Parent-Teacher Relationships

Valentines Day
A woman bursts into my classroom between classes, carrying two small red bags. Small, slender, and pretty, she is all business.  She explains that the bags are for my CT and me. Another substitute, I think, looking to be requested next time my CT is out for the day. Many of them leave candy after subbing in her classroom, hoping to be called back. Since my CT is gone at a district meeting for the day, I smile and thank her.
She thrusts her hand at me. "I'm ******'s mom."
My smile widens.  I accept her outstretched hand, thinking of how I'd just placed her child on a tally system the day before.  That same tally system had caused my CT to call this mother about her son's behavior during my class. I brace myself for a possible confrontation with this petite woman about her child.
I decide to start off with a compliment. "Oh, it's so nice to meet you! ******'s ..."
Her hand tightens around mine.
"It's handled." 
Matter-of-fact. 
No-nonsense. 
"I just wanted you to know it's handled." 
I stand in shock as she sweeps from the room. I had never met someone so direct. It would take a bigger or more foolish person than I to cross that woman. Unless I was her son.
Heaving a sigh, grateful to be alive, I peek into my goodie bag and cannot help but laugh.
A small bottle of water. A package of some energy drink powder. 
She knew exactly what her son's teachers needed to make it through a 90 minute class period with him. 

I share this story because it shows how wonderful my students' parents really are.  It's almost a little shocking to me to see just how supportive of the school and its teachers they really are. It was evident during parent-teacher conferences, and it continues to be apparent through every interaction we have. Clearly, strong and healthy relationships with parents make our jobs as teachers so much easier because even though my Juniors are extremely challenging, they are generally very respectful which I am certain is a value taught to them by their parents.  So, this is a shout-out to all of the parents who aren't afraid to push their children to their full potential and hold them to high expectations! You are awesome! 
 

A Little Taste of Trouble

This past week's parent-teacher conferences have taught me a valuable lesson: Sometimes parents can be absolutely amazing, cooperative, and genuinely concerned about their child's progress...and their students can be completely disinterested in passing or even pretending to try.  From 3:30-7:00, parent after parent came to visit with my CT and I about his/her student's grades.  Each and every one was was completely supportive of our positions and methods of administering grades and discipline.  In fact, many parents encouraged me personally to stay on their students in hopes that I would be the catalyst to what were some rather disheartening academic careers. This kind of situation makes you realize that teachers and parents really are a team when it comes to student success...and sometimes we aren't always as successful as we would like to be, especially when it comes to young adults who are receiving letters from the district after their 18th birthdays informing them that they no longer have to let their parents know about their academic performance.  As official "adults," they are legally able to keep their records private. And people wonder why classroom management has become such an issue of late...

Speaking of which, my seniors got their fist taste of what I expect from a class this week. The result was "The student-teacher was very cantankerous in class today" as one of their vocabulary test sentences. I couldn't help but smile.  At least they know what the word means, right? :)

Similarly, the juniors have begun to realize that I'm not someone they can easily push around. After 2 days of being held after school, a new seating arrangement, placing students on tally systems, and a pop quiz, they might actually be getting the point: The Great Gatsby isn't going away. It's boring to them...and my mentors at my school keep reassuring me that it is a common response from students nowadays. All I can do is involve as many different forms of learning as possible...aural, visual, kinesthetic...individual, partner, small group, whole group...ugh! They're bored. And we've got 6 more chapters to go. And it makes them squirrely, which is difficult to punish them for. How can I punish them for finding my unit boring??

Begin Again

Where to begin...again...

A new semester has brought with it four new classes of students. Eighty new faces. 77 new names. Ironically, this only makes it more challenging to keep them all straight. Just when you think you've learned them all, though, someone transfers from another school within the district and it seems to throw everyone's names once again into the swirling whirlwind that is your daily schedule. The morning and afternoons fly by...there is never enough time in each class period to cover everything you want to share.  Planning periods, however, seem to crawl even though you have more than enough work to keep you occupied.

Is this what I expected for my first week student teaching? I'm definitely enjoying it...and I blame the whirlwind on my sudden re-acquaintance with 6:00 AM. After 5 years apart, we now have rekindled our love-hate relationship. I cannot help but smile as my students shuffle through my classroom door at 8:00 AM...they'll never know I very unhealthily sucked down a Mountain Dew on my way to school that morning. :)

Perhaps the toughest obstacle so far has been building the teacher-student relationship with the four senior classes I am now expected to teach in a few weeks. I wasn't part of their world last semester and so now I am something of an imposter. We cannot confiscate phones because the students who are 18 or older can just get them back. Also, their age only encourages them to rebel because now they feel as though they are officially invincible.  My CT had told me that they were much more well-behaved than my juniors, which is difficult to dispute...except that sitting there quietly and refusing to do any work isn't necessarily behaving. Senioritis has definitely hit early this year and on Friday we were already phoning parents about failing students. I feel as though they are an entirely new knot to unravel in comparison to my juniors.

Speaking of my juniors....they were ecstatic to see me, running to hug me between classes and shouting my name down the hall...After last semester's ups and downs, it was wonderful to know that I was of to a great start with the juniors.  Somehow, my brief absence for Christmas break seems to have transformed them into a nearly well-behaved class who actually looks to me for guidance. I love the feeling of helping a child make a connection and cannot wait to begin teaching them Gatsby on Monday :)  I'm also excited that one of my students has been recommended for the IEP screening that he so desperately needs and have been trying to plan adaptations that will meet his needs. In doing so, I have discovered this website:

http://www.webenglishteacher.com/index.html

It has a ton of helpful lessons and activities for a variety of units and I've adapted several to use in my own lessons. I strongly encourage anyone who is struggling to develop fun and educational activities to check this out!

How to Survive College: BS, BA or MRS?

Remember all your grand notions from high school…Your hopes, your dreams, your fantasies about going out and changing the world.  Gather them up…toss them out the window. Watch their colors fly as they fall…fall…fall…

SPLAT!  On the pavement below.

Attend lectures.  Take notes until your hand hurts.  Focus so hard that you forget you are not a robot sent there to take over the world if you could just understand what the socially awkward man in the white coat and nerd glasses is saying.

Struggle.

Fight. 

Fail. 

Ask for help. 

Get reminded that “this isn’t high school anymore.” Smile. Thank him for his time.

In your mind, dump the rotten-egg concoction that your lab partner made last week on his head. 

Remember that you’re not a robot.

Join a club to make friends.  Pay the new member fee and attend a few meetings. Realize these people aren’t your kind of people. Abandon club.

Go home to stay sane. Smile as you tell your family how wonderful college is.  Keep smiling as your mom pressures you about being a spinster and remind her that you are only eighteen. Go back to college.

Get a boyfriend. Learn to juggle school, work, and the new boyfriend with what you like to pretend is your social life. Break up three months later.

Start your education over a year and a half in.  Remember what you used to like to do and find a major similar to that.  Break the news to your mother…Heave a sigh as she laments how she will have to change her dreams of having a doctor in the family. Hope that she gets over it sooner rather than later.

Date the same boy for the second time. Learn to juggle school, work, and the new/ex-boyfriend with your social life. Break up three months later.

Attend lectures. Read books. Take notes until your hand hurts.  Focus so hard on the subtext that you forget that sometimes the damn curtains are just blue.  Write until you feel like all your creativity has been sucked out through your fingertips.  Excel. Brag to your mother. Wish she could forget that whole doctor thing already. Remind her that you are only twenty-one and not a spinster.

Get a boyfriend. Learn to juggle school, work, and the new boyfriend with what remains of your social life. Break up three months later.

Ditch your social life for a second major, a minor, and a promotion. Weigh your blossoming work career against the one you’ve spent four years paying for. Imagine you can combine them into one totally awesome wedding gown sewing grammatically challenged small town English teacher.

Fall in love.

Prove to your mother that you are not a spinster.  Explain that there is a natural order of events in life and grandchildren are at the end of it. Remind her that she wants you to graduate from college and get married first so you do not move back in with her for the third time and burden her with a blossoming premarital family. 

Finally...Go back to the street full of fallen colors. Reclaim what you had thought was lost forever.  Enjoy what you do.  Let it break you down so you can learn from it and mold yourself into the best teacher you can be. Gather all your knowledge and experience, hopes and dreams for the future…hold them close…toss them out before you…watch their colors fly as you let them fall…fall…fall on the heads of those who need your guidance most.

Drawing the Line

Two weeks ago, I taught a small unit on persuasive writing based around William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily."  After learning about southern Gothic literature, reading the story, and discussing persuasive writing, I gave my students the assignment that would prove to be the bane of our lives for the next several months: A persuasive essay.

As it would turn out, the district and state assessments this year will be primarily concerned with persuasive writing.  This gave the majority of the students a concrete reason as to why they should pay attention.  Unfortunately, Halloween gave them all a very fun excuse as to why they should not pay attention at all.  It should be fairly clear as to which reasoning the students adhered...Thankfully, the day after Halloween (Coincidentally also the day that my supervisor came to observe me...Yeah, I didn't think that one through...), they were all quite tuckered out. :)  And, because they all worked so hard that day, I agreed to let them turn in their persuasive papers the following Monday...

Two weeks and a barrage of excuses later, I still have not received everyone's papers. On the one hand, it has really spread out the workload that comes along with grading 27 essays.  On the other, though, how lenient can I continue to be??  First, the late policy at my school says that a day late automatically results in 50% off.  Second, my CT informed me that regardless of my policies, the school's administration requires us to accept late work so some students will not turn in the paper until the end of the semester or even the end of the year. What??? How does that teach students responsibility and accountability? 

Finally, my own personal concern is maintaining the same objective grading state-of-mind as I am receiving a few papers each week.  Over and over again, I have heard teachers say how you don't want to be the first paper they grade because they will be incredibly tough on it.  Meanwhile, the last papers to grade get the best scores because the teacher is tired of grading at that point.  Sadly, as the semester continues to charge ahead and my students continue to drag their feet, my available time for grading papers is shrinking fast!  I am just hoping that my own assignment load does not result in students who just spit out papers getting grades that perhaps they did not earn.

KATE Conference Reflection

This year's KATE Conference was not at all what I expected...I really enjoyed it! Although I was only able to attend sporadically on both Thursday and Friday, I definitely wish I had been available to attend more of it. Everyone was very nice and, after discovering I was a WSU pre-student teacher, very supportive!

My favorite session on Thursday was really informative on how to implement graphic novels in the classroom.  The presenter was extremely thorough, which was great because I have a very limited knowledge when it comes to this genre.  However, after this session, I now have several different ways and resources to teach units that students typically find dry and boring.

The session that was the most helpful to me was the one about using children's books in the classrooms as a tool for learning literary terms. Complete with assignment sheets and examples, this session clearly detailed how to have students write children's books that included examples of literary terms. When the books were complete, the students would go read them to 2nd graders, which I think is a great way of insuring that students put a great deal of effort into their books! I am definitely planning to use this in my future classroom, especially since my students had just finished taking a test over these terms last week and the results were a bit disheartening. After attending this session, though, I feel like I have a new and very exciting way for them to not only learn, but also invest themselves in their work.

The Difference (Genre Reflection #1)

Clean, crisp hallways filled with bright colors; empty classrooms with perfectly straight desks, echoing silence. I breathe in the clean air and know that I belong here; in this place…I will make a difference.

Suddenly, the bell rings for passing period.  Chaos fills the hallways; laughing, screaming, chattering students from all walks of life. I plaster my back to the cold brick wall so I don’t get trampled while attempting to keep a welcoming smile on my face. It takes only a few seconds for boys and girls to begin trickling past me and through the door of my classroom.  They barely spare me a glance as they pass, caught up in the drama of the day. Following the last student in, I discover that the chaos of the hallway has consumed my once pristine classroom…

“Please quiet down and find your seats.”

Rambunctious and happy faces everywhere, shrinking the classroom’s available space and transforming the perfectly straight rows of desks to arches and angles…Ugh, math terms that make me shudder.  Football players practicing their dodging and weaving in the back of the room, groups of girls fixing each other’s hair, and someone’s brave falsetto was keening out a song that I thought I would recognize in a different key... 

“Sit down and be quiet, please.”

I wander through the room, breaking up the clusters of boys and girls and returning order to the aisles.  “Shhh…Have a seat, have a seat…Hush…” I murmur as I go until the crowd settles down.With a second ring of the bell, the lesson begins and a deceptively calm class turns its attention to the day’s tasks.  The bellwork and clearly written instructions on the board bring a limitless parade of questions and repeated answers that pull my attention away from the class as a whole.  The din begins to rise again…

“Quiet down, please…hush now and face the front.”

I read several chapters out of our novel next, performing to the best of my abilities and hoping that my voice is animated enough to keep their attention.  Even so, I must slowly walk the aisles to tap the sleepers, texters, and avid gossipers on the shoulders.  I count fewer taps than the day before and hope that means I am making progress.  At a critical point in the story, I pause to check their understanding.  An answer is given, which inspires a comment from another, and another and another…the contagion of the conversation, now completely off topic, quickly spreads throughout the room, accompanied by a clamor of giggles.

“Hey, quiet down, quiet down…we’re almost through…”

This snaps the class back to attention until a study guide is handed out to a chorus of moans and complaints.  Frustrated, some students throw their hands in the air; others jump up and storm the length of the room only to return to their desks once more.

“Stay in your seats…you may work quietly with your neighbor. Don’t just copy each other’s answers.”

With great reluctance, the class settles into their busy work as I patrol the room, issuing warnings with a press of my finger to my lips.  The students become aware of my pattern of movements and are sure to lower their voices as I draw near…All except a pair in the back. They are oblivious as I advance on them.  I can feel the words beginning to bubble up…If I’ve told them once, I’ve told them a million times…

“No,” the student’s voice is sharp, hands protectively grasping the study guide.  “Do your own! Miss B. said I can do this. She doesn’t want me to fail!”

The words disintegrate before they have a chance to burst from my mouth.  I feel my heart swell.   There is my difference in the world.  Even if it is just one student in the chaotic mob that floods from my classroom out into the once crisp, clean hallways. It is that one difference that makes this whole day worthwhile…and I cannot wait for tomorrow.