Reason #18: They teach us to stop and listen

When I found out in early November that Shea was transferring from my class, it was with mixed emotions. Relief was the the predominate emotion, which meant that guilt and shame followed closely behind. And then there was the sadness. I went into this profession to save every kid, right? Circumstances left me with almost no options for helping a kid in a really desperate situation. 
 
Fast forward a month, and I found myself rushing out of a staff meeting, hoping to make a 6:00pm dinner appointment by 6:30pm, giving myself the half hour cushion I have come to rely on more regularly lately. My assistant principal walked into the staff meeting just as I was heading out and asked if I had a minute. I followed her out in the hallway, and there was Shea. His hair was cut and there was a smile on his face. He had come back to pick up the rest of his things from his desk. 

Walking back to class together I asked him about how he was doing in his new school. When he looked inside his desk, he found the few remaining relics of his time with us in our room. I shuffled around hurriedly, still racing the clock to make my dinner. When Shea asked me questions I answered quickly or gave a feeble, "Yeah?" in response, all the while making sure I had packed my computer cord. Sensing I was busy, Shea said, "Well, I miss you Mrs. Swanson." 

Without looking up I said, "We miss you too, Shea." 

He walked out of the room and I was finally ready, looking once more around the room. 

And then my heart caught up with my head. 

In the moment it took me to pause and check my room to see if I had forgotten anything, I realized I had forgotten Shea. It occurred to me that I may never see him again; this may be the last time our paths cross. My "busy" was so important that I hadn't been able to recognize the weightiness in this present moment.

I rushed out into the hallway and ran down to the front door, where Shea's grandmother was waiting for him. I gave him a big hug. "Shea! I miss you, too. And I love you. I want you to always remember that." My eyes pricked with tears as I watched him smile and turn to leave. 

Three days later I cried with the rest of our country in the horrific deaths of twenty-six beautiful lives. And my thoughts turned back to Shea. None of us know the number of our days. We don't know how much time we have left with those we love. Our lives are so fragile, changing in a moment.

I keep asking myself, what is it I plan to do with my one wild and precious life? 

This Christmas, I am thankful for Shea. I am thankful he was able to cut through my self-important busyness and help me to realize the life giving moment right in front of me. I am thankful that he allowed me to stop, and enter the beauty, and the pain, in the present moment. 

In the end, all we have are those moments, and then, too soon, they are gone.

Reason #17 They watch and learn

The Chicago Teachers' Union is poised to strike for the first time in 25 years. The atmosphere is full of electricity and excitement. Everyone is ready to be important in this slice of educational history.

There are a lot of issues on the table, but what gets discussed the most is whether or not teachers will be monetarily compensated for their work. It is a reasonable request. And yet, my guess is that even a 19% pay increase will not sate the average teacher looking for a raise, nor will it attract the teacher motivated to make a change.

There are a lot of things that $10,000 can't do.

An extra $10,000 in my bank account does not bring back Ashton, senselessly killed in a shooting the night before Christmas break in 2009. It doesn't keep me from worrying about Andrew, and whether he will get beat up at home tonight. It doesn't give a home to Daniel, or to Sherri, or to Ron. It doesn't mean that Oliver will get enough to eat.

An extra $10,000 in my bank account also doesn't take away my headaches after teaching for five hours in a classroom with no air conditioning in 98 degree weather. It doesn't give me extra hours to collaborate with my colleagues and plan for the next day's lessons. It doesn't mean that my math curriculum won't be changed three times within a four month period. Frankly, it doesn't even mean that the photocopy machine will work (though it would defray the costs of my trips to Staples).

Money is a start in making a statement of a teacher's value. No argument. But it will not make teaching more bearable. It will not change the day to day of my job. I know, because I took that kind of pay cut to be in my current job, and I am more content here than at any of the other schools I have worked in, two of which were union jobs. Money was not what got me into teaching, and it isn't what will make me stay.

I support the union because I support the work of teachers. But in our debates, I wish that we would spend more time demanding the things that really matter:

-Social workers, nurses, mentoring programs, and other wrap around supports. These people change and protect lives.
-Class sizes below 30. No one, and I mean no one, wants to be stuck in a room with thirty sweaty 7th graders right after gym class.
-Administrations in our schools that are competent and fair.
-Shared planning time during the day to accomplish some of the collaboration that is proven to improve student learning.
-Better school environments that include air conditioning, asbestos free tiling, windows without bullet holes, and walls that aren't peeling paint.

By all means, strike. Teachers do deserve to be recognized for the hard work that we do each day. And yes, some of these concerns are being addressed in current negotiations. But in reading the news and checking the general public's pulse on facebook and twitter, what I hear is, "Teachers want more pay." In an economy where money is scarce, are we asking for the limited available funds to be allocated to the areas that would most improve labor conditions? The 16% pay increase comes from somewhere; will it be taken from programs that would have improved the work we do each day?

On Friday I passed out fliers to the students, letting them know that in the event of a strike our school would remain open. One of my students raised her hand.

"Ms. Swanson? Why are the teachers striking?"

"Well, there are a lot of reasons, but it is largely about money."

She nodded her head thoughtfully, and said, "Yeah, it was about money at my last school, too."

While the adults argue, the kids are watching. What lessons are we teaching them? What legacy will we leave them?

Reason #16 They remind us to play

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.

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.

Reason#14 They Change Your Mind

It's two and a half days before spring break and my students are driving me crazy. Correction, some of my students are driving me crazy. Correction, Carter is driving me crazy. All year long we have been working diligently with Carter. He has received pull out support services, after school tutoring, before school tutoring, lunch time tutoring. I conference with him in reading twice as often as everyone else. Despite all this, he still is not moving in reading. This probably has something to do with the fact that when he is not getting one-on-one support he is coloring, staring out the window, talking to a neighbor, digging through his desk, taking off his shoes, leaning backward in his chair, trying to check out new books, trying to go to the bathroom, and/or trying to do anything that isn't reading. This is irritating on its own, but also because it shows a distinct lack of gratitude for all the incredible ways that I am being such an awesome teacher by going above and beyond to meet his needs. (Yes, I can be this petty.)

I get it. We have had some very tearful conversations together in which he has confessed his humiliation about the fact that he struggles with reading. I've tried being the good cop who smiles, encourages every effort, and celebrates every progress. I often default to bad cop and take away his recess, other privileges, and remind him that he needs to pass more reading tests to pass the grade. There has been progress, but considering the support, it has been minimal.

Meanwhile, Carter has been stealing things from my classroom, lying about stealing, harassing other students, CONSTANTLY talking, and of course, avoiding work. The regular blog readers may also remember him for his previous antics of punching another student in the stomach for writing a "bully ticket" about him. For those of you who are the diagnosing type--I know. It's work avoidance and stems from a lot of social emotion problems about which I can most often be very compassionate and understanding. But it's also so annoying. Especially two and a half days before a much needed break from one another.

In an effort to engage him in work yet again, I decided to invite him and a friend to game time on Wednesdays. Every Wednesday we are now playing games together during lunch. Having received an awesome Donor's Choose Grant, I now have thirty board games in my classroom that allow students to practice reading, science, and math skills with almost every game that Lakeshore Learning provides. The grant is incredible, but I digress. Carter and his friend came up today to play the word blending game, Tiki Challenge. As I was pulling out the board game, Carter said to me, "Ms. Swanson, you're the best teacher ever."

OK, I'm a primary teacher and we hear these things a lot. In fact, I have at least six cards taped to my wall right now that share a similar sentiment. It's sweet, but most often fleeting. Carter's friend kind of snickered, so I said back, "Why, because I let you play games during lunch."

"No, Ms. Swanson, because you care about me. You're like my mother is to me. You're like my mom."

It's moments like that when the fatigue and stress of a busy month intersect with the weighty and sacred responsibility of helping to shape a child's life. And I realize just how lucky I am to have Carter in my classroom. Even when he refuses to do his work and instead swings his arms around until someone near him gets stabbed with his pencil. Today I got a reality check and Carter changed my mind.

And for the record, my students are like my children to me. Even the Carters.

Reason #13 They Have Innovative Ideas

My class has a problem with bullying. I feel a little ashamed to admit that on such a public forum, as teachers are often only seen as effective when they can manage their students, and this indicates a deficit in my management. Also, I have written some flowery posts about their care and concern for one another. That's all true. Also, some of them are absolutely hateful toward one another. That's also true.

Sometimes the bullying is small, like laughing at another student every time they make a mistake. However, one of my students with special needs had started going home and telling her mother she didn't want to go to school anymore. That broke my heart. I pride my classroom as being one that students want to come to each day, and take great measures to make it a friendly and supportive atmosphere. So several weeks ago I called an emergency class meeting. Something had to be done about our bullying problem.

We sat around our meeting rug and shared times that we had felt bullied or teased. Then I asked the students how they felt we should deal with this problem in our classroom. Malika got up to take notes on the white board, and the students started brainstorming various ideas.

"What if we made posters that reminded us not to bully?"
"We could have a petition and people could sign up not to bully."
"We could have conversations with the person who is being a bully."
"What if we had a bully ticket and we could give it to people who are acting like bullies?"

That night I started to put their plans into action. I went to the library and checked out twenty books about bullying (plug here that the library is AWESOME!) Then I went to Staples and got poster supplies and twenty mini clip boards for all my students. The next day, we had a working afternoon, planning out our anti-bully campaign. One group worked on posters, another designed the bully ticket. A third group made a petition, and the final group decided to make "Caught Doing Right" tickets to recognize good behavior. Everyone decorated their clip boards that they could carry everywhere, fully stocked with their Bully Tickets and Caught Doing Right tickets. Since markers, foam stickers, and clip boards were involved, the activity was a raging success. But would this decrease bullying?

After a week of collecting tickets we sat down the next Friday to discuss the bully tickets. The students decided they wanted names of people receiving the tickets to be read, but not their behaviors or who had given the bully tickets. Then we would talk to the people who were having the biggest issues. After reading off close to 100 Bully Tickets, we had our two culprits: David and Andrew. Andrew was particularly distraught hearing his name so many times, so we started with him.

Andrew called on students to give him suggestions of how he could make sure that his name wasn't on Bully Tickets the following weeks.

"I think people would like it if you didn't talk about their families."
"Maybe you shouldn't make inappropriate gestures toward me."
"Probably you shouldn't use bad words."

It was a hard lesson in constructive criticism, but overall Andrew took it like a champ. It was followed by compliments of things we like about Andrew, of which there were many. I was so impressed with my students' articulation, thoughtfulness, and maturity in handling the situation. Also, those 100 Bully Tickets represented 100 less times that someone came up to me to tattle, so at least in my eyes, my students had come up with great ideas, taken ownership, and been truly successful.

Andrew learned a lesson, too. Going back to his seat I overheard him saying to himself, "My mom always told me that my mouth would get me in trouble some day, and boy was she right!"

We have all learned some good lessons in our class. There's still some bullying, but having a method to deal with it when it happens has helped give agency to my students and eliminated some of the unnecessary bullying. Sure, it's not perfect and Carter punched Joe in the stomach when he started writing a bully ticket about him, but hey, we're making progress.

Reason #12 They remind you

I remember my first time. For my ninth birthday my parents gave me a gift certificate to our local children's bookstore, The Red Balloon, and I chose to buy Matilda by Roald Dahl. It was a big deal to venture away from the many different "series" books I had been reading, like The Babysitter's Club, and Sweet Valley Twins. However, my sister, who I saw as a little lower than the gods, had recommended this book to me and therefore I had to read it.

Read it I did. Sitting at the Labor Day picnic with my parents and their friends, I devoured Matilda. I read and kept reading, despite laugher floating around me, and a full-sized children's playhouse to tempt me. I was lost in the world of reading. It was the first time I realized that reading isn't just telling stories. It's magic.

Yes, I am a nerd when it comes to reading. At the advice of Levar Burton, I took a look in a book, and the rest is history. Each year in my classroom, I see it as my job to transfer this magic to my students. It isn't just because I love reading, though that is a large part of it, but reading is necessary for student achievement. Students who are not on reading level by first grade are likely to stay behind in reading forever. One report says that 70% of prison inmates score below the 4th grade level of reading. Teaching a child to read doesn't just open up new worlds of books, it opens up legitimate and legal opportunities for their futures.

My favorite part of every day is the hour we have for reading. I sit down with students, pull out their reading folders, talk to them about what their reading, write their reading goals in their reading notebooks, and watch them transform into bonafide readers. Magic.

This has been taking place is a brand new way this year in my classroom due to my donorschoose grant I received for nook e-readers. In our latest batch of testing data, it showed that my highest readers were not growing at the rate of the rest of my students. This is not surprising, as many schools encourage teachers to teach the lowest readers, since the highest ones are slated to pass the tests with or without my instruction. However, at one time I was one of those "high readers" and therefore am unwilling to leave them behind. Each of the six readers has a nook to read and take home. They treat them as precious gold, cradling them in their arms like new born babies. One girl brought a hand purse from home to put her nook in, and she proudly struts the building with her new fashion accessory. The e-readers have piqued my students' interest for books.

However, that is just the start. Interest isn't enough, it has to be followed with commitment and determination. Enter: Shanna. Shanna is a sassifrass who is too smart for her own good, but has been listlessly thumbing through Frog and Toad for most of the year. In spite of many conferences, the extend of her reading log has been board books and the occasional Captain Underpants novel. Uninspired to say the least, she would rather chat than spend thirty minutes of her time reading.

I decided to introduce Shanna to Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. I read this in fifth grade, and still haven't forgotten the epic "Man vs. Wild" saga of a teenage boy left to fend for himself in the wilderness of the north woods with only a hatchet for company. I gave her a short book introduction, and sent her on her way crossing my fingers that she would be drawn in by this new book.

Was she ever. The next day she had read not just the first two chapters as I had asked, but the first FIVE chapters. In the past two days she has gotten to chapter thirteen, and is likely to finish the book this weekend. I now get chapter by chapter status updates of Brian's progress in the woods, whether I want them or not, whether I am teaching the students about reading, or in the middle of a science lesson. I have to pry the nook from her hands when it's time for other subjects, because otherwise she is drawn back to her story like my other students are drawn to their flaming hot Cheetos.

Did I mention that this same sassifrass girl, the one who would look me straight in the eye and laugh in my face, has had almost no behavior infractions since she started to read Hatchet? (She did, after all, chase James around the room when he tried to take her nook) See, reading really is magic, and it really does change lives.