[Classroom Necessities] Bossy McBosserton

Given to me by a student this morning:

Heh.

Hope is the thing...

We started our photography unit last week.  Today we took some photos, and this one made my heart smile.

Thank you to fellow caped blogger, TM, for reminding me that I come to school for the pumpkin-heads.  I needed the reminder today.

More Wreckage

Do not fear!  This is the good kind of wreckage!  I promised you, way back in the olden days of yore, that I would share more from the Wreck this Journal.

Here they is.

Caped Quilt

We are making our Second Annual End-of-the-Year Classroom Quilt (I see it needs a new name). I am unable to include photos because each student appliqued their name along with some personally meaningful symbols on their square.  I will, when it is done, try to take and crop photos so that you can see some of the detail work they have done.  It is quite impressive!  

In the meantime, take a gander at the caped teacher I am putting on mine.  I took this image:

And gussied it up a little using the patterns in the fabric:

Then I looked up narcissism and decided it only sort of applies in this case....

A Vignette...

The Scene: A classroom of middle school trouble-makers working on computers.  All is quiet (Really!  It was!  It was freetime so they were plugged-in and all quiet-like!),  Except, for R.  He has the hiccups...

Ms. M: Who has the hiccups?

Various Voices: R... It's R... R. has the hiccups.

R.:  Me... hiccup

Various Voices: You should cure them... R.--she can cure hiccups... Dude, cure his hiccups... It's one of her superpowers.

Ms. M: I can, but R. doesn't believe in my powers, so they don't work.

R.:  (scoffing noise) I believe.  Cure 'em.  

Another Student:  You really have to believe R.  Or it doesn't work.

R.: I believe!

Ms. M: I think, perhaps, I need my cape for this to work today.  You're a tough one R.(expectant silence whilst I don my cape and glittery red mask)* Are you ready? (Magic hiccup cure ensues...)**

R.:  ... (no hiccup)...  (mutters) Thanks.

Ms. M: (removing cape and mask, dusting off hands) That's how it's done my friends.

(smattering of applause... work resumes.)

*Blessings and many thanks to some fellow cape-wearers for the gift of this cape and mask.
 

 **Yeah,right! Like I was going to tell you the cure--it's totally a secret!

The List

As I sit here watching these little turkey-butts take their state-mandated tests, I am reflecting on the various issues that have brought them to me.  Here I will list phrases used on our placement information sheet and the number of times each is used if more than once, or if privacy allows.  This is out of twenty students--some have more than one of the listed concerns:

--behavior (9)

--anger (3)

--social skills (3)

--diagnosed ADHD--medicated (4), unmedicated (3) 

--Special Education Services (some)

--Behavior Support Plan (2)

--county health services (1)

--outside counseling services--current (2), lapsed (4)

--low academics (6)

--low grades (9)

--English Language Learner (4)

--504 Plan (2)

--GATE (1)

--father in and out of rehab

--administratively placed due to incident throwing rock at teacher

--in new foster home (first time placed with all siblings), visitations with mom

--defiance and disrespect (4)

--anxious about assignments (2)

--refused to complete over 90% of assigned work

--tardies and unexcused absences (3)

--claims gang affiliation (3)

--administratively placed for buying/possessing marijuana 

--both parents deceased within last few years

--administratively placed for two incidences involving possession of a razor at school with intention to use it on a student

--lives in a group home

--administratively placed for possession of drug paraphernalia

--concerns regarding abuse in the home (3)

--impulsive--medicated (1), unmedicated (2)

--on probation due to break and enter and drug possession 

--lack of interest in school, highly sexualized

--theft 

--father seriously ill

--threatening behavior toward other students 

--selective mute

--difficulty focusing--no diagnosis (2)

--mother supportive, father in and out, 

--retained then socially promoted, physically mature, emotionally immature

--placed in foster care due to neglect, is now back home

--mother seriously ill

What troubles me most as I created this list is the inner battle I have with myself.  I don't want to describe my students by their issues.  I could easily create a list twice as long with their strengths.  I lean on their myriad strengths all day every day. Realistically though, it is not those strengths that brought them to me.  This list of concerns is still a day-to-day reality for each of them.  I can love them, teach them, and build on their strengths  (and call them George?). I can be positive, caring and supportive, but this list will still slap them in the face when they go home.  So do I play "Pollyanna" and ignore the list?  

My choice?  I spend the large percentage of each day focusing on the strengths and skills they have, they need, they might be able to develop.  I keep in mind, however, that there are always mitigating factors. While they are not excuses, they are reality.  I don't pity them, judge them, or pretend to know what they have gone through, but I keep this list in mind when making decisions each day.  That's where I am in the inner battle as of this day. 

The Happy Song

School starts back up on Monday.  How does a caped teacher go back to the grind after two lovely weeks off?  What's that quote about faking it until you make it?  While many of us miss our little pumpkin-heads, and worry about them, and think of great things for them to learn, we still cherish our time off and are sad when it is over.  

This song is one of the best ways I have found to get the day started, or restarted, on a positive note.  I started to play it the week I was planning to see the performer play at the House of Blues.  I played it many, many... many times.  The students now sing along to parts of it and often request it.  Sometimes, after they get their "free lecture" of the day, they'll ask me to play "The Happy Song."  I know this is partially to get me to stop playing, and acting to, The Frog Prince, or all of my instrumental music, but of all songs they could request and sing along to, I'm okay with this one:
"I'm going to celebrate being alive."


It's called Blessed by Brett Dennen.

*Note--this video is just a static picture, but it had the best audio.  Here is a link to a fun solo version played at Seattle's Carkeek Park.

The Day They Discovered PhotoBooth

Tar Beach

For Spirit Day yesterday, I used a project inspired by the book Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold. In this story a girl imagines she is flying above the night skies of New York and claiming it for herself. She reclaims the union building that won't let her father join due to the color of his skin and she decides to have ice cream for dessert every night. I read it aloud and  explained that according to this girl you can have whatever dreams you want--both big and little. You just have to be willing to shut your eyes and fly.

Cheesy, right? They loved it. One boy had his eyes shut when I finished (and wasn't sleeping).

In the back is a photo of a quilt that copies the style of the book illustrations.  This was the design for our project.

I had each student make a square for the border with their own dreams on it, and a group worked on a large size picture in the style of the book illustrations using our city as the background.  Then they made small flying versions of themselves like the author did in the book, and we hung them on the large picture as if they were flying over the city It looks pretty cool! 

I'll post pictures when I get back in the classroom.  Oh yeah, did I mention?  This caped teacher is flying off for Spring Break!!!

Bait and Switch

Earlier this year our little program was in the depths of student misbehavior. A couple of strong role models were pretty much running the place with chronic defiance and bullying. We had tried everything we could think of to change the tide and were at a loss. By this point students had lost nearly every privilege we offered and were running amok.  We had nothing to take away from them and decided to try to start rebuilding anyway.  Basically, we tried the "bait and switch," and held our very first Spirit Day.  

We spent the day working on projects--both group and individual--that focused on goal setting and team building. We hid the serious messages by using lots of crafty supplies, playing their favorite radio station, and letting some of the casually inappropriate conversations slide.

Oddly enough, they liked it! Our students could be considered "disenfranchised" to say the least, and likely spent school activity time in detention, at home, or smoking behind the utility sheds. They may not have had the chance to be a part of a school before.


This month they started asking when the next Spirit Day would be. We were surprised, but we scheduled it for the last Friday before Spring Break (today--hurrah!). Many students asked us on a daily basis about the upcoming Spirit Day, seemed excited for it, and were even willing to call it a name like "Spirit Day." It was hard not to giggle at conversations like:

"I hate this f-in' place. I want to be suspended."

"Fool chill. Tomorrow is Spirit Day."

Today was Spirit Day #2.  We had only one absence.  One student, who is chronically absent, missed the bus.  We assumed we would not see her.  She walked in an hour later, having found a ride to school.  She was happily wearing her school shirt and matching bracelets.  Score one for the attendance books!


The message here?  If you have run out of things to take away from your students for their misbehavior, it just might be time to give them something worth having.  Schools inadvertently take away so much from kids that have so little to begin with.  Caped teachers are just as guilty of forgetting this, but we are also just as able to remember and do something about it.


Yeay! for Spirit Day (and for Spring Break!)

Egyptian-Japanese Cats

Teachers are like camels.  We can hold our water all day if we need to.   It is quite a hassle to orchestrate a trip to the ladies room, so some of us wait as long as possible.  When I need to leave, I have to let the aide know, or I have to call someone to come over and watch the kids if she is out.  The kids pretty much have it figured out--a few times a day their teacher has to get a babysitter and "skip to the loo" across the campus.

In an attempt to add some bit of tact to the whole process, I began to refer to the trip as "a meeting with an Egyptian cat" or having to "see a man about about an Egyptian cat."  The link here is vague at best.  Someone in my life once said something about having to use the restroom "like an Egyptian cat" and it stuck. No other reason I can think of.

These days if I ready myself to leave the room I get comments from the students like,

"Got a meeting?"

"Gonna go see a cat?"

"Meeting someone about that Egyptian cat?"

This week, the 7th Grade Humanities class is studying ancient Japanese art.  In my research I found that the Japanese cat has quite a history and is a symbol of good luck and prosperity.  I have started to thread the Japanese Cat, or Maneki Neko, into my repertoire, but it has been slow-going.  They are quite taken with the idea of my daily visits to see the Egyptian cat, and not so willing to add the Japanese cat to the mix.

I suppose the lesson here is similar to the collection of blue things.  Community builds in strange ways.  Perhaps my references to feline urination aren't exactly classy, but I think the camaraderie this has built might be worth a little low-class humor.

Here is my proof:

Today I was working with my small English Language Learners group during PE.  One of the students in my group suffers from selective mutism.  M. is quite a sassy little thing, but very rarely speaks.  While I respect her strength of character in controlling her life in this manner, you may well imagine that the required language development curriculum leaves little room for a student that doesn't speak. For those of you who have not observed a lesson using typical Level A English Language Development curriculum, you will want to picture a very verbal, language and print-rich environment with a lot of TALKING, CONVERSING, DISCUSSING  of various topics in day-to-day life.

Anyhoo, a few minutes into class today, I realized I needed to use the loo.  This is only problematic because all staff members were out at PE, and I knew there would be the added hassle of the students having to sit outside and wait for me while I "held my meeting."  I muttered to myself, "Oh no.  I need to see an Egyptian cat."  M.  smiled slyly, sighed dramatically, shut her computer and stood up.  Showing that she a). knew the joke and b). knew the nuance of the issue that included her sitting outside to wait for me.

If you add this to R.'s recognition of Egyptian cats living far away (see the Man on the Horse entry a couple of weeks ago), I have taught two students two things using this little euphemism.  For this reason, I am counting this as a success.

A Collection of Blue Things

I've read, reviewed, and discussed a wide variety of books and curricula on community building, the teaching of pro-social skills in at-risk teens, developing a classroom management system through  the development of a community.  What I've learned though, can be summarized by this photo.

When I was putting together my classroom on the first days of school this year, I put my tape dispenser on the window sill behind my desk.  Then my sticky-note holder.  They were cluttering up the area while I was planning.  When the students came in they noticed the various changes in the room, commented on them, and paid an odd amount of attention to the tape dispenser and sticky-note holder.  They asked why it was there.  I said, "I guess that's my collection of blue things." I knew many of the students from the previous year, so this bit of random didn't faze* them.  They nodded, studied the collection, and moved on.

A few days later I was given a blue pen cap found on the floor and told it was for the collection.  Then a small blue stuffed dog found in the "Fidgets Bin" (more on that later).  Later,  a piece of blue tape, a blue string, and a blue piece of candy (wrapped, of course), blue modeling clay, a blue monster ball, a blue birthday card, a blue slinky.  They just keep coming. 

When new students come in and assess the room, they often end up asking about the odd assortment on the window sill.  Other students answer, "It's our collection of blue things. We just do that kind of thing."   

This year my window sill became a part of our community.  I didn't plan it or study it in a book. I just accepted the offerings when they came and the community took ownership of the collection.  They like knowing what their surroundings hold and taking part in those surroundings.  Of course I post their work, assign them classroom jobs, do activities to promote community, but this collection of blue things has had just as much impact on them this year.


This caped teacher's advice is to let the magic happen.  Accept the blue pen cap when it comes your way.


* Even caped teachers have Dads.  This caped teacher's dad reminded her of the difference between phase and faze.  Thanks Pops!  Link for your own edification here: Phase vs. Faze.

How I started the day today

The Littmus Lozenge

We are reading the book Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo.  In it, Miss Franny Block tells the story of Littmus W. Block, who created the Littmus Lozenge.  The Littmus Lozenge has a secret ingredient--sorrow.  Opal and Amanda share their great sadnesses with Miss Franny Block.  I asked the class to write down their great sadness:

"When my grandma died, and I never met my mom's mom or dad, and my Dad having diabetes."

"That I don't know my real dad."

"That my dad left my mom and I."

"If I don't make it to college"

"One of my family members died in the wild fire."

"I sad because I didn't go to my little cousins birthday and these is my first year I didn't go to her birthday." [sic]

"I'm sad because barney is a dinosaur that gets paid in clipped toenails."

"Leaving all my friend at PKMS."

"Getting taken away from my mom, being in foster care, and not seeing my mom and family on my birthday which is today."

"I am sad that I am adopted and I don't get to see my birth family.  I have a lot more sadnesses but I'm not going to share them."