way #3: They've Got Street Smarts

Every year come February, panic sets in and school-wide initiatives are put in place to prepare students for the dreaded ISAT. Standardized testing is the much hated but inevitable part of a teacher's job. This year we spent days putting together a unit to teach testing skills to our students and help them to pass this test.

Some facts: in Illinois, the standardized test is the ISAT, or Illinois Standardized Achievement Test. It is required for all students in third through eighth grade to take these tests. The test contains reading, math, and science. Until last year, it also included writing, but due to budget cuts, writing is no longer assessed in Illinois.

Schools are evaluated based on these tests. Schools have to meet AYP, or adequate yearly progress, each year. The goal was for all students to be at grade level by the year 2014. Therefore, if a school missed AYP one year, the next year the bar is set even higher and the school is responsible for both years' growth. This is all thanks to No Child Left Behind. Obviously, all students will not be on grade level by the year 2014 and the result is the need for changes in the legislation.

However, despite the high bar of all students, the scary part is the low bar of what "meets standards" at a grade level. This year, if a student ranks in the 35th percentile for reading or the 27th for math, they will meet standards for grade level. I imagine that I am not the only person who is horrified both because of the low standards for meeting grade level as well as the low numbers of students who meet grade level given the standards.

However, I digress. ISAT prep time can be a nightmare. It is hard to prepare students to take the test while simultaneously trying to expose them to the concepts that will be on the test that are very often completely separate from their life experiences. Case in point, when teaching sixth graders, half of whom were English Language Learners, the reading passage they had to respond to was about loons. Not one student in the class had ever heard of a loon, as loons are not city-dwellers, and the students are hardly spending summers at their parents' lake cabins. (Coming from Minnesota, it made me warm and nostalgic.)

A colleague recently re-framed my thinking when she referred to teaching testing skills as a social justice issue, allowing low income, urban students to access the test material in the same way as their more affluent, less disadvantaged peers.

The good news is that the students come to the table with a lot, even if it isn't always the information you wish they would know. Students are often very knowledgeable about how to live, how to survive, and other street smarts. Students regularly get their "lick" back and punch someone who punched them, regardless of school rules. Students will cough or spit on food so no one touches it. All in all, it can be a little Lord of the Flies.

Then again, sometimes it can be hilarious, like the gem of this response. The story was Rumplestiltskin, and the job was for students to respond to whether or not they thought the woman was right in promising Rumplestiltskin her first born child if she didn't plan on actually giving her child to him. While many of the responses left a smile, this one made me laugh out loud. And let's be honest, she's got a point... even if she doesn't meet standards on ISAT.

way #2: They cut through the crap

One of the classes I thoroughly enjoyed taking for my master's degree was on special education and special education law. The class was taught by a man with ADHD who had developed very strong coping mechanisms to deal with his ADHD without medication. He also wrote the book, From Disability to Possibility which is honestly worth the twenty dollars as it provides an excellent framework for how to educate and interact with people who have varying disabilities.

Perhaps due to the special education audit during my first year of teaching, or the fact that my mom, aunt, and best friend are all special education teachers, I care deeply about making sure that all students in my class get what they need, including those with special needs. (For the record, gifted and talented does fall under special needs, and I also feel strongly that we miss our gifted students in an effort to meet the needs of our struggling students.)

I am generally the hemorrhoid on the ass of the non-compliant team member at an IEP meeting for any of my students with special needs. These meeting consist of a lot of people with a lot of specialized degrees determining the disability and subsequent educational plan and placement for a student. As a result of the Corey H legislation, in which Chicago Public Schools was sued for violating the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, all students are required to be educated in the least restrictive environment. In layman's terms, that means that it is illegal to have students with special needs holed up in a basement or a trailer somewhere, left with an incompetent glorified babysitter to rot and die. Student must be with their grade level peers as much as possible in accordance with their disability. In practice, schools strapped for cash in the budget very often fall out of compliance with this legislation as it takes a team of highly motivated (and usually intelligent) people to creatively work out scheduling for all the students with special needs. I believe that this is possible, but it is astounding the number of people that believe that all students should be placed in a self contained classroom, over-exaggerating the disability of a student in order to do so.

I have been called to the office on more than one occasion (at a school whose name will be withheld) and told that under no circumstances am I to tell parents' their rights as an advocate for their child with disabilities because then we might be faced with a lawsuit. "And, I'm tired. I can't sit in front of another lawyer."

In the day to day, practicing the least restricted environment plays out much differently. Students need to know how to interact with all shapes, sizes, and colors of people, and having a student with unique needs (which is in honestly ALL students) makes it possible for us to have conversations about how to make sure that we are respectful and kind to everyone, even those different from ourselves. The phrase used repeatedly is: "Fair means everyone gets what they need."

For the most part, I have been touched by the many ways that young children internalize that and work to be friends with each other. One sixth grade student I taught made sure to sit next to his classmate each day at lunch. His classmate is autistic, and would often not each lunch. Realizing this before any of the adults, my student created a competition with the autistic student to see who could finish their lunch first. When asked about it later, he said quite simply that he knew the student with autism needed to eat, so he had to come up with a way to make sure he did.

One of my third grade students has a cognitive delay. He functions lower in cognitive and motor abilities. On the playground there are many opportunities for this to be a challenge, especially during group games. However, the other students have recognized his desire to play and make sure to tag him "it" at least once per game. After letting him run after them for a short time, several students stand close enough so he can catch them. They do this all without any coaching or prompting.

There are many, many ways in which my students have warmed my heart by reaching out to the other students around them, even those who are different. But it can also be a challenge. Sitting in the computer lab after school, Michael asked why he wasn't able to go on Cartoon Network like his peer, Martin. I explained to him that everyone gets what they need, and what he needed was to go on the testing prep game site, while the other student had earned those minutes on Cartoon Network. Michael didn't seem totally convinced, but he went back to playing his ISAT prep games.

A few minutes later, Michael realized that Toby was also on a different website. I explained again that Toby got to go on one site because that's what he needed. I felt pretty good about the conversation, because I also threw in that neither Toby or Martin get to go on Word to write articles for the newspaper like Michael did, because that's something only he needed. I was pretty sure the message had gotten through until I heard Michael mutter, just loud enough for me to hear, "Everyone else has better needs than me..."

Alas, there is always more teaching to do.

way #1: they don't rub embarrassing moments in your face

Several weeks ago I was sitting down to play a game with my students on the rug. Our math curriculum is heavily reliant on games to reinforce fact practice, so I try to incorporate game time into our math block several times a week. That day we were playing a rousing round of number top it, in which the two players draw cards one by one from the deck and try to make the largest seven digit number they can.

I enjoy playing with the kids, as it allows me to both bond with the students as well as cream them with my superior math skills. (If you judge me, you obviously don't have children) About half way through playing our third round of number top it, I looked down in my lap and caught a glimpse of leopard print. I did a double take.

Perhaps now is the time to insert some background information. I own a chihuahua who, alongside keeping me company and outpacing me on my training runs, also has a bad habit of chewing on things, specifically crotches of things. And by things I mean pants.

The screech I let out was about as subtle as the half dollar shaped hole in the middle of the crotch of my pants. It definitely did little in the way of drawing attention away from this obvious humiliation. However, I did my best to "discretely" pull my shirt, which was mercifully long, over the hole and play it cool hoping the three nine year old boys had not spent the last ten minutes of our playing number top it looking at my pants... or what was left of them.

I had to make a decision, to play off the whole situation and hope that, despite it being 1:30 in the afternoon and school having been in session for five hours of learning, squatting, and yoga-styled sitting, maybe none of the students had noticed. Or I could address the situation head on and grab the bull by the balls, so to speak, announcing that I was aware there was a hole in my crotch, and own it.

I definitely tried to play it off and prayed to God that none of my students had noticed.

Unfortunately while letting the students clean up from math, I heard snippets of conversation that made me feel pretty confident that they all knew.

"Well... no one's gonna tell her!!"

And there were the sideways looks and smirks that made it a safe bet that the students not only knew what had happened, but were one recess break away from spreading the news school-wide. It's incredible that whether as a third grader, or a third grade teacher, no one is immune from the school gossip chain.

Yeah, it was embarrassing. Yes, I screamed about it on the phone with my friend immediately following dismissal. Of course I made extra sure to keep my legs closed and shirt pulled down. But the good thing is that I didn't receive any phone calls from parents, demanding to know why their child is talking about the pattern of my panties. The kids were cool enough to keep it between us, which is pretty decent.

Also, I threw away the pants.

In way of introductions

I am writing this blog not because I have something particularly new or enlightening to say, but because I find myself at a crossroads. I am half way through my fifth year of teaching in a high needs, urban setting. Also, I am exhausted. Looking at the next few years, it is easy to become overwhelmed with the idea of another year, another set of needs, more referrals and groupings, pushing students to achieve two to three years of academic growth in one academic year. The political climate does little in the way of alleviating tension or stress, and though dedicated to my job, committed to the ideals of closing the achievement gap in America, and relatively successful at what I do... I want to quit.

This blog is a challenge to myself to find 500 ways, 500 reasons, 500 stories, 500 moments that remind me why I get up each morning. Along with teaching third graders, I also work with a junior high youth group of unconventional tweens in an unconventional church. I am surrounded by young people who literally make each day worthwhile, and I lose sight of that in the midst of testing and note-taking, and the daily barrage of emails and to-dos.

Alas, I digress into sentimental mush, something I anticipate there will be plenty of through-out the following 500 entries. But let me be clear that I in no way plan to romanticize what happens in the day to day. Kids can be bratty, entitled, obnoxious, rude, and plain dumb. Then again, so can we all... and that's what will make all of this so much fun.