I haven't posted in a while. Mostly because life has been crazy and I got sick. Yea, the first five weeks of school and I have a killer cold. It was much worse last Thursday and Friday. I'd leave the building unable to speak because my throat was so raw. Now, it's morphed into the sneezing, coughing, and runny nose from hell. My chest hurts whenever I cough and I am constantly in need of tissues, but there are worse things, right? I guess I'd much rather be here dealing with these things than the sore throat issue.
But, onto some positive, school related blogging.
To start with my one student I will talk about, I want to highlight a really excellent writer who actually tries very hard in class. Her enthusiasm is often contagious and I can so see parts of myself in her, especially 7th/8th grade me (in mostly good ways). I really think she makes improvements and wants to write, which is drastically different than some of the other students. I did have one problem with a student today, and that was frustrating. I hate when kids outright disrespect me by saying I'm not a teacher. That pisses me off. I was telling a kid to sit in his seat (they have this bad habit of making themselves fall out of their chairs) and he was blaming someone else, so I told him I didn't want to hear it because the other person was across the room and he was like "You're not even a teacher," and my hand ITCHED to smack him. I so wanted to. It would have been easy.
But, I restrained myself and told him that the way he was acting made me believe he wanted to call his mother and explain to her what he was saying to teachers who were just trying to help keep him on track. He apologized and we made a deal about the chair issue, but it still makes my skin crawl. I hate that. I am a teacher, dammit!
Along with that, (this is two days later, by the way), I just had my first truly cry worthy moment, to me anyway. I was in class and a student had their hand up for help. I went over to her and she said she didn't want my help, she wanted Mr. R's help. When I asked why, her response was, "You don't know enough about writing. Mr. R makes all of the lessons and he knows more."
It just cut through me. I thought I had a really good relationship with that student and she was rude to me for the rest of class. I just felt so horrible. I know it's not about me and that they were just tired and exhausted from yesterday (I will get to that), but it was hard. I talked with another coworker about it, and that was good. Another student, at the end of class, asked for my help and that made me feel better. Some students really buy-in to my position as CO-TEACHER in the classroom. Not just Mr. R's assistant, similar to a magician's assistant.
But, to get to something positive: we went on retreat yesterday with our seventh graders. They drove us out to Yonkers, essentially, to the woods, and made us do outdoor activities all day. I picked a group to be with that was legitimately like a group of kids who snorted pixie sticks and then chugged twelve red bulls. As a result, a leisurely hike on a trail turned into a mad dash through the actual woods. Everything was ten thousand times harder. But, the boys wanted to have fun and they certainly made it their prerogative to do so. There were a few hiccups, but our team the Hunters did have a good banner and a fun cheer, so that was good.
The only place I think something like that could grow in the future was a time for reflection. The whole point of the retreat was to create community, but we never got the chance to really go on that. None of the kids got to talk about how their community was broken, nor did they get to reflect on our guest speaker's words. She talked about how "hurt people hurt people," "are we our brother's/sister's keepers?" and the impact of self-esteem on how treat one another. Those three topics could have been enough to fill up a thousand workshops with discussions for students to really reflect on.
However helpful team activities and trust activities are, they don't really get the point through to kids. It didn't really sink in WHY they were trying to create community. It felt more like field day than it did about a time to really tackle some of the issues they are having.
But, nothing can be perfect, and the kids did really enjoy it, despite it's lack of focus on their immediate issues. I think, in some ways, it failed to meet its purpose. But in others it was a good way to get the kids out of the building and working together on something. Even if they didn't make the connections that I think would have helped them make more sense and meaning out of the things they did.
Otherwise, TODAY (the day after) was a fairly normal day. Kids were crazy, but that's to be expected.
I do want to end on something positive: I got evaluated on Tuesday and my supervisor though that what I was doing with my eighth grade students was great. I got a good review and she wrote lots of things she liked, as well as giving me an idea for something that my cooperating teacher and I can do (write a letter home with progress information that isn't a progress report, something far less formal) that parents can use to motivate their children and request assignments the kids have missed in order to get them more grades in the grade book.
Just tough!
Ah well, tomorrow is another day!
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