Too Fast

The only 2 words that can accurately describe how the end of the year is shaping up.
The days fly by, and somewhere between Monday and Friday are moments where I try to fill them with everything I can; knowledge, confidence, courage...wisdom.
On Friday they met my parents - interviewed them for 45 minutes about Kansas and life where I grew up. I'd never seen them so engaged in 2 people for such a long time.
My 5th graders graduate 4 weeks from Monday.
20 days, minus PD days, 2 half days, and all of the school they miss at the end of the year, and our time is almost done.
Panic - where did the last 2 years go? Did I do enough? Give enough? Will they forget? Will they be angry when I leave? What does the future have in store for them...and me?
There's only so much I can control, and after June 28th I have to trust someone else to teach them.
The thought of that makes me physically sick.

Fessin' Up

Today I told my AP I was leaving at the end of the year.
It did not come out like I'd imagined it.
It was forced, by the fact that our preference sheets are due tomorrow and she will be gone. I didn't want to turn in a paper saying "I'm not coming back" without telling her first...so at the end of a tiring day I sat down in her office and just told her.
I didn't thank her for her help as much as I should have or intended to...didn't tell her how much the last 2 years had meant or how much I would miss the school and my kids.
The best of intentions sometimes just don't play out the way you think they will.
"I'm sad," she said.
"Me too," I replied.
And it was pretty much left at that.
Both knowing there was much more to say, but not much point in it being said.
It's time for a change....this is not the first time change has felt so hard. 2 years ago everything inside of me was telling me not to come here. I'm so glad I did.

Get so caught up everyday
Tryna keep it all together
While the time it slips away
You see I know nothing last forever

Imagine there was no tomorrow
Imagine that I couldn't see your face
There would be no limit to my sorrow
So all I can say

I wanna tell you something, give you something
Show you in so many ways
'cause it would all mean nothing if I don't say something before it all goes away
Alicia Keys

The end of the year is full of paper work and looking forward, but I find myself hanging on desperately to every hour I have with my kids, for fear that I will regret the decision I made to leave them. Slowly but surely people are finding out that I am leaving and explanations of why make less and less sense...to me, and to them. This is the time of year where its easy to forget all that happened in earlier months, and instead you look only at the success that all the struggle produced.
Sometimes they attempt to convince me to stay, other times they only wish me luck and say how much the kids will miss me. "Only 2 more pay periods left," said someone today. She said it with hope. It made me panic.
2 more pay periods to teach my kids all I can...about reading, math...life. I'm not egotistical enough to believe that they'll never have a good teacher again...but some of them need help NOW, and there's a panic that I didn't give enough, didn't listen enough, didn't teach enough....that they need more, and I'm abandoning them.
I carry a guilt with me every day like none I've ever felt before. Maybe it will be better once they know...but for now I find myself trying to impart so much wisdom in each and every moment when my kids are full of spring fever and talking about "next year when we....." not knowing that I won't be part of their next year.

Done

With grad school.
As of Saturday, I'm officially done, and graduation is May 21st.
As a final activity we had to fill out chart paper with "things we would take with us" and "things we'd leave behind"....not from grad school, but the TFA experience....from learning to be a teacher, a New Yorker, and....well....a grown up.
Some were funny, some were serious, and some gave rise to this knot in my throat that is still there when I think about the last day of school in June.
I looked around the room at people I'd known for the last 2 years. We came in thinking we could change the world, that we knew everything about urban education, and that nothing could shake us as people. I think all of that was shattered within our first week as teachers.
We were shaken, proved wrong, questioned, and and made responsible for some of the toughest kids you'll probably ever meet - the special education students of NYC's public schools.
We came in as future accountants, lawyers, investment bankers, and politicians. We're leaving as teachers. Even those of us that aren't staying in education can't help but look at the world as an advocate. "My kids" is the way we begin every other sentence, even though very few of us have any biological children.
This is not the end, but the beginning of lives changed, not just for us, but for our students.
We've made a difference. Could the impact have been bigger? Yes. Could we have been better? Yes. Is there room for improvement within TFA? Yes. But are my kids better off because I was their teacher? I hope so, because I definitely am. That's what I'll try to take with me....that....and the privilege of getting to know 13 of the most resilient people I've ever met.

Break

We've made it to the turning point.
When we return from break it will be time to begin graduation practice (for 5th grade), do intense reteaching, especially in math, to make sure kids master what they need to before they leave the grade, and fill them with all I can, academically and otherwise, before I leave.
I'm not sure that I've stated it officially here, but I will be leaving at the end of the year.
I will remain in NYC, and I will be teaching kids of the same socioeconomic population....but I will be joining a staff at a school that does it the right way. It will mean moving to Brooklyn, and working long hours (it's a charter school), and not belonging to the UFT anymore....and I'm so ready.
The only hard part is leaving my kids. With under 2 months left, it doesn't seem real.
"They'll write....you'll always be in touch....they're your babies," assure other teachers at my school.
"You'll always know them. You're a family," one said to me the other day.
"But what if they don't?" I asked.
"They will," she said.
But what if they don't.......
And I realize that I need them probably more than they need me. They have been my life for 2 years. The reason I gave up a world I had built somewhere else to move to a city where I knew no one. The reason I went in to work sick, exhausted, and stressed beyond comprehension. The reason I can't imagine doing anything else for the rest of my life.
They are not just my students.
They were the first....and goodbye is not an option.

Power

The "N" Word

In this modern day world
We seem to consume
The "N" word of hate
The slave word for doom

This word has been drenched
In red from our blood
It enslaved us like swine
Chain dragged through the mud

How fast we forget
Those lynch mobs and scars
The burnings and beatings
Those hot branding bars

Our freedom was taken
Our humanity stole
We were just that "N" word
No body no soul

Our women were raped
Some men were castrated
Black children were sold
Our race was degraded

With the crack of a whip
This word was yelled out
With each break in our necks
The rope showed no doubt

We were hunted like prey
Then put on the block
We were branded as slaves
With a chain brace and lock

This "N" word was use
To take guilt out of blame
Because it made us inhuman
To be killed with no shame

Yet after all of those years
Of that suffering pain
The use of this word
Has weaken our brain

We throw it around
Like a word with no past
But history lives on
From the shadow it cast

It's now part of our language
In every sentence we say
It shows off our ignorance
In a sorry sad way

There's no other culture
And no other race
That would embrace such a slur
Or welcome disgrace

Yet we as Black people
Have done so for years
Our dignity lost
Without feelings or tears

It's part of the reason
We will never excel
Or out-live our slums
And Ghetto-ish hell

I read this with my kids today. I can't even describe the conversation we had.
None of my kids use the word in my classroom, but many do in the yard and the street, and it is still very much a part of their culture.
"There's a lot of blood behind that word," said Yahkemp at the end.
"I'm gonna tell people not to say it anymore," said Chris.
"Yeah, me too," added Jose.
Knowledge is power.

Quality Review

She said it well here.

http://teachinginnyc.blogspot.com/2008/03/our-quality-has-been-reviewed.html

Quality reviews are a big show. Want to know how schools really are? Show up randomly. Talk to random kids, go in to random classrooms, and pick the parents you want to speak to. A great school would be okay with that.

The old Jose is back.
His journey complicated to say the least...he came in 20 minutes early today so we could go over his individual behavior plan. "Do you think I'm a trouble maker?" he asked me.
I paused.
I remembered his actions in all the time I had known him, nearly 2 years now.
Forgive....forgive....forgive....
"I think you are a very good kid who sometimes makes bad choices," I said. "But we all make bad choices sometimes. But smart people learn from their bad choices and don't make them again," I said. "They also never hurt others on purpose."
"Sometimes I do that," he said in a way that made him seem so small and me so big.
"I know," I replied. "But today is a new day, and I believe that you can change."
We went on to have a conversation about the 4 schools he has been to this year, how none wanted him, and how he eventually ended up back at ours.
"We want you here," I said. "This is your classroom now," I said.
This child, who caused such havoc in my room last year, is now back, and it is now my job to make him feel more welcome than he has felt since September.
Forgive....forgive....forgive....

From the Mouths of Others

"At the end of the day, our story is just about kids. Real living, breathing, eating, drinking, sometimes loud, sometimes annoying, sometimes funny, always beautiful, always amazing kids."
-An excerpt from a letter we received from our SpEd Program Directors

Brief Update

The Old New One is still in the psych ward/mental institution...it's been over 2 weeks now.
Oy.
My New New One is such a character and a good influence on my room.
My second long term sub just got another job, so we go back to the 'different para every day' routine tomorrow. Time, once again, to band together.
3 months left.
To educate. Inspire. Teach. Learn.
Some days it still feels like just surviving.

The New One is no longer the New One, for I got a new student on Monday. Jose, not to be confused with my old Jose, came to us with a smile and a stern warning from mom about not being on meds.
By the end of day 1 I was in love. Yeah, he's ADHD. It took me about 30 minutes to figure that out. But I've never had an ADHD kid who wasn't angry. Jose tells laffy taffy jokes. He says 'psych' about 50 times a day. And he asks 'trick questions', to which there are no answers. "That was a trick question," he says, "which means there isn't an answer, cause it's a trick, get it?"
I love him. He's little, genuine, and lightens the mood of my 13 year old, angry at the world because they're still in 4th grade classroom.
"Hey, this class is fun. We never did anything fun in my other class," he said today.
It's nice to have a kid appreciate differentiation :)

Meanwhile, the Old New One is in a psych ward, where he has been since Friday. He was taken away from his legal guardian by ACS. Keep him in your thoughts. He needs intense counseling, but we all know how those places can be. We're just hoping doesn't come back worse....

#2

The New One, who is not so new any more, but his placement so complicated that I will never use his name on this blog, received his second superintendent's suspension of the month today.
This is the most severe kind of suspension you can receive in NYC, and it involves being sent to another school.
This incident is for throwing a large rock at a class that was lined up to go to an assembly, then cursing out the teacher....but his rap sheet is such that any thing that goes in the system warrants a suspension.
Today he tore things off the door, banged on our windows, and screamed at us while kids were working in small groups. I told that principal, who replied, "that's him,".
I'm again left with the sacrificing one for 11 dilemma....but somewhere inside of me is a voice that knows that 1 is somebody's baby and a child that will someday grow up to become an adult who will remember everything we said and did to him.

Today is March 1st

Which means that in 4 months, school will be over.
I am tired.
A kind of tired that sleep, or even a week off, does not fix.

In the past year and a half my kids have made incredible growth in reading. Some grew over 2 and a half years in 10 months.
We met grade level math standards with 87% mastery even though some didn't know the addition and subtraction sign when we started.
We took field trips to places my students had never seen and proved so many people wrong over...and over....and over again.
And Mario incited a riot and assaulted the principal of the other school in our building.
And Elvis's mom died.
And some of my kids went to more restrictive settings.
And at the end of the day I walk away heavier. Sometimes I carry books, sometimes their work to grade, other times just the weight of their lives, and my own, that was relocated half way across the country for this experience and most days still doesn't really fit here.

Nevertheless, a year and a half later, it has been a long journey, and I need to wake up and do something else in the morning. It's not even about leaving them anymore. I will never leave them, I just won't be their teacher anymore.

Sometimes I sit back in amazement at how comfortable everything has become. Them with me and me with them. Gone are the days of yelling and lecturing and even waiting for long periods of time for them to be quiet so I can teach.
With each day that passes we become more and more of a family. It's been almost 2 years now since I shook their hands for the first time and the relationship we have is so incredibly powerful, the expectations so much higher than they were months ago.
We are well on our way to meeting our class goals in reading and math. Kids applied to some of the best middle schools available to them and are excited about their future.
We're changing, all of us....
Somebody asked me the other day if I feel like I'm closing the gap. I told them no. My kids are.

Quotes of the Week

"The math journals really need to be more challenging. You're disgracing my mentality."
Malik to me

"It takes a smart guy, not a tough guy, to make change."
Yahkemp
*So profound, if you only knew his gang banger, tough guy, I don't care about anything attitude. He had refused to go to his weekly counseling session that day, so I requested that the counselor just stay in the room and observe - this came as a result of the conversation about why he was refusing to go. Today he was yelling and screaming at me. But yesterday.....he was profound :)

"I ate 'em at lunch. I made a good choice." "Finally."
Julius
And we all laughed. You see, Julius has this issue of sneaking chips, candy, juice...whatever....in his pockets. One day it was a piece of fried chicken - and he eats it throughout the day. I smell it, eventually take it away, and we have this whole big conversation about when would have been an appropriate time to have eaten the food.
So today he smelled like Doritos, and I patted him down (yes, I do search my kids, and take whatever I find.) Anyways...he got this big smile on his face.
"It's my breath," he said. "I ate 'em at lunch. I made a good choice....finally."
"Yo, but you got some kickin' breath!' said Adony from across the room.
"Yes, I do." said Julius.
But his breath I can not take, and for that, he smiled :)

Happy winter break to all of us. We certainly need it.

Show Me The Budget

The phrase, "there isn't money for that," has been the mantra this year, and in true 'our principal' fashion we got a memo in our box yesterday stating that today would be the last day of both our afterschool and Saturday school programs. They can't afford to pay the teachers for extended hours anymore.Rumor is that my para will be taken out of my room. She's a sub, and subs cost money. The money to hire a permanent one, when released from the state, was put somewhere else in the budget and is now long gone, I'm sure.So illegal not to have a para in a 12:1:1, especially when The New One just last week threatened to kill my para and said that we hit him in the face when in reality it was he who placed binder clips all over his face to make marks. I refuse to teach this child without another adult in the room - the danger is simply too high. That's why he's in a 12:1:1 in the first place.And this mysterious budget that is so often spoke about is never actually seen, nor are we told where the money actually does go. We just know that our bulletin boards, charts, and portfolios are to be perfect at all times, because that, folks, is public education in NYC.

Keepin' Focused

Kiddo's midlines, as promised :)

Adony's - Titled 'My Best Friend'
My best friend Elvis who I met the first time I came to this school. He was in my class. He paid for a school trip one time. On January 8, 2008, Yahkemp told me that Elvis's mother died in her sleep and Elvis was crying because he only had his mother. The one he loved. Ms. G told me to go to the bathroom and I cried and he did not get to say goodbye. She was a nice lady who cared about her son and we all loved her. She was like family and now my best friend is in the Dominican Republic looking at his mother's tombstone. I wish the best to his family. Rest in Peace Ms. America. We all miss you.

Malik's - Titled 'Should Kids Get Paid for Going to School - Yes or No?'
Should kids get paid yes because when kids go to school on the bus or they walk they risk their life going to school. And when we are in school in the cafeteria eating lunch it could be a fier and the firetrucks take too long. And a robber could act like he is somebodys dad or uncle. This is why kids should get paid.
If kids got paid we could by our own clothes, and a phone for emergency. So if we were to get kidnapped we will have a phone to call the cops. And our mothers would not have to take out of her money that she work hard for to buy us stuff. And the government know that they have th emoney and thats why I think kids should get paid.

Ken's - Titled 'Bruce Lee vs. Jackie Chan'
Introduction
Bruce Lee is a very good fighter. He just as strong as Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan has good moves and is a good athlete. Bruce Lee is also a good athlete. Bruce Lee usually use numchucks to fight. Jackie Chan sometimes uses broomsticks to hit bad guys hard. Jackie Chan is like a tiger and is fast like a cheetah. Bruce Lee moves quick like a dragon.
Story
One day Jackie Chan came up to Bruce Lee and said "Do you think you can beat me?" Bruce Lee said "Ha ha uh I am sure of that." Jack Chan said "Well well lets fight tomorrow at 10:00 o'clock in the morning." The next morning Bruce Lee was waiting in the park for Jackie Chan. He was dressed in black pants with a bandana. He had a pair of numchucks. Jackie Chan had got there at 9:58. He was dressed as a ninja with a sword.
The battle began at 10 o'clock. People were cheering for Bruce Lee because he was quick as a dragon. Bruce Lee hit Jackie Chan with the pair of numchucks 20 times in the face. Cops had to come even the ambulance. Bruce Lee won the fight. Jackie Chan been in the hospital for 3 years.

He greeted me with a smile. "Today is a new day," he declared.
"Yes, it is," I responded. My own words, the philosophies I've taught them, come back to haunt me when I'm so burnt out that I can't forgive them.
For their words, actions...can't forget the broken desk in the back of the room and posters that have been made numerous times because they chose to tear them down and all of the things that have been stolen since the new one arrived.
But I must. I must shake their hand and truly believe that today is a new day. For me, and for them....
But I'm human, and sometimes forgiveness is hard.

Today Malik threw a desk 7 feet across the room. It broke. His books went flying everywhere.
Chris continued singing Spider Pig, and Yahkemp freaked out because I didn't believe that someone spit on him (his justification for punching them, although there was no spit anywhere on him and none of his friends saw it...hhmm...) His stepfather came, took my side of the argument, and then he yelled that he didn't love his stepfather anymore.
If these kids have taught me anything it's that forgiveness is necessary.
He was back in my room 30 minutes later.

But two other kids at my school were taken to the psych ward and one was arrested, so maybe we're not doing so bad.
Oh how the expectations have changed....

It's that time of year, when the 'important people' come in and review our school and give us our grade.
My principal is ALL ABOUT this. Most are, but mine, this is all he cares about - this and test scores, mostly because the 'important people' care about test scores too.
I wonder if they care that one of my kids' mom's died or that Yahkemp had a fire at his house or that another one of my kids hasn't had his meds since November and is slowly deteriorating before our eyes but there's really nothing we can do.
Actually, they don't care.
As long as my bulletin boards and portfolios and charts are perfect.
So that's what I spend time doing. Bulletin boards and portfolios and charts.
But I also spend time consoling and teaching and coaxing him to just stop singing the Spider Pig song.
In the midst of all of this we're doing an AMAZING fairy tales unit. I'll post some of their work here soon, when the craziness is over.
But for now....Miss G is exhausted, for all the wrong reasons.