Last night I went down with a nasty bout of stomach flu. Oh, how I hate to throw up.
Anyway, after a night of flu beating up on my body (and mostly winning) I felt pretty exhausted this morning. And, given the temperatures in the -20s, schools had all been closed for today due to the extreme cold, so he really only needed to get one out of the two cars started. Unfortunately, even that proved too much for our little old vehicles. Mark was unable to get either of our cars started to go to work this morning. . By 9:30, he had still not gotten either car started, and as I lay down to try to take a nap, I was feeling pretty low. I was worrying about 3 things in particular:
1) Would I have sufficiently recovered from my flu to return to school tomorrow, especially with it being the first day back after a long break?
2) Would we be able to get either car started tomorrow when we needed them both to be working?
3) How would we be able to purchase a new car if we needed one soon (given that we are still trying to recover financially from 4 months of unemployment for me and 3 months of unemployment for Mark)?
By this afternoon, God had neatly answered each of these prayers:
1) Schools are closed again tomorrow because of cold. I will be able to recover at home.
2) My dad drove down to our house with a portable battery that worked to start one of our cars (and which we will hopefully use to start the other car once the battery has recharged).
3) Mark was able to do some crazy maneuvering with our finances and squeak just over $2,000 out of our working budget for next month to throw into savings in case of a car emergency.
So, neat as that, God provided for each of my concerns. Case closed.
Monday, January 6, 2014
Falling in Love with First Graders: A Case of Love and Hair Loss (Part 2)
So, a few days ago I posted about how I love my students and I shared some stories about students I love. I also talked briefly about how I feel like I fail my students on a daily basis. This post is about the darker side of the last three months.
Mark and I moved into our new apartment about 2 weeks before I was needed for training at my school. It was just over this break that I realized that I think I'm still adjusting to life in St. Paul, Minnesota, compared to life in small-town, Iowa. I no longer walk to work; I brave the icy, steep streets between our apartment and the school. Every day I am confronted with at least 2 homeless men holding signs on exit ramps between home and school and the conflicted emotions seeing those men and doing nothing produce. Mark has created a white noise soundtrack that we play on repeat in our bedroom every night. I'm a light sleeper (even lighter when stressed) and early in the fall we had some trouble with neighbors playing music with a booming bass line late into the evening.
I spend hardly any time in our apartment, even though it's pretty nice (now that the noise issue has been dealt with). Our apartment would allow us to get a dog, but that poor thing. It would be alone in its kennel for at least 10 hours four days per week, if not more. Mark has firmly stated that we do not have the time or the energy for a dog right now. Even though he's right, I still cruise petfinder.com regularly because I know a pet would have a calming effect on me. (A cat would be the most calming, but there is no way Mark will let me get a cat. Poo.)
During these first three months of teaching, I have also been a student myself, taking two graduate classes at one of the local universities. This extra dose of craziness is required by the Minnesota Department of Education. Since we Teach For America teachers don't have our licenses yet, we have to be actively working toward them in order to teach full-time in public schools in Minnesota. This has meant that two evenings a week, besides the 10 hours at school and hour and a half of lesson planning at home, I spent an additional 4 hours in a classroom with other teachers. Though being with other first year teachers was deeply helpful to me, and though I learned a lot of great things in my courses, the additional time commitment and homework was hard on me.
I'm kind of an anxious person as a general rule. Mark can attest that even when we were dating I worried about things while he just shook his head at me, mystified. The stresses of teaching and graduate school has taken my anxiety to new heights (or lows, depending on how you look at it) since September. The anxiety tends to come in waves, and three debilitating waves have swept over me since starting teaching. Each time the waves of anxiety have climaxed with much crying, very little sleep, weight loss, hair loss, and a day off of teaching (usually with more crying and still very little sleep) to recover. Each time I felt like going back into the classroom would be like plunging into an icy black pit of despair and each time I questioned whether I could make myself keep going.
By the middle of December, when anxiety wave #3 hit, receded, and left a very insecure me in its wake, my TFA mentor, Emily, was concerned enough to alert some of the rest of the TFA staff. Mike, the TFA managing director, scheduled a meeting with me. I steeled myself for the meeting, expecting him to caution me against quitting and remind me of how detrimental that would be for my students. What he wanted to talk about, then, came as a complete surprise: anxiety. Based on some of his personal experiences, he had some great insights into dealing with anxiety.
His personal story, as well as his suggestions, gave me some renewed hope that maybe I wasn't a hopeless teacher and that maybe I could find ways to deal with the anxiety and keep teaching. Long story short, I overcame my feeble protests to seeing a doctor, met with a doctor over break, and was prescribed a depression medication that isn't actually used to treat depression but instead is used to treat insomnia. The solid nights of sleep since starting the medication have been so refreshing and have cut down on a lot of the anxiety. I'm also probably going to go see a therapist (although I'm not really sure when I'll have time) to try to come up with some coping mechanisms for anxiety.
In the meantime, though, I'm reading a book that Mike recommended called Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Martin E. Seligman. Kind of an ostentatious title, but so far I've learned a lot from this book. Seligman has spent over a decade doing research on pessimism and its link to depression and, later, optimism and its link to fending off depression. Maybe sometime I'll do a complete review of the book, but in the meantime, I'll just say that I've learned that some jobs require a more pessimistic mindset (because pessimists have proven to have more accurate and realistic views of the world) and some jobs require a more optimistic mindset. I have a decidedly pessimistic view of pretty much everything, and my job requires an optimistic mindset. Therefore, I need to develop an optimistic mindset. Seligman's book walks the reader through a few 'tools' for developing an optimistic mindset. I'm still reading, but so far the book has been super helpful, and I'm gradually becoming aware of the pessimistic messages I tell myself.
So, my goals for the next five months of teaching: 1) develop a more optimistic view of life and harness the pessimism for use in specific situations and 2) find more balance and take better care of myself. I basically stopped exercising from July on, even though that's a great stress reliever for me, and I all but stopped getting together with friends. I'm going to try to pick up both activities again, as well as warm baths, burning candles, and chamomile lavender tea. I'm going to have to schedule those things in, but it will be worth it. Maybe I'll even get around to blogging more!
So, I'm still a teacher, still struggling with some anxiety, but more ready to face the next phase of teaching. Here we go!
Mark and I moved into our new apartment about 2 weeks before I was needed for training at my school. It was just over this break that I realized that I think I'm still adjusting to life in St. Paul, Minnesota, compared to life in small-town, Iowa. I no longer walk to work; I brave the icy, steep streets between our apartment and the school. Every day I am confronted with at least 2 homeless men holding signs on exit ramps between home and school and the conflicted emotions seeing those men and doing nothing produce. Mark has created a white noise soundtrack that we play on repeat in our bedroom every night. I'm a light sleeper (even lighter when stressed) and early in the fall we had some trouble with neighbors playing music with a booming bass line late into the evening.
I spend hardly any time in our apartment, even though it's pretty nice (now that the noise issue has been dealt with). Our apartment would allow us to get a dog, but that poor thing. It would be alone in its kennel for at least 10 hours four days per week, if not more. Mark has firmly stated that we do not have the time or the energy for a dog right now. Even though he's right, I still cruise petfinder.com regularly because I know a pet would have a calming effect on me. (A cat would be the most calming, but there is no way Mark will let me get a cat. Poo.)
During these first three months of teaching, I have also been a student myself, taking two graduate classes at one of the local universities. This extra dose of craziness is required by the Minnesota Department of Education. Since we Teach For America teachers don't have our licenses yet, we have to be actively working toward them in order to teach full-time in public schools in Minnesota. This has meant that two evenings a week, besides the 10 hours at school and hour and a half of lesson planning at home, I spent an additional 4 hours in a classroom with other teachers. Though being with other first year teachers was deeply helpful to me, and though I learned a lot of great things in my courses, the additional time commitment and homework was hard on me.
I'm kind of an anxious person as a general rule. Mark can attest that even when we were dating I worried about things while he just shook his head at me, mystified. The stresses of teaching and graduate school has taken my anxiety to new heights (or lows, depending on how you look at it) since September. The anxiety tends to come in waves, and three debilitating waves have swept over me since starting teaching. Each time the waves of anxiety have climaxed with much crying, very little sleep, weight loss, hair loss, and a day off of teaching (usually with more crying and still very little sleep) to recover. Each time I felt like going back into the classroom would be like plunging into an icy black pit of despair and each time I questioned whether I could make myself keep going.
By the middle of December, when anxiety wave #3 hit, receded, and left a very insecure me in its wake, my TFA mentor, Emily, was concerned enough to alert some of the rest of the TFA staff. Mike, the TFA managing director, scheduled a meeting with me. I steeled myself for the meeting, expecting him to caution me against quitting and remind me of how detrimental that would be for my students. What he wanted to talk about, then, came as a complete surprise: anxiety. Based on some of his personal experiences, he had some great insights into dealing with anxiety.
His personal story, as well as his suggestions, gave me some renewed hope that maybe I wasn't a hopeless teacher and that maybe I could find ways to deal with the anxiety and keep teaching. Long story short, I overcame my feeble protests to seeing a doctor, met with a doctor over break, and was prescribed a depression medication that isn't actually used to treat depression but instead is used to treat insomnia. The solid nights of sleep since starting the medication have been so refreshing and have cut down on a lot of the anxiety. I'm also probably going to go see a therapist (although I'm not really sure when I'll have time) to try to come up with some coping mechanisms for anxiety.
In the meantime, though, I'm reading a book that Mike recommended called Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Martin E. Seligman. Kind of an ostentatious title, but so far I've learned a lot from this book. Seligman has spent over a decade doing research on pessimism and its link to depression and, later, optimism and its link to fending off depression. Maybe sometime I'll do a complete review of the book, but in the meantime, I'll just say that I've learned that some jobs require a more pessimistic mindset (because pessimists have proven to have more accurate and realistic views of the world) and some jobs require a more optimistic mindset. I have a decidedly pessimistic view of pretty much everything, and my job requires an optimistic mindset. Therefore, I need to develop an optimistic mindset. Seligman's book walks the reader through a few 'tools' for developing an optimistic mindset. I'm still reading, but so far the book has been super helpful, and I'm gradually becoming aware of the pessimistic messages I tell myself.
So, my goals for the next five months of teaching: 1) develop a more optimistic view of life and harness the pessimism for use in specific situations and 2) find more balance and take better care of myself. I basically stopped exercising from July on, even though that's a great stress reliever for me, and I all but stopped getting together with friends. I'm going to try to pick up both activities again, as well as warm baths, burning candles, and chamomile lavender tea. I'm going to have to schedule those things in, but it will be worth it. Maybe I'll even get around to blogging more!
So, I'm still a teacher, still struggling with some anxiety, but more ready to face the next phase of teaching. Here we go!
Friday, January 3, 2014
Falling in Love with First Graders: A Case of Love and Hair Loss (Part 1)
Blogging is fairly therapeutic for me. So, the fact that I haven't been blogging much over the last 2 months either suggests that I've been doing so well that I don't need therapy or that I simply haven't been taking care of myself. In this case, the latter is definitely true.
The first three months of teaching have gone by in a blur. I've experienced some successes as a teacher but more often I've felt like a failure (really, not too strong a word for how I've felt) and like I'm letting my students down in so many ways. My students are at vastly different levels, academically and socially. I have one student, A.H., who can read at a 4th grade level and got every single question on my math diagnostic test correct back in September. He's a really good kid, but I haven't been meeting his academic needs. Mostly he's bored, unless I let him read independently. He's one of the reasons I'm terribly happy I stocked my classroom library with books all the way up to a 6th grade reading level.
On the other end of the spectrum, I have students who can still barely read a complete sentence, even a phonetic sentence with kindergarten-level high frequency words. And some of my students just didn't catch on to basic addition and subtraction our first time through it. Those are the kids I lay in bed at night worrying about.
I have two boys (three at the beginning of the year, but one was expelled...) who struggle with dealing with their anger in a constructive way. Interestingly, all three of them are the youngest child in their family and the only boy (in a Muslim home). From what I've heard from people who know their families, and from what I've observed, all three of them are spoiled at home. So, the behavior problems they have come more from spoiling than from abuse or neglect. At the beginning of the year, these three boys threw my class into chaos regularly. Daily. Hourly. Thinking back to that, I realize that they have come a long way in dealing with their anger, and I have come a long way in helping them. Yay for all of us.
A.A.-1 is probably one of my favorite students, despite his anger issues. He loves to learn and is often telling me random facts he knows about animals. ("Teacher, did you know sea cow and manatee are the same?") His anger is a lot more manageable too, which probably helps my opinion of him. When he gets angry (usually from not getting his way in something), he generally shuts down, crouches down by the table that he shares with 3 or 4 other students, and starts pulling on the table legs, making them exclaim angrily. Another time, when I didn't let him write with a pen on one of our assignments, he started ripping up his paper. I left him alone with his temper tantrum, and when I came back to him, he said, "Teacher, when I feel mad, I rip up one paper and then I feel better." He's learning, though, when he starts to feel angry, to ask to go sit in our Spot for Thought or go out and take one walking circuit in the halls with my aid. Those things usually calm him down.
A.A.-2 is my other 'angry child,' and he's been a more difficult case for me. Whereas A.A.-1 seems to get angry and then act without thinking, A.A.-2 is a little more thoughtful in how he creates havoc in the classroom. I find this a little harder to swallow. He's advanced in both reading and math, but unlike A.H., he doesn't passively resign himself to being bored in the classroom. (This is probably a good trait, if we can figure out a way to harness it and use it more productively.) In large group instruction time, if I don't acknowledge A.A.-2 about every 2 minutes, he starts to act up. And when he gets really angry, like really angry, he does things like throw chairs across the room, spit in my face or my aid's face, and emit a high-pitched wail that curdles the blood. He also is making progress toward handling his anger more effectively, but he had a relapse right before break and got suspended. Oh, A.A.-2....
Even though I feel like I'm failing a lot of my kids academically, I've fall in love with most of them. A.A.-3 (so many A names!) is one little girl who I just couldn't get along with at the beginning of the year. In the last month, though, she and I have wormed our way into each other's affections. She's a tough little girl and walks with a swagger. At the beginning of the year, when most of my little girls would give me hugs at the end of the day, A.A.-3 would cock her head and extend her hand for a high five. Now, most days, she gives me a quick, hard hug before swaggering onto her bus. She has a problem with hitting other students and saying unkind things, but she so badly wants to please. Often I hear from her, "Mrs. Fuhrman, look! I did this all by myself!" For such a rough little girl, she has incredibly neat handwriting and takes pride in it.
Z.M. is tiny and is incredibly concerned with what everyone else is doing, even when she really has no idea what she's supposed to be doing. Sometimes she rubs me the wrong way, with how worked up she can get over what everyone else is doing, even when it has no connection to her or to school. ("Teacher! Her has candy from her's pack-pack!") She's one student that I lay awake at night worrying about. She's one of my lowest in both math and reading. Frankly, she spends a lot of the time looking around the classroom in a daze.
OK. I promise I'm almost done telling about my students. Just a few more. M.A. is another student who occasionally has behavior problems but who I've grown to love over the past two months. Actually, I think most of his behavior problems in October stemmed from the fact that his glasses were broken and he wasn't able to get a new pair for about 3 weeks. He was downright contrary during those three weeks. I'm not surprised, though. Judging by how bug-eyed his glasses make him look, I'm sure he's quite near-sighted. He has this way of cocking his head to the side, staring at me out of those bug-eyes, and asking me in a squeaky voice, "Mrs. Fuhrman, why are you doing that?" "Mrs. Fuhrman, why are you taking your coat off?" "Mrs. Fuhrman, why are you wearing those shiny shoes?"
A.S. is one of the tiniest kids in my class. He's super well-behaved all the time and is usually one to set a really good example for the rest of the class. His handwriting is atrocious, and I'm pretty sure he should be writing with his left hand. He does everything else left-handed. But I can't get him to stick with his left hand. He just switches back to his right and holds the pencil in a claw-like grip. A.S. is also a good morale booster for me. Whenever I try to be funny or super engaging with my class, I can always count on him to have an ear-to-ear grin on his face, like I've just let him in on the funniest secret of his life. I honestly haven't gotten to know him very well, yet, though. He didn't say a word to me for the first two months of school, and even now he only speaks about 4 words at a time. I think he just doesn't talk much, but I want to try to get to know him better.
One final student I just want to mention. S.Y. is one of the most loving, happy, friendly children I have ever met. She genuinely wants to make other people happy. When I started a Kindness Heart board, she was practically jumping up and down at the end of the day, when there were 5 hearts up on the board. (Each heart had a student's name on it and represented a time that student had been kind during the day.) "Mrs. Fuhrman!" she said, "This is the best day of my life! Everyone in our class is so nice!" S.Y. is also one of the reasons that A.A.-1 began to deal with his anger in a more effective way. Somehow, despite the fact that A.A.-1 always says, "Teacher! I can't work with girls!" S.Y. managed to become friends with A.A.-1. Now, he loves to work with her and she has kind of become a mediator when he throws a temper tantrum and ends up in a turtle position on the ground. She will kneel down by him, whisper in his ear, put her arm around him, and in general, coax him back into classroom life. When I was telling my dad about her, he murmured to himself, "You are not far from the Kingdom, child." Honestly, those words brought tears to my eyes. S.Y. is one of the most Christlike children I've ever met.
I had meant for this blog post to be about much more than the students that I teach, but this is now going to have to be a two-part post. Stay tuned for 'Falling in Love with First Graders: A Case of Love and Hair Loss Part 2", coming soon!
The first three months of teaching have gone by in a blur. I've experienced some successes as a teacher but more often I've felt like a failure (really, not too strong a word for how I've felt) and like I'm letting my students down in so many ways. My students are at vastly different levels, academically and socially. I have one student, A.H., who can read at a 4th grade level and got every single question on my math diagnostic test correct back in September. He's a really good kid, but I haven't been meeting his academic needs. Mostly he's bored, unless I let him read independently. He's one of the reasons I'm terribly happy I stocked my classroom library with books all the way up to a 6th grade reading level.
 |
| A.H. Sorry, not sure if I can post pictures of my students on my blog. The eye blocking is my attempt to be legal but also share my darlings. |
On the other end of the spectrum, I have students who can still barely read a complete sentence, even a phonetic sentence with kindergarten-level high frequency words. And some of my students just didn't catch on to basic addition and subtraction our first time through it. Those are the kids I lay in bed at night worrying about.
I have two boys (three at the beginning of the year, but one was expelled...) who struggle with dealing with their anger in a constructive way. Interestingly, all three of them are the youngest child in their family and the only boy (in a Muslim home). From what I've heard from people who know their families, and from what I've observed, all three of them are spoiled at home. So, the behavior problems they have come more from spoiling than from abuse or neglect. At the beginning of the year, these three boys threw my class into chaos regularly. Daily. Hourly. Thinking back to that, I realize that they have come a long way in dealing with their anger, and I have come a long way in helping them. Yay for all of us.
A.A.-1 is probably one of my favorite students, despite his anger issues. He loves to learn and is often telling me random facts he knows about animals. ("Teacher, did you know sea cow and manatee are the same?") His anger is a lot more manageable too, which probably helps my opinion of him. When he gets angry (usually from not getting his way in something), he generally shuts down, crouches down by the table that he shares with 3 or 4 other students, and starts pulling on the table legs, making them exclaim angrily. Another time, when I didn't let him write with a pen on one of our assignments, he started ripping up his paper. I left him alone with his temper tantrum, and when I came back to him, he said, "Teacher, when I feel mad, I rip up one paper and then I feel better." He's learning, though, when he starts to feel angry, to ask to go sit in our Spot for Thought or go out and take one walking circuit in the halls with my aid. Those things usually calm him down.
 |
| A.A.-1. All my pictures in this blog post are from a field trip. I want to try to take more in-class pictures this semester. |
A.A.-2 is my other 'angry child,' and he's been a more difficult case for me. Whereas A.A.-1 seems to get angry and then act without thinking, A.A.-2 is a little more thoughtful in how he creates havoc in the classroom. I find this a little harder to swallow. He's advanced in both reading and math, but unlike A.H., he doesn't passively resign himself to being bored in the classroom. (This is probably a good trait, if we can figure out a way to harness it and use it more productively.) In large group instruction time, if I don't acknowledge A.A.-2 about every 2 minutes, he starts to act up. And when he gets really angry, like really angry, he does things like throw chairs across the room, spit in my face or my aid's face, and emit a high-pitched wail that curdles the blood. He also is making progress toward handling his anger more effectively, but he had a relapse right before break and got suspended. Oh, A.A.-2....
 |
| A.A.-2, the little stinker. Doesn't he have an adorable smile? |
Z.M. is tiny and is incredibly concerned with what everyone else is doing, even when she really has no idea what she's supposed to be doing. Sometimes she rubs me the wrong way, with how worked up she can get over what everyone else is doing, even when it has no connection to her or to school. ("Teacher! Her has candy from her's pack-pack!") She's one student that I lay awake at night worrying about. She's one of my lowest in both math and reading. Frankly, she spends a lot of the time looking around the classroom in a daze.
 |
| Z.M and A.A.-3 at the museum. Love them! |
A.S. is one of the tiniest kids in my class. He's super well-behaved all the time and is usually one to set a really good example for the rest of the class. His handwriting is atrocious, and I'm pretty sure he should be writing with his left hand. He does everything else left-handed. But I can't get him to stick with his left hand. He just switches back to his right and holds the pencil in a claw-like grip. A.S. is also a good morale booster for me. Whenever I try to be funny or super engaging with my class, I can always count on him to have an ear-to-ear grin on his face, like I've just let him in on the funniest secret of his life. I honestly haven't gotten to know him very well, yet, though. He didn't say a word to me for the first two months of school, and even now he only speaks about 4 words at a time. I think he just doesn't talk much, but I want to try to get to know him better.
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| A.S. and M.A. on the bus. I wish you could see M.A.'s eyes! Adds so much to his character. |
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| S.Y. at the museum offering me 'something to eat.' |
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Things I Would Write About
Hello out there! It's me, the host of this blog! I know you haven't heard from me in a while and have probably stopped believing that I exist.
I probably am still going to be mostly silent for a while, but my two grad school classes are ending within the next two weeks and then I will be down to just-school crazy busy instead of school-plus-grad-school crazy busy until the beginning of February.
There are lots of things I would write about now if I had time:
1. Why I love my students (because it's super important for me to try to find positive right now)
2. Anxiety and how I almost quit teaching (which is what leads up to number 1 being number 1 in this list)
3. How being a teacher made me question my desire to be a parent (which is also what leads up to number 1 being so important)
4. Why rolling yourself up like a burrito in the class rug doesn't help solve your problems
5. How a bruised thumb reminds me I am not a patient person
6. How to get kids to interact in a positive way with the kid who eats his boogers (honestly, I'm looking for ideas here)
7. Finding teacher mentors and why that's been great for me
8. Hey! I love to read, cook, and even do dishes on occasion! I had forgotten.
9. My astonishing list of crochet and sewing projects for Christmas and New Year break
10. Why I'm thankful I'm experiencing my first year of teaching surrounded by friends and family (even if I never see them)
I wish I had time to write all these blogs now. Maybe over Christmas break. Or maybe when my grad school classes are done for the semester. I don't know. I know they would all be good for me to write. Therapeutic or something. Anyway, I am still here, still teaching.
Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone!
I probably am still going to be mostly silent for a while, but my two grad school classes are ending within the next two weeks and then I will be down to just-school crazy busy instead of school-plus-grad-school crazy busy until the beginning of February.
There are lots of things I would write about now if I had time:
1. Why I love my students (because it's super important for me to try to find positive right now)
2. Anxiety and how I almost quit teaching (which is what leads up to number 1 being number 1 in this list)
3. How being a teacher made me question my desire to be a parent (which is also what leads up to number 1 being so important)
4. Why rolling yourself up like a burrito in the class rug doesn't help solve your problems
5. How a bruised thumb reminds me I am not a patient person
6. How to get kids to interact in a positive way with the kid who eats his boogers (honestly, I'm looking for ideas here)
7. Finding teacher mentors and why that's been great for me
8. Hey! I love to read, cook, and even do dishes on occasion! I had forgotten.
9. My astonishing list of crochet and sewing projects for Christmas and New Year break
10. Why I'm thankful I'm experiencing my first year of teaching surrounded by friends and family (even if I never see them)
I wish I had time to write all these blogs now. Maybe over Christmas break. Or maybe when my grad school classes are done for the semester. I don't know. I know they would all be good for me to write. Therapeutic or something. Anyway, I am still here, still teaching.
Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone!
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Race: Learning to See
Since Mark and I have moved into an apartment building where the residents are predominantly African-American in a neighborhood of apartment buildings where residents are more likely to be Asian, African-American or Latino than White and since I've been teaching at a school where all of my students are African or African-American, I've been thinking a lot about race and racism. Most of my thoughts about race and racism have been sort of in the back corner of my mind, as the front corners of my mind are taken up right now with questions of whether I'll be able to keep control in my classroom long enough for my students to learn the short /a/ sound.
My thoughts about racism have been a weird jumble. I think about the loud music vibrating our floors and how the picture I got in my head when I felt the first rumble was of African-American people partying in a poorly kept living room. I hate that about myself, that those were my first mental images, and what that says about racism that still lives in me.
It scares me too, especially when I think about my students. Because if the image I get in my head when I hear loud music is African-American people living in a dingy apartment spending all their time rocking out pointlessly to loud music, what does that say about my expectations for what my students are capable of and should accomplish? What they should be like when they grow up? I'm terrified that despite all of my best intentions I'm going to lower my expectations for my students and decide that the work they are producing is 'good enough' even if it's not nearly good enough.
Because, let's face it: in order for my students to succeed and thrive while living in the United States, they are not going to have to score as high as White children. They are going to have to score higher. They are going to have to prove a thousand times more often that they are capable and bright and able to contribute wonderful things to the world. Because the world is not going to believe it on first glance. Especially when they see my darling girls wearing their hijab or my boys wearing their kufi.
And when I start to think about my girls and their hijab and my boys and their kufi, I also find myself thinking about my nephew who was adopted from Ethiopia in 2011. Not because he wears a kufi. I just know that my nephew is a wonderful, brilliant boy who love to read books, has an amazing vocabulary, and loves to entertain people. But so many people will just see black when they see him. Just like people will just see hijab when they see my girl students.
Before I started teaching at this school, when I saw a group of Muslim women in the store I was shopping in, I would just see their long flowing dresses and their hijab. A few days ago, though, when I was out, I saw a girl in hijab, and I found myself searching her face to see if she was a student of mine or a sister of a student of mine. It struck me at that moment that before, I hadn't been seeing the women in hijab as women. I'd just been seeing Muslim. Or maybe even just the clothes. I don't know. But I do know that I hadn't been really seeing them as individuals.
I don't know if this makes any sense, and I know that I'm rambling, but the thing is, I want my students to grow up being seen for who they are, beyond their clothing. I want my nephew to grow up being seen for who he is, beyond his skin color. And I want me to really see people. I want to really see the neighbors who live below us and play obnoxious loud music; if not get to know them, at least acknowledge that their personalities, their joys and disappointments, have depth that I don't know. And I want to really see my students with all their gifts and potential.
This seeing. I can't make the United States at large see my students for the wonderful individuals that they are or see my nephew for who he is. Racism is so hard that way - I can't make anyone not think racist thoughts. And I'm still battling my own sneakily hidden racism. But I truly think that seeing a person is what begins to dissolve some part of the racism barrier. So, maybe the very best thing I can do is tell the stories - tell the stories of my students as individuals so that a few other people will see them as more than a hijab or a kufi. Maybe that's the best start for learning to see.
My thoughts about racism have been a weird jumble. I think about the loud music vibrating our floors and how the picture I got in my head when I felt the first rumble was of African-American people partying in a poorly kept living room. I hate that about myself, that those were my first mental images, and what that says about racism that still lives in me.
It scares me too, especially when I think about my students. Because if the image I get in my head when I hear loud music is African-American people living in a dingy apartment spending all their time rocking out pointlessly to loud music, what does that say about my expectations for what my students are capable of and should accomplish? What they should be like when they grow up? I'm terrified that despite all of my best intentions I'm going to lower my expectations for my students and decide that the work they are producing is 'good enough' even if it's not nearly good enough.
Because, let's face it: in order for my students to succeed and thrive while living in the United States, they are not going to have to score as high as White children. They are going to have to score higher. They are going to have to prove a thousand times more often that they are capable and bright and able to contribute wonderful things to the world. Because the world is not going to believe it on first glance. Especially when they see my darling girls wearing their hijab or my boys wearing their kufi.
And when I start to think about my girls and their hijab and my boys and their kufi, I also find myself thinking about my nephew who was adopted from Ethiopia in 2011. Not because he wears a kufi. I just know that my nephew is a wonderful, brilliant boy who love to read books, has an amazing vocabulary, and loves to entertain people. But so many people will just see black when they see him. Just like people will just see hijab when they see my girl students.
Before I started teaching at this school, when I saw a group of Muslim women in the store I was shopping in, I would just see their long flowing dresses and their hijab. A few days ago, though, when I was out, I saw a girl in hijab, and I found myself searching her face to see if she was a student of mine or a sister of a student of mine. It struck me at that moment that before, I hadn't been seeing the women in hijab as women. I'd just been seeing Muslim. Or maybe even just the clothes. I don't know. But I do know that I hadn't been really seeing them as individuals.
I don't know if this makes any sense, and I know that I'm rambling, but the thing is, I want my students to grow up being seen for who they are, beyond their clothing. I want my nephew to grow up being seen for who he is, beyond his skin color. And I want me to really see people. I want to really see the neighbors who live below us and play obnoxious loud music; if not get to know them, at least acknowledge that their personalities, their joys and disappointments, have depth that I don't know. And I want to really see my students with all their gifts and potential.
This seeing. I can't make the United States at large see my students for the wonderful individuals that they are or see my nephew for who he is. Racism is so hard that way - I can't make anyone not think racist thoughts. And I'm still battling my own sneakily hidden racism. But I truly think that seeing a person is what begins to dissolve some part of the racism barrier. So, maybe the very best thing I can do is tell the stories - tell the stories of my students as individuals so that a few other people will see them as more than a hijab or a kufi. Maybe that's the best start for learning to see.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
A Breath in the Midst of Teaching
A stack of student papers is sitting by me, waiting to be graded, but for the first time since I started teaching on September 3, I feel like I might have enough time and enough energy to write a blog before I tackle the school work. I'm finally getting my feet back on the ground after reeling through the first few weeks of teaching. I'm beginning to re-discover that a pot of tea drunk all by myself with a book is an incredible delight, and I'm beginning to think about what book I'm going to read next, also an incredible delight. If I have enough time to think those thoughts, I decided I have enough time to write a blog. It's been a loooooooooong time since I've written anything here, though, to the point where I think to myself, Where to start? Where to start?
We are adjusting to life in an apartment complex, surrounded by people who like loud music. Maybe not surrounded, exactly, but the neighbors below us vibrate our floors with their music on occasion and the neighbors next to us like their speakers too. I'm a woefully light sleeper, so our bedroom has become a white noise factory of late. The fan on overhead creates a pleasant hum. The white noise track Mark created for me sounds like heavy rain or clapping depending on what I'm dreaming about, and the bass track he added to the heavy rain white noise track makes me feel like a train is running by our window all night long. I'm just that neurotic about noises that I need different tones of white noise to effectively dull the various sounds we hear in our bedroom at night.
Teaching the last three weeks has been a roller coaster. I think the next time I blog, I will write a little bit about the personalities of my kids. That's the fun part of teaching so far: getting to know each of the kids and what makes them excited or frustrated, how to calm the impulsive ones down when they make bad choices, how to make them smile. But I'm only just starting to see their personalities. Up until a few kids were switched out of my classroom on Thursday morning, all it felt like I was doing was managing one large, loud, disobedient group.
Here is what my day looked like before my class was brought down to a more manageable size:
4:45am - Wake up before the alarm, worrying about today.
5:05am - Get up, shower. Get ready. Eat breakfast. Read the Bible. Say desperate prayers.
6:05am - Drive to school. Say more desperate prayers.
7:15am - Students arrive. No time for praying. Crowd control.
8:00am - Start lining students up to go to breakfast. Feelings of frustration.
8:35am - Return from breakfast, frazzled by the difficulty of lining students up who are hyped up on sugar from their 'nutritious' breakfast.
9:00am - Math. Technically. In reality, crowd control. Maybe yell a little. Finish about half of the math lesson.
10:05am - Oops. Missed science time due to crowd control and discipline issues. Line students up for lunch. Even more challenging than lining them up for breakfast.
10:35am - Late for lunch. Defeated, leading loud and energetic children down the hall to the lunch room.
10:50am - Take a deep breath. Begin to line up students who are done eating.
11:05am - Return to classroom. Spend a few minutes doing calendar math activities. Spend many more minutes managing the group, giving out consequences and trying to be heard.
11:30am - Reading lesson. Also, crowd control. Also, trying to get kids to work on reading and not get out of their seats.
12:00pm - Arabic or Gym class. If Arabic, leave classroom so Arabic teacher can come in and teach. If Gym, lead kids to bus. Take deep breaths. Cry, maybe. Try to eat. Fail to eat. Organize materials for the rest of the day.
1:00pm - Arabic or Gym finished. If Arabic, students are mentally 'done' and need an active sort of brain break. Try to finish reading lesson. Attempt 'silent' reading. Ha.
1:45pm - Recess time. Most likely miss most of recess time because students are too excited to line up quietly.
2:00pm - Put on 10 minutes of Magic School Bus video for students to watch while they collect their backpacks, homework, and get ready to go out to the buses.
2:15pm - Frantically try to keep track of 29 children in the crush of bodies. Try to get the right kids on the 13 different buses.
2:30pm - Hand last child off to parents. Take a drink of water. (Have I drunk any water yet today? Can't remember.) Head to one of many staff meetings.
3:30pm - Put classroom back in order. Begin to make plans for tomorrow. Maybe cry a little.
5:30 or 6:00pm - Head home. Cry on Mark's shoulder. Try to eat supper. Succeed slightly.
6:30pm - Work on planning lessons. Try to figure out what will work to get class to relax, stop chattering, and listen.
9:00pm - Go to bed, exhausted.
10:30pm - Fall asleep after tossing and turning. Music starts up through the wall. Wake up. Lie there feeling angry and exhausted.
11:30pm - Music stops. Fall asleep for real.
Thankfully, since Thursday, there has been a lot less crying in my day. And since talking to my neighbors, there hasn't been much in the way of loud music at 10:30 at night. And as I mentioned above, things are looking up for my class now that I don't have quite so many students. In my next blog, whenever that is, I will spend some time talking about my students!
We are adjusting to life in an apartment complex, surrounded by people who like loud music. Maybe not surrounded, exactly, but the neighbors below us vibrate our floors with their music on occasion and the neighbors next to us like their speakers too. I'm a woefully light sleeper, so our bedroom has become a white noise factory of late. The fan on overhead creates a pleasant hum. The white noise track Mark created for me sounds like heavy rain or clapping depending on what I'm dreaming about, and the bass track he added to the heavy rain white noise track makes me feel like a train is running by our window all night long. I'm just that neurotic about noises that I need different tones of white noise to effectively dull the various sounds we hear in our bedroom at night.
Teaching the last three weeks has been a roller coaster. I think the next time I blog, I will write a little bit about the personalities of my kids. That's the fun part of teaching so far: getting to know each of the kids and what makes them excited or frustrated, how to calm the impulsive ones down when they make bad choices, how to make them smile. But I'm only just starting to see their personalities. Up until a few kids were switched out of my classroom on Thursday morning, all it felt like I was doing was managing one large, loud, disobedient group.
Here is what my day looked like before my class was brought down to a more manageable size:
4:45am - Wake up before the alarm, worrying about today.
5:05am - Get up, shower. Get ready. Eat breakfast. Read the Bible. Say desperate prayers.
6:05am - Drive to school. Say more desperate prayers.
7:15am - Students arrive. No time for praying. Crowd control.
8:00am - Start lining students up to go to breakfast. Feelings of frustration.
8:35am - Return from breakfast, frazzled by the difficulty of lining students up who are hyped up on sugar from their 'nutritious' breakfast.
9:00am - Math. Technically. In reality, crowd control. Maybe yell a little. Finish about half of the math lesson.
10:05am - Oops. Missed science time due to crowd control and discipline issues. Line students up for lunch. Even more challenging than lining them up for breakfast.
10:35am - Late for lunch. Defeated, leading loud and energetic children down the hall to the lunch room.
10:50am - Take a deep breath. Begin to line up students who are done eating.
11:05am - Return to classroom. Spend a few minutes doing calendar math activities. Spend many more minutes managing the group, giving out consequences and trying to be heard.
11:30am - Reading lesson. Also, crowd control. Also, trying to get kids to work on reading and not get out of their seats.
12:00pm - Arabic or Gym class. If Arabic, leave classroom so Arabic teacher can come in and teach. If Gym, lead kids to bus. Take deep breaths. Cry, maybe. Try to eat. Fail to eat. Organize materials for the rest of the day.
1:00pm - Arabic or Gym finished. If Arabic, students are mentally 'done' and need an active sort of brain break. Try to finish reading lesson. Attempt 'silent' reading. Ha.
1:45pm - Recess time. Most likely miss most of recess time because students are too excited to line up quietly.
2:00pm - Put on 10 minutes of Magic School Bus video for students to watch while they collect their backpacks, homework, and get ready to go out to the buses.
2:15pm - Frantically try to keep track of 29 children in the crush of bodies. Try to get the right kids on the 13 different buses.
2:30pm - Hand last child off to parents. Take a drink of water. (Have I drunk any water yet today? Can't remember.) Head to one of many staff meetings.
3:30pm - Put classroom back in order. Begin to make plans for tomorrow. Maybe cry a little.
5:30 or 6:00pm - Head home. Cry on Mark's shoulder. Try to eat supper. Succeed slightly.
6:30pm - Work on planning lessons. Try to figure out what will work to get class to relax, stop chattering, and listen.
9:00pm - Go to bed, exhausted.
10:30pm - Fall asleep after tossing and turning. Music starts up through the wall. Wake up. Lie there feeling angry and exhausted.
11:30pm - Music stops. Fall asleep for real.
Thankfully, since Thursday, there has been a lot less crying in my day. And since talking to my neighbors, there hasn't been much in the way of loud music at 10:30 at night. And as I mentioned above, things are looking up for my class now that I don't have quite so many students. In my next blog, whenever that is, I will spend some time talking about my students!
Sunday, September 1, 2013
My classroom is ready for action!
So, it may kind of feel like I've fallen off the face of the earth. And that is largely true, except where my classroom and school-related work on my computer at home is concerned. I have never been this busy in my life. Not even during finals week of college. College feels like a walk in the park in comparison to getting ready to teach first graders. And I haven't even started the graduate classes I'll be taking this semester. But I'm not really complaining because, when I can muster up the confidence to imagine that I will be able to manage my first grade classroom, I am actually having a lot of fun. (If I'm having a less confident moment and imagining my students running around the room screaming while I watch powerlessly... then not so much fun.)
I've spent the last week setting up my classroom and preparing lessons for my first week of school (gasp). School starts on Tuesday. I still can't say that without a few heart palpitations. But I am pretty excited about my classroom. It's nothing spectacular compared to some of the classrooms I've been ogling on other first grade teacher blogs, but for my first year of teaching with virtually no resources provided by the school, I'm pretty proud of it. Let me take you on a tour!
This is the door to my classroom. I'm sorry the picture's blurry. This is on the inside of the door so kids outside can't pick at it. Other teachers recommended that I cover over at least the bottom half of the window on my door so that when other kids are in the halls they aren't distracting my little ones from learning.
This is the big whiteboard inside my classroom. (The door you just saw is to the right, just outside of this picture.) I'm planning on not using the whiteboard for teaching, as you may guess. I just didn't find this summer that when I was up at the whiteboard my students could pay attention as well. There's a lot here. So on the whiteboard I have a spot for Team Points. Students will be divided into teams (their table) and they will earn points for good choices and lose points for poor choices. Underneath is a schedule. Moving counterclockwise, next is the job charts. Students will have jobs and earn 'money' for their jobs. The money they earn is tied to their behavior management system and they will have to pay money for poor choices they make individually. They will get to spend money they make at a class store on Fridays. Above the job chart is the Friday Celebration box. Students will have 15 minutes set aside for a Friday Celebration activity of their choice at the beginning of the week. (Friday Celebrations could be things like more reading time, games, an educational video, a dance party, etc.) If they work efficiently, they will be able to earn more minutes for the Friday Celebration. If they waste time as a class, they will lose minutes. And finally, in the center top of the whiteboard is our Voice-o-Meter. I'm hoping to use this to help the kids know how loud their voices can be when working on a given activity.
To the right of the board is our Behavior Ladder. Students will have clothespins with their names on them that will start at the top of the ladder at the beginning of the day. For each poor choice they make, they will be asked to move their clip down. Each move down has other consequences, such as paying me one Scholar Dollar, spending a few minutes in the Spot for Thought, taking Thinking Laps during recess, and so forth.
Below the board are two posters: "Growing in math together" is where we will track our achievement in math as a class. For each objective we get 80% on (as a class) we will get to put one green leaf on the tree. "We show character" is where we will record the character traits we learn about and that we are trying to show as a class. Pretty much all of my students are Muslim, which is why the little girl is wearing hijab. It may look like the little boy is elbowing the little girl out of the way, but he's not. I drew the little boy first, intending to just have one child on the poster but then I decided I needed a boy and a girl and I didn't want to start over. So my new plan is that the words for the character traits that we learn will go to the left of the little boy on the poster. Students who show those character traits and get nominated by a classmate (or me) will get their name put next to the little girl under the "Look Who" sign. I might take pictures, instead of having their name go up. I'm not sure yet.
Over here is our Class Rules poster. On the first day of school we will brainstorm together as a class what each of these rules looks and sounds like and put those descriptors under the rule. The floating head is the beginning of our tracker for minutes read. For every 200 minutes read as a class we will get to add one length to the caterpillar. Since the students will be required to read at least 20 minutes a night and since I have 28 students, hopefully by the end of the year he will be one loooooong caterpillar winding his way all around the classroom.
This part of the room is also our 'organizational' corner. Students deposit their homework and Home-School folders here when they come in in the morning. The cardboard tray thing is for any mail that needs to go in the student mailboxes. Once the job system is up and running one student will have the job of checking that mailbox at the end of the day and putting mail in student mailboxes before we pack up our backpacks. I'm pretty excited about my student mailboxes too. They're made out of pizza boxes which I purchased from a Papa John's near my parents' house. (I say 'purchased,' but they were really cheap and the Papa John's manager who helped me was so friendly! I honestly left with a smile on my face.)
The rolling whiteboard cart is where I'll do most of my teaching. The students will be sitting on the carpet (which I know is a boring brown, but since I didn't have much to spend on carpets, I had to take what I could get). I'm not sure if I'll sit in the rocking chair all the time or reserve that for the read-aloud at the end of the day.
Oh, and the 80% Club is peeking through under the cart. Every time we have a test as a class, students who get 80% or more will get to put their names up on the chart. We'll see how this goes. I want this to be a motivational tool and not a source of discouragement. If I'm not a good teacher and am not giving my students what they need to succeed, then it probably won't be helping and will probably disappear.
I realized now I didn't take pictures of my student tables and their chair pockets or my word wall. Oh well! I'll have to add those pictures later. In any case, despite being frightfully nervous, I'm terribly excited to start teaching on Tuesday!
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