Megalopolis

Lining up coming out of the cafeteria is one of the hardest things I deal with on a daily basis. The cafeteria is like a pit wherein children are being devoured by monsters…or that’s what it sounds like. Shrieking children running around and yelling and covered in various “foods.” Lining up out of the cafeteria has led to things like: losing recess for the week, walking in lines for half an hour, pink slips, you name it.

So you can imagine my surprise when today I walked into the cafeteria two minutes early to find my kids already in line. I told them to go out and “stop at the exit sign,” which basically means walk 10 feet and then stop. They did so, and then stopped. Not only did they stop, but they did not start talking. Destiny said something and FOUR children turned around and shushed her. In less than five seconds, my kids were out of the cafeteria and dead silent in the hallway. They all looked at me for approval and my jaw was on the floor, drooling, tongue flapping. Who WERE these children? I threw my hands up in the air and yelled “WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!?!!” and they all laughed as I proceeded to poke them and ask “are you really my class?” Literally, words cannot describe how I felt. All year this has been the bane of my existence, and here they were just…doing what I’ve asked them to do every day. I didn’t even have to ask them. We walked back to the classroom, not a single one stepped out of line to complain about needing to use it or get a drink or whatever thus and such, and I stopped to comment to another teacher about “how my class had been replaced by children who loved me.”

I stepped into my classroom and there they were, 14 angels (granted, three were in ISS and two were gone), facing forward, mouths sealed shut but smiling wide. I walked slowly to the front of the room, unsure what to say. I turned and faced them and they were all obviously so pleased with the smile they could see on my face.

“You guys made my heart 1000 times bigger today, thank you!”

I then proceeded to tell them what to do on their writing assignments, happy we had 25 minutes to work, but dreading the inevitable lapse back into “miss i gotta goooo” and “i HATE writing” and “I been done that and turned it in, you just ain’t seen it!” but….it didn’t happen. In various places around the room, children worked independently, collaboratively, however they functioned best, and I had 14 rough drafts turned in my tray by the time we had to go to Art.

Jasmine stayed in during Art to finish up a late assignment, and I asked her what happened in the cafeteria, why all this magic had occured.

“I don’t know, Ms. D…I guess we just decided to make you happy?”

“It worked.”

I am baking cookies for them as we speak. You give me love, I give you love.

“Dear E.E. Cumming,

I love your peom. It’s great, especially if your in love. I love it because that mean you really care about your girlfriend, or wife. I also like it because it have sweet words. Sincerley, Dareion”

So Benchmark. um. it’s going? It’s difficult to describe the pain of watching my kids forget/ignore/pretend they don’t know/ give up on everything I spent the last months teaching them, but its glorious to see them remember. Those moments, specifically in math, have been few and far between. This is frustrating because we’ve seen so much improvement overall (even if it was from a mid-second grade level to a mid-third grade level…). So seeing us stumble over open response and multiple choice is hard, just because I know how much they want it.

My biggest triumph right now has been watching Lamarcus actually attempt all the open responses he’s had except one. He’s had…13 so far. He’s done 12. To put this in perspective, last year on the Benchmark he did seven. This is my success right now, though I’m not sure how well it will translate into success score-wise. Another little success with him was when I accidentally left my list of summer school kids on the desk and he, after seeing his name, looked at me and said “thank you.” He knows. So does Jasmine, James, Darrell….any kid who is on that list, they KNOW. It’s just frustrating to think that I’ve failed them to that point.

I know, I know, they were so far behind, they’ve not put in that effort, whatever. The fact of the matter is I’m amazed at how….diligently (if not hard) they’ve been working on these tests. I’m also only half-scheming what the end of the year will look like, but it will possibly involve dressing up as famous Americans, a poetry slam, several mad science experiments, and a math battle.

Oh yes. I’ve got plans.

But first, I’ve got 2 more days of testing..

We’ll find out in June what this next week means…