The Accomplishment of No Effort

I'm not sure what my students are trying to prove to me when they turn in work with:

-no name...I suppose they still think I'm kidding when I say I'll throw it out?

-work where they clearly did not read the directions

-incomplete work after I had informed them that every paper they turned in might count for their grade

I get it, end of the year, we go to school longer than the districts, I don't really care mentalities reflected in their work, and so on.  But for some reason they forget that I will teach them again next year...

What disappoints me more than anything is that they can do this work; NOTHING is new! My current 6th graders learned all of this in 5th grade.  The students that were new this year are doing better than the ones who were my students the year before. If they know what they are doing, they definitely do not show it, if they don't  they are so easily defeated and completely fine with it.  They are just waiting for me to show them how to do it correctly,  but I can't anymore.

Learn by doing doesn't work when only a handful want to try.  Knowing full well that they can if they put forth the effort, I will continue on.  For some of them it is going to be a frustrating struggle, but I am now picking my battles and with those few who hold the whole group back it will just be themselves holding them back.

I hate to say that I'm just letting the time go by until the three current middle school grades are gone and then I'll have the type of program I want is unfortunately the first thing I think, but what else am I supposed to think?   

I know the type of teacher I can become if I work at it this summer, but I find myself at an impasse with middle school and channeling my track coach, thinking to myself: "I can't make chicken salad with chicken crap".

I Need a Bigger Board

Here is the new set-up for my classroom after a failed attempt at bucket seats for my elementary students who did a really good job destroying them. I realized that the blue step ups to the stage were Wenger Flip-Ups (?) and I could move them!

With my middle schoolers coming back tomorrow I am waiting to see which one falls off the top step first.

The most frustrating part of my classroom is the lack of an interactive whiteboard.  I never had a need for one of them until I saw a clinician at CMEA using PowerPoints as visual aids when teaching; that was when I decided to finally digitize my lessons.   The only downside is that my white board is against a wall which would mean my students would need to sit lengthwise on the platforms and it would not have worked well for the kids seeing anything.

The room has gone through many transitions this year, trying to find the best way to make sure the kids can see the projection. Behind the curtain is a huge screen that would be perfect, but the lunch tables live on the stage so no more big screen :( The flimsy white board on wheels will have to do for now.

Black Faces

Standing in the shadow of the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington D.C., I am in awe of it's enormity and magnificence, but troubled by the response of my students.  Yesterday was a long tiresome day with the kids way off their game in terms of their learning and showing what they  know; I have seen my kids in a new light and I'm impressed by some and discouraged by many; we hold them up so high and it's always so hard to see some fall from that lofty platform.

I had a quick conversation with my principal who was traveling with us:  the problem our kids are having:  context.  None of this history matters to them or has any relevancy away from having to know it for TCAP, or to the other reality of taking the U.S. Citizenship test.

I teach mostly Latino students.  I agree that regardless of the race of my students MLK is an important figure in this country when it comes to social justice, but my students do not see their own heritage represented in the nation's capital.  Wandering through the Native American Museum, I longed for the kids to be able to discover their native heritage, to find some pride; a stronger sense of identity.  Not of Mexico, but feeling lost or unwanted in the United States, my students are in a limbo I can relate to but never imagined could exist.  As a multi-racial person I would be grouped into the race that I resembled the most.  Growing up where I did, I found my identity without a race or nationality attached, which remains the most liberating moment of my life when I realized that bi-racial was a race and, neither of the two could truly support in defining who I am.

But my students are seemingly unwanted by the rest of this country.  In D.C. I hardly heard Spanish.  There were many other languages, but rarely Spanish, and I wondered how they felt.  On the trains they spoke in Spanish quietly or sometimes more English than they would normally use conversing with each other.  Maybe to not draw attention to themselves?  I think constantly about the isolated lives my students live:  some rarely venture away from their street let alone across the country, and when they do, they find in the heart of our country, no trace of recognition for their own cultural heritage.

Which brings me back to context:  they are in-between, in-between countries, and some feel no connection or identity to either country.  How do I as a teacher, teach them to find an identity in a place where they do not wholly feel accepted?

A Seemingly Good Idea...For a Crazy Person

I embarked on a project of proportions I did not anticipate for my elementary students. There could have been ample time to compile all the necessary materials to have made this successful, but with assessment and unit deadlines, plus my own lesson planning, time wad not open my side

I wanted each of my elementary students to have their own composition folders like I had seen on other music teaching websites. I still think it is a great idea, but I also need to remember that the blogs I follow are comprised mainly of teachers in the 'burbs who have maybe no more than 23 kids in their classes...but I teach in the 'hood where there are upwards of 30 tiny people in my class at once, and just me alone to manage theme

To then attempt to get things ready in two week with virtually no planning time, 275 kid to teach everyday, still planning a wedding, and get ready for a 5-day trip with my kids to D.C.....great idea, wrong time :(

Why I Teach

For the rest of my life I will remember the face of one of my girls this afternoon:

This little girl (literally little) in 5th grade is one of 52 amazing students I met as 4th graders.  They are with no exaggeration  nothing short of amazing!  So happy to learn, so eager to learn, and so incredibly talented. As they hit that love time called adolescence, their are some more imperfections coming to the surface, but their intelligence is not dwindling.

Reading music comes naturally to many of them and when they took their benchmark last week I was expecting them to do incredibly well on it.  Minus some students who did not show up for their performance, and some who are still lost in the notation, all of them scored "Proficient" or "Advanced" and I was so happy with the results:  confirmations that Orff can work for these kids when they are willing to let go of themselves and have fun.

We all, including their classmates, have expectations of some of the more advanced students:  that they will always get everything right.  Well today that did not happen.  A lot of them missed one or two questions that I anticipated them getting wrong, but I did not anticipate this little girl to blow even the advanced students out of the water.  With her ELL struggles and general quiet nature, she was learning her music at a slower pace and was always nervous to answer questions or seek me out for help.  As I tallied scores, she did not miss a single question.  The only student in her class of 52 to do this.

I sang praises of so many of them to their teachers and I waited at lunch to tell my little girl the news.  When I  told her she didn't miss any questions, there were no words coming from her mouth, only the largest smile that I've ever seen from her that radiated from her eyes and her entire face.  Her breathing picked up and her smile grew.  I actually made a student speechless in a good way!  I was almost in tears of happiness and had to hug her to keep myself from crying and also worried that she might hyperventilate.

Just thinking about that moment day after day gives me chills, and those are the moments that keep me teaching.

Snow Day in April

My school district never has snow days, we easily could but the big reason is because it would leave many kids in the district without a meal. But this storm is looking to be a big one although at the moment it hasn't done a whole lot.

I will happily take the snow day, since it will be my 4th official snow day in the 6 years I have been teaching. Most likely I will be getting my grading and planning done, but my nerves move to my amazing 5th graders who have a performance on Wednesday and have lost a day of practice. I know they will be ok, but that still does not help the nerves :/

Kid Quote #1

If only they realized how funny and clever they are!

The set up to this one, is that I have a 7th grader who no matter where I seat him finds a way to drum away on anything around him. I finally reached my last bit of tolerance and this was the exchange.

Me: ok, no more chances, if you don't show me you can control yourself you don't get to play the drums
Student M: what! That's not fair!
Me: oh, it's completely fair

I continued teaching for another 10 minutes when he began drumming again

Me: yep, no drum for M
Student M: that's mean Ms.
Me: it's not mean, I'm just following the rules
Student A: wait, there's a rule?
Me: I'm breaking a rule by telling you this but, basically you NEVER give the kids who can't be quiet or still the instruments that make loud sounds; you give them the smallest quietest instrument you have
Student A: for real?
Me: for real
Student A: so that's why I always had to play the tiny triangle in 4th grade! It all makes so much sense now!