Does it show?

Ah, Spring Break is over. Quite the sad deal, but at least now I know that we only have 8.5 weeks left to go until the end of the year. Really, this year has been about surviving instead of teaching.

However, today I got a peculiar comment. It's the second time I've gotten this comment from strangers. The first time was from a substitute teacher that used to be on the Board of Education here in St. Louis. I went into his classroom (or, actually, Dang's classroom) to help him with a particularly rowdy group of 8th graders. While circling the room, I helped students get on task and told them a few ways to get started with the work (8 pages worth of reading). When I turned around, the sub was standing close and had a strange look on his face. Tilting his head to the side, he said, "You really care about these kids, don't you?" I nodded, wondering why he would make such a crazy comment; you don't become a teacher when you hate children, and you definitely don't work in the city if you can't like at least some of the kids. He then nodded back and said, "You know, you should be the next superintendent! I could give you a good reference. I was on the board for (X amount of) years. We need more people like you in this district. We need a change! People who care for the children!" He continued to ramble on while I became pale. I finally stuttered out, "Uhhh... this is only my first year teaching. I don't think I could be super." I then exited the room as quickly as I could before he could rope me into any more conversation.

Today, I was talking with Jenny and a sub for Kelli. As we were discussing some of the 7th graders, the sub suddenly said to me--with the same look that Dang's sub had had, one of astonished awe--"You really care for these kids, don't you?" I let her know that I did, and she smiled broadly.

... Does it show, or something? Maybe in my speech, it comes out? Regardless, isn't that such a strange comment? Shouldn't you be a teacher if you care for children and their welfare, their mental health, and general smarts? I do, but at the same time I feel like I am the worst teacher ever. I don't know; I know I have a lot to learn, basically. And I feel like everyone else has it all together--Dang, Brienne, Jenny, and Ashley especially; she is so on the ball and has such great control of the kids--while I'm struggling to make it every day. Apples to oranges, I know, I know. But still. It's hard not to compare.

This week has been particularly hard since it's right after spring break, and it's a shortened week due to parent-teacher conferences on Thursday night and Friday. They've been rowdy, and rather psycho in the case of many of them. However, there are some that are really buckling down and working their butts off. Or, they have for these three days, anyhow. Next week is a crapshoot.

For journals, I'm having them write about the rules of the reading area, and just a general refresher on the procedures. I feel like they tend to forget over the weekend what they're supposed to do in my class.

We're also experimenting with expository paragraphs. We have a model written by Read180, and then we have a graphic organizer where they can shift through the different aspects of their neighborhood. A mistake I've made on the graphic organizer is that I took it too literal--what they meant by neighborhood was that of the city the students live in, not the actual neighborhood. So some of my classes have a harder paragraph to write compared to my later hours when I realized my error.

For some students, I'm differentiating instruction by not doing the expository paragraph, and instead I'm using sight words to help them string together sentences and create more fluency. With Hatija, she is having a really hard time with it. She likes it sometimes, but today she was literally sweating over getting them right. Granted, I had made some of the sentences a little harder because for a hot minute she was getting them quickly, but it was still hard for her to do them. For example, for a sentence that I had made to string together to say, Would she read about boys, Hatija mixed them together to say, She read would about boys. After I talked with her for a minute, and read them aloud, had her read the sentence aloud, she realized that the sentence made no sense (she can generally tell when they aren't right). However, she suddenly started to say, "I need the! She would read a lot the boys." I was confused for a moment. I pointed to the card she had gotten wrong and I said, "What's this word again?" She pronounced it correctly and said, "Ohhhh. About. But I still need the. She would read about the boys." I talked her out of it, but I still don't think she understood why I was telling her that she didn't need an article to explain the situation about reading.

Hatija needs a lot of work. Sometimes I wish I had a class of just her so that I could work one-on-one with her more often, but it's just not meant to be like that apparently. But she's very receptive, and she tries very hard. However, she really likes the sight-words-into-sentences game we play. She whined that she didn't like writing the sentences down though. When I told her that it was one of the only ways to make sure her writing got better, she relented. Hatija then commented quietly, "I like this. It makes me feel like I'm actually learning." I cocked my head to the side and asked, "You don't feel like you learn doing other things?" She shrugged and replied, "I feel like I can do this. Like I'm learning."

Adrijana, Brenda, Azra, and Seth were given the cards too, and I made it a race to see who could make a sentence the fastest. They were getting them right and left, not pausing for a minute to have to read the words again. Working in pairs, they got the sentences done quickly. Adrijana whooped when she and Brenda won overall, and cried out happily, "Ms. Franklin, this was so much fun! We have got to do this more often! I actually feel like I'm doing something when I do this!" The other groups agreed, and Azra snuggled her way into my arms and said, "Can we do this again tomorrow?"

Perhaps I should make a ton more cards and make it a thing we do at least once a week?

By the way, I'm still confused as to what I'm doing with my data.