Engaged!

It's been a crazy week...I got engaged on Saturday to the absolutely wonderful Dave Sandell and was supremely happy despite sad events from the week before.

God has been so good--thank you to everyone who has been praying for my class since Clay died. There has been a definate change in the room. And on Friday the students created small memorials with pictures and poems...and I think that helped them a lot.

Today I went to the funeral. It was packed with probably about 200 people--and it was neat to see the outpouring of love for the family...don't really have more words to put to it.

And in the meantime...a new chapter is beginning...

Sad Day

I guess you hope that this never happens...losing a student. Butwe live in a fallen world.

Today I got to school and found out that a former student of mine had been stabbed to death earlier that morning. They're not quite sure who did it or how it happened (at 2 am)...and investigations are underway (for more info check out local news websites) He was in my class from September to October and then transferred to another school. He was probably the most challenging student I've had, pushing me to the limit in a lot of areas. But he was a kid. Only 11, and it feels awful to know that he's gone.

It makes me realize even more the harsh reality that my students live in. Needless to say, today was a rough day. Generally, days can be hard with students not paying attention/getting into it with each other. But today emotions were running especially high.

Right now I'm still a little stunned...and trying to figure out how to meet my students in all of this.

Discipline

On Wednesday I nearly quit. Why you might ask? Despite the fact that the year has been going swimmingly, Wednesday was the hair that almost broke this camel's back.

After science I was bringing my class through the hallway at the same time that the three other sixth grade classes were bringing their students through the hallway. A student from another class ran through the hall, hit one of my students, and they got into a fight. Then one of my students goes after the first kid and another fight breaks out. I try to break it up with the help of another teacher, and finally two security guards break up the second fight and bring the students downstairs to the dean's office. Five minutes later the two students come walking down the hall, saying that everything's okay.

Let me recap. There were two separate, full-on-rolling-on-the-floor fist fights and no action was taken. It was enough to drive me crazy.

I realized this kind of stuff happens all the time. But this time, I realized it had to stop. I had just come back from a meeting with one of the boy's parents in which she said that her son said he played around in school because he could get away with it. And she was right. So I took down the students from my class who were involved. The dean had heard that it was a classroom on classroom fight (even if it were does that make it okay?) I had to explain everything that happened and basically advocate for some sort of punishment. I left frustrated, but relieved that something was happening.

But at the end of the week not much had changed. I had sent letters home with both boys. Neither parent came. One mother's phone number had changed (since the day before). The other mother said she got the letter but that she was tired of coming up to the school. One student was recommended for in-school suspension (which is supposed start Tuesday). He was already supposed to be there this last Monday but they kept putting off the start of in-school (or the Focus Learning Center as we like to call it). Nothing has happened with the other student whose mother would not come up. What is frustrating about this despite that fact that students are getting away with fighting in school when they should be learning, is that, if their mother's had come, the students would be suspended. Because the mother didn't come, they get off scott free. It doesn't make sense.

And another hard things is realizing that what my students really need most is structure. But if I'm unable to provide significant consequences for big things like fighting, then off course things are going to get chaotic. And that doesn't serve the rest of my students either.

I find out later that that same day a seventh grade teacher with several years of experience leaves in the middle of the day because she's tired of the lack of discipline. She doesn't come back the next day or the next and no one knows is she's officially quit or not.

So after all this (and another situation with a fellow teacher getting threatened) I felt pretty justified in quitting if I needed to. I'm doing the best I can but have no support from the school. The school is not taking a stand in discipline and its making the school chaotic. In a staff meeting, instead of discussing wasy to improve things, our principal chastises teachers on Friday for their lack of classroom management.

I call up my TFA program director and tell her I'm on the verge of quitting. I don't want to, but I need some help. I end up talking to her for 45 minutes in which she doesn't give a lot of answers, but asks some good questions, including:

"What would you do if nothing changes on the school level? "

What would I do? I don't know. Actually, I do: stick it out. I realized that there's very little I can do to change the school. Sure I can say that this is an unreasonable situation and that I am completely unprepared to be in it. Its not fair--to my students or to me. But it is what it is. My quitting is certainly not going to make anything better.

Then today I talked to a fellow corps member at another school. Believe it or not her situation is probably worse. 34 third graders in a class, no consequences from the school for fighting. Two students pushed the principal and nothing happened. Wow. It really put things in perspective for me. No, these situations are not right and should we have to deal with them as teachers? Probably not. On the flip side, its not fair to these students either. I feel like there are lots of system-wide things that need to change and also if I (or other new teachers) were amazing classroom motivators, things would probably change. But for the time being I need to focus on planning the best lessons I can, calling the parents who do care, pushing ahead, and praying. Actually, make that lots of praying. Perhaps this summer there will be more time for a major re-haul of my classroom, and time to re-evaluate my placement.

Calling mom (or grandma or auntie)

So...I'm posting twice in the same day, a way to make up for lost time and also to break it up. Maybe a blogger faux pas, but oh well...

I promised to write about my school before...I teach in a predominately African-American school on the west side. Most of the students come from low income households, many living in a single parent household or living with a relative (aunt, grandmother, grandfather) who is not their biological mom or dad. And culturally, my students and I come from very different backgrounds. When I was in grade school, if a teacher told me that my behavior made my parents look bad, I wouldn't have cared a bit. But for my students, the strongest statement I can make about their behavior, good or bad, is that it reflects on the way they were raised. And they don't want to make their parents look bad. For that reason, parent phone calls have been a pretty effective classroom management technique.

Yesterday, I found out just how effective parent phone calles could be. A student "Derek" was messing around in line on the way to computer. At first I was going to pull him out of his computer class, but let him fix his behavior and have a second chance. When he got back in line he started messing around right away, so he lost his computer time. He came back to the class and had to write a letter of apology to his mom. The letter kept getting longer and longer because he wanted to complain and talk back. Eventualy it was ridiculous, he had to write six pages and he was still messing around. So I called his mom.

Derek didn't like that. After I got off the phone he said, "Ms. D, you're always calling my mom. Why can't I call your mom?" "Well, do you want to call my mom." "Yeah," he said a bit defiantly. I immediately dialed my mom, at which point his eyes got big and I could see he didn't quite know what to do. As I said hello and told my mom what was going on, he actually closed his eyes and plugged his ears to avoid having to talk to my mom. But I made him talk. The conversation was short as the phone hit bad reception right after he started talking, but after that the damage was done. He was really sheepish and I think he was a bit freaked out realizing that I'm a real person with a real mom. For the rest of the day he did his work and he stopped messing around. And it definately gave me something to smile about.

Now, read on...

Understanding

After I posted "Rollercoaster" several people e-mailed and called to share their concern and sympathy...it was a hard week. Thanks to all of you I talked to. It was also amazing to me that several people who hadn't read the blog came up to me at church and said, "you know I was thinking about you a lot this week. How was your week?" Its incredible to me how God really provides for us when we need him, and I appreciate how he uses all of us to do his work.

Its been a while since I last posted, probably because these last two weeks have been a rollercoaster in their own right. But along the way have been some highlights. Two weeks ago we had our regional "walk through" where officials from the region came by to check that we had everything up on our walls and talked to our students to see what they were learning. It was a good day. Stressful, but good. That week I stayed really late, working on my room and planning lessons. And it paid off--when they came into my room we were doing guided reading the way the lit specialist had wanted and when they asked a student a question, she answered well. Earlier this week I saw my lit specialist and she gave me my second compliment of they year, "you did a good job." Short and sweet, but from her, it was a big deal.

Another plus is that I'm finally starting to understand my students...last week I was driving home and found myself angry, really angry. I realized that I've been angry for a while--angry with my students that they're not behaving, with my school for its lack of organization and discipline, and angry in general that things are so darn hard and it seems there's nothing I can do about it. I realized that if I was angry, my students probably were to. So the next day, I gave them a journaling assignment in the morning. "What makes you angry?" was the question. Here are some of the responses:

"What makes me angry is when some one come up to me and just say something out of order."

"When people grap me face. If hurt when people grab my face."

"What makes me angry is when somebody lie on me and do something I don't like I can't stand when someone hit me."

"Siting in the class and classmates disobeying the teacher, that's what make me angry. Can't get through a lesson in school without someone talking through it. What's what make me really angry."

"The stuff that makes me mad is ignorant kids that ain't got no sense. I'm talking about the kids that cuss outrageously wrong in front of adults. I mean I'm talking about the kids that want to fight for no reason. P.S. they want they but wooped, they aka P_____."

I realized that my students are alot like me, they get angry for the same reasons (and p.s. some of these were hilarious, I didn't edit them except to take out that last name=) They want to learn, they want to be respected. I also realized that they've been angry. Despite some spelling and grammatical errors, this is some of the best writing I've gotten. Almost all of my students remembered to restate the question in their answer and they stayed on topic. I realized they can do well when they care about what they're doing. My challenge now is to tap into what they care about.

Since that revelation, things have gotten a little better. My patience has expanded a little and I've been quicker to realize that maybe there is something bigger behind their misbehavior than mischief. My classroom is a work in progress, but at least they're progressing.

But even with that revelation things have been hard--this week brought up issues with students dealing with sexual abuse, domestic violence, ADHD, and violent behaviors and led to several meetings with the counselor, social worker, and parents. And a friend reminded me that many of these "battles" are spiritual and I need people praying for my students, the school, and myself. If you would like to join my prayer team by choosing a day of the week to pray, please shoot me an e-mail and I'd love to send you regular prayer updates.