Category Archives: teacher life

So I’ve just finished a day and a half stint substituting in a local first grade classroom. While I’ve worked with the younger grades ever since I semi-retired, this is the first time I’ve done a straight stint with younger than fifth grade students. The experience was inspiring, affirming, and exhausting.

It probably also helps that this was a small town K-12 school rather than a larger school, with a class of nine students. Nine is just about the perfect number for this age group–enough to have a spread in student ability, but not so much as to be overwhelming. The teacher left me lesson plans that were somewhat more than babysitting, with the opportunity to do some actual teaching instead of cruising through worksheets, catching up, or something like that. Additionally, unlike my previous sub stints this year, I was working with reading, writing, and math–all areas of comfort when it comes to teaching (Art is not necessarily a strength, nor is live PE, though I don’t do too badly with the online PE classes). I got to do a little bit of problem-solving in working with students, and I think I might have helped them learn a new concept.

Basically, I had to introduce the associative property of addition transforming 3 number problems into 2 number problems (such as 1 + 2 + 3=6 into 3 + 3=6, 4 + 2=6, and so on). The students had been easing up to it but I ended up starting them out in the concept. The first day was…challenging, to say the least, with even the strongest students struggling with the concept. Tears didn’t flow but they were close.

On the way home, I thought about it, and decided to use manipulatives to help work through the concept. We spent about fifteen minutes and yeehaw! It clicked with most of the class. Seeing the understanding flick on was inspiring and affirming. I am a good teacher, and it wasn’t that hard to figure out–then again, back to the concept of nine students. Plus I had an aide, and we were busy going from student to student as they worked through the understanding of how the process worked. Plus we struggled through a word web for a writing project yesterday–but everything flowed nicely today, and students wrote good stuff.

The other thing? Happy, comfortable first graders have absolutely no filters, especially when first feeling out the new substitute. At this point I am really grateful for my past middle school experience because that means I have no problems being strict, firm, but also unthreatened by kiddos looking for boundaries. That lack of filters means that spotting the attempts to derail the sub were easily spotted and countered. And because these students were used to firm boundaries, when I held firm, they yielded. But I also listened because, after all, the first grade lack of filters allows the savvy sub to figure out who’s pulling your leg and who is honestly telling you about a classroom routine that got left out of the sub notes (no one can get everything down!).

Still, it was fun to listen to the kids as they worked. The whole group started singing while working on a couple of projects–once, the school song, and then, later, Jingle Bells. This was a harmonious group of students as well. Oh, there were dramas, but all the same, they worked well together, they played well together, and it was just plain fun to be around them.

All the same–we are talking about first grade students. OMG. The sheer energy they throw off, plus the energy it takes from the teacher to anticipate and guide that intensity? Exhausting.

It’s a lot easier to run herd on 25 grumpy middle school students, in many ways.

But it was fun–in small doses like this.

It’s always a nice feeling when the teacher’s first week back results in a sense of getting stuff done to get ready for the job of teaching. Those systems that get set in place during teacher workdays before school starts can make or break a teacher’s year sometimes. The ability to work out plans with colleagues, develop themes, share some common discipline techniques for consistency–all are little pieces which can contribute to the possibility of a great year ahead.

But that building of a consensus can’t be forced, or administrated, or driven. It thrives when there’s been a bit of continuity, when the team has a history of relationships and experience and is not afraid to try new ideas. Add in a range of ages, gender and experiences, and…stuff can happen.

I’m holding my breath because, of course, sometimes the magic doesn’t work. But there’s a delicate bubble of a school year ahead with potential.

A lot of my feelings also come from several major changes I’ve made in my setup as well as some successful planning time. First of all, the rattly old overhead with the dying and loud fan (which replaced the overhead that didn’t focus) has been replaced by a projector and document camera, cobbled up from various sources. This means I have a wider range of visual materials to use without scrounging around for transparency films (and praying that the copier will cooperate). I rearranged the room to accommodate and protect that technology plus create a teaching work center in the front of the room. I can have a more accessible active teaching center and a more private sped work center.

The tables got replaced by desks. I prefer using desks, but when you have to crowd a lot of kids into a room, tables are easier. Well, I don’t need to crowd kids now (our population is dropping) so it’s back to the desks. They’re less clunky, more flexible to configure, and the kids have a place to put their binders out of other peoples’ way.

There’s an entirely new grading, attendance, and IEP program. The learning curve on this one is HUGE, because it’s an extremely powerful database and can do a lot. I can see the potential with this program, but wow. Figuring it out is going to take some time, and it’s also a complex one to develop. I spent six hours this week in training and…wow. Lots of pieces, but it’s an easy program to work with.

I brought prep work home for the weekend. But when I walked out of my classroom this afternoon, I felt comfortable about kids being in there soon.

That’s a dang good feeling.

I heard the news before I left for work.

Rehearsed lockdown strategies for both my classrooms on the drive. Climbed out of the car, gathered my stuff, including potluck food, and made sure my scanner badge was secured around my neck.  Passed the badge by the sensor, and as the bolts shot open, I thought about Sandy Hook.

I unlocked the locked door of the now-closed middle school office.  K, one of the aides, was working in there.

“Did you hear?”  K asked.

“Before I left home.”

“Me too.”  We exchanged worried, grim looks.  Then she described her fears about not being able to round up the littlest kids quickly enough in an emergency at recess.  I shared my fears about being able to keep the middle school boys from doing something stupid.

When I walked into my first classroom, one kid asked, “Mrs RW, did you hear?”

“Yeah.” I told them what I knew.  Then added a rap about safety and why it’s important to be able to keep them safe.  One kid said he’d break out a window and run.  I suggested that might not be the best course because someone else could be outside.  He stopped and thought about it.

So did I.  And not for the first time.

Every day in a school setting is a reminder.  And Sandy Hook, coming this soon after Clackamas, is a real slam in the gut for every school staff member out there.  Besides the formal lockdown practice, we talk about what we’d do and how.  When we have a scary experience with adult or kid, we talk about what happened, both formally and informally, and how we could do better.  I’ve been through two lockdowns as a teacher, but there’s been other touchy situations including a minilockdown.  None have involved live action; they’ve been preventatives.

And all that could change on Monday.  Or any day of the days remaining in my teaching career.

In the case of a lockdown, if it happens when I’m in my regular classroom, I have to go outside.  My room is in an outer wing of the school, near a central door.  While the other exterior doors can be automatically locked from the main office, those doors can’t be.  I have to lock those doors.  Then I have to lock my classroom door from the outside, making sure that my curtain is closed and my door window covered.  With any luck, I haven’t just exposed myself and any students in that room to danger.

It’s a strategy I think about pretty damn regularly, really.  It’s part of my job to do that.  I have nightmares about it sometimes.  I probably will have a nightmare about it in the week ahead.

And all of this is a roundabout way of saying that Sandy Hook hung over a lot of my day today, simply because that’s what my day job is and so many of my routines evoke what I’ve been able to read of the nightmare that happened there.  I’m a teacher.  If some idiot with a gun, a knife, or other weapon invades my school premises, it’s my job to keep the kids under my supervision safe.

This is one of those days when that reality slams home.

Hard.

Argue about gun control and mental health all you want.

Meanwhile, every day, the shadows of Thurston, Columbine, and now Sandy Hook walk with me as I go about my daily work.  For me, it’s not a theoretical construct.  It’s a daily reality, one that I practice against with a certain degree of regularity.

The first week of school for teachers (no kids) passed in a whirlwind, and I’m still not ready for the first day with kids.

AAAAACCCCCKKKK!

Actually, that’s a productive panicky noise.  As in, I still have boxes to unpack (mostly books).  I have file folders to put together for easy use.  And I need to devise a scope and sequence plan for the first semester.  Um, guess what’s happening this weekend?  I’d be more panicky but I know that the first week is more about establishing routines, figuring out schedules, and setting up patterns.  We changed school start times, consolidated offices, and put in a new phone system that is of course being cranky.  Plus I picked up a class I have never taught before but will be fun (8th grade US History).  I am part of a team, so that’s also helpful.

What a difference a change in leadership makes.  I’m still overworked and overloaded, but I have a boss who is putting in lots of hours and sincerely cares about the kids.

The biggest challenge will be pacing myself and not letting me work myself into a frazzle.  I know myself.  I’ll be going gangbusters into health problems if I don’t remember to write, see Miss Mocha, work out, and take care of myself physically and mentally.  My bad foot is already hollering at me.  Time to take a deep breath, pace myself for the long haul, and stop bouncing like Tigger.  As it is, I’m in a seriously ADHD phase and I’m probably more hyper than some of my students.  Ah well, it will pass as I settle into the year.

Last night was open house and I got to see a lot of my kids, plus have some productive parent conversations.   Dang, I’ve missed seeing them.

I am so looking forward to this school year.  But it is going to be a wild and crazy adrenaline run.

Off to the races now.

8th grade promotion is always one of those defining moments of a group of kids.  No matter what, when you look up at those kids on the stage getting ready for their big moment, or when you watch the class video (if, indeed, your school does such a thing), you realize that sense of potential in a manner entirely different from a high school graduation.  Or an elementary promotion.  The changes that go through a middle school class from sixth grade to eighth grade begin to foreshadow the kind of adults that group may turn out to be.  High school may polish off the edges, but still…those nervous guys guiding the highly dressed girls teetering on their heels are still going to be who and what they are four years later.  As are those nervous but poised girls.

Our little middle school is somewhat traditional in that many of the teachers attend promotion.  The interim principal was pleasantly surprised when she asked how many of us planned to be there, and the entire 7/8 team plus two specialists told her we’d be there.  The much larger school she used to supervise didn’t have anywhere near that degree of turnout.  Oddly enough, I remember some teachers at my son’s middle school promotion.  But even though that was a bigger school in the main city, it was also a middle school with a strong associated community.  Part of that community association means that the teachers are there to help celebrate a landmark in the lives of kids they may have spent anywhere from one to three years supporting and guiding.

The school year winds down.  It’s been a rough, rough year this time, not just personally but throughout the district and state.  Financing coupled with major ideological attacks upon the nature of public education takes a toll not just on staff but on the kids and their families.  The new Common Core standards will require, for example, that eighth grade algebra will become the norm for a regular diploma.  That’s going to be rough on kids who are moving at a slower cognitive developmental pace than others.  Algebra readiness isn’t just about numeracy, it’s the ability to think abstractly and understand that the placement of the variable does not always have to be to the right of the equals sign.  As adults, we think that’s simple.  But as adults, we’ve also acquired at least the rudiments of abstract thought.  Middle school kids are only starting to move into the ability to think abstractly.

Do I think we should be less rigorous?  Oh no, hell no, absolutely not no.  But what worries me about demanding more and more higher level thought from these kids is that we end up spending less time on the fundamental basics underpinning that higher level thought.  Those holes show up later with a desire for quick results (including only wanting to learn only what’s on the test), taking short cuts, and dependance on tools such as calculators and spell checkers.  Automatically practicing skills has the purpose of ingraining the knowledge/skill until you don’t have to think about it consciously.  It’s a lot easier to think about the multi-step processes that go into solving algebraic equations or determining the volume of a cylinder if you don’t bog down on the math that goes into them.  It’s much simpler to write an essay if you know how to construct a sentence and paragraph correctly without having to puzzle it out.  Understanding an assigned reading goes more smoothly if you don’t have to puzzle out the meaning of several words per paragraph.

Why do we think it’s okay to spend the time developing the skill set needed mentally and physically to be a professional football player but turn around and expect high academic performance without sufficient years of practice beforehand?  Yes, there are differing needs and skill levels cognitively, but you also encounter that in athletic performance–and those guys still spend hours in practice and conditioning, no matter what their athletic talent is.

I don’t know what the answer is.  It’s easy to reach back into the past and hold that up to be perfect, when in reality it wasn’t.

But what is encouraging, is that I went to bed last night thinking about ways to make my classes better for next year, and looking forward to sharing that somehow today with the kids I’m planning to have as TAs next fall.  I’ve not had that energy for a long time.

I’m happy to have that back in my life.