Sometimes, Teaching is a Game of Whack-a-Mole

"The kids who need the most love will ask for it in the most unloving of ways." -unknown

"Teaching is like trying to hold 35 corks underwater at once" -Mark Twain

Sometimes I feel like my classroom is a zoo, especially during the middle of the day when I have all 26 kinders on the rug. I have a little girl who I've caught stealing my things. I had a little boy running with scissors. I have kids who can't keep their hands to themselves, can't sit still for more than 15 seconds, and kids who can't not be making noises...unless I ask them to. I have very few kids who listen well, follow the rules, participate, complete their work, and clean up after themselves. I have some, so I know there's hope for the rest, but they are currently in the minority. It's pretty safe to say that somedays, my kids are driving me absolutely crazy. I love them, but they are little mysteries that I haven't fully solved.

Being both a first-year teacher and a first-year kindergarten teacher, I'm not sure what's normal for 5 year olds 50 days into the school year. I have a sense though, that some of what I'm seeing is normal, and some is decidedly not normal. I have started a clip up/down behavior chart, which occasionally seems like it is working. The problem is I'm still figuring out how to make it work for me, and my teaching style. I had a parent volunteer ask if I had an aide in my room. Umm, just for two half hour blocks during the day. She was surprised--and rightfully so. Extra adults are helpful at any level, but especially in lower grades, when there is so much individual attention needed, because for many of these kids, everything we do is for the first time. And because, well, they're 5.

Sometimes it's easy to figure out why a kid is misbehaving. I have a few little boys who speak little to no English. So it's not surprising that they stop paying attention on the rug. They don't fully comprehend what's going on, so they get distracted. It must be overwhelming to have someone speak to you in English all day, when you only know and speak Spanish at home. For other students, it's not so easy, especially when they won't respond to direct questions about their behavior, or even respond to you calling their name. I worry that my students are going to get hurt, because they refuse to respond to my direction, or respond when I call their name. It is ridiculous how defiant these kids--these 5 year olds!--can be. I know that developmentally speaking, empathy is difficult for them, as is sitting still for a while. But I also know that they can learn how to do this, because some of my kids demonstrate it beautifully. And these kids deserve more--and it's unfair that so much of my energy is spent on a handful of kids being disruptive.

That being said, I still get hugs from kids--even the ones who cultivate so much negative attention. One day I brought the kids out to their parents at the end of the day, and the mom handed me flowers (the picture above is of said flowers). Another day, I had to attend a meeting, and had a sub in my room for an hour--and when I came back, two kids ran up to me to give me a hug. And one of my students likes coming to school--wants to come on Saturdays! I must be doing something right, because my kids seem to like me. It's safe to say that I care about my students, but sometimes I'm not sure that's enough. I want to help them learn, and be ready for first grade. I want to teach them to be good people, to think about and question the world around them, and learn basic reading an math.

But right now, I worry that they're going to fall behind because transitions take so long. Because the kids I need to be paying attention the most are the ones hiding under their desks, or talking to their neighbor when we're learning our letters. Because I often don't feel like a teacher, but more of a babysitter. It's no wonder, as I put together progress reports, that very few of my kids know their letters. It's not because they aren't capable, it's because we all haven't figured out how to act in Kindergarten.

Totally made this arrangement up. Hope it works!

So after a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day (some days are like that), on Friday, I threw up my hands and decided to totally rearrange my room (see the pictures...and note that I have more stuff on the walls!). We'll see what happens on Monday. Maybe a change will be enough to start over with behavior...as someone in my credential/masters program said today: "It's never too late for a fresh start." So I should probably plan on very little academic work for Monday, and really focus on getting our routines right. Make them do it over and over, until we get it right.

Rug time is so hard! We'll have to add assigned squares.

I am exhausted, all the time. I feel like part of the problem is simply that being a first year teacher is hard, and notoriously not the best, and it's okay that I don't have all my ducks in a row. It doesn't make it any easier on a day to day basis though, because I still have to make it through each day, and I still have 26 real, live, little human beings in my care.

Technology: The Final Frontier

"All adventures, especially those into new territory, are scary." -Sally Ride

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity." -Albert Einstein 

Teachers right now are dealing with new territory. It's something I'd been thinking about, and then I saw this Louis CK video being shared all over Facebook.

And he makes a really good point, about empathy in children, and what they are learning is okay behavior. I think this inability to just sit and do nothing is affecting our children's stamina to do things in the classroom, to take their time to complete work neatly, or to just listen and respond to a story. Furthermore, I think that the prevalence of technology makes it really easy for parents to let TV, or ipads or smartphones and the such raise their kids. And who can blame them, if they're holding down two jobs or using all their energy to just get their families basic needs like food, clothing, and shelter? It's also too easy for privileged parents to do this as well. It takes less energy, and we're living in a society of instant gratification and laziness. Sure, it may take less time to placate a child with a tablet, than actually turn it into a learning experience and teach a kid about feelings, and how to problem solve. But taking the easy way out is just going to lead to problems later on...problems that surface in school where students need to start interacting face to face with other students, and they don't have the stimulation of constant technology.

All this technology is new territory--we have never had a generation grow up only knowing the existence of the internet, cell phones, computers, and televisions. Technology is great--it allows for some really neat educational opportunities, and ways of communicating with others that were not previously possible. But there is a time and a place for technology, and we need to not let it take over our lives so much that little kids can't just sit respectfully. I'm going to go out on a limb and make a likely bogus and totally unsupported (to my knowledge) claim: technology is related to--and may be helping to cause-- the rise in ADHD as well as various other behavioral disorders.

We know that listening to a real human being helps young children learn language better than anything recorded in any way. I read somewhere-- not quite sure where-- that many TV shows these days that theoretically have good lessons imbedded in are in fact modeling the wrong behavior to kids. It has to do with screen time--too much time is spent on the conflict before being wrapped up quickly, that children are learning to behave by what they see more of, rather than learning how to actually solve issues. (Similarly, the saying that "all press is good press" is true--candidates whose campaign ads bash the opponent can actually help your opponent. You're giving him screen time, and that, in the long run, means more than the actual content of the ad.) So our students, instead of learning how to interact with others by interacting with others, are receiving non-authentic lessons from videos that model more undesirable behavior than desirable. They are also living in a world where they have constant stimulus--that's not always that valuable.

And we wonder why kids can't sit still, or lack empathy. My advice to parents: limit the TV watching and spend one-on-one time with your kids. Instead of TV, have them write, draw, do puzzles, play with blocks, look at books, and let them use their creativity and imagination. Read to them. Talk to them. Involve them. It doesn't have to take extra time out of your day--point things out when you're driving places. Talk to them in the grocery store. Ask them how their day was. Model kindness and empathy. Reward positive behavior, and provide consequences for poor choices. Have them take responsibility for themselves--cleaning up their own messes, and helping out around the house. Be around as much as you can, and talk about the importance of school. Don't get them a cell phone until it's a necessity, and don't get them a smartphone until much later.

Technology has it's place--but it drives me nuts when I put on a video, and all of a sudden students are quiet and paying attention. These kids are being raised with constant instant gratification and tons of stimuli--too much really. It's sad that they can pay better attention to a screen, then to a real, live human being. That being said, technology can be great, and a good teaching tool. The problem is, we're trying to prepare children for the 21st century using technology from the dark ages. Case in point: my computer on my desk in my classroom has a floppy disc drive. Yup.

I Seem to Have Misplaced a Copy of My Brain

Those are actual words that came out of my mouth, and it was a true statement in multiple ways. In "Stepping Stones," which is what we call our reading block, we read a book called "My Brain." We send home copies of the books for kids to read for homework, and I was one short. However, on another level I really am losing my brain, as it were...I set stuff down and two seconds later can't find it again. And making it through the day--especially last Thursday and Friday--can be the biggest challenge.

"This business of training little humans for life is a mind-boggling process." -unknown

"The best part of teaching is that it matters. The hardest part of teaching is that every moment matters, every day." -Todd Whitaker

I feel like if I wrote a book, I could title it "Adventures of a First Year Kindergarten Teacher: Stress Eating Dove Chocolates, or How I Lost My Voice and My Mind."

Mind-boggling does not even begin to cover what it means to teach kindergarten. When you're new at a job, it's okay to make mistakes. Everyone does. When you're learning, you learn best when things don't go perfectly. The issue is that the mistakes I make, while they make me a better teacher, affect kids' lives. My mistakes impact someone's kindergarten year. I feel like I should be better prepared, given that I have 3 prior years of experience in schools. Yet here I am, wasting time getting kids to just sit and listen...and then running out of time to get any work done. I keep meaning to create new centers for early finishers, go back to my notes from classes last year and try new things. But I simply have zero extra hours in the day to do that.

I honestly feel a bit like I am failing, both at being an effective teacher, and failing my students. I'm working on progress reports, and I have so many students not on grade level. Some of this is because it's only been 30 days of school, and learning is not always a fast process! Some of this is due to behavior. Some of this is due to language. And some, perhaps most, is likely due to me. I'm still learning, and finding out new things about my school, my responsibilities, and what I need to have in my classroom. I can't look further than a day or two in advance, because I am barely hanging onto my day to day goings-ons.

I feel bad too, writing "N" for growth needed, when I feel like it's my fault. Or, for my ELL students, because it's a language issue, and it's going to be "N" all year. We really need to provide ELL students with bilingual education, because not only is it important that they don't lose their native language, but because literacy in a first language translates to better learning a second. And as for this year, well, it can take 2-3 years to master basic conversational ability in a second language, and 5-7 years to master academic language. So it's okay that my ELL students won't master English skills this year...but they still deserve access to the content, and I feel bad that I can't supplement that with their own language because I don't know Spanish. I worry though, that even though developmentally speaking, I shouldn't expect them to be proficient, because that's unrealistic, that seeing "N"s on all their progress reports will have some psychological effect. So I need to keep this in mind and discuss this with parents at parent-teacher conferences to assuage fears the parents may have.

Good thing I'm ever the optimist, because last week was full of me feeling like a miserable failure. On the bright side, I do know that some of my kids are picking up stuff. We have this alphabet with our curriculum that has a picture intertwined with each letter. We are supposed to go through the alphabet saying each picture name (which has the letter sound ie: apple, bat and ball, caterpillar, dinosaur).

When assessing my kids for progress reports, I asked them to name letters. A few kids could tell me the picture that goes with the letter-- tower, snake--but I got a blank stare when it came to letter names. They're learning what I'm teaching, I suppose. But now I'm practicing the alphabet with letter names and sounds, because otherwise their foundation for letters is going to be random nouns, and that's confusing.

On Being An Optimist And Spending All My Money

"Teaching is the greatest act of optimism." -Colleen Wilcox

"We expect teachers to reach unattainable goals with inadequate resources. The miracle is this: they often do." -Haim Ginott

With the exception of being a morning person (I'm not), teaching fits me well. I love kids books, school supplies, and I'm a little bit of a hoarder. I believe in the power of education, I assume good intentions, and I think that every kid is capable of learning. It's not always easy to maintain these beliefs. Rather, it's rarely easy, yet every day I have a new chance to try again.

In related news, both Target and Amazon have benefited greatly from my becoming a teacher. While theoretically teachers shouldn't have to buy their own supplies, the reality is that teachers spend a great deal of money--their own money--on school supplies. I certainly have. It's more than just the basics. A lot of the basics are covered either by the school, or rather through parent donations (a result of budget cuts), but if you want to have a decent amount of options for activities or even just putting stuff on the walls, you've got to do a little extra. I have been slowly building up my room, spending money I didn't really have, until my first paycheck came along. It's also been very entertaining to watch my Amazon recommendations shift to kids books and school supplies.

Luckily I didn't have to spend a giant amount on a rug; the school got it for me. It was a very exciting day when it finally arrived. My room finally felt like a kindergarten room! I still have mixed feelings about my desks (I'd rather have tables, or just smaller desks), but hey, I have a sweet rug!

I've got to take pleasure in the little things, like a beautiful rug, and unexpectedly calm moments, because it's easy to get bogged down by everything that is going wrong. The rug didn't really solve behavior issues, because no matter how visual those carpet rectangles are, I have several students (okay, it feels like at least half the class) who cannot for the life of them just stay in one section for longer than 10 seconds. I couldn't have lasted a week in kindergarten if I wasn't optimistic. I have to stay positive, despite constantly feeling like I don't know what I'm doing, or I'm not doing enough for my students. 

So I continue to be as consistent as I can, stick to our routine, and follow through on consequences. Kindergarten is WAY more complicated than anyone, even me, could have expected. I continue to spend more money than I probably should on things for my classroom, from things to help me organize the million things I have to keep track of, to more things (puzzles, prizes, toys, art/school supplies) for my students. Teaching is a huge investment of time and emotion. My weekends are full of prep, and thinking about what I can do differently or what more I can do for my students. There is really no leaving your work at work as a teacher, because the job becomes so personal. 

Yet, I can't imagine doing anything else.

Boys Will Be Boys....We're Just Not Letting Them

"Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” -Fred Rogers

“We need to make the schools ready for the kids, not make the kids ready for the schools.” -Carol Copple

Today I came across a piece called Pressure-Cooker Kindergarten, so naturally, being a kindergarten teacher, I clicked on the link. With the difficulties I am currently having with my students and listening and discipline, this article resonated with me. With all the requirements of us to complete during our school day, we had to cut out a recess. Our kids still get a recess at lunch time, but historically they've had another one...and this is not a good thing. 

It's heartening---yet disheartening at the same time--to see that research shows that this emphasis on testing and assessment and strict lessons is not developmentally appropriate for kinders. As the article eloquently puts: "there is a growing disconnect between what the research says is best for children -- a classroom free of pressure -- and what’s actually going on in schools." This is heartening because it means that my gut feelings and discomfort with my current curriculum/requirements are not baseless. Having just spent a year in grad school learning what research shows, and best practices, it becomes disheartening to see so little opportunity to utilize this knowledge.

I personally feel pressured to complete activities, and it is difficult to spend the time my kids so desperately need not only to explore and play, but to learn basic social and school skills. Some of my students--they're 5 years old for goodness sake--are unresponsive to teacher direction. I think we are asking too much from them too soon. What's the rush? We need to let our children be kids, and create supportive environments to grow at developmentally appropriate rates, not force student into sitting at desks for hours, where they are not really learning authentically or laying down strong foundations. (That said, they need the opportunity for meaningful play, not video games, ipads and TVs).

As a first year teacher, it's hard to draw the line between what's wrong with the system, and what I'm still figuring out/learning/currently failing at--I'm still figuring out my teaching style, my ideal management system, and the world of kindergarten, much less how to juggle all the other requirements of being a teacher that falls outside of the school day (and there are a lot). I keep telling myself it's got to get better, but I'm finding it hard to truly develop my own style when so much is dictated by my curriculum. It doesn't always feel authentic because I'm secretly questioning its effectiveness in the way we're using it, and that may come across slightly to my students. 

Parts of our curriculum is being implemented school-wide, and I get that it's important to keep certain things consistent. However, when using a curriculum that was created by someone far away from my school, and used across the country, it's hard to truly put my faith into 100%, because there is no one-size-fits all solution, and we have to change just enough of it to fit our schedule that it loses some of its effectiveness. I think common core standards are good to make sure expectations are the same across the US. However, just because a school is program improvement or "failing" or what have you, doesn't mean the teachers don't know what they're doing. It's more likely that the teachers are not given the freedom to provide the students the education they need, but rather prescribed a system to follow to increase "accountability". Which then creates this downward spiral, where it is very hard to get out of program improvement, and the schools that do well continue to because they have the resources and freedom.

I put "accountability" in quotations because that discussion regarding holding teachers accountable for student proficiency is, quite frankly, ridiculous. No amount of testing is going to hold teachers more accountable than teachers hold themselves. The kind of person who becomes a teacher believes in the power of education and their ability to make a difference, that they hold themselves to a higher standard than any testing ever could, and it kills me when I feel my hands are tied so I can't make the greater difference I believe I could.

I hope that right now my feelings are more a manifestation of my frustrations of my day-to-day teaching, and that as the year progresses, things will get better, and I will see better behavior, and more learning and improving.

Let's take a tour!

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'" -Mary Anne Radmacher

My room is 9b. The best room to bee.

I have survived five days of five year olds! Just barely--my honeymoon period lasted the first 3 days of school, which were all half days. Now that it's a full week, with whole days, I'm being immersed in the joys of five year old boys thinking constant farting noises is HILARIOUS. Time to go back to rules and routines again...but first, pictures!

Hopefully I'll have a rug soon.

 My classroom really started to come together when I put the alphabet up--then name tags, caddies for supplies, and then, all my curriculum materials.

It looks dark outside the door because I was at school the night before day 1 until 8:45.

 Teachers are hoarders, which is super useful for new teachers. Older teachers, at the beginning of the year, often want to get ride of stuff. So that's where I got the paper cubby shelf (along the wall, to the left in the above picture). The bee hive where I wrote the Welcome Message was left in the staff lounge, up for grabs. My bulletin boards were also left in good condition, so I didn't have to put up new paper or borders. Huzzah!

Student work will go along the right wall, and I have lots of storage and counter space across the back wall.

As more gets added to the wall--such as our sight world caterpillar, or student work,  or various posters, I'll share some more pictures, along with some reflections of the first few weeks of school. Which are HARD.

I have to keep reminding myself that I am many of my students' first introduction to school. (Not to mention MY first year with my own classroom. I am also still learning). That it's all on me to introduce routines and appropriate behavior. The first week of school went just swimmingly. Yesterday and today fell apart a bit. It's my personal opinion that kindergartners are expected to do too much, too soon, which is rushing me past the basic behavior skills they so desperately need. So I'm going to take a deep breath, and start fresh. Tomorrow is a new day.

A Blank Slate

“What I'm mostly good at is sleeping, he once told me in confidence, but he added, I don't see much future in it.” -Brian Andreas

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." -Lao-Tzu

Now that I've signed my paperwork, I shall, amidst preparing lessons, working on my masters, and attempting to maintain a work out/running routine as well as a social life, try to chronicle my first year of teaching via this blog. What better place to start than with the before pictures of my classroom? 

The day I got my key, I had rows of desks that were too big for kindergartners:

I came in the following week to drop off some supplies, and played around with my new, k-sized desks. In an ideal world, for kindergarten, I think I'd prefer tables. Simply arranging desks can be quite the undertaking--mine are the kind with storage in a side-cubby, making the desks long rectangles, which was causing me issues with my long-rectangle shaped room. Trying to find a way where no students back would be towards me at the white board, with enough meandering space was difficult--especially once I decided that I didn't want the desks to be the central focus of the room, as they are for older grades. So I ended up fanning the desks out in a half circle around where my rug (which I don't have yet) will go--and this gathering space can be the center of my classroom:

(I also learned that it's really hard to take a good picture of a classroom with a cellphone, that captures the whole scene. Not pictured is my reading corner and the door.)

My next focus will be what to do with my blank walls--but I'm holding out until I know more about the curriculum I'm using and what my daily schedule will be--I know I'll need a calendar area, and I'll get an alphabet to put up above the white board. It's all got to come together in the next couple of weeks--I'm in the terrified/nervous/excited mode right now. Stay tuned, and when my classroom is all put together for the first day of school (August 14th), I'll share more pictures!