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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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

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. 

yellow jackets

what could possibly trump the mouse and the superintendent?

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. 

new kid (started today): AHHHHHHHH!!! my ear!!! a bee! a BEEEEEE!!!!

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.

i hate meeces to pieces...

if you understand the title of this post, major props.

hint-hint

today was the third day of school. everyone settling in. pretty much a no-add/adhd meds day. kids a bit chatty. nothing out of the ordinary. lots of humming and singing going on and…

me: can my hummers and singers give it a rest?

doing my letterland lesson. making words. the kinder teacher next-door came into my room very quietly saying, "mrs... there's ummmm a little mouse in my room. can you help us?"

i walked calmly over there to go mouse hunting. i bashed around with a yardstick behind a couple of shelves, but couldn't get terrified, baby mouse to appear. 

back to educating. a little while later, i noticed the principal in my doorway. he visits often, so i continued, and out of the corner of my eye, i spotted the district superintendent, too. oh, that's nice. i love visitors. and i continued the education of the masses. kids - hallelujah - continued participating in the lesson. 

then i noticed that there was a mini-ruckus near the door by my built-in shelves. the principal was crawling on the floor. WUT??? my student teacher was laughing and moving around quickly. and the superintendent was - well, he was wearing sort of a forced-smile.

kids still were making words with me. 

a few minutes later, the hubbub by the door quieted down and the admins exited to the hall. i wondered if we made a decent impression. 

transitioned the kids to the next lesson and my student teacher whispered to me "omg! the mouse nearly crawled up that man's leg!" 

me: O_o   which man?

student-teacher (st): the man with the principal.

me: the SUPERINTENDENT!?!?!?!?!

st: oh. yeah. 

me: a MOUSE!?!?

st: nearly ran up his pant leg. 

me: WUT!

st: first it ran across the floor and then across his shoe...

me: the SUPERINTENDENT'S SHOE!?!?!

st: [giggles]

me: [stuffing giggles]

yes. the wee mousie or one of his 5011 friends and relations ran across my floor, attacked the superintendent and ran under all the extraneous crap on my shelves (i have very little storage and lots of stuff). 

hilarity followed as everyone (except for oblivious-me and my equally-oblivious and attentive-to-their-teacher kids) went into full-on-mr. jinx-mode. 

the janitor left a "sticky trap" on my cubbies. but i didn't know what it was and nearly lost a finger after i touched it. when they say "stickie" they mean "super-glue-stickie." it was placed under a cupboard.

as we were lining up to go to the computer lab a bit later, the kids spotted pixie or dixie or one of their 5011 friends and relations and they erupted into their own version of full-on-mr. jinx-mode. there was floor diving and giggling and random silliness. 

then…

"HE'S STUCK ON THE TRAP!!!!" said in unison by 21 squealing voices. 

me: good. we'll let him go out in the field. he'll be much happier to be outside. 

st took the kids to the lab and i hightailed (no pun intended) it to the office. 

me to AP: you'll save its life, right? 

AP [laughing]: O_o

me: PLEASE!

AP: you cannot get a mouse off a sticky trap.

me: PLEASE!

AP: i'm going to bash its brains in.

me: O_O 

AP: [laughing]

me: NOOOOOOOOO!

for the rest of the day, i pretended that the mouse was living safely in a happy little hole far from the school in a field of daisies. 

bash its head in! oh the humanity. ummm. the mouseanity!

i'm hoping that the superintendent high-tailed (apologies for the repeated no-pun-intended) it back to the central office and ordered an exterminator to come to our school. but i'm not betting on it. 

later in the afternoon, after listening to 5011 of mouse-in-the-house tales (not tails) from my kids, i seized the opportunity and we wrote stories titled "How to Catch a Mouse." 

the principal walked back in with a lady i did not recognize. this time my kids were not attentive and jumped all over him, begging him to read their stories. he took one and read the title out loud. he gave a nervous laugh and high-tailed (yada-yada) it out of our room with the lady in tow. she was all O_O. 

welcome to our room, mom-of-new-kid-starting-tomorrow.

eeeeek!!!! (a mouse). 

we always connect

my mantra is "only connect" with thanks (and maybe apologies) to E. M. Forster (sic - don't argue. that's really how he spells his last name).

it sums up my philosophy about life and learning and teaching. it needs no explanation or expansion. you can bring your own background to your understanding of my mantra and insert your own meaning. what it means to me might only be of value to me. only connect (did you see what i did there?) to the words and make them yours.

i've even used only connect as my classroom mantra. my kids know all about connections because we talk about them constantly. NOT just because making connections is a reading strategy that helps some kids connect (oops, i did it again) in multiple ways, but because my kids bring so many diverse bits of schema to our classroom and they - ON THEIR OWN - make connections between their lives and the things we learn.

but after watching this little video about mantras, i altered my classroom mantra just a bit. i found the vid in this blog from a principal. his staff created this mantra - EMPOWER, ACHIEVE, LEAD. no offense to his team, but that just seems like a mission statement cut down to three words. they're almost disconnected (oh, turn it around).

then i thought about my mantra and what it means/doesn't mean to the little ones in my class. and i rewrote it.

the revised mantra has multiple meanings for me as i hope it will for them and as i hope it will for you.

we always connect.

the premature death of public education

i am frustrated and disgusted by the political climate in the united states regarding many things but most importantly toward public education. in addition, i believe that if private donors, like bill gates and mark zuckerberg, want to contribute to improving public education, they need to NOT tie their "donations" to their personal agenda. public school teachers have been vilified by media, politicians and non-educators. they have no understanding for the challenges that we face every day in our classrooms. this post is only to make the small statement that public education should NOT be assassinated in this country. it should be nurtured and supported. i'll be back with more.

my story

once upon a time, there was a mom without a job. she cooked and cleaned and drove her youngest daughter to and from school every day. she was bored. her daughter's teacher - like all teachers - needed help in her classroom. someone to read with the kids. someone to correct papers. someone to take a bit of the heavy load off her back. so the mom began helping out in the classroom. and she fell in love. with the kids. the teacher. the books. the work. the excitement. the learning. and the teacher said, "why don't you go back to college and get your degree? you'd be such a great teacher!" the mom was shocked. she had never considered being a teacher. one of her sisters was the teacher in the family. an amazing teacher. the mom was just a mom. but she started wondering if she could-should-might go back to college. she found out that the closest state university had an off-campus program. she would have to go to school at night and take extra courses at the local community college. she didn't apply for the program. instead she applied for a job in one of the county school systems. she was hired as an instructional assistant. and then she applied for the program. and she was accepted. she worked days and fell in love. with the kids. the teachers. the books. the work. the excitement. the learning. and she went to school at night and fell in love. with the books. the ideas. the philosophy. the pedagogy. the learning. the everything. she barely slept. she worked herself into exhaustion and illness. she ached to the marrow of her bones. and she didn't stop. she graduated with high honors. summa cum laude. 4.0 average. and she became a teacher. and she fell in love. with the kids. the books. the work. the excitement. the learning. and she lived happily ever after.

power

i just took a personality test and it revealed that *power* is the driving force in my life. i couldn't believe that result. i want to believe that i don't crave power at all. i shun it. i run screaming from it. i hide from it. i'm diametrically opposed to it. my personal philosophy centers on community and collaboration. i'm a social constructivist - knowledge is constructed by people (from little people to grown-up people) working together. everyone is an expert at something. sometimes many things. sometimes one thing. i like it when a group situation is made better by each person contributing something from their area of expertise and by each person learning something from the others, building new skill-sets. the project succeeds because of the united effort of the group and the separate contributions of the group members. but leadership is not necessarily power and power is not necessarily leadership. one can lead quietly and one can wield power without dominating. school leadership takes many forms, from modeling appropriate or desired behaviors or actions to hosting a workshop. leadership transforms the leader and followers. great leaders transform followers into leaders. i'm not power-hungry. but i think that i have leadership potential. as long as i can lead from the back of the room. behind a potted plant.