Opening the Year

Tomorrow will be the first day I go to school to get ready for the upcoming year.  (I did one day in early June, but that was not targeted toward The Coming Year - just maintenance-type stuff.)  One of my little goals for the year is to plan out my weekends at school (as opposed to my usual "Oh, hey - I'll just go in and do some stuff on Sunday).  This is intended as a time-management strategy.

You see, when I go to school on the weekend I invariably have a lot of stuff I should've taken care of on Friday afternoon waiting for me.  Friday tends to be Enormous Messy Project day.  If I know I'm coming in on Sunday, why stay to clean it up?  I forget that I am coming in for a reason - say, to make a month of homework and pull materials for an ELD unit.

And then when I get to school?  It's Sunday - the weekend!  I am supposed to be relaxing and having fun on the weekend!  So clearly I should do the things I like: planning out the arts and crafts extensions for a thematic unit, making a new bulletin board, organizing my pens.

This ends up being a colossal ADHD dramafest, wherein one of the following happens:

1. Although I plan to leave at 1:00pm, I stay until 5:30, forget that the alarm is on a timer and re-arms and set it off while locking the back wing.  By the time I get to the front and disarm it, I am having a panic attack and my eardrums have exploded from the noise.
2. I do exactly what I want to do, leave at 1:30 and end up coming into school at 5:30 Monday morning for a massive clean/pull/craze extravaganza.  This is a bad start to the week.
3. I do exactly what I am supposed to do and feel bitter and grumpy about it.  I engage in shopping therapy, typically purchasing arts and crafts supplies for the classroom.

Anyway, it's not really ideal.  I'm thinking that perhaps setting myself a list of required, conceivable and Absolutely Do Not Even Think About It tasks will help me manage more successfully.  So for tomorrow, I will definitely be:

• laminating several sets of flash cards for long-term viability,
• mapping out where the furniture goes this year, and 
• hanging fadeless paper and bordette on all appropriate surfaces.

I may also consider:

• Moving the library to the other side of the classroom (this is a major endeavor),
• Plugging in the computers and printing out game sets, and
• Hanging filters and contact paper on all the windows (to cut down on glare/heat).

However, under no circumstances may I:

• Start making homework packets or
• Pull out all my quilling materials, quill a demo project and plan a craft unit.

While I'm on a list-making adventure, my other little goals for the year are:

• Write at least five successful Donors Choose grants,
• Keep/Train another Resident,
• Support the Ex-Resident, and
• Avoid all psycho-social interpersonal drama at my school site.  My school site is highly functional and the adult culture is okay, but a high-needs environment is high-stress for everyone.  Last year I tried to help people mediate their way through the pressure cooker and it's just too much vacuum-sealing for me to be healthy and stable.

Optics Again, Scattered Pondering.

So long-term, I don't think it's such a great idea for SFUSD to claim annually that they are laying off 140 administrators.  They're not; they never are.  This year they have pretty much everyone except Garcia on the list of no-renewals.

Still, every year they non-renew-notice 140 or 168 or 100-odd administrators and mention it to the press.  Then they fail to mention the contracts they offer those people in the end.  I think this feeds the idea that administative offices are hugely bloated; if you are not following closely, SFUSD is losing 100+ administrators a year and always has another 100 that can be cut.  It suggests thousands of out-of-the-classroom jobs that don't exist.

Apparently SFUSD only wants 37 elementary layoffs, which is nice from a class-size perspective.  Schoolwise, not so nice (I think the number must be all of the first year teachers in the District?).  That's at least a third of our classroom staff.  (On the other hand, if that's really all they're doing this will be my first year without a certified mail on or around 15 March since I started working in SFUSD.  Huh.)

I'm wondering if there's going to be another round of letters in June for the 60 day window if the budget proposal and tax vote fail.  Certainly the 1 March meeting should be the only Board vote for March, right?  Running another list at the 8 March meeting would be skeevy.

I have this image of our school site and its highly photogenic, television-ready and quoteable educators as the Beckets to the District's King Henry.   Low layoffs or not, going Beyond the Talk means pushing for critical analysis of our decisions from an equity lens.  We'll be pushing that again this year.

Actually Different and All That.

Every so often, I encounter one of those helpful, speak-truth-to-power types who opposes overmedication of children.  I also oppose overmedication of children - doesn't everyone?  More supportive environments that affirm the varied ways we learn, interact and feel safe would be good for everybody, right?  Modern life and its office work and repetitive-task labor and lack of free time and play spaces and significantly reduced sleep and down time and and and...anyway.

So far so good, but a sad proportion of these people goes on to explain how Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is actually just a response to modern life, an acquired syndrome.  Occasionally they'll confide that if people were just more disciplined they wouldn't have these impulse problems.

This is not true.

I spent a good portion of my childhood hurling myself over bushes, sliding down hills on concrete, jumping into impressive puddles and answering crucial science questions like "How many eggs can you smash on the sidewalk to see if they will fry before someone notices?*"

Another big chunk was dedicated to high-level tasks like decoratively furling the edges of every page in my reader, toe-tapping, surreptitiously tossing crumbs out the window to seagulls after lunch and answering crucial life skills questions like "What will happen if I borrow this camera and take thirty six moodily-lit photos of the toilet?**"

So despite the myriad opportunities for play and physical activity, I had plenty of energy for bad ideas.  (I also had ADHD klutziness despite lots of proprioceptive development.)  After awhile, it may not occur to you that the idea is bad, but you will know that not everyone acts like you do and that the weirdness is not really that positive.  Arguably, that is great impetus to control oneself, but the thing with ADHD is...you can't.  Not all the time, at least.

As an adult, this has some positive outcomes.  Like a lot of my fellow fidgeters, I am fast on the uptake and I work well on my feet.  So if the kids just aren't getting something, I can usually shift gears and attack the problem another way.  I also understand that certain classroom management strategies are not going to work, because I get that children want to do well and want adult affirmation and are not goofing off just to upset you.

On the negative side is dealing with the anti-drug anti-ADHD coalition.  After the people who don't believe in ADHD are the people who assume that those who are ADHD want everyone drugged (I don't; for the record, I was largely undrugged and while this had horrible consequences at times I also have a repetoire of coping strategies that is a huge bonus now).  Then there are The People Who Read This Story About Ritalin This One Time, who ask you obnoxious questions like if you use your medications to help maintain your weight.***

ANYWAYS.

The point here was originally to tell a story about a meeting I had to attend last week.  There were five people at this meeting and two are diagnosed ADHD.  During a presentation, a car alarm went off.

I don't know what you do when a car alarm goes off.  I, however, immediately tilt my head to the sound.  That provides me with new visual interest in the shape of a list of consequences developed by some older students sitting in the meeting room.   Man, that alarm is loud.  At some point, I remember that I am supposed to be listening, so I demand my brain to focus on the speaker.  "Don't listen to the alarm!" I tell myself.

Of course, the alarm becomes even louder.  Is it louder only in my head or everywhere?  I don't know.  I scan my fellow meeting-ers to see if they notice the alarm, under the theory that if it is actually getting louder they will be paying attention to it too.  My boot tie is lose.

At this point, the other ADHD person in the room told the presenter that neither she nor I had heard anything said since the car alarm had started.  She also tapped the table with her pen so that I turned my head back to the table and heard her comment, which was entirely true.

We know our kind, what can I say?  When understimulated, I will find something to occupy me.

Conveniently, Kindergarten is interesting enough, with enough going on and need for eyes on the back of my head that I can keep good focus.  And given a paper and a pen or some scissors I can get through any meeting (providing I can get up and walk around the room regularly) and even know what is happening.




*As many as are in the refrigerator.  You will get caught when you go ask the neighbor for some more  eggs.  However, the real trouble comes from the misuse of the water hose during the clean up process.
**You will teach Kindergarten.  Over the years, you will experience scientists in action inquiring into high-level issues like "What happens if I put all the red counting bears down the drain?" and "What is the best way to stick a paper towel to the bathroom ceiling?"
***I believe in obnoxiously answering these questions by saying things like "No, actually my medications can make me so thin that I can't shop anywhere but girl's department, am losing my hair and have serious anemia.  Thanks for asking."