not sure if it has to do with the weather or me or them or the academic content or a combination of things or the fact that we're all just human but this year has been incredibly up and down. When it's down I scramblelikeamadwoman to bring it back together again. This takes away my time to call, write, blog, workout, sleep....breathe...hence, my absence here.
I can't even really explain what brings us in to a downward spiral or what pulls us out. It's always gradual, and I'm always relieved when it's over.
Today I attended a workshop on reading comprehension. It was my first professional development day all year. It was so nice to wake up and know I would be a normal, peaceful person for a day. To be filled instead of just filling...to absorb and ask questions instead of constantly giving answers.
And no one asked me to go to the bathroom. All day.
Still, the workshop was only a few blocks away from my school and I found myself wanting to go visit my kiddos. To make sure they were okay....that Elvis wasn't kicking people under the table and Yahkemp wasn't goofing around in the hallway and that no one was picking on Kevin and that Kevin wasn't retaliating. I missed them. A lot.
It was a nice reminder that, even in the spring, when we're all in a countdown to summer, I love my job at least 8 days out of 10. There are probably 2 days out of 10 when I get up because it's my job and I have a rent to pay and food to buy and it's just what adults do. They get up and go to their job even when they don't want to. But the other 8 I go because I love my kids and believe in what I'm doing. On the 2 'pay the rent days' I beat myself up for my attitude and lack of passion. I tell myself that my kids deserve someone that wants them 5 days a week, 10 months a year. Then I remember what I was told when I came in to this job, and the attitudes of so many people in other professions, who chose their jobs solely to pay the rent, and I realize that my percentage is pretty good.

Sunshine

New York is finally melting.
I walked home from the gym today in capris with my coat unzipped. The streets were crowded with street vendors and kids and piles of snow and ice that are finally starting to melt.
Even though it's 40 degrees and I return to 'real life' in 5 days, it feels like summer. I haven't touched a paper or gradebook since Sunday.
I've cooked and hung out with friends and gone to the gym and laughed and talked to my roomates and caught up on email and remembered what it felt like to be a person and not a ball of stress and anxiety.
4 months until summer.
I hate thinking like that, but it's what will get me out of bed come Monday morning.

I am not in control of my school or my kids's home lives or "the system" or special education in New York City but I AM in control of my classroom.
Friday morning I reminded us all of that. We had a class meeting about behavior. I admitted to them that I had not been doing a good job of rewarding their good behavior. They admitted they had been disrespectful. We reflected upon our first semester success and what had allowed us to achieve it. We talked about where they wanted to go with this semester and how they were going to get there.
I need to be more consistent. Even when I'm tired and sick and preoccupied.
I need to continue building culture. I stopped and it slipped. This weekend I printed pictures of our field trip - a set to put up in the room and a set to give to the kids. We came up with new rewards for when they fill the cotton ball jar, and we spent the day of our cancelled field trip (the bus never came) playing games. Clue, Battleship, Guess Who...anything where they had to interact with one another. At the end of the day we ate ice cream and laughed and told stories about the year so far. I didn't teach much. Not math and science and reading. I taught them how to function and how to get along with one another. It's a lesson that has somehow been forgotten. We're raising kids that don't know how to be people. On Friday we were people...together...and it was nice.

Our union person is just down the hall.
She knows what is going on.
Nothing is done about it.
Welcome to teaching Special Education in the Bronx.
This is why I'm here.
This is why TFA is here.
Kids like mine need good teachers.
Today was more of the same...not just in my room, but in my entire building.
Something needs to change.
The system needs to change.
I'm once again brought back to the big picture...
Wendy Kopp...please save us...

I can't decide if it was a step back or just progress in a direction that I wasn't planning on but today there was a fight.
No, 10 fights.
Probably more like 20, but I lost count.
From 1:00 - 3:40 I was restraining someone. The entire time. Not always the same person, not always from the same fight, but always restraining someone.
My back hurts...my neck hurts...my arms hurt...my head hurts...my ego hurts.
My babies don't fight, not anymore, not with each other.
Today they did.
There was a brawl in the lunch room involving only my class. There was no "what did they do to you" reaction. It was only them. 10 of them going at it as we ran from table to table trying to break up what looked like the most dangerous one at the time.
It was them - all them.
I was disappointed. Embarrassed. Angry. Security came, took 8 of them, went on lunch 5 minutes later and sent them back to my room, still fighting.
For 2 hours I yelled, lectured, restrained. No para. No aides. So illegal. The speech teacher stayed and tried, like me, to get kids on task. We called...the office, in house suspension, administration. My door rotated with the kid who was most angry at the moment. I couldn't send all of them out, nor did I want to. I also couldn't keep all of them.
I still haven't figured out what brought on the fight. I wasn't there when it started. It continued after they were on the buses. What kept it going was looks. Tears. Clenched fists. Pride.
This is what September was like.
Today I bled. Scratched on the arms and hit in the jaw.
There will be no reports filled out because, according to our contract, we're not supposed to break up fights.
I guess I'm supposed to let 13 emotionally disturbed, lack of impulse control students go at each other while security sits at their desk and eats lunch or refuses to come to our building. It's cold out, you know? And I signed up for this. They're special ed. If I heard that one more time this afternoon, I was going to punch somebody.
"Man, I don't like this class," said Joshua in the midst of the craziness.
"You know what?" I replied in a moment I can't decide if I regret or not. "I don't either right now. This is embarrassing. We're not showing people how much progress we've made, but we're in this together. We sink together we swim together. Nobody is leaving."
The last time there was a fight like this in the building the teacher packed her stuff and didn't come back.
"Tomorrow's a new day," said Malik with a smile on his face. He waved to me as he left. So resilient, I thought to myself.
On the bus he punched a kid in the head and ribs.
I'm showing up tomorrow with my life vest.

Significant Gains

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid348471276/bctid353578845

The organization I'm a part of pushes us to achieve "significant gains". To catch kids up academically so to speak.
The focus is on reading and math.
We have investment plans and tracking tools and endless amounts of data.
The people at "the office" are very good about focusing on all of this. They see the big picture -the numbers across the country - how we're "affecting change" for thousands of kids in schools from NYC to LA.
That vision is what brought me here. I was driven by a desire to make significant gains and teach kids to read and add and multiply and write so much so that I left my family and the life I had built in Minneapolis to start over in New York City. 5 months in to this my idea of significant gains has changed.
I don't see numbers or visions of organizations anymore. I see Joshua with his chubby cheeked smile, Jose with eyes that light up when I call on him, Adony who smiles when he sees me walk through the gate in the morning, even though he tries to hide it, Mario, who follows me around until he gets the help he needs, Amanda who gives hugs so long I have to remind her you only hug for 5 seconds....and on and on with their quirks and personailities that have no place on a spreadsheet.
They're my mission - guiding them through this year of their life. Reading and math are only a part of that. Leaving them without giving part of myself and without taking part of them with me is cheating all involved. They are my significant gain.
The link above is to a video a teacher at my school jokes should star my students.
Significant gains, to me, is so much more than my kids' reading and math data. It's their ability to interact with other people. It's their ability to trust me, as an adult, a white person, and an authority figure. It's my ability to spark in them a curiosity that makes them want to learn.
It's knowing that in 5 years they will be in school, not on the street or in jail, and knowing that I did everything within my power to make that happen.

Even during weeks like this one, where I only work 4 days (11 hours a day, mind you), and my kids are managable...no big fights or disasters to speak of....my bed calls me the minute I walk in the door.
By 7:30, I have to constantly remind myself that I am 24 years old. It is not normal for me to go to bed yet, even though, every day, I am physically and mentally exhausted by 3:40.
I wonder what it's like to have a job where you leave with energy...
Something tells me I'd miss the moments that exhausted me.

Back

Today they were excited to learn.
To have me back.
To be back in their routine.
They gave me hugs and pictures they drew while I was gone. They didn't stop smiling for the first 45 minutes. They also didn't stop asking questions and telling me stories. Reader's Workshop today was a waste...I think we all needed some time to re-connect. They comforted me in a way I didn't know I needed but in a way that was very natural to them. We're a family, with a culture all our own.
"If you ever leave for that long again, take me with you," said Iran.
I smiled. He didn't. He was serious.
Today they reminded me how much I loved my job.
I didn't even realize I had forgotten.
But I had.
I couldn't help but look at them and think of our September and October...when fights happened multiple times every day, when I cried at the end of every day and fought back tears as I stood in front of them because I felt so hopeless.
Today I stood in front of them and wanted to cry because I felt so...at home.

Jose has a brochure.
He carries it in his back pocket.
It was given to him by his priest. I've never seen the brochure in detail, just when he pulls it out briefly and waves it around, making some claim like, "This brochure makes me not lie!" (after he's just told a lie) or "This brochure makes me not hit people!" (after I just caught him hitting someone).
His 10 year old, emotionally disturbed mind either does not want to or cannot understand what the priest said to him when he gave him the brochure, but he carries it around everyday with the best of intentions, and it was his answer to the worst news I'd given them all year.
My grandpa had died and I would be leaving for four days.
I'm not sure which part of that sentence was worse for them - I'm pretty sure it was the last part.
Some said very grown up, mature things like, "He's in a better place," or "I'm sorry for your loss."
Others said things like, "If you're leaving I'm coming with you," "Don't leave us here," or "We're not going to learn anything when you're gone because we're going to be bad because we're always bad when you're gone because we want you to come back."
Jose was the first person to blurt out a response. He whipped out his brochure and, without raising his hand, yelled, "If I pray real hard this brochure will bring your grandpa back to life. Can I do that? Can I pray really hard and he'll come back?"
I knew right away the 10 minutes I had allotted for the be good while I'm gone conversation was not going to be nearly enough.
We had a 30 minute conversation about death and my grandpa and the memories I had of him and what I would be doing for the next four days when I wasn't with them.
"Will there be candles on the casket?" asked Joshua?
"I'm not sure," I replied.
"You're going to have a fun vacation with your grandpa," said Adrielis.
"It's not a vacation," I said.
"Yeah, he died. Duh," said Mario.
I gave him the that wasn't appropriate look.
He apologized, more to me than to her, which wasn't what I wanted, but is what usually happens.
I had the most open and vulnerable conversation I would have for the next week that day, the day he died, with a group of 8-13 year olds. I didn't cry or get angry at the amount of questions or attempts to make small talk. It wasn't until I left that I realized what an accomplishment that was.
I missed them...worried about them...am afraid lessons weren't taught and if they were that they weren't taught the way I wanted them taught in spite of the fact that I left super detailed plans.
Tomorrow I go back to normal life. My kids. Only a week ago I got a call at 4 in the morning. It feels like it's been forever...

Faith

Our first fieldtrip was a chance for me to learn what happens when you put faith in your kids.
They come through. All of them.
It went as well as it possibly could have.
My emotionally disturbed, lack of impulse control, self contained even during lunch babies were much better behaved than the 'gen ed' kids.
They skated the WHOLE time. They helped each other up, held hands if someone needed help balancing, supported each other in ways I had never seen before without me asking them to.
I took pictures and smiled and laughed and skated with them (for the first time in my whole life).
My plan was to not skate, but by 11 Joshua and Amanda were on their hands and knees begging me to be on the ice so I rented skates, said a little prayer (or 100) for myself, and braved this new experience with my kids. They surrounded me.
"We'll catch you, don't be scared," Elvis kept saying.
"You're doing great! Just let go of the wall," encouraged Iran as he skated circles around me.
"Go faster, you're never going to learn if you don't go faster," said Mario.
My kids....pushing me just like I push them.
Eventually I let go of the wall, then picked up speed, then helped other kids as they learned to skate. They boys couldn't resist the urge to teach me to skate faster and before I knew it I had Iran on one side and Mario on the other, holding my hands, skating around the rink, all of us with smiles on our faces, me praying I did not wipe out in front of my 13 year old students.
We were vulnerable together.
There was no making fun of each other, no put downs, no fighting.
Joshua bounced as he walked in to the park. "I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I think I'm going to explode," he said. I've never had someone squeeze my hand so hard...
Later, as he skated between another teacher and I, he put his head on my arm and said, "Ms. G, I love you."
"I love you, too Joshua," I replied.
"No, Ms. G. I really really love you."
I smiled and looked over at him. By now it had begun to snow. Joshua, my little 10 year old who spent the first 2 months of school sleeping on the rug because it was the only way I could teach the rest of my kids, had now earned a field trip. He went from refusing to write his name to writing entire pages in his kindergarten handwriting...from screaming when I asked him to subtract to begging for double digit subtraction to ''exercise his brain.'' He's changed. I've changed.
He skated and stuck his tounge out to catch snow flakes and hugged my arm. "This is the best day of my entire life," he said.
I didn't know what to say, so we just kept skating.
It could very possibly be mine, too.

Firsts

Tomorrow will be our first field trip tomorrow - ice skating in Central Park.
11 out of 13 of my kids are going.
1 isn't allowed to go because of his behavior, the other kept home by his grandma who is afraid for his safety given the fact that we will be ice skating. I'm not sure if she's more afraid of him falling or the fact that his 10 classmates will have blades on their feet.
It was a huge decision...leap...for me to decide to take nearly all of them. Most of them have never been on a field trip before. It went from a reward to a culture building opportunity. A chance to show them I trust them to behave in public and that I believe they all deserve this experience.
Let's hope we all make it through it with our sanity and body parts in tact. :)

Done

By day three we had all lost focus. They wiggled in their seats and my heart raced as I walked around and observed them. They all had numerous stretch breaks. Julius dropped his pencils at least 30 times. Iran wore his glasses on the back of his head. Mario spent more time coloring in the letters in the text than he did answering the questions.
"Focus." I said.
"Sorry," they replied.
They didn't want to disappoint me. I had already disappointed them. It was too hard. Some of them didn't have a chance. I took the test along with them in my head as I walked around. Some of them chose wrong answer after wrong answer. Some of them used the strategies I taught and did well. Others were in between and I won't know how they did until we get the test results back next fall.
All of them looked for my approval constantly. In pats on the back, high fives, lottery tickets, thumbs up....I couldn't give them anything. When they didn't get it they second guessed themselves and changed answers over and over. Christopher erased one answer so much it made a hole in his paper.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"I NEED YOU TO HELP ME!" he said in the most intense whisper I'd ever heard.
"I can't, but you know this. Just do your best," I said, putting my hand on his back.
Just then the region monitor walked by and gave me a dirty look.
I walked away.
Christopher broke his pencil, threw it at the board and looked at his test as tears began to fall.
He did well - probably passed. Even so, he spent the next 3 days glaring at me. He felt betrayed.
I've allowed them to become overly dependent on me without even realizing it.
We take the state math test in March. Before then I must teach them to be confident in their own abilities. To not look to me for every little thing...to not say my name 100 times a day...to not need me there to feel successful.
I failed them by being there too much. By not allowing them to handle their own situations. By protecting them too much...advocating for them too much.
We've all failed them by teaching them test prep instead of content.
On Friday test prep for the math test started. We take it in March. After the math test, Science test prep starts. We take the state Science test in April.
Goodness.
I can't handle any more countdowns.
On Friday during reader's workshop Julius wouldn't quit smiling.
"What are you so happy about?" I asked.
"We can finally learn something again!" he said.
And then I smiled...for the rest of the day.

0 Days

“Last day, be good” Yahkemp wrote on our test prep count down.
My little enforcer…he’s not so little, actually. He wears his pants below his hips and has an attitude so big I actually rejoiced the day he earned a suspension (which he never had to serve…welcome to special ed), but after 2 months he’s finally mine, just like the rest of them, and that alone makes me smile when he writes things like ‘be good’ on the board.
We left it for the day.
Tomorrow is day 1 of the ELA.
“Will it be hard?” Christopher asked today.
“It will be challenging,” I said. “But we’ve been working hard and if you use the strategies we’ve been working on you’ll be just fine.”
“She means it will be hard,” Joshua said.
I smiled. We know each other too well. They read, but not well enough. They write, but not well enough. They comprehend, but not well enough. It’s going to be hard.
“I expect you to do your best. I expect you to try and not give up. You are as prepared as you can be and you’ve worked very hard. No matter what, I’m really proud of every single person in here.”
It was probably the quietest I had ever spoken in my classroom. They all heard me. You could have heard a mouse run across the floor. Thank God one didn’t.
“What if we fail?” Malik asked.
“Then you work hard on your portfolio and we take it to (the Assistant Principal) and I fight for you.” I said.
“Okay,” he said, looking down at his desk.
“You’re going to be fine,” I said.
I’m not sure if they believed me because I’m not sure if I believed myself.
Ready or not, the test begins tomorrow.

Back

I took a break from being Miss G.
I was a daugher, an aunt, a girlfriend, a friend, a sister, a grandaughter, a cousin, a niece, and a roomate.
I got used to answering to my first name.
I ate when I was hungry and didn't talk so loud I gave myself a headache.
My feet didn't hurt at the end of every day and I slept without dreams of kids and their lives and what they should have or could have learned the day before but didn't because I'm still a first year teacher trying to survive.
I played and slept and laughed and remembered what it was like to be....well....me.
I didn't think about the ELA.
But now, with school 13 hours away, I'm refocused (and am thinking about the ELA).
I need to figure out how to refocus my kiddos. I'm really excited to see them tomorrow :)

Something I wrote before Christmas but never posted...

Tomorrow is the end of the semester.
Time to celebrate! Reading successes and math advances and the simple fact that we’ve made it.
There will be certificates and posters and a test prep pep talk by me and food and little cups filled with goodies from my mom (thanks mom!) and brownies from me.
We made it, babies. You’ve learned things, too. Maybe not as much as I wanted you to learn, but more than some people thought you would, which is something, right? Today I told you I was looping with you. You saw it as a reward and a reason to work hard J
I have so many stories to share about this week, my spirit is just too tired to share them.
I’m tired and focused on next week…on my family and the holiday and the togetherness I haven’t felt in far too long….on singing Silent Night in a candle lit church and how, ever since my niece was born I haven’t sung because I’m too busy holding back tears because somehow I always forget how good if feels to be home.

Today Joshua Stopped Talking

For 1o minutes.
Then another 10 minutes.
Then another 10 minutes.
Thank God for mini pretzles and timers.
The long story will come later. All of you special ed people that have been trying to help me with behavior plans - it finally worked!!
Let's see if it works again tomorrow, and if I can get him to actually work, not just be quiet so that I can teach and not have to constantly speak over him. (all bolds because that's how I speak all day because Joshua never quits talking) - UNTIL TODAY!

The story, the long version, will not be posted here. There's too much emotion involved...too much realness, even for me, to share. In short, I have a medical condition, which my students now know about. They found out in the worse possible way. I didn't get to tell them....they were all in tears, and then they didn't see me for 2 days. The staff at my school couldn't have been more supportive. Neither could my kids. I, in spite of so many things that go wrong on a daily basis, am blessed.
Strangely it was almost what was needed to bring us back together...to remind me just how much I love them and just how much they love me, even though they really have no idea how to show it.
In the days after I had so many people asking me why I was here, at this school and in this city.
"To teach," I told them. "Those are my kids."
I didn't feel it needed more of an explanation. Some people smiled. Some just shook their heads. Either way, I think they all believe me.
I love those kids, maybe not more, but differently than I've ever loved anyone. I'm ALWAYS on their side. Not to say that they don't get a consequence when they're in the wrong or that there aren't days when they frustrate me, but in the morning I get up to fight for them. I live my life, 5 days a week, for them. I've never done that for anyone before. The fact that I only have 13 of them only makes it more intense.
I'm looping with them next year, which means that my entire TFA experience will be with these 13 kids. 3 months ago I would have considered it punishment. Now I can't imagine having anyone else teach them.
I can't wait to see them tomorrow morning; to walk up the sidewalk littered with chicken bones and into my tin building with bars on the windows and teach them something.
PS - On Friday we had a graduation of the level A,B,C, and D level books. (Which are beginning kindergarten level - eek!!) My kids took them from the baskets and gave them to the speech teacher, then I had some kids come with me on my prep to get M, N, O, and P (end of second/beginning of third grade) books from the book room. After school I rearranged the shelves and added the new baskets. I hope they're as excited to see them as I was! Go my babies for working hard to read on grade level!!!

Optimism Returns

Sometimes all it takes to make you look up is hitting rock bottom.
This day will be remembered, by all of us, forever.

13 Days

-A para who hasn't shown up for 2 days.
-Kids who are increasingly disrespectful to each other.
-A staff on edge and trying to adjust to the fact that there is a room sitting empty while others are overflowing with desks and kids who are falling through the cracks of a broken system.
-Today we started class jobs. They have to earn their position. 9 out of 13 have yet to be hired.
-We slip back in to disillusionment. In spite of the gains that have been achieved kids go home to a culture that hasn't bought it - they haven't really bought it, and I'm not sure if I can sell it.
-13 days until the biggest test any of us have had all year and sometimes it's very very hard to love them.

"There's beauty in the breakdown"
Frou Frou

There is opportunity in this. Today we wore jeans and sneakers and prepared for a day of work. Not just teaching, but explaining and moving and cleaning and continuing to fight this battle that seems to be forever up hill.
It started with our AP telling my friend's kids that she left because they were bad, then splitting her class up among the other two fourth grade teachers. They're not hiring a replacement. A class was split as desks were pushed down the hallway in two separate directions. Classes of 22 turned in to classes of 30 overnight.
During the day her kids were in and out of my room, some in tears, some just being obnoxious. I ate lunch with others, some guilty, some angry, all with questions.
The 'bad' kids from the other 4th grades were in and out of my room today, needing a safe, quiet place to come and learn. This is not going to work, 30+ of them in one room. There's too many of them with special needs. Too many of them that need too much attention. Too many of them that really should be in my room full time. They can't be, so instead they'll come when they can't handle it in their own room anymore. When the cramped space and fast pace is too much for them to handle. It's not legal and it's not what MY kids need but at some point everyone else's 'bad' kids became my kids, too.
There's a lesson in this...an opportunity to come together as a staff and a community. We supported each other today. Listened, laughed, talked, vented...persevered together. One day at a time we'll make it.
"I'm glad you're still here," one person said.
"I can't believe she left and you stayed," said another. "You have the crazy kids."
There's beauty in the breakdown.
I do have the crazy kids and I love them. I refuse to leave them unless I am physically unable to teach them anymore.
We'll look back and realize that this was a turning point.
There is no looking back...only forward.

Right back what is wrong
We move along
All American Rejects

Today a teacher at my school quit. Not just any teacher. A fellow 4th grade teacher who was getting her masters in special ed. A first year teacher I would have dinner with on Friday nights of weeks we had both had a little too much of our students and our school. A teacher who's room I ate lunch in because my students are now self-contained during both lunch and recess. She was not only my colleague, but my friend and confidant. Yesterday at lunch she told me she was quitting. I didn't believe her. She'd said it many times before.
Today she didn't come back. Her room was empty. She was gone.
There were no goodbyes, not to me or her students or administrators.
She was just gone.
Over the phone we talked. I was shocked, then sad, then angry, then numb...then I went back to my kids.
MY KIDS. Who have learned to read and subtract with regrouping and multiply and can tell you all about why static electricity happens.
MY KIDS. Who made me want to quit almost every day for the first month but who I can not imagine walking out on now.
MY KIDS. Who work their butts off for me.
MY KIDS. Who other teachers hate and can't control and don't appreciate.
This system is broken. Things don't happen the way they should. Kids and classes and teachers and entire schools fall through the cracks but at the end of the day some of us are standing up and taking responsibility. These are MY KIDS. This is not my system or my curriculum or my school but they are MY KIDS and I will NOT abandon them.
It's time for people to stand up and fight for them because they haven't been given the skills they need to fight for themselves.
I am so incredibly angry and all I can do about it is get up tomorrow and be the best teacher MY KIDS have ever had.

19 days

Anxiety.
The result of planning (and teaching) 3 and a half hours of test prep a day.
It's what we'll be doing until after Christmas.
We're judged on this. All of us.
Oh my goodness.
Please let it be over already.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Neither will moments like today when Adony and I both realize that he has jumped 9...NINE Fountas and Pennel reading levels since September.
This is the kid who told me I was wasting my time with him in the mornings.
The kid who freaked out when Jose stepped on his foot and drug me down the hall in bare feet in my effort to restrain him.
The kid other teachers are afraid of because he's so big and...well...angry.
Neither one of us could quit smiling today as he read a level K book and understood it.
Maybe he will drop out and maybe he won't pass the damn ELA that is just around the corner.
But by the time he leaves me he will know how to read on grade level.
It's my mission and I refuse to fail.
It will not be televised but it may very well change both of our lives forever and that's what we're here for right?
To be changed...

Home

Today Jose tore up an entire notebook of paper and sprinkled it all over the rug. He then laid down and made snow angels and said in his toddler voice, "I'm making snow angels!"
There was no punishment or reward that could have stopped him. I tried. Instead I kept teaching, the rest of my kids kept learning, and Jose kept making snow angels until he was done and I made him pick up all of the paper.
He tried to use the broom. "You made the mess with your hands so you can pick it up with your hands," I said.
"Okay!" he said. He bounced as he picked up every single piece of paper.
It was a moment that reminded me that there are times I have no clue what to do with some of my kids.

Then Malik threw a pair of scissors at Mario. Child proof scissors are not so child proof when they are thrown in anger across the room.
Almost hit by the scissors, Adony hid under his desk.
None of us could stop asking what had happened - it seemed completely random.
The cause? A math worksheet they both thought was theirs. Nevermind the fact that there was an extra one on the floor (one had fallen)...After school Mario and 5 of his buddies waited for Malik. I requested that he be escorted to the bus. Unfortuneatly I cannot always be there to protect them.

I need a break. A home where I am not in charge of anyone's safety or education.
2 more days and I head to cold weather and good vegetarian food and friends who became family during my 5 years of college. For the first time in my life, I'm actually hoping there's snow on the ground when I get off the plane in Minneapolis.

Gains

Somewhere in the time between the end of May and now my kids learned to read.
Maybe it was during the summer, or maybe my attempts at teaching over the last 10 weeks actually resulted in progress.
Either way, they're breezing through the EClass (our reading diagnostic). Some of them jumped 3 and 4 levels in some areas. The average growth was 2 levels. That's almost a year's worth of growth. That means that my little Joshua has grown a year and a half in reading since the end of May.
He came in reading on an end of kindergarten level and he now reads on a mid second grade level.
When I showed him his progress he asked me to take his picture.
"I've never had a smart day before," he said.
I wish I would have had my camera.
I left school on cloud 9.
I can catch these kids up.
I can get them ready for general education and LIFE.
Holy buckets.

I cancelled their field trip.
For throwing pens and fighting and cursing and refusing to do work and not listening to directions.
It was not a logical consequence.
It was not fair.
In 10 seconds I took away something we've all looked forward to for over a month.
But the respect that they used to show is slowly fading away and something needs to change.

I feel like I lost focus.
Like this stopped becoming a mission and started becoming an effort to survive.
Like the passion is there but not like it used to be, then maybe again I associate passion with the rigor of institute when really that was closer to insanity than passion.
I love my kids.
I think about them all of the time.
They are a part of my everyday life, even on weekends and holidays when I don't see them.
I am not teaching like I should.
I am not assessing like I should.
My instruction is not driven by data as much as it should be.
I let my kids get away with not walking in a straight line because I don't have the energy to teach it, even though I know it will save me time in the end.
I do the things I have to do (like bulletin boards and portfolios and grad work and grading and planning) but the creativity is gone, lost in the overwhelming number of never ending tasks.
My kids work silently and instead of rewarding them I relish in the peacefulness.
There is not a sense of urgency, even though we know the ELA is only 33 days away.
How do we get that back?

Somewhere within the past 2 weeks we started having more and more days like today.
When a majority of my kids are on 'good day' in our negative consequence tracking system.
When they LEARN and actually do their independent work successfully on their own.
Where they work together and hold each other accountable for behavior in the classroom.
Where kids notice the room is messy and clean it without me asking them to.
Where I'm not on edge or stressed out and don't have moments where I think, "Oh my God, I don't know how to get their attention right now."
If you walked by or in my room today you would have had no clue I taught 13 emotionally disturbed/violent kids.
I come home thinking, okay, this is my job, and I like it.
Who'd have thought 2 months ago I would ever say that.

Professional development was really 8 hours of too much overwhelming information.
Teach to the test.
Don't teach to the test.
Start now.
Don't start now.
8 weeks left until my babies show what they know on the ELA. Our school year won't be even half over, but if they don't pass, they'll be retained.
After school I added new books to our library and graded their morning journals. A lot was accomplished today, and my classroom and spirit are ready for my kiddos to come back tomorrow.
In spite of all of this, I can't stop thinking about 8 words said to me by an administrator.
A person who's job it is to HELP me help my kids pass these tests.
"A****, we know he won't pass the test."
He's the one I read with 2, now 3 days a week in the morning.
The kid who stays in during recess to do book reports.
My 13 year old working as hard as he can to get out of the 3rd grade.
This past week we took another 'practice' standardized test. I handed it to him and pounded his fist on the desk. Then he cried.
I almost did, too.
He couldn't read it, we both knew it, and all he could do was guess - how do you guess at short answers? He has the potential to be very very screwed, in spite of all of the work we're doing.
But for someone else to write off the hope and the work and the POSSIBILITY that both of us have - the knowledge that he WILL learn to read - it's all I can think about.
All I could think to respond was, "He WILL pass that test, no matter what it takes."
She laughed.
I couldn't be more motivated.

Janitors and Parents

Of all the people in my life, janitors and parents were my heros today.
After witnessing my scolding from my AP for not filling out a form to get my printer fixed, and I responding back to her that a broken printer was about the last thing on my priority list, one of the janitors came back to my room at night and fixed my printer.
The same janitors that instantly clean up bodily fluid, fix broken lightbulbs, close my windows when I forget, climb ladders to get Jose off of the roof when he decides it would be a good idea to hang out up there, and rescue me when I get trapped in the school yard are now fixing my computers.
Janitors are the unsung heroes of my classroom.
Most days I feel like they're the only people who believe in my kids.
Even in the moments when I don't, they do, and they, for some reason, believe in this white girl from Kansas who came to teach the class nobody wanted.
And then there's my parents, who listen to the good and the bad and still answer the phone at the end of the day, and then send emails that say, "No matter what ... Dad and I are behind you all the way. Our support and faith in your ability and decisions is one constant in your life."
They're a seatbelt on this rollercoaster that I chose for myself.
I could leave tomorrow and have a place to call home.
2 places, actually.
That knowledge is what allows me to stay.

I don't know how to fight for myself when my kids seem so much more important.
Professional development and missed preps and illegal ratios seem unimportant when I look at all that needs to be accomplished.
Today I got scolded for not filling out a form to fix my printers.
I really don't care about printers.
Could we fix my kids first please?

Recruitment

Part of TFA's recruitment strategy this year is having current corps members replace their myspace and facebook pictures with a banner linking to the TFA website that says, "2 years from now you won't recognize yourself."
Clever, but kind of scary.
We arrived at institute these idealistic people who couldn't wait to spend the next 2 years saving the world. Now so many of us are burnt out, overworked, discouraged, and in bad need of a hair cut, but who has time when you work 70 hour weeks?
We see each other on the train and in the gym and many times the conversation consists of a weak smile and hope that eventually life will get better than this.
It will...at least that's what we're counting on.
Someone asked me today if I would recommend TFA to upcoming graduates.
It's not about recommending. It's an incredible organization that has the potential to change education in this country. It's about coming prepared to give yourself physically, emotionally, and mentally.
Before your jump at the thought of changing the world, know that it is not easy and that never, not even on good days, have I felt like I'm saving the world (because we're really not - we're first year teachers trying to survive). They say that to you all the time. They prep you for this to be the biggest challenge you will ever face, but there's lots that doesn't get said even in the 17 hour days of institute.
I wish someone would have told me I would have fights in my room almost everyday, and that there would be no where to send kids after (or during) their outbursts/meltdowns, because there's really no one in the school that can manage them.
I wish someone would have told me that violence is the culture of my school, and that eventually I would become numb to it just like my students have, and that this numbness would leave me questioning who I am and why I chose this as my profession.
I wish someone would have told me that I would think about quitting at least 2 times a week.
I wish that someone would have told me that idealism is not what gets you through this. The big picture is sometimes only seen at the end and on many days the only thing that gets me up in the morning is knowing there are only 2 more days until Friday.
Instead, they told me that at the end of the day, I wouldn't be able to imagine my life without these kids and what do you know...they were right...so maybe at the end of 2 years we won't recognize ourselves....
Hopefully we figure out how to squeeze in time for haircuts.

She Couldn't Resist

Or at least that's what I'd like to believe.
My para came back today.
Despite the fact that she talks on the phone during class and is often late and sometimes falls asleep during lessons, I wanted to give her the biggest hug ever.
My kids shouted her name when she walked in the door like it was Christmas.
She tried to hide her smile when I gave her the letters they had written her on Friday.
Even with their chair throwing, melt down antics...she couldn't resist.
Something about my kiddos is powerful :)

“This city’s made us crazy and we must get out.”
Maroon 5

From the bottom you can only go up, right? That means tomorrow will be a better day.
Friday brought drama. Friday was full of kids who were off even before they walked in the room, drama between my para and principal, seeing first hand what happens to kids with emotional disorders when they are (or feel) abandoned, and the chance to see what happens to my classroom when all of this happens on one day…
It started when we said the pledge 4 times. None of the fourth grade classes were participating so we stood outside in the yard and said it over and over and over…
Christopher was having an off day – yelling, attempting to hit one of the girls, tipping over desks and throwing the contents around the room.
Drama between my para and principal resulted in her quitting – walking out at 10:30 in the morning. It was not a discreet departure – she told everyone goodbye, let my kids know she was not coming back, the whole nine yards. As she walked out the door Joshua begged her not to leave. “I promise I’ll do my work!” he pleaded. “COME BACK!”
“It’s okay,” I reassured him and myself. “Sit down at your seat.”
My first plan was to ignore it – move on with our spelling test and writer’s workshop, but one by one they cried until 12 of them were in tears.
We could not move on.
I passed out their writer’s notebooks. “It’s okay to be sad and to be upset,” I said, “and it’s okay to cry when we feel sad or upset. One way to get out our feeling when we’re sad is to write.”
I gave them 20 minutes to write or draw or sit quietly and they did. Most of them wrote letters apologizing for their behavior and begging our para to come back. When the timer went off we had a brief discussion where they asked me a lot of questions I couldn’t answer…why did she leave, is she coming back, why don’t people like our class…I told them over and over again it was not their fault. I don’t think they believe me.
The rest of the day was chaos. Me trying to push us forward academically and my kids feeling abandoned and unable to focus on what we needed to learn.
Worksheets and activities got us through the day, but not before at least 7 fights and 2 kids running out of the room and around the building.
My kids are not getting what they need and it’s my fault for not advocating for them.
I’ve never been so emotionally drained in my life.

In an effort to recover mentally and escape the rain me, a roomie, and friend went to Boston. Rented a car, drove, ate, explored, listened to music…I came home feeling rejuvenated but now, with Monday morning just around the corner, I find myself counting down the days until Friday.Do people really live like this?

How To Save A Life

Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
The Fray

We spend 2 mornings a week together, reading level A books as he eats breakfast in my classroom. 'The cat jumps over the couch...the cat jumps over the plant..." He struggles less and less each time and never complains that he's reading kindergarten level books.
He was my biggest behavior problem - now he's my biggest crier.
Where kids responded with anger they now respond with tears, my disappointment in them the worst consequence many of them could imagine.
On Tuesday, in between lines of a story about a balloon, he brought me closer to tears than I have ever been with a student.
"You know, Ms. G, I really appreciate what you're doing with us but me and M, we're gonna drop out."
"What are you talking about?" I asked. "You guys are both doing great."
"Yeah but we blew it. We're too old. We're just gonna be in here until we old enough to leave."
3 more years and they'll be old enough to leave. If they're not retained any more they'll, at best, complete the 7th grade.
At first I thought he was kidding, until the book remained on the same page for 20 minutes and I found myself pleading with him...trying to convince him that he was too good for the streets and this life. That I cared about him and would do whatever it took to get him to succeed.
"You always say that but it's too late," he said.
"It's never too late. We're going to get there together," I said in a voice that begged him to not give up.
He's the kid I restrained 2 Fridays ago.
The kid who was the biggest thug in my room until his mom, in a meeting I demaded before I would let him in my room again, admitted to me that neither she, nor any of his 4 brothers, can read.
It was at that moment, as I held him while his mom yelled, that I committed to do whatever it takes to give him everything I had.
People keep warning me not to give too much - not to try to save these kids because most of them don't want to be saved, but I don't know how not to.
How not to ask their side of the story before condeming or run outside when I hear them fighting during recess or hold them when they cry because they've finally realized the severity of their actions.
I don't know how to not fight for them or how to mentally leave them at school. I don't know how to teach them subtraction with regrouping so that it actually makes sense and I don't know how to get them to walk in 2 quiet, straight lines but I do...each and every day...know how to care about them.
Unfortuneately, that's not enough and if they're going to have the chance I want them all to have I need to step it up and figure out how to do the other things....

Chaos comes in bits and pieces.
Yesterday I had 7 extra kids in my room - 9 at some points.
That means 22 kids in a 12:1:1 environment.
Not good.
We started out learning, then keeping busy, then crisis managing, then just coping.
Iran walked around the table repeating 'blup, blup, blup'.
"Iran," I said with my hands on his shoulders. "This is not an appropriate reaction. I know there are a lot of extra people in here but we need to try really hard to make good choices," I said.
He stared at me.
"Blup, blup, blup," he said.
Malik was doing backflips off of chairs.
Christopher kept asking for me every 5 seconds.
"Christopher, I know there are lots of extra people in here and it makes things confusing, but I really need you to work on being a good role model right now," I said.
They don't know how.
They don't cope well with new people or a change in schedule and all of the coping mechanisms I've taught them (go to the rug, read a book, draw, hang out in my 'Austrailia' corner) were not available because THEY WERE FULL OF EXTRA KIDS.
Not just extra kids - the kids who were having behavior issues in other classrooms, because someone decided it makes sense to put them all in one room.
I'm beginning to have some serious questions for people who decided 12:1:anything was a good idea.

Maybe...just maybe

I can do this.
Today was good.
I woke up ready to go to school because everything for the whole week was planned.
During my prep I talked with a student who was having an off day instead of frantically making charts for the rest of the day.
During lunch I helped other 4th grade teachers instead of planning, and after school I planned math and guided reading for NEXT week.
Suddenly my life has purpose.
I know where we're going, even if it's only for this week.
I realized today there have been no fights in my room for over a week. At the beginning of the year I was happy when there were only 5.
Maybe...just maybe...we...together...can do this.

7 Hours of Mad Productivity

What I did today:
2 grad assignments
All of my week's grad reading
2 sets of progress reports (the ones I send home every week and the quarterly ones required by my school)
Graded 3 days worth of standardized tests
Graded spelling and math unit tests
Entered and sent my student achievement data to my program director
Wrote detailed lesson plans for the whole week in every subject (first time I've ever been able to mentally do this - yes!!!)

My brain is tired, but ready.
That's a good feeling.
No lesson planning at night this week - wahoo!
Now if I could only figure out how to work 5 days a week instead of 6...

Herbivores Have Mad Love for Worms

Today we went on a nature search. After observing nature for the past 2 days and learning about ecosystems for the past month, today we got our hands dirty…literally.
They came back in with clear cups full of worms, dirt, and leaves.
One of the worms escaped to the floor. My big bad thug boys were going to stomp on it.
“STOP!” I shouted. “DO NOT KILL THAT WORM!”
We all stopped. I had just yelled in my classroom. That was the only time it had happened that it had not been an issue of safety.
“Sorry for yelling but we do not kill living things in this room,” I said in a more calm voice.
“Man, herbivores have mad love for worms,” said Mario.
“Yes we do,” I said. “I’m sorry I yelled – it was not necessary or appropriate,” I confessed.
“It’s okay Ms. G,” said Jose. “You can work on it.”
My little echos…
We went about our day with worms watching us from their place on individual students’ desks. (Try letting them dig up worms and then taking them away – doesn’t work.) At the end of the day Iran asked me if I would like to keep his as a class pet.
I smiled and told him no. All of the worms needed to leave at the end of the day.

Today was a good day. Hands on activities all of the time = engagement = human like behavior from my kiddos.
Now if I could only figure out how to give them that each and every moment of their time in my room.

I Heart Electric Pencil Sharpeners

Our biggest issue today was pencil sharpening.
Our school doesn't provide pencils or sharpeners and while it wasn't such an issue in the beginning of the year, it is quickly becoming one.
The hand held pencil sharpeners I bought for my kids lasted about a week before they were either stolen or broke. Guess the $0.99 store isn't good for everything after all.
I had a few that still worked and had been letting the kids use them until they started breaking the lead in the sharpener, at which point I became the official pencil sharpener.
Bad idea.
Today, on our first of 3 'practice test' dates when my students take last year's ELA test to show them how much the need to learn before they take this year's ELA test, the pencil issue erupted.
They all needed 2 pencils.
No one had more than 1.
The ones they had weren't sharpened.
That meant that I was sharpening 25 pencils with a hand held $0.99 pencil sharpener in the moments before they were to begin a test.
The problem only got worse throughout the day so tonight I decided my sanity was worth $20 and bought an electric pencil sharpener. They will be allowed to use it - 1 at a time - first thing in the morning and right after lunch.
This should save my sanity and my fingers!
Now...anyone feel like donating pencils?

Better

Today was not great, but it was better.
Learning happened in my classroom today.
There were no physical fights.
Anger was released by Jose coming up and asking me for a hug instead of punching someone.
Transitions were smoother because I wrote directions on the board.
No one complained that the classical music was 'wack'.
When the math coach walked by singing 'Chicken Noodle Soup', one of my kids reminded him that, "that's not appropriate for a business setting."
Progress is what was needed on this day where the thought of seeing my students again made me want to call in sick.

THE SYSTEM IS FAILING MY KIDS.
No para again today.
Me and my 13 babies made it through on our own, struggling through every mini lesson, guided practice, and independent practice...every transition and melt down and change in schedule.
Slowly but surely it became Friday afternoon.
10 minutes until it was time to go home. In our own ways we were all counting down the seconds.
Then Jose, in his excitement to come to the board to participate in our math lesson, accidentally stepped on Adony's foot.
Jose is tiny.
Adony is almost 6 feet tall.
Adony gets up from his chair and gives a look to Jose that tells him to run.
Over backpacks and coats and garbage cans Jose runs with Adony right behind him.
He squeals - it's a game to him.
He trips and falls and Adony begins kicking him.
He realizes it's not a game and curls up into a fetal position.
In the 5 seconds it takes me to run to them from across the room Adony kicks his back, ribs, and head.
I restrain Adony and tell Jose to run down to the in school suspension room.
2 of the other boys run next door for help.
They all saw it before I did - Adony had snapped.
He began pulling on anything he could - the ledge at the bottom of the white board, chairs, door knobs, trim along the closet. "Relax, relax," I kept saying. Usually he would be calm by now. His body only got more tense and his heart beat more and more rapid. It wasn't until he was pinned up against the door, with my hand between the cold metal and his chest that I realized how serious this really was. He was beyond the point where he was able to bring himself back and was pulling me along with him to go finish what he had started.
"Call security," I yelled to the teacher next door, my bare feet on the floor. You can't restain kids who weigh more than you when you're wearing heels.
Before I knew it the social worker, in house suspension worker, and a literacy pull out teacher were all at my rescue...sort of.
They yelled.
And yelled some more.
They told me to let him go and he tore off down the hall.
In bare feet I caught him again. He was not ready for freedom.
Jose was removed from the building and as they once again told me to let him go I knew that no one else knew that his heart was racing and tears were streaming down his face.
I looked back at my classroom and realized that my kids were silent. 2 of them were crying.
I gave Adony over to security I entered my room and shut the door. He screamed and pounded the metal with his fist.
I WANT MY TEACHER. LET ME IN TO MY CLASSROOM! It was not a request. It was a demand. It took 3 of them to physically restrain him as I braced myself against the door so he could not open it.
"Put your homework in your backpack and your chairs up on your desk. It's time to go home," I said in a voice so calm it suprised me.
They did.
Silently.
By now at least 30 kids were in the hall.
This is the closest thing to chaos I've seen in a very long time.
One by one they left.
Outside Adony stared at the wall and waited for Jose.
Before they left there would be another, smaller fight.
I walked back in the building to pats on the back and comments like 'I don't know how you do it,' or 'I'm glad it's not me in that room all day.'
10 minutes after my last student left the yard I left.
It wasn't until I got on the bus that I realized my whole body was shaking.

No paras or push ins today.
Illegal in more ways than one.
Too many kids, not enough help, assemblies and library time that throws us out of routine.
Today was not a great day.
Tomorrow will be better. Fridays are always better.
Days like today I realize that despite sometimes good intentions, there are many people at my school who a) really don't care where my kids end up in life and b)are scared of my students.
Fear combined with people just earning a paycheck does not set a first year teacher up for success.
I have to fight day in and day out to make sure my kids are getting what they deserve.
Today they didn't.

My roomie has a quote on his door that says, "It is impossible to teach without the courage to love, without the courage to try 1,000 times before giving up."
I love my kids...their funny sayings, their artistic ability, the fact that they come to school everyday and how they hug me SO tight when they're angry...but there are moments when one can't help but feel overwhelmed by the situation and how hopeless it feels at times.
Everyday they show me what I'm made of. I hope I do the same for them.

Mice

I came face to face with New York City this weekend. On Friday evening, my nice quiet apartment invaded by a mouse.
He ran across the hall in the kitchen and I told myself to ignore it - it had to be my imagination, right? After all, I'm TERRIFIED of mice and both of my roomates were gone and my dad was 1000 miles away.
Pretty soon the mouse ran in to my room.
I screamed.
The mouse ran from my dresser to the bookcase.
I screamed more.
The mouse ran from my bookcase to my closet.
I stood up on my bed and began to scream even more.
I called my dad - no one was home.
I called a friend, who laughed. "What am I supposed to do?" he asked.
"I don't know but there's no way I'm leaving this bed until something happens to that mouse."
In the next 3 minutes the mouse ran back and forth between my dresser, the bookcase, and my closet, me screaming each time the furry little grey thing ran across the floor. At one point it stood in the middle of the room, not knowing where to go next, and I just stood on my bed and screamed.
Soon my friend arrived to rescue me along with one roomate. The mouse was not seen for the rest of the night, but appeared the next day ON OUR KITCHEN COUNTER.
Where are all of my midwest boys when I need rescuing?