lack of communication…

is the number one thing i hated in the private sector… found out today that social services has been by twice to visit big d’s family. the principal mentioned it off handedly today. he’s been trying to chuck himself out of my windows for two weeks, this would be nice to know. maybe this would also explain why his little brother came up and kissed me on the cheek twice today, or not, but it seemed a little much even for him. and then wrapped himself around my neck and stayed there for a while

i want to take them all home and feed them and love them. god help me, what would i do with seven children? i have to play the “where are my house keys” every morning before i leave the house….and social services doesn’t work that way. i can’t just take one home because i already care about him, i already advocate for him in school. i know him. i hate to think that the seven of them will be shipped off to some foster home who wants them to get seven checks from the system. everything is stacked against this child…everything, down to his little eye that looks off to the side, which probably adds to him getting picked on, which has added to him getting in fights lately. he has a learning disability, he’s depressed enough at 8 years old to try to throw himself out of a window on a regular basis, he has six siblings, he apparently has lead poisoning, he clearly doesnt get enough to eat, and he is in a school system that cant figure out how to educate the ones without the deck stacked against them. it’s just hard to think about. it just screams to me, he isnt going to make it.

and i cant figure out how to fix it. i cant plug the holes fast enough, i cant teach him…gah.

updates

live, as they happen…

no, not quite. first and foremost, incident update: monday and tuesday the aide was there; yesterday and today she was not. no one has said a word. i have not asked. i do not care to know. i still fished her girls off the playground today. i was quite proud of myself for having done so in a way that continued their imaginative play for a bit.

we’re in the throes of nclb testing. they’ve made it as painless as possible for the kids, though it was not as well thought out as it could been. for example, the woman reading to my kids has two kids with two different forms of the test. bad planning. and while it’s good that big d has some one else to test with, it is definitely hurting my other student’s performance because he feels like he has to cover up that he cant read it himself, whereas with me, that’s they way we always operate all the time. and they decided to give us three hours for a 40 minute test. even my extra time kids finished in about 35 minutes and we have played endless hangman games.

in other news, i have to brag that my assessment prof complimented my writing today, and my analytical abilities. and he encouraged me to continue on in assessment. which is way cool because school psychologist (ie, assessments) is one of the two or three areas i’m thinking about for phd (the others are public policy/education reform and actual clinical research on best practices for either urban schools in general or a specific disability). he wants to talk to me about adding extra classess in assessment. i did a little happy dance in my head. i like writing, i like trying to figure out the puzzle, so, maybe it will be a good field for me, especially after i gain some good teaching experience so i can really bridge the gap between assessments and teaching, which is often lacking. after months of feeling like a failure, it was nice to be complimented, even if it was for something i guess i already know i do well.

file under: i can’t believe that actually just happened.

scene: lunch time, aka the time of day that makes think homicidal thoughts. well, not quite, but it ruins my day everyday. not the kids, i love them all. it’s the aides.

action: i’m walking around waiting to clear trays. i have been hearing the primary mr aide yell at the kids to open their own salad dressing (in the ketchup like packets, that i cant even open some times) and their oranges. one little girl, who is so sweet, asked, and i went over and saw that she had made a good effort at starting. all my intent to do was make the whole a little bigger and show her how to get her finger under the peel for more leverage. let’s face it, on orange day, i usually end up covered in orange juice because they arent easy to peel for the normal kids and they only have so much time. i’m all for independence and all (i’m also all for recommendations for OT if we notice kids having problems with self-help skills, like navigating the ridiculously packaged school lunches). and the aide yells at me, gets right in my face, and then kinda swats me in the midsection. i jumped backed horrified that this woman actually hit me, made contact with my stomach. she’s yelling to let the kid do it and i said, i was only trying to show her how to do it better. and i was, i had every intent to give the orange back after i shower her how to run her thumb under the skin. she’s 7. she’s in an mr class.

reactions: mine was complete wide eyed shock. like deer in headlights. and for some reason in my aderaline ladden tunnle vision, the only face i see is one of the other aides who apparently thinks that because i am young and white that i dont know how to treat these kids (and the answer to that question is, with love and respect, just like every other child on the planet!), and she had a look of total disbelief on her face. i went to pick up trays, and then i was like, naw, i’m going go deal with this. went out, found the principal, told my coordinator en route, who was shocked, but not surprised since she doesnt like this aide in question. principal calls in the security guard, tells her what happens. we go sit in the office, they call in the aide, who hollers, screams and accuses me of bothering her children (this is the aide who told her whole class not to talk to me, and one boy always hugs me and this one day he looks like he wants a hug, she snaps at him, remember what i told you, and he backs away looking sheepish and ashamed!). hollers, yells some more. i try to get a word in, i almost was yelling, but just bit my tongue, sat up straight and let her hang herself. and then she walked out of the office saying she was gonna go eat her lunch, with the principal saying as she walked out, that’s insubordination. and then i cried. and the principal assured me i was part of the school and should be treated with respect. and the security guard, bless her heart, gave me some tissues. and then they asked me if i wanted to take it further. no, i didnt.

results: unclear, as lg would say. she’s getting written up. if she is not fired, i really think i will have lost my faith in the system. what little i have. of the sped aides in our building, this is the only one who isnt awesome. the noncat class, awesome, the intermediate mr class, also awesome. people who do their jobs, treat their students with respect, are open to, well, people. rumor has it this aide is retiring next year, or being forced out because she has not taken the course work dcps has mandated for aides, or the praxis one, which has also been mandated.

an aside: i know i’m too nice and soft and will tie shoes for any one under 6 who asks. but i’m trying. i get down on the floor with angel and show him again how to do it rather than just hollering at him to do it when he cant! what good does that do. i try to teach them when i do things to help them if i can. i give up. now i have to finish big d’s woodcock johnson so i can spend all weekend writing it up. let me tell you, there is no finer agony than trying to get a nearly 9 year old who cant really read or write or sit still to do this stupid assessment!

post script: having had a little more time to mull it over, i feel like an ass for going to the principal, but given the circumstances, i feel it was justified and the right thing to do. by the end of the day, word was certainly out. the dirty looks had multiplied. but one of my third grade teachers stopped and asked me if i was ok. and the reading specialist/perma-sub who was a newbie last year, also asked if i was ok and made a show of support. and as i told her, the teachers and staff who are friendly with me will still be friendly, and those that don’t like me won’t like me still won’t like me. so, it’s a was. most touching thing was big-d’s brother asking me if i was ok after what ms. hinton said while he was waiting outside for his siblings so they could walk home. really touching. and it made me think that i wasnt overreacting.

burn out

i am so burnt out right now. last thursday i said ug, aloud, upon walking into my classroom. tuesday, after a four day weekend (friday, funeral of cohort-mate, monday, wrote a paper), i actually had a hard time getting off the bus and walking to school. it’s become painful.

the homework every day thing, not working out. that lasted a week, tops? some times i throw a few math problems down on whatever scrap of paper is laying around. i just can’t do this the way it needs to be done. i can handle 2 of them at the most, and when i have 4 or 5 at once, i manage to maybe get to spend some time with a few of them. it’s frustrating.

today was dc emancipation day, so we had it off. i am thankful that for the rest of the week all i have to do is test some kids. though that’s stressful as right now my assessment experience is limited to having given the standard wjiii battery to my roommate and parts of the extended batter, as well as most of the standard batter to one of our friends, and having practiced reading questions with one of th cohort-mates. no pressure!! it’s especially going to be stressful because i have to test big-d. and the other ld teacher, a 25 year veteran, is going to watch me give the test to the 5th grader. i just am not comfortable with that. i can’t type if some one looks over my shoulder, i can’t imagine i’ll be able to read these absurd questions with a straight face with some one watching. i hope big-d is in school tomorrow, he was out tuesday, all five of them were. which would be BAD as the other two kids i’m testing are his sibs.

june cannot be soon enough. i hope this summer i will get my shit together and figure out what to do about classroom routines and procedures. i didnt really realize just how important they are. and while every one said so, no one said how to do it, what your routines should look like. i think i would have done a lot better in a typical student teaching situation where i could watch and work with a veteran teacher all year to learn how to create effective procedures and routines. and stations! and how to friggin have some classroom management. my research on fetal alcohol spectrum disorder for class has made me want to move to canada or alaska and work with university staff and teachers and really learn how to work with kids who have FASD, which is like 1 out of 100 live births… although i swear, all those statistics, how are there any normal people out there?

i’m getting sick, so i should be in bed, so i can deal with testing tomorrow before shoving my head through a wall, i mean sitting through assessment class. ahhhh. i want to go crawl up in a ball and scream.

more later, about what i have been thinking about future planning and what it means to have a purpose larger than yourself, the challenges of balancing that with this thing called “having a life.”

file under, of the many reasons i feel like a failure

it’s 5:14, i’m in the midst of filing last weeks classwork and homework. having made a concerted effort to have homework for every day of the week and several written class assignments, it amounted to rather a lot. i kept thinking about this illuminating moment i had on a park bench this weekend, explaining my job to some one. i realized that despite such insane things as, attempting to make my schedule fit around that of 6 different teachers, dealing with a currently unmedicated 7 year old with schizoaffective disorder, not having books and materials, i no longer blame the insanity of the situation for my complete and utter failure. i blame myself. i think i often see what i need to do, but am unable to do it. like go over the homework they turned in with them. six kids, six goals, six different homeworks. too much. too much when i have zero classroom management. and i mean zero. angel-boy spent all of last thursday telling me he wanted to kill himself and that i never show him how to do anything. and i quote, “you wont teach me, you never do. no you wont.” they really do tell you what’s up. and what angel-boy was saying to me is, you fail me. all the time. you ask too much of me and you dont meet me where i am and support me appropriately. and i hate you for it, and it makes me feel like crap. and oh, by the way, i’m on my way to emotional disturbance and it is YOUR fault. i told him to stop saying he wanted to kill himself because he was going to make me cry. and he just said, i dont care. and you hate me. so, i told him i loved him, but he didnt much believe me. and i just spent like 30 minutes trying to write up a progress report on a kid whose hours i fail to meet by a magnitude of half and who i have not been able to make progress with at all. nice. i no longer have finger nails.

oh, failure. its so disheartening. i think i’m going to leave my filing undone, as i’m going to take tomorrow to deal with report cards anyway, and go home and sleep. that is always the solution. pfft.

post-script: angel had a good day yesterday, and a good day today. i told him several times that i loved him when he told me i hated him. we did some reading together and he made some progress, if he can retain those words. it’s all sight right now, but better than nothing! i gave him a lollipop for good work and he spontaneously hugged me…from a kid i have to ask for a hug before vacation. it was such a run by hugging, and he took me by such surprise, i had to ask him if he wanted a real hug. and he ran back, threw his little arms around me again and let me hug him. and we played a little tag, and i legitimately had to run hard to catch him. so, today was a good angel day. even if he kept putting x’s on the smiley faces i put on his addition problems (with two digits! take that first grade teacher who has had them on one digits all year!).

things that are funny, but not

the best part about teaching a psychotic 7 year old is when she greats you by kissing your boob. and when you tell her no four times, she asks, “that’s disgusting?” and when you say, “yes,” she responds by saying, “only men do that?” it is nothing if not an extreme trial of trying to keep a straight face when you really want to laugh and/or yell at her. and keeping a straight face while herding three kids upstairs while avoiding walking into walls because you’re consumed by wondering, again, if there isn’t something to the allegation that her father may have exposed her to some porn.

in other back to school news, i manned up slash passed on discipline problems for the first time this year. j kept hitting m (the psychotic one), who was teasing him. the third time i told him he could go to the office or i could call security, his call. when he curled up on a ball on the floor crying and refused to budge, i called the office, got the principal who told him to come down and then called security when she heard that he wasn’t leaving. it’s not my style to call the office, but i felt i needed to. if for no other reason than to show them I mean business. after he left with security, i turned to big d and said, you see, i am serious this time, got it? so, we’ll see if big d’s behavior gets any better. i just can’t spend all my time dealing with the discipline when nothing i do works! though I am honestly a little worried about how j will feel about me having put him out of my room. hopefully it doesn’t undo the relationship we have. i just don’t know what else to do when he gets up and is punching m in the shoulder every 2 minutes. there’s a limit to his disability, and he needs to know that no matter what his father may say (your remember what i told you, hit them!) or do (like beat him with a hockey stick type object in the first floor boys bathroom), j has to learn it is not acceptable to punch people, even if they tease you.

still havent finished t’s iep for next week, or his write up. nor have i finished everything for tomorrow. so very very tired from getting up at 5:30 after 10 straight days of getting up between 8:30 and 9:30! ug!

an old post…

written at the end of february, at my dcps computer over reheated leftovers on a particularly painful day in the war of the new white teacher vs. the aides…

i have had it up to my ears. it’s not the kids, though mine drive me batty. it’s the aides. and it’s the whole ethos around here. children are to stand quiet and still with nothing to do. and we’re going to complain that they have no vocabulary because their parents don’t talk to them. all they ever hear from us a as whole is “shut your mouths” (not me, i say, please be quiet.) since i have hall duty and lunch duty and dismissal duty, i’ve tried to build relationships with kids, because i do believe that there is great power in that, and i believe their is great power in a kind gesture (and i will tell you, that at least with a few kids, all it takes is one look, because we’re in that level) one class in particular has started telling me when i ask them to be quiet that they can’t talk to me. i managed to get out of one of the mouthy ones that their teach and aide had told them not to talk to me because it gets them in trouble. nice, don’t ask me to stop talking to them. that i might respect. but god forbid some one treat these children like people and ask them every day how they are and actually give a fuck. kinda kills me because that class has some of the brightest, funniest kids in it. god forbid any one talk to this one child who is so smart, but so awkward and overlooked. his parents are both deaf, he could use a little conversation.

my ego can take the passive aggressive aides (who have also in the past publicly undermined my authority as a teacher and tried their same attacks on my dignity), at least that’s what i tell myself. but what makes me come up here and want to cry is that they treat the children like cattle and expect them to act civilized. no one has taught the kids. and you can say that’s all they know, the yelling and the attacks on their dignity, from home. but if we taught them then they would know more. know better. we could end that cycle. part of me wants to continue talking to this one group. part of me wants to confront the aide and the teacher and tell them next time if they would like me not to talk to their students to ask me directly (and by the way, if you dont want me talking to your students, how about not picking on mine or giving them overly harsh punishments for the same things they would just yell “shut your mouth” at in their own students). and part of me just wants to stop. not tell them to be quiet and ask them nicely. not help clear their table at lunch.

as the outsider, by age, race, class (or as liz g says, social capital) and education, i feel the latter is my only option. and today i started by not clearing their trays, not telling them to be quiet. let their aide just yell, fine. and don’t even get me started on the one with the sadistic gleam in her eye when she yells at them, takes their dignity away. if you’re 50, 60, whatever and you get off on yelling at kids, you need to have your head examined. and a different job.

i really want to go look at a high functioning urban public/charter school in nyc, philly, chicago, or even newark, which adopted comer’s ideas on urban education. i want to see what their rules are (we have none stated for the hallways, cafeteria, playground etc), how they are enforced, how consistent they are. i feel like to succeed, the staff needs to be on the same page. we need to teach values. we need to teach children when it’s ok to talk and when it’s not. because they kids are chaotic because we are chaotic (and their lives are chaotic, they need some place where they know what is going on, what is expected of them)… down to little things like procedures for indoor recess. do we call by class or row? and if we do it by row, the children need to understand they will be split from their classes but they are to remain in line. or we need to make sure if we want them in line by class that we call them by class. they are children, they need to know what is expected of them. and they need to be given something to do as often as possible (and one teacher was yelling at the whole school to turn in their essays and posters for black history month… yelling… and no one, at least, gave the little kids any paper or crayons or time to do their posters… can we say counter productive?)

in many ways, i know next year i need to make a better effort to be part of the community, both with parents and within the school. but in other ways, i’m glad that i’m a rock and an island, because all i have around here is me. the one clear sign i’ve gotten that my principal has not a clue about what goes on here is when she told me in my midyear that she was glad i get along with the staff. oblivious to the silent war with the lunchroom aides, oblivious to the twitch in my jaw whenever i have to pick up my first grader. though, their are staff i get along with just fine. the security guard i adore and she clearly respects me and is helpful. my kindergarten teacher is da bomb, straight up. i call her the child whisperer. my headstart teacher and aide are awesome, kind people with their hearts and heads in the right place. the sped aides in the non-cat and intermediate mr classes are awesome. the noncat teacher, little i see of her, is awesome. my third grade teachers are both helpful and nice and i have no issues with what goes on in their rooms. but we all see the negative. and most days the aides at lunch duty just destroy my mood. i think that’s why teaching math doesnt happen often, i’m just demoralized from head to toe. speaking of, i’m now 15 minutes late for my kindergarten kiddito.

back to school

for one more push til june. my break was very low key, but relaxing. not really ready to go back to school. especially since i was not as nearly as productive as i had hoped to be. i vegged out. i wanted to work and plan and get my grad stuff done, but lazy sarah won that battle in a big way. i blame being bummed out about certain other things.

not ready for 5:30 am again. got up at 6 today, though i was going to die! all this 8:30 stuff is spoiling me. what, with the sun and blue sky, and my house being above 60 degrees? ug.

but i miss my kidlets. i miss my big d, i miss my buddy j, i miss little speedy gonzales. so, it will be good to see my kids this week. i cant wait to give them all hugs. and all my buddies around school. if you don’t get some joy from the kids, maybe you shouldn’t teach.

before break, at my structured observation conference, my principal asked me to start thinking about what grade and teacher i would want to work with next year. she wants to go back to a full inclusion, team teaching model (ie, a general ed and special ed teacher in a room with a mix of kids), which could happen given that is what the chancellor wants district wide. my immediate reaction was third grade. my two rising second graders arguably need me the most, mostly in terms of relationships forged this year and that their disabilities require a lot of patience and acceptance (schizo-affective disorder and fas/adhd). and there is one third grade teacher i can see myself working amiably with, who has already been helpful, despite bouts of cynicism. i also know there will likely be another rising third grader made eligible and my student who was exited this fall could use extra support moving forward. so, it’s the obvious choice. but it made me so sad to think i won’t have my speedy another year. he really makes me smile. he’s my cutie pie. however, i don’t much like either of the second grade teachers. nor do i like either of the first grade teachers. one is just criminal. the other has made clear that she doesn’t think she should have sped kids in her class and thinks she rules the school. kindergarten could be an option depending on the number of kids, if little d  and his paren repeats and my headstarter is back. as much as i prefer that age group, and really like working with the kids in the headstart 4 class… my two rising third graders need me more than any one else. me, not any other service provider.

does that make any sense? i think it does.

so much for getting my sleep back on track, instead of 11:30 t0 8:30 (it’s surprising how much better i feel getting my 9 hours of sleep in that time block than say 8 between 8:30 and 5:30, sigh. i think better, i can actually lesson plan holding more than one thing in my head at a time, which is critical when juggling standards for 3 grades and 6 sets of iep goals.)

ode to big d

ode to big d

oh, how your stomping and kicking brings throbbing to the spot between my eyes. and your lying and plays at manipulation tenses up my neck. and oh, how i am sick of your behavior. oh, how it makes my head ache. oh, how ill i am of your apologies. if you’re sorry, just don’t do it again!

on a more serious note, i’m more and more convinced he’s heading towards an ed diagnosis. the stomping and the kicking and the sitting on another student and then claiming he’s being messed with. and the crying and the sobbing. i love the little boy to bits, but for crying out loud, i cannot cope with this one more minute. i tried to send him out, he wouldnt go. i threatened to call security or he could walk to the office by himself. and i didnt call security, but damn, i should have. i’m going to tell him tomorrow that if it happens again, he will have to leave. i cant do it. i cant spend all day dealing with his stomping, kicking, hurling, knocking and generally disrupting everything. ah.

feeling like a failure. again. still.

that lull between christmas and spring breaks

i’m increasingly frustrated with myself and my inability to teach the children anything, let alone what they need to be taught and what i am required by federal law to teach. i am also frustrated at my increasing inability to control two of my students’ behavior. i thought i cracked big d’s egg and could get him over it, but i think it’s more complicated. he’s been throwing desks, chairs, knocking over tables with what seems like increasing frequency. if he continues down that path, combined with his occasionally sad affect, his sensitivity to any perceived slight, he’s going to find himself with an ed label, shipped off to some basement somewhere. he’s not as outwardly ed as the one student i had in the beginning of the year that was placed in an ed program, but definitely enough to bother me right now and start thinking about some serious interventions. and my adhd/ld second grader who was born addicted to methadone was suspended for three days for punching a classmate. i turned my back for 3 minutes at lunch to help another student and he was back into it pushing another boy and the one girl who is the class button pusher. his teacher and i tried to break it up, but rather than her work to get the other kids away while i got him to the side, she just kept trying to restrain him. which i admit i did a little too, but more like, put my hand on his shoulder or put myself between him and the other students. in the end, he was pushing back at his teacher. afterwards when we were talking in the office, i asked if he felt attacked when she did that and he said yes. he said he wanted to apologize, so we went upstairs and he did so, but by walking backwards up to her and looking at the ceiling. she was all like, i’m not accepting your apology because you’re not looking at me, but i think that’s as good as it gets. i couldnt stay as i hadnt eaten and was about to have my new mentor come for a visit.

it’s definitely my goal for those two to keep their behavior in the realm of normal, but i find it escalating. in big d’s case, escalating when i’m involved and in the other child’s case, escalating when he’s not tied to my hip.

my headstart kid has been missing in action since monday, when two social workers came to talk to her and her sisters about their home situation. her teacher didnt know if she’d been taken into custody/foster care, and the principal assumed that she had. i pushed and managed to get the secretary on it. turns out the girls are at home with mom and mom is pissed and filed a complaint downtown about something having happened to the middle girl (which i actually dont doubt, but the timing says revenge just the same). they will supposedly be back tomorrow. mom’s pissed, but her 4 year old daughter comes to school at least once a week in two right or two left boots. sometimes mismatched pairs, but at least one of each. all three are dirty all the time. it’s enough to try to teach without spending all day not knowing where your students are! especially after having read an article about the mother in se who killer her 4 girls and no one found out for like 8 months or something.

increasingly exhausted and sick of getting up before the sun. increasingly emotionally drained. increasingly disillusioned about these kids as a whole and my ability to help them. just trying to survive til spring break. over which i will not do a lick of planning, god help me, i am sleeping, drinking, and hanging out with my friends, and my boy. and probably doing grad school work. sigh. speaking of, i have a few hundred pages to read tonight!