i haven't been here for a while. i have a million excuses. but this blog is important to me and it's time to continue telling the stories of a real classroom at a high poverty public elementary school.
first the hunger.
school meals are truly terrible.
i call breakfast a handful of sugar dipped in sugar. a bowlful of sugar with a side-order of sugar. waffles dipped in syrup. a poptart. a sweet roll. there are occasionally biscuits and gravy (carbs dipped in carbs). egg or sausage biscuits. pancake on a stick (a nebulous protein wrapped in carbs dipped in - you guessed it - sugar). yogurt parfait (yogurt topped with granola over strawberries in syrup - maybe the most healthy breakfast, but ignored by most kids since it's the LAST thing on the line after the sugary choices).
my main complaint with lunches are that they are disrespectful to MANY of our students who are native to other cultures. rice would be a great thing to have every day because it is a familiar staple to our asian and hispanic students. but our rice doesn't have any connection to the rice they eat at home. i can't even describe it, but one of my students said it best. asian student, who eats rice at every meal at home, pointing at school rice, "what is that?" seriously.
students can only choose one entree, two sides and milk. they are hungry. they sometimes want two entrees. nope. against regulations set by the federal government. if you are on free or reduced lunch - 75% of the kids in our school and 90% of the kids in my class - you follow the rules. can you take 2 bowls of applesauce? no! two of the same sides is against the rules. and you pay (or the government pays) full price for a lunch even if you only get one side because you can't stomach the "choices." i use that term VERY loosely. the posted menu is not always the meal that is served. they run out of condiments, sides and entrees. imagine a salad (a bowl of shredded iceberg lettuce) without salad dressing. we don't run out of ketchup. for some kids that's the only thing that makes the meal or the sides palatable. cover the taste or enhance the bland with something familiar.
i digress.
my kids are hungry. but they are still picky kids. so we share food. this is totally against protocol. but if someone won't touch their entree, i pass it to someone who will. or i divide it up and share it with several hungry kids who will gladly eat it. YES, the first kid is going hungry. but i can't force them to eat food that they don't want to eat. we throw away little to nothing at our table. that's the goal. more food in more bellies.
and they still cry "i'm still hungry."
mondays are the worst. well, not quite as bad as tuesdays after a monday holiday or the first day back after a vacation. i bring in bags of apples, boxes of granola bars, etc. anything to keep the hunger at bay until the next meal.
can kids learn if they're hungry? are they able to think, question, discuss? can they reach their personal best?
rhetorical question. duh.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Friday, October 7, 2011
little boy lost
it began with slumped shoulders at lunch one day.
no. it actually began before that.
day after day of a little boy laying on the floor during classroom discussions. tired eyes. lack of focus. yawns.
"what's wrong?"
"nothing."
then the slumped shoulders. heavy sighs.
"what's wrong?"
a shake of a head. tear-filled eyes.
"do you want to talk?"
a shake of a head.
"when you want to talk, we'll talk."
i watched him during lunch. i kept getting up to walk down to him and pat his back. he wasn't touching his tray. usually, we give him all of our extra food. he has a great appetite.
finally.
"i just want my parents to be together."
"oh, buddy. grown-ups just don't understand little guys, do they?"
i mean what can i say about parents who think more of themselves or the addictions with which they fill their lives than their children.
"and i'm so tired."
"i can see that, sweetie. if you need to rest in class, you can rest."
we talked a bit more and he tried to eat for my sake. but he couldn't swallow even a couple of bites.
he's been so huggy lately. they all are. but he more than some. and more than usual. i should have guessed.
he asked to write something when we got back to the room.
"can i sit in the private space and write something?"
so he did. a letter to his classmates and me. giving us love. thanking us for being us. it was touching and everyone clapped when we read it aloud. he got hugs and smiles.
the AP stopped by the room to ask me to see him later. he seemed so serious. i have several kids with BIG issues (custody, anger, abuse, etc.). i told him that i'd talk to him after school. then i said, "would you like to read something [a] wrote to the class?"
he did and he fist-bumped with [a]. he seemed really moved.
an hour later, after the kids were gone, i went to his office.
"i had to leave because i was really touched by what [a] wrote. and he was the child i needed to talk to you about. did you know he's living in a homeless shelter for battered women?"
"WHAT!!!"
i've had several children in that shelter, but i had no idea that this was the cause of the upset, sadness and need for validation.
spent the rest of the week dealing with mom, social workers, admin and most of all with [a].
little boy lost.
no. it actually began before that.
day after day of a little boy laying on the floor during classroom discussions. tired eyes. lack of focus. yawns.
"what's wrong?"
"nothing."
then the slumped shoulders. heavy sighs.
"what's wrong?"
a shake of a head. tear-filled eyes.
"do you want to talk?"
a shake of a head.
"when you want to talk, we'll talk."
i watched him during lunch. i kept getting up to walk down to him and pat his back. he wasn't touching his tray. usually, we give him all of our extra food. he has a great appetite.
finally.
"i just want my parents to be together."
"oh, buddy. grown-ups just don't understand little guys, do they?"
i mean what can i say about parents who think more of themselves or the addictions with which they fill their lives than their children.
"and i'm so tired."
"i can see that, sweetie. if you need to rest in class, you can rest."
we talked a bit more and he tried to eat for my sake. but he couldn't swallow even a couple of bites.
he's been so huggy lately. they all are. but he more than some. and more than usual. i should have guessed.
he asked to write something when we got back to the room.
"can i sit in the private space and write something?"
so he did. a letter to his classmates and me. giving us love. thanking us for being us. it was touching and everyone clapped when we read it aloud. he got hugs and smiles.
the AP stopped by the room to ask me to see him later. he seemed so serious. i have several kids with BIG issues (custody, anger, abuse, etc.). i told him that i'd talk to him after school. then i said, "would you like to read something [a] wrote to the class?"
he did and he fist-bumped with [a]. he seemed really moved.
an hour later, after the kids were gone, i went to his office.
"i had to leave because i was really touched by what [a] wrote. and he was the child i needed to talk to you about. did you know he's living in a homeless shelter for battered women?"
"WHAT!!!"
i've had several children in that shelter, but i had no idea that this was the cause of the upset, sadness and need for validation.
spent the rest of the week dealing with mom, social workers, admin and most of all with [a].
little boy lost.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
the week that was
i just want them to be happy and to have a good week. is that too much to ask?
but life at home for most of my kids is in constant turmoil and that spills over into the classroom.
a little brother who has a chipped tooth from a "pop" in the mouth by his dad because he wasn't eating his dinner fast enough.
an accusation of child abuse.
explosive anger that cannot be contained in a child's mind.
an intolerant parent whose lack of compassion for one of her daughter's classmates knows no bounds, nor does her lack of communication etiquette.
the exhaustion of a little boy who waited at his mommy's until 11pm for his granny to pick him up because a custody order is more important than sleep.
a little boy lost in the blur of his medication. starving himself on med days and and gorging on non-med days.
a little boy who does not know if he's moving or not. and who didn't show up on friday.
balanced by the compassion of 7 year olds for a classmate's sadness and anger.
balanced by a hug from one friend to another in a study in empathy.
balanced by a "love" letter from a little one to her teacher.
balanced by the exuberant bouncing and gleeful laugh of a little boy during the showing of a movie about a beautiful horse.
a very good week indeed.
but life at home for most of my kids is in constant turmoil and that spills over into the classroom.
a little brother who has a chipped tooth from a "pop" in the mouth by his dad because he wasn't eating his dinner fast enough.
an accusation of child abuse.
explosive anger that cannot be contained in a child's mind.
an intolerant parent whose lack of compassion for one of her daughter's classmates knows no bounds, nor does her lack of communication etiquette.
the exhaustion of a little boy who waited at his mommy's until 11pm for his granny to pick him up because a custody order is more important than sleep.
a little boy lost in the blur of his medication. starving himself on med days and and gorging on non-med days.
a little boy who does not know if he's moving or not. and who didn't show up on friday.
balanced by the compassion of 7 year olds for a classmate's sadness and anger.
balanced by a hug from one friend to another in a study in empathy.
balanced by a "love" letter from a little one to her teacher.
balanced by the exuberant bouncing and gleeful laugh of a little boy during the showing of a movie about a beautiful horse.
a very good week indeed.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
computer update (pun intended)
the district engineer visited my classroom several times this week. he reimaged the newer of the dinosaurs (hereafter referred to as dinosaur 1) and the subsequent updates took quite a bit of effort on his behalf.
i should be grateful, right?
i would be...
if my bluetooth would hook to my smart slate (read: glorified mouse). engineer says that bluetooth is working. that it is, sir, however, if it won't hook to the ONE and ONLY bluetooth tool in my classroom, what good is it?
additionally, itunes on dinosaur 1 will not hook to any of my personal ipods that hold all the music i use in my classroom.
according to engineer, itunes "works." apparently that means that itunes will load. unfortunately, it does not mean, "connects to any ipod attached to dinosaur 1."
dinosaur 2 is still fossilized.
i should be grateful, right?
i would be...
if my bluetooth would hook to my smart slate (read: glorified mouse). engineer says that bluetooth is working. that it is, sir, however, if it won't hook to the ONE and ONLY bluetooth tool in my classroom, what good is it?
additionally, itunes on dinosaur 1 will not hook to any of my personal ipods that hold all the music i use in my classroom.
according to engineer, itunes "works." apparently that means that itunes will load. unfortunately, it does not mean, "connects to any ipod attached to dinosaur 1."
dinosaur 2 is still fossilized.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
21st century classroom - NOT!
/Vent on
I spent four hours in my classroom on the Sunday before Labor Day. My plan was to organize and plan for my sub (taking time off this week for a very special family event), but I spent most of the time wrestling with my only "working" (and I use that term VERY loosely) computer.
I left in utter frustration.
My other computer was dead when we came back after summer vacation. Odd because it was working fine when we left. It now has no operating system, so it won't boot. NO OPERATING SYSTEM! And I only know that because I snuck it home so my high-tech husband could diagnose it. I have no clue how that could possibly have happened unless the county techies were actually reimaging computers this summer (unlikely, since I haven't seen any computers that were reimaged) and got stopped in the middle of the process and never went back to reinstall the OS. Our tech assistant wrote me a work order, but we were told that no work orders will be done until November at the earliest because the tech group is so overwhelmed. I realize that by then there will be hundreds of work orders and I don't expect the work to be done on mine until next spring. It wasn't a great computer, but it worked relatively consistently.
So on our first workday, I moved my only other classroom computer over, attached it to my document camera and TV monitor. We never used that computer last year because it is in terrible shape. It shuts down randomly. You can have it up and running (well, walking with a cane) and you can be across the room not even touching it, and it will shut down. Or you can be in the middle of a lesson using the computer and it will shut down. It locks up when you try to multitask. It cannot change from one program to another with any ease. It is s-l-o-w. I cannot just bring up a website and show my students something (we often do this to build schema). There's no point in trying. Nearly every attempt at using this computer results in it locking up and a reboot that takes over 15 minutes to accomplish. It's just a very frustrating experience.
The four hours I spent today were in an attempt to once again try to install my smart slate (read: glorified mouse that the central office techies say is "just as good as a smartboard." Apparently, none of them has ever actually USED a real smartboard. I don't really need it, but the kids do enjoy using it. I've tried several times to install it, but I thought maybe I'd get lucky today. After lots of troubleshooting, I realized that my front 2 USB ports were dead. I have 4 USB ports in the back. Right now those ports are full with the keyboard, the mouse, the smart slate and the bluetooth for the smart slate. I cannot plug my iPad in for my kids to use, nor can I plug in my iPod to play music for them. I cannot store my music on my shared drive because the engineer asked me not to load up my share with too many files. And I can't use a USB drive for storage because there is no room to attach it. CATCH-22!!!
Needless to say, after DOZENS of attempts, reboots, etc., I only was able to connect the smart slate once and when the computer turned itself off shortly after that and my subsequent prolonged reboot, the smart slate was no longer recognized by the bluetooth. Rinse and repeat.
The computer shut itself down 12 times in the 4 hours that I was working today. It also locked up and required a forced reboot 8 times. It won't always even shut down the regular way (clicking restart) and the only way to get it to shut down and restart is to manually turn the computer off by holding down the power button or to yank the power cable. I was trying to go to a few websites to print out some lessons and books, and I was not able to bring any website up for more than a few minutes without the computer either shutting down or locking up.
I left in utter frustration.
I went back to school on Labor Day. (Who says teachers are lazy)???? And I wired up an old laptop that my husband gave me for my classroom a couple of weeks ago. I can access the internet with it, but I'm not on the school network, meaning: I can't get to the shared drives, I can't print, etc. It is now my main (read:ONLY) classroom computer and I can use my document camera to project things for my students onto my tv monitor. But since I cannot get to the network, I can't save or retrieve files, view anything but a few basic websites (everything else is blocked because of that Catch-22 of not being on the network). And if the tech staff from the central office finds out that I'm using a non-district-authorized computer for my main (read: only) computer, they'll force me to remove it from the room.
I used to wish I had a projector and pull-down screen, but there would be no point whatsoever to have those things in my classroom right now. All I want right now is ONE reliable computer that can get on the network.
The sad thing is, I'm sure I'm not the only teacher in my school with such difficulties. I just happen to be the loud one and the one with a little bit of computer savvy so I'm able to troubleshoot and describe the problems. And I'm realistic enough to know that there is no solution.
In my grad classes, the professors repeat the mantra "You CAN have a 21st century school without optimal technology." While that may or may not be true (I completely disagree with them), you can't have one with no access to the internet and a computer that shuts down randomly.
And, being alone in the school for so many hours allowed me to hear the mice scurrying through the ceiling and walls. They did not like me disturbing their quiet time.
Now that I've written this, I accept that nothing can be done. We'll muddle through as we always have.
/Vent off
/Vent off
Thursday, September 1, 2011
less chaotic days
yesterday was uneventful for all of 20 minutes. bliss.
then. gore. tears. blood-born pathogens dripping down a little face.
student 14 was getting out of his chair to show me his morning writing (see previous post about my daily bing writing project. he tripped and fell onto the corner of his table. cracked himself between the eyes on the bridge of his nose.
of course, student-teacher and i ran and got gloves before we took care of him *wink-wink*
he went to the doc. translated for his mommy. (can you imagine being 7 years old, barely knowing your "first" language and having to translate back and forth between your mommy and a doctor)?
he came back today with two black eyes and a very bruised nose. not broken. YAY!
today was uneventful. completely.
until school ended. all my kids are bus riders except one who goes to our community after-school program in our building. herded everyone out to the buses. ushered the one kid to the gym. and went back to the classroom to collapse with student-teacher.
we were working on lessons when the phone rang.
me: hullo :)
office: did student 2 get on the bus?
this is never a good question.
me: yes?!
office: which bus?
me: number xxx (had s/t check the list to be sure). yup, bus xxx. why?
office: he didn't get off the bus.
me: is he asleep on the bus? or asleep in his room at home?
office: mom is panicking and no.
me: are you sure??
office: she says she's sure.
me: was she at the bus stop?
office: ummmm.
me: did his brother get off the bus?
office: they are both missing.
headed to the office for general panic and planning with principal and AP. apparently another kid from this bus went missing yesterday and was at a friend's house. almost 50 kids get off at the stop. general craziness probably every single day.
AP who knows the neighborhood offered to go scout around the neighborhood and go door-to-door in search of the missing boys.
i actually didn't panic. the poor little guy was so drugged out on his ADD meds that he was nearly catatonic. i was sure that he was probably conked out somewhere.
i took AP's daughter to my room to watch her whilst he went on his mission trip.
five minutes later he was back. mom called before he even started his car. boys were fine and home.
don't know where they were or what they were doing. i still have my hunches.
but knowing they were safe and sound was good enough for me.
then. gore. tears. blood-born pathogens dripping down a little face.
student 14 was getting out of his chair to show me his morning writing (see previous post about my daily bing writing project. he tripped and fell onto the corner of his table. cracked himself between the eyes on the bridge of his nose.
of course, student-teacher and i ran and got gloves before we took care of him *wink-wink*
he went to the doc. translated for his mommy. (can you imagine being 7 years old, barely knowing your "first" language and having to translate back and forth between your mommy and a doctor)?
he came back today with two black eyes and a very bruised nose. not broken. YAY!
today was uneventful. completely.
until school ended. all my kids are bus riders except one who goes to our community after-school program in our building. herded everyone out to the buses. ushered the one kid to the gym. and went back to the classroom to collapse with student-teacher.
we were working on lessons when the phone rang.
me: hullo :)
office: did student 2 get on the bus?
this is never a good question.
me: yes?!
office: which bus?
me: number xxx (had s/t check the list to be sure). yup, bus xxx. why?
office: he didn't get off the bus.
me: is he asleep on the bus? or asleep in his room at home?
office: mom is panicking and no.
me: are you sure??
office: she says she's sure.
me: was she at the bus stop?
office: ummmm.
me: did his brother get off the bus?
office: they are both missing.
headed to the office for general panic and planning with principal and AP. apparently another kid from this bus went missing yesterday and was at a friend's house. almost 50 kids get off at the stop. general craziness probably every single day.
AP who knows the neighborhood offered to go scout around the neighborhood and go door-to-door in search of the missing boys.
i actually didn't panic. the poor little guy was so drugged out on his ADD meds that he was nearly catatonic. i was sure that he was probably conked out somewhere.
i took AP's daughter to my room to watch her whilst he went on his mission trip.
five minutes later he was back. mom called before he even started his car. boys were fine and home.
don't know where they were or what they were doing. i still have my hunches.
but knowing they were safe and sound was good enough for me.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
yellow jackets
apparently, the next segment of the plague.
mouse 2 of 5011 was captured mid-morning on a sticky trap along with two of the biggest crickets teacher had ever seen. mousie was still wiggling his ears awaiting his doom (read: the AP's bashing in of his sweet little head). teacher tried to beg AP to grant a stay of execution. eyes were rolled.
the class headed out to play for ten minutes in what little "grass" (read: the sticks and dirt and pine needles in front of the hard-hat-construction-zone that we call our school in mid-renovation. everyone collected carcasses of cicadas. and practiced responding to teacher's whistle (one = stop immediately and look at teacher; three = immediately line up). fun, fun, fun.
walked over to the art trailer and lined up on the sidewalk. oh so peaceful and perfect.
until the attack of the killer yellow jackets.
teacher: where???
nk: in my ear!!!!!!!
yup. bee sting. DANG!
student teacher and teacher started hustling the kids into the art trailer whilst the kids were being attacked. teacher whipped off her sunhat and tried to distract the bees.
21 kids scream: MRS!!!!! bees are all over student 16's shorts!!!!!!
sure enough, he had bees all over his shorts. teacher swatted them off with her hat trying to make sure she hit them hard enough to 1) stun them or b) get them far enough away so we can make our escape.
three major stings. three ice bags. three notes in planners. big discussion of the dangers of kicking mulch (wherein the bees were hidden). apology by kicker of mulch. definition of "what's mulch?" bringing in of baggie of bee-less mulch for hands-on experience with heretofore unnamed "thing" now called "mulch" by all.
seriously. what could possibly be next.
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