this year i am proud...

today i had my kids write stem poems that started each line with "this year i am proud..." and i explained to martin* that i was having us write poems that started this way because today was the last day we'd be in class this year.

"no! we're coming to school on monday!"
"the day after christmas?" i asked.
"monday we have school!" martin exclaimed. he had the most concerned look on his face.
"no," i said, "we have the next two weeks off. we don't come back until january 9th."
"no!"
"sorry, dear. i won't be here monday. i'm gonna sleep in!"
"no! i want to come to school!"

it was cute and funny and nice to see a kid talk so much about how much he liked coming to school, despite the fact that he rarely understands what's going on in class and he gets into fights on a semi-regular basis. but really, he doesn't love school because it's school. he loves school because it's not home.

just 10 minutes before i had been working with his sister, who had asked me where i got my boots, "i got them from this store in my neighborhood," i said.
"where do you live?"
"up north, kind of. more west, really. i live west of downtown."
"i've been downtown," she said, and i gave my obligatory "oh, really? cool!" and i expected her to either drop it or talk about how she'd gotten a new coat this one time or how she went to look at the windows at marshal fields. but then she launched into a story about going downtown with her dad, who had to go to the police station for a long time and they asked her questions and she told them that he beat her with a belt so they took him to jail. all in one long sentence just like that.

i know i signed on for this kind of stuff when i decided to become a teacher and when i said, specifically, "give me a job on the south side," and i knew that this happened and i knew it happened to my kids. but i never heard them rattle off their stories so non-chalantly. i asked her if she was ok, and if her family was ok. she smiled and said yes. later, after she'd written a line in her poem that said "i wish ms. mcguire** was my mom because she is kind to me" she asked "if i was your kid would you whoop me?"
"um, i don't think i'll whoop my kids," i said. "my mom didn't whoop me really and i think i turned out pretty well, so i probably won't either."

no wonder martin doesn't want to spend 2 weeks at home. i told him i'd give him something to do over the break and he smiled and looked a little better. i gave him the book i'd wrapped for his christmas present and he just smiled sheepishly and left the room. he's been back into my room 2 or 3 times since, though. just to say hi.

*yes, i change my kids' names. i try to pick something similar, though. the kids' names always seem so deeply connected to the kind of people they are, for better for for worse. sometimes this "similar" name is only similar in some convoluted way that i connect the name with the kid, though. so really, this doesn't matter at all.
**yes, i change my name, too. in this case to that of a distant branch of my family.

i'm no match for a movie in class

my students have abandoned me for their respective class holiday parties. i've got sad cookies and juice (the store bought variety you only eat when someone gives them to you at school) that no one will eat now, but i was able to give most of my students the books i bought them to read over break (yeah, right). it's probably for the best. i read over the picture book of "the gift of the magi" that i bought yesterday to do as a read aloud and realized o. henry was not meant to be read by middle school students with learning disabilities. they wouldn't have followed a word of it. i had poetry writing planned, too, but it's really no one's loss. i don't really know what to do with myself today, though. maybe my 5th and 6th graders will show up...

i need a nap. is it ok to take a nap at my desk?

note to self

it should have been common sense to not include the words "hump" and "lump" on this week's word study list. you should be extra careful not to include these words when the current #1 most annoying and more ubiquitous song in the country features both of these words prominently, and in a very inappropriate-for-school fashion.

i'm not so crazy about hearing about my 12-year-old's hump, her hump her hump her hump, her lovely lady lumps.

but you brought this on yourself.

today is a half-day for chicago public schools. students come to school in the morning but leave just after noon so the teachers can sit around and "professionally develop" themselves, by which i mean we doodle in the margins of our notes and nod when the principal/professional developer says something we're supposed to agree with. on half days my kids don't come to see me because there's not really enough time to pull them out of class. so i come in at my usual time because i have to clock in, but then i have the morning to myself to plan lessons and grade papers and organize my room.

i came in a few minutes late this morning and my room was cold because i'd left the window open a crack, so i made myself a mug of hot chocolate and settled in to write a couple of e-mails and poke around at some webpages for a little while as i warmed up and waiting for my brain to turn from "it's morning fuck you" to "alright, let's turn this motha out" (not quite there yet) and i got a glimpse of what it might be like to have a regular office job.

when you're teaching you come in knowing that by 9:00 the train is leaving and if you're not on it you're screwed six ways from sunday. you come into work an hour before school starts to make sure you've got all your shit together by the time the bell rings and yet you never really feel like you do, even if you walked around the room six times making sure everything is in place. there is no settling in to give your brain time to kick in. there is no answering of e-mails. even if i got to work two hours early and technically had time to do these things, i'd be too stressed out and narrow-minded to be able to actually do them. now i see how the other half lives. i will stop short of saying that i really want an office job now, and i'm sure a bunch of people with office jobs would take me to task on my claims that they can mosey on into the office and get to work at their own pace,* but i'm just saying it's kind of sweet to get to do this once in a while.

*although i will take you to the mat with the fact that, even if you've gotta come into work and get crunching, it's not every day that you need to perform for and direct a room of 13-year-olds for hours at a time, so save your indignation.

the thermostat on the other side of the room is making ridiculous rythmic hissing noises. i poked at it for a minute and i think it stopped, but i'm not totally convinced that there's not a snake in there.

today i continued to be amazed by how confused i can make kids. this is what you get for sticking a kid with 2 months of real teaching experience and a grand total of one class about special needs kids into a special education room. i keep asking them questions that just don't make any damn sense to a kid with a learning disability. today we spent a good 10 minutes making sure we understood the difference between non-fiction, realistic fiction, and historical fiction. only now do i realize how friggin confusing all of thoes classifications are. realistic and historical fiction could have happened, but they didn't, and the people aren't real. but what about when they make the book into a movie? those people are real. but those people are actors.

what?

i think maybe monday's lesson will just be about post-modern reality and "what does it even mean to be real?" there's gotta be a reason i kept all those zizek books from college, no?

i hope i'm already as far away as the next county if they ever pick up a book that's "based on a true story."

also, don't get me started about how annoying it is that non-fiction is the stuff that is true.

last night i stayed out until nearly 1 am drinking.

then i went to work at 8 am today. and tried to teach kids with learning disabilities.

several times today i said "i'm sorry guys, i'm such a spaz."

i'm lucky they mostly like me.

not sad

one of my old kids e-mailed me today. i gave a couple of them my e-mail before i left because i don't really object to random e-mails from kids, and it beats giving out my phone number.

i can't even tell if i miss them. i feel like i should. they were my first real class and on the very rare occassions i had a chance to interact with some of them one-on-one or at least in a smaller group i thought they were some amazing kids. but i still am not sad i'm gone. not at all.

i knew i kept earplugs in my purse for a reason

i work in one half of a full-size classroom that has been divided by bulletin boards in the middle. they come up half-way between the floor and ceiling so kids can't see what's going on on the other side, but you can hear everything. this is not a problem during the day, when there usually isn't class on the other half of the room. after school, though, there is apparently a drumming class. they put sticks in the hands of elementary school students and an instructor plays out phrases and then 10-or-so kids pound out the same rhythm.

over and over and over again. while i'm trying to grade papers and write lesson plans. over and over and over again.

luckily, i keep earplugs in my purse at all times.

after only 9 weeks

when i was a student teacher i happily stayed after school until 7:30 and was never satisfied with my lessons. when someone once asked me if i planned on having kids someday i said "yeah, probably. although, i can't really imagine putting anything before my classroom. i know if i had kids i would have to put those kids before my students. i have a hard time imagining that."

now, after 9 weeks at horner where i gave as much as i could and barely got anything back, i can imagine caring about a lot of things more than i care about my students, which makes me really sad. i don't want that. i really hope that 9 weeks couldn't kill me as a teacher. i'm hoping that this next week in my new job will bring some of that back. but i'm worried.

behavior disorder frequencies

i kind of wonder if i have one of those voices that kids with behavior disorders just can't hear, because they act like they can't hear it and they're pretty good at it...