The Wheels of our Community

For the first few months of the year, our school had a lot of problems coordinating the bussing between our two campuses and making sure that each student was on the right bus. At one point in November, one of the school’s office assistants frantically ran into the classroom a few minutes early and boomed, “Everyone on Mr. G Willie’s bus please stand up and head downstairs to your bus. You need to hurry or else the bus is going to leave with out you.” What happened next was pure pandemonium. All 30 of my 3^rd grade students sprinted to the closets to grab their jackets and clear their mailboxes. As I tried to calm them down and restore some sort of order in the midst of the confusion, it quickly became apparent that no one knew whether they were on Mr. Willie’s bus or not. In fact, no one in my entire class knew who their bus driver was.

The next day in class, I asked my students: “Does anyone know the name of their bus driver?” As I stared at the rows of blank stares, I realized that this was one of the first times that not a single hand was raised. Later during lunch I discussed this phenomenon with another teacher, and we both realized that neither of us remembered the name of our childhood bus drivers either. And I think I can say with a fair amount of confidence that today in schools across the U.S. very few students know anything about the people who are charged with the safety of their transportation.  It strikes me as incredibly disheartening that such critical members of our school communities too often go unnoticed and unappreciated. 

This month at VOICE our 3^rd grade is learning about the eight bus drivers who drop them off at school and take them back home each day. They are interviewing their bus drivers and making “all about” posters for each bus driver. Our students are also creating pamphlets on bus safety to distribute to the rest of the school. The project is ending with a lunch event our students are organizing where they will present their posters, sing a few songs centered on school community and eat lunch with the bus drivers.

Through this class project our students are learning that Mr. Marc has been driving school buses for over 20 years, that Mr. Anthony’s favorite type of food is Cuban food and that Mr. G Willie has had this very same funny nickname since 3^rd grade. More importantly, they are learning to look beyond the classroom and recognize the community around them. In the process they are building a sincere appreciation for the army of support that provides them with a healthy and safe learning environment. 

Meet Malasia M.

            Malasia: “Who me?” (loudly, with a puzzled expression on her face).

Me: “Yes you Malasia. The sucking sounds you are making with your teeth are very distracting for the rest of the students and inappropriate for the classroom. Please take a seat in the focus zone until you are ready to be dismissed for snack.”

            Malasia: “Ugh. Why you’se always sending me to that old chair?” (throwing her hands in the air, slowly rolling her way over to the “focus zone” and collapsing into the chair with a huge sigh)

            Me: “Thank you to those of you who are ignoring the distractions that sometimes come into our classroom” (trying hard not to look at Malasia as she begins to lick and gnaw away at the desk with her teeth)

            ----3 minutes go by, the class is dismissed for snack, Malasia joins----

Malasia: “Burp! Mr. Millah, can I drink this soda thingy?” (innocently holding up a 24 oz. bottle of Mountain Dew.

Malasia is one of those students who can infuriate teachers at times with her demanding questions, interesting sounds and uncoordinated movement. Yet at the end of the day I often can’t help but laugh at her personality and expressions. Malasia is probably the biggest girl in the class and can often put on a very tough front. I have a feeling that she may have been a bully in previous grades, but she has become more friendly and kind since entering my 3^rd grade classroom. Overall, she is making progress academically—particularly in Writing. 

            Yet today I want to talk more about the sounds that come out of her—the sounds that children make are perhaps one of the most laughable aspects of the profession of teaching. Malasia, sucks her teeth every mini-lesson, throws her hands up and down making loud smacking sounds every time she wants to answer a question, has a very loud “Huh?” when she doesn’t understand something and has somehow manages to make me (and the rest of the class) acutely aware that she has digestive problems during snack, all the way from across the room. 

           At the same time, Malasia can be incredibly kind and sweet. She often asks me questions in the most gentle and kind way possible—many times just a few minutes after being chastised for something else. She can be very kind to students whom others bully or whom she shares her snack with. Yet the barbaric sounds continue to be a problem. In Room 206, we are working with Malasia to help her control her impulses. We ask her to think before she acts, create a checklist of questions to answer before she says or does anything and have even created simple hand signals to warn her that her volume is getting to high. Improvement is slow, but I am optimistic that with more time and maturity she will be better able to control herself and the sounds that she produces. But for now, we try to find (and even show her) the humor in the noise she makes. 

Parent Teacher Conferences

This Tuesday at VOICE Charter School, we will be having our first set of parent-teacher conferences. When I first found out about the parent teacher conferences, I just assumed that they would somehow jus naturally come together and that this would simply be another minor (informal) time commitment that would supplement the work that I am already doing on a daily basis in the classroom. This notion couldn’t have been further than the truth; there is so much more to parent-teacher conferences than what might at first meet the eye.

The central component to the conferences are the report cards. My co-teacher and I spent several hours this week after school ended working through the 30 report cards we had to complete. This entailed inputting both behavioral and academic grades, filling out performance indicators, adding detailed comments and revising to make sure that our comments were specific, measurable and in-line with the grades we gave. I had to really keep my writing focused to avoid writing too much (although the temptation to just write everything on my mind was ever present.)

Having finished report cards, we then moved on to scheduling the actual conferences. The conferences will all occur on Tuesday from 1-8pm with a two hour break in the middle. Each conference is to last 10 minutes. The tricky part during scheduling was making sure the conferences were convenient for the 12 or so families in our class with siblings in lower grades. This prompted a high volume of emails exchanged between my co-teacher and I and the other teachers in the school, as we all tried to coordinate the meetings to make everything convenient for parents. We were able to resolve most of the conflicts after much work on this and several notes home to parents requesting their flexibility.

The last step was the actual preparation for the meetings. We collected writing samples, exam booklets, behavior notes and created talking points for each conference. Doing so required hours of planning and preparation. My hope is that each parent will have a solid idea of where his or her child stands in comparison with 3^rd grade benchmarks, where they can grow/improve and how the parent can best support their children. Yet, even with all this preparation, I still feel somewhat unprepared. I wonder how parents will respond to these meetings. I’m also interested to see how many parents will show up, what kind of questions they will have and how they will react to constructive feedback of their children. In a few days I will hopefully be able to report back on how these conferences go.

Meet Jorgelys Q.

           Almost everyday, one of my students says or does something that completely catches me off guard. When Jorgelys Q. walked into Room 206 in early September with her goofy grin, round face and slightly playful skip, I knew almost immediately that there would always be something to smile about with her in the class.

            I don’t think I have yet to meet a student so happy and full of joy as Jorgelys. It’s amazing—she is just always happy. It doesn’t matter whether she is taking a Math test, getting chastised by the assistant principal for singing in the bathroom or walking in a silent, single-file line to class. She comes to school everyday with a slightly goofy smile and a joyful sparkle in her eye. 

             

Early this past week, we had a really rough day where the class as a whole was off-task, incessantly chattering, squirming on the rug during mini-lessons and, generally, behaving disrespectfully towards each other and towards the teachers. It got so bad, that at one point in the day I nearly lost it and raised my voice well above where it ought to be to quiet the 30 rambunctious little bodies in the room. It was very clear to the entire class that I was not happy.

 Yet, even in the midst of my stern chastisement, Jorgelys maintained her goofy smile. I think the grin may have even widened a little. Infuriated by her apparent insolence, I demanded that she let me know what she thought was so funny. She simply shrugged her shoulders and grinned at me. “I don’t know Mr. Miller? I’m just so happy and excited. For some reason I’m so happy today—I can’t even control it.” She then wobbled over to her seat and began to hum “Yankee Doodle” in the most nonchalant and innocent way. She was completely unaware that I had just spent 2 minutes asking the class to bring the noise level down to “Level 0.”    

   

In the midst of that heated moment, I couldn’t help but be amused by her innocent and joyful attitude towards life. Here was a little girl who wouldn’t let anything, even the stern, scary teacher bring her down. Learning for her is, and I hope always will be, a joyful, fun process.

The First Week of Summer School

Thought of the Day

Tuesday July 5th I walked into Room 414 of M.S. 336 at 7:05am and looked around at the walls filled with colorful posters, desks arranged in neat rows and bookshelves filled with supplies. After months of the TFA application process, weeks of paperwork and surveys, days of training sessions and hours of classroom decorating I was finally "ready" to teach. And yet, somehow, I had no idea what I was doing nor what to expect when I went downstairs to pick up my students from the school cafeteria.

That was almost one week ago. As you may have guessed from my failure to post more recent updates, its been an incredibly intense and time consuming week. That first day of summer school is something I won't easily forget. Although I have obviously been through middle school and had the invaluable experience of interning with TFA last summer, somehow I had forgotten what it was like to be in middle school. The first day all the students had to take assessments so that we could gauge where they were and how to best prepare them for 9th grade. As you can imagine they were not thrilled to be doing this. My students averaged a 26% on their assessments. And yet, when I saw these results, I wasn't the least bit surprised. During the assessments, the students were constantly talking, asking to go to the bathroom, falling a sleep and showing a general apathy towards the tests. During one of the later assessments, two students even engaged in a rowdy shoving contest before it was broken up by one of my co-teachers.

The next day I returned to school with my work cut-out for me. And yet I approached that day with a zero-tolerance, no-messing-around attitude. I was determined to divide and conquer - to get my students focused and back on track to make it to 9th grade. I came in with a well thought out management plan and was ready to be stern and serious, only loosening up if my students demonstrated that they were going to stay focused and approach learning more enthusiastically. For the next two days, the class behaved better. I was excited by the improvement in behavior, especially amongst the more rambunctious individuals. Yet when I returned to school this morning - it was as though my students had forgotten how to behave over the weekend. We were back to the first day of school where talking out of turn, swearing, bickering and sleeping in class was acceptable. And while I was able to keep the class moving, I know that not everyone was on track. Bottom line, more than one student was left behind today.

Tomorrow, I hope to heighten my energy level and bring a strong management tone back to the classroom to keep everyone on track. With students, especially 8th graders, you can not afford to let your guard down. As a teacher sometimes the classroom is a battlefield. The key is to show them that you are on their side. You are there to help them conquer the academic challenges between them and high school. Learning can be fun and it can be rewarding. I want to instill this mindset into my students because I want every single one of my students to graduate and move on to high school. Hopefully tomorrow I can take a step closer to that goal.


Daily Round Up: Highs and Lows

• Low: 6 lesson plans due on one day. That's right, between my summer school lesson plans and an interview, I had six lesson plans due last Thursday.
• High: My Corp Member Adviser, Amber Shepherd, was incredibly willing to work with me and give me a small extension on some of these lesson plans
• Low: Monday Morning Misbehavior. I don't know what happens over the weekend, but my students were not focused this morning. Here's to hoping Tuesday is better.
• High: Working with a team of incredibly hard-working and intelligent people. In particular, my Collaborative (Rebeca Egler, Travis Price and Michelle Benjamin) as well as the other 8th grade ELA teachers at M.S. 331 (Carly Chittim, Jeff Tamburri, Analeise Pigg). These guys have been doing amazing things in such little time. Can't wait to see what they accomplish in 2 years.