reflecting upon a cure for what ails me...

It's vacation! Happy vacation everyone! We're about four days into it, and I was trapped in DC during the THUNDERSNOW. That was epic and crazy. I didn't take pictures of the long, wonderful walk I had during the snow. I went off from my place and wandered down 14th St and ended up at the 14th & U Snowball Fight (I like this description, though it's a tad more innocent than the eyewitness report of a cop brandishing a gun...yikes!); ran into a colleague, who went with me to the Mall! Lovely, lovely, all of it. I was freezing afterwards, but that's the price you pay for beauty?

So, now that I'm home, my main goal is three-fold: pull all my grades together; study for my praxis 2 exam (boooo); figure out how to really differentiate and plan well for my kids next quarter; and, most importantly, find a cure for what's ailing me.

I talked it over with my mom, and didn't really come up with much of a plan, unfortunately. But, I have an idea in my head about how to combat some of this negativity: I'm going to firmly plan my feet again and not kid myself: everyone's going through this shit that I'm going through. And it's not that I'm not special in that regard--my own experience is my own experience, I think. I deal with it however heavily I do (perhaps too much so), but I'm going to try to figure out how to go through that bullshit and do things in the school the right way.

I'm going to try and do my hardest to differentiate properly, and really study the units (workshops) that we go through in the rBook. I'll review the skills and the stories and try and predict how the kids're going to struggle, and how they're going to succeed. Some of this stuff is in place from last year, so I won't try and reinvent the wheel. But, as I'm trying to find my own way to deal with the problem of not being invested in my work, I will try and figure out what's best for my students in terms of homework, reviewing for the final, and planning, etc.

Here's what I want to do:

1) Build a review packet for the final like I did last time

2) Figure out what homeworks will be needed next workshop, and what I want the kids to focus on more

3) Write in my "Belief" notebook that I used to for school last year, and spend some time at my old Starbucks haunt from last year developing some curriculum.

4) Get some poetry recitation lesson plans set--I'll be starting some of them soon for an 11th grade classroom. I'm wicked excited about it, and it will provide me some insight into how an English class is run, at least, for now.

5) Write some poetry

6) Relax

first good day in, what, 3 months?

In the whole semester, I have yet to have a real honest to goodness good day. each one has trudged with its various ups and downs. And, as time's passed, mostly downs. The school i'm at has this poisonous negativity pervading it, and there's not too much that's constructive it seems to me.

Somehow, despite the fact that one of my students refuses (and therefore will not be able to present his project until he does this) to take the reading growth test and swore in my classroom (suddenly kids are swearing, what's with this?) ("I hate this fucking class" was the phrase, I believe), I suddenly had a huge smile on my face come last period. It's not because we had an assembly (I was a little miffed about that), and also not because it was the last period of the day. Rather, I had a sincerely good time teaching reciprocal teaching (a strategy that is best described as a literature circle for all subjects), and enjoyed my third period class immensely when they practiced it. It really showed that they knew what to do (even my students who are ESL caught on, though I had one fracaso (failure) with one kid who had no clue). And that gives me hope that their last project that they'll be working on over the weekend will be fine, as long as they're (gulp) responsible. But, I told them that there's no way they're getting any extensions...it's due the day they get back from break si o si (yes or yes...no other option!).

So, in short, I had a good day today. I was all smiles, and very into my activator (suffixes...mmm, love 'em!). So, I felt good. Tomorrow's the day before vacation...it's time to break out the donuts and juice, and relax.

little moments

You know, it's funny. After all the complaining and the this and the that of my time spent here in DCPS, I haven't remembered to pay attention to the little things that make me smile here.

So, for one:

Yesterday, the biggest of trouble makers in my middle school class came on time (gasp!) to my class, was respectful (gasp gasp!), participated in small group (GASP!), and helped a student (there is no air on this earth to gasp enough). I was pleased and felt amazing. Nevermind today was the total opposite...but, one day at a time always.

My middle school kids are the best, and I love sharing a laugh with them. Today, one of my students, S., says, "I don't think I'll be coming to school tomorrow." Why, I ask. "I don't really feel like it." So I do the fake chuckle, exaggerate a little, and all, and one of my other students, B., looks at me and says, "Are you OK?" Complete sarcasm. Love it. My kids are fantastic.

High school, I really do enjoy those handshakes. You know you have students' respect when they shake your hand, for the most part. I've fallen into several routines with shaking hands. I do love it.

Students are why I love teaching, afterall. We gotta remember that.

oh i totally had a title for this one...

I'm blanking on why I wanted to write in the first place. Oh, for some apologia:

Sorry for not posting for so long.

Ok, I said it. Anyways, my IMPACT observation and post-ob conference went down. ON the TLF (teaching & learning framework) I got all 1s and 2s. Sigh. But, for the non-value added stuff, I got mostly 3s, which is good, I suppose. Apparently I need to focus on my questioning...that my questions need to be more deliberate as opposed to heavily scaffolded and rapid-fire (Ok, what's this, what's this, therefore what's this?). Also, let the kids struggle with something...and that I should feel OK with straying from the model (which I do every once and again, afterall, just apparently not that day).

I think this is a "New Leadership" type thing, and I don't really know how to make questions deliberate and to literally "plan" my questioning. Can you really do that and expect all students, including ELL students, to understand and wrestle with the questions?

making my lunch & a quick problem

I've been, in the past two days, trying to look through my cabinet of curiosities--aka, the internet--for recipes that I might want to do for lunch. It's amazing what comes up when you put in words like, "potato," or "cilantro," or "cabbage" into epicurious.com. Amazing.

So, I think my relaxation will come in the form of cooking for myself lunch each day. What I need to do now, however, is buy myself some more kosher chicken and meat, and some fish. Needs those things, indeed.

Relaxation also takes the form of poetry: the poetry club on Thursdays is my favorite thing to do each week. I can't wait.

Lastly, I have a problem--one of the gym teachers on the middle school side let me borrow his Dan Brown novel. First off, I am slow to read novels. Secondly, I don't really, um, remember his name! I know him by face, though...but I haven't seen him in days! Oy, the plight of forgetfulness. Oh the things I get myself into....ha ha ha?

organization & papier

It's French week at my school (and probably internationally...maybe), and so my title is um, slightly French, right? Today we had a faculty meeting on best practices with ELL students--I found some things interesting and good to hear (targeting texts, how to modify them/make sure the purpose of the text & its audience is clear, etc), but it left me with lots of questions, still, on what people's best practices are when dealing with ELL students, and what scaffolding can look like for level 1 students who have no real grasp on sentence structure, and have very high frustration rates (I'm thinking of one student in particular).

But, I think those questions will be for another post. Why? Because I'm grading (read: procrastinating grading)! The paper load in my school is immense on a logistical sense, but also I'm realizing my organization of said papers is a hot mess. I tried putting things in folders, but I still find myself wanting in the "sit down and correct" department.

I've been proposed a bunch of things, mainly take certain days out to do certain activities. Since I'm split between middle and high school, I need to make sure I'm available to students on both sides. So, I've dedicated myself to M/W tutoring for middle school, and probably Tuesday for HS. Thursday is poetry club, and ain't no one taking that away from me! But, what about actually gathering all of my papers to correct? That's the toughest thing.

Any suggestions?

honesty, & etc...

To be clear: my complaint is not with DCPS, and I don't think it will be. If anything, it'd be the administration of my school and the program I'm in. It just wants to have people who play the game, which is fine. And, perhaps, the lesson I should learn is that, in order to survive a cruel, cruel world, I must play the game as best I can. But, I don't quite accept that.

Either way, I just want to be clear: DCPS, I am quite faithful to; R180, we need to talk.

But teachers: is it true? Do we just have to work the system? Do we not have creative freedom is lesson planning? Are administrators really this top-down? Am I being naive?