Co-teaching realization

I realized today that I am enjoying co-teaching.

I haven't hated it for a while, which has been amazing, but today my co-teacher Nate was back after being sick the first part of the week. As we prepared for the day, I had all sorts of funny things to tell him about the days he was out, things students had said, the weird sub, the fact that one of our students was no longer pregnant. In much the same manner, he had things he'd graded that he set aside to show me. It was like catching up with a friend and while we were teaching, both of us trying to put out mini-fires, I was definitely appreciating that he was there.

What a happy change.

Literacy Development: Independent Work Day

Second period is a tiny class, like six kids tiny. Two girls, both funny, sweet, hard-working, and low readers are sitting side by side listening sharing the ear buds to an iPod. Alina is working on history; Hannah is flipping through her anatomy and physiology book looking for the chapter on nerve impulses.

"Wait," Alina points to something in the book, "isn't that your vocals."
Hannah pauses, looks, shrieks.

"Noooo, that's not your VOCALS, that's your VA-GIN-A!" And then proceeds to laugh at her very Christian, very Ukrainian friend.

From across the room, Jarrett looks up, he's working, not sleeping which is odd, and says, "You're disgusting." Looks at me and says, "They're being disgusting."

"It's not disgusting," Hanna says, "it's anatomy."
She flips a few more pages and says, "Look Alina, it's your vocals....oh wait, never mind it's a penis."

I'm not sure any work got done after that.

This is hard.

A excerpt from conversation with one of the three GREAT teachers with whom I am co-teaching. Co-teaching in the half-assed, unfunded, unplanned, untrained model our school is currently experimenting with has made for the most difficult start to any year, ever.
"So, I'm not sure I like how this is going. I want you to have a greater presence in the classroom."
"Okay, that sounds great. I'm not sure how we can accomplish that."

"Well, what's working in your other classes?"
"Honestly, we're winging it all over the place. I'm not sure what's working. It feels different everywhere."

"Hmmmm, okay. Well, how about this...I don't like that you are off to the side and I am on a physically higher plane than you. I'd like you more integrated."
"I agree, it would feel more cohesive. Do you have any idea how to make this work?"
"Let's try this, there are two chairs. You take the one at the back. That way you are on the same level as me."
"Okay, if you're sure. I mean it might seem awkward with me sitting while you are teaching."

"It might, you're right. But let's try it. If it doesn't work, then well. We can try something else. And I mean, I know you; I trust you. If you were anyone else I might not invite them into the chair. You should be there. I mean sitting off to the side you are the most expensive staff assistant in America."

"I said that on the second day of school. Let's try it. We can keep working."

It wasn't a perfect fit, but not terrible. And to tell the truth, not terrible is pretty good lately. This shit is hard.

Paradigm shift

Two days into our teacher training for the 2011-2012 school year. (That's year NINE for anyone who's counting.) And what amazes me most is the almost instantaneous transition my brain makes from summer to work. The physical day to day takes a little longer, but this is old hat for my brain. I woke up early yesterday, energized, making lists and planning in my head. The nicest part? No stress, just the patterns of mind that go into being a teacher.....like I'd done this job before.

State testing.

At this very moment, I am administering a state math test. I am sitting in a classroom that is not my own and babysitting 14 students, only one of whom I see on a daily basis. One is in the restroom, one is sleeping, two drawing, and three fidgeting. All of them wish they were able to text right now; hell, I wish I were able to text right now. All of us would rather be in class. I'm all about the occasional time suck in class. Using class times for games or jokes or conversation about silly things. But I HATE the waste of time that is standardized testing. These students will sit in here for another hour with literally nothing to do. All but one are finished.

It is also a strange activity from my point of view. I am in charge of kids whom I do not know. Being a teacher, and one who strives to build rapport with kids, I'm generally pretty good at managing these type of situations, but it's an odd sort of organization, as I try to remain friendly when most of what I must say to them is literally printed on a paper in front of me. I must read a script: verbatim. I am just as bored as they are. But, I am writing this blog and they are keeping the whispering to the barest minimum. They are better behaved than I.

"Do you have any food?" A kid who slept through the test just raised his hand to ask this question. There is one kid still testing. I wish I did have food for them, as nice as they are. Teenagers are silly, high school is silly. State testing is dumb.

Old

I don't feel old. Sometimes however, I am rudely reminded that, in fact I might as well be dead because, "Basically after 30, your life is over."

Ahhh, teenagers, aren't they jerks? Clever, surprising, wonderful, unruly, jerks? Most all of the ones I deal with are that sort.

One of my classes does not shy away from reminding me, constantly how very old I am. One of these lovely students sings a song, I have no idea where it's from, about a nursing home fire...the chorus of which is (I'm not kidding) "Old people burning, Old people burning."

I thought I'd share this artistic rendering of what thirty really means.

Oh, and while playing taboo with the class this was one of the conversations that took place.
Student one, giving clues: When you're thirty you are...
Student two, grinning widely and guessing: OLD!

Again, I know everyone is jealous they don't work in a high school.

Wooo Hooo...

or, how to make a short story long.

Let me tell you ladies about my day. I was totally stoked to put my national boards box in the mail. In it is all the work I've done to get my certification. Hours and hours and hours. Seriously, alone, the box took like 3 hours to pack. There are 4 entries each with their own envelop an packing list and then a 5th envelop for all the forms, I mean really, you have to verify that all the packing lists are where they need to be right?

But it was done. I went to the post office annex place inside the shell station, which is much less sketchy than it sounds and happily gave my well taped box to the happy little man. He was worried that the pre-printed label which was ON THE BOX would be too hard to see and pulled out a sharpie in order to make it more visible, hey great no problem. Then he flips the box over and proceeds to CROSS OUT the pre-printed, specially placed very important bar code stickers. My number (02701156) had been put on the 73-ish pages of then entry over and over again and needed to match the box. And he crossed it out. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I stopped breathing and was like "wait, no, stop." I took the box back out to the car, calmly looked for the help number on the box and in my NBCT stuff then started hyperventilating. No phone number. I drive home. Open the door and immediately smell shit. I'm greeted by two dogs, Sam and Ru. I'm dog sitting. I look around and see a few small piles of poop. Weird, it's sure stinky, I think to myself. I grimace and attempt to wipe it up. Then upon further examination find a literal cascade of shit going all the way down the stairs. There was a definite problem earlier today, and while both dogs appear fine, at one point in time one of them was NOT alright.

Now, I'm trying to prioritize. I mean, there is crap all over my house but a box that I really, really want to put in the mail, like now. I decide to clean. It takes comet, plastic bags doubling for rubber gloves and at least 3 of my rattiest kitchen towls before I feel like it might be okay.

Back to the first issue, the box. I find the number and explain the predicament to the lady on the phone, "I've got a problem. My box is ready to be shipped. Literally, sealed and in the hands of the post office guy and before I could stop him, he crossed out all the labels. And then I stopped breathing. What do I do?"

"Well, you can start by breathing again." At this point I feel relieved but am so keyed up I start to cry just a bit. She explains that while she also would have wanted to kill him, they open every box and because each envelop is labeled, all the information will go to the right place. It will be okay, it has happened before.

But, not to me. I trusted her, put the dogs in the car and went back to the post office annex. the guy was very apologetic (good thing) and I put it in the mail. My house doesn't even smell like poop and my portfolio is now left to stand alone... either it will or it won't. I've done my part.

From Wednesday's Pep Assembly

Quote of the hour:

"If the goat comes into the gym, the juniors will be disqualified."

Oh, I know you're jealous YOU don't work in a high school.

pep-talk via social networking

I'm at the beginning of what promises to be an intense six weeks of work. (Not that my past few weeks have been stress free, but this I can anticipate coming.) But, in a strange venue for a pep talk one of the administrators from my building, who also happens to be my friend asked me how I was doing through facebook chat. I really didn't want to talk to her; I was trying to work (so, yes, I probably shouldn't have been on facebook at the same time) but she knew I was stressed and asked about it. I concurred, yep, stressed. She then proceeded to give me the nicest "Go Get'em Tiger" type speech. Including telling me that I was a "tremendous teacher" and if her son (overly precocious 3 year old) needed special ed (as if!) then she'd want him in my class. Wow, totally unexpected and completely welcome.

Fisherman Frank

Back at work today after a quick jaunt down south. I may post more about the trip later, but right now I don't have enough energy. But, here's a funny kid story... Student, who we shall call Fisherman Frank has given me grief all year. He is the sort of kid who pushes my you-will-not-be-a sexist-racist-homophobic-jerk buttons all the time.

The sort of kid whose response to my constant "We don't use the word gay to mean stupid in my class" remark with "Okay, then I'll call him a fag." The sort who is an ass to the bad ass assistant principal and is the only kid I've sent to in-school-suspension all year. But, we are making progress. At the change of the semester he remarked that what he was learning to watch his mouth during the first 18 weeks in my class. A few minutes later I was reminding him again the things we do and do not say in my class and he rolled his eyes in a purposefully exaggerated manner and said, "Yeah, yeah, I'm learning to watch my mouth, you are continuing to teach me."

Progress takes baby steps and more often than not, his remarks are intelligent instead of racist.

Today, Frank was filling out a worksheet, I was helping everyone work on it, but basically they had to read a variety of occupational areas and fill in people who would fit each category. He was making some good connections and working at a good pace.

"So uhhh, who invented that one thing?" He was sort of asking me a question and sort of talking to himself.

"What, the internet? That was Al Gore." I said, loud enough for him to hear, but not to the whole class.

A brief look of confusion crossed his face, "Huh? What, oh (groan)...(voice drops down to nearly inaudible) you're a retard." But, he was grinning as he continued to work.

I laughed, because, I had won. "Yes Frank, but you think I'm funny." He didn't argue. "And besides," I said, "You're not supposed to call me (or anyone for that matter, but that's more than I can tackle) a retard."

He grinned, and kept working, much too smart, this time, to take the bait.

checking in with the dean of students

One of my favorite administrators is the Dean of Students (DOS). He has a crappy job (he is basically in charge of ALL discipline for my high school of 2200+ students, but he also has a great attitude. I stuck my head into his office on the way out of the building today.

Me: Hey, I had something I needed to tell you.
DOS: Oh, good, I needed to talk to you about someone.
Me: No way dude, I already called not it on that new kid.
DOS: What, he's a 19 year old with zero credits, you can change his life.
Me: No really, I'll pass, let someone else carry that torch, he's shown up on my radar for brief moments of time for the past three years. (Each glorious moment, court appointed)
DOS: No, it wasn't him, it's a girl. She's even nice I think.
Me: I like nice.
DOS: She needs a math credit, why does she need a math credit?
Me: She didn't pass the 3rd grade math test.
DOS: Third grade, oooooh, (he makes a face) I can't help her. How can we get her a math credit.
Me (in my head): I'm not a math teacher, how the hell do I know.
Me (out loud): I don't know how to solve that problem.
DOS: Okay, well, think about that one.
Me: Did we graduate so and so (a kid who had been on my caseload for 4 years and was a jr. when I started).
DOS: Yes, and I got a call from the Navy.
Me: Uh, oh, did you tell them we won't take him back, after a 7 year stint with him we just give them a diploma? (Sort of a non-commital discharge)
DOS: Oh, it's okay, I told him he's all good and really now he's the problem of the US military...he's going to blow his hand off.

(this is just a portion of the conversation, we also discussed two drug dealing twins, a huge pain in our ass who recently transfered, and the ethics of just magic-ing some kids some credits)

Look out world, the class of 2010 is almost upon you because that is how things get done in public education.

this is really yesterday's post

A brief interaction from my 5th period class.

Student 1: "Yo, Ms. K, how come Kyle gets to pick a song and you've never ever once let me pick one."

Me: "Well, obviously that means I must like Kyle better than you."

Student 1: "Ms. K, that's cold."
Kyle (simultaneously): "Ha, she likes me better."

Student 2 (sweet, beautiful, wonderful girl at the back of the room): "I thought you hated all of us equally."

They obviously don't have a good handle on who I am.

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new student

I realized sometime last year that I had been teaching a long time (Not like decades long, I teach with a woman who has been teaching for 36 years, that's 6 years longer than I've been alive. I find that CRAZY, and can't imagine doing this job for that long, I can't imagine having that sort of endurance. She's even still a good teacher. She drives me bat-shit-crazy, but I don't fault her intentions or abilities... but I digress).

Six and a half years is a long time right? It feels like it, I glance at kids out of the corner of my eye and see a student I'm sure I know. On second glance, not only am I looking intently at a complete stranger, but the student I'm sure I recognize was actually in my class as a seventh grader four years ago, 2,500 miles away. I called a student by the wrong name for almost a month this year because she looked like someone I had five years ago. It is more than a little unnerving.

On the upside, teaching special education for a few years allows me to recognize patterns, and more often than not my intuition about students proves correct. For example, I have a tiny study hall/study skills class, about six or seven kids. One wandered in yesterday with a new schedule. Now, a new kid half way through the senior year is a bit strange for me, I'm the only teacher working with the special ed seniors and so I know all names and most faces. This one I'd never seen before, he claimed he had been at the school almost a year and was a senior. This was curious, and I knew nothing about him.

Then, as I listened to his inconsistent and slightly unnatural speech patterns, watched his insistence on sitting as close to the front as possible, and saw him evaluating the continual (they both even had a thing for Swedish death metal) hatter and affectionate banter of his classmates, it occurred to me, I did know this kid. His diagnostic doppelganger was a student of mine three years ago and though not every kid on the autism spectrum is alike, there are some distinctive markers. This friendly, slightly troll looking kid, hit almost all of them within thirty minutes of class.

I checked with our department head today, and yep, I'm right. Special ed teachers can sense their own, It's like gay-dar, but with special ed kids. See, I do have some sort of talent. Go me!

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