What Teachers Want to Tell Parents Thanks CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/06/living/teachers-want-to-tell-parents/index.html

Did you catch this article on CNN. I think it is an awesome article. Ms. Glitzy said as much on her FB page and I responded with:

Might I add that when a parent comes in with both ears and eyes open, showing kindness and respect for the hard work teacher's do and asks how they can help, they usually have a teacher doing backflips to support their child.I have been so blessed to know and work with so many of those kinds of parents (perhaps that's what is wrong with my back).

I had a child that needed that support. Personally, I never thought sending curt notes, challenging every concern of the teacher, talking trash about the teacher to my child, and expecting the teacher to think for my child was the best tactic for putting my child on their good side. And lastly, I find it a little ridiculous to think a teacher would never feel frustrated with my child, when she/he had him for more waking hours than me and I got frustrated.

Actually, that isn't my last thought, but hey, I'm not writing an article. Hmmmm.........

I love teaching children who love to learn. Give me a child that is interested in learning and the year will be magical. Give me a child who isn't and the year will be long and challenging for both of us.

If a child comes to me two years behind let's say. If I do everything I know to do and somehow accomplish what no teacher before me has and bring them along a year's worth in a year's time, where will they be? That's right-still two years behind. And there is no way that any parent I have ever known is excited and thrilled to know that I haven't preformed a miracle.

Our state law requires that I teach fourth grade standards, no matter where the child is academically. For instance, today I was teaching variables in math, that would be algebra. Any child development book will make it clear that children the age I teach still think concretely. Numbers are not letters and letters cannot have a numerical value. There is nothing at all wrong with those students, they are just not developmentally there. Still, I have to teach it and when they don't master it, then something is wrong with me. I reviewed exponents with one kiddo I remember every two weeks for the entire year and 3 with an exponent of 2 was 6, not 3x3.

Well, as I said above, I could go on and on. I was happy to see CNN report on a situation that is so very true.

Also it's on my mind, cause now and again, you get one of those parents that you can't please no matter what you do. Then they enjoy telling anyone who will listen exactly how they feel about my lack of miracle working abilities. It's hurtful and it's untrue, the things she says, but what can you do? This person is also a teacher by the way.

Well, for the ones who are there to learn and grow, that we do. We are studying Asia and they are currently making a panda pillow. Today we ate rice with chopsticks. They are comparing rice, wheat and corn. Tomorrow it's wheat bread and Wednesday it will be popcorn. They are growing the above mentioned grains and recording the growth in their science journals. Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is all about the horrors of war, peace and remembering- what all of us were doing over the weekend, though 50 years removed from Sadako's experience. I'm good at what I do. I connect it up, make it meaningful, teach life skills and have some fun. I'm so sorry that there are some miserable ol' people in this world who make it their mission to make others miserable too.

Busy, Busy,Busy

My class returned last Wednesday. All 24 of them. They are a good group and have started the year well. I usually get to class about 7 am and go non-stop until 5:30 or 6. Somehow, perhaps in schlepping stuff around, I hurt my back. I manage to sleep two straight hours on a good night and there have only been two of those. So thankful for coffee.

Sunday was BJ's Happy First Birthday.

He's being picky about which whipped cream berry to choose next. So cute.

It was my delight and privilege to bless a dear friend with a Bridal Tea for her darling girl. My side kicks -Miss Glitzy and Miss Resource and I pulled out the stops and put on our best show. I was chief cook, but they were awesome bottle washers. I so enjoyed the time we spent planning and preparing and watching the guest enjoy themselves. It was enchanting.

Guests enjoyed tropical chicken salad in phyllo cups, tomato basil tarts, vegies and dip, berries with sour cream and brown sugar, fresh benedictine, strawberry fluffs, warm brie with apples and pears,

coconut cream puffs, lemon meringue tarts, cream cheese mints, truffles and cookies.

I can manage all the food, but cookie decorating is not my thing. Lucky for me to have found someone who creates such beauties as these. They taste wonderful too.

Ah, such joy and sweetness.

Gift Writing

There are only three short weeks of school after Thanksgiving and before Christmas break. Since I teach in a private school, I'm blessed to be expected to do lots of Christmas activities-as in Christ in Christmas, praise be. Anyway, I have my kidlets do gift writing as their language arts in December. They have to pick six folks to give a gift of writing to. I encourage them to use all the great adjectives they want, but their writing must reflect why the person is a gift to them. They must write one acrostic poem, one haiku, one free verse and the other three are letters. Usually, I write when I ask them to write. Writing is not really my thing, which hopefully shows them about effort, when giftedness is missing.

If you've never done any gift writing, I'd encourage you to add that to your Christmas list. So often the love and appreciation we have for others goes unspoken. Aren't we always believing there will be another day?

These little written gifts will go in the journals I keep for the gramerlings.

Free Verse

I know a boy who steals my heart

With blue eyes, brown curls and a fine mind

Who loves to listen and learn

Who seeks adventure and knowledge

Who is still tender and sweet enough for a swing and a song

My beautiful firstborn grandboy!



Acrostic

Little Missy Bugg

Inquisitive

Loving

Laughing

Interesting

Attentive

Never a dull moment!



A Buttercup Haiku

Swinging and Schikies

Popsicles, Cheese and Crackers

Dancing Eyes of Blue



A Letter

Dear Blue Boy,

You are my brand new gramerling and already you have stolen my heart. Mischief is already prancing in your huge, beautiful, bluest eyes. When you chortle right out loud at your Pappy, I can't help but join in the joy and chuckle myself. I feel content about the way you are growing, yet at the same time, I am amazed that you could be so big already.

A part of me thinks ahead to adventuresome play. Will you love the creek like your cousin Bean? Will swinging and singing and storytelling be your favorite pasttime? Will you love Popsicles and chickie girls as much as your sister? Until then, I will wallow in your baby softness, and smell

I feel so very blessed for the opportunity to grandparent such a wonderful bit of a boy.

Love,

Gramerly

Go ahead, try writing a gift.

Creativity

A scene from Little House on the Prairie?
Do Si Do

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html

I've sent this article to practically every person I know. It is so interesting that it appeared on a blog I read just this week. Why is that interesting you might ask, or not, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

I teach. I've taught lots of ages, from tiny to elderly, but my full time job of the last seven years has been fourth grade. I take teaching very seriously, sometimes too seriously. I feel very committed to children leaving me better than they came. I want to cultivate a love of learning. And, as a friend's son admonished her, I Do NOT want to become their frontal lobe. I want them to be independent thinkers. This is easier said than done. Easier is to stand in front a room of nice little neat rows of students, lecture on a subject, then give a fill in the blank or multiple choice test at the end.

Occasionally, I run into a student with a mind like a steel trap. Most students however will hold what is memorized from a lecture in their memory just long enough to pass the test, then dump it. That's how the brain works. So, basically, it's been a colossal waste of a good mind and some good history, science, etc. If this weren't true, why would we have tons of kids scoring so low on tests and paying for remedial classes in college before they can take one for credit.

In my classroom, if we can come up with a way to smell it, feel, taste, hear it, practice it, read something authentic about it, then that's what we do.

Recently, I combined all of our 3-6th grades for an Interact simulation game called Pioneers. The kids formed eight wagon trains with 7 or 8 kids in each group, took the identity of a pioneer family, chose what to take in their wagons, made decisions along the trail, kept a dairy and faced fates much like early American pioneers. In each room, students were doing additional work. In third they were reading Little House in the Big Woods, in my room, Sarah Plain and Tall. In 5th and 6th students were studying and working on presentations of pioneers in science, exploration, peace, etc, which they presented to the 3rd and 4th grade. My students were weaving and making rag dolls.Lastly, we all dressed up yesterday in our pioneer best and headed to a local one room school house for a day of pioneer activities and fun with a chicken dinner (and pies we made) to wrap up a fun day. Each wagon train spent time that day with eleven different adults, in mixed age groups, kind of like the real world.

The bus driver was so impressed that she told me if the current budget crunch made transportation unaffordable next year, to call her and she'd figure something out.

Anyway, that is one example of how I teach.

I 've long read lots of research on best practice in the classroom. Everything I've read declares that if you encourage children to be observers and thinkers, the standardized tests will not be a problem. Well, that is music to my ears, but if you looked hard enough you could likely find some research on anything you wished to try and prove. Which brings us back to the interesting thing and the article. My principal recently attended a big conference with the head of curriculum. They were reviewing ISTEP scores and have some way they measure growth and value added each year. Our school's scores are always high. Since we only have one teacher per classroom, they also reflect teacher performance in their eyes. So, naturally, our teacher's scores are high. Apparently mine were really high. Enough so that they wanted me to present at the state conference and share my secrets. Then, I read the above article.

I've gotten some flack for my Bohemian teaching ways through the years and I've gotten accolades. Though the negative things like, " She's creative, but she doesn't follow standards" and, "They just play in her room all day," and, "I don't like your room arrangement or the way you teach," (from a parent who is also a teacher), tend to reverberate in my brain. My principals though have always supported and encouraged me, along with two dear retired teacher friends, but I guess I feel validated by those scores.

So the lessons to be learned here- Creativity in the classroom pays off in the short run and the long run for students (read article and pass on) and when you work hard and try hard you get to work harder and try harder by having to make lesson plans, worry over who's watching your class, and try to come with something to present to strangers that they would care about-yee haw!

8 am August 12, 2009

Well, look here. I actually did manage to get the classroom ready, and just a half hour before eighteen fresh fourth graders come bounding through the door.
Help Lord!
Help me to love each one of them as if they were my own because they are Your own.
Help me to instill in them that school is important, yeah, but listening, loving, learning should be happening all the time.
Help me convince them they are more than a test score or a grade.
Help me find a gift in every child.
Help me to discipline gently, encourage unashamedly, challenge daily.
Help me to laugh often, pat backs as a course of habit, sing lots and loudly, and stop to look at all the blessings in Your world.
Amen

This year was a first. I've never taken a picture of my empty, ready for school to begin classroom. I guess because I'm not too fond of an empty class. I really worked hard and cleaning things up and out and was excited by how neat it looked. Neatness is not a strong suit of mine. I'm not sure that expresses it very clearly. Better to say, neatness is not in my vocabulary.
I have this disease. I think my class can not go one minute without something to do. You know when you have a class of eighteen, and you do a twenty minute lesson, one will finish in twelve minutes and three won't finish in thirty-five. I feel bound to provide that twelve minute finisher with some enjoyable learning activity, or life as we know it will combust or something.
Sooooo, my students have multiple games, binoculars with field guides for the birds feeding out the windows, and sixteen art projects like weaving, stitchery, knitting, beading, scrapbooking, paper mache, etc. So, it's messy. Some adults about faint when they walk in my room.
In addition to the yarn and glue and fancy paper and stickers, we're liable to be hatching chicks or growing herbs to make pizza sauce. I don't make my kids sit at their desks for anything except state tests, so there are kids on stools, in beanbags, in my rocking chair, or under their desks. This state of affairs does not bother my students at all. They just walk over and around each other blissfully, however some grown-ups are a little incredulous and don't hestitate to tell me it isn't like any class they were ever in.
It's not like any class I was ever in either. I hated school, so it's my aim to do it differently. I love when they are all over and busy. I love enthusiastic learners.
So, on Wednesday, I was thrilled when the bell rang at 8:30.
And today, at 3:30, I was whupped, but satisfied that we were off to a good start!