Papers, Schmapers

Grad school in the summer = not fun
I've been doing grad school and moving, hence my large absence here. Below is a brief I wrote about a "race issue" in my class. Part of the anecdote was already written here....

I teach 13 students, 8 of whom are diagnosed with emotional/behavioral disorders, all of whom are either Black or Latino. I am White, from the Midwest, and totally out of place in their culture, although somehow they didn’t seem to notice until 2 months before school was over.
In late April, two of my students got in a fight at lunch and as a result of that fight, were given a superintendent's suspension. In order to be given one of these suspensions you must first go to a hearing. The day before Malik was to go to his hearing about the fight, he began worrying about his fate, particularly about unfair judgment on behalf of the judge. Yahkemp, one of my other students, had just returned from a superintendent's suspension and was attempting to comfort Malik in his stress. Below is a dialogue that happened during choice time, a time students have to play math games, read, or draw at the end of the day as a reward for good behavior.
"What if the judge is white?" Malik asked as tears ran down his face.
"What?" I asked.
"White people lie and they never believe me. What if the judge is white?"
”Man, if you just stay calm and tell the truth, they on your side,” comforted Yahkemp.
"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. G. 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.
“You’re really white?” asked Christopher, joining our conversation from across the room. “But are you Dominican or Puerto Rican?”
“Neither one,” I said. “I’m German and Swedish.”
“So are you Mexican?” Christopher asked?
He asked the Dominican, Puerto Rican, or Mexican question at least 3 more times, while my other students all listened. The next thing I knew my assistant principal was pounding on my door – we were late for dismissal. We left it at that - them not knowing where I came from because I couldn’t explain it to them in a way they would understand.
The conversation that day made my students curious about my background. They asked numerous questions about my family and my niece (who is biracial and who they had seen before in pictures.) While it did not break down racial barriers in the classroom, it allowed me to see myself, and white people in general, through my student’s eyes. White people, to them, have money, go to private schools, and are against who they are. Since I was their advocate, teacher, and shopped at C-Town, I could not be white.
We had two more months before the end of the year and I meant to bring in pictures of my ancestors, maps of where they immigrated from, and stories of what life was like for them as a child, but then I realized I didn’t really know. I know I’m German and Swedish. Other than that I don’t know much about my culture. It was not something I celebrated or studied as a child, and I would say my culture is much more midwest/Kansas than German or Swedish. I grew up giving the farmer wave to people on the dirt road that takes you to my house. I never back talked in school and you most certainly never had a discussion with race with someone that had a different skin color than you. On pg. 31 Jones encourages teachers to ask the question, “How do I want their lives to have been impacted by the time they spent with me?” I want my students to look at white people and not assume that they have money, go to private schools, or are against them. I want them to see my skin color and not be afraid of it. The conversation that I had with my students that day was uncomfortable for me. It was against how I was brought up, but in order for both my students and I to learn from and about each other these conversations must happen, and they must be open and honest. As their teacher I must face my fears, open myself up, and learn alongside my students.

Adopted

Adopt a Classroom - the coolest website ever! Today we were adopted by one of my college professors. My kids are going to be so excited! Now I can get computer software that they've been begging for. (Teacher's choice money covers things like paper, pencils, sharpeners, glue, scissors...things kids are supposed to supply themselves but don't/can't.)
What a great way to start off the year - I'm so pumped for school to start!
Want to help? Leave a comment and I'll send you our link - I don't want to link our page here because then it would tell you my school, and that's a little too public for my comfort. But any little bit helps!

Life Without Babies

It took 4 days to miss them.
After 6 I was ready to go back.
I'm not sure my life is ready for me to go back and my spirit definitely needs the break, but I miss them. My laughter is different without them.
The 2 weeks since school has been over have been spent at home, first in Minneapolis and then in Kansas, with friends and family. Being a person with a first name, driving a car, eating lots of food that is bad for me and taking 4 hour long naps. I returned to a hot city with sidewalks that burn my feet and not nearly enough green grass or fresh air. As we hunted for an apartment yesterday sweat ran down every inch of our body. We want to eventually move back to Minneapolis. To cooler weather and green grass and cleaner air...a place that is closer to our families and a lifestyle that is more ours.
And Target. Oh how I heart Target. That you can drive to. That's not in the Bronx.
Nevertheless, yesterday we walked....and sweated....and walked some more to find a new place to live because for now I need to be here for 13 reasons. On September 4th every single one of them will be in one classroom...my classroom...again.

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.