a little sugar in my bowl

On my way

2010-03-26T10:24:00.002-07:00

I recently accepted a teaching job in Istanbul and have been letting it all sink in. I'm knocking things off of my 'to-do' list that are getting me closer to making the move a reality: fingerprints sent to the CA Department of Justice for a background clearance, 24 passport photos (I had to double check with the principal that this was the accurate amount, because I couldn't think of why on Earth anyone would need that many!), scheduled a physical examination to ensure that I will be able to perform the duties required of me in my new position, and most importantly, perhaps, signing the contract. Signing the contract and sending it in has really made the whole adventure official for me. I set that as the marker for when I would tell my current principal that I am for sure, 100% not going to be here next year. Telling my principal remains on my 'to-do' list. I have decided to let her know the week after Spring Break. With all of the other teachers leaving at our school and all of the funding-related uncertainties in the district, I probably shouldn't give her another thing to worry about over break.

2010-03-24T21:16:00.000-07:00

"See ya later!" said H, heading out to recess.
She was already out the door, but I yelled back, "Alligator!"
Without skipping a beat, she yells back, "YOU a alligator!!!" She was hidden by the door frame, but I could picture her: hands on hips, slight neck twist, one foot in front of the other. Always ready with a quick comeback. Warmed up for the school yard awaiting her.

Nanny 911

2010-02-12T22:37:00.001-08:00

On the plane yesterday, I was forced to listen to a painful dialogue between a young boy and his hip young dad, who was bordering a little too much on the friend side and not enough on the dad side. The dialogue sounded a lot like bickering, where the dad was trying to prove the kid wrong and everything was negotiated. All the while, the dad tried to insert valuable life lessons into the exchange.

When I first started listening in (for the record, I wasn't intentionally trying to eavesdrop- I was trying to read my book, but they were being so loud, as if the dad thought everyone on the plane would find this exchange endearing instead of repulsive), the kid was pretending to break his dad's fingers and was actually trying to pull them back. The dad said, "Don't break Daddy's fingers. Dad needs his fingers to work. I'm very protective of my hands. How will I cut hair without my hands?" The kid, still yanking on his dad's fingers, replied, "I want to break them!!" "If you break them, how am I going to make any money to buy you things? I need my hands to work," the dad explained patiently. I frowned at this twisted logic. Shouldn't the kid not want to break his dad's fingers simply because it's the wrong thing to do? Was he teaching him that only in situations where it's financially profitable for you should you do the right thing? I tried to focus back in on my book, but at the same time was fascinated by their dynamic and couldn't help but listen.

At one point, the child said that he was not going to ski- clearly trying to get a reaction from his dad who wanted him to ski, but wanted him to go to ski school. Except it was all framed in the form of questions: "Don't you think it would be better for you to learn a little more and get a little better in ski school? Do you think you remember the pizza and french fries? Don't you think you need to practice a little more in ski school?" To which the child answered "no, yes, no." He was headstrong and adamantly opposed to going ski school. After a lot of back and forth, the dad tried to slyly change the subject and talked over the kid, who was still repeating that he was NOT going to ski at ALL. The dad squashed the kid's words, wack-a-mole style with his own words, and changed the topic of their conversation to the map of the United States on the complementary airline napkins. "That's where Daddy lives and that's where we came from. Here's where we're going," he explained. I have to say that as a teacher, I appreciated his attempt to infuse the flight and their ear numbing back and forth with some educational value. The kid paused for a second and said, "I want to go to Texas." He must have been pointing to the state, because his dad replied, "Wow, how did you know that was Texas?"
"I just know what shape it has."
"You're so smart! Is there a particular thing about Texas that interests you?"
"Dirt."
"Dirt?"
"They have a lot of dirt.... and if we were there, I could kick it at you."
The dad starts to change the topic again, but the kid continues, "I would make a big pile and just kick it at you!"
My jaw dropped. He could talk like that to his dad and get away with it?? I waited for the dad's reaction. I wished that one of those sensible British nannies from Nanny 911 would drop in, like an emergency oxygen mask, and give him a little guidance... but no such luck. Finally, I managed to tune them out and drift into sleep.

applications

2010-02-09T06:41:00.001-08:00

I am knee deep in research for international schools abroad. I am casting my nets far and wide. Far into the Pacific at a school in the Marshall Islands, far South at a school in Sao Paolo, BR, Trinidad and Tobago, and wide to the UK, Morocco, Spain, Tanzania. My search is a little trickier, because I am looking for special education positions and prefer elementary (though honestly, if a school in Barcelona offers me a high school position, I'll throw my arms around it and won't look back). I was surprised to find that a lot of international schools do have special education programs and imagine that they must look a lot different than your typical special education program in a public school here. So, I am throwing darts at a map, bouncing around on the little roulette spinner of fate and hoping one of my nets comes back full.

ANTS

2010-02-04T12:10:00.000-08:00

Our school is overrun by ants. This has been an ongoing problem since the beginning of the year, but the last few weeks have seemed particularly bad. At any given moment, I'll notice an ant creeping along a student's sweater or the whiteboard. I'll feel a slight tickle on my arm and look down to see brave little pioneer ant, who has strayed from the pack to look for food in the most unlikely of places. My students will point them out and I calmly say, "Oh, no big deal," as I flick them off. My countertops have become marching grounds, where ants, who plod along in determined and disciplined lines, look for food. It is a living Dali painting. We spray, clean, wipe, put things away... but they have a way of sneaking into everything! Even the opened bag of lollipops on my desk, with its lollipop each individually wrapped plastic wrappers was infested with ants!
On one particularly gross incident, the teacher next door came in one morning to find her defenseless mealworm pupa being devoured by ants. She had unknowingly left a succulent feast for our little guests and set the scene for a mealworm massacre. Her class' science project went straight for the compost bin. Incidentally, my class was reading a book about ants, so I was able to share that story to demonstrate that ants eat other insects, to a loud chorus of "ewwwwwwwwwwws." As pesky as they are, the ants have become a common part of the day to day, scaling the furniture and walls of our classrooms- a terrain with a constant supply of treats. It looks like they're here to stay for a while. Maybe I should build on that and do an ant unit..... maybe.

Santa Claus

2009-12-12T12:00:00.000-08:00

When I taught middle school, I would respond to inappropriate questions about sex by telling kids to go ask their parents. ie: student: "Ms. V, what does it mean, "do it missionary with your toes curled." Me: "Ask your grandma when you get home." Now, I respond the same way to kids asking about Santa Claus. Student: "Is Santa Claus real?" Me: ".......??...... ask your mom?" I don't want to build the myth, but neither do I want to be the one responsible for demolishing it.

A sense of wonder

2009-03-08T10:22:00.000-07:00

For the last several weeks, my class has been learning about the Solar System and how we fit into it. We've been using the FOSS science kits, which are exploration-based and are very good. The "Sun, Moon, and Stars" unit starts by observing how the sun "moves" across the sky from East to West. Students used compasses to find East and West and traced their shadows throughout the day while standing on the line. Back in the classroom, we used a globe with a slightly raised piece of tape symbolizing a person and the overhead projector to observe the same phenomenon and to explain and visualize that it is the Earth that is actually moving, and not the sun. We have also read several books on the Sun and the planets.

During one of these Read Alouds, while looking at a picture of the Solar System, and pointing out the blue and green ball that symbolized Earth, L raised his hand. "But, how... I mean... How did we get on that ball??" he asked incredulously. He seemed to be grappling with the immense concept that we live on a gigantic sphere, perpetually spinning around in a vast emptiness. At that moment, I was reminded of how amazing it all really is and let him know so. It's easy to walk past the things in our world that happen every day and forget how fascinating they really are. I feel lucky to work with children and to be constantly inspired by their raw sense of wonder.

Brussels Sprouts

2009-03-04T19:25:00.000-08:00

My kids (students) tried Brussels sprouts today. It wasn't a planned thing- not part of an organized theme on nutrition. I often get the Trader Joe's Brussels sprouts and when I've been lazy and haven't felt like making an involved lunch for myself, I grab the bag from my fridge in the morning along with other random foods that are laying about and shove them into my tote. When the kids go out to recess, I pop them into the microwave (the beauty of some TJ veggies is that they are microwaveable!), and have them as a warm mid-morning snack. I admit that having them plain can be kind of wretched or unappealing to others... especially since they smell mildly of farts, but the taste has grown on me and I tell myself they're good for me, like the nagging mother I never had. Sometimes they smell up a good chunk of the pod and I try to diffuse commentary of my embarrassing eating habits, by fessing up to being the source of the smell and making a joke about it.

Needless to say, my kids have grown curious. When they have their mid-morning crackers as a snack and see me crunching down on miniature cabbage-looking things, their eyebrows furrow and they ask, "What's that????" or "Is that GOOD??????", not trusting me for one second that it really is. So, I finally asked them if they wanted to try them. Four brave souls raised tentative hands. I cut one Brussels sprout into four pieces, seasoned the pieces with salt and olive oil, and passed them out to the now dubious takers. I have to give them props for popping them into their mouths, because all of the other kids were staring, expecting the worst. T. and A. chewed and swallowed their pieces with no problems. A. told everyone that he wants to be a Nascar driver when he grows up and that he needs to be strong, as an explanation for eating the stinky green thing. J. and T., however, had a much harder time with it. Their reaction was unexpectedly strong. They both started tearing up and looked like they were going to be sick. I told them to just swallow it. J., always the drama queen made a huge scene of it, but finally swallowed it and shoved animal crackers in his mouth to cancel out the taste. He continued to make a contorted face, like a man on his deathbed, until I distracted him by reminding him of the writing piece that he was working on. T., however, took the approach that my sister used to take when she was younger- Stubborn Mule. He sat for minutes with the Brussels sprout in his mouth, looking at me pitifully. Although I was cracking up inside, I tried not to show it. And when he thought I wasn't looking, he grabbed a tissue and spit it out, also quickly shoving animal crackers into his mouth to cover the taste.

After that episode, several of my kids confessed to not eating veggies at home and I thought about the need for perhaps greater exposure to veggies (although in a more appetizing form) and healthy eating habits, and have been playing around with the idea in my head. In retrospect, 2/4 liked them. That's 50%... not too bad!

Mammone

2009-01-10T17:45:00.000-08:00

This word has been floating around in my head for the past week. It's the Italian word that describes the result of years of unrestrained doting of a mother on a son... the kind of doting and adoration that frightens eligible young ladies away, feeds the stereotype of the monstrous mother-in-law, and makes the mother's home nearly impossible to leave. The kind of doting that will have a man living with his mom until he is 45. Essentially, the word means 'mamma's boy.'

Ever since a month ago when he was first tentatively placed in my class, J's mom has been a constant thorn in my side. Aside from being blinded by mother's love that her child can do or say no wrong, she is also ailed with the notion that no one can care for her 'baby' as well as she can. To make matters worse, her child actually has a medical condition, which allows her to make endless excuses for him and to create dozens of fictional other handicaps for him that she as a lone crusader must fight in order to get him the special things he needs.

The list of special requirements is seemingly endless. J has to take medication at 9 every morning so he must have his breakfast. Fair enough. However, mother and son arrive at school 20-30 minutes after breakfast is served, she manages to have breakfast given to J anyways (in spite of the school policy that breakfast ends at 8:00).. This sets off a whole chain of events. J eats late, so he misses the first 1/2 hour of school, he is unable to finish his morning journal, so he completes it on the bench during recess (as per our classroom policy). As a result, J starts to tantrum and complains of a headache. A headache is supposed to be the unquestioned 'sign' that he might be getting a seizure. We must send him to the office, where he calls his mom and gets immediately picked up.

For a while, she was actually bringing him to class to help him get settled. She would stand in the back of the class and yell at him to do things. He constantly turned around, yelling "mommy, look...." or coming to her with minor scrapes for her to tend to. She would pull out her phone and make some calls, occasionally putting the call on speaker phone, for the benefit of all my other easily-distracted students to hear. She questioned all of my policies in front of the class, asked loudly why I hadn't called on him right then, wondered (again loudly) why I had asked her son to tuck in his shirt, but not another student. I was under her mama bird microscope and she was getting satisfaction from picking at me and fulfilling what in her view must be her motherly role- the unequivocal protection of her 8-year-old 'baby.'

Things reached a breaking point one day when after coming in 20 minutes late, heckling me from the back of the classroom, loudly disrupting and speaking on her cell phone, it was time for my students to bring their morning journals to the front of the class and read their entry to the other students. Due to all of the to-do that morning, J had not finished his journal and knew that he would have to complete it at recess. Thus began and ugly display of huffing and crying. Without missing a beat, Mama Bird swooped down, petting him, and questioning my policy of having kids complete their work at recess. I felt myself getting warm and angry. I looked at the mother and said, "This, is too much right now," designating the whole situations with my hands. "Why don't you just do your job and teach the class. Just teach the class," she said in a chilling voice. It was more than I could handle and all I could do to stay polite. I turned got on the phone and asked to speak to the principal. The principal asked me to ask the mom to come talk to her. After I did so, the mom stayed and glared at me for several minutes before leaving the room.

As a result of that morning's clash, a meeting was called with me, the mother, and the principal. In the meeting, the mom explained how hard she worked to be an advocate for her son and was concerned for all of his health issues. I tried to plead my case in telling her that she should allow her son to be more independent, that he needed time to establish himself in the new classroom and accustom himself to me as his teacher and to his new environment.

She didn't like the fact that I didn't let kids sharpen their pencils during class and wanted to make sure that I provided 'razor sharp' pencils for her son. "He only works if his pencils are razor-sharp. It's his thing," she insisted, "When he's at home, he does not do his homework unless his pencils are razor-sharp. He sits and keeps sharpening his pencils."

Listening to her made me want to slap some sense into her. I felt like yelling, "He only says that because you let him get away with it, you idiot! It's not a condition!! He also avoids doing his homework that way!! Why are you so blind??" Instead I told her that the pencils in my class were of a 'normal' sharpness and that he didn't seem to have a problem with that and completed his work in spite of their butter knife point.

After about 40 minutes, the meeting ended. My principal (who had mostly sat there quietly) ended up convincing the mother to not come into the classroom, but promised her that I would think of ways to "include" her in my classroom (something that I had previously told my principal I had no intention of doing). She also convinced her to bring him to school in time for breakfast. For several weeks, Mama Bird kept her distance.

Then, one morning, after breakfast, as all of the students funneled out of the cafeteria for the morning meeting, I asked J to throw away the remnants of his breakfast and go outside with the other students. He likes to waste time and looked at me smiling, unwilling to throw his breakfast away, standing over the trashcan with his tray in his hand. After asking him for the third time to throw it away, I took it from his hands and placed it in the trash. He began to walk outside, but was intercepted by Mama Bird, who pulled him over to comb his hair before she sent him on his way. She had seen me throw his breakfast away and she was not about to let that go.

As I took my class back in from the yard, she accosted me and began to have a "talk" with me in front of the whole class. She said that J and her were speaking last night and that he told her that I don't "appreciate him" in my class. I told her I was surprised and that I treated him no differently from the other students in my class. She insisted that I did and I told her that perhaps we could schedule a meeting to discuss it further. I reminded her that his IEP meeting was coming up and that if she wasn't satisfied with his current placement, we could explore other options. Again in her icy voice, she said, "Just do what I told you to do."

I felt a rage boil up inside of me and responded, "No, I will not." She insisted, "Yes, you will." To which I replied, "No. I. Will. Not." It may seem pretty childish to have responded that way, but there's only so much degradation I'm willing to take and I will only humble myself so much. There was no way I was going to let this mother order me to do her bidding (what she was bidding was in fact unclear), as if I was her maid, in front of my entire class. She pulled her son out of the line and stormed off, proceeding to badmouth me to anybody who would listen.

The thing that kills me about the whole situation is that her child is actually making improvements in my class. For two years, he has been frustrated in the general education classrooms and was starting to act out on a regular basis. He was constantly getting sent to the office and as a second grader, still didn't know how to read or write. In my class, he works all day (when she doesn't make an appearance), is making friends with the other kids, and seems to be generally happy to be in school. It seems almost as if she actually liked it better when he was failing and had to constantly fight and intervene for him- that it was a situation where she felt needed and important. Now that he is beginning to succeed and that I don't require her help with him in class, she possibly feels threatened that her role is being redefined.

As she explained when she was venting in the school's Parent Room, "Nobody can take care of my baby like I can." (The Parent Room is next to the room where my classroom para works in the morning. Since there are no doors and no complete walls anywhere, I got a detailed update of the events.) Two mothers who work at our school and who both have sons tried to reason with her, explaining to her that they had to learn to 'step back' and let the teacher take over once it was time for their boys to go to school. One mom explained that if she continued to do everything for J, he would be 45, jobless, and still living at home. Mama Bird, stood firm on her position. In trying to explain how well she takes care of J, she told all of the other moms that she even blow dries his socks and underwear before he puts them on so that they're warm. And that, pretty much sums it up right there. I couldn't make up things this crazy.

So, she's right, I will never do anything that is as disgustingly spoiling as blow drying his socks and undies. But, I will teach him to read and write. If only she'll let me.

2009-01-04T11:52:00.001-08:00

It's been a while since I've written in this blog. For the most part, this year has gone a lot more smoothly than last year and it has made a world of difference in my life. The most important change has been the students in my classroom. Last year, I had several students who were (in my opinion) misplaced in my mild/moderate speech and language class. They had intense emotional issues, were very violent, and posed a constant threat to their safety as well as the other students' safety in the classroom. The year was spent teaching while trying to manage their constant outbursts and disruptions. I often finished the day feeling exhausted and upset. The year made me lose a lot of faith in the system and its ability to provide students with an appropriate placement, while at the same time ensuring that other students' right to a safe educational environment is protected.

The fact that my classroom was so tumultuous affected me personally. It was often impossible to separate my home life from work life. I felt a strong need to communicate my frustrations and the daily insane episodes in my classroom to friends, but found that talking about them made me more upset and that nothing was resolved. The summer effectively dulled the corners of my memories from the year and allowed me to begin again this year.

Like I said, the main difference this year is my students. They are (for the most part) sweet, kind, and interesting. I am excited by their small successes, both socially and academically. I admire many of them as people, who in spite of being young, have already overcome so many obstacles. I glow when I see them running around as a unified pack on the courtyard, protecting each other like brothers and sisters, and also when I see them fearlessly playing with the general ed kids.

Some stresses are still definitely there- the micro-managing administrators, the bully and negligent parents, and the extended school day, but the fact that my classroom is peaceful makes it bearable.What scares me most about teaching, is that a whole year can be driven and shaped by one or two students and how intensely it can affect me as a person. This makes me question whether or not I can continue teaching in the long term, at least in this school.

Coming into the new semester however, I hope that I can continue to enjoy the serenity that comes in the absence of thrown desks, chairs, and wild tantrums. This is my toast to the new year.

pajamas

2008-11-20T21:49:00.000-08:00

One of my students is constantly amazed by the little things that make me a regular human being and not just the daily figure of "teacher" that he sees every day. He will randomly ask questions such as "You have a mom?!" or "You were a BABY??", his mind wrapping around these common traits that kids and adults share. When I answer him, a giddy smile creeps over his face and he counters my answer with "nu-uh, nu-uh!"
Today, on the bus ride back from our field trip, he took a pause from gazing out the window and pointing out everything he saw, turned to me and in a voice that was almost a whisper said, "Do you have pajamas?"
It took me a while to understand what he was asking me and when I finally did and told him that yes, I had pajamas, he asked,"What color?" I told him: "Blue." He smiled broadly and said, "Awww! I have blue ones too! With motorcycles." His eyes were glowing with amazement at yet another unexpected commonality in the eyes of a 7 year old. Something then caught his eye outside the window and he continued verbally tagging what he saw most of the way back to school.

2008-08-11T12:12:00.000-07:00

"Have you ever had turtle eggs?" the guide asked in Spanish as we paddled back to shore after kayaking to a nearby island. There were only two other people who had signed up for the trip- a father and a daughter- and so I had been paired in a boat with the tour guide. He asked while trying to convince me to sign up for that night's turtle watching excursion to spot nesting turtles and camp out on the beach.

I continued to paddle, pondering my answer to his question and feeling like I had been thrust into a Costa Rican conservation after school special where endangered species' eggs were being pandered instead of alcholol or weed.

"No, I haven't eaten them," I finally said.

"They're very good," he continued. "I have the best recipe for the sauce to eat with them." He began listing the ingredients that he used.

"But, it's bad to eat them," I said, my Spanish getting clumsier with the awkwardness of the situation, feeling like a child pestering their parent to quit smoking.

He brushed off my comment. "No.... they lay so many. I only take about 60 or 80 and leave the rest there...."

A long silence followed. The boat rocked in the waves. We paddled. I thought of the trip I had taken to watch turtles nesting the week before and of the guide then explaining the struggle to get local people to buy into protecting turtle's nests and renounce a food that had perhaps been a traditional delicacy. I remembered being amazed at the large number of eggs that the turtle laid, leaving a mound of ping-pong ball like orbs that she meticulously burried and camouflaged before returning to the ocean. The guide that night had said that although a turtle will lay about 800 eggs per season, that only one of the turtles who hatches from those eggs will statistically make it to maturity. She described efforts by conservationists to involve locals by training them as guides and paying them to watch the nests. Guides like my current rowing partner.

There was really nothing more to say. I didn't know the guy and was just passing through this town. In a few days, I would be back in the states and he would continue to lead tours for a living in the place where he had grown up...a different reality. I am not so naive as to think that a few protests from a tourist could have any changing effect. So, we talked about the weather, both hoping that the predicted storm wouldn't come, and we paddled back to shore.

Things that don´t happen back home

2008-07-25T16:17:00.000-07:00

Last night, my traveling buddy Oliver and I were eating dinner at one of the many restaurants that line the main strip in Cahuita. As we sat, perusing the menu for something tasty, I was startled by a loud clang coming from the direction of the kitchen. It sounded like someone had sent a heap of metal pots crashing to the floor. I quickly spun around and followed the glare of every other person in the restaurant to the rafters in one corner of the ceiling. Two small furry creatures were perched there. They had been discovered and like to runaway mobsters were quickly planning their escape. Rats! was my first thought. One of these critters was trying to make its way down the wall to the floor and as I continued to stare, my eye was drawn to a swift furball scampering towards me. I managed to see its furry coat and bare, pinkish tail and immediately raised my feet from the floor to the seat of my chair. A couple sitting at a nearby table must have seen my look of disgust, because they reassured me that what I had just seen scurrying through the restaurant where I was hoping to enjoy a meal were not rats... they were possums! And, I guess on the echelon of creatures that you don´t want sampling the ingredients of your upcoming meal in a restaurant´s kitchen, possums are one step less disgusting (one step up) than the more familiar, disease-ridden rats. That was my rationale, at least and what kept me sitting in my seat at this establishment. Throughout dinner, the possums made several more appearances, trying to poke through a hole in the ceiling that had been covered with a garbage bag. One of the waitresses nonchalantly sauntered over with a broom and shooed them away. She shook her head in frustration, like she was waving away pesky children. I am definitely adding this to the list of thing that do not happen back home...

We left Cahuita today and with it, the Bates Motel, which I was starting to grow rather fond of, though it had absolutely no charm to speak of. Right before leaving, I returned my key for my deposit. The owner, looked at me and asked, ¨What´s your name again?¨ I answered him, expecting him to say, ¨So long, e!¨at the very least, maybe some well-wishes for my future travels. Instead, he just gave me a cold hard stare and said absolutely nothing. Since it was apparent that there was really nothing more to be said, I made my way down the few stairs outside and headed for the train station.

I am now in Puerto Viejo and sadly, the day has been rather rainy... very, very hard rain. I did manage to squeeze in a few hours of beach and sun, before the sky was covered by a persistent gray blanket that is still hovering above. I´m hoping that it clears by tomorrow, because I am planning on renting a bicycle and riding the 13km to Manzanillo, a smaller town with a reputation for beautiful beaches.

2008-07-24T16:14:00.000-07:00

Today was an incredible day... exactly what I was picturing when I first envisioned my trip to Costa Rica. My new-found Swiss friend Oliver and I hooked up with a tour group that does horseback riding trips into the mountains near here and then includes a hike to a waterfall!! I am pretty sore from not having ridden a horse in oh.... 6 years, but I am definitely not complaining.

We left the hostel, (which we have nicknamed "Bates Motel" for the eerie eccentricity of the owner. He is a very quiet and small man, who catches you off guard with unexpected jokes... unexpected, because one would expect him to have stuffed his mother and kept her in a hammock under a palm tree in the backyard... not to be cracking random jokes. At first, it was rather awkward, but I think we've grown on him and I dish out a few of my own jokes, which he seems to appreciate) around 8 and had some breakfast before leaving. I then very ungracefully clambered up my horse (who it turns out had a bad wheezing problem and sounded like he was going to keel over any second... not to mention the fact that he totally bullied me and I had no choice but let it graze by the side of the road until our guide came and reminded him we had somewhere to be...). We rode on the beach, which was truly amazing and beautiful and then continued on the main dirt road until we slipped into some more overgrown stretches, where our horses had to trudge through some pretty deep mud and I found myself sending it positive vibes and praying that I wouldn't be ejected from its back. Our guide hacked away at shrubbery and vines with his machete (pretty hot, I must say)and mostly cleared the path, though I had to duck more than a few branches... which may just have been my horse's passive aggressive way of letting me know it would have preferred to stay at home grazing peacefully.

After about 1 1/2 hours, we reached a house where we left the horses and continued our journey by foot. From that point on, I don't think I was dry the rest of the time. I trekked closely behind our guide, who continued to wack at any obstruction in the path. After a few close whacks of the machete, that sent thick branches falling to our feet, I decided to follow the guide a little less closely. I feared that a miscalculated blow would send an errant finger of mine flying into the green lushness of the jungle, never to be found again. Things like that happen, right? While walking, we saw several poisonous frogs and leaf-cutter ants. The path was extremely muddy and slippery the whole way, because it rained so much yesterday.

Finally, after about 45 minutes, we reached the waterfall. I was hot and there was not a dry spot on my shirt. I immediately peeled off my layers and went for a swim. It was marvelous! So refreshing and beautiful. This is my ideal.. I was in heaven.

After lunch, we started on the hike back to the horses. We took a different path that seemed much more slippery. I'll admit that I fell more than my fair share of times and became completely caked with mud. On the trip back, we saw a dead armadillo. When our guide pointed it out to us, it looked like a leaf with some gooey light pink stuff spread all across it. I wasn't sure what he was trying to tell me that it was. It wasn't until he covered his mouth and nose, took a stick,and flipped it over, revealing its distinctive rough exterior, that I realized what it was. It was crawling with ants and soon after recognizing what it was, I quickly moved on. On a particularly muddy and steep downhill part, I went down toboggan style (as did the guide (not on purpose)). When I landed at the bottom, he signaled for me to look under a branch. There was a small brown snake, with some kind of darker pattern on its back slithering away... poisonous.

We made it back to the horses and the ride back was actually rather long. Now I'm walking like a cowboy. I'm exhausted and so satisfied from today. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to go snorkeling. I'm going to stay just for half the day tomorrow and then head to Puerto Viejo for more beach action.

2008-07-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

I am in Costa Rica! I arrived on Monday and made my way to one of the youth hostels recommended by my Lonely Planet guide. The atmosphere of the place was rather like some parts of my college experience... lots of people with dreadlocks hanging out, red lighting. More so than the one gray hair I found in my head earlier this year, stepping into this hostel gave me the feeling that I am oooold. The girl at the reception handed me two sheets and a pillow sheath and showed me to my dorm, which was littered with big backpacks. I had a top bunk. Looking up, I saw that there was someone else´s stuff already on there and I pulled it off, revealing a small gray kitten hanging out behind the big pack. Since I was trying to make the bed, it was necessary to get the kitten off. I talked to it in a sweet voice and extended my hand towards it, not knowing that it was a lethal warrior. It promptly and viciously clawed at my hand, which I jerked back just in time. I attempted several times, but the kitten had claimed the bed as his perch. I was a little embarrassed to have been outdone by a kitten.. and a little more embarrassed at having to ask a young guy who had just stepped into the dorm for help. He nicely got him down, suffering only a few scratches along the way. I made my bed and eventually headed out to grab some dinner.

The next day, I headed to Cahuita, a small beach town, where I am now. The trip took 3 hours on a bus and I was sitting next to a skinny old man who sang the entire time in a nasal, scratchy voice... love songs, religious songs... the whole entire time. No wait, he did stop for a few minutes when he downed some oreos and two sandwiches... but aside from that, the singing was continuous for most of the ride. He also stopped to tell me a little about his life. He was very kind. His wife, had died 6 months earlier and he told me that he was seeking a new wife, but that finding a life partner was hard. I nodded in agreement.

I finally made it to Cahuita and found a place to stay... a small room for 6 bucks a night. Today´s plan includes hiking and definitely some beach time. I´ve met someone to hang out with for a few days, which is nice. One thing that I am realizing about myself is that I like to share my experiences and feel lonely very quickly with no one to do that with.

Andre

2008-07-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

Our last night in Paris, my brother and I went out to get a drink around our hotel to kill time before meeting our parents for dinner. We had no idea where to go, so we randomly turned down streets hoping to stumble upon a cool bar. After wandering around for about 10 minutes, we were back about 1 block from where we had started, and for the sake of making things easier, just decided to sit down at the closest bar. It was touristy and not ideal, but we sat down. My brother had been there to watch one of the Euro Cup games, and when he caught a glimpse of the waiter, he warned, "That guy's a dick." We shrugged our shoulders and sat down to take a look at the menu. If I were a cartoon character, my eyes would have popped out of my head and moved back and forth like a zoom lens focusing, because the prices were so inflated. A water, for example was $8. Now as much as I liked the view from that bar, an $8 water or a $15 cocktail was too much for me to swallow... my brother felt the same. We put the menus back down and started to leave. Before I knew what hit me, the waiter my brother had pointed out earlier was upon us like an enraged bear. He grabbed the menus and slapped them back down on the table, as if correcting our improper placement of them. He looked at me with fury and hatred in his eyes and spat, "Bonsoir!! Bonne soiree!!" which by his tone, actually translated to, "Get lost you English speaking scum! You are not worthy of my watered-down over-priced cocktails!!!" (probably with a few expletives sprinkled in).
"Bonne soiree," I mouthed, as I had lost my ability to create sound for a few seconds from the shock of it all. My brother and I walked on, and I wondered if experiences like these were common and if they were, whether they were the reason why Americans think that French people are rude.

Fortunately, from that point on, things took a turn for the better. We walked into a small bar that was just a bar- no view, no outside seating, but that was fine. There was beer and wine. The selection was listed in loopy cursive on chalkboards and the prices were more normal. I squeezed into the chair closest to the wall at a table by the window. My brother got up to order drinks and was soon accosted by a jolly bearded man, who was translating what the bartender had said into English.... this was Andre. My brother spoke to him in French and he apologized, explaining that he always tries to help English speakers who look like they may need it, that he didn't know that we spoke French. My brother returned shortly (we were two of the 5 total customers) with a pint of beer and a glass of wine. We then lapsed back into English, because this is what we speak together. Andre must have heard us, because he approached our table, wagging his finger, like he had caught us being naughty and in French said, "First I try to speak to you in English and you speak to me in French and now you go back to your table and speak in English... No, no, no, this is not allowed! When you are here, you speak French." My brother and I laughed. Andre returned to his stool at the bar- he was a regular, and even had his picture on one of the bar walls (which he later showed us), along with a place for people to leave him messages if he wasn't there. Andre continued to talk to us from across the bar, which wasn't actually very far at all, but soon just came, pulled up a chair, and talked our ears off for the next hour and a half.

He thought my brother and I were married at first. When we told him we weren't, he advised my brother to take me down the street to another bar, saying that I would probably go for 3 camels. Although he looked like he could easily get a seasonal gig as Kris Kringle at the local mall, because of his thick white beard, hair, and small spectacles, he was actually a stock broker. He told us about his life- how his wife is American and that he spent several years working in New York. He bought us rounds of drinks and continued with his stories. Andre talked in detail about traditional French dishes and lauded French wines. When we brought up American wines, just to make conversation, he dismissed the idea that California wines were any good with a flick of his hand and a look of disappointment in our lack of good judgment and taste. We didn't actually need to make conversation though, because Andre was taking care of that on his own. I looked at my brother wide-eyed as he polished off his second 1/2 liter of beer and started on his third... the wine was definitely getting to my head. Andre talked about his future plans to travel around the US, cracking jokes, which he followed by rubbing our arms and raking my brother's arm with his fingers back and forth. I cracked up as I tried to imagine my brother's thoughts at that point and enjoyed the complete randomness of it all. Several stories later, it came time to meet our parents for dinner and bid farewell to our new friend. If we hadn't had an excuse to leave, I think we would have been there to the wee hours. Andre kissed us goodbye and gave us each the bar's business card. It's not his bar, but I don't doubt that even in a few years if we return, that we'll find him there... and if not, at least we'll be able to leave him a message on his wall.

bearded carrots

2008-07-11T12:53:00.001-07:00

I just got back from my trip to France and Italy with my family. Although the trip was amazing in a lot of ways, it's great to be back home. It's just me and my brother here for a couple of days and we've been holding down the fort. Since we ate so many delicious and rich things while away, we've put ourselves on a diet... nothing too strict- just staying away from the buttery puff pastry for a while.

For lunch, we decided to start by making fresh carrot juice. I ran downstairs and got the Costco-sized bag from our refrigerator. When we opened it, I almost lost my breakfast right there on the table, because it looked as if our carrots had grown a massive collective white beard. The carrots that had been sitting in the fridge since long before our trip, looked like little orange Rip Van Winkles. It almost completely took away my apetite-- there's something about hair growing on unlikely things and hair on food that doesn't do it for me... Of course, this wasn't actually hair. The carrots had been there for so long that they were starting to put down roots. And who could blame them. I snapped one in half, smelled it. It smelled alright. They weren't rotting. "I say we do it," my brother said. So we laid out the newspaper and began to shave our enormous bag of carrots. We decided to just peel the whole bag, because I don't think I could have brought myself to handle those carrots a second time. Twenty minutes and a mountain of orange and white shavings later, our carrots were cleanly shorn. We rinsed them and juiced them. My brother's friend Eddie was over and he agreed to try the first glass. "It's pretty tasty," was the verdict, and so we continued to juice... and, well, it was good. I slurped it down so fast I even got a neon orange mustache.

So, I'm glad we didn't let a perfectly good bag of carrots- however initially unapetizing, go to waste. And so far, there don't seem to be any bizarre after effects. Our healthy cooking adventures can proceed. On the menu tonight are Halibut fillets. We bought all of the ingredients today, so we shouldn't be getting any more food suprises... hopefully.

Summer!

2008-07-02T03:26:00.000-07:00

I have left San Francisco for the summer and am trying to be a little more regular with posting... for the pleasure of my audience of 1. A few days after school ended, I packed up and flew out to meet up with my family in Paris, where we spent a few days before heading out to a dear family friend's wedding near the city of Bourges. In Paris, we wandered the streets, sampling various delicacies and taking in the elegant beauty of the city. Sometimes I wonder how I would be different if my family had never moved across the Atlantic...
One night in Paris, my family went to eat at a small restaurant Breton. Coming in, we witnessed a squabble between the staff and a party of 3 who wanted to sit in a table on the balcony. There were people who were presently sitting at the table in question, but only 2. It wasn't as if the management was going to kick the people who were already sitting at the table out, so the irate customers left in a huff. In the meantime, we were seated at the table adjacent to the disputed table and moments later, a third guest came to join the party at the table next to ours. My dad looks over and starts calling to my mom across the table, covering his mouth with his hand, like a kid whispering secrets in class. "Dad!" I cried alarmed at the lack of subtlety. After several attempts to communicate his discovery to my mom, she finally heard him,"Isn't he that fashion designer? What's his name?" My mom turned around and confirmed that it was in fact the designer that my dad had seen on TV a few days earlier- Jean Paul Gaultier. My family marveled at my dad (who is not interested in fashion)'s ability to recognize him... I definitely would have never known. I tried to lean in and overhear some upcoming fashion trends, but alas.

The wedding was beautiful- a 3 day affair. There, we saw a lot of old friends, some whom we hadn't seen in 15 years...
Now we are all visiting my mom's side of the family in Udine, Italy...

2008-05-20T16:09:00.001-07:00

Ms. V: You are correct! Correctomundo. (yes, I'm being a dork)
N: Correctomundo? What's that?
Ms. V: Oh, nothing... it's just something a teacher I had used to say to be silly.
N: Want to know what my Auntie used to say?
Ms. V: Sure...
N: Chucky Cheese is a pimp.

and that's when I lose my composure and start laughing

2008-03-17T20:36:00.000-07:00

I am counting down the days until spring break. Lucky for me, there are just 4 more days and that these last few days are shorter, due to parent-teacher conferences. I now get to experience what most teachers consider just a regular school day- 7:30- 2:00 instead of 7:50-4:00 (yes, with children all those hours). Since I had no conferences scheduled for today, I skipped out a little early, went to the gym, shopped for groceries, marveled that it was still light outside... after I got home, I decided to go for a walk before dinner and walked to the top of Bernal Hill. It was lovely- except that from the top of the hill, you could get a clear view of the fire on Valencia in the Mission, which was really quite scary.

Anyhow, I am awaiting our break with anticipation, because I am clean out of patience and because it seems that a lot of the problems in my classroom that I thought were getting better have actually not been resolved. Mainly, I thought that I had made great progress with R, who I described in a previous post. Although for several weeks he had been getting it together and the strategies that I was using with him were working, he has taken a dramatic u-turn to square 1. It may as well be the very first week that he stepped into my classroom when I consider his recent behavior.

All in the last few days of school (last week and today), he has thrown countless pencils at everyone in the class, turned his shoe into a smelly projectile, told me to shut the f- up, called me an f-ing bitch, and threatened to "pull [his] dick out." This, coming from the mouth of a 7 year old is shocking, even knowing his prior history. And, what I realize now is that his behavior is completely dependent on what is happening at home and that the strategies that I believed to be helpful were probably working, because things at home were more stable those weeks. BUT I AM NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST. I am not a therapist. I try to talk to him, to get him to express what he is feeling and to say "I am angry" instead of calling me names and throwing things at me (even if what he is angry at is completely unrelated to the classroom).

BUT, after talking to him for 10 minutes, and still not getting a desirable effect, I look back at the rest of my class, which I have put on hold to try to work with him and come to the conclusion that it is not fair to the students who are still below grade level in spite of their gains this year. That, even though these students are in a special ed class, they deserve a challenging learning environment- and in an academic way, not because they have to duck flying pencils. And in a way, I am giving up on him. It feels terrible to say and I'm sure there's a special place in teacher hell for verbalizing something like that, but I am very truly running on the last crumb of patience in the jar, and I would rather try to bring the other 8 students up than have everyone suffer because of one child.

birthday

2008-03-13T12:18:00.000-07:00

I actually had a kid tell me that he wasn't going to invite me to his birthday party today when he got mad at me. This morning he was feeling really pumped up about his work and his behavior and talked a mile a minute about how he loved my class and how he was going to invite me to his birthday party. "Uh huh, focus on your work," I replied again and again. Since this student's moods and behaviors move like a sine curve in extremes of ecstasy and excitement to anger and sadness, it wasn't surprising that 10 minutes later, his perky mood turned sour. One thing led to another and he was asked to take a time out at his desk for 5 minutes. As he sad down, he flew into a rage: "I HATE YOOUUUUU!!!" he cried.... and then finally the infamous phrase, as decisive as a death sentence: "I'M NOT INVITING YOU TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!!"
...guess I'll have to find other things to occupy my social calendar.

the return

2008-03-05T18:51:00.000-08:00

I found out today that one of my former students who was in my class in the fall and randomly stopped coming for a couple months will be back in my class. Although I'm not quite sure where he's been since Christmas break, I now have a better understanding of why he is in 3rd grade and still doesn't know his letter sounds- chronic absences. Hopefully he will have retained some of the things he learned in the fall... keeping my fingers crossed.

2008-03-05T06:22:00.001-08:00

I am looking for a new job. The interactions that I've had with my administration and in the classroom this week have made me realize that I can't fight a battle on two fronts in my workplace for another year. Of course, I realize that I could be eating my words and continuing in this position with my tail between my legs next year, but as of now, I am actively looking for a new job. One other thing which makes me hesitant is that I'm waiting to hear back from the Fund For Teacher's Grant to travel this summer. A condition for getting the grant is that the participants stay in their current jobs/districts-- this is why the grants are available only for teachers who teach in certain high needs districts.

Here is the latest interaction with my administration which has had me seeing red. Back in October, a backpack of mine that had my passport and Green Card was stolen. Ever since then, I have been following the process to get new documents reissued. Needless to say that dealing with Immigration and the French Consulate has been a lengthy process. A month ago, finally, I received a letter in the mail with an appointment time to get fingerprinted for a replacement Green Card. Clearly printed on the letter was the message that if I missed this appointment, my case would be dropped- meaning that I would have to repay another $400 and wait several more months. This was like the voice of Oz speaking- you don't argue with the man behind the curtain, you just follow directions. Like a good employee, I followed school protocol and informed my principal that I would have to miss part of that day. She replied that I should just take a whole day off.

It just so happens, that the very day of my appointment is also the day that the Reading First higher ups are descending upon our school to examine our "instruction" with their platoon of 8 people armed with clipboards. Even though I mentioned this in my first email- that I would miss this important day, this seems to have completely slipped my principal's mind. She has talked to me on 4 separate occasions to get me to come to school anyways.

First she asked me to move my appointment with Immigration, which I told her could absolutely not be done. I mean, it's not like I made an appointment to get a pedicure or to go to the dentist. This is a bureaucracy that puts even the public school district's to shame. You can't just call and change your appointment, especially since you can't call and actually speak to a human being. Then she told me that she would rearrange the whole visit schedule so that the group would come see my classroom first and that I could leave immediately after. I told her that if I did that, I would have to leave by 9am (my appointment is at 10). She replied, "9:15." When I heard that, I knew that if I came to school, I would miss my appointment, so I decided to stick to my original plan and not come into work that day at all. When I told her this, she came to me several more times and tried to convince me that I only needed 20 minutes to make my appointment and kept pushing and pushing for me to agree to stay. When I stood my ground, she began to mention other things that I needed to "remember" to do, because now since I said 'no' to her I am apparently on her bad side.

All of her pressure and pushing made me all the more certain that I would take the day off. Her complete disregard for my needs made me realize that I am not valued at this school. And this is why, I am excitedly looking for a new job...

2008-03-03T22:25:00.000-08:00

I saw this ad as I was driving home from class tonight and I was sure that I must not have read it correctly... so I looked it up and it turns out that I had seen correctly and am a little shocked at what the message behind the ad is. At first, it seems that the cup overflowing with fresh berries is promoting a healthy nutritional plan of fresh food and un-skipped meals. When you read the rest of the ad, however, the cure for headaches caused by food-deprivation isn't eating a nutritious meal, it's taking a Tylenol to cure the headache. Hmmmmm. I'm glad that Tylenol is doing its part to prevent eating disorders. What teen who isn't already on the verge of an eating disorder wouldn't see this as a big green light? Skipping a meal: pro- lose weight, con- big headache... wait a minute, I can just pop a Tylenol... sigh.

Taming the Tiger

2008-02-03T14:22:00.000-08:00

When I think about the gains that I've made with R, a particularly difficult student, I can't help but to think of one of my favorite books: The Life of Pi. In the book, a boy who is shipwrecked and ends up on a lifeboat with a Bengal Tiger, tames the tiger, and asserts his dominance on the boat by using a whistle and linking the noise of the whistle to seasickness, which he induces in the tiger by rocking the boat. After several episodes of this, the tiger comes to associate the whistle to feeling nauseous and the boy has created a system where both he and the tiger can coexist, but where he is calling the shots.

R is 6 years old and has had some pretty traumatic things happen in his life- including having his baby cousin pass away. According to R, his uncle muffled the babies cries, because they were too loud: "The baby was crying and it was too loud, so my uncle put a pillow over the baby and he went to God." According to the report given by the family, it was SIDS. The story has clearly marked R very deeply, because he tells it frequently as if it had just happened. R has also been moved back and forth from home to foster home to grandma's house, and back to mom's house.

When he came to my classroom, he cussed frequently (It was not unusual for him to tell me to "fuck off" and to call me a "fucking whore"), he left class frequently, he refused to sit and work and instead would roll around the classroom floor. He often threatened other children and hit them, turned over desks and chairs, farted and burped loudly, and constantly picked his nose, pulling out and eating the contents, to everyone's disgust. His mom does not have things together in general and seems overwhelmed by her life- having a child with special needs on top of 3 other children and managing a job is understandably overwhelming. When we tried to make doctors' appointments for R, because of a rare genetic condition that we think he may have (Prader-Willi Syndrome), we had to corner her at school and make the appointment with her only to have her take him and leave because the waiting room at the doctors' was too crowded. Months after the school's initial attempts to get her to take him, she has finally done so last week (we think).

I have to admit that I was pretty overwhelmed myself by R- especially since he was not the only child in my class with more extreme behaviors. In the recent weeks, however, his behavior has drastically improved. Part of it is his increased sense of comfort and safety in my classroom, no doubt. I also think that his continued academic progress has increased his self esteem.

One thing that has had a surprisingly strong impact, however, is the strategy that I learned from observing Ms. H, our guidance counselor. Ms. H is a parent- a very firm parent who possesses the balance of love and intolerance for nonsense that children thrive on. When I called her into my classroom a few weeks ago, R had started walking around the room repeating "I'm not doing my work" and calling various people "stupid." Ms. H came to him, cornered him by the board where he was walking around and firmly repeated various phrases: "You will not call anyone stupid here" "You are not the boss here." To each of these phrases, R retorted contrary responses: "You're stupid!" "Yes I am the boss." Ms. H kept at it, standing so that her face was an inch away from his, repeating the same phrases in a steady tone. R. began to yell his responses. He began to cry, to sob. He threw himself down and yelled: "Leave me alone! Stupid! Stupid!" Still, Ms. H. continued, saying she was not going to let him leave until he agreed to do his work, agreed that he was not the boss in the room, and stopped calling people "stupid." After about 15 minutes, R agreed, got up, and went to sit in his seat. Ms. H got him a tissue to wipe his nose and eyes and set him up to finish his work.

For the rest of the day, R completed all of his work and followed teacher instructions. He had a relapse into his usual behavior and I took on the role that Ms. H had taken before. After a lot of repetition and firmness, R complied with my demands: that he finish his reading journal (which took him 5 minutes to complete). We've had similar episodes over the last few weeks, some where Ms. H has intervened and some where I have taken on the dominant role, the repeated demands my whistle. First I was amazed that this strategy was working and then I realized that it is giving R the exact structure that he is lacking and craves. He wants someone to tell him what to do and to keep him safe. My struggles with R's behavior are by no means over, but he is much more manageable and my classroom is getting closer to the way that I like it.

The Zoo

2008-02-03T13:43:00.001-08:00

I scheduled a field trip to the zoo about a month ago, forgetting that the month of January in San Francisco is one long downpour. On top of that, only 4 (out of 7) kids had made the $20 in classroom currency to be eligible for the trip. The kids who didn't make it are the 3 who are violent, throw daily tantrums, and have a record of running away from adults. Even if I knew that they didn't "deserve" to go, I felt a little strange leaving almost half of my class behind. I thought about letting them go anyways, but then what would have been the point of setting a behavior-based goal and reward for the month? It also wouldn't have been fair to the students who worked hard to earn the required amount... besides when I envisioned M throwing himself on the ground and rolling around if he didn't get to see the exhibit he wanted to see fast enough, I felt confident in my decision.

It had been rainy and cold for the last week and I was ready to move the trip to the next month, when miraculously the skies cleared up and the sun shone for the entire day... even by the ocean, where the zoo is! This was this past Wednesday and with this nice weather and a practically deserted zoo, it was a wonderful field trip.

Walking around with my four students brought out the mom in me. I had them pose for photos on top of the bear sculpture, stick their heads through the large picture of kids holding animals, and snapped away when L bravely approached the goats and started brushing them, while the rest of the group petted them with the tips of their fingers.Hanging out with those kids at the zoo was relaxing and fun. We wandered based on their spontaneous suggestions to see certain animals and I was excited by their fascination with seeing the animals so close up. It was fun to loosen up and see a non-school aspect of my students- to hear their jokes and interactions.

Here are a few pictures. I unfortunately can't include any of the ones with the kids, but here are some of the animals!

That last one is one of my personal favorites. This little dude was having a blast with all of his buddies and taking a break to enjoy the scenery.

2008-02-03T12:22:00.000-08:00

What kind of message is the universe sending when early in the morning, I roll over a huge brown paper bag of human feces while parking my car? What about when this is paired with the fact that this is one of the rare sunny days in a streak of rainy ones, making the usually plentiful puddles that could have been used to remove the waste, scarce? What other heavenly whoopie cushion awaits me today?

Today, I am thankful for the garden hose.

9th day

2008-01-11T11:38:00.000-08:00

Today, I enjoy my 9th sick day from school... and although I do also need it for mental health reasons (I know, I know- didn't I just get off of a 2 week vacation?), I actually am taking the day for an appointment at the French consulate to get a new passport. I am determined to travel this summer and because my school's hours make it impossible to make an appointments during regular business hours, I just had to take the whole day off.

Now, although I've slept in, made fresh grapefruit juice to have with my eggs for breakfast, read some of the New Yorker, and have otherwise thoroughly enjoyed my day so far, school has not gotten me to the point where I needed to take a day as a matter of life or death. The glow of calm that surrounded me after our 2-week break is starting to fade, however.

Just this week, I was threatened with scissors and fists and pounced upon by a child while I was reading aloud to the rest of the class, because he wanted to get my cell phone out of my hands (he didn't want me to use it to call his foster mom). I had to hold the child back with my leg while he frantically clawed at me and my hands, trying to pry them open. When I sent another student to the office to get help, the first student started to run after her, so I held onto him, while he flailed around madly. He seemed to have calmed down, so I let him go and he ran out of the room after her. So, someone had to watch my room, while I went to make sure he didn't go harm the other student. Oh, I've also been hit, shoved into furniture, yelled at... and this is all by the same student, who has found a way to have the whole school at his beck and call (he gets violent--- he gets everyone's attention). If I ignore his behavior, he goes after other students so that I cannot ignore his behavior. Keeping everyone safe is a challenge and, needless to say, his constant attacks make for a terrible learning environment.
So, what do you do when it gets this bad every day and there seems to be no good solution at the school site? I've gotten in touch with the union to get some advice.

but I need to stop thinking about that now, to enjoy the rest of my day off.

success!

2008-01-03T21:07:00.000-08:00

One day with NOOO teacher talk outside of school. I'm definitely taking the bull by the horns. I limited it within school walls too... and I feel the dullness seeping out of me already. Turns out, there are plenty more things to talk about on a lunch break than the last kid who got on your last nerve. I'm hoping that I'll have the willpower to keep it up...

In the meantime, I'm looking into travel to Brazil for this coming summer, so that ought to keep my spirits up.

Resolution

2008-01-02T21:35:00.000-08:00

Although there are a multitude of avenues for betterment and ways that I could tweak myself to be more efficient, organized, slim, creatively active, etc... one very important thing stands out as an urgent 'to do' for the new year. I am going to try my damndest to stop boring the hell out of people with minute details from my job, which I'll just jot down here once in a while. I've realized that people just don't want to hear it and that once I start talking about it, I can't stop the flow, which often turns negative. It makes me think of the fairytale where spellbound stepsisters began to spit out toads every time they opened their mouths. And though it may feel good at first, the results aren't pretty. Funny stories, I will share, but daily descriptions of violent tantrums and cussing students go out the window (unless those episodes are funny, of course). This will be hard, but for the sake of maintaining my existing frienships and my personal mental health, I will make an honest attempt.

2007-12-03T21:35:00.000-08:00

I am excited for our field trip tomorrow to break the monotony. We are walking to the fire station as part of a theme launcher for "Exploring our Neighborhood." My class is not actually doing this theme, because we switched to the 3rd grade curriculum, but since I plan with the 2nd grade team, I was included in the outing. It'll be good to go out and explore. I am leaving the terrible two of my class behind and am relieved- like I tell them... "If you don't listen to me at school....how can I trust that you will listen once we are out in the street?" That question is very real, because N. and R. both run away from adults and create situations that are unsafe in the classroom. So, I happily leave them behind.

Mid-way through the day today, I came to the exhausting realization that all my days are the same and made me envision the remaining days at school like tally marks on a prison wall. I'm not talking about schedule and the people I encounter. This doesn't wear me down. Even teaching the same scripted curriculum for the third year, although it has the potential to be quite boring, does not really get to me- it can actually be spiced up and presents new challenges with a different set of students. What was so fundamentally tiring was the realization that every day R. and N. will have their individual breakdowns. Every day, R. will cuss me, another teacher, or students out- yesterday he was calling students the n-word and today he calmly looked at me and said "Shut up you stupid fucking bitch." Every day, he will refuse to do work, start stomping around the room, and will threaten to hit or actually hit other students. N. on the other hand has figured out that in his state of crisis, he can access all of the attention from adults that he desires. At least two people now stop in my class in the morning to "check up on him." He gets pats on the back for not being in a state of hysterics, gets cheered for starting on his work... Every day, when he sees one of these adults walking by or when he simply wants more attention, he will fall out of his seat and his behavior will escalate and escalate until he is crawling around the room or under desks, slamming his head on their underside or running in and out of class, until someone is called to help him calm down while I continue with my teaching. Every day I urge the rest of the class to "stay focused" and "ignore" the explosive behavior while it seems like my classroom is being demolished in the background. Every day, these events repeat themselves in a redundant, boring stutter.
They seem inevitable at this point, as grounded in our routine as lunch at 11:45 am... and it makes me tired.

2007-11-17T14:32:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I loved my job again. I don't know exactly what caused the change, but I truly enjoyed being in the classroom and interacting with my kids. All of the challenging characters were there, but somehow, their behavior didn't faze me. Well, there was the part of the morning where R. started touching himself in class, asking my classroom aide: "Do you know what I'm doing?" and then refusing to go wash his hands when she asked him to. That was different, but the class just chugged along.

I finally got observed by my principal- after the observation had been postponed 2 times- and got a good review. It's always nerve-wracking for me to have someone come to watch me and take notes on my performance, even though it happens every year. So, I was relieved to have it over with and to be able to add the observation notes to my Level II credential portfolio.

Also, I realized that last Friday had tainted my week. I was alarmed at N's behavior and was worried about him coming back to the classroom. I was angry that I had not been included in the process of creating his behavior plan, but I have to say, that I am now receiving a lot of support and that it has taken a lot of stress off of me. I set up a quiet area for him in the classroom and there is a staff member in charge of coming to my classroom if there is a need, for each hour of the day. This proved helpful yesterday when N. started to throw a tantrum and started angrily flailing around. I called the office and someone came in to help him calm down and rejoin the group. All this happened while I continued to teach and it felt wonderfully in control.

Since my kids have been having a lot of trouble with transitions, I have started going back to a very, very structured way of doing everything in transitions and insisting that they do it correctly and follow directions. After recess, when there had been fights and ugly verbal exchanges, I sat them down and discussed ways to problem-solve the issues that they were having. Although I know that I will have to continue to go through this over and over, I could sense the tension easing in my students, after these issues had been addressed. I haven't been doing conflict resolution in any organized way in my class, but I want to start with community meetings. I will have to research this...

By the last hour of the day on Friday, I had 3 students in the classroom (the rest were in the 3rd grade choir practice). We pulled out the watercolors and they sat, dipping brushes in water and mixing colors around... serene.

when the people you work with make you want to scream.... in pain and frustration

2007-11-14T22:46:00.000-08:00

Should I be offended that my principal canceled her observation of my classroom at the last minute after I reminded her that she was supposed to have been coming to observe, so that she could instead oversee our students voting in their student body elections? I mean, our VP was already all over that job with parent volunteers and other teachers, so can I help it if I feel a tad disrespected when she so nonchalantly asks if we can just "do it another time"? Nevermind that I had spent a lot of time preparing this lesson... I would just have to put it aside for a time when she would be ready to come view it and find a fall-back plan for that morning.

Our principal values very surface things over substance in our school (our bulletin boards should look just so, but we have no school-wide behavior plan), so I can imagine that she wanted to assist in this event solely because of the surface or "cute" aspects of it: the "secret" ballots, the cute stickers students got at the end for having voted- "I voted today!"... I,on the other hand am merely someone who is working hard for her school and can be easily dismissed as non-important in confront to this critical student election. It's great to feel so valued and respected in my job. Perhaps this is why this school has about 50% turnover rate of staff each year and it looks like I'll be taking the plunge for calmer waters as well.

Should it also not bother me that I was not invited to a meeting to create a behavior plan for N, one of my students with critical behavior needs? I knew that the meeting was supposed to happen today and called the office several times to ask if it was happening and if it had started. No one called to let me know and instead, I was just told what had been decided at the end of the day. Top. Down. We say, you do. You would think that the person who interacts with the student for the majority of the day would be an important person to have at this meeting. Perhaps this person could give valuable feedback and insight into the student's behavior and perhaps an the "team" could have gotten an idea of whether or not the plan would be workable in this person's classroom. Perhaps the "team" could have also been able to hear and problem-solve concerns about this students' violent behaviors towards this certain person who happens to be his teacher. Apparently the administration is content to just tell me what to do instead. I guess it is easier for them that way.

I am starting to dread going to work and to hate my work environment. If things continue at this pace, I honestly don't think that I will make it through the year.

why I'm going home for Thanksgiving

2007-11-12T08:01:00.001-08:00

I finally wrote my principal, the school psychologist, and my special ed content specialist to outline just how extreme N's behavior has become and how negatively it is impacting my class. Everyday, he has a breakdown and each day, his breakdowns get progressively worse and more violent.

Last Friday (unbeknownst to me) he hit one of our PE teachers during recess. As a consequence, he was asked to sit out, while the rest of the class played cooperative games with this teacher during our PE time, which came right after recess. I had no idea that this had happened, but I saw N. getting very angry and acting very defiantly towards the coach: she asked him to step out of the circle and he stayed with his arms crossed, staring at her with a "what are you going to do?" expression on his face.

I recognized this stance and the beginning of his breakdown and craze in his eyes, so I intervened and instead of going on my prep, took him to the side. I sat with him on the bench and talked to him about calming down and that he would probably get to play once he had calmed down. As we sat, however, he got angrier and angrier and got to a place where he was so angry that he didn't know what to do with himself. He finally got up and went to join the class in their activity. I tried to coax him out and because he wasn't listening to me, I told him I would have to go to the office to get our counselor. When he saw me walking towards the stairs, he ran past me, yelling that he would get there first. I walked towards the office and he took another route.

When I got there, I told our VP that N was having another melt-down at which point he came racing through the door with his angry bull expression: breathing in and out heavily and clenching his teeth. He stomped towards me, grabbed my wrist and started pulling me down towards the floor. Now, I am quite a bit stronger than N and there is no way that he would actually pull me to the floor, but I was stunned at his behavior and I continued to repeat: "Let go of my arm," in a very calm and neutral tone. My VP intervened and got him to let go and nodded to me to leave the room. As I walked down the hall, I caught a glimpse of N behind me, stomping angrily towards me. He had gotten away from our VP and was now coming to... intimidate me? try to pull me down again? yell at me? Fortunately, my classroom para saw the whole scene developing and lured him aside to talk to him. She calmed him down and brought him back to the office.

Later, in my room, N came back, having again escaped from the office (clearly this is not an effective plan, but we haven't come up with anything else as of yet). He started running around the room and tried to lure R outside with him. Although running around in the halls is a pretty desirable activity, we teachers possess the ultimate trump card that tops any activity: the computer. I put R. on the computer with headphones on so that he was completely hypnotized by the toon-town music of a math game. This was an unusual time in the day when only two students were in the class. The rest of the class, who are 3rd graders, were in choir practice for the last hour of the day and the two students who were with us were working on math.

My classroom para eventually took the two students to help her with the recycling, to avoid giving N any more attention. I continued to organize my classroom for the coming week. Somehow, N. came upon his file folder, which we had laid out to document his behavior and had not yet put away. He began to read the comments that we had written and this ignited a new flame inside of him... or just gave him a new wind with which to fan the already raging fire. "Why are you writing about me?!! Stop writing about me!!!" I calmly walked over and took the file. He looked at me angrily and grabbed both my wrists, as he breathed in and out. I broke away from his grip and walked out of the room. He ran to block me, but I walked past him, knowing how dangerous of a situation I was in legally to be in a room alone with this volatile student. I walked to the office and he ran in from another way. As I let my VP know again what had happened, he grabbed something off of her desk and started ranting: "I'm taking this home with me. I don't care, I'm taking this home with me." I walked out and he tried to follow me. She caught him and he threw himself down and started scratching and hitting his face. "N, you're hurting yourself,because you're in trouble," I heard her say.

At the end of this episode, my heart was racing and I felt very stressed. I am tired of going through these crises every day and I'm tired of it interrupting my teaching on normal days. I am scared of him hurting other students and I am scared of being put in a legally jeopardous situation. What if he accuses me of doing something to him when he comes to my class when I am alone? I don't want to be in a position of having my word against his to defend my job and credential.

His foster mom has expressed that she feels that he is "taunting" her, trying to get her to hit him for things that he is doing. I feel the same way- he tries to escalate situations to the point where he is getting hurt (he ends up hitting or scratching himself), but I really think that he is hoping someone will hurt him. At times when I have tried to lead him away from a situation by lightly holding his wrist, he throws himself down and starts yelling: "Get off of me!!!" as if I had been severely beating him.

We are getting him more counseling, but I really question whether he will be able to function in our school, even with therapy once a week. In the meantime, it is unfair for all the other children in my class to suffer academically and emotionally (if I am stressed, I am sure that they feel it too). So I wrote all of the people in charge of me at my school and hope that we will come to a reasonable and workable solution for the near future. In the meantime, I have booked a ticket to Chicago for Thanksgiving.

ground hazelnuts

2007-11-11T16:31:00.000-08:00

If smells could be sent via the internet, I would somehow find a way to upload the most heavenly scent I know: ground roasted hazelnuts. I am making a hazelnut cake for a brunch tomorrow (hooray for three day weekends!) and the recipe called for this type of "flour." Roasting the hazelnuts and removing the skins is pretty labor-intensive, but the amazing aroma when you grind them makes you temporarily forget anything else. It's as good as a much needed bite of chocolate, like getting a long massage, like biking in a hot summer evening... mmmmm, so good. I wish I could share it.

citrus sunburst

2007-11-09T12:22:00.000-08:00

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

2007-11-07T22:29:00.000-08:00

There are many things that before working in elementary, I never thought I would have to explicitly teach. Like for example that shirts are tucked into pants and NOT into underwear. As the big green lettering "TMNT"started at me for about the dozenth time today from R's underwear, protruding slightly due to the huge amount of fabric stuffed in there, I stopped myself from repeating this message for the bagillionth time: "Your shirt needs to go in here (as I tug at my own pants), not in your underwear, ok? Please go fix your shirt." I mean, so far it's been a battle for R to tuck in his shirt, as dictated by school policy, so I should be happy that he's tucking it in, right? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles staring me down from his backside are no biggie?

baby steps, baby steps.

R. had been on a steady trend upwards with behavior and work completion and then today came. I don't know why today was different than the last few days this week. I don't know what happened to him before coming to school, which probably has a big impact on his behavior. All I know is that when presented with his "do now" like every morning, R. crumpled up the paper, took out the other sheets from his desk and crumpled them and threw them at me, and as a grand finale knocked down his desk. It made such a loud noise that it startled the rest of the kids and I also definitely jumped. I took away his desk, telling him that if he didn't know how to use a desk, he would have one to which he replied, "fucking bitch." I looked at the clock- it was 8:10 am. Our support counselor came to get him back on track and the day continued roller coaster mountains of behavior, with the counselor intervening when necessary.

At the end of the day, however, a golden nugget of knowledge fell into our laps. It turns out that one of the parent volunteers on Wednesday is R's old foster mom... who he is for some reason deathly afraid of. The counselor came to inform R that he had spoken to this lovely woman and at the sound of her name, R went from being defiant to sobbing like a babe. We were all shocked at the immediate transition. "There is a God!" exclaimed our counselor, muffling laughs. It is a huge relief after having gone through every other adult in his life to finally find someone who may be able to help us with his behavior. I can't wait to test out this new secret weapon tomorrow.

Honestly though, the day was pretty rough. Not just because of R and his constant breakdowns and cussing, but mostly because of N. who is getting worse with each passing day. I asked for backup when he had a meltdown today and no one came. I felt completely powerless, with no tools to stop his hijacking of my classroom. I became so frustrated by his confrontational, purposely defiant attitude, and violent behavior that I started to cry in class. Right there, in front of all my kids. As I documented the behavior, big tears plopped down on the sheet. I felt stressed and frustrated. Finally, my para persuaded him to go to the office. He later ran away from the office and walked into my class, staring at me like an angry bull, fists clenched at his sides, with his teeth gritted. He came close to the table where I was working and started breathing heavily in and out in anger. I continued to teach and he walked over to the file cabinet and kicked it, then walked to a movable partition and kicked it as well. My administration doesn't know what to do with him, so they let him sit in the office. He runs away and wanders around the school. Our school does not have a clear behavior policy and there is never a consistent way that behavior is dealt with. Because they didn't know what to do with him, they eventually just sent him back to class, still fuming, which led to another breakdown.

I met with my content specialist today and she suggested several solutions: a consistent behavior plan and a crisis plan, for when he has violent melt-downs. This was a helpful discussion and I will try to put everything in place by tomorrow. I usually like to find humor in each day, otherwise it is hard to keep going.... today was hard though. I don't know if I have thick enough skin for this job.

2007-11-05T21:33:00.000-08:00

Today was the kind of day that went so well (at school) that I thought maybe I should hold my breath in fear that by breathing I might alter any environmental conditions that made the classroom dynamic so stable. To be fair, two students were absent. N. is in the hospital for a mysterious reason that we were not able to uncover today and LW only comes to school 1 out of 2 days and this apparently was one of his days off (phonics is hard work!). The phase of the moon also seemed to be favorable, the stars were correctly aligned, and the vent wasn't pumping any extreme of either warm or cold air- which it is prone to doing.
Really though... today was great. R. was so easy to work with. All of a sudden, all of the obvious strategies that I've been using like positive praise, picking him as a helper, giving him visual rewards on the board (stars by his name), which hadn't been working, seemed like magical keys that I had misplaced. He was smiling, speaking in complete sentences, participating in class discussions....and he worked the WHOLE day!!! We have an extended school day at our school(2 hours more than other schools), so this is a pretty big deal. Usually R. starts throwing pencils within the first 10 minutes of class, but today things were working for him...and for me. What caused this fantastic transformation? I'm not sure. The one time during the day that R threw a tantrum was towards the end, and this was because he did not want to go home. Apparently, he has a pretty hard situation at home, but this was the first time that I saw a correlation between his acting out and his distaste for going home.

One odd thing that happened today was that T. drew a very sexual drawing in his reading journal. I've been reading the BFG (Big Friendly Giant), by Roald Dahl to my class. I usually read for 10-15 minutes and then my students write a summary of what I read in their reading journal. Well, T showed Mrs. R (our wonderful para) his drawing, stating,"This is the BFG. He has a big..." Mrs. R looked at his drawing and saw a well- endowed giant, center stage. T. started laughing and elaborated that what he had drawn was the "thing, you know... to go pipi." Well, by the time it got to me, the drawing had been censured. Mrs. R. had urged him to color over the big friendly phallus, which she told me later had been drawn in great detail, hairs and all. This drawing sent T. to the principal, who told him that the next time would mean a phone call home (something which apparently was effective).

Aside from this though, the day was easy. I couldn't believe my luck. Hopefully tomorrow will be the same.

Soldier Boy

2007-11-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

This Halloween at school, I witnessed the phenomenon that is 'Crank Dat Soldier Boy" in action during our parade. The kids were circling around the perimeter of the school's yard, excited to be in their costumes and to have their parents watching them, when the "Soldier Boy" song came on. The reaction was like touching a spark to a gunpowder line: every single kid from kindergarten to 3rd grade started bouncing in unison and doing the choreographed dance from the video. I mean,every Spiderman, Mulan, Scream, witch, ninja, fairy, firefighter in the crowd was doing it. Even my little girl J. who is shy, knew the moves and looked so cute in her orange witch costumes, cranking her little fists and then spreading her arms back like superman. She was taking her cues from the twins who are both great dancers. It was AWESOME and made my day.
Check out the video of if you haven't seen it and picture tiny bodies in costumes doing the dance: http://youtube.com/watch?v=mMycfdNdlKA
awesome.

measuring progress in millimeters

2007-10-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

I walked up to the table where my students sat this morning during breakfast. I've been checking up on them in the morning, because they've gotten into a routine of hanging out until it's time to line up and then starting to eat breakfast. This makes them late almost every day for our morning routines and makes me extremely irritated, so I wanted to nip it in the bud. I made my way down the table, urging students to keep eating and to finish up, and finally came to R, who was devouring a muffin and had six others in front of him. His section of the table was a battlefield of plastic wrappings from other muffins and cookies, that had already been polished off. I swooped in and snagged the remaining muffins, rescuing R. from the sugar coma he was sure to induce if he was allowed to follow through with his breakfast plan. Turns out that before I made it there, he had already eaten 5 muffins- something that he confessed to one of our counselors after having a meltdown at the beginning of class and being taken out of the room for a time out. The counselor gave him a cup of water, to counter the effects of the excess sugar in his body.

The rest of the morning was pretty smooth, as far as things with R. go. He sat with our reading group and read, he participated in the phonics routines, and even asked if he could use the small dry erase boards to spell words. He was also speaking in complete sentences, responded to my redirections, and was in a generally cheerful mood. By lunch, however, all his good cheer had waned. We go through so many ups and downs with R. that it's hard to assess the day.

When he returned from lunch recess, he had told my para to "shut the hell up," came in and knocked his chair over and started wandering around the room. The same counselor who had worked with him in the morning (and has been working with him every day) took him to calm him down and bring him back on track. He came back for music, but then got angry after music and called me "stupid" repeatedly.

In my behavior class a few days ago when we were discussing small amounts of progress for students who have more severe behavior problems, one man in the class jokingly said, "So if my student calls me Mr. Fuckwad instead of just Fuckwad, that's an improvement, right?"
I thought about that today when R. was walking down the hall calling me 'stupid." At least he wasn't calling me "bitch," like he did last week, right? At least he was walking with me down the hall instead of throwing himself down and refusing to budge. The truth is that I am seeing progress with R., even though it takes so much energy every day to address and manage his behavior. He is moving forward in millimeters.

2007-10-29T18:16:00.000-07:00

I held my two first parent-teacher conferences of the year and I have to say that I really enjoyed them. It feels good to be able to touch base with parents, hear their concerns, and communicate how their children are doing in class.

Also, the fact that today was a shorter day (we went 'til 2 instead of 4) and that 3 students were absent made it oh, so manageable and lovely. A specialist from the mental health department came to observe R, the student who has been giving me the most trouble. I don't know why it happens that whenever anyone comes to visit from outside of the school, he acts like a completely different child. It's kind of like when you take something to get repaired and as soon as you bring it to the shop, it somehow starts working again. I'm sure that part of the reason was that those 3 students were gone and that he was one of three in a group instead of one of 6. Still, he was smiling, participating, reading, saying 'please' and 'thank you' without reminders. I was very happy about it, but also made sure to clarify to the specialist that this is atypical and tried to paint a more accurate picture of his usual behavior: desks thrown to the ground, refusal to do work, etc.

I have to say that I like this whole getting out at 2 thing.

2007-10-28T22:15:00.001-07:00

When I look at N. in my class, I get the image of a bird trapped inside a room flapping frantically to get out and hitting the windows again and again. I can't begin to imagine all of the things that are going on inside his head, but once a day he has a break-down. In these break-downs, he starts talking to himself non-stop, usually responding to something that has happened in class that he disagrees with or is upset about. Usually the message is that we -the teachers- can't make him do what he doesn't want to do, he is NOT doing this or that, he doesn't care what anybody says. We can call his mom, he says, he doesn't care. Sometimes his rants stop making a lot of sense and he becomes this ball of anger, oozing undecipherable static like a detuned radio. Occasionally, he throws down chairs and acts violently towards adults in the room.

N. was recently placed in foster care and everyone at school is quick to dismiss his behavior by giving me a knowing look and saying, "Well, you know what's going on at home, right?" I've even been told that since I'm the other most constant female in his life other than his mother, that he's taking his anger towards his mom out on me. We've set him up with mental health services, which haven't started yet.

Last week, after one of these explosions, after which he was sent to the office, N. came back to my room, stood in my doorway with his hand on his hip and with an angry twist of his neck spat out, "You are NOT going to call the office." Turns out that I didn't have to, because our school's security guard was right behind him, having noticed that he had left the front office. I was taken off guard by his aggressive defiance. Supposedly when he was in the office, he tried to call his mom. One theory we have is that he is acting out in the hopes that we will call her, so that he can talk to her. He does have a lot going on... more than he seems to be able to cope with. And everyday, he continues to crash into glass.

2007-10-28T21:28:00.001-07:00

It has been hard this year for me to write about my class. Last year, although I had challenging behaviors, I managed to see more humor in classroom situations and generally enjoyed my students more. I felt effective and in control of my environment. This year, the behaviors are intense and the methods that worked last year are failing. I have students who throw desks and chairs, walk out of the room when they don't get their way, cuss at me, my aides and the other children, and hit children as well as adults. What worries me is how unconcerned these particular students are with classroom rewards and privileges, how unfazed they are, for example by the school's prize store, which most students would jump through fiery hoops to be able to go to. This past Friday we went to the store and a student who only had 3 dollars the first time we went to the store now had 15. I made a big deal about his savings and he seemed to be excited. However when he left the store with a couple of toys, he said, "This is it?" like he had just suffered the biggest disappointment of his life.

A behaviorist came to class to observe one student in particular, who has been the most puzzling and certainly the most frustrating for me. Of course he observed him during a very mild time during the day when half of the class was at a specialty and when this student was working with only another student and my aid. After observing the class for 20 minutes, we sat and debriefed. I filled him in on the more common daily behaviors- threatening other students, cussing at others, rolling on the floor to avoid work, walking out of the classroom, throwing down chairs and desks- that we see every day with this student. His suggestion: create a behavior plan where this student is reinforced for positive behavior every 10 minutes and where he has the opportunity at the end of every day to win a desired prize if he reaches his behavior goals.

Although this sounds wonderful and clean, the reality of implementing this plan is very different. Even if I were to remember, while I was teaching and managing the rest of the class (which includes other intense behaviors), to reinforce his behavior every 10 minutes, there would always be the times when he would decide not to comply and it would take a long time to get him back on track.... or if I decided to ignore his behavior when he started faltering, because I wanted to tend to my other 9 students, and instead of quietly avoiding his work, he would slip into disruptive and threatening behaviors for attention. Because, this is what happens daily, as soon as he feels like not complying and I am skeptical that this plan would change that.

So this week should be interesting. It's Halloween and Parent Teacher Conferences... could be scary.

the apple, the tree, proximity

2007-10-18T22:15:00.000-07:00

I'm worried about this year.

This morning, the mother of one of my students came in and loudly started asking the adults in the room for change for a twenty. She needed exact change to pay for her son's picture package, since today was picture day. It just so happened that there were four adults in the room: myself, my aid, and two Physical Therapists who were there to observe a student. When I say loudly, I mean that she was yelling, asking people for change, as if she had no concept that she was in a place of learning and maybe thought that she was hustling tickets outside of a concert arena. I suggested several times that she go to the office, where they could probably supply her with the change that she needed. She didn't leave and instead started to pick a fight with my most volatile student. Yes. A parent picked a fight with my student. There is no need to reread, because as shocking as that is, it's what happened. As I continued trying to teach my lesson after the money episode, I heard her yelling at this student,"I dare you. I DARE YOU!" After which she went on a tirade about his "dirty mouth" and how the teachers in this class didn't know how to do their job. It is at this moment that I began to question the sanity of this woman. She seemed like a ranting homeless person who had somehow made her way into the school building, posing as a parent.

I asked her to leave. She started yelling that I didn't know how to do my job and started yelling at my aid that she didn't know how to do her job. It was all I could do to keep it together. I approached her again and said, "Ma'am. You really need to leave. You cannot be in here. This is not how we handle situations." She called her son out of his seat and left the room. It is at this point that my principal, who I had called for backup showed up. She has a magical way of de- escalating situations with irate parents. A magic, or maybe a patience and tolerance that I do not possess when people act like complete fools for no reason.

When her son finally came back to class, after having seen his mother yell at every adult in the room, with a smirk on his face the whole time, he decided that he didn't want to do his work. He said he was gonna tell his mama, crossed his arms and (surprise, surprise) refused to listen to either me or my aid. It wasn't long before he got out of his seat and started hopping around the room. Ignoring him made his behavior worse. He ran out of the room to the back stairs, after which point I called the office, because I could no longer keep an eye on him and it was a safety issue. He came back in the room, threw down two chairs and the security person finally came and took him for a walk. When he came back, it was recess time and he went down with my other aid to sit and complete the work he missed while he was playing around. I'm not sure what led up to this, but at some point during recess, he hit and kicked her several times and called her a 'bitch.'
Apparently this is the line that needs to be crossed at our school for anything to happen to a child and he got suspended for the day.

I miss my class from last year, where I never was called a bitch by 6 or 7 year olds and where kids were protective of me and of each other... and where behaviors were constant noises instead of throwing chairs and rolling on the floor to avoid doing work. If this keeps up, I honestly don't know if I can make it through the year. Also, isn't it enough that I have to deal with insane behavior from children... do I really have to put up with it from their parents?

epidemic

2007-10-04T22:20:00.000-07:00

it seems that chair throwing and desk throwing are contagious. My student M. was the first to be affected in my classroom and this dramatic act has been spreading and possessing other small hands in his vicinity. Like werewolves, my students transform, crazed by their inner need for attention or inability to express themselves in other ways.... and bam, bam, bam chairs come down like ducks in a carnival shooting gallery. They stand there afterwards, looking at me and waiting for me to react like cowboys at a noon time showdown. I survey the damage calmly and unsure of how to proceed. I am not angry, just annoyed. I have tried ignoring (not effective), I have tried being punitive (removing points from class reward system... also not effective), I have tried giving students a time-out to temporarily remove them from the environment... this has not been effective either- mostly because support staff will come to help and give the student a lot of attention, take them for an extended time out in their office, sometimes feed them and let them hang out, which let me tell you works wonders for making a student want to come back to class.

I guess a behaviorist would tell me to reinforce these students' behaviors every time they are working and asking for help. I should also be teaching them tools to deal with their anger or to get my attention in a more approrpriate manner. No problem. I'll get right on it.

2007-10-02T20:57:00.001-07:00

I don't know if I can make it through the year here in SF. I haven't found a place to live in yet. My car was broken into and both my green card and passport were stolen yesterday (at least $300 dollars to replace the green card and $350 to replace the window). Then tonight I left my gym bag in there and that was stolen too along with random other little things that I had left in there. It's not necessarily the value of the items (my green card and passport excepted) but the idea of people just going through my things and taking. My car is open for anyone to go into right now and it's not getting fixed until tomorrow morning. There is glass scattered everywhere and the stuff that no one wanted to take has been thrown around.

My job has been very challenging and I have been dealing with the stresses of it very poorly, mostly because of my unstable housing situation. Honestly, I don't know how much more of this I can take. Yes, SF is a great city, but if it is so hard to live here and I can't afford it... why am I here?

I am running out of steam.

Free for a nice girl

2007-09-24T21:31:00.001-07:00

Why finding has been hard to find, part 2: Here is a posting from SF craigslist.

"I am a very honest, clean, healthy, respectfull and have a good heart young guy. I am looking for a nice girl to share my apartment with me for a month(Noverber)or maybe more. You can stay here for free. I am not looking for money. I'd like to have fun and I feel I need some one around me in my apartment. If you are interested in it, you feel free to send me an email. If you could send me a picture of you, it would be really good. I want to meet you in a coffe shope first and then if we feel comfortable with each other, I will show you my place. Please seriously person only. I hope hear from you some time soon. Good Luck."

You would think someone putting an ad out like this would bother to use spell check... WHO WOULD DO THIS????? I mean respond? who??????????

2007-09-21T06:22:00.000-07:00

Here's another highlight from yesterday that I forgot. When I opened my book to read in bed last night, I found a letter I had tucked in there yesterday morning. It was from J and was decorated with foamy flowers and hearts. She had wirtten one for my para and myself.
It read:
Dear Ms. V,
You are my best teacher. You show me how to count to 2,000. I like when Ms. V read to us.
Love,
J.

2007-09-20T22:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a recap of the week's events
New students: 1
Desks tipped over in fits of anger in the room: 3/4. One large kidney table was almost flipped over, but action was averted by my telling the student in a calm voice that I was video taping his actions to show to his mom.
Chairs thrown in my classroom in fits of anger: 4/5
Chairs that were intentionally thrown in my direction in afore mentioned fits of anger: 1
Bruises left by said chair: 1, on my leg
Tantrums: I've lost count
Teachers who have quit: 1 (not me, I'm stil in the ring... "ding ding")

It has been a rough week. Then there are the highlights, like L and J who couldn't read last year but who are now reading chapter books. L has started reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which I read to them last year. He is really motivated to read it and hearing him sound out multi-syllabic words ("m-ar-vel-ous... marvelous") is music to my ears. J is reading a chapter book about Dracula and although she is struggling a little bit more with decoding certain words, she is hooked into the story and so excited to be reading a bigger book. This is what makes it worthwhile for me- seeing the amazing progress that they've made and being able to build on it.

I have a much harder time dealing with kids who have behavior issues. The new student, for example. He was dropped off by his mom today who demonstrated extreme relief (I was told second hand) at being able to get him off her hands today, saying that he was "impossible." The morning went fairly well. His skills are very, very, very low, but he seemed to be enthusiastic during our reading block. I know enough at this point to not be fooled a student's behavior in the first few days... especially since his IEP had no academic goals and only behavior and speech goals. It emphasized his penchant for phrases such as "M__F__" and "I'll kick your a__." Fortunately, he kept those to himself today, but I almost lost it when during his reading journal time he took a brand new pack of crayons and broke every single one... oh yeah, it's fun to break things. When I took them away, he pushed himself away from his desk and refused to move for a very long time. Fun.

Then there's another student who starts to lose it at the end of our extended day. For the past two days, he has started knocking over desks and chairs in anger and frustration. Part of it is that he is tired, I'm sure. Still, for the most part I don't really understand why he gets so angry. Yesterday, after he refused to work on a phonics activity with me and another student (knocking his letter tiles on the floor and whining, throwing himself on the floor), I tried working with him 1: 1. He refused to do this as well and so when I began working with another student, he started getting angrier and angrier.... until he started to flip over the kidney table and finally threw a chair at my leg. He is fine although still challenging for the most part during the rest of the day.

Finally there's a third students who I had last year as well. He has reason to act out, considering that he was recently placed in a foster home and separated from two of his other siblings. He has been throwing tantrums where he strongly refuses to do what I have asked him to do, which he never did last year. He gets so overwhelmed with anger when something doesn't go his way that he yells, his body starts quivering, he bangs on the table. He has also started to flip chairs over. I have stayed firm with my demands on him (usually that he finish his work before he can do a choice activity) and he usually comes around after tantruming for awhile, apologizes sheepishly, and does his work. He is so needy. He is crying out for attention, but I am unsure of how to handle it, since it is so disruptive. I don't want him to think that he can get out of his work, although I know that he is having serious emotional problems.

I didn't have to deal with these issues last year and am feeling a bit at a loss of how to handle the huge range of levels in my class coupled with these more intense behaviors. I am exhausted and feel drained.hooooray for friday.

2007-09-10T20:46:00.000-07:00

I am typing this inside my car, parked on a dark residential street about a block and a half away from an apartment that I am scheduled to visit. I feel slightly like a stalker, but my appointment isn't for another 15 minutes and so I'm taking advantage of the wireless internet connection, which some generous San Franciscan has chosen to leave unlocked. My housing search is still on full steam. I don't have very high hopes for this place... it looked teeny tiny from what I could see in the craigslist posting. Still, I am holding on to a shred of hope that this could be the cubic zirconium in the rough rental market of San Francisco.

Not having housing yet has made it very hard to concentrate on teaching and has amplified the small stresses of the last few days. I have until Friday before I have to move out- 4 days. Scenarios ranging from moving back to Chicago to dropping all current plans and traveling somewhere remote have crossed my mind... esapist, I know. Maybe I'll just move to Berkeley.

Teacher Amnesia

2007-09-09T11:08:00.000-07:00

After getting through the first few weeks of teaching, the days of summer where I had so much time I didn't know what to do with myself are an unfathomable fantasy. I am slowly slinking back into the patterns of crammed days where every hour is accounted for and where at the end of the day I am left with enough energy to make a quick dinner (one of the three I've gotten into the habit of churning out) and read two pages of my book before the words stop making sense and I surrender myself to sleep. This shouldn't come as a surprise to me- I am now entering my 5th year of teaching. Still, I feel stunned, shocked... did I really sign up for this? again?! I realize that the summer worked my memory like salt water smoothing out glass. All those days of relaxation and idleness turned my June exhaustion into new motivation for the coming year. In the summer, the stress and fatigue seeped out of me, leaving me with the pleasant memories from the year. Summer, like an anesthetic enabling me to do it all again.
I am being a bit dramatic-- my students are fantastic, my classroom is coming together, and I am genuinely excited at the possibilities for this year. Still, the circumstances of my school site are making the transition more challenging. This weekend, for example, our school's staff was required to come to a professional development on Saturday (already on the 2nd week of school!). At this training, we were given specific guidelines for how our administration wants us to lesson plan. I won't go into all of the details, but it basically amounts to a lot of busy work, which takes away from time to genuinely plan for your classroom or rest to recharge for the week. It seems that there is always something extra we need to do, turn in... but these things, though they look good on paper, are not meaningful for teachers or their classrooms. It's a way of micromanaging, of administration to exert control over teachers that they don't quite seem to trust to do the right thing in the classroom.

My experience in teaching has only been in shools serving low income populations. These schools are underperforming and it seems that this impetus to micromanage staff at these schools is part of a larger mistrust of educators' practices in these schools. The result of being treated in this way, however- of constantly having more work on top of challenging kids with challenging behaviors and an extended school day- creates burn out.

I had forgotten that feeling, but it is slowly coming back.

special ed

2007-09-05T12:39:00.000-07:00

It's starting early this year, the whispers, the insults, the confident superior assertions of "You're special ed." What has really astounded me about my students is how innocent they still are and untouched by these labels. Last year, after moving into the 3rd grade pod was the first time I started hearing other kids putting my students down because of the class that they're in. My kids however, seem to have no clue that they're in any different kind of setting- or at least, they've never asked me about it. Only JJ last year, seemed to have a negative association with the words special ed and was ready to fight at their utterance. The fact that they're so unfazed by it makes me ecstatic- one of the biggest hurdles in working with middle school special education students was the sense of inferiority that they had acquired through years of being in the system and of others' imposed judgements of their intelligence and ability. I remember some middle school students who joked when I asked them to pull out paper and pencil, "I'm stupid, I'm stupid." The others would laugh, all of them fortifying their weakened egos.

Working with elementary students was refreshing for the very reason that they had not internalized this self-deprecating mentality... yet.
Today while we lined up to go to the bathroom, two girls at the front of another classroom's line smiled and and affirmed that my class was special ed.
Later today while coming home from recess, a parent sitting outside looked at my class and loudly proclaimed, "That must be the special class," and snickered. She then stared at my class, looking for who knows what confirmation of her assertion.

Situations like these make me incredibly angry. How dare people put their labels and assumptions on my students? Is it a result of their own insecurities that they feel the need to assert some self-affirming sense of superiority over someone else? I can understand that kids need to be taught to be kind and empathetic and that school needs to take over where parents fall short, but what about parents who should know better?
I haven't figured out a good way to address this issue with other classrooms yet....

house hunting, burritos, carrot juice

2007-09-04T21:18:00.000-07:00

I had an appointment to view an apartment tonight, but when I pulled up to the front of the place I lost all of my drive to see the place. Part of that was that I think I almost hit one of my potential future housemates. He was riding his bike towards me and made a quick left turn in front of my car. I saw him in time and stopped before I hit him, but he got angry and made exagerated getsures of disbelief at my driving (note: when I ride my bike, I don't jump in front of cars), right before he walked his bike into the garage with the matching address to the one I was journeying to. I played out awkwardly humourous ice breaking acknowlegments that I had almost hit him, while meeting all the interviewing housemates for the first time. None of it seemed worth the effort. Then, there was also the matter of the copious sketchy characters who were both hanging out and strolling down the block, which made me think that this was no big loss. Plus, I am really hoping to get this other apartment in the Panhandle, but have to wait until Thursday to find out if I can move in.

So, after writing them an email excusing myself- wireless internet is really a wonderful thing... especially when there is no password required (I have checked craigslist and emailed from my car througout San Francisco), I headed to a burrito place that I used to go to once in a while last year. Since much of my house hunting has been in the mission, it has been characterized by several burrito breaks while waiting to view various apartments or while waiting for my laundry to dry at a local laudromat- or washateria. I got a veggie burrito (not as good as I rememberd) and a carrot juice. I love the natural neon of carrot juice. It's as if you're drinking toxic goo that will give you superhuman powers. I also continued reading "Washington Story", the sequel to "Crossing California," by Adam Langer, which has been a perfect companion since coming back to SF.

Even if I don't find housing in the mission, I'll at least have hit up most of its taquerias, so that I won't miss it as much if I end up living elsewhere.

Housing in San Francisco

2007-09-02T02:00:00.000-07:00

I wasn't kidding when I mentioned that finding housing in SF was rough.
Here is a perfect example- someone renting the couch in their livingroom as sleeping space for $100 per month. The posting elaborates on this, explaining that they are two men who want a woman to add class and a "female perspective" to the place. I'm sure that someone will not want to live on your couch, buddy. Or maybe since finding housing in a reasonable price range in this city is as competitive and rigorous as any job interview process, someone will.
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/roo/411949753.html

Or, there's this ad, posted by a woman who is looking for not just a housemate, but a boyfriend. I was just talking with someone about how the whole hunt for housing was like going on many first dates, where each party is trying to feel the other out and measure out their compatibility. I am curious to see who responds to this posting. I mean, the pressure, geez. You must not only have good credit, but also the right chemistry to one day be the father of my children. This would make an excellent reality TV show... (http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/roo/411929607.html)
In the meantime, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a nice big house that I visited earlier today.... all I need is a room- not someone's living room- to call my own. Boyfriend need not be included in the package deal.

beginnings

2007-08-29T22:17:00.000-07:00

The beginning of this year has felt a little off balance, not quite right. Half of my students were 3rd graders and were promoted to the next elementary school, and although I was expecting new students to have been qualified for my classroom, none have been. I now have 6 students in my care. Wonderful, right? This lets me work with 3 students at a time in flexible groups, while my para works with another group. To make things even better, most of my remaining students are now 3rd graders, which means that they have matured and are infinitely more independent than they used to be. I watch them in awe as they take assignments into their own hands, work in partner groups to create skits illustrating our school's expectations, and build on the skills that we developed last year. It really is amazing to notice these developmental changes in a child and to feel how influential you are in shaping them.

This year has by far been the easiest in terms of smooth transitions back into the school year (finding housing in SF aside- that has been nightmarishly jagged and hard process). Because my kids already know me, we have eased back into our routines and have already started working on academic skills with them. I have even been able to insert painting into the schedule- something that I wouldn't have jumped into on the first day of school with a brand new class. While most other classrooms are practicing walking in lines and reviewing classroom policies and procedures, our community has already been built and we are just expanding upon it.

It's felt a little bit like cheating, like I've somehow managed to take the easy way out. When I observe the brand new teachers struggling to manage the many challenging behaviors in their classrooms, and look back at my small and focused group, I keep waiting for someone to discover this sliver of serenity and yank me out of it.

Today though, I got a bit of a confirmation that it was too good to be true when my content specialist from the district came to visit. She checked the numbers and the fact that they are very low. As a result, she said, I would lose my para in the afternoon. Hearing this news was heartbreaking. This para guided me when I first came to the school, showed me the ropes, always stood up for our special ed class when we were left out of activities (which often resulted in our getting included!), and always put in a little bit more. She baked cakes for our class, went on field trips with us (my other para refuses to do so), and was also good friend. In the hardest times and when the craziest things happened, I could always turn to her as a witness to the insanity or outright goofiness of the goings on and share a laugh about it when things settled down. I am going to ask around about how to somehow keep her at our site and in my class and I really hope that she will be able to stay.

The 10-day-count will be the determining factor. We will see what happens, but I am definitely bummed out.

show time

2007-08-26T20:06:00.000-07:00

I thought that it was odd that I wasn't freaking out about the start of school. The kids will come tomorrow for day one and for the past week, I have been planning, setting up my room, meeting new staff, and going to training after training with general serenity of spirit. This is not usual for me. In the days before the start of school, I am usually stressed and tired. I thought I had avoided it this year, but now that it's hours to show time again, I am feeling a little knot in my stomach start to grow at the anticipation of the drawing of the curtain.

dreams

2007-08-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

It never fails... a couple of weeks before I am due back in the classroom, I get awful anxiety dreams. They all dance to a similar tune- anxiety, lots of it. I'm entering my 5th year teaching and still, I feel a tightening in my chest and a slight urge to throw up when time to start school comes around. Maybe it's the begrudging anticipation of the abrupt switch from summer to fall; of knowing that all of the abundant free time that I have had up to now will be swiped from under me, leaving me stunned and in need of superior caffeination. Although the free time that I've had has at time seemed too free of structure, too open to possibilities- so open that I stumbled accross the summer like a scout without a compass- one gets used to having the idea of the option of endless possibilities. So maybe it's that....

Although really, after resting all summer and doing the things that I haven't had time to do during the year: paint, make jewelry, draw (although not nearly enough of the last two), I am excited to start a new year. I am excited for my new class, although I am also sad that most of my students from last year will be gone. In preparation for the year, I have been brainstorming new ideas for units and lessons and have submitted two proposals to Donorschoose.org. I love the freshness of a new school year and the opportunities to reinvent and improve.

Still... the dreams. Two nights ago, after a trip to the bookstore where I purchased "Franklin Goes To School," by Paulette Bourgeois, I dreamt of my first day of school. In the dream, school began abruptly and I stood, baffled in the front of the class, as I watched not the expected elementary students stroll in, but big and jaded middle schoolers flood in. What was worst is that there were dozens of them, crammed into every possible corner of the room. Someone had clearly forgotten about or ignored the 14 student cap in special ed. I thought about my newly purchased book and how its protagonist, Franklin the turle finds and is valued for his unique talent, after feeling inferior to his other animal friends because of their talents. This, would have been a nice segue into a discussion about the individual gifts that we each bring to the class- for 1st-3rd graders.... I now had middle schoolers on my hands. Surefire recipe for stress and anxiety. The rest of the dream, I scrambled to improvise lessons, find and distribute enough materials, while keeping a handle on the classroom. It. was. not. fun.

All these dreams follow a similar thread- an unexpected event on the first day and I am completely unprepared. It is the equivalent of teacher stage fright. All this anxiety and then you get out there and things are fine. You feel silly for ever worrying about it at all. Still, I'm not looking forward to this repeated theme following me to the start of school.

2007-07-24T11:30:00.000-07:00

What's worse than getting a bad haircut? Flipping through your 8th grade yearbook in a gust of nostalgia and discovering that you have the same haircut as you had back then... I will never go to the Hair Cuttery again (shaking fist in the air with bitter scowl on my face).

2007-07-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

Last night, my family packed into the car to go check out the movie Ratatouille. Although everyone in my family is past their cartoon-watching prime, we had all been wanting to see this movie either to observe the cooking prowess of the cute animated rat or to laugh along with the french stereotypes. We can laugh at ourselves... really.

Walking into the building, my mom's attention immediately turned to the arcade oasis a few feet from the entrance. "What is that?" she asked wide-eyed looking at two teens' jerky jumping routine. "Dance, Dance Revolution!!" I exclaimed, surprised that she hadn't witnessed the phenomenon yet. "Boh," she said shrugging her shoulders. We walked into the theater.

The movie was great, but really not very entertaining for children, I would think, beyond the animated rats. I say this, because there are so many references and jokes about the culinary world. Maybe kids who watch a lot of the food network or shows like iron chef or who grew up somewhere like the Bay Area immersed in foodie culture would like it- ie: kids who could appreciate and celebrate a thimble sized portion of food with excellent presentation and inventive blend of flavors as a satisfying victory for the furry protagonist. Maybe I'm wrong and this is in fact a cartoon which finds a balance between pleasing children and the adults, but it seemed as though the kids in the audience were getting restless. Evidence of this were the huge mounds of popcorn that whe had to hurdle while exiting our row... or maybe this is just a common result of bringing kids to the movies.

My family loved it. Especially my mom who loves to cook. My dad liked it. His one complaint was that he could not understand the thick exaggerated french accent of Colette, the no-bullshit love interest of Chef Linguini. This is funny considering that my dad has a thick french accent of his own. Leaving the movie, we were all extremely hungry. So we packed into the car again and went to our favorite pizza place.

goin to Miami

2007-07-14T17:34:00.001-07:00

I decided to break my month 1/2 stay in Chicago with a visit to Miami. The decision to go was a little torturous because of my indecision. Weather.com predicted rain all week and so I wavered between thinking that rain would totally ruin a beach-side vacation and deciding that a little rain never hurt anyone. Being indecisive seems to be a forte of mine. But I booked a hotel and Reggie booked a flight (I'm hoping...) and soon we'll be beaching it, checking out Miami's art deco architecture, and hopefully sampling some delicious cuban cuisine. I'm looking forward to it!

2007-07-09T16:49:00.000-07:00

Today was hot and humid in Chicago, so I put on my swim suit and grabbed a beach towel and headed to the lake front. When I tell people that I swim in Lake Michigan, they look at me wide-eyed and immediately start scanning me for signs of extra appendages that may have started sprouting. It's true that a city lake intuitively, seems as if it would be dirty- replete with toxic waste, car parts, 3-eyed fish...Lake Michigan (though I'm sure it's not as pristine as it could be) is beautiful and on clear sunny days, shines various shades of aqua and emerald green, which make it as inviting as the Mediterranean. This is especially true on thickly warm days like yesterday and today.

I laid out for a while and watched the swooping birds and dragonflies. Before seeing a dragonfly in real life, I always assumed them to be graceful and dainty like butterflies. Observing them today, hovering and swooping in the wind though, they seem much more like tough army machines- their wings jutting out like helicopter blades and their quick, jerky movements making them look as if poised to attack.

When I got hot enough, I ventured towards the rocky edge to go take a swim. Unlike some beaches, the transition from "rocks" (which on the edge of lake Michigan are actually cement chunks mixed in with some rock) to water isn't as smooth as one would like it to be. The rocks are rough and at the point where they are submerged by water, are covered in algae, which makes them very slippery. Beyond the rocks, are wooden slats, splintered and covered with weeds from years of wear. There are also huge rusty nails that jut out of the cement rocks, that make handy grips when getting back in from the water.

All of these obstacles started to deflate my confidence a little as I started to think of things that could happen like slipping, getting my leg stuck somewhere, having the mutant lake algae coil itself around my arms and legs and pull me down. I didn't used to have so many fears about stuff like this. When I was younger, I would have jumped right in. Today though, I sat for a bit on a submerged rock and let the cold water wash over me. Step 1: acclimation. Then I started getting myself used to the idea of jumping in... now?.... mmmm... now? ok.... now! SPLASH!!!! It was definitely not the most graceful of dives- in fact it was more like a flop- but I was in!

The water felt wonderfully cold in contrast to the outside heat. I started swimming North, towards an increasingly gray sky. The sun had just been veiled by a long white train of clouds and the water was now dark. I couldn't see below me and began to breathe quickly as I imagined a corpse surfacing (a friend working at the beach in high school had witnessed the finding of a slain person bobbing along the shore). I reassured myself that nothing of the sort would pop out and relaxed as I swam laps back and forth along the lake front.

When I got out shortly after, a strong wind picked up and there was an announcement to clear the beaches due to incoming "extreme weather." I gathered my things and walked home, a few minutes before the dark skies drained themselves of rain. Hopefully the rain won't last for too many days- I was hoping to make swimming in the lake a daily summer activity.

2007-07-06T09:29:00.000-07:00

Last night, I met my friend Dave at Improv Olympic. Since I biked and greatly overestimated the time that it would take me to get there, I ended up locking my bike and leaning in the doorway of IO, taking in the continual stream of people coming my way. They were all heading to Wriggley Field, not for a Cubs game, but for a Police concert. I tried to observe people unnoticed, but since the sidewalk was so narrow, I locked gazes with many of the passersby- both caught in mutual examination. To my surprise, many people smiled... and I smiled back. Seeing the parade of bright colored outfits, matching jewelry, stylishly covered pregnant bellies, successful meet-ups, was fascinating. I only wished that my enclave would have given me the privacy of unrestricted staring, where I could have taken in the details of a person from head to foot, the subtle interactions between people, the collective euphoria and excitement, without engaging in an eye-to-eye dialogue once a stare met mine....

I saw a woman who was a friend-turned-foe of my sister's and we mutually avoided each other's stare. One glance tagged the other, signalling the eyes that it was time to look away, not wanting to be caught looking- an intentional missed connection to avoid awkward "catching-up" that no one wanted to engage in. She was the kind of person who called everyone, including my mother, "sweetie." This to me always oozed with sugary condescension and on top of being fake, seemed completely inappropriate. Some people can pull off calling you "sweetie" and "honey"-- even if they are younger than you and even if they are not waiting on your table at the local diner. It rolls off their tongue with ease and fills you with warmth, draws you closer to them and conjures thoughts of peach cobbler and ice cream. Some people have that touch. The rest of us should just refrain from using those in place of someone's name until we have reached grandmother status.

I noticed how many people in Chicago smoke. In San Francisco, I have gotten used to a landscape free of cigarette smoke, where at times the smell is unidentifiable for a few minutes until I see someone pumping the thin white stick back and forth from their mouth. The few smokers that still dare to smoke in public in California get stares of contempt from passersby- god forbid they are too close to an outdoor restaurant patio- and are submitted to quiet 'tsks', shaming their poor decision. I have to admit that as a non-smoker, I have grown to absolutely love the predominantly smoke-free environment and boast about it to my friends here in Chicago-- who receive these boasts rather cooly, usually, insisting that smoke gives bars character and other such nonsense. One thing that most women will agree on is how nice it is to take a shower the next morning after having gone out to a smoke-free bar and not having a suffocating steam cloud of stale cigarette smoke smack you in the face, reminding you that all of your clothes smell the same way and making it harder to ignore the coming headache.
Well, Chicago is still a smoking city, I confirmed as I watched smoker after smoker bring a cigarette to their lips. The first few times I stared, as if they had not been holding a cigarette in their hand, but something shocking like a severed finger or perplexing, like an extinct Dodo bird. Pretty soon though, the smoking became as commonplace as black flip-flops in the crowd, and I didn't notice it anymore. Well, except for the girl who all but spat her smoke in my face as she turned back to answer a friend behind her.

After almost 40 minutes of observing the crowd, I caught sight of my friend dave, coming to a halt on his bicycle. We were some of the only people not going to see The Police and headed to purchase tickets to the improv show. After the show, we went and caught the tail-end of The Police, sitting on the surrounding sidewalk where many ticketless fans had gathered, immersed in the crowd, and ejoying the hot summer night.

2007-07-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

"You know, it's funny," the man behind the counter said as he rolled up my three sheets of paper in brown protective paper, "The size of the vehicles that people use to transport things that they by here seems to be directly improportional to the things that they buy..."

As he taped up the brown parchment, he clarified, " If a guy comes and buys 8x11 paper, he'll come in a minivan. But if a guy comes and buys 38x40, he'll bring a bicycle."

"Right," I said as I remembered the time last summer that I tried to balance a 38x46 canvas on my bicycle and then ended up walking, rolling my bike in one hand and holding the heavy canvas up with the other.

The man chuckled as he recounted a similar scenario. "My arm was so sore after holding that canvas up for so long!" I smiled as I remembered my sore arm.
We exchanged a few more lines, and I went to the registers to pay for my materials.

As I was leaving the store, I realized that I had in fact come on a bicycle. I hadn't initially intended to buy paper- just small things that I could fit in my backpack. I could carry it under my arm, I decided. When I tried to balance on the bike, however, it was clear that this would not be a solution. Since I've been in town, I've been using my brother's bike, which has a man's frame and requires me to lean forward and though the seat is as far down as it will go, I still strain to reach a toe to the ground. I have trouble keeping my balance when coming to a stop even when my hands are free, so riding home with a large tubular package did not bode well. Finally, I grabbed one chunk of the brown protective paper that had been tucked in at each end of the tube, with my left hand, while the tube of paper dangled dangerously close to the wheel, and just started to pedal.
"Hey, It's working," I thought as I slowly pedaled towards home. The journey home was going well- the wind blew in my favor, cars didn't cut me off, people even smiled at me. How wonderful it is, I thought, to live in a city where the people are so friendly. I passed a plant nursery and wondered if they were selling carnivorous plants, watched people go about their business, not even minding that a biker was going the wrong way down my bike lane. As I turned on the smaller tree-lined street where I live, I admired the houses. I turned my head to look at the most ornate house on the block, which is painted in many different pastel colors and looks like a dollhouse, and wondered what its residents-whose kids I knew in high school- were doing for the summer.
Then I heard a sound like someone had just sent off a whole machine gun round in my direction. RATATATATATATATAT. It shook me right out of my daydream in a panick. Looking down, I registered what was making that dreadful sound. The bottom of my paper tube had gotten stuck in the spokes. I yanked it out, while still maintaining my balance and biked the last block home, remembering the man's words from earlier and shook my head at my own impracticality.

As it turns out, my paper was only minorly shredded and creased. Now I have all the materials that I need for my upcoming printing project.

2007-07-04T14:15:00.000-07:00

In keeping with 4th of July tradition, Hannah and I met on the lakefront for a pre-fireworks picnic. This time though, our group which consists of a handful of friends from high school was much smaller. It was only me and Hannah this year, later joined by Jo, laying back on the planetarium's sloping little hill, chomping on bread, cheese, and guacamole, drinking wine, and taking in the incredible Chicago Skyline. I'm always shocked at how uncrowded it is there, considering the stunning view.
We watched the show and continued to sit on the grass when it started to rain harder and harder. After about an hour, we got up and biked home, weaving through the dense crowds still oozing from Grant Park. Getting home in the rain was a challenge and seemed to take much longer than I had expected. I finally made it, soaked and still a little buzzed from the wine. I collapsed into bed and woke up with the biggest poofball hair that refused to be tamed. Thunderstorms and hair teased by humidity - two other traditions of a Chicago summer.

The Fortune Teller

2007-07-02T11:51:00.000-07:00

After agonizing and agonizing over my life choices (I know I'm on vacation and I should relax, but being on vacation also means having a whole lot of time to think and to torture myself with my own thoughts), I decided on a slightly different version of a coin toss- I decided to go to a fortune teller. A fortune teller, I thought, would be an unbiased opinion, something to tip the scales of my decision-making, which thus far have been unbearably even.

I remembered my friend Rebecca visiting a fortune teller a few years out of college at a small bar in Boy's Town called the Kit Kat Lounge. Rebecca raved about this woman, highlighting the accuracy of her insights. Back then, I was too freaked out by the idea of having anything laid out for me that would influence my next steps- afraid that I would interpret a reading as definite and that it would affect future choices in a negative way. Now, although I can be a little superstitious at times, can take a fortune telling reading with a grain of salt. So, I recruited my friend Bobby to come along and we made the excursion to the Kit Kat on Sunday night- which also happened to be half-off martini night.

We took a seat and I spotted her at a side table, leaning in close to the man whose fortune she was currently telling. There was no risk of his private thoughts being leaked, however, since the loud techno beats made it hard for me to even hear what Bobby was telling me across the table. This fortune teller, I noticed, had none of the stereotypical accouterments of her trade: no chiming bangles, no golden orbits hanging from her lobes, no scarf covering her hair. She could have blended in at the GAP, she was so plainly dressed. The locale was also not very typical of the dark and mystical atmosphere I usually picture when imagining a reading. Clearly, I watched Carmen once too many times as a child.

We chose some dessert-style martinis from the ample 2 page menu and waited for her to free up. Finally, it was my turn and I went to sit at her table. We introduced ourselves as she shuffled the tarot deck and I told her that I wanted to focus on my career. She passed me the cards to shuffle and then laid them out.
"It seems that you want to change jobs," she said after studying the cards for a little while.
"uh hum," I said, not wanting to elaborate too much just yet- it seemed like that would be cheating.
"But, you still want to continue in your profession, you just want to change jobs. Is that right?"
"Yes, that's right," I said, not sure what my role in this whole thing was supposed to be.
"What do you do?"
"I'm a teacher."
"Well," she said,"These are very favorable cards. I see that part of the reason that you might want to move is money, correct?"
"Yes," I confirmed.
She then described stress that she noticed in areas of housing and commuting, reaffirmed the positive overall message of the cards in terms of job and money, warned for me to hold back on accepting any offers until July 15th, and I just like that, my fortune was told.
I went back to sit down. It was now Bobby's turn, but we had to wait until the live drag lip-synched renditions of "I'm Every Woman," which was quite spectacular and "I Will Always Love You," were over. I ordered a Watermelon Martini, that tasted like a Jolly Rancher, while I waited and thought about the experience.
I have to admit that it was brief and very vague- the kind of vague words and themes that make horoscopes feel like they are tailored to your personal situation. Still, it somehow put my mind at ease.

Later that night when I got home, I checked my email and found one from Berkeley Unified, notifying me of current openings in elementary. The next morning, I got another email from a woman I had asked to work with for the summer. I felt a surge of excitement and the coincidental timing of the two emails and felt motivated to get the ball rolling on those two leads.... because, favorable cards or not, I'm the one who needs to make it happen.

coin toss

2007-06-27T22:35:00.001-07:00

Four years ago, when I first moved to the wonderful state of California, decisions had to be made in a hurry. I had just been placed in my first teaching job, for which I felt largely unprepared, I was being put-up in a hotel in Foster City (with bed bugs, I might add), and all of my belongings were visibly stacked inside my car, albeit veiled by cardboard boxes. Finding a place to live was a top priority. My housemates-to-be and I set out on a housing hunt, guided by the promising leads of the craigslist housing ads. We covered the nooks and crannies of San Jose and even went as far as Los Gatos, where a half naked man answered the door of the apartment we were seeing. He was our surprise would be housemate, who although had his own living quarters downstairs, would be sharing our kitchen. Somehow, the ad had neglected to mention this. We thanked him and consulted our list for the remaining options. In our search, we came upon many "Brady-Bunch" houses, which looked like exact replicas of the house in the sit com. The mere sight of these houses made me feel like I was being suddenly trapped in a suburban vaccuum and time warp, and I excercised my veto power on those, although I think my housemates did not disagree.

There was even an instance where we were on the verge of signing a lease and where, to my recollection, we even had hundreds of dollars literally stacked on the table for a house where we would have had to pass through one person's room to get to the bathroom. For some inexplicable reason, I started to feel uneasy and hot. We were asking some final questions and the landlord kept conceding to everything we asked last minute and coaxing us to "sign, sign." Nothing turns me off like a pushy salesman. I somehow communicated my hesitation to one of my housemates, who thankfully brought the whole deal to a halt. We took our wads of money and left, as the landlord made a few desperate last attempts to sell us on the house: "Did I show you the dimming lights?" We walked faster.

With school starting in a few days, we cut down the list further and finally came across two places that we could all agree on. One was in Campbell- a small, freshly rennovated apartment with a small yard. The other, was an old Victorian house in San Jose- a bit creaky, but oozing with charm (ie: vintage stove and fixtures). It also had a yard, but it was huge with tons of fruit trees. I think it's clear which one I preferred, but my housemates and I couldn't agree. One really wanted the newer apartment, feeling that the other one seemed dirty and old. My other housemate was more of a diplomat, seeing both sides, although secretly leaning a bit more towards the older victorian. We went over the pros and cons, visited each house several times, drove past to refresh our impressions. Still, we could not make a decision.

Finally, over dinner at Sneha, a delicious South Indian buffet with a group of friends who had already managed to settle into a house, we discussed the decision. The same issues came up and no new light could be shed on the situation. This is when someone had the brilliant idea of flipping a coin. Now, the rational person in me would want to brush that off and insist that a reasonable compromise be found on choosing the best house, but the idea of flipping a coin, taking myself out of the decision-making, leaving it all to chance was unbelievably relieving. So we agreed to it, determined which house would be heads and which house would be tails and right there, over our rice pudding and melting mango sorbets, we did it- just flipped a coin.

The Victorian won and it turned out to be a wonderful home for the two years that I lived there. It was spacious and cozy and the landlord was wonderful (a doctor who planted heirloom tomatoes for us in our garden!!). I am confident that I will never find such a great housing situation again- well, definitely not in San Francisco.

And it was decided by flipping a coin.

Today, I went through a similar deadlocked decision making process in thinking about switching jobs. I've been over the pros and the cons so many times that they becomed blurred and one job doesn't come out beaming and victorious over the other. I know I have to take more responsibility over my decisions, but can't I just flip a coin?

home at last

2007-06-27T14:46:00.000-07:00

I finally made it back to chicago, after packing up my whole apartment and storing it in a kind friend's garage. At home, I have space to think, free of the clutter of cardboard boxes and packing tape, free from all of the paper stacks built, demolished and rebuilt like temporary communities wherever I go. There is space and it is quiet... no afternoon serenades from my tori-voiced neighbor, no beats creeping in from my dj aspiring neighbor's practice room.. it's calm.
Now, I sit at our kitchen table, watching my mom chop up a mountain of parsley, next to row upon row of halved tomatoes turned upside down to dry. She is making my favorite dish- breaded tomatoes or pomodori in gratin, as we call it. I can smell the sweet smell of peaches from the nearby fruitbowl as I listen to the rain fall. Coming home is the best therapy.

2007-06-20T21:45:00.001-07:00

oh my god, this is hilarious: http://www.claudiasroom.blogspot.com/

2007-06-18T22:05:00.000-07:00

Today, I've convinced myself of taking completely opposing directions in my life all in the span of a few minutes/hours. Here's how it happens.
1. I freak out about my life and ask myself big existentialist questions: why am I here? What am I meant to do? Do I want to teach at my same school? teach at all? If I don't teach, what would I do? Can I afford this city?
2. I'll talk to someone who either convinces me that I'm being totally irrational and should clear my credential and stick it out... or to someone who says that I'm free as a bird, that nothing's holding me back- that I should definitely take off for a year of travel abroad or apply to a completely different district, or school. Then, someone else will remind me that just because I've had a year abroad to forget about my worries, they will surely be here when I come back- won't I be frustrated to be in the same position (credential-wise) when I come back? Yes, these are all valid points, good perspectives. I wish I knew which one to latch on to.

3. Then I'll research some things online: check edjoin for job openings in more 'milk and honey' districts like Brisbane, Berkeley, and Hayward, look into the actual coursework to clear my credential (pretty do-able, actually), research art education programs, looking into TOEFL courses....
changing districts would probably mean changing appartments, which would mean starting a whole new search and that I would have to tell the current people that I will be living with that I'm jumping ship. Starting over at another school would be a lot of getting used to- especially if I plan to only stay another year.

4. I'll choose one of the options that I've been debating and whole-heartedly embrace it. How can I go wrong? This is what I've been waiting to do? or ... This is the more rational thing to do........

5. Then, I'll talk to someone about it with enthusiasm and get a lukewarm, 'why on earth are you doing this' look, and I go right back to step 1.

This is the thing:

The possibility of escape sounds so good. Starting over somewhere foreign, forgetting all of the things that frustrate me about my situation: the fact that it's going to take me 2 more years to clear my credential after which point I will have spent 6 years getting... a credential, leaving the job which drains me daily and taxes my weekends... leaving a workplace that always wants me to give more of my time.

I just can't seem to make up my mind.

In the last few days, I have thought about the possibility of teaching abroad, working for a summer camp (a good friend coordinates their financial aid year- round), changing school district, interning at an art museum, going back home and curling up into a useless ball....

The problem is that I am indecisive by nature. I can see all of those options working out for me in one way or another and can't stick to one. Eventually, I think I'll stick to the one that offers the path of least resistance for now... because somehow, these life crises seem to happen with no time to spare... just when a decision needs to be made.... or maybe I'll go teach abroad. what do you think?

tired

2007-06-16T19:46:00.000-07:00

the end of each school year seems to roll up on me so fast. The decisions that I've been planning to make- whether I want to stay in this job or not, whether I want to continue living in this city, whether I want to spend the next two years clearing my special education credential or start to research other career paths... all these decisions that have been in my mind all year, but have seemed to take a back burner to all of the more immediate needs of my job are now reemerging.

It seems that each year, I continue on the same path, because it is there, because it is easiest. I have had some pretty frustrating issues with the district this year- the biggest issue being that I have been underpaid according to the pay schedule that they have posted on their website (by about $10,000). For over 3 months now, I have tried to work this out with the district. I have emailed, called, gone through my union representative who has emailed and called. For over 3 months, I have not received an answer to the simple question: "How was my current salary derived?" My increasing frustration and feeling of helplessness makes me want to instinctively throw my hands up and leave. It seems simple enough- there is a huge need for special education teachers, there were about 5 substitutes and teachers who rotated through my position before I took it and stayed last year, you would think that the district would be working hard to keep special education teachers, by firstly paying them a fair wage (according to their own guidelines). Especially the teachers who demonstrate a significant level of growth in their students. You would think.

The fact that the district does not even bother to respond to my persistent attempts to contact them is beyond frustrating- it's quite honestly infuriating. The fact that the union, who faithfully takes money from my check each month, is also not able to help me with this issue just adds fuel to the fire. I am tired of these wasteful and ineffective bureaucratic institutions, tired of bowing down to them and trying to get even a simple answer.

All of this, makes me less than excited to continue in the same position next year while all of this is unresolved. Especially since my school has an extended day where teachers work one hour beyond what other teachers in the district work. At the very least, I could work for a school that has shorter hours so that I have time to do the other things that I enjoy doing: making art, reading, having a social life....

I feel like I am coming into my quarter life crisis. I.................. am............................ tired.

snapshots of the mission bus

2007-06-15T19:09:00.000-07:00

My friend Leyla recently wrote that San Francisco blurs the lines between the sane and insane. When I read that, I immediately imagined the intersections of 16th and mission and 24th and mission, where between the sunday soapbox preachers and all day drunk loiterers, insanity is a wild spectacle with showings all day long. Several times while walking down a street in this city (mostly in the mission or downtown), I have looked around and concluded that I was the only relatively sane person for blocks on end. In no other city have I had to think fast while driving to avoid a man running full speed and couter- traffic with a shopping cart.

Still, it is true that in San Francisco, as in no other city, the worlds of sane and insane collide. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the confined spaces of public transportation. And as far as buses go, I think the Mission line takes home the gold for its advanced degree of blurring. Every time I ride the mission bus, I leave in shock at events that have transpired, laugh at the hilarity of them, and always grumble at the amount of time it took to reach my destination.

One time when I rode the mission bus, the trolley pole dislodged itself from the line and the bus remained motionless in time for all the passengers to witness an undercover cop drug bust on 14th st. There was cheering, hooting, general commenting while this scene took place, as if we were all watching a twisted reality show on TV. After it was all over and the street had calmed down, the driver, whose big bobbed hair gave her a close resemblance to one of The Supremes, stepped off the bus and fixed the line. I got to where I was going.... late.

Another time, there was a face-off between a driver and another man who had run up to the bus, only to have the doors shut in his face. A normal person would have waited for the next bus, but not this guy. He decided to stand in front of the bus and refused to move until the driver let him in. The driver, as it turned out, was equally as stubborn as the first man and refused to let him on. After about 10 minutes of back and forth, another man on the bus took it upon himself to tell the man in front of the bus exactly what he thought of him. Nasty names were exchanged until finally the man in front of the bus stepped aside and let the bus continue on its way. I got to where I was going.... late.

The last time that I took the mission bus, about a week ago, was by far the most eventful. I got on and sat in the first seat behind the driver. Looking across the aisle, I recognized a familiar face- a transvestite who hangs out at a bar in the mission often frequented by teachers for happy hour. It seemed that she was coming from this bar, or a bar in any case, because she had a full cocktail- cherry and all- in her drunken grip.
She leaned in towards me and confided, " I broke a record today, honey."
"Oh yeah? Which one?" I asked.
"I drank 5 Long Island Ice Teas.... and I am druuuuuuuuuunk."
"Wow, I bet. All I need is one and I'm done," I replied.
Her eyes turned their attention to a man sitting two seats to my right- a man dressed all in army fatigues, with a huge army-style backpack leaning on his knees and glaring at two older women to his right.
I couldn't hear what he was saying, but it made transvestite in front of me very angry. From what I could gather, the man was swearing at the older women under his breath and staring at them. Both women looked uncomfortable. The transvestite in front of me took it upon herself to defend these women. Her good intentions were unfortunately partnered with the boldness and distortion of alcohol and an exchange began between her and the military man that escalated rapidly. Her initial temperate requests for this man to watch his mouth quickly turned into aggressive yells for him to wach his f-ing mouth or she would have to take her heels off and 'fight him like a man.'
"I may have had surgery," she added, "But I will rock your world."
Everyone was uncomfortable. Well, I was anyways.
I started to wonder whether I should get off at the next stop.
Just as I started to weigh how late I would be if I walked against the likelihood of there being a brawl with flying heels, the transvestite suggested to the driver that the man should be kicked off.
The driver, who had already gotten quite an earful at this point, stopped the bus, walked over to the man in camouflage and asked him what was going on. After some back and forth, the man willingly got off as the victorious transvestite crossed her legs and continued to sip her cocktail. The older women thanked their valiant defender, wide-eyed, as they got off a few stops later.
My stop came soon after and though I wasn't late this time, I was thoroughly startled and alert from the good dose of adrenaline I had received.

essays

2007-06-06T23:06:00.000-07:00

one of the last writing assignments in my class asked students to write a friendly letter to a new student in our class, telling them what they should expect to learn.
Here is what T. said:
"You will learn new things and you will learn to read. You will learn how to solve wars. You will learn to play without fighting."

The last two comments surprised me. We don't have a structured way of resolving conflicts, but we work through problems daily on the playground. I always felt like a broken record (ie: "Is it ok to kick someone because they're in your way?" "Is it safe to pull someone off the monkey bars?" "Look him/her in the eye when you apologize.") It's nice to know that some of it sank in.

What was even more surprising was that today JJ took it upon himself to resolve a problem on the playground- our own Judge Judy, playground judge and sherriff. T. and M. had a misunderstanding. I did not even get to hear what went down, but I observed JJ from a distance, bringing them both to sit on the bench. Kneeling and listening to one of them speak at a time, tears sparkling in each of their eyes. Apparently, the conflict was not completely resolved even after recess, because when we came back in the room, I heard JJ ask T, "Can I talk to you for a minute?" He was trying to get more information... to make his final fair judgement no doubt.

I was also shocked at how much T and M listened to JJ- a just listener who would hear their side and try to find a resolution. They sat and shared their version of the events... by lunchtime, the whole debaucle was forgotten.

I'm not quite sure where JJ picked up his methods of conflict resolution, but I'm not one to mess with a good thing.

Things that happened today

2007-05-31T21:47:00.000-07:00

1. A. innocently asked with concern: "Ms. V., What's that red bump on your lip?" I thought about making something up, but hey, it was 8:30am and I wasn't feeling too creative in that department, "It's a pimple," I replied. He gave me a sorry kind of grimace and we continued with our reading strategy lesson.

2. I had two extra students who had not been allowed to go on their second grade field trip. One of these students could not sit in his seat for more than 20 seconds. Everytime I turned around and looked back, he would be arched over his seat looking underneath or midway off of his seat, or forgoing the seat altogether and just kneeling on the floor while "doing his work" on his desk. This scene seemed familiar to me. It took me a minute and then I realized that this was exactly how N. used to be at the beginning of the year. He's still squirrely- don't get me wrong- but he's definitely calmed down A LOT. He doesn't put on a circus act on his chair throughout the day, for one. It was nice to get that perspective of how far N. had come and it was also exhausting to think of the energy it had taken to travel the trajectory from chaos to calm in my class this year.

3. The title of "quickest to sit down in a line and close our mouths when we hear the end-of-recess bell" belonged to my class yet again today. Again, I was escorted out to the recess line ceremoniously to be crowned. In addition to this honor for a second day in a row, we also received a scented candle as a prize for our classroom- french vanilla. My students were excited to point out that "It came from France, just like you!" (I apologize to all the middle school teachers who may be reading this, for whom the cheesiness and la-di-da-ness of elementary produces a gag reaction- I know it's cheesy, but I love it).

4. We are one chapter away from finishing the book "Matilda," which although it had some pretty challenging language, my kids all enjoyed. The plot of small and clever defeating big and evil never tires. A couple of chapters ago, when we had just read about Matilda's powers, Little Capone leaned back and sighed, " I wish I could have those powers...." I remember feeling that way when I was reading the book for the first time in elementary school. "I know..." I said. I guess that's what makes Roald Dahl such a great author.

My big fat classroom 7th birthday party

2007-05-31T10:26:00.000-07:00

Or C's big fat classroom 7th birthday party to be exact. C is turning 7 tomorrow; Friday. His mom called to schedule a pizza party in our room a week ago and it looks like it's panning out to be a big production. C had already been talking about this party months ago. He sat at the cafeteria tables in the morning, meticulously writing up lists of who was invited to his party and letting all invitees know, as if he were giving them backstage passes to the most exclusive show of the year. He also told some people that they were not in fact privee to this selective celebration. The old "you're not invited to my birthday party" insult is alive and well it seems.

I didn't give it much thought, since C often embellishes the truth and sometimes straight up fabricates stories. I just played along when he ceremoniously informed me that I was in fact invited, along with Mrs. R.

Last week, however, I found out that C's grandiose party plans were not all fantastical when his mom called to ask if she could host it in our class. I negotiated a time with her: 2:30 and assured her that they would be plenty hungry for pizza and cake at that time. From the few things that she told me, it sounds like she's planning quite a production. She wanted to make sure that the kids would be at recess before the party, so that she could come, helium tank in tow, to blow up balloons and decorate the room. Since the start of the party planning, I have received two phone calls on my cell phone from C's mom- the first to request a list of names of all the students in the class, and another to ask how many table covers she should buy (she was at the store and needed immediate consultation). I had no idea how much to do there was going to be over this birthday party. I'm expecting something big. A party to put all other 7th birthday parties to shame... should be fun.

In the meantime, holding the birthday party over C's head hasn't seemed to curb his behavior in any way. Today, he already ran away during recess, forcing two adults to go looking for him and I just got a report that he lost his instrument priveleges in music class because he wasn't listening to his teacher there. Sigh.

Maybe he sees through my empty threats- I wouldn't have the heart to call up his mom and tell her that it's off, when I know how much work she's done to get it together.

Burger Playground Queen For A Day

2007-05-30T22:37:00.000-07:00

Every time I go out of town or more precisely, every time I take one of my sick days so that I can go out of town, I get the sense that my students thought I was going to leave for good. This weekend, I had extended my already long holiday weekend to go visit my Italian grandma who is visiting my family in Chicago. Although I don't regret taking the time to go see her- which is, afterall usually a once-a -year occasion, I did feel like I was walking into school on this Wednesday, with my tail between my legs.

I got the warmest welcome, however, when I met my kids at our line where they couldn't wait to tell me that they had a surprise for me amidst hushed whispers.... "we wrote you letters" someone finally blurted out, to which came angry replies: "Why did you tell herrrrrrrr!" It felt nice to be missed.

After lunch, J. came to get me and asked if I could be the one to come pick them up from recess (usually my paraprofessional brings them back), adding, "We have a surprise for you." I walked out onto our playground to find my entire class sitting in a near perfect line on the asphalt- a little giggly and squirmy. They had won the 2 day old, schoolwide, daily playground contest of getting into a perfect line before any other class at the sound of the end-of-recess bell. Mrs. R- my classroom para- presented me with their prize: a Burger King crown adorned in rhinestones, for me, the classroom teacher to wear the rest of the day, to boast my kids' accomplishments. It was being presented to me like the head of a slain dragon and I reacted with as much enthusiasm as if my imaginary kingdom had just been rid of such a beast. "Wow!" I exclaimed, adding exaggerated gestures of swooning and cheering in celebration of their victory. There was a lot of giggling and excitement at having given me this gift- currently, the newest and therefore biggest honor in school. We paraded back to class, my head the trophy.
"I'm gon do all my work, 'cause you a queen," said N. "Great," I replied.
"You're a queen! You're a princess!"
"Ms. V, that's just a Burger King crown with jewel things stuck on," T told me in a low voice, maybe to make sure I wasn't letting all this talk of monarchy go to my head.
And just so I didn't get too attached, at Read Aloud, I passed the crown on to J., who had been doing a great job all day.
At the end of the day, I returned the crown to its cardboard box in the copy room to await the crowning of a new monarch at the end of tomorrow's recess.

2007-05-30T10:08:00.001-07:00

working in an elementary school allows you to overhear some pretty hilarious conversations. As I was turning in my attendance to our counselor, I see a student who is frequently in trouble looking around to avoid eye contact with her. She is asking him as seriously as if he had stabbed another child:
'So, if someone calls you a 'booboohead' does that give you the right to hit them? Is that something that's written in our rules in the office: "If someone calls you a booboohead, hit them?!"'
The kid was cornered and solemnly answered 'no' to each question. I turned in my attendance and returned to my classroom laughing to myself.

AARP

2007-05-21T09:31:00.001-07:00

apparently I am fully elligible for the benefits offered my membership the the AARP! I keep receiving mailings from them stating this. How did I get on that mailing list??? I know I go to bed early, but come on.

One class, divided

2007-05-18T07:25:00.000-07:00

Recently, I found a torn envelope (torn open for writing space), on JJ's desk with these words on it:
side 1:
"I hate you JJ because I thaught you were my best friend the you wan't to start a fight with me you remember the good times we had together."

side 2:
"Dear C., I thot you was one of us. But you say some nast words to L. and I am not your friend. We are not sorry for you."

then a scrunched response in the corner from C:
"then I am going to tell everbody you secret."

Drrrrrrrrrrrrrama. Who knew that they would put the friendly letter writing skills that I taught them last week to immediate use?? I'm actually pretty impressed, especially that JJ's made sense after the first sentence. Should I file this away as a writing sample? naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

the bees and the bees

2007-05-16T23:24:00.000-07:00

At recess today, I noticed that all my kids had gathered around one section of the play structure.
"A bee! A bee!" they were all yelling.
"Leave the bee alone!!" I warned
They did not leave the bee alone. A couple of them were poking and proding from above and underneath the holes in the playground platform.
"If the bee stings you............" this warning was left pending, the ending blank for them to infer.
Finally their cries changed to "Save the bee!! We have to save the bee!!"
Since no amount of warning from afar was convincing them to back away from this poor creature, I went to see what they were actually doing to it. As I peered over their huddled shoulders, I saw two bees copulating. One big female bee below and another small male bee on top, trying to follow the program laid out in his DNA in spite of the ten peering faces and 20 ogling eyes.
And my kids, as it turns out, had organized a small campaign to save the larger bee from the brutish attack of the one on top. "Save the bee! Save the bee!" they urgently cried. In their eyes, they were righting a wrong in the bee kingdom, preventing a bee mugging, putting an end to bee bullying- "This kind of behavior will not be tolerated on our school campus, bees!" they seemed to say, " Justice will be served!"
And because they just weren't letting this cause go, I rallied them up for an equally important campaign- snack time.

flytraps, pitchers, trumpets, oh my!

2007-05-15T20:24:00.000-07:00

The trip to the conservatory was a success! My kids got really into the exhibit. I had them sketch various types of carnivorous plants, find where in the world they were from, and describe their color. Most of them were excitedly going from plant to plant, taking in the details... there were also those who didn't listen to the guide when she told them not to stick anything in the Venus Flytraps and got benched after repeated offenses (turns out that each trap can only close about 7 times in its life and that it needs to catch a morsel at least 3 out of those 7 times). But the majority of my students had a great time. The exhibit was set up really well, so that each pot had a magnifying glass attached to it. Kids got really excited to see bugs crawling inside the plants. They even had large models of a pitcher plant and a venus flytrap, with a crank for kids to open and close a trap.
The air in the Conservatory was hot and humid, perfect for a foggy and chilly day like today. I took a lot of pictures, but most of them got erased from my camera somehow...
Here is a non-carnivore that was pretty amazing:

carnivores

2007-05-15T19:36:00.000-07:00

TO: C's Mom

2007-05-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when you let a six year old pack his own lunch:
1. Two Peanut Butter and jelly sandwiches
2. three packs of fruitsnacks (2 of which he generously gave to my classroom aid and I)
3. two capri suns
4. one package of reeses peanut butter cups
5. one little baggie stuffed to the brim with cheddar goldfish

shall we tally up the sugar in this lunch? I would be afraid to try.

When C's mom came to school today to sign his field trip form at the last minute, she noticed that he didn't have a sweater. She reprimanded him for not having one, since he clearly knew that he was going to the park. Then she turned to me and said, "You know, I'm not up when he gets ready for school." Well, maybe if you somehow found it in you to get out of bed, you could see that your son, who is in no way ready to take care of himself at six years of age, is properly clothed for the weather and has a nutritional lunch that will not take him down a sure path to obesity. These are (obviously) things that I refrain from saying aloud. Did I mention that C is hyperactive, which is the main reason that he was placed in a special day class? Could this in any way be related to the above list? hmmmmmmmm.

confession

2007-05-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

carnivorous plants, wreak havoc in the park

This is the headline for the image that I think I left most of my students with at the end of the day when I was trying to pump up the field trip that we are taking tomorrow to the Conservatory of Flowers.

Usually field trips need no hyping, but only two kids brought back their permission slips and so I felt that I had to stress how critical it was for them to bring them by tomorrow and how much fun they would miss if they somehow forgot to.

I plugged the field trip mercilessly throughout the day, talking about how me and the two kids who brought their permission slips would have SUCH a great time at the exhibit and playing at the coolest playground in Golden Gate Park, until my kids pleadingly cried: "Ok, we'll bring them in tomorrow!!!!"

Just to make sure though, as they lined up to go home, I drove my point home again.
"We are going to be seeing the meat eating plants tomorrow. Plants that eat meat. Make sure you bring your permission slips."
Eyes bulged and incredulous eyes stared back at me.
I didn't say anything untrue, but I hope they're not disappointed when the plants aren't hunting down bunny rabbits in the park's meadows or gnawing on chicken drumsticks.

what a man

2007-05-14T18:22:00.000-07:00

I finally got the nudge I needed to sell my car. That nudge was provided by Reggie, who actually made it really painless when he... took care of everything for me. When I voiced to him that I was thinking about posting an ad on craigslist earlier this morning, he confessed that he had already done so and asked if I was mad. Mad?? Heck no. I didn't know how to express my gratitude. This is exactly the intervention that I needed to handle my own snail-stuck-in-molasses style approach to dealing with anything that's wrong with my car (this has caused some real frustration for some of my family members by the way- namely, my poor dad). What is really hard to explain, because it is totally illogical on my part, is that I have a weird mental block about doing things for my car. Whenever there is something wrong with my car, I wait until the last possible minute to take care of it, while it weighs on my mind at every waking hour. Then, when I finally take care of it, I see that it was actually no big deal and wonder why I didn't take care of it earlier. yes, it's a vicious cycle.. I know.

Well, I've been thinking about selling/getting rid of my car and buying a new (or used) one for hmmmmmmm, about 4 years now, but for some reason, it was never a convenient time. I would always talk myself out of it by asking myself questions like these: What if I go teach abroad next year? What will I do with a brand new car then? What if I go back to school next year? Will I want to have this as an additional expense?- and would decide to wait just another year. Although it sounds like laziness induced procrastination, I think the bottom line is that (at the fear of reinforcing a stereotype about women and cars) this is a subject that I know very little about (and don't even really have the vocabulary to bullshit about), and that I feel extremely uncomfortable tackling. This is why I am so thankful for the nudge and all the extra help. Reggie not only posted the ad, purchased a few tools and parts, fixed the doors, vaccuumed the car, and talked to people who expressed interest. In my defense, I did replace the left headlight... but I can truly say that the thought of posting an ad for my car and fixing the small things that were wrong with it would have remained just a thought for a few more years had he not just done it for me.

sometimes a person needs a serious intervention.

Reggie also stopped by school today, exuding a manly aura (must have been all the car repairing) that cast a spell on JJ who was mesmerized with him as soon as he set foot on the playground. He immediately came up to me and said, "C said that's your boyfriend. C said that's your boyfriend. C said that's your boyfriend.." on repeat. The strategy of playing something down or ignoring it is one that doesn't work with him- he's persistent that JJ. He then ran off to get C so that he could confess what he had said, which I only noticed when I saw him shoving him towards me with his hands behind his back. C was cracking up... I attempted ignoring them again. Then came time to round up the troops. We had a fun last hour planned of watching the movie "The Mouse and The Motorcycle" (we just finished reading the book). JJ rushed to get Reggie a chair. I asked JJ if he wanted to read to Reggie after the movie, but JJ ran to the classroom library to pick out a book to read with him right then. He sat and read a short book from start to finish, totally ignoring the movie that was playing, and not once asking to return to the rug with the rest of the class to watch it. When it came time for Reggie to leave, JJ looked alarmed and saddened. He is being raised by his mom and grandma and is definitely craving adult male attention. Maybe Mr. Reggie can make some future appearances in room 103... keep the kids happy.

21 days left

2007-05-14T11:54:00.000-07:00

that is the word around school... offered like a drop of water to a parched mouth or a scrap of food to a starving stomach. It is pretty clear from taking a look around that everyone is very eager for school to be done. As for me, I'm making sure to follow my new policy of staying clear of the teacher's lounge, the 3rd grade pod, the computer lab, or any other rooms where disgruntled teachers might congregate. I guess it's not a new policy persay, but I never stuck to it as strictly as I should have. Although I enjoy complaining as much as the next person, I find that a group of tired teachers all in one room together can really create a whirpool of depressing negativity... and it's a thin line between funny commiseration and circular, pointless bitching.

Ironically, the 3rd grade teachers say that they avoid the teacher's lounge for the very same reason that I avoid their joint lunches. I guess they want to be able to do all the complaining and not have to listen to anyone else complain. So I am in hiding now in the last safe bunker of my school, my one neutral spot- my room, where the lights are dim and NPR is blaring... because I'd rather fill my ears with the Talk of the Nation, than with which kid did what obnoxious thing last period.

2007-05-11T20:13:00.000-07:00

Today was awesome.
First, it was awesome, because it was Career Day, the grand finale in our Spirit Week. Because my kids are often out of the loop when it comes to things like this, I pumped it up so that they would remember and bug their parents about helping them come up with a costume. Our school today was filled with young business men and women, aspiring lawyers, police officers, sanitation and construction workers, teachers (warms the heart). My classroom, however, had the best costumes by far. M, who as long as he's been in my class has been obsessed with the Solar System and wanted to be an astronaut came dressed in a Bally's silver-colored work out suit- It was large and puffy, kind of like the garbage bag outfit Missy Elliot had in her Supa Dupa Fly video and had a raincoat like texture. He also had a headset that got confiscated by the principal as soon as he walked in to school, but his silver puffy outfit alone was a winner. Then there was N. Now, I really admire N's parents because they have three kids at our school and every single one came dressed up (nothing fancy- clothes creatively put together to make great home made outfits... and I've gotta say, I love the homemade a bijillion times more than any store- bought costume). N. was an aspiring doctor today. He had a button down shirt with a tie, underneath one of his dad's huge white button down shirts, which on him, looked like a lab coat. He had a little suitcase filled with fisher price style plastic doctor's tools and was ex-ci-ted about his costume. All day he recpeated,"I better be good today, cause I'm a doctor," a constant reminder that he should do his work and listen to his "teacha'." I dressed up as a mad scientist... 'cause, who doesn't want to be that when they grow up? I had these big goggle-like glasses with turning lenses like a kaleidoscope. They were quite a hit.

Then, we had not one, but two concerts at our school. The first was a Nigerian drumming duo, who were so much fun and got the kids up and dancing. In the afternoon, a brass trio from the Symphony's 'Adventures in Music' program came to perform. It was great.

Since it also happens to be Teacher Appreciation Week at my school, we got treated to some barbeque made by our parent helper extraordinaire (this man is so amazing) and organized by our administration. In my 4 years of teaching, this BBQ takes the cake as far as getting treated right. Parent Volunteers watched the kids in the yard and helped in the cafeteria so that the whole staff could eat together. It was great to have a delicious and relaxed non-working meal and to realize how much I do like the people that I work with (it's been so tense in our school lately). As if BBQ chicken, corn on the cob, grilled sausages, and all the fixins weren't enough to make us feel special, our security guard stopped by early in the morning before her SURGERY to drop off the most amazing peach cobbler this side of anywhere. It was truly special.

Today was very relaxed in the classroom too. Because there were so many extra things planned throughout the day, we just finished up all of the things that we had been preparing for Mother's Day. This is one of the only times that I let the elementary teacher come out in me (mostly because I remembered the holiday and planned for it ahead) and planned a cute project. The kids made "wish trains" for their moms and wrote their wishes for their mom in each car, covered by a little construction paper flap. It was very heart-warmingly elementary and my students loved making them. M., got a little confused about what the wishes were about and wrote things that he wished that his mom would get him: " (first car)I wish that you get me flowers because they smell. (second car) But not ones with bees because they will sting us. (3rd car) I wish that you will buy me super-heroes, (4th car) because I want spider man 3 action figures." I explained to him that since it was his mom's special day, he should try to make some wishes for her- things that she would like. For example, that she should be getting flowers. Well, M. is an only child (is it ever not his day?? How dare anyone suggest that?) and is very, very stubborn (a symptom of his autism) and only changed it after much, much coaxing. I was still suspicious about the last two cars where he wrote, "I wish that you will get a cowboy toy. I wish that you can fix your broken toy." Hmmmmm. I asked him if his mom really had a broken toy and if she wanted a cowboy toy. "Cause she doesn't have a cowboy toy," was his response. Hmmmm, 'she' doesn't huh?
Little Capone wished that his mom could "get a new really cool old school car." All the rest of them were also very, very cute and thoughtful.

In conclusion, today was awesome

broken record broken record broken record broken record broken

2007-05-10T10:12:00.000-07:00

All I want to do today is curl up and read in bed or file and sand away at my jewelry project at home. I do not want to tell kids for the billionth time to walk and not run, to look in front of them so that they don't crash into anyone, to raise their hand before talking. On days like this, I am over the whole broken record aspect of teaching.

Mother's Day letters

2007-05-09T17:59:00.000-07:00

Having my kids write Mother's Day cards today was an interesting endeavour. The activity is something that they were all inherently excited about- a surprise for mom... ooooooo- la-la. The results were mixed. Many kids expressed love for their moms because they buy them new toys and new clothes. Some listed favorite foods as reasons for their love- apparently C's mom's nachos are quite a crowd-pleaser. Little Capone wrote a whole page about the great present that he was going to get his mom: "Mom, you will love the present I got you. I got you two presents. I know that you will just love the two presents that I got you...." and on and on for a page. I suggested that he write a few lines about why he loves his mom. I said, "Does your mom do things with you? Does she cook something that you really like?" His expression turned somber, because since he had completed a whole page, he didn't really understand why I was suggesting that he do anything more. "I'm done though," was his steady answer. "Come on L.... You can write a little more; it'll make your mom so happy." After sitting in a pout for about five minutes, he added: "Mom, I love your beautiful hair and you cook for me when I'm hungry. Love, L."
Then there was M. His letter was very matter-of-fact: "Mom, I love you because you let me sleep with you when my toys were bugging me in my room and I slept with you and dad. I love you because you work Monday through Friday. Love, M."

T's letter, however, broke my heart. It is easy to assume, as a teacher, that everyone will love the Mother's Day activity that has been planned. Well, if you have a negligent mom, writing a loving letter to her may not actually be the most exciting or joyful thing. Had I thought it through a little more, I would have suggested an alternate activity like writing a Mother's Day letter to a teacher at school, and auntie, a grandma... unfortunately, I did not.

This is approximately what T. wrote:
"Dear Mom,
How are you doing, Mom? Are you ok? Are you? Are you sleeping? Will you get out of bed today? Are you sad or happy? I hope that you are happy. Love, T."
It is hard to give feedback to a letter like that or to read it with a neutral expression. I imagined him giving it to her and the negative reaction that it would probably get from his mom- who wants to be reminded of their depression and the fact that you are a neglectful parent? Especially by the little one that you are neglecting? T. is the kid in my class who always comes to school with dirty clothes, his white shirt a dull grey. He is often absent from school because he is allowed to "sleep in"- ie: no one wakes him up, because no one at home is concerned enough about his going to school. He makes up fantastical stories about his mom, who on one account drives a limo, or in another accounts works for whatever store we happen to be talking about or walking by. He tells stories of his dad picking him up in the early morn to take him to the beach and watch the fog roll in. Each story is rich with detail. Each story is pure fabrication. Sometimes, details of his actual situation slip into his stories: that his mom is sad, that she never gets out of bed, that he cooks dinner for his younger siblings.... and in spite of all this, the letter's tone is not spiteful or resentful, although he seems to know that he has had no luck in the draw. His letter is concerned and begs to be noticed and loved. It made me deeply sad and I am still thinking about it tonight.

big cosmic joke

2007-05-08T18:03:00.000-07:00

It isn't often that I think the forces of the universe are scheming against me or that the cosmos hold a mysterious plan for my life that I must somehow unravel. On most days, I am content to live with no need for the comfort of a higher deity: we live, die, turn to dust, amen. That, somehow, has never bothered me.

Recently though, it seems that someone with a sort of all-knowing 6th sense and a dark sense of humor has been hurling hints at me like rotten tomatoes from up above. It's as though this certain someone had laid out a large dot-to-dot puzzle, begging to be noticed and connected. I picture this mystery being shaking their head at how obvious the puzzle is and at my inability to ascribe enough meaning to random events to link them together into a coherent picture.

This is what I'm talking about:
Part 1:

Last Friday, I talked with my housemate about a screen printing class that she is taking. I used to take a class at the same art center with a different teacher who happens to be dating her teacher. I mentioned that it had been such a long time (about a year) since I'd gone to the class and that I wanted to start again. My housemate invited me to a show that her teacher was having, where, she inferred I would also see my old teacher. I made a mental note to go to this show and have since been reminded by the postcard affixed to our fridge.

Sunday, I took a long walk with my friend Reggie, afterwhich we stopped to eat a piece of pie (key lime... mmmm- I don't think this has any particular significance in the story, but I could be proven wrong) in the Sunset. While sitting outside at the cafe, I saw a woman walk in who looked familiar. In a few seconds, after she had already passed, I realized that it was my old printing teacher. When she came out, I was having a conversation and for some reason felt awkward shouting her name. Later that day in a totally different part of the city- Dolores Park- as I stood and talked to another chance encouter, who should I see, but my former teacher and her beau walking down the street. This time I stopped her and chatted a bit. I resolved to go back to printing classes in the next few weeks.

Part 2:

While I was on that long walk with Reggie in the Sunset, we happened to pass by a large Catholic school. This school triggered memories of my gloomy days as a teacher at another Catholic school which shall remain nameless. Working at this school was definitely a low, low canyon in the landscape of my teaching experience. Here's the brief story: I taught all subjects to a class of 8th grade girls (general consensus: not the nicest human beings on the planet). These same girls had very confrontational parents, I did not feel supported by my administration, and began to feel the weight of depression and took up crocheting and drinking wine and indulged in unhealthy amounts of both. These were my dark ages, my blue period... and I felt so terrible as a whole that after much reflection, I decided to quit mid-year... probably the worst thing a teacher can do to a class. As a direct result of quitting, I regained the ability to smile and talk about things other than how crappy work was and found my current job in elementary, which was a little slice of heaven (or key lime pie) compared to where I had come from. As it so happened though, my quitting set off a series of unfortunate events whereby my old principal was ousted by the board. Although I had left on good terms with this principal- she had wished me happiness and promised to pray for me- when I tried to contact her later for a letter to waive a credential class, she hung up on me. When I called back, thinking that we had somehow gotten disconnected, I got the answering machine and left a detailed message with all my contact information. I never heard from her. Some might think that this is understandable, since she lost her job as an indirect result of my quitting, but it left me a little in a bind in terms of completing my credential.

So, I guess I didn't make it that brief. I hadn't thought about the story in a long time and the details seemed a little murky and came back as I talked about it. I told the story in the length of the two blocks that it took to walk past the school and it quickly receded into the folds of my memory.

Fast forward to this past Monday morning, during the phonics portion of my lesson. I glimpsed my principal bringing someone to my neighbor's classroom and a few minutes later, she brought her to mine. Who should this visitor be? None other than my former principal. Of course I got up and did the decent thing, said hello, made small talk, all the while thinking "Holy Shit!!!!!!! Is she applying to be principal here???!!!" (who will be principal at our school is still to be determined). I remained in a hidden state of shock as she sauntered out of the room and immediately emailed my friend Nick who worked at the same school last year and shared in the miserable experience, although he managed to finish off the year. "In what kind of sick and twisted world does this happen?! I feel very very bad for you. You clearly had some fucked up Karma coming your way," was his reply. Fucked up Karma, huh? I guess I should be keeping better track. I stayed quiet for a moment to see if I could detect any omniscient laughter from up above... "laugh it up, laugh it up," I thought... even I couldn't deny that the coincidence of it was darkly funny.

I began to think that I should pay closer attention to the coincidences in my life- was I just ignoring obvious signals. When I got to the gym after work, I took out all my clothes and realized that I only had one shoe. I started to get frustrated, but then I realized: "Maybe this is a sign from the universe that I need to gym shoes. Afterall, I have had these for three years..." So I walked myself to Nordstrom Rack down the street and bought a much needed spankin' brand new pair. Thanks universe.

Later that night, in the line at Trader Joes, I saw a girl entering the store in what looked to me to be the uniform at my former school... "Am I losing it?" I thought to myself.

I also thought about my printing class coincidence and remembered that I had started taking those classes as a relief from the stress at the Catholic school. It was a safe haven where I could forget about the girls and the 5 subjects that I had to plan for and go through the cycle of inking a plate, wetting and drying the paper, and rolling the two in perfect tension through the big printing press. Aaaaaaaah. Was this yet another confusing sign??

Part 3-

Tuesday during my phonics lesson, I catch sight of my former principal's head through the pod window going to observe a different neighbor. The effect on me was quite surprising. It was almost as if I had suddenly swallowed a hot pepper. I started feeling hot and short of breath- mini panick attack? Fortunately, I got it together by the time she stopped through my room again with our school's literacy coaches. We were playing a vocabulary game, my students were engaged, my classroom was in order... I had nothing to fear or be self-conscious about.

I approached one of the literacy coaches on Tuesday to casually ask about the visitor who had come two days in a row and what position she was applying for. "Literacy Coach.... but she decided today that she's not interested, because it's only a .5 position," was the response. "Oh, that's too bad," I said trying not to leap like a gazelle from relief and joy.

Now I can laugh. HA HA. I get the joke! I'm laughing with you, universe- that was a good one, I'll admit it. I nearly wet my pants a few times... you really had me going there... whewwwww. All these random coincidences that I was trying to attribute big meaning to and turns out it was all a big, fat joke....Well, I guess life is just a big fat joke to you, isn't it?? sheeesh..

I'll take it.

symbiosis

2007-05-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

A few postings ago, I mentioned the burgeoning friendship between N. (who is in my class) and R., a third grader- two kids who could not be more unlike each other. Although N. expressed doubts about their friendship because R. says bad words, today, he reaffirmed his previous feelings when he announced, "That's my best fwend." Poor R. is severely overweight (300 lbs at 9 years of age) and N. is rail thin and has several body parts in constant movement at any given time. Today, at recess, a perfect symbiotic relationship was created between the two. It started when N. was put on the bench after his accidental confession of his having hit someone in the face.
"It was an accident!" he cried, "I didn't mean to hit L. I was trying to hit A." .... bench.

A few spaces away, R. also sat on the bench,though voluntarily, barely taking notice of N clutching his face in despair at having been benched. As I looked at R., struggling to get up from the bench, I decided to call N. over. I proposed to him that he take a walk with R. around the playground to cool off. I called R. over and said that N. needed a little comforting and he immediately rose to the occasion of helping his friend out. As they started on their walk around the yard, R. pulled out his folder of poetry (he is in a poetry "elective" in school) and had N., who needs practice with his reading, read them aloud to him. As they strolled, N. read the rhymes of Shel Silverstein, while R. looked on, correcting his mistakes and helping him read. Poetry in motion. Both of them were getting what they needed- symbiosis in action.

rotating deltoids

2007-05-02T22:18:00.000-07:00

Here is an excerpt from M's Morning Journal:
(the prompt was: "What time do you wake up in the morning? What do you do before you get to school? Use the words first, next, then, also, and finally.")

"Today is Wednesday, May 2, 2007. I wake up at 6:30 am. First I do pushups. Then I do situps. Next I rotate my deltoids. Then I stretch my neck. Finally, I am ready for school."

This was illustrated with a stick figure half-an-inch tall with little bumps on his arms- his bulging stick figure muscles.

"You did a great job, M!" I exclaimed, but I'm not sure I conveyed to him how awesome his entry really was. "By the way, where are your deltoids?" I asked.
He pointed to his shoulders.
"Aaaaaaah," I said, smiling as I pictured M. going through a boot camp-like routine before coming to school.

awesome.

I am marketable

2007-04-27T18:31:00.000-07:00

I have been working on personal statements and cover letters for summer employment, synthesizing my skills and abilities from teaching and translating how they make me the perfect candidate for many other jobs. There is something about the constant pumping of one's abilities, the tooting of one's own horn that comes with applying and interviewing, which is inherently painful to me. The humble person in me wrestles with my inner survivalist who knows what it takes to come out on top, to express an image of myself that is confident, but firmly rooted in reality.
Cafe Gratitude should make a self-affirming dish for moments like these: I am marketable... a plate of all their self-affirming dishes mashed into one glorious raw pile of motivation.

but I'm procrastinating and should actually get back to tooting.

passing the necklace

2007-04-27T17:41:00.000-07:00

Waiting for the awards assembly to begin, as my kids sat primly in their maroon blazers, N followed my long necklace with his eyes.
"Ms. V," he whispered, "Your necklace is P-R-E-T-T-Y," emphasizing each letter by pounding his index finger in his open palm. After saying this, he exploded into embarrassed giggles in his hands and peeked at me through his fingers.
"Thank you," I whispered back.

After the assembly, during recess, N. came to sit next to me on the bench. We chatted while the other kids alternated between the usual games of tag and zombies and vampires (really just another gorier version of tag). N. is very talkative and could talk for hours, I'm convinced, even if he was in a room by himself. He takes on the inflections and expressions of grown ups when he talks, which is hilarious. I realized how infrequently I actually get to just have a normal extended conversation with the students in my class. Usually, I just manage to get a little small talk here and there and am otherwise directing the business of my classroom. It was nice to sit and listen to N. tell about his family, hunting for easter eggs, the songs that he was learning in choir, and his and his sister's cultish viewing of the movie Stuart Little. I learned that he had recently fallen out of friendship with R., because he said bad words. N. cleared up why this was cause for ending a friendship by explaining, "If I say bad words, my dad'll whoop me... til my butt's red." He also expressed sadness at not seeing as many squirrels as he usually did and pondered that maybe they were just at home watching T.V. I sat and enjoyed his conversation and the warm sun.

After a while, N. looked at my necklace and asked if he could put it on. I put it around his neck and he immediately took on a teacher persona... more specifically my persona. He turned to J., wagging his finger and said, " Do your homework! If you don't do your homework you gonna be on the bench!" A crowd gathered around him, eyes flickering, other little hands antsy to get their hands on the necklace. J. asked for it next and when N. put it around her neck, she also took on the teacher role: "Do your homework right now!" she said in a stern voice, hands on hips. I watched, amused at the impressions of me... very tyranical and not very flattering, but funny. Then L.G., the quietest kid in our class got his hands on the necklace and also did an impersonation of me: "If you don't do your homework, you'll be on the BENCH all recess!!" I think it's the loudest that I've heard him be all year.
I laughed: "Wow, do I really yell like that all the time?"
A mix of answers came out: "Yeah!" "Uh-huh"..... "Nooo...."
I do occasionally yell... something else to reflect on, I guess.
I may just keep the necklace around though, to sprinkle a little more boldness onto some of the shy kids.

painful morning

2007-04-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

State testing is painful for a teacher. As I observed my kids taking the math section of the state tests, I felt a pain growing in my stomach. How did kids who were confidently whipping through multi-digit addition and subtraction problems with regrouping all of the sudden forget even the most basic addition and subtraction facts? Was it nerves? Can they feel the pressure from the high stakes of these tests? Were they rushing due to overconfidence? "Remember to check your work," was all I could really say and remind them to use their scratch paper. In class, a quick reminder would have brought them back on track, but of course, this is not allowed. I clearly have a lot to reflect on.

Testing, testing....

2007-04-25T22:59:00.000-07:00

That's right: this week kicked off the state tests whose results (good or bad) will be breathing down our necks come next year. I'm feeling pretty positive about my students' results, even though I have been instructing my second grade students at the first grade level. This is because last year, I got this position at the very end of January and by that time, my students had missed a half a year's worth of instruction. I was worried that since we've been following the first grade curriculum, the second grade tests would be like pulling teeth. I was very pleased, however, when I saw that during the practice tests and during the actual tests, they were able to confidently read the passages. However they may score on these tests, I am proud at how much growth they have made in reading.

Testing, no matter the grade is a stressful undertaking, but here are some things that have made the last couple of days seem lighter.
1. L (Little Capone) found one of the new books that I added to the library (I scooped up tons of books that were going to be thrown away this weekend!)- Dracula, a chapter book. So far, L. has only read shorter picture books, but he seemed motivated by the subject matter and so began to tackle it. As I stood a few feet away, listening to him read in a low voice, I started to beam with excitement and pride. He was using the correct inflections at questions, breaking down big words with no sign of being fazed... when I asked him about the story, he was able to answer questions and was very excited about getting to the part where Dracula finally appeared. Seeing the pride in his face was priceless. He took the book home to keep reading it with his dad. Now, whenever he has a spare moment in class, he pulls it out to read.

2. The twins who came last week have started playing with my other students! At first, they were very shy and just kind of sat on the play structure, shaking their heads 'no' to all of my kids' attempts at getting them to play with them. The past few days, however, they have been joining in my class' favorite game (although it's technically banned on our campus)- tag. My kids' version of tag reminds me of Calvinball- the game that Calvin and Hobbes play in the comic strip that has no fixed rules and where rules are added on a whim. I've observed them playing many times and still do not have a good grasp on the rules. Apparently you can shout out "ALL DAY!" at any time and be immune from tagging. Of course most kids yell it out when they are about to get tagged... and somehow, that is seen as being completely fair and square. You can also touch anything blue and also be "safe" from tagging... well, our whole play structure is blue, so kids are "safe" most of the time. When I brought this up, M. explained in announcement fashion, like he usually does, "No! because then you say "One, two three, get out of my apple tree." So, I guess that when the "tagger" exclaims this, all kids should let go of their safe base. They are all somehow in tune with this whole collage of rules and can't get enough of the game, so who am I to mess with a good thing. Sometimes I just like to keep them on their toes by asking them to explain the rules. The twins have also bought into the game and are now running loose and shaking off their shyness with the rest of my class.

3. N. has made a new buddy in the third grade. They hang out every day before school and have started hanging out during recess as well. What I love about this new pair is that they are complete opposites in every way. N. is short and thin as a pole and his new friend R is as round as a ball (it's sad- he weighs 300 lbs in 3rd grade) and towers over him. N. does not stop moving for an instant and is always quickly rushing to do things, touch things, "help"- a spring in every limb. He talks constantly, even to narrate actions he is taking (ie: "I'm going to do a good job today. I'm going to erase what I just wrote. Why'd I do that? I better fix this so I can do a good job...." all in one breath, all while shaking his legs back and forth like a metronome while leaning over his desk). R. on the other hand takes life as it comes. He sits around at recess and talks in a mellow voice, sharing recipes with the grownups on the yard. I see them in the morning, absorbed in each other and their conversation and it makes me smile. A typical atypical couple: the lion and the mouse, Batman and Robin, Winnie the Pooh and Piglet... the other day, N. wore R's hoodie, which was so big on him that it made him look like the Grim Reaper. He was running around in circles with the hood covering half his face and he was laughing and laughing.

Life is good.

even better

2007-04-15T21:13:00.000-07:00

"Hi. I was jus walking by and... I just wanted to say that I really like your dress... and that... it made my Sunday... even better." I smiled at the curly haired stranger and said "Thank you" having been shaken from the world of my book and taken a little off guard.
"That's it," he concluded, holding his hands up, palms facing me. Communicating harmlessness. And with that, he turned around and continued on his journey down the street. I continued to smile, because....a genuine compliment from a stranger... while reading outside of the laundromat.... made my Sunday..... even better.

I'm expecting....

2007-04-12T22:42:00.000-07:00

twins. Yes, twins. This coming Wednesday. I was told today in the perkiest of voices that they are to be the newest addition to my classroom and was given reassurance that they were sugar-coated bundles. Well, as I was sitting in the office later in the day, I overheard my vice principal and principal talking about it. "You mean the two girls who are as big as us?!!!" exclaimed my principal at our VP's persistant peppiness and pitching of the pair's assured sweetness. She had met the girls in question and apparently did not share the same notion of sweetness when judging little girls that my VP holds, gauging from the sideways look she gave me. "He, he..." was all I could manage, because afterall, even though there are only 8 weeks left of school if these girls' placement is my classroom due to the services they require, then so be it. I felt ashamed of myself for feeling resentment at the thought of two new students, but when I think of how tightly knit my classroom has become and how smoothly it is running... and taking into account that the management and structures that make it run smoothly have been a result of constant tweaking and adjusting all year to the point where I feel we have reached a great balance, it is disheartening to think about how two new personalities will affect the equilibrium that has been put in place. I mostly am worried, because I fear that they might be behavior problems. I guess there's really no point in worrying about the unknown and that I'll have to wait until Wednesday to find out....

I'm expecting.... the worst, but I hope to be surprised.

I also had to postpone my day off/travels to SJSU, because I am still waiting on my official transcripts. Tonight was still kind of a Friday in my mind though and I headed to Atlas with some folks to see a bluegrass band, which was a lot of fun.

Today

2007-04-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

Today, today. Today has been hectic. First, there was the fire drill during my prep period, shortly after the entire pod started smelling of burning rubber. I went out with another class and found my kids waiting with their music teacher. When they pin-pointed the culprit- a short-circuited microwave with baked potatoes inside, we were instructed to file back inside and to prop our doors to air out our rooms. Due to the fire drill, the administration made the decision that lunch and everything else that followed would happen half-an-hour later than usual.

That is why I took the afternoon at a bit of a slower pace. We read three chapters of "The Witches," by Roald Dahl. Usually, I only read one chapter, but my kids were begging for more at the end of each chapter. It was the part where the boy turned mouse succeeds in turning the witches into mice by giving them an overdose of their own medicine. There was a lot of squirming on the part of my students and hands over mouths, audible gasps.. It's good stuff, I tell ya. I know that I've been reading them only Roald Dahl for a couple of months, but I figure, why change when their enthusiasm for it is so great?

As I was finishing up the last of the three chapters, my classroom phone rang. It was my vice principal, informing me that I am getting two new students next week, right as state testing is beginning. Two new students so late in the year. Just the thought is exhausting. I talked with a colleague about it, who pointed out that our school has just recently absorbed 14 new students.... right before testing. These students' scores will factor into our school's scores and usually these students are far below grade level. Well, hopefully these two newbies- two twin girls- will fall right into step with the rest of my class. My vice principal swore that they "are sweet little girls," but my classroom aid remembers a set of twin girls coming in a previous year who were "HORRIBLE!!" Hmmmmm... I would like to believe my sunshine toned administrator, but I fear that my aid might be right. We'll see on Monday!

As for tomorrow, I'm taking the day off! It's not really for pleasure- I have to go down to San Jose State University and file all of my credentialing paperwork (yes, I have to go in person (absolutely can't mail it in!), which in and of itself seems a little ridiculous to me). However, I am planning on taking a little detour on the way back up North to Half Moon Bay. If the day is half as gorgeous as it was today, I'll be laying around on a beach, letting the sound of the waves erase the hecticness of today.

becoming californian

2007-04-06T18:54:00.000-07:00

aka the day I stopped feeling my feet as I walked down the street in Chicago.

Identity is a tricky thing. I wear the places where I’ve grown up like a homemade sweater;with pride and a touch of nostalgia. Especially Chicago- and no, not the suburbs, the actual city of Chicago, thank you very much. Every time someone sees me wearing short sleeves on a slightly breezy day and asks: “Aren’t you cold?” I always reply, “I’m from Chicago,” as foolproof explanation, creating an understanding that as far as weather goes, I’ve seen worse- that blizzards were an entrenched part of my childhood, that the only times my school was closed was when there was risk of frostbite from going outside, that I’ve walked single-file down narrowly shoveled sidewalks, and observed people saving their painfully dug out parking spots with lawn chairs, which if moved coud result in a smashed windshield.

There is a little bit of the masochist in every Chicagoan. Why else would one choose to live in a city where the winter is never ending and where you can actually get a headache from the cold? No matter how cold it gets though, someone will always testify to a colder winter. And this, tall tale or not, is a source of pride to the weathered Chicagoan. … we are tough people, chiseled from the icy winds.

This is why, I have started to worry and to question my ability to claim the city of Chicago anymore since I have started to complain about the 50 degree weather in San Francisco. Especially since on this recent trip to Chicago for Spring Break, I have gotten a taste of true winter and have been reminded of the deep, penetrating chill and of the unforgiving winds. And today, as I walked around in my little California shoes (close toed, but still not enough), I actually stopped feeling my feet. I remember back in college, when someone from California showed off a new fleece, calling it a winter coat. All of the kids from the Midwest laughed and explained that this was merely a layer in the armor she would need to keep warm.

Now I am that kid from California who gets off the plane with a light jacket and sockless foot attire, totally unprepared for the forthcoming frost. In my defense, it is April, after all…. I thought winter would have loosened its grip just a tad. Instead, it stares me in the face as I stand at a light, the wind whipping my face: “Can you handle this, or has California made you soft?”
“I can still hang!!” I want to counter through blue chapped lips, “ I am still Chicago.”
Am I still a masochist? Could I resign myself to these frostbitten winters? It pains me that my family is so far away, but for now, I’ll happily sign up for a few more years in the more temperate Californ-I-A.

telescope view of 2nd grade

2007-04-02T21:51:00.000-07:00

While digging through the couple boxes that have still not been unpacked in my room at my parents' house, I came upon my second grade journal- the daily journal that my teacher had us write, where I documented the eventful happenings of my 7th year of life. I have occasionally wondered what became of this journal, not just out of nostalgia, but also out of curiosity of how I would judge my own work now that I am teaching this grade level. Like my second grade teacher, I also make my students write each morning in response to a prompt- a daily excercise in more free-form writing. Each day, I scrutinize their writing in my head as I walk around to make mental notes about how much progress they are making and in which areas we still need to focus. Frinding my journal was also very interesting from the lens of a teacher, because it documents my first year in the US when I was still mastering and showing frustration with the mechanics of the English language. Like my ELL students now, I dropped verb endings, confused "th" with "f", used i for long e because that's the sound it makes in French...

I vaguely remember not liking to write in this journal very much and this was evident as I flipped through the pages. Each entry was barely one sentence, with no extra flourishes and my handwriting showed a wrestling match between the tight cursive that was drilled into us in french school and the american print, large and bold. My letters tried to negotiate the newly found abundant pastures of american large lined notebooks, after having been tightly herded betweeen the millimeter lines of french writing paper. They look like lost sheep who need direction in their new found freedom. On each page, are sprinkled red comments of encouragement in cheerleader enthusiasm ("Great!" "Sounds fun!" "Busy girl!" "Yeah!"). Here are a few samples from my journal:
"December 2, 1987 I play with my brother and alexadra"
"December 4 1987 my MOM go out and I am scary I go down sters with alexandra"
"January 20 1988 I jump rope and tap dance in the same time"
"March 21 I did my homework. I played pirates and i scared camille" (my sister)

There is definitely progress between the first entry and the last and it is interesting to get a peep into this stage of my development. It makes me feel more of a connection to my English Language Learners and feel reassured that they will eventually use the past tense fluently.