Was I right?

I'm unsure if whether I did the right thing or not. I mean, I've been in her shoes--I've been in that spot where you think that no one cares about you, and that no one sees that you're in pain; you don't do your work because you don't care anymore, and you're bad to yourself because you don't care anymore. At Lauren's age, I didn't do drugs like she does, apparently. I didn't smoke. But mentally, I understand where she's at.

One of my sixth graders got in a fight today with another girl. Now, I wasn't there, but I heard second hand from another teacher that apparently it stemmed from the question that Lauren asked another girl: "Do you smoke weed?" Somehow, the conversation escalated to the point of both girls shoving one another and ending up in a fight later in the day. Lauren's getting suspended and the other girl is getting ISS for fighting back, since Lauren started with the shoving.

Lauren's background tells me something of her mental state at the moment: her mother and father both left her, so she's living with her grandma who apparently has a very hard time taking care of her. Lauren's in the quiet rebellion stage; she's not flamboyant or loud in class, and she's the opposite from disruptive by barely speaking up at all. She's one of my best students, actually.

So, when I was leaving today, I saw that Lauren still had no one to pick her up. The other girls' parents had showed up, talked to the teachers, vice principal, and a translator, and had left. An hour after school ended, she was still in the building waiting for someone to take her home.

I didn't take her home. I thought about it for a moment, but cancelled that idea. Too much of a liability--what if I got hit and she sued me? I could legally be sued for something like that. So I did the next best thing that I could think of.

"Having a bad day?" I asked her, as I passed by her. Her eyes were still bloodshot from crying after being chewed out by the various people that had done so.

Lauren nodded and her eyes flamed red. "Yeah, something like that."

She looked me in the eyes for a moment, then glanced away. "I got suspended."

"I know," I nodded, and Lauren looked at me, surprised for a moment, and then looked away. She nodded and said, "Oh."

I looked at her for a moment longer and then said, "Do you need a hug?"

Lauren's eyes shot to mine and filled with surprised tears. Her face scrunched up and she looked undecisive for a moment. Then she sobbed out, "Yes," and threw herself into my arms.

I was taken a little by surprise myself; I had expected her to say no, or be more timid about it. She hugged me very tightly, crying slightly.

"You know, everyone has bad days, and that's okay. Today was just a really bad day."

Lauren nodded and pulled away, wiping her eyes. "Yeah."

I smiled at her. "But when you come back, it's going to be all right. You're going to have better days. You're not a bad kid, Lauren. I truly like you, and I believe that you have some real good in you."

Lauren smiled back and nodded, her eyes darting away from mine as she blushed.

"If you ever need me for anything, you can always come talk to me, Lauren. Just call me or something--"

"I don't have your number," she laughed. She put her hands in her pocket.

And here's where I'm unsure if I did the right thing. I stalled for a moment before finally asking,

"Would you like my number?"

Her face lit up. "Really? Okay. Yeah."

I gave it to her (again, surprised, thinking she'd say no), as well as a 100 calorie pack of cheetos since she hadn't eaten since 10 a.m. for 6th grade lunch (hell, I was hungry!), and another hug.

I left her with the words of contacting me if she needed me, and she was giggling a little when I left, seemingly cheered a little. No one had gotten her by the time I left. I don't know how long she stayed up there.

While it wasn't right that she had gotten physical with someone today, she's still just a kid and needed that assurance that it was okay to have bad days. It's okay to not be perfect all the time, and that they'll still be loved after bad decisions.

It's good to know that someone loves them. I wanted her to know that I love her, flaws and all. I hope all my students know that.

I was terrified.

So, I'm pretty sure I've got a target painted on my shirt at all times. It says, "Morons of the world, please converge in this general area."

Yesterday was Professional Development for teachers at Long, so the students didn't have school but I still had to be there. Lunch was from eleven to noon, so I went to Applebees with some of the Teach for America crew. I got there last.

I saw Jenny V. walk around the corner of Applebees and parked next to her. As I was pulling into the spot that was next to hers, I noticed that a man was almost walking into the spot I was going to park into. I slowed down so he could walk past, but instead he stopped by Jenny's car and let me park.

When I looked up as I opened my car door, he was standing next to Jenny's driver-side door staring at me. As soon as I opened my door he said to me, "You look very nice today." It was as if we'd had this conversation every day of our lives, and he was here meeting me for lunch. I frowned slightly out of confusion, and embarrassment at the compliment, and then smiled. "Thank you."

I leaned over and got my purse, wondering if whether I was wrong and that it hadn't been Jenny's car that I had parked next to after all. I felt creeped out; when I looked over to get out of my car, he was smiling at me with a strange, vacant smile. His eyes watched my every motion, and they were watery as if he was about to start crying at any time. I shut my door slowly and began to walk to the front of my car. He followed.

He was next to me before I even realized he had gotten that close. He had on a heavy, forest green Six Flags collared shirt. It was untucked, and he had a white shirt or towel in his hand. He had on black pants. Up close, his face looked even more vacant of emotion--it was as if there was nothing inside of him; his eyes were watery and staring directly into mine, never once leaving my face, and truth be told, I was too scared to take my eyes off of his.

"Where are you going? Why are you leaving me? Where are you going?"

I froze. He stepped even closer. He was practically touching me. "I'm meeting some friends for lunch."

He seemed to get very upset at this information, and his face screwed up and showed some emotion for the first time. "Why are you leaving me? How can we stay in touch? Can I get your number? I want to call you tomorrow, ask you how your day was, to see how you're doing. I want to talk to you again. I want to make sure we stay in touch; we can stay friends. What's your number?"

My mind literally searched for answers as he got even closer to me. If I had leaned forward slightly, my nose would have touched his chin. I was feeling the flighty part of me begging to run, but I was too terrified to move. He seemed ready to do whatever it took to keep me there, and out of my peripheral vision I could see his hands twisting around the white fabric in his hands. Why did Jenny have to walk around the corner!?

"I'm sorry. I'm engaged," I finally blurted.

A strange expression flickered across his face; I cannot even begin to describe it. If it's possible, his eyes filled with even more liquid, and he slowly leaned back. He took one step backwards, then another.

"Well," he said, "have a nice day."

I felt as if a line had been lifted, and I knew then that if I didn't get away then, I wouldn't get the chance later. I immediately turned around, ducked my head, and walked swiftly away. I peeked back once and saw him staring at me, his face twisted into an angry frown, walking the length of my car. I clicked lock on my keychain and made my car beep twice. Then I practically bolted into Applebees. I shook for a good long time.

I had pepper spray/tear gas in my purse, but it wasn't until later that someone suggested that I should have pretended to be looking for my phone and have gotten that out; I don't think that "Excuse me while I look for my mace" would have worked. But... he just seemed so unstable that I'm positive that I would have lost that fight. Especially with how close he was to me. He would have seen the contents of my purse in no time.

I'm desperately thinking about taking self-defense courses. That was too close to comfort.

I guess they like me now

So yesterday, I got my first "because you're my teacher."

I asked a student of mine to tuck in his shirt in the hall, which is part of their uniform policy. He smiled at me and had the gall to look bashful. Then he said, in broken English (he's been in the US for a little over a year from either Bosnia or Russia), "I do it for you. Not Mrs. Blue. She ask me to tuck in but I no do that. I tuck in for you."

I stared at him for a moment and said, "Did Mrs. Blue, our principal, who can give you ISS for something like this, ask you to tuck in your shirt? Why didn't you do it?"

Sevdar shrugged and said, "She no my teacher. You my teacher. I do it for you."

I've had him all of two days! I guess he feels pretty comfortable around me now. I don't know. It just shocked me.

And I got my first poem today as well! A 6th grader named Emina wrote a poem about me which had me blushing profusely and being all bashful and whatnot. When she turns in the final copy I'll put it here. It's unbelievable! (Literally. I'm no where near what she wrote.)

And I've noticed that kids I have no clue who are are saying Hi to be in the halls now. One girl in particular starts blushing and her shoulders hunch up, and she smiles silly and says, "Hiiii Ms. Franklin...." It took me forever to figure out who she was, until I remembered that I had coerced her to get 7 hours of sleep by saying to her, "Now, I know you don't know me (I'm Ms. Franklin), and I don't know you, but you're looking awfully tired. Are you feeling okay? No? Okay, so promise me that you're going to get at the very least 7 hours of sleep tonight. In the morning, stop in my room and say, 'Hi Ms. Franklin! I'm feeling refreshed and awake today!'" She had giggled and whatnot, and never showed up. But I guess I had made quite the impression because she now says hi to me all the freaking time!

And I've noticed that they're sort of... territorial. Such as, if I'm approached by another teacher, they all tense up and crowd around me as if to show their support. For example, during the various fire drills we've had, they ran off into the enclosed area outside to talk to their friends from other classes. I didn't mind; I could see them at all times and knew where they were. Plus, someone was blocking the exits. Well, when my mentor came over to make sure I had everyone, they all materialized out of no where and stood right next to me, making sure I didn't get in trouble. It's bizzare! I love it!

To blog or not to blog, that is the question...

So, I'm having my students work on a poetry contest for www.weeklyreader.com. Some are really into it, while others are feeling rather... uninterested?

"Do I really have to write poetry? I have some poems at home I can use. I just can't think straight. I can't think at all." (Seth, 6th)

"Can we write about Long Middle School?" (Ibro, 6th)

"Can we write about the Where I'm From poems?" (Deavon and Omida, 6th)


I'm thinking though... do I want to start up blogging with the students? I mean, I don't have Read180 or Achieve3000, and I highly doubt I'm going to get either of those programs for a long while. So, should I have them blog as a way to increase their technical skills? Some of them are so bad with the computer that they hardly know their way around the internet ("What's address bar? And how do I do the picture thing again?" (Kevon, 8th), while others are breaking through the firewall and downloading porn onto the desktop. It's mind-boggling!

Almost all of them don't have email addresses that I know of, and that means that I'd have to create an email for each one of them. So... would it be worth it?

Starting to get a litte more than just frustrated...

So, I'm starting to get a lot more annoyed that the Read180 program isn't up and running yet. I've had no help regarding on how to start it up on the computer, if the students have to have names to get on, what on earth are the cds for?, and how do I get the results from SRI? What does the program look like? Once I log onto the computers that are supposed to be within the program, what then? What do I click? WHAT WHAT WHAT!?

Laurencia looked ill today when I saw her for the five seconds that I did; she hadn't stopped by or anything other than to tell me that she had something for the related arts team. I can't help but wonder if she's running herself ragged, and I kinda want to shake her and say, "You're here for me and Ashley!! I'm going to be selfish soon just so that you will Quit Killing Yourself!" Also, I kinda want to shake her so that she'll spill information about Read180 out of her ears from her brain, allowing me to know what I'm supposed to do and how to implement it.

Anyhow, right now I'm having the students finish up their Donner Projects and continue reading the book. Also, they've started up on a poetry contest in which they can win $100, a medal, and a publication in Readers Weekly magazine. Of course they griped about having to write poetry, until they learned about the prize! Some of their work really surprised me. When they finish, I'll definitely post some for posterity (and for my final 40 page paper's!) sake.

I learned that I was going to have to start taking pictures and video of the students, and so I began to take some pictures today of students reading and writing. The students were, of course, very self-concious and stared glossy-eyed at their books or papers while I took some photos. Once I had done so, it was like a collective sigh of relief from each student: "Oh good. She's finished. Now I can actually concentrate on not reading instead of looking like I'm reading." One boy, Danijel, freaked out because he was in the reflection center.

"Ms. Frankle! Ms. Frankle! Take my picture! Why don't chu take my picture??" Danijel posed, making a sideways peace sign, his lips puckered and head tilted back. I turned away from him, tucking my camera away into the little black purse-turned-camera-bag. "Until I see that you're actually attempting the assignment, I'm not going to be taking any pictures of you." Unfortunately, he never got on-task enough to get his picture taken.

Within the same class, a lovely 6th grader--Omida--turned in a paper titled "Ramadan." She had asked me exhuberantly on Friday afternoon, "Ms. Frankleen can I do an extra credit paper on my favorite cultural holiday? I'll have it for you by Monday, I promise!" I was so shocked that she asked, and was even more shocked by the quality of work that she turned in. I decided to make a poster of it and put it out into the hallway for other students to see. I'll take a picture of it tomorrow. She even put the font in fancy, hard-to-read script! Now that took some thinking. : )

"Ms. FrankIN? Can I call you Ms. FrankINstein?"

It's rather humorous and borderline annoying that the students can't seem to get my name right. I've had the following:

Frankin
Frannkleen
Ms... Ms....
Teacher?
Filkin
Filklin
etc.

Never my real name, which is odd. If they're having trouble with my name this year, how are they going to get Devenport next year?

Anyhow, I've had quite the success with my Donner Party Scrapbook Project. I've helped the kids out a little, printing out color pictures and helping them with their spelling and whatnot; I just want them to be proud of their work. And while, yes, a lot of them rushed straight through it so they could play today, much of their work went above and beyond my expectations.

With the Read180 program, the students are at Level 1 at the moment, and we're reading a very, very simplified version of what happened to the Donners, and how they ended up eating the dead in order to survive their entrapment in the mountains. However, I would change something before beginning this scrapbooking project again: reading the book half-way through and having them do the project made them a little more confused than if we were to have read the whole way through. That was my bad; I should have been smarter about it before jumping into a very extensive project where the students needed to know the information about the Donners (not that half of them would have picked up on the fact that they ate the dead; it's like a line out of the whole book). I'm sure that reading this, you are thinking, "Umm... what were you thinking? Of COURSE they would need the whole story!" I was just too pumped about the project to think that far ahead, of course. But, the students loved it!

"Ms. Filklin, do you think it would be cool if I made the history of the Donner Party into a little booklet of my own? I'll even color the pages and everything!" (Maria, 6th)

"Will I get extra credit if I include CPR and Hypothermia together?" (Seth, 6th)

"What? They eated people? Now why would they do that?" (Dzenaijla, 8th).

One eighth grade boy, Damir, chose to be the Pictoralist, and called me over to him while he was looking at pictures that people had painted of the Western landscape. "Ms... Ms.. Fran..k. C'mere. There's a UFO in this picture. Fer real. A UFO."

I walked over and saw that he had the mouse held down over the picture, making it so that there was a circle with a line in the middle (think No Smoking signs). "Ah. See? I knew they existed! X-Files was RIGHT."

Damir giggled and said, "Naw, man, they don't exist. That's fake. See? This one's the real thing. See the dot? That's a UFO."

It was a tiny black speck on the painting. "Oh man, I was so fooled."

"Man! Ms. Frank! UFOs don't exist!"

Later today, when he and Juan turned in their work for the pictoralist, he stood expectantly, staring at me. I looked up at him and said, "Yes?"

"You gonna look at my pictures or what?" He giggled and looked over at Juan, and wouldn't meet my eyes.

I looked down and was completely shocked at the quality of their work; they had put a lot into the pictures, and I was about to praise him and Juan when I noticed something odd in the corner of each picture: A single UFO. In every picture. It was hilarious! I laughed pretty hard, and Damir and Juan got a big kick out of it as well. It felt like a great bonding moment, considering I've had some trouble with them in the past.

Damir is also teaching me Bosnian. He taught me, after I replied with a "thank you" to him, that in Bosnian you say Hfala (Heefahlah). I put it on the word wall, and a lot of the Bosnians questioned me on if whether I knew Bosnian. I gladly let them know that Damir took all the credit, and he blushed heavily and said, "Naw. Naw man. Naw."

Changing my outlook

Things weren't going so well in my head, for a long time. I don't know how else to put it; I was exhausting myself looking through each student's eyes and wondering, "Why are you being so... not what I want you to be?" It's hard for me to admit that. Hard for me to admit that I was attempting to shape the children into what I wanted them to be, instead of what they wanted to be. I sound so selfish, so narcissistic. And in a sense, I am supposed to shape them to my expectations, but not to the point where I'm forcing them to be something they're not.

I needed a change, and fast. What could I do to change their behavior, to make them listen instead of rebuke me at every shot? I had more bad days than good days, and it was a chore to get worked up over wanting to be in the classroom. I told myself that it was just because it was the first of the school year, not because of me.

But it was me. It was me.

Now, I don't blame every iota of my problems in the classroom on myself; some of my students are ultimately the most naughty children I've ever laid my eyes on, and they have attitudes the size of their pint-sized bodies and aren't afraid to throw it around like they just didn't care (and still don't care!). They are devious, mischevious, and down-right mean to one another and disrespectful to me.

But that was the crux. They are children. Here I was, treating them as if they were my peers learning with me, throwing information at them that they had a hard time comprehending. Some of that comprehension-issue stems from the fact that I am dealing with a large majority of lower-leveled students, but hell, practically 85% of our school is comprised of lower-level students, so why should that matter? The other side was that I wasn't asking the right things of them. I wasn't being specific enough. They didn't know that I wanted them to write more than 2 words on their warm-up, because I never specified that I wanted more from them. Laurencia keyed me into that small glitch, and I'm still working hard on correcting that mistake.

Something I needed to change was, and still is, my teaching style. At the beginning of the year, I told myself that I would take no crap, no talking out of turn without a hand raised, silence is golden during reading time or when I'm talking, blah blah blah... I had all of these invisible rules that I was holding the children accountable for, while forcing myself to follow them, even when the rules were so out of synch with the classroom, my students, and myself. I got frustrated, and angry, especially with the students. Why didn't they know what I wanted from them? Couldn't they just tell? Hell no, they couldn't tell! I had to tell them my expectations in order for them to be met.

Everyday is different, I'll say that much. Good days are starting to hold a little sway over the bad days, but there are still moments where I wonder, "Why did I choose this profession? Am I masochistic? Do I like being hurt on a daily basis?" Then I think of a warm moment, where I shared a silly, stupid, wonderful joke with a student over the material--or not over the matierial--and I remember that I really do like kids. Perhaps it makes me masochistic. Perhaps that makes me human.

And I'm still pretty lost. I feel like, even though Laurencia is literally working her tail off for me on this Read180 program and trying to help me get it set up and working, that I'm still grasping for straws on what to teach, how to teach it, and if I'm being effective in what I'm attempting to have them do. It could just be because I'm a first-year teacher. It could also be that I'm not prepared enough to teach the material because I don't know the material. Or it just could be that I'm not getting it. But regardless, the dim, pin-point of a light at the end of the tunnel holds some hope for me, and I'm damned proud of the fact that I've made it through the first three and a half weeks with my psyche still intact.

I will say this though: I've lost some weight. Two or so pounds, but it's made a difference in how my clothes hang.

Hmm...

You know you've been in teacher meetings too long when you see an Altima GLE and think of Grade Level Expectations.