day off

well, i wasn't planning to take the day off when i woke up this morning. i mean, i was wishing for it, but i certainly didn't think it would happen. but i was feeling very "off" at school before school began and it turned out that there was a sub free for the day. i decided to go for it and go home sick. so far i have slept, eaten, watched TV, finished my absentee ballot, thought a little bit about school, tried to finish up a group lesson that i am supposed to be planning with my clued-out grade level team but i just want to get done, and planning my halloween costume.

my costume is a spelling bee. yes, i know, it is totally cool!! it will be cute! i'm planning what spelling words i want to use right now.

growing up

sometimes i really get 'growing up.' i understand the draw of staying home on a saturday night, cooking dinner and listening to NPR (a prairie home companion, selected shorts), making fresh pizza dough and just being in my space. i didn't used to understand. i didn't even think, before this year, that i'd be able to give up going out to dinner 2 or 3 nights every week. but it's been easy...simple...fun, even. i've begun cooking more, planning out meals and cooking them up for the two of us. sometimes we eat together at the dining room table, sometimes we read or sometimes we watch tv. but we've said that when we have kids, we'll eat together every night at the dining room table like we both did with our families when we were little. that's something that we wish our students had--dinner at the dinner table with their families, every night. we've talked about how that's where you learn to talk with grown-ups, to eat with manners, to enjoy a meal with your family.

i always think of my mom, my grandma, when i bake. i made pizza dough with my friends' anne and hannah's recipe that they made for us before we got married. and i have been listening to NPR for a few hours now. i don't even want to watch TV. i just want to listen to the radio.

i like growing up, and i'm starting to get it. i hope for jesse and i that we can grow old together just like my grandparents, and so i love the things i do, we do, that are like my grandparents. like baking bread, and listening to NPR on a saturday night. because really, that's an okay thing to do on a saturday night.

too much

i feel like i know too much about my students right now.

P. has been in counseling since he was in elementary school. his mom can't give him the attention he needs because she has mental health problems of her own. when he gets bad grades, his older brother yells at him and makes him study textbooks for higher grade levels. he doesn't get anything positive at home and has mental health issues himself.

J.'s family is homeless. for the beginning of the schoolyear they were living in a shelter but now they're staying with various relatives. have you ever moved around night after night after night, not knowing where you're going to sleep? multiply that times the pressures of being a middle school girl who is growing up fast and it's gotta be so difficult.

O.'s sister has cystic fibrosis and he takes care of her after school every day. he is already like a parent to her.

D.'s brother (my old student) has been locked up for 65 days and has 30 more days to go. luckily he's getting out, but he has to live with his gang-banging parent. D. wants to go live with that gang member and his brother after his brother gets out.

N. wants to run away with D. something is going on at home--nothing good. N.'s brother (another old student) got jumped two nights ago. where would they run to? they don't know. N. has $8.

V. hasn't been getting enough sleep and is falling asleep in his other classes. he works at a store near his house from 7:30 pm to 12 am every day. his mom doesn't work--it's just him and his brother who are working right now.

am i a social worker or a teacher? sometimes i don't know my own identity or job....
i worry worry worry about my kids. i'm not the only adult who knows this stuff. some of this information has come from the kids themselves, sometimes from other adults like counselors or old teachers.

interestingly, my school is very racially diverse and so are the kids who have challenges. i think sometimes people hear about east oakland and think that everyone is black or latino, but it's not true. kids of all races and backgrounds have these problems....i think that the commonality is poverty, not race. i wonder, also, how much of this is related to the economy.

i feel like i've never known this much about my kids in the past couple of years. either i didn't realize, didn't ask, was too consumed with getting through the day...now part of getting through the day is calling child protective services and telling my student's other teachers that he's having a family crisis and to go easy on him.

it just gets me down sometimes. and i also have to wonder how i'm supposed to teach in the midst of all of this....

teaching

i am trying to align my assessments with district and state assessments right now and seriously....it's not easy. i love it that i can grapple with this stuff, though. it's so exciting and satisfying. it also reminds me how far i have to go. i wonder if the experienced, successful teachers do this kind of stuff, or if they are just so good at teaching reading comprehension and analysis that it doesn't matter. i don't know--i think at least looking at how they are being assessed is a really important step in designing my lessons and assessments. the standards can be interpreted so many different ways--why not play the game so that my kids can know how the world expects them to interpret the standards? it's the same as playing the life game, right? you have to know what people expect in order to be successful. otherwise, how is it fair?