Megalopolis

Yesterday I met with my PD where she gave me the following slightly adjusted information:

• my kids grew .6 years in reading. That’s roughly on track with what they should do, with the exception of the fact that we started at a end of 2nd grade level. This also glaringly points out the fact that i have no clue how to “technically” teach reading. What up, alternative certification.

• my kids grew .8 years in literacy. This is surprising because i am….not good at teaching lit.

• my kids grew 1.1 years in math. I’m actually pleased about this, so I won’t be snarky.

These numbers are not disappointing by any means, but they are a tease. I can’t actually recognize the possibility i’ll make tfa’s precious “sig gains” because I don’t have 80% of my kids with valid data. That means my “sig gains” decision comes from our state test and our pacesetter goal. And by that I mean it’s going to be harder to achieve.

Crap.

In other news, I went to the Ron Clark Academy on Monday since they had school and we didn’t (yet another reason my school is failing, i’m sure, is that we recognize president’s day). It was the most magical place I’ve ever been. Sure, there was a giant blue slide from the second floor to the first. Yeah, a world-famous graffiti artist had decorated every wall. And ok fine, Ron Clark’s door to his classroom opened magically like a scene from Harry Potter. However, that was the less amazing stuff. What truly blew my mind was watching Ron Clark’s class as he taught, wherein 30 5th graders (a personal blow to my ego, really) as they sat in their chairs and learned math for 45 minutes. LEARNED! Didn’t get up to hit each other, didn’t cover their nose with their hand and demand to go get tissue, didn’t do karate moves around the back of the room. They gave each other high-fives and other cheers when they got questions right, they were “super-focused,” and they were incredible. I ate lunch with 7th graders who both politely introduced themselves to me and carried on intelligent conversation about how lucky they were to get the opportunity to go to 6 of the 7 continents by the time they leave.

I want to teach at a magical private school that serves children from underprivileged economic backgrounds. As it is, I have my babies, who I taught a song I wrote about context clues to the tune of “live yo life” by T.I. (thanks Ron Clark…) Ultimately, I realize the only thing that stands between any kid, any teacher, and greatness is the ability to sit down, shut up and do your work. And doing that is a lot harder than I thought. So I wake up and watch the sunrise on my lake and I try my hardest and I change everything all the time and eventually, I tell myself, eventually it will pay off.

My friend commented that in no other place on the internet is there such a concentration of high highs and low lows. My blog is no exception. Sorry for the last post. Consider it venting…

This monday/tuesday one two punch has been not horrible, which is all anyone can ask for in the time between winter break and spring break. Benchmark gets closer and closer and closer (38 days as the countdown so kindly reminds us…AHHHHHHH). My children refuse to become invested in anything, but they still remain hilarious. Below is a picture of what I deal with…the one in the blue is mine.

In novel studies I read them a poem by Walter Dean Myers called “Love that Boy” (read it). I told them I thought it looked (and sounded) like a blues song. I then asked them to perform it (which quin and cj did, with little to no prodding). They wrote their own, and then performed them. Quin performed two, from memory.

Zavian performed one that was AMAZING actually, about his father. I seriously need a video camera…next paycheck. We start our book (non-fiction bio of Muhammad Ali, written by Walter Dean Myers, hence the poem).

The good part of the day was when I came home and watched Rocky Balboa with my roommate, and discovered that the movie was the MOST INSPIRING THING EVER. I leave you with a quote that, for now, will suffice.

 ”The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody!”

ps. did you notice i finally figured out how to put pics in my blog?!?!?!

i am in the wrong job. not because i don’t enjoy myself (sometimes) but because i have no idea what i’m doing and it’s obvious in my test scores.

i am horrified and heartbroken.

Today, we took our language landmark. I went all out in our test preparation, by which i mean all the ridiculous things we do to “prepare” ourselves for the test. This involves:

1) saying our class cheer (which we do loudly, while other classes are ACTUALLY testing)

2) wearing our beads of knowledge, which we rub together before we ask Ms. D any questions

3) Animal helper hats- these are foam hats shaped like a dog, flamingo, parrott, and turtle. They whisper answers in our ear and tell us we’re doing a good job.

So once all of this was in place, we got our tests. I’ve discovered that they’ll sit and do work AND not complain if i play music they don’t instinctively feel the need to hate ie classical. I play them a nice collection of R&B and oldies. About twenty phenomenally quiet minutes into testing, Alicia Keys’ song “If I Ain’t Got You” came on shuffle. I began to quietly lip-sync along with this song, when I realized that….six or seven children were just staring at me. Staring at me is not that out of the ordinary, but being quiet is, and I felt it needed to be rewarded. So I got up and started singing to everyone, pointing and being overdramatic. They needed this ,and when the song ended I sat back down and we kept working (quietly). This in and of itself was fantastic, until about 20 minutes later when “Love Lockdown” by Kanye West arrived.  THis song had been requested by no fewer than 4 children, prompting the response “next time I’m dj-ing an all-request line, I’ll let you know…” I hear some laughing, and when I look up I see Randy in the corner, flamingo animal helper on his head, singing into a pencil and dancing like an awkward 3′8 James Brown. He lip-syncs the entire song, does the splits, points to various people in the crowd, and sits back down.

“Round of applause for Randy,” I say. We clap. Then we get back to work.

Dehzmin is one of the reasons why I like to stay after school. Though he is not in my class (homeroom, spelling, or reading), and though we had no formal introduction, he comes into my room every day after school just to…spend time with me. He’ll dance for me, he’ll tell me stories and jokes (I did NOT understand today’s joke), whatever he wants to pass the time until his grandmother leaves at 4:30. Sometimes we sing songs together. Once, he said I sounded just like Rosemary Clooney, and I saw myself as a child in this tiny boy singing “Gee I wish I was back in the army” from White Christmas holding a meterstick like a cane.

He helps me do things. I’ll ask him to staple tests, or sort papers, or today we made a chart to keep track of how confident my class is about a certain objective. Today we put stickers on velcro and he sang to me “Ms. D is a nice ladyyyyyy.” On days like today (or last Friday, ugh), Dehzmin brightens up my world. We talked for two weeks straight about how scared he was to be baptised. He thought he was going to drown. I told him he wouldn’t. The monday after he RAN into school and hugged me and said, “Ms. D, Ms. D, I did it!!!!”

I don’t have a purpose to all this, I just felt like he deserved my appreciation.