Teachers are managers

**This post is inspired by a compilation of teachers

Signs you may need to a) revamp your classroom management system, or b) get a classroom management system:

1. You blame the kids for their behavior.
2. You blame the administration for your kids' behavior.
3. The only management tool you use is threats.
4. Your decisions are both arbitrary and inconsistent.
5. You scream at the kids until your face and neck turn red. (True story!)
6. You lose your voice often.
7. You don't think you're yelling, but the kids are covering their ears.
8. You tell your colleagues you're going to go work at IHOP.
9. You accuse your students of being "ghetto" -- to their faces.
10. You can't teach your lesson plans because you're too busy doing damage control.

If this sounds like you or someone you know, get help. You can start here.

After all, friends don't let friends teach mad.

In summary

A lot is going on here at school. I'm dealing with bullies, parents screaming at each other, IEPs up the wazoo, the state's standardized writing test looming, and paperwork/materials/student work piled so high on my desk that I can barely see past it.

 

It's like I've always said: Teaching is constantly trying to stay one step ahead of the game while always falling two steps behind.

 

But there are some happy things to look forward to:

1. Spring Break is in three weeks. HALLELUJIAH!
2. Going to see "New Moon" at the dollar theater tonight with a girlfriend who's just as into The Twilight Series as I am. I've been waiting forever to see this movie, and now my life will finally be complete...
3. One of my best friends is visiting in a week and bringing her six week old daughter with her. Yay!

So I'm going to think happy thoughts in an effort to prevent the stress and drama at work from swallowing me whole... Have a happy weekend, everyone!

A bit o' Barney

Instead of posting about some bully drama at school, I thought I'd share some pictures I took this afternoon. Looking at these makes me happy!


Now if I could just bottle up some of that energy and use it at school.....

Can you tell it's dinnertime right now?

I was talking about lunch yesterday with Max and he was saying something about not wanting to have a sandwich because that's what he has for lunch every day at school.

I have a homemade burrito every day at school (basic recipe here). I make them every three weeks in big batches and then freeze them. If I could, I would eat them on the weekends too, because I love them THAT MUCH. And I've been eating these for lunch for.... two years now. I had a teacher recently tell me that when she sees me, she thinks of burritos (and it makes sense since I only see her in the lounge at lunch).... which isn't a bad thing to be associated with I guess.

Anyways, it got me thinking... if you could only eat one food (or dish) for the rest of your life, what would it be?

When I lived in France, the answer would have been Oreos. Wait, maybe donuts. When I was in college, I would have said French cheese and French bread. But now? I think the answer would be cake balls!

The best Valentine's yet!

For me, Valentine's Day is never some huge romantic thing. It's mostly an excuse to get ice cream. And we did! We went to an awesome frozen yogurt place downtown...

But Max got inspired this year. First, he spent lots of time he didn't have putting up our new curtains for me. I knew he didn't want to, but he did it anyway (if that's not love, then what is?). The curtains turned out wonderfully and this picture doesn't do them justice:


Then, he made me a special treat! He made a chocolate cake (from scratch, in secret, while I was showering!), then used a cookie cutter to make them into little hearts. Then cut them in half, lengthwise and filled them with homemade butter cream frosting. See?


We've decided to call his creations "heart throbs". Here's a closeup. They were delicious!


I am a spoiled woman, I tell you. Spoiled!

A Valentine's Day Miracle!

My district is notorious for never closing due to inclement weather. I've been hearing tales of when we were the only district open in a 100 mile radius.

That's why I wasn't surprised when school was open today despite the very unusual two inches of snow on the ground this morning.

But it has continued to snow all day! The roads are covered with snow and slush... and the snow gods have smiled upon us and sent us below freezing temps overnight. So it was with tremendous joy and shock that I saw my district has already canceled school for tomorrow.

Woo hoo!

Time will tell

We woke up this morning, like many other people around the country today, to snow outside!

Except, instead of two or three feet, it was more like one to three inches. But down here, that is a Big Deal. Sadly, it's not enough of a big deal to cancel school today, but my husband's college campus is closed so at least he's happy!

When we opened the backdoor to let Barney out to pee, he started to run out into the snow, but then he stopped and was like: "Oh noesies! My toesies!" and promptly came back into the house.
I took him on a walk anyway, though, and by that time, he had remembered all the wonderful snow he used to play in at Christmastime in Michigan. Then it was all leaping and bouncing and shoving it in his mouth.... I wonder if my students will feel the same way about it once I get to school this morning?

On the lighter side of things

Our speech/language pathologist told me about an incident that happened to her just last week.

She was helping out in the cafeteria, and "Ashley", one our deaf ed second graders, asked her if she was wearing a wig. "No, this is my real hair!", she insisted. So, being naturally inquisitive, Ashley asked: "So... why you have yellow hair but brown on top?"

Hehe. "Because I color it!"

" .... With markers or crayons?"

A case of mistaken identity

My colleague teaches deaf education for the second and third graders in the classroom next to mine. She asked one of her darlings ("Charity") what she did over the weekend.

"I go to church!" she said.

"And what did you learn at church?" the teacher prompted.

"I learned about Jesus!" Charity replied.

"And where does Jesus live?"

"Right here in town!" Charity said proudly.

"Oh really? And what does Jesus drive?"

"A jeep. A BLUE jeep!!"

And as it turns out, Charity's pastor is Jesus.

Going down in flames

Yesterday, we had a practice fire drill. Two things bothered me about this:

1. It was 29 degrees outside. Why couldn't they have waited for a warmer day?!!?
2. The fire drill doesn't go off in the portables.

Yes, you heard that right. The portables that I teach in -- the portables with three classrooms full of DEAF KIDS -- aren't connected to the fire drill. Each room even has a bright red bulb above the doorway, and the blinking red light didn't even go off during the fire drill!

So the only chance we have to save ourselves from a fire is if we glance out the tiny window and happen to notice a mass exodus of kids and teachers onto the field.

Umm... hello, Liability. We haven't met before, but we may soon become very well acquainted.

I expressed my concern with the powers that be and I was informed that this was a problem for all the portables in our district and that our deaf-ed portables are somewhere on the list to be fixed.

Oh good. Let's just hope there's not a real fire before now and the time they get to "somewhere on the list".

Costco wins again

Here is the latest addition to our home:


A fade-free, stain-free 7x10 ft rug we got for $99 at Costco (where else?). It sure does make our living room and dining area look so much cozier!

Also? This is the fifth item of furniture/home decor we have bought from there! They should really start paying us for all the good press we give them....

I don't teach no stinkin' fifth graders!

Andrew raises his hand. "Mrs. B? I can't breathe."

"Why not?", I prompt.

"Because of Ricky" he informs me.

Suddenly, I can smell Ricky too. And what did Ricky have to say for himself? "There's a skunk in my pocket."

Born in 1982, not 1882

I was introducing new vocabulary to my fifth graders recently. One new word was "invention". I had to explain what it was and I used a few examples before turning to the light switch. "Someone invented electric lights", I said, "Before we had electric lights, we had to use candles!"

 

Then one kid in the back asked me in all earnestness: "Mrs. B, was there light when you were little??"

 

I think I may have just sprouted a few more gray hairs....

You know you teach in the inner city when...

Many of you will remember that a while ago, I started a token reward system for my students. They can earn tokens by showing good learning behavior: raise your hand, read quietly, bottom on your chair, follow directions the first time, etc. I open up my "store" every day for them, and their tokens are kept in a small basket velcroed to the front of their desks.

 

Today, as we were transitioning between classrooms, I looked up from my desk to see "James" standing with his hands in the air protesting "I don't take none you tokens" while "Michael" FRISKED him. Literally patting him on his sides up and down to check if James had swiped any of his tokens!

 

I feel safer just knowing Michael is in my classroom...

.....Or brussel sprouts

A little tip on rewarding your students for hard work:

Choose a food item that you yourself enjoy. That way when you scarf down two ice cream sandwiches in one sitting, you can say you are just cleaning up the leftovers!

Another little tip:

Choose a food item that makes you want to barf if you are trying to stay healthy... that way you won't be tempted to eat all the leftovers. In retrospect, I should have rewarded my students with some Beanboozled Jelly Beans.

Introducing...

The kick-butt leather boots I was talking about in my previous post:


What you can't see in the picture is that I am madly in love with them!

Conclusion: need more vacation time

Things I did:

1. Got a new dryer
2. Spent Christmas money at Old Navy (one dress and three skirts for ten bucks total!!!)
3. Got the oil changed
4. Ran errands at Walmart
5. Ate lunch at Chick-Fil-A
6. Went to church
7. Watched Barney run off some steam at the dog park
8. Worked out
9. Cleaned the house
10. Spent more money at the mall
11. Bought kick-butt knee high leather boots from the thrift store
12. Watched the Best Movie of All Time ("Mansfield Park", the 1999 version)
13. Ate chili and homemade bread (thanks, Max!)

Things I meant to do, but never ended up happening:

1. Blog
2. Write in my old-fashioned journal
3. Sew some baby leg-warmers
4. Organize my closet
5. Clean/organize my craft area
6. Make biscotti

Can't we all just eat ice cream?

As you can see from the comments on my previous post, I have some amazingly creative readers! I was thinking more about fantastic classroom inventions this week because the kids have been taking their second round of benchmarks. (Benchmark tests are for the district). I wish I had a button that made all tests disappear. In the words of my husband: "They're testing AGAIN!?"

 

As teachers, we want our students to do their best. But I have issues with rewarding kids by how well they do on tests. And maybe this is just because I'm coming at it from a special education perspective... you know, what about those kids who try their hardest but still miss the mark? What about the kid with severe test anxiety? What about the kid who is just having an awful time at home right now? That's why I had to try not to cringe when the teachers in the lounge were talking about how they were "motivating" their students to do their best on the benchmark tests. One teacher told her students that she'll be making ice cream sundaes for kids who get 90 and above while all the other students just watch. Last year, for the state test, they promised a McDonald's Happy Meal for all the students who passed! One teacher told us that he was so depressed about how his kids did on the math benchmarks yesterday, that he ate every single cookie he had promised them as a reward IN FRONT OF THEM. Meanwhile, I'm trying not to choke on my lunch burrito.

 

These teachers happen to be very good and very caring teachers. I just don't understand what happens to common sense when testing comes around! But maybe I'm the one who is wrong here. Should I be throwing ice cream parties for the kids who passed? Do potentially better test results justify the means? What is your take on bribing (ahem, rewarding) for tests?

Things I would pay thousands of dollars for

Here are some inventions that I really think every modern classroom needs:

1. Pencils that come with a very small microchip inside that would beep VERY loud when a student walks out of your classroom with it. (My teacher pencils keep disappearing!! How hard is it for students to remember to bring a pencil with them to school every day?)

2. Something like an "easy" button that, when pressed, would automatically generate the next week's lesson plans. I'd fork over a lot of cash for that one...

3. Expo dry-erase markers that never run out of ink.

4. Another button that, when pressed, cancels every before and after school meeting of any given day.

5. An anti-stress invisible shield that, when activated, prevents any one from dumping any more responsibility on you. Emails would never reach your inbox. Memos would disappear from your mailbox. Administrators would talk to you but you wouldn't be able to hear a sound.

6. A fast forward button that would instantly take you to June!!

Did I miss any?

The New Year's Resolution of the Century

Yesterday was my first day back at work. It was a really nice transition because it was an all day professional development meeting! But being back at school, back in my classroom, back behind my desk... let's just say I was really missing Vacation. I was also dreading the return of a particular problem-child in my fourth grade class. You know, the one who's so flippantly defiant all the time, who saunters out of my classroom and off school grounds when he doesn't feel like following directions, who isn't above hitting or kicking others when he wants his way. Yeah, that kid. I was kinda hoping he had moved out of town. I was especially nervous about how he would do today on his first day back.

 

But he came back! And he managed to keep it together all morning! In fact, he even came up to me and said very earnestly:

 

"I not going to be crazy no more. I don't hit nobody!"

 

Yeah, I'll toast to that!!!