Unsent Letters

Chris Christie*:

“We cannot ask parents to accept failure in teachers when their children’s lives hang in the balance.”

I couldn't agree more!  Few things are more important than our children, and if in New Jersey you actually have children at risk of imminent death due to lousy teachers, then reform is clearly necessary.  (To begin, perhaps you should take those with known mob ties out of your hiring pool?  I mean, if the kids are getting the cement shoes and so on...)

I can't wait to see you fighting for parents to save their children from under-funded, segregated schools.   Those schools are really important, since you don't think their parents need to retire.

So I'm sure we won't see too many more of decisions like this, since given New Jersey's financial debacle, at the very least some of that $102 million is needed for the consultants who build the teacher accountability program and to fund that Consent Decree in Newark you don't seem to keen on.

Best,

E. Rat




*I'm afraid any standard letter appellations like "Dear" might inspire the kind of sexist, vaguely threatening "joke" the Governor saves for female journalists.  And I'm not going with some high-faluting "Honorable" or whatnot.  Certainly such a man of the (1%) people wouldn't want that!

100 Day Snack Recommendations

Our 100 Day annual snack varies by where I manage to go shopping, but the deal is as follows:

1. There are nine different items, of which each child takes ten;
2. The last ten items are added by me while the child counts;
3. Those ten items are chocolate chips, the "sometimes snack" additive to celebrate the 100th Day.

This year the other nine items were:

1. Popcorn
2. Chex
3. Raisins
4. Plantain Chips (yes yes, not the healthiest)
5. Dehydrated Sweet Corn Kernels
6. Happy Puffs (this organic toddler snack thing - I eat it and had a lot sitting around at school)
7. Almonds (no tree nut allergies in this class, nor any peanut allergy so no worries about contagion from ingredients)
8. Dehydrated Apple Slices
9. Animal Crackers (again, not the healthiest but not the worst, either).

When I have time to get to a Trader Joe's or similar, I tend to use more dried fruit and the animal crackers would probably be something of equally questionable health value like sesame sticks.  I have in the past used wasabi peas, too - most of the kids like these.  (Besides, if a child reports s/he doesn't like something, I observe that there are ninety other snacks in the bag - there's plenty to eat, but on the 100th day you need 100 snacks.)

If I had a lot of nut/milk allergies I would do something with fruit - like cutting a slice of apple/pear/melon/plum into ten pieces, adding ten berries and so on up to one hundred.  This would be more expensive - as it is, even cheap 100 day trail mix is probably $30 or so.

Whatever you use, the snack is huge and the kids won't finish it, but they enjoy making it.  I think they are less tempted to overeat it because they know it is 100 things, therefore a lot.

Bad school, bad school

So what exactly is a bad school?  Does it beat you up and steal your lunch money?  Exchange emails about the stupid investors buying their designed-to-fail securities with Fabrice Tourre?

It can't just be low funding.  Some schools that get labeled bad have big cash right now, more than twice as much as some of the "good" schools.

Nor can it be simply low test scores.  Again, some schools that people agree are good have middling test scores, and others have test scores way below what they "should" be (compared to schools with similar size and demographics).

Teacher quality can't be the metric, either.  We don't have any real metric for deciding what a good teacher would look like as compared to a mediocre one, really.  And there are an awful lot of teachers at "bad" schools who have won teaching awards, gotten competitive grants, or are teaching pedagogy to new teachers to great acclaim.

Bad schools tend to hang out in bad neighborhoods, but a closer look at the demographics and crime statistics around these "bad" schools might find the label misapplied, or bring to mind Vic Warshawski schooling the Northsiders on the South Side: "You make Hyde Park sound like the the site of the Tong Wars, Mr. Devereux."

I bring this up because I'm pretty sure that bad school - especially as applied by parents in SFUSD during the Kindergarten enrollment process - is some kind of proxy statement for a lot of ugly, scabby issues in American culture.  A bad school is very likely to have few white students.  It's likely that more than 75% of the students qualify for free lunch.  And so on.  These issues have nothing to do with the school per se.  Nothing in such a student population makes it inherently bad.  In fact, it's offensive to think so.  Yet the bad school label gives convenient cover for the race and class issues we are not very good at discussing.  Moreover, it exonerates us from the responsibility of making things better - if it is the school that is bad, then the school may need to be fixed (by others), but nothing about the wider society is broken.

Certainly a high-needs student population brings up issues and needs that other schools may not share.  I once read on an online forum that schools like some of the West side elementaries in San Francisco aren't really the place for children from bad neighborhoods.  After all, those kids might need services - a counselor, a social worker, a therapist - that good schools don't have on offer.  Which is offensive on a lot of levels - children and families at all income levels sometimes need help, and if those schools are unwelcoming to high-needs students then they are self-segregating.

It gets depressing being a bad school teacher, too.  Hearing about your rottenness is unpleasant.  It also can boggle the mind.  For various reasons I've recently had the opportunity to visit a number of SFUSD schools, many of which are good.  My overwhelming takeaway was that school funding is really lousy.  Kindergarten students at these good schools were stuck to dried-out markers, crayons and old watercolors.  The Legos had bite marks.  Many of the play people had been beheaded by classes past.  Whereas in the Kindergartens at my bad school, we've collaborated on well over one hundred grants - in terms of materials, there are things we don't have that other schools do (computers, etc.), but there are other areas in which we put the good schools to shame.  Beyond providing more stuff, we're doing it on our time (and dime) - all those grants didn't write themselves, after all.  We have to do more to break even, and when we put in Herculean effort and go beyond, it makes no difference.  We're still bad teachers working with bad children at bad schools.

Fingers Crossed

Barring major technical difficulties, Team Kindergarten will submit its Fund for Teachers grant application today.  Writing it was really difficult; first there was procrastination.  Then there was general snit-having ("These questions are soooooo boring.") and a round of early technical issues.

Anyway, since we will be submitting it, I really hope we get it!

100th Day of School

Plans:

1. Make 100 day necklaces using 10 groups of 10 pony beads.
2. Make 100 day trail mix, 10 groups of 10 snack items.
3. Make 100 day pictures, 100 color coding label dots.
4. A number of the kids reported they were making 100 day collections - have fun with these.
5. 100 morning exercises.
6. Read one 100 day of school book.
7. Write about 100 somethings.

Generally I do not make such a big deal of Day 100, but this year the kids are really excited AND I know that I am exactly, precisely 100 days into the school year, and keeping the daily count systems on track deserves some kind of recognition.

Maybe Not as Adaptive as I Thought

...erk, two days in a row of being irritated with the district and i'm pretty sore, having upped weights or reps for a whole mess of different exercises.

Plus side, I will have giant muscles that will cause the Ksters to gasp with awe once it warms up and I start wearing sleeveless dresses again.

Good News, Coping Strategies, Buy in Bulk Esoterica

Good News: Some generous person or organization funded all the Donors Choose projects in SFUSD today.  I got two, one a biggie for recess equipment, which makes me feel better about not having resubmitted the grant for a loft.

Coping Strategies: Something that comes up in teaching at high-needs schools is secondary trauma: many of your students are traumatized, and that trauma is shared with the educators on site.  And there's trauma just associated with teaching in a high-poverty environment, or in dealing with systems that really aren't set up to do the best for children.  Everyone has some coping strategies for these issues, maladaptive or not.

I have a new one: every time I am upset about classroom stuff or irritated with the district's utter disdain for certain necessities (heat) or fondness for extra-legal procedures that take forever, I am going to up the weights I use at the gym.  At this rate, I will be scary cut by May.

Teacher Esoterica, Buy in Bulk: Those little cups that you get pickled ginger in sometimes?  About 2 ounces and food safe?  Those and the lids have dozens of uses: fill 'em with pre-portioned paint for easy clean up, distribute high-density snacks like dried fruit, store beads that have been sorted by color, etc.  These are so great I want to buy some for every teacher at my school and just see what other uses people discover for them.  They are not perhaps the most waste-sensitive solution, but we reuse them many times and besides, my class is rumored to be the best composters at the school.  So I figure they can have a pass to save me a little after school work.

Before the Pink Ides of March

Superintendent Garcia has been busy letting the media know that layoffs are imminent.  I suppose we don't have any of those truth vigilante journalists around here, because I have yet to see a reporter ask in return, "Hey wait - isn't that the case every year?  Why is this news, Superintendent?"

Sure, the budget situation is bad: that's annual, too.  But SFUSD has very limited ideas on how to balance their budget in lean times, and all of those ideas come down to lay off school site personnel.  It's true, as noted in the article, that employees are the biggest cash outlay in a district's budget.  But it's also true that SFUSD has done nothing to streamline those human resource costs so that school site personnel are prioritized.  Nor has there been any interest among management types for sharing the pain, even if symbolically.

So here's my list of good faith optics and actual cash savings SFUSD could consider this year.

1. At least follow legal procedure in notifying district office personnel of possible layoffs.  SFUSD likes to tell the media about all the central office staff they're possibly laying off.  Yet last year, SFUSD did not even bother to notify these personnel of looming layoffs, thereby making it illegal for SFUSD to lay them off in the end.  There was no actual intent to even pretend to cut central office staff.  SFUSD owes the teachers it's laying off better than that.
2. Cut Central Office staff.  SFUSD has a wide range of claims about the lean meanness of its central staffing, but it's not really that impressive.  Sure, the district probably has fewer central office staff than the average district proportionately.  But SFUSD is a huge district - it should have far fewer staff than a smaller one, simply because all districts need certain personnel regardless of size (it doesn't matter if you have two schools or two hundred: you need a Superintendent, a Human Resources Director, etc.).
3. Trim at the Top.  The Superintendent makes about seven times my salary and takes as many furlough days as I do.  He should take more.  It's not fair that the average teacher - notoriously low paid - is losing a bigger percentage of salary than our leadership is.
4. Top Brass Should Share the Pain.  All SFUSD upper management should take a pay cut.  If the Superintendent and the Associate Superintendent took a 10% cut each, they've just saved one teacher job.  These folks are well-compensated; they've also avoided the real financial pain that their cuts have inflicted on school sites.  It's time to show solidarity with their employees.
5. Little Cuts Don't Save Much Cash, but Build Good Will.  It's time to cut travel expenses at the district office.  The Board shouldn't be getting reimbursed for babysitting or fed at their meetings (I believe the former's already been cut, but not the latter).  Wait a year before upgrading or replacing the technology provided to out-of-classroom personnel.  Make do with fewer post-its in the Legal Office.  It's not a lot of money, but these are things school sites gave up years ago.  There is no reason for our leadership not to do the same.

The Laziest Weekend in All the Land

It's the rain, I think.  Also the football: all good bus routes begin near Candlestick, and either you get out before the game or you stay in.

Today I need to work on a grant application, plan a meeting with my Resident teacher, try to do one of those clever cooking for the week things, and prep for making color wheels and doing an experiment about hues and shade.  Not that color is all we're doing: the kids get a new short vowel this week, and we have a field trip coming up.

Science of Color

I like teaching about color, light, and color theory in Kindergarten for many reasons, but definitely the art/science projects that come out of the unit are a total bonus.  This project is easy and extremely fun.  The results are impressive, and the kids engage in a lot of hands-on learning about color blending and secondary and tertiary colors while completing the project.

Downside: unless you have the materials on hand, which I generally do, it's kind of expensive.  You could do the same project with contact paper, which is cheaper than laminate sheets, but the results are not as good.  Tissue paper doesn't allow the same color-blending effects as cellophane does.

Stained Glass Window Sheets
You will need:

• 9x12 self-adhesive laminating sheets, 1 per student
• colored cellophane (you can use rolls but these sheets are easier) in the primary or primary and secondary colors

Teacher Preparation (approximately 15 minutes):

• cut laminating sheets in half*
• cut colored cellophane into various pieces: cut some smaller and some slightly larger shapes, roll sheets and cut to create long, thin pieces, etc.
• portion cut cellophane for student use (I use cafeteria trays and put out enough for 2-3 students to share one tray)
• completed or partially-completed project so that students know what to do

Student Instruction (5 - 10 mintues):

• Explain that students will be making a stained-glass like project while exploring color blending.
• Review color blending already taught.
• Demonstrate how to remove the backing from the laminate sheet and how to affix cellophane to the sheet.  Remind students to keep the sticky side up.
• Note that all adhesive should be covered (no clear areas left) and that pieces can and should overlap.
• Younger students should be directed that the confetti-throwing approach leads to heartbreak and mess, as pieces do not stick and fall to the floor, where students will have to pick them up because their teacher is old and does not like stooping.
• Identify procedures for completing the project, cleaning the work area, and activities for early finishers.
• Send students to begin project.

Project Completion (20 - 30 minutes):

• Circulate and monitor, drawing out student observations about color and color blending.  (I like to do this while working on my own project; I stop by each table and sit with the kids for a couple of minutes before moving to another table).
• As students finish, assist in finishing the project: using the other half of the laminate sheet to seal the work closed, trimming any sticky ends, and writing students' names.  A hole punch will allow projects to be hung.

We did this yesterday and the results were pretty awesome; this is one of those projects where other teachers ask you how to do it and to borrow materials.  It's almost as cool as the primary color blending paddles the kids made last week, which are very labor-intensive but worth it.

*Alternatively, you could use two sheets per project, or simply remove half the backing from a sheet and have students fold the project over to seal it shut.  This has the added bonus of not needing teacher assistance to complete the project but can be difficult for young students to manage.

Sometimes it's so easy to see how systems meant to help go bad.  Some of it is the strange exponential brew of unrelated line items that form some really ugly whole.  For instance, if SFUSD is interested in both providing the least restrictive environment for children with special needs AND wants to save money in delivering services...well, it's very easy for that to become a block to any child receiving any services.

Of course, the issue of intentions always comes in, and there's something about central district offices that seem to cause those employed there to become very leery of school site workers.  Maybe it's seeing the whole picture: one can see that district wide a certain population is over-represented in low graduation rates/SDC placement/ED classrooms, so one views with suspicion the school site personnel proposing that a student from that population receive services.  It might be understandable, but it's still unpleasant: you have to assume the best of the people with whom you are attempting to serve children, or the children pay.

What I really dislike, though, is the way certain "procedures" that block access to assessment and services get quoted at you over and over and over, even when you know that the procedure in question is rarely followed or in fact illegal.  This is when it's very useful to carry a procedural binder and a copy of relevant case law.  It may make one unpopular with certain district folk who don't really like being (gently) corrected, but if the one in question is me, you were destined to be unpopular with those people, anyway.

I Can Shower and Dress in Seven Minutes.

That is an important skill for whenever the New York Times goes in for one of its "Room for Debates" on teachers.  The questions they debate are always rather, um...loaded.  You know, things like "Bad Teachers: Just About Twenty Percent or All of Them?"  or "Teacher Pay: Is It Way Too High, or Just Too High?"

Today's question is "High-stakes Testing: Let's Fire More Teachers", and they recruited my very favorite Pacific Research Institute anti-unionist Lance Izumi to opine ("Teachers Are Union-Loving, Children-Hating Demons").

I managed to control the snideness for the most part, but I did have to provide my learned thoughts on the issue.  And now I'm a wee bit behind.  Oops.

You know, I don't think Jerry Brown really gets school funding at all.  Also, I think someone needs to show him some post-napalm pictures, because scorched earth?  It's very bad, Jerry.  Very, very bad.  Not something to be all flippant about.

Among the fun things in his budget, he'd like to cut TK.  That's just wrong; how can you plan and cut at the same time?  I mean, SFUSD is already way, way behind in their planning, and based on the Special Education Redesign, even without cutting possibilities you don't want the SFUSD central office minds on a short deadline.

Anyway, I assume that SFUSD will patch together the budget the way they always do: mass layoffs.  I didn't get pink-slipped last year, but I imagine this year I will.  It's becoming increasingly difficult to want to bother weathering these, especially given how bad schooling really will be come November if the tax initiative fails.  ESPECIALLY when I'm already working my rear off and not terribly healthy, you know?

Still, for once I do place primary blame on the state.  I have never been amused by Brown's budget-by-threat, but this latest one is just mind-boggling.  It's worse than "A and B" budgets and worse than "Oh, hey - possible major cuts in February, okay?"  It's budget-by-Agent Orange.

Sometimes doing what's best for children means that you need to upset a lot of contented panels and people at the District Office.

Guess what: Too bad.  A teacher's contract does not require the teacher to sing the party line and agree with recommendations presented (especially when they don't actually have anything to do with that teacher's classroom, classroom practice, sartorial decisions, political leanings...in fact, when they have nothing whatsoever to do with the teacher in question).

That said, it's time for the smile with lots of teeth.

Eight New Months of Budget Struggle

Man, the Governor loves K-14 education so much!  Children are photogenic, after all.

Sadly, the love is not backed up by the numbers: his budget proposes to permanently gut the Proposition 98 floor and forgo paying back $2 billion already owed (on top of the money from the 98 suspensions last decade).

Of course, if his tax initiative passes - which assumes that he actually takes it to the ballot this time around - he is certain nearly seven billion dollars will come out of it.  I understand that the LAO finds this optimistic, but whether it's the kind of optimistic that is baseless or not I don't know.

The current teacher contract with SFUSD expires in June, so budget follies should be especially vicious locally, I think.  After all, who really needs stability or pencils?  Certainly not California's children.  Just send a cadre to go shake hands with the local politicians.  Public education is government education* - why fund it?

(Despite my resolution to avoid all coverage of Look at These Demographically Non-Representative States Vote 2012, clearly some of the GOP rhetoric is got through.)

With Bad Intentions

This week, I resolve to keep reminding myself that people have good intentions.

Superhuman work was done to arrange a necessary all-hands-on-deck meeting coordinating city workers, district people, and staff at my school site.  One of the people who needs to be there is now unavailable approximately forever and definitely not for the time set, and I am having a hard time not linking this to this person's pique at someone else around the issue.

This makes me generally grumpy, which is not fair to my blood pressure, my Resident or my students.

Tech Survey Time!

The triennial technology survey is some kind of state requirement, I think, because I've been doing them for years.  They used to be these giant time sucks that asked all kinds of questions ("Do you know how to operate a mouse and a keyboard?  If no, how are you responding to this online-only survey?") and sapped energy directly from one's typing fingers.  This year's is shorter, but has more open-ended response spaces, so I feel a little bad for Educational Technology.

I suspect that they'll be getting a number of responses like mine.  My suggestions for training courses included How To Use Data Director, an Online Resource, to Complete Report Cards When Your Classroom Computers Cannot Load the Site, Equity and eMacs: Keeping the Dinosaurs Alive, What Does SFUSD Do with Centrally-Donated Technology and Why You Can't Have Any, 20 Cook St. Needs Interactive White Boards More Than You Do, Our Committment to Equity and Your Students: Technological Equity Is Yet Another Reason to Doubt Our Good Intentions.


(OK, I didn't actually propose all of these, but I did propose some of them.)

Magical Day of Magic

Today I received in the mail a check for art supplies from an out-of-state foundation - a three digit check.  In the mail!  From strangers!  Money!  For ART!

Neat, no?

I also wore my new boots, new (thrift store) shorts and new (vintage) jacket and felt very proud of myself.  I had planned a very easy day - not too much new material, very easy group activities, etc. - to help the kids ease themselves back into school and it went very easily.

Given that I am gainfully employed with health insurance and a pension and just finished a two week vacation, I really should not be so terribly whiny about going back to work.

And yet, I am.

I spent six hours at school today cleaning up and remodeling.  I didn't manage to get a couple of things done that I really wanted to, because I spent so much time scraping glue off desks with a variety of exciting chemicals.  However, many important tasks were completed and I think the kids will be very excited to see their January 2012 classroom model.

The increasingly disturbing emanations from the boys' bathroom down the stairs will not cause much delight, but I'm sure that Prop. A will take care of whatever permanent plumbing snafu was built into that bathroom sooner or later.

New Year, La La.

I am not a resolution person, except for my annual resolution not to look askance at newcomers to my gym and eagerly count the days until they stop coming.

That's just not very nice, you know?

I do have plenty of hopes for the New Year, including no layoff vote at the 22 February BoE meeting, easy contract negotiations, a plan for TK that is somewhat more delineated than "Congratulations, you have a combination class!, getting ten more Donors Choose projects funded, receiving a bird-print funnel neck dress: you know, the usual.

For the next couple of days, I'll just hope for getting my classroom all ready tomorrow and not hitting a newbie strolling along unawares with a kettlebell.

Disrupting the System

I was reading this Tim Wise essay and thinking about the endless conflict between reform from the inside and pressure to reform from the outside.

There are all kinds of things about public education that aren't good, although they're not really the ones that education reformers are worried about.  It's a system set up by the dominant culture to serve itself; while it may not actively conspire against the oppressed, it is at best apathetic towards them.  Education assumes many white norms; we assess for things that aren't necessarily that important (and are sometimes contrary to civic wellness) in ways that prioritize and prize certain ways of learning and doing over others.

I know people who are involved with charter schools because they believe the system cannot be repaired; if all children are going to be educated, it will have to happen from outside pressures.  It's a radical view, I suppose.

Of course, on the ground it's remarkably less radical.  High STAR test scores don't correlate with healthy societies or even high-needs children going to college and getting white-collar jobs.  Nor is it really outside: few charter schools are upending the system to teach different material in different ways.  Moreover, it's a scorched-earth policy.  For those children who are in the public schools, the charters that may someday make everything better are currently making everything worse.  Charters conspire with the corrupt and oppressive systems in public education to make the situation worse for most.  Even if their goal is to eventually succeed with every child and to create a anti-racist education, a lot of learners will be sacrificed before that happens.  And those learners will not be knowingly, willingly sacrificed: education battles are in the end fought not only about our children, but on and by our children.

Generally I believe that reform from the inside is unsuccessful, and if I push myself I have to admit it's probably unsuccessful here, too.  Some of the things that make my classroom a good place for the children in it support a system that prevents systemic change.  For instance, at this point my classroom is almost entirely stocked by the goodwill and private dollars of strangers.  The materials available are good for my students; the acceptance that public financing is secondary isn't.

In some ways, teaching Kindergarten makes it easier to remove oneself from the system.  I don't give a standardized test.  Kindergarten isn't even a legal requirement for children in California; while there are standards I must teach, I have remarkable leeway in how I choose to do it.  And showing up to work each day and doing my job means that I can't look at my class and think about PreK to prison pipelines very much; hopelessness is real and not productive when you're in the thick of it.

So sometimes I feel like the battles we're having about education - about how to teach reading, about funding, about teachers and their unions, etc. - are sugarcoating helping us avoid the real argument about what school is and what we want it to be.

But I'm pretty sure that the outside pressure of charter schools aren't going to make that conversation happen.

Working Over the Break Has Its Advantages

Specifically: you're likely to have the Children's Book Project to yourself, and SCRAP will be quiet too.

I got many excellent books for the classroom and for incentives, and a mess of supplies, crafty stuff and two terrariums at SCRAP.

...Then I went to the thrift store and spent money on a gothy jacket I don't need and a pair of shorts that were probably marketed at women in their early twenties.  I don't care, they're still cute even on me.

Know Your Veterans

One of the more disappointing things about the deficit thinking Teach for America and other education reform projects is the disdain they inspire for veteran teachers.

I don't think it's intentional, but if you believe that schools are failing, and that unions protect the lazy, and all we need is some accountability and no tenure and some performance-based pay, it's hard to hold those failing, lazy, unaccountable teachers in any esteem.

It's unfortunate, because it leads to a lot of wheel-reinventing.  Chances are good that someone at your school's done a unit on ocean life before.  Another veteran knows how to get a bus for a field trip.  Someone down the hall had a student with similar needs to the child who's challenging you.  The veterans know families and circumstances at the school.  They know the secret trick to unjam the copier and what snacks the custodians prefer.  It's hard to share all this important information with people who believe you fail children every day.

Beyond that, veterans are closer to retirement than you are, and cannot maintain storage spaces forever.  Over the break, I have been given the following by retirees:

• A huge set of science posters, including one that has eggs on it, and when you shine a light on an egg you can see the type of developing chick inside.
• A photo-heavy book on life cycles.
• A set of magnetic picture frames for completing a class gift to families.
• Over two thousand stickers.
• Several cute die-cut notepads.
• Labels.

That's in just two weeks.  I've been given a literal car full of high-quality teaching materials, including thirty bins (great for material passout, crayons, etc.), the giant scissors that are part of the standard treatment regimen at the Crazy Doctor Hospital*, a paper cutter, a copy-paper box full to the brim with stickers, a class set of mirrors, over one hundred pure beeswax crayons...need I continue?

New teachers should appreciate veterans because they're doing a hard job well, and because they're all part of the school community.  But when they fail to do so, they miss out on the tangible goodies, too.

*Now providing both amputation and a cutting-edge treatment called "ticklectomy".

Vacation Thoughts

I think it's important to take part in the little rituals that make our holidays special, so yesterday I went to San Jose and wandered through a giant mall with a dear friend from high school.  (Come to think, maybe it's more high school nostalgia than anything, but hey: Santa was there and stuff.)  At some point we decided to get makeovers.  I must say, if I got up early enough to do a smoky eye/dark lip combination, I would be the most popular teacher ever.  I hardly ever wear makeup, and at least fifteen random students comment appreciatively when I do.  I have no idea why this is.

(Reinforcing my decision to sleep in rather than make up was the following trip to the gym, where scrubbing off the smoky eye left me looking like a raccoon with a strange predilection for kettle bells.)

Since I've been on vacation, I've had time to hunt down little classroom goodies.  For instance, I went to my favorite craft store and bought some ultra-fine glitter and other critical kindergarten supplies.  I've also spent time on the internet, hunting down books I want for my room.  I now have in my possession Richard Egielski's retelling of The Gingerbread Boy, which has awesome, vaguely Art Deco illustrations and an urban setting.  I also ordered a copy of "Stand Back!" Said the Elephant, "I'm Going to Sneeze!".  I do currently have a copy of this one, but I found it in a free bin and it was used for doodle paper and has unidentified spills on it.  I have not been able to unearth a copy of No Kiss for Mother at a price I am willing to pay (and hardcover), but someday I will.

Ahem.

I know people involved with the Rocketship schools, and I don't doubt their good intentions.

I doubt their understanding of children.

Any schooling that requires a nine-hour day - which Rocketship does - will be successful on standardized testing.  I have no idea why this is a question, really.  Anything that gets drilled enough will get memorized and regurgitated at the appropriate time and location.

I just don't consider that learning.  I don't consider it child-centric, or a good test of whether technology in the classroom works or if teachers should just work twelve hour days by contract.

If your goal is high test scores, it's a working model.  If your goal is high-achieving students who write well, are confident, read with ease and discuss it with depth, it's not.

Neither is our current public education system, really - not because it's not a long enough day or technologically advanced enough, but because it is not intended to be so (and is certainly not funded to be so).

Ultimately, I think it comes down to the fact that too many of the people running charter schools don't think much of their fellow man, especially the poor, and aren't really interested in an active, informed citizenry.

YAY!

I went into the important December Give to My Kindergarten Please season with my full allotment of eight Donors Choose requests.

So far so good: six projects completed!  One just funded in two days, yay yay yay.

I still have two projects left, both of which have received donations but both of which are also big (one is nearly one thousand dollars).  But even without those, my class is getting new math games, new art supplies, stuff for the listening center, literacy activities, take home stuff, and supplies with a sensory edge.

Yay yay yay!

In other news, I spent four hours at school Sunday, which was enough time to:

1. Decide where to put the listening center;
2. Clean and move furniture for its installation;
3. Set up the listening center;
4. Child-proof the listening center (color code buttons, make a key, set up work files/turn in files, etc.);
5. Make homework and photocopies for the first week back;
6. Discover that the failure of the heat had killed the isopods (boo), meaning I did not need to either set them up in a permanent terrarium or euthanize them*;
7. Get rid of any leftover food that could spoil.

However, it was not enough time to clean the room (indeed, the furniture is in a bigger mess than it was before) or get out January supplies and materials.  While I am not remodeling the classroom library until I get book boxes from a Donors Choose grant (yay!), I do have other stuff to do over break.  So I'll probably go in New Year's Day or the 2nd.  Which is to say: I have to go in, I just don't know which day.

Anyway, given that I am going to spend at least eight vacation hours at work, I encourage you to take the latest right-wing media story - the one about teachers being the highest-paid workers based on hourly salary - with a grain of salt.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics only counted contractually-required hours.  Similar to the way teachers are not contractually obligated to grade papers at home, spend an entire weekend setting up their classrooms, stay until 6:00PM to tutor students or show up much before the bell, I am (amazingly enough) not contractually obligated to go in on my vacation.

In further other news, the End of the Year party went well.  Among the things the kids identified learning in Kindergarten:

1. How to write about a book (no, really!)
2. How to play with playfoam
3. How to race isopods
4. How to use binoculars
5. How to count to 100
6. How to read
7. How to sing "Christmas in Hollis"
8. How to "do a play"

Also, the lunch - grilled ham and cheese - is one of the least popular cafeteria selections.  Generally this would be a bad thing, but I went against my long-standing "ten minute party" rule and gave them forty-five minutes.  (The longer party is more for parents, really.)  Anyway, they actually ate for twenty minutes before dancing for twenty minutes.  So the bad lunch was a party plus.

The kids took home their wreaths and some photos in frames.  It was a sartorially exciting day because I wore pants twice this week, and the pants I wore Friday had beads and sequins and ribbons on them.  Despite needing to teach an impromptu lesson ("I Don't Care How Exciting My Pants Are, Don't Touch My Bottom") on them, these pants were a huge hit.

...Hopefully they will feel similarly disposed toward the old Thierry Mugler jacket I bought myself yesterday.

*No, they can't be released.  They're not locals.  And while I could probably collect adequate pillbugs for a lesson, given three mornings in the garden, I couldn't collect enough sowbugs.  I don't actually think I had ever seen a sowbug before I got them in a FOSS Kit shipment, and they're obviously different than pillbugs.  (It's not like I just didn't notice.)  I do collect snails rather than having them shipped, release creatures that can be released, and find homes for chickens.  Heck - despite my lifelong disinclination towards chickens above ten days old, I'm keeping chickens this summer so they can live at school.  Also, I no longer do the FOSS module on earthworms with a classroom terrarium since I find it very difficult to keep the worms healthy - we do it at a local garden with their worm bins.  In conclusion, among the things I'm not beating myself up about is freezing isopods.  Which is totally why I just wrote a paragraph justifying myself.

Shocking Events!

For the first time in five years, I had a class get on the stage in front of the rest of the school and perhaps eighty parents and actually perform their song.

Not even one child stood on stage covering his or her ears.  Nor did anyone hide behind his or her third grade buddy.

A bunch of kids actually strategically positioned themselves near the microphones for maximum volume.


They were the eleventh act to perform and had had three stage practices, which I think helped a lot.  But still: the Kindergartners were actually audible while rapping AND danced in front of an audience.


Wonders never cease, seriously.

In better news...

I got two Donors Choose projects fully funded yesterday, which brings me up to three for the Friends and Family Challenge.  I have another one that needs less than one hundred dollars to complete.

This makes me more hopeful I will get backpacks for my students to take home at the end of the year and possibly even a full set of recess equipment for the Kindergarten yard.

Four Days!

In the next four days, I must:

1. Mail one set of Donors Choose thank yous.
2. Wrap all work presents.
3. Take and print photos of all students for the frames they made.
4. Find where I stuck the packing peanuts for making wreaths.
5. Chase down remaining three addresses for sending holiday cards.
6. Decide if I am making winter work packets and make them if so.
7. Complete all assessment.
8. Complete report cards (Data Director is down all break).
9. Finish teaching the second verse of "Christmas in Hollis".
10. Practice same with buddy class.
11. Complete Resident evaluation.

Adult Management

I have had a number of student teachers, and the last two years I've had a Resident Teacher - an almost full-time, full-year student teacher.  Generally I find student teachers easy to manage.  Beyond the fact that I'm pretty easy-going, having a student teacher is a shared endeavor and I'm honest about that.  The student teacher needs to have the best possible learning experience and it's my responsibility to provide what that person needs.  Also, I encourage my student teachers to tell me what they need, to feel free to question my decisions and to bring their ideas forward.  As far as I can tell, they seem to learn a lot and enjoy the experience (I mean, last year's Resident is teaching at my school).

Presently I am in a situation where I am working with a paraeducator, who I do not supervise but for whom  I am responsible for providing lesson plans, activities and whatnot.  I am finding this extraordinarily difficult.  It's hard, because the paraeducator is not experienced in the current position, so I have to give a lot of very basic directions.  This is weird for me because my student teachers are generally as inexperienced but don't need these directions.  (Presumably they get them in their classes.)

The bigger problem is that even with explicit directions, the paraeducator does not always do as I request.  This is frustrating for me since I am ultimately responsible for our shared endeavor.  Also, the refusal is not because the paraeducator has a different, possibly effective way to do things that we could try instead.  This makes me feel that the paraeducator does not respect my experience.  For instance, I am a big believer in positive reinforcement.  The paraeducator is not.  Friday, I finally laid out explicitly that I expect the behavior plan I had provided to be used.  (Previously, I had tried modeling it, writing out a description of it, explaining why I wanted to use it, pointing out how it had already been successful, etc.)

It's still not really in use.

Also, the paraeducator has been getting involved in issues that are my responsibility and that I prefer to be handled by me or my Resident, since we have collaboratively agreed on the procedures and the rationale for them.  I appreciate the willingness to jump in.  I don't appreciate having my students disciplined for things that I allow them to do.  I also don't like having to argue about why I do something (for instance, why I don't teach penmanship right now in favor of teaching students to write).  I do things the way I do them.  If you want to know why, ask.  Perhaps it's just the tone, but I get the feeling that the paraeducator assumes I do things not with a rationale, but because I don't know any better.

To be fair, most of the time when I state specifically that I do not want the paraeducator to do something, or I remind the paraeducator to leave general classroom management to me, the paraeducator does as I demand.  But the same problem happens again an hour later, over the same issue.  Or the paraeducator says something that suggests I have no idea what I'm doing in the classroom.  Hey, I'm all for critique, but seriously?  Sarcastic asides from someone who is not willing to hear my reasoning isn't useful critique.

It's also frustrating because I hate managing adults.  I generally like people - or at least try to be sympathetic (the paraeducator's job is not easy, and the supports necessary are not there).  It's hard for me to be sympathetic to someone and also need to offer corrective feedback, and my response is to hide out and hope the problem self-corrects.  Also, I know the paraeducator wants to be useful and feels badly for me since it is kind of noticeable I've been having health problems.  Knowing that the intention is good makes it hard for me to critique the bad outcome.

Recognizing this, I've been exceptionally explicit in my directions, and I am even trying to note when they are not being followed and bring it up immediately.  And when they are followed, I try to notice that too.  I also asked some of our student support personnel (the LSP, the behavior coach, etc.) to provide observation, feedback and training to the paraeducator.  I am hopeful this will make the situation more manageable for the paraeducator - after all, I can't provide that and teach my class at the same time.

In other news, there is one week of school before the break.  I need to decide if I want to provide winter packets, and pick the day over the break I am coming in to move furniture (so that I can set up the listening center near outlets) and organize the library into book baskets.

I am also happy for break because staff morale is low right now.  People are feeling unappreciated and overworked, and our administrative staff and IRFs are not helping.  Two weeks will give everyone a nice break, and with any luck that will make it easier to assume best intentions.  That said, I think there will have to be a formal clearing of the air in January and I dread it.