The lunatic on the school yard

What is a couple of weeks to be gone. Well, if you are student and you are gone for a couple of weeks, you are going to miss quite a lot, no doubt. But if you are a teacher you can miss just as much a kid moving, a classroom of children acting like a bunch of wild animals because their teacher is in Mexico downing Marguritas like a fish, sitting on the beaching thinking of nothing but the marlin he will catch the next morning. But that is certainly not me. I was only away from my web log for a couple of weeks, preparing for student-parent-teacher conferences. A shame, but I do not drink anyway. How can one drink when there is so much work to be done.
Anybody in education can tell you that conference week and the week before are more stressful and busy than any week leading up to handing out report cards. It is crazy. And when you have kids in your class who disrespect authority or anything that looks like it, the week is going to be even more of an adventure. Or shall I say insane?
One boy in my class has been moved to the front corner of the room because of his behavior. I told him, "I am being generous moving you (just two feet from your neighbor). So I expect today to be a much better day. Do you understand?"
He did interject to ask why he was moved which had the reply "What kind of day did you have yesterday?" "Pretty good," he answered. So I had to ask, " Would you call bugging people several time during math, not getting any math done, playing under the table, pushing a kid and breaking several pencils, and going to the office after being asked by two kids to stop disrupting them a good day?" He said nothing.
He was not surprised when I moved his desk just two hours later that day. Once again he was talking and disrupting other kids around him.
The night before moving to the corner, this boy had gotten in the face of another boy in my class. Chest to chest the boy who was moved told the other, "I wish somebody would stab you in the heart with a penci." The receiver of these words was scared to come to school the next day from what his father said. His father also said that this is not something that can continue because he did not know what his son might do. We still do not know what might happen. There is no telling what might occur on the way home from school. Kids do various things. These "things" might upset another kid and can lead to injuries. Sometimes all it takes is a couple of fists to the face to get a bully to stop. Hopefully it never gets to that point but too often it does.
I know when I was in high school I got in a fight with a kid who often bullied others. I stood up for myself by putting him in a vicious headlock which caused Brian to stop breathing for a little bit. Then I did all I could to put his head in the ground. It failed and he ended up kicking me in the face a few times, bruising my eye making my lips bleed. I was a little messed up from that. But I gained his respect and he never did anything else like pinch my breast, or make fun of my crooked teeth. We learn lessons from our mistakes. Hopefully he learned as much as I did. I was suspended for a few days and I hated being out of school.
But those days are long gone. Now my job is to make kids feel safe at school and help them become functioning citizens of the world. Perhaps one of these kids will do fantastic things like find a cure for a disease or lead our country, perhaps not. The important idea is that all of them can work with others and make choices that are good for everybody, not just themselves at a certain point in their lives. To take responsibility for their actions and think about how others will be affected by these choices.
Unfortunately this cannot be measured. I must trust that I have done my job and hope that kids will tell me, when they are older, what they have accomplished.

Links and Favorites

Sorry I have no links to other blogs. I have no idea how do make it happen and so I am linkless. However I am not sorry for the actions going on in my classroom, though I am sadened by them. Yesterday we had an instance of a child stealing from another, then putting the stolen item in to the desk of another child. We have a child who will try to lie about his hair color if he thought it might help him feel good. And there are children who are laughing at others because they randomly partner up with somebody who does not fit the bill. Now that I have the negatives overwith, I can get to the positives.
Our classroom is building writers. Kids are doing amazing stories with pencil and paper. Using detail and keeping great focus on an event that lasts just a few minutes. We call it a Small Moment and I am not going to try to take credit for something that Lucy Caulkins has named. The fact of the matter is that these kids are becoming better writers based on her ideas that my teaching partner and I are putting in to effect. These stories are awesome and just keep getting better as we are on revision now.
If we go back to classroom behavior, I am seeing that there is a need for something to be done in our classroom. Something that is going get kids on board so we can get some more learning done. My thought is that I must offer them ice cream sandwiches and the opportuity to eat lunch in the classroom if they reach a certain goal. Because there are a few kids who are out of control and it may take something like that to get at least a couple more on board with the rest of us.

Volcanic Eruption

Tuesday was a low for me as a teacher. I had lost control of myself and my kids. My negativity was throbbing in my fingers and enjoyment of my profession had ratings near George Bush. Things were bad. I got on myself for yelling which made Wednesday not so great as well. This, coupled with personal situations, had me getting ideas of negative self worth. But then I had a nice talk with a couple of colleagues which prompted me to think about what it was that I was doing wrong and what I could do better to get out of this funk. The results were astounding.
Be positive. My goal going in to yesterday was to be overwhelmingly positive. This is a great group of kids but they are just a little chatty and loud. They deserve positive feedback as much as possible, no matter what the situation. Two kids in particular have been driving me batty, but they need that positive engagement more than anybody, even if one walks in with a coffee on Thursday morning. So I doled it out. I went positive crazy. Just that mindset can do wonders. First thing in the morning every kid remembered to move their lunch sticks and put their book bins on their desks. They were working quietly. So I complimented them on this and told them that if they remembered "one more thing" before going to Music, I would reward them. So when they were excused one kid reminded them, "Push in your chairs." They all got their rewards. Tears filled my eyes as they left the room.
Later that morning. A girl brought her writing to me to read. I could not help but be astounded at her attention to detail since our last meeting. She had gone from:
"One day my dad bought be a fish. I named him blue. There was also a big, glass aquarium with rocks. I named him blue."

to: One sunny day I was playing in my room when my dad walked up the stairs. I peeked around the corner of my door and saw him carrying a clear plastic bag full of water with something in it. I ran down the stairs to see what he had. He said, this is your first pet. I screemed with excitment.

Finally somebody had truly received the message their teacher was trying to convey. It felt so good for me because I was started to think I was doing something wrong with my instruction due to such lack of improvement. My senses were telling me that the kids were not getting so much enjoyment as well. Talk about feeling down.
But then this little writing miracle happens and I go crazy with excitment which causes about ten kids to turn in their writer binders to be read and other kids to want to work on their personal narratives on a constant basis. This was a huge success for my classroom and one that their teacher needed for the sake of his sanity.
At the moment I finished the above paragraph came the realization that I was not at fault for an arguement with two colleagues last Friday. We were talking about the timing for teaching various writing expectations and they said handwriting must be first and foremost. Well, being me, I disagreed saying that we need to get the kids to write first and then worry about handwriting. But they had pulled me in to an arguement of what is most important. All I was saying is that we need to get the kids to write first so that they feel as though they can get the words out with less problem. A minilesson regarding the importance handwriting plays for the reader on an individual basis could be fine but handwriting is not necessarily the starting point. High expectations can assist in getting kids to write neatly for the reader but there do not have to be lessons on this each and every day as these two colleagues also believe. Every writing time is its own lesson and we can work that out during class. Anyway my heart was racing and I did all I could to talk calmly when one of them said third graders are not developmentally ready to write paragraphs. And when I asked for research she made sure to tell me "I have been teaching for many years so I know the level these kids can reach."
My hope is that her pupils do not know she is holding them to a low expectation, holding them back from ultimate achievement on their part. This fact is sad to me and makes me not want to work with her. Perhaps reading to her the piece mentioned above, with its beautiful handwriting, will change her mind. Probably not. What a pity.

Science Blues

In my three years teaching third grade I have purchased materials with which to engage in science activities. With the exception of studying sound, I have never used those materials in large crates, which hold very little scietific value for kids. However it has been broght to my attention that, because I am the science curriculum adoption committee representitive for our school, I "can sort through these materials to find what is missing" so that the principal reorder that which is missing.
Now, I was not aware that any teacher in our grade still uses these materials because, since my arrival at the school, there have only been complaints regarding a lack of materials. When a certain teacher starts looking around, she noticed that there are some materials missing. Obviously she knows what should be in there and has used these materials before so she would be the best person to figure out what is missing, especially since she is so interested in using them immmediately. Anyway it comes down to her being a very negative person and the fact that she complains about nearly everything there is to complain about. I do not want to help her even simply because she once said, "If the district is not going to supply it, I am not going to teach it." There might be many of you out there who feel the same and that is your God-given right. But I do not want to help you either. As teachers we owe it to our pupils not to complain about them and to do our best to teach using whatever measures we can. Teachers can certainly find pleasure in their district purchasing materials on a regular basis but we cannot expect these purchases to happen just because we want them to.
Today my teaching partner and I are finishing up a study of rocks. To be honest we have only spent about two hours total with the kids on rocks but we have covered the grade three requirements on the subject. Our pupils have been very interested and have enjoyed this unit. Perhaps the kids will be sad that the unit is complete but the requirements are few and there is no need to go much deeper than we have. They have looked at many books, had a lesson, sorted, and written about how they did their sorting or what they based the sorting on.
Next we will move on to maps. Kids love working with maps, as do I. Too bad I have not been able to order a bunch of atlases for my class. There are some that I would prefer to order but Scholastic has not made them available through the use of points.
My class has improved greatly since the beginning of school. Yes, they have all come a long way. Such improvement will continue if I am disciplined enough to ignore the calling out and demand the raising of hands, the pushing in of chairs and completion of work. Otherwise life is going to be very difficult for these kids. There are some not doing their writing or reading each night and this needs to be put to a stop somehow.