Please Allow Me To Eloquently Summarize My Feelings About Professional Development

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Gabriel

I've known Gabriel for three years. He is one of those kids who is really tall, with big hands and feet and no idea what to do with this huge body. It just seems like he's always flailing about. He is the definition of goofy and will drive you mad in the classroom. He can't be still for a second and he has the attention span of a gnat.
He is also just about the sweetest kid you'll ever meet. You can tell him to sit down and be quiet 30493409384 times, and everytime he'll be geniunely sorry that he can't pay attention or be still. He gets in trouble on an hourly basis, but I've never seen him disrespectful. I've even heard him say something crazy like, "well, Ms. so-and-so gets on my nerves always yellin' but I know she is just tryin' to do her job."
And I, of course, love him to death. He hangs out with Taurus and is in his little merry band of mischief makers.

Today I spent an hour with him in the hospital. He was shot on Friday night twice in the chest. He has a collapsed lung and excessive blood loss. He said, "I can't believe teachers came to see me. I'm so happy."

He said my Trevon did it. I don't know how to deal with that.

What If

On Friday, I was attempting to clean up the mess that is my classroom. I painted one of the walls, even. Well, one of my kids was around. Turns out he is out of zone, but principal told him he could stay if he volunteered to help at our school. The boy was there at 7a.m.
I go into the office and principal says, "RonniAndre is here. Make him do work!"
Okay, sweet.
There is only so much work you can find for a highly distractible 12 year old, but he did a good job. However, while he was helping, this is what he talked about:

What if it rained something else?
What if rained money, would you take it?
What if it rained Mountain Dew?
Would you just open your mouth or would you go get cups to fill up?
What if we did all our classwork on Post-its?
What if you had a pencil sharpener that was big as this room?
What if you had a sharpener that could sharpen pens?
What if you painted the room a different color?
What if you had to paint with tiny little paintbrushes?
What if you mixed water and white-out?
What if I took this white-out?
What if pencils were really big?
What if there were no windows?
What if I was in a class with all girls? Can you get me in that class? Only pretty ones...
What if you put paper all over the walls?
What if you took all that paper from the office?
What if I was principal?
What if you was principal?


I'm sure there were others....but I think I blacked out.

Reason #23928320 Why I Can't Do This Forever

Trevon, Shannon, Tavon and Jimmy have all transferred to other schools. Every single one of them is bad as I don't know what, but I almost started crying!
Tavon is the one that really kills me. I almost want to go to his new teachers and say, "This one's special. PLEASE take care of him."

Oh, and somebody broke into another teacher's classroom and stole 20 boxes of crayons, 10 boxes of colored pencils and 5 notebooks. Kids aren't in the building yet, so it was someone who works in the school (or is working for the school; there's people in there painting and doing random maintenance.) The desktop computer that was in my room is now gone and I went to ask the office if someone had moved it for some reason. "I don't know, ask that new teacher in room 127, he's been taking everything from everywhere."
Now, granted, I've taken a few things in my time. When we first moved into this new building, there was all kinds of stuff in the hallway leftover from the other school, and I took some maps. If a teacher leaves in the middle of the year, nobody hesitates to go in and get some pens or copy paper. But, really? Do I now have to constantly stand over everything? Is the new rule, "if I can see it, it's mine"? Am I gonna have to get like 5 locks to keep my door closed? It's bad enough I can't have anything pretty or shiny because the kids will take it, but now I can't even have functional equipment?!

And, by the way, I still don't know what I'm teaching.

Frighteningly Accurate

So, I just finished reading a book called, "The Corner." It's by the same guys who wrote for The Wire (my fave tv show.) It is a documentation of "a year in the life of an inner-city neighborhood" in Baltimore.
The book is really on point about a lot of things, but this page about teachers giving end of the year grades? Yeah, it is EXACTLY how things happen here. It is so realistic, it sortof freaked me out. (Made me feel better about the fact that WE do it, but more horrible about the fact that it happens so much it's commonplace.)
here it is:
______________________________________________
There’s nothing in writing, nothing for the record, but everyone in the room knows what’s feasible and what isn’t. Three percent can fail, maybe 6 or 8 percent if you want to push it. But the system can’t sustain itself on a 25 or 40 or 60 percent failure rate. So you sit there with your colleagues, roll book in front of you, and you being, alphabetically as always.
"Abbott."
"He’s okay…pass."
"Adams, Monique."
"I saw some improvement at the end of the year."
"Well, not in my class."
"You can fail her there, but I’ve got to pass her."
"Me, too."
"Addams, Robert."
"Lord, one more year and I can adopt him."
"Hey," someone jokes, "third time’s a charm."
"Now way. I’m tired of him tossing books out the windows."
"Well Herbert Thomas sets his on fire and we passed him."
"Please. I can’t deal with Robert."
"Okay, pass."
You sit there for hours, making judgments off the top of your head, all the while sensing the absurdity of the thing…
Now, you sit here going through the motions, pretending that there is a difference between the kids you send to the tenth grade and those left behind. The no-shows are easy enough—if they didn’t exist in your class, they can’t exist now—but virtually everyone else is an open question.
Failing grades in core classes? That alone could disqualify more than half the eighth grade. Achievement, or the lack of it, is not enough of a filter. You factor in class absences, disruptive behavior, and indifference; still, the number of those actually deserving promotion is appallingly low. But next year, there will be another swarm of eighth-graders. And they can’t be taught if a third of last year’s class is hulking in the back of the room.

___________________________________________

Seriously. Change the names and I've had that exact conversation 6 times-at the end of every semester. Isn't that horrible?

and so it begins...

WELL. I went up to the school today. Professional Development begins for us on Tuesday the 19th. The kids come back Monday the 25th.
I went up to start fixing my room. drawers have been broken off, stuff written all the walls, etc. I guess the last teacher to inhabit Rm 119 was not too concerned with any kind of cleanliness or order.
Anyway, I was kind of curious to know which periods I would be teaching and when my planning period was. I asked principal, she said, "I know you have IB Social Studies this semester, but I can't say what periods. Next semester you'll just be regular 8th grade s.s."
Okay, cool.
I'm working in my room and the assistant principal comes in. She makes the schedule. "Oh, hey you have 2 periods of math and one period of character ed (what...) and one free period."
Um, thought I had IB Social Studies? "Well, I make the schedule, so I know!"
oookay.
I go to the IB Department Head. Hey little confused as to how I can get work samples of IB Social Studies together when I'm not teaching it.
"What? Of course you're teaching IB Social Studies. And IB has a different schedule than the rest of the school, so yours is a year course instead of a semester. You'll have the same kids until summer."
I go back to principal. Hey, little confused about what I'm teaching.
"Math! Of course!"

OH OKAY. IT'S ALL SO CLEAR NOW.

We Know Drama

So I guess in this school system, there are something like 60% of teachers that aren't certified. I know that sounds crazy and alarming, but many of them have been teaching for a long time before No Child Left Behind, and they haven't done the things to "update" their certification..or whatever. Anyway, yeah, I'm the most certified teacher in my school. What.
Well, earlier this year, letters went out with the gist of, "Get yourself certified!"
Nobody is beating down the door to be a teacher here, so nobody thought they had to worry about their job.
Well, everybody got fired. Seriously, we lost like 10 teachers at my school alone. It SUCKS. I understand that teachers need to be certified, and I can definitely go on my "being a good test-taker doesn't make you a good teacher" rant...but that won't help! This isn't a theoretical discussion about teachers...this is my life next year and it's going to be horrendous! The teachers that got fired are ones that have been around awhile and can keep their kids in line. Most of our certified teachers are people like I was 3 years ago..brand new. Or they are teachers that have been recruited from foreign countries. These guys are geniuses and probably amazing teachers..but they never get the chance because their kids scream at them all day. They have zero classroom management abilities and the rest of us have to spend the day cleaning up their messes. This place isn't for everybody and if you get chairs thrown at you, maybe its time to leave!
Insanity.

Oh, and the standardized test scores came back. We did horrible. Who is surprised?

Not School, but Still Funny

I went on a mission trip this summer. We were in Nashville, TN playing with kids one day.

I'm coloring with some kids when JaBazz (yeah...) comes up to me. He's six years old. "I need you to color a picture for me to give to my girlfriend. I want it to say my name."

"Okay, what's her name?"

"dunno."

"What's her favorite color?"

"dunno...that's her." He then points to a girl who's about 17 that came with me. Her name is Laurel. I draw the picture, then I have to stand by her as he reaches around from behind me to give her the picture. She never sees his face, and he runs off.

An hour later, he comes back to me. "I need two more pictures, I got two more girlfriends."
He runs off again.

Quite some time later, he runs up to me in the gym. "Heather, I been lookin' for you ever'where! It's my woman...she's two-timin' me!"

"I'm sorry JaBazz. That's too bad." He then tells me I have to go outside with him and see her. We go outside and there is Laurel talking to some other six year old.

"Look at him! I HATE him!"

"I'm sorry JaBazz, but I don't know what to tell you. This seems like a man problem."

"Well I don't know no mans!"

"Okay, well, there's Chris. We can go talk to him about it." JaBazz and I sit on the picnic table. "Hey Chris...I got a man problem. My woman's two-timin' me!"

Chris: "err..uh..what? Do you, uh, want me to talk to her for you?"

JaBazz climbs under the table. "yes please."

He calls Laurel over. She listens to Chris and has to pretend she doesn't know JaBazz is hiding under the table. "Well, gosh, I hope he forgives me! I feel so bad. Do you think he'll forgive me?"

From under the table: "okay. I will!"

Tales from 6th Grade Camp

Us poor schools get shipped up to northern Maryland every year for a free camp. It kind of sucks for me, but I love seeing my kids there.
My favorite memory:

• Bad little Montrell standing in a creek bed cradling his shirt that he has filled with frogs. And the same boy sitting bleary-eyed at the breakfast table the next morning telling me, "Well, our counselor wouldn't let us go to bed until we caught all 14 frogs that got loose in the cabin."

And then, quite possibly one of my most awesome teacher moments:

• We were called over the walkie-talkie that RonniAndre had cursed out his counselor and somebody needed to deal with it. He was told to sit by himself at dinner. While he's sitting at the table, he keeps moving around and trying to draw attention to himself. I walk over to him and say, "Little boy, you better sit down, shut your mouth and eat your food or I will tell every girl in this camp that you pee the bed." He looks at me shocked. "But I don't!" and I say, "Well, who are they gonna believe?" So he starts pouting and shoving in french fries. "FINE!" Well, a few minutes later he starts getting all silly again. So I say, "Hey, Lindsey, Come here." Lindsey walks over to me. "Lindsey, I want you to point at RonniAndre over there and laugh." She looks confused and does it anyway.

RonniAndre was good for the rest of the trip. :)

The Classics

Well, since school is out, there is no mayhem to document here on the blog. So I decided that whenever one of my old stories comes back to me, I'll write it here as a way to keep everyone entertained, as well as let it live forever in internet history. There's a reason I started this blog: two years of ridiculousness that I'm pretty sure I would think was a figment of my imagination 20 years from now.

Here's one:

(While the kids were doing a word search):

"Ms. Vinson, is Bender a word?"

"What? Use it in a sentence."

"Err..Okay." (long contemplative pause) "I don't want to go there, 'cause I already ben der."