I knew today was going to be an utter failure by 8:31AM. The students entered the door at 8:30AM, and I greeted them while trying to simultaneously enter grades, take attendance, and shush them into submission. It took three quiet signals before the students became quiet, and even then the silence was interrupted by random humming, whistling, a few bird calls (made by students), and an underlying muttering from Quinn that became the soundtrack of our classroom for the next eight hours.
As teachers we create any number of reasons why we have days like these. It's a full moon, they served syrup at breakfast, it was a long weekend, it was a short weekend, it rained, it was sunny, it's hot, the kids are just crazy this year, nobody taught none of these kids any sense, and the list goes on. The truth is, being the only adult in the room, more often than not the blame lies on us. We are the agent of change in the room. We set the tone.
Or, in our classroom, the problem might have been that we missed a prep, had to do standardized testing, and in an effort to cool off the room, we kept the windows and window shades down all day, which is against my general principles on life. People need sun. The walls slowly started closing in on us until we were scratching at the doors and windows to be let out. Children started carving hatch marks into their desks to delineate the endless ocean of time. Misery ensued.
Here's an idea of what happened:
8:30-9:00 Morning Meeting: During our class meeting I had to interrupt the greeting not once, not twice, but eight times to remind the class to be quiet while someone else was sharing. Quinn was sent back to his seat when, after a three second pause for Kylie to think, he called out, "She's too short to talk!"
9:00-9:15 Bathroom Break: During bathroom break Tasha refused to get into the line because she "didn't need to go to no bathroom." This, despite having spent the previous ten minutes complaining about how badly she had to pee, and claiming I was evil for not letting her use the bathroom, even though it was apparent that we were preparing as a classroom to use the lav. When sent back to the room, Tasha decided that she did have to go to the bathroom after all, stomped down the hallway, and started trying to have a conversation with Mary.
Meanwhile, on the way back from the bathroom, Ronald was told to go to his line spot. Instead, he yelled out about how he hated this stupid school. Then, when told to step aside for a teacher conversation, he tried to force his way into the room, only to be blocked in an amazing play by linebacker Swanson. It took ten minutes, a phone call, a pep talk, and some more clever corralling before he was able to return to the room.
You get the point.
It's no big surprise that things were still going poorly by the time math rolled around. I looked into my teacher sleeve of tricks and decided it was time for an energizer. These are short songs or activities that you can do throughout the day that get kids moving and out of their seats. We played "Shark Attack".
Suddenly the mood in the room brightened. Kids started dancing. Sweet little voices sang the tune. Not even Ronald tried to ruin the moment with his usual antics of shouting the lyrics. I looked over at Kylie during my favorite part of the song. Something about the way she swings her tiny hips side to side while pretending to be a California surfer makes me chuckle every time. And there she was, putting as much sass and frass into that move as her three foot frame could muster.
Honestly, the day didn't really get much better. I was close to kicking the kids out the front door by four o'clock. Or I would have been, if they hadn't beaten me to it by running out the main entrance like dogs from an unlatched gate. But in that moment of singing Shark Attack I got a little bit of clarity.
School should be fun. Eight-year-olds need to play. Yes, they need order and structure and routine and good old fashioned discipline, but they also need joy and wonder and curiosity and excitement. My adult mind gets worked into a lather by all the ideas I have to cram into twenty five tiny brains, and sometimes I need to step back and let my kids be kids.
Hopefully tomorrow will be better. But even if it isn't, I am going to work in some more energizers and chances for play. Maybe it's just for my sanity, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one who appreciated our one small sliver of sunshine today.
And if that doesn't work, I have some sick days.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Reason #15 They Turn Twenty Cents Into a Priceless Artifact
The year has started in full force and is proving to be every bit as vibrant, infuriating, and delightful as the past six. The cast of characters is different, but the archetypal eight year old personalities remain.
Three days into this year the tattling had already started full force.
My approach to dealing with tattling has evolved over the years. In year one, when all was fuzzy and dark, I generally told my students to work it out on their own. And they did. Generally with fists.
I quickly realized that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is a big deal to a third grader. If a sheet of paper crosses from a neighbor's desk onto your desk, it is cause for Cuban Missile Crisis level stand-offs, the fall-out being as potentially nuclear.
My next phase was me playing the role of Hebrew Judge, spending the better part of each day mitigating the grievances each child held against the other. Like Moses, I found that I was unable to make fair assessments of the whole tribe on my own, so something new had to be done.
My kids were my next inspiration when they invented bully tickets, which were essentially papers they turned in to catch other people in the act of doing anything they didn't like in that moment. Our classroom was whipped into shape. Average students were transformed into vigilantes set on ridding our classroom of bullies. However, since we only revisited the bully slips weekly, the feedback loop got a little long. By Friday Alison had forgotten that Michael had stared at her for too long during reading, and frankly what had seemed like a big deal then was not very interesting anymore.
Enter this year's brilliant idea. Notebooks. To my students I call them "SPIRALS" (in all caps, because I do make it a big deal) since every other notebook they use is a black and white. However, the working name is Tattle Books.
Tattle Books are a place where a child can write me a note about anything, turn it in during any transition in the classroom, and get a response from me in writing within 24 hours. It may seem like a lot of upkeep, but it is significantly less work that listening to four different kids tell you how DeAngelo was picking at his socks during the reading lesson instead of listening when at the same time you are trying to choral a class of mostly crazy hooligans into two straight, tall, happy, silent lines.
To date, and yes, the date is very early in the year, Tattle Books are a huge success. No one comes up to tell me things, and when they do I look at them with a very serious face and say, "Is this something that should go in your spiral?" Then they gleefully head back to their seats and start writing! HAHA! It's writing, relationship building, and management all rolled into one twenty cent notebook.
A fringe benefit is actually reading the letters, which is best done over a glass of wine at the end of the day. Surprisingly tattling is much less annoying and much more amusing then. Some samples:
One child let me know that Jerry was bothering her, and if I didn't do anything about it she was going to tell her mom and tell the principal. She ended the note by saying, "Will you get Jerry? Check yes or no."
Another girl told me about how sick and tired she was of the other kids in the classroom wasting her time for the past three years. "Could you please, please do something about it, Mrs. Swanson?"
I watched another student writing furiously in her notebook. As I got closer I saw her writing "Jacob ______________________" "Jacob _______________________" "Jacob _______________" on page after page of her notebook. Apparently she is setting up the sentence stems for all her future tattling this year, not wasting even another minute on writing Jacob's name; darn sure this tattle won't be the last.
I'm looking forward to seeing how this evolves over the year. Hopefully it will translate to angelic students who are Newberry Award Winning Authors. Or at the very least give me some more material for my blog. In the meantime, you can catch me most nights sipping a glass of wine and laughing.
My approach to dealing with tattling has evolved over the years. In year one, when all was fuzzy and dark, I generally told my students to work it out on their own. And they did. Generally with fists.
I quickly realized that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is a big deal to a third grader. If a sheet of paper crosses from a neighbor's desk onto your desk, it is cause for Cuban Missile Crisis level stand-offs, the fall-out being as potentially nuclear.
My next phase was me playing the role of Hebrew Judge, spending the better part of each day mitigating the grievances each child held against the other. Like Moses, I found that I was unable to make fair assessments of the whole tribe on my own, so something new had to be done.
My kids were my next inspiration when they invented bully tickets, which were essentially papers they turned in to catch other people in the act of doing anything they didn't like in that moment. Our classroom was whipped into shape. Average students were transformed into vigilantes set on ridding our classroom of bullies. However, since we only revisited the bully slips weekly, the feedback loop got a little long. By Friday Alison had forgotten that Michael had stared at her for too long during reading, and frankly what had seemed like a big deal then was not very interesting anymore.
Enter this year's brilliant idea. Notebooks. To my students I call them "SPIRALS" (in all caps, because I do make it a big deal) since every other notebook they use is a black and white. However, the working name is Tattle Books.
Tattle Books are a place where a child can write me a note about anything, turn it in during any transition in the classroom, and get a response from me in writing within 24 hours. It may seem like a lot of upkeep, but it is significantly less work that listening to four different kids tell you how DeAngelo was picking at his socks during the reading lesson instead of listening when at the same time you are trying to choral a class of mostly crazy hooligans into two straight, tall, happy, silent lines.
To date, and yes, the date is very early in the year, Tattle Books are a huge success. No one comes up to tell me things, and when they do I look at them with a very serious face and say, "Is this something that should go in your spiral?" Then they gleefully head back to their seats and start writing! HAHA! It's writing, relationship building, and management all rolled into one twenty cent notebook.
A fringe benefit is actually reading the letters, which is best done over a glass of wine at the end of the day. Surprisingly tattling is much less annoying and much more amusing then. Some samples:
One child let me know that Jerry was bothering her, and if I didn't do anything about it she was going to tell her mom and tell the principal. She ended the note by saying, "Will you get Jerry? Check yes or no."
Another girl told me about how sick and tired she was of the other kids in the classroom wasting her time for the past three years. "Could you please, please do something about it, Mrs. Swanson?"
I watched another student writing furiously in her notebook. As I got closer I saw her writing "Jacob ______________________" "Jacob _______________________" "Jacob _______________" on page after page of her notebook. Apparently she is setting up the sentence stems for all her future tattling this year, not wasting even another minute on writing Jacob's name; darn sure this tattle won't be the last.
I'm looking forward to seeing how this evolves over the year. Hopefully it will translate to angelic students who are Newberry Award Winning Authors. Or at the very least give me some more material for my blog. In the meantime, you can catch me most nights sipping a glass of wine and laughing.
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