To quote myself

A few of the things I've caught myself saying over the past month ...

-"Please don't cover your ears when I am talking to you."
-"Doing math is not sitting there making animal noises."
-"If you want to stand somewhere, say 'May I please stand there?' Don't just kick her."
-"What's 1 plus 1?" "No, it's not 1."
-(to a little boy) "Batting your eyelashes is not going to get me to change my mind."
-"Four take away 4 is 2? Think a little more."
-"Stop rolling on the floor; do your math."
-"You need to stop playing with fuzz and do your math."
-"Don't say 'na na' while I am talking to you."
-"You will use a pencil that does not have an eraser if you cannot stop spitting them around the room."
-"Just because your hand is in front of your mouth doesn't mean I can't hear you or see you."
-"I didn't give you that paper to chew on."

Back to real life

My break has come and gone, taking me from Tulsa to Arkansas and all the way up to Chicago. I slept on three different couches and drove numerous miles across the country. I even had a flat along the way, making it an official road trip. The trip was just what I needed. I got to be someone other than the teacher of 22 eight-year-olds for a week. I got to visit friends and see new places. I got to sleep in, read, and sit around in the sun drinking milkshakes. Can't get much better than that.

My TAKS scores also came in during the break. Although they were not as good as I would have liked, they were much better than I expected them to be. I flew into Dallas at 10 last night. My kids and I have been yawning an awful lot today.

One down

After weeks of stress and illness, I made it through my first TAKS test. My last student finished yesterday at 5 p.m. I went home exhausted, feeling as if I'd sat for their exam 22 times. I guess I kind of did.

The children were tired and emotional and uncooperative today. I couldn't blame them much; we ought to have the day off after one like yesterday.

One quick story:

Last week we studied geography. When looking at a map of the United States, one little boy asked, "Why is Hannah Montana on here?" I tried to explain that the original Montana was a state, not a teen singer; I'm not sure he understood, though. Thanks a lot, pop culture.

TAKS

Growing up, I pitied my parents for their job choice. During the most beautiful months of the year, they buried themselves in receipts and W2's. The spring months were lost to the stress of tax season.

Now, I am facing my own TAKS season. In just three weeks, my students will take their reading TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) test. My life has been reduced to nothing but preparations. I am tutoring students four afternoons on weekdays and three hours on Saturdays. Any planning time I have during the day I fill with extra tutoring sessions. After school each day, my team and I create battle plans, divvying up students and targeting specific skills they must develop in the next three weeks. Planning for the actual teaching I am supposed to do must happen magically during the day, which means it waits till 5 or 5:30.

The stress is impacting everyone. Teachers are fighting hard to avoid taking sick days. Students are stressed and ill. Yesterday, I had trouble teaching because the students' coughing overpowered my own voice. By noon, 15 students at the school had left with fevers. Between illness and stress, I lie in bed tossing for most of the night. Last night I resorted to NyQuil.

And after this test is over, we start preparing for the math TAKS. So, like my parents, I sacrifice my spring to the all-consuming god of TAKS season. Alas.

Profiling

On this election day, my classroom was abuzz with political opinions as students touted support for their candidates. "Which one did you vote for?" they asked me numerously. I told them that the presidential election was a secret vote.

"I bet you're for McCain," one student finally guessed. A roomful of little Mexican democrats turned its horrified eyes on me.

"Why do you think that?" I asked.

"I don't know," said the little boy. "You just look kind of ... American."

Goodbyes

Today, my bilingual coworker, Mr. P, lost a student to a non-bilingual class down the hall. Just after the little girl changed classrooms, I taught Mr. P's students English math. All of the little girls were sobbing and wiping their eyes as they walked into my classroom. The overall mood was hectic, and I worked several minutes to settle them all down. When the students had finally quieted, the little girl appeared in the doorway to say "hi" to her old classmates. I shooed her off after a few minutes, and fierce sobs broke out again from the girls. "She's just next door," I tried to console. But to no avail. I suppose goodbyes are just hard, regardless of the distance.

Testing

My students are being tested within an inch of their lives. Reading tests, math tests, cognitive ability tests -- the tests never seem to end. I sometimes feel that my job title should be "proctor" instead of "teacher." Because they are bilingual, my kids must take each test twice, first in English and then in Spanish. While undergoing a difficult and long reading test, one little girl said, "We have to do all of this? We are going to be so old!"

The past month: a synopsis

According to Educator Harry Wong, there are four stages of teaching: neophyte, survival, mastery, and impact. I had hoped to bypass the survival mode (probably neophyte mode thinking), but in the past month, I've found that I was not immune it it.

Several weeks ago, I had to administer a reading test individually to each of my students in Spanish. Non-bilingual teachers had other teachers pull students out to administer the test, but as my kids test in Spanish, I had to administer the test myself. This meant that for an entire week, my students worked on nothing but worksheets for math while I crammed testing into the afternoon.

I finished the testing on the day it was due, squeezing eight tests into the last day. The week following, I came down with bronchitis and a 103 degree fever. I drugged up and continued going to school, but survival mode was certainly in effect.

Last week my kids took a district math test and did poorly on it. I was pretty discouraged, but now at least I know some of their weaker areas and can focus on them.

This job certainly presents a host of obstacles. Of course, the language is one of them. While I can communicate with my students, my academic language is still very low. I've started spending my evenings building it up, learning words like "hundreds thousands place" or "dividend." Strangely, I never learned those words in Spanish 4.

Another obstacle is my particular group of students. Of the two third-grade bilingual classes, my class is certainly the lower one. In their diagnostic math test administered at the beginning of the year, my class scored about 60 percent lower than my coworker's class. I've had some of the second-grade teachers talk to me, wondering how I ended up with their lowest students. Some of the students were even passed onto third grade expected to fail and to be retained.

Yet another obstacle is the system itself. Bilingual children are unable to be considered for special education services until third grade, due to their language difficulties. I have had numerous teachers from the earlier grades suggest that I get this or that student tested for a particular disability. While this means a lot of paperwork for me, it also means that some of my students have gone for years in school without receiving services for things like dyslexia and other learning problems.

Honestly, in this past month, I have had moments when I've wanted to quit. I wonder why I thought I could do this, and I especially wonder why teaching still has the reputation of being the career for people who cannot do anything else. But as always, there are those moments, albeit few and far between, when I see clearly why I am doing what I am doing.

So, for now, I guess I'll add a few hours to my already 10-hour days, buckle down, and work a bit harder.

Encouragement

Mrs. T is a reading-teacher expert and was transfered to our school to assist with reading instruction. After I taught an English reading lesson in my bilingual coworker's classroom, I saw Mrs. T peering into his classroom and reading my lesson from the board. I walked by and heard her say, "Wow, good." Then she turned to me: "I was just reading his lesson. That's good."

Later, I lined my students up to go to the library and gave them a brief lecture, hoping to avoid last-week's embarrassing library outing. Mrs. T was in the hallway tutoring a student, and when my students filed out, she whispered, "That was the best piece of discipline I have ever heard. The way you talk to them is excellent."

I desperately needed that encouragement this week.

Unwanted spontinaity

I came into work this morning feeling fairly prepared. I had my lessons ready, and I had a vague idea of what I would have my substitute teach tomorrow while I attended a bilingual meeting. All of my plans were nullified, however, when my bilingual coworker told me we had the wrong date; our meeting was today, and the substitute was waiting in the office.

The morning was a frantic scramble as I tried to prepare my class and modify my lesson plans. Somehow, though, I managed to teach a decent reading lesson and leave my substitute with detailed math instructions for the afternoon. The bilingual meeting was very helpful, too.

3rd-week fears

Spanglish was the language of the day. I need a way to keep my Spanish up over the weekend.

Just when I was losing control of my class during a game of numeric order, a coworker knocked on my door with three of my boys. She'd caught them, she said, when they crashed into her table while running back from the bathroom. I glared down at them, and all three broke out in frantic streams of unintelligible Spanish.

Although not really a bad day, today was kind of discouraging. My kids are so low, and I'm falling behind in my lesson plans trying to get them caught up. I've started using restroom breaks to review addition and subtraction; we have so much to cover and very few hours in our days.

I haven't felt like this in a while, like I've a task before me that I may be unable to accomplish. College presented some challenges, but nothing that a few late nights couldn't overcome, really. Now I've been given 22 students, some of whom still cannot read, and I'm told to get them caught up enough to pass a challenging test in 6 months. Gah.

And what about the language problem? I'm not doing my job when I resort to Spanglish. How long will it take for all those verb conjugations to come naturally and for my academic vocabulary to be sufficient for what I'm teaching? Also, this week I begin administering a diagnostic reading test to my students. Do I really speak enough of their language to accurately assess their abilities?

And now I come to the part of the post where I say, "but it's not as bad as I'm making it sound." And no, it isn't as bad. I'm quite sure I'll figure it all out; I haven't a choice. I'll get classroom management under control, I'll learn how to teach around the language struggles, and I'll find a way to bring my lower students where they need to be. Still, the possibility of failure is an unpleasant sensation.

Paycheck

I got my first one today. This first check brought more money than any summer ever yielded. Perhaps adulthood does have a few perks.

Roller coastering

As if in recompense for yesterday, today couldn't have been much improved. Due to an alarm malfunction this morning, I was granted an extra 45 minutes of sleep. On the way to work, I opened a birthday present and listened to the radio. Yesterday's nausea had vanished with the extra sleep, the kids were pretty well behaved, and the time passed quickly.

A few of the day's deductions:
-The benefits of an extra half-hour of sleep (mainly, the ability to think of my feet) may surpass the benefits of an extra half-hour of planning.
-Happiness is a helpful ingredient in classroom management; the kids lose their desire to misbehave when they've no power over the teacher's mood.

My own "Jonah Day"

After a sleepless night, I began my 22nd birthday feeling dizzy and nauseous. I grabbed a granola bar, slapped some peanut butter on a piece of bread for lunch, and hit the road.

Throughout the day, I was preparing for activities mere minutes before I taught the lessons. My Spanish was atrocious, as bad as it was on the first day. I forgot words I'd been saying for an entire week, and my students eventually told me, "Just say it in English." I had to work through lunch. My students insisted on misbehaving, and I was cross with them and unwilling to laugh. One little girl looked so guilty when her pencil slipped that I was reminded of Anne Shirley's "Jonah Day" and that unfortunate pencil squeak.

After school, my mentor asked me how I got the three lowest second-graders and suggested I trade some with another teacher. I got home at 6 and crawled, shivering, to bed. Half an hour later, I began an evening of working on lesson plans.

I still haven't relinquished the childhood notion that birthdays should be a notch above the rest of the year, but this birthday provided a rather prosaic entrance into the world of adulthood.

Really, my day wasn't as awful as it sounds. Nothing went horribly wrong, my aid led my students in singing "Happy Birthday," my coworkers gave me a gift, and my evening of work was broken up by several phone calls from around the country. I'm almost glad I had a bad day; last week's perfection had me slightly worried. In the words of Longfellow:

Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

Lessons from week 1

One week down.

This week defied many of my expectations and fears by being an absolutely wonderful week. Granted, I am very grateful for this three-day weekend, but who isn't? Here are a few things I've learned:

-Entertaining and engaging lessons are essential in convincing my more reluctant learners to participate.
-Competition is a valuable tool for classroom-management.
-Paper cuts are near daily occurrences.
-Cheap heals result in throbbing feet at the end of the day.
-Parents will forgive almost anything if they like you.
-What cannot be completed in an hour of classroom time can easily be done and turned-in during ten minutes of P.E.
-Nothing -- not even parent-conferences or phone calls to Spanish-only homes -- is as scary as it seems.
-The planning is annoying, and the hours are long, but it is all forgotten when the first little boy walks into my classroom each morning, greets me with "buenos días," and starts sharpening my pencils.