holiday time

i'm on vacation. that's great! i have a cold. for the second time in a month. not so great, but...hey.

i received gifts and cards from some students last week. i have to include the text of a few of the cards because they are so cute:

"Merry Christmas and happy new year!!! Hope you have a good time and try not to think about school. Enjoy your vacation while it last."

"Dear Ms. B, I hope you get a very nice Christmas break filled with love. Also presents. PS: you're a fun teacher to hang out with. Merry x-mas."

"Hi Ms. B., Hope you have a great Christmas with your friends and family. PS: I won't have so much fun don't worry Ima try and grow my reading level."

"Hey Ms. B, Well have a good break and I want to thank you, because now I'm so into books, you can't even imagine. I'm reading more and I hope to get better grades next year. Thanks for being a great teacher."

how awesome are the reading ones? they are so cute. three of those are from girls, one is from a brother and sister pair. i have both of them in my classes.

so yeah. vacation is cool. we are re-watching "the wire" (season 4) with jesse's brother. gotta go!

RIF

RIF stands for "Reading is Fundamental." It's a program that happens three times a year at my school, where students get free books. They get either one or two, depending on what table they choose from.

So, my superstar class (period 1 & 2) goes to RIF the moment school begins. We get back; they beg to read for the rest of the class period. I tell them that we'll read for 25 minutes and then regroup, depending on how they do. After 25 minutes I ask them, and they beg to read for the rest of the class period. They sat and read silently, and totally engaged, for over 45 minutes. These are 8th graders who read at the 5th grade level, and know it. And yet they were so excited about reading. We'll see what the afternoon brings.....

out late--but not angry

well, i wasn't angry. some of them were. or, just frustrated.
my afternoon class has been really challenging this week. they talk a lot. yesterday i got really mad and threatened to cancel reader's workshop and said that their reading level would stay at 4th grade.
then, shocked that those words had actually come out of my mouth, i told them that we were going to keep reading and i wasn't going to give up on them.

today was a shorter day. we had an assembly that took up almost all of the first period, and they were AMAZING--i thought they were going to be awful, but they were really well behaved. when you're in an assembly with all the other 8th grade teachers and students, and your administrator, you just kinda want your kids to be good. after all, they are my kids for 2 hours every day.

so they were great, and they came back, and they did waste a little time which is why we got out late. but, i made a pledge not to get angry today like i did yesterday. i put up a schedule, we reviewed what had to get done, and i kept them to their timetable. we started reading about 5 minutes late, so they got dismissed 5 minutes late. it wasn't awful or anything--just slightly unpleasant. it definitely shut them up, though. they were so quiet at the beginning of reading that i could actually start calling individual students up to read with me. that is a major miracle--i didn't actually think that was going to happen in this class, ever.
the four things that i think made today better are:
1) i decided not to get angry and i was really calm and at times playful with them
2) it was a short day and we really only had about 65 minutes together in the classroom (as opposed to the usual 125 minutes).
3) i was really specific and explicit about how long we needed for each thing. more work for me, but it's meant to head problems off at the pass in terms of management. if i can point someone out and say "you're talking and we're already 2 minutes behind," it is really helpful. they ask if just the people who are talking can stay late, and while it's not fair, i told them no--it's disrupting the entire class's learning.
4) my weekly volunteer was here

i feel more positive than i have so far this week. two out of that list of 4 can be replicated each day. unfortunately, i can't have my wednesday volunteer every day, and we will have our usual 125 minutes back. i REALLY need to think of something at least mildly school-related that gets them out of their seats every day at some point. that's my homework for tonight (among other things).

loving my job

the best thing this morning...we read the poem "no mirrors in my nana's house," by Ysaye Barnwell. i know it from singing it in community choir when i was in high school, so we listened to the version by Sweet Honey in the Rock. my first period class has a good portion of positive, outspoken, confident black girls (and a few black boys) who really contribute a lot to the class. they often carry the class along with their enthusiasm--i can't take the credit for the amazing community that has developed in that morning class. anyways, they were all soooo into the poem/song. they asked me to play it over again. two of my boys (both black) got up and were dancing. everyone was smiling and laughing. i couldn't help myself--i smiled and laughed, also. seriously, it was the middle of class, 9:10 am on a tuesday, and two boys were up doing all these funny dances together. (they are good friends). i wish i could have captured it on on video, because it was AMAZING. one girl who is in the school choir asked me to play it yet AGAIN once the students got started on the related activity. we were singing together (well, i have no voice right now so i wasn't singing, but i tried) and it was basically the cutest thing ever. i loved it!

my afternoon class, on the other hand....i got really mad at these boys for laughing while i played the song, and then i basically had to sit back and realize that they are teenage boys, they are immature, and they felt nervous so they laughed because they didn't know what else to do. i guess it's rough being a teenage boy. i wish we had some more girls in that class...sigh...

hopefully my voice is on its way back. that would be nice! it's time for me to hit the sack.