A Hero Dies

She said:  When you learn, teach, when you get, give."

And she did.

We sing her praise and remember her with gratitude.

Maya Angelou's body died today - but her spirit lives in us all.  She IS our teacher. 

Memories are made of this . . .

Paseo High School in 1989

Once upon a time I envisioned myself as Don Quixote and I joined with a group of fine folks to tilt at windmills.  Like Don Q my efforts were in vain but that is not to be said that they did not bear fruit.

I taught for 22 years in the Kansas City School district -- first at the Southeast Complex and after seven years was transferred to Paseo High School.  I worked there from 1976 until I resigned from the district (if you have tilted at them publicly for over a year it is in you best interest to resign your position with them) in 1990 -- the year every high school in Kansas City became a magnet school.

Today the district has abandoned that magnet plan -- just as we predicted in 1990.  And today they have put on the market or sold many of their fine historic schools built from 1890 to 1950 -- just as we predicted they would be forced to do because they could not maintain the infrastructure they were building back in the 1980's and '90's. 

This story of how I came to walk away from teaching has been told many times and in many other forms and I'm certainly not going to bore you with a repetition today.  You can learn all about it here if you want to wade through horrible accounts of mismanagement and hypocrisy:

History of Paseo High School
Why Did Kansas City public schools fail?
The Paseo Alumni Association

I vowed I'd never go back to teaching but then in 2006, when Hubby got so sick and my current employer was so awful, life threw me a curve and offered me a slot teaching special education in the Kansas City Kansas public schools.  I was always destined to be an urban core high school teacher -- I never wanted to do anything else.  So I grabbed the gold ring and was profoundly grateful to Kansas City Kansas for showing me that a decent urban core school system could find successes without doing harm to their parents, their children, and their employees.

When Hubby's physical condition worsened in 2010 and 2011, I realized it was my time for actual retirement.  Thanks to the last years spent back in eduction and a rigorous savings program, we could just about afford it.

Last spring I was notified by email that the alumni of the school I had fought so hard to save was putting together a program to remember the efforts made by their members, my students, and our lawyer.  Did I want to come? 

I actually had to think whether or not I did want to relive those times -- they weren't heartbreaking to me but they had been to some of the participants.  My major reaction to that time was still anger:  that a district could be so callous to those they were supposed to educate, that a court system could still enforce segregated education in the name of desegregation, that the power structure of my city only wanted to realize profits from their failing school district rather than actually improve it.  Still, I looked at the guest list and said, yes, I'd come.  Would I speak?  I replied that I'd said everything I had to say back in 1990.

Plans were made.  Old friends, long unseen and unheard of, were contacted.  Telephone calls were made.  A pre-meeting was held.  Visuals were made.  Media was contacted.  Suddenly a small luncheon gathering of Paseo High School alumni was turning into a huge deal, all put together by the alumni association.  Those of us being honored just kind of cruised along in amazement at what a big deal all this was becoming. 

On Monday of this past week, January 27, the Paseo Alumni gathered at a posh Plaza restaurant.  There were tables and tables of memorabilia from our time in 1990.  The local TV station sent out a camera man to interview the participants who had come to reminisce.  Some of my favorite students were there to speak of those days.  The lawyers who represented my students spoke.  The alumni who had worked so hard to save the building spoke.  And yes, even I got up and gave a little talk. 

Monday afternoon was time of healing for me.  It was also a time of reconnecting.  My anger has eased just a bit because I am so very clearly aware of the good things that come from those days -- my kids, now 40 year old successful adults -- told me about how our efforts taught them lessons that could never have been learned in a classroom.  They reminded me that we may have lost a building but we always knew we had stood up for what was good, true, honest, and right. 

If you would like to see the speechifying you can tune in here (the kids come in about half way through and they are worth the listen):

Video from Saving Paseo luncheon

Finally, here are some pictures of the day:

Prelunch

MGW & Calvin Well, leader of the Paseo 18

Materials gathered to commemorate our achievements

Just one of the tables of memorabilia

Suzette Naylor, comptroller KC Art Institute, Calvin Well, DeVry Institute, Terri Barr, aid to Senator Claire McCaskill, Donald Frazier, vice-principal in the St. Louis area

Calvin Wells

John Kurtz, lawyer, introducing Donal Frazier, educator

Suzette Naylor, last valedictorian of the original Paseo High School with John Kurtz, lawyer for the Paseo 18

 

 

 

 

 

Claudio Molteni, lawyer -- John Kurtz, lead lawyer -- Suzette Naylor, Paseo 18 -- Calvin Well, Paseo 18 -- Hubby, supporter Paseo 18 -- Me -- Terri Barr, paralegal for the Paseo 18 -- Donald Frazier, Paseo 18

Sharon McCone, leader for the Alumni, John Kurtz, lawyer for the Paseo 18, and me -- teacher of the Paseo 18

Double Bounty

I have two angels who supply my urban core classroom with supplies. At the start of the year they made sure every one of my students had notebooks, paper, dividers, white-out, pens, pencils, erasers, high-lighters, and index tabs. Every single kid on my caseload started out school with every supply needed for every class. What a difference this has had in the progress we are seeing in the classroom!

Today a Lincoln town car trunk load of groceries was delivered. We got fruit, pudding, crackers, cookies, Chef Boyardee bowls of pasta. It took two flat bed trucks to unload all the food and cart it to my classroom.

I had the kids in my Work Studies program make the food haul on the flatbeds. You should have seen their eyes when Hubby raised the lid on the trunk and laid out was ALL that wonderful food.

After unloading and rolling the flatbeds into the elevator to haul it all to the third floor, the kids were silent as they surveyed the bounty. Finally, my freshman spoke up.

This guy is from the behavioral disordered school that was closed for budgetary reasons this year. He's not been in a regular school for the last three years because he's violent, threatening, and disruptive. He is standing in his sagging pants and baseball cap next to the back flatbed, looking over the boxes and boxes of granola bars.

"Miss. Where did all this food come from?"

My senior, who knows everything and loves to share it, spoke up immediately. "Mrs. B and her husband provide us with the food. They buy it at Sam's. Hubby (which is how my kids know Hubby) went along with them this trip and then brought it to us."

The freshman boy stared at the other cart, loaded to the top with food.

"Miss. I didn't know that you knew people who hijacked Sam's trucks."

I guess that says it all, Mrs. B and Mr. C. It was inconceivable to my kids that someone could actually purchase this much food at one time.

The "thank you's" were in their eyes and their response to knowing that for the next several months, when they were hungry (and they are almost always hungry), they would be getting some decent food to eat. Not chips, not sweets. But fruit cups and fruit roll ups and healthy granola bars.

The food is safely put away now, stored in our closets and our storage bins. I won't have to share my sandwich on Tuesday with the cheerleader who has practice until 5 p.m. but lives on her own and hadn't had more than hot chips to eat for the past week. The boys who are starved by 11:30 will have granola bars to tide them over until third lunch at 12:20. The kid who needs meds in the morning won't be throwing them up because they were taken on an empty stomach.

This support provided by "anonymous" angels who really only get to meet the kids at the Christmas celebration will help us, not just survive, but thrive, during the school year.

Once again, Debby and Lou -- WE LOVE YOU!

Grades

Now isn't this just the prettiest little grouping of charts you ever did see?

Department	Course	Course Title	Grade	Hours
SSLS	779	TCHG ELEM STU W/ADPTV LRNG NDS	A	3.00
SSLS	853	TCHG STUDNT W/FUNCTNL LRNG NDS	A	3.00

	P & Misc Credit	Hours Passed	Hours Taken	Grade Points	G.P.A
This Semester	0.00	6.00	6.00	24.00	4.0000
Cumulative	0.00	33.00	33.00	132.00	4.0000

I am proud!

See that grade point average in the second chart? 4.0. Only A's for 33 hours of work!

Going to go have a slice of watermelon to silly-brate!

PS -- just called the district office and sent off the E-mail forms for my official transcript -- at 30+ beyond my masters makes for a nice little salary boost as of 9/15. Every added incentive for working through this year does help.

Especially for my sister-in-law

Have I told anyone lately that I love my Kindle?

I LOVE my Kindle!

Amazon is having a sale on Kindle books this week (until July 27th actually) and none are priced over $5.00. The ones I bought were $0.99 and $1.99 -- okay, I splurged and got one (only one, I promise) for $2.99.

The assortment is amazing. So amazing that I had to coordinate my Kindle with the computer. I'd read about all the hundreds of books on the computer and then order them from the Kindle.

In all I bought (around) 18 new books for my Kindle. Among the assortment:

• Trader Joe's Cookbook -- I've already read 10% of it and I'm in love; KC just got its first Trader Joe's and the assortment of healthy, low sodium, no additive food is simply astonishing. And then there's the low, low prices! Now I can even cook creatively with their wares.
  
• Cafe Luke's -- assorted essays on the Gilmore Girls. I adored the Gilmore Girl series. I own five of the seven DVD seasons and I've re-watched them on the Hallmark Channel.
• 2 short books purporting to tell strange and odd facts about the Revolutionary War and WWI -- both of which topics I have collaborated on in my social studies classes
• the autobiography of Chuck Norris -- Hubby ADORES Chuck Norris; I might as well read up on him and the Amazon review sounded interesting
• a whole heap of cozy mysteries -- just the odd title here and there so I could sample new series
• some interesting novels claiming to be sweet and funny -- one always needs some uplifting literature in times of stress and disappointment
• four young adult books that I can read to my students during silent reading period

I could have chosen a heap of religious literature, a lot of books on running and exercise (sister-in-law would never expect me to purchase either type of these), more cookbooks (it seems strange to me to read recipes off the Kindle -- here's where I'd rather have an actual book on my kitchen counter; the Trader Joe's book I can take into the store with me, so ha!), and many business type books but I'm looking forward to retirement. There were also many romances, children's books, histories, non-fiction works, and even some great literature works.

If you have a Kindle this is the time to stock up.

And in a side note to my sister-in-law, I LOVE my Kindle. It was worth every single penny. Thank you! You've given me some great gifts in the past, but I think I'm getting more enjoyment out of this one than any I've received in the past 20+ years.

#300

Two weeks of school completed. Yes, I'm keeping track this year. Yesterday, on the way to a movie that we walked out on (Scott Pilgrim -- lordy! did this movie prove we were old fogies! and man! did we hate it), I actually listed for Hubby all the school holidays and how soon they would arrive.

It's not that the two weeks were awful -- they actually were really good in terms of students and productivity. It's that they were so very, very exhausting. Every afternoon, the only thing I could manage on arriving home from school, was throwing off my clothes and going to bed. Eating wasn't an option. Reading was out. No TV. It was sleep. By 5:30 every single evening last week, I was sound asleep.

The collaborative / co-teaching model is going far better than I could ever have imagined, both in junior English and world history. My work with the junior English teacher cohort to develop a new curriculum to meet the new standards is going even better. Everybody is very complimentary of my lesson plans and ideas. And they have started contributing really great ideas of their own. My caseload kids are just wonderful -- smiling, friendly, happy to be back in school. They make every day a joy in the classroom.

The meeting schedule, however, is extremely arduous. I meet with the junior English teachers on Monday morning at 6:30 to 7, on Tuesday evening from 2:30 to 3, on Wednesday from 1:50 to 3, and sometimes on Thursday from 2:30 to 3. I meet with my co-teacher in English from 7:00 to 7:20 every morning. I meet with my co-teacher in social studies from 1:45 until 2:20 every afternoon and on Friday from 1:45 to 3:00. I meet with the SPED community from 2:30 to 3:00 every Monday afternoon.

The only morning without a meeting is Friday -- when I do metal detector duty from 7:00 until 7:20 checking student ID's.

I write the weekly lesson plans for all the English 3 (junior English) teachers in our building and also post them on-line for the district teachers. I write the world history lesson plans only for my co-teacher but he offers them up to anyone who wants them.

In the classroom, we are actually doing co-teaching in world history and English 3. Our world history class of 32 started the year with a text book "investigation" and map of the world review and now we are completing the artistic revolution of the Renaissance. I'm the disciplinarian in that room. I keep the kids on task -- and I teach the "basic" stuff (like vocabulary) and rewrite the lessons (especially the primary resource material) to make them more kid-approachable. I have worked with the social studies teacher now for three years but this is the first time we have actually co-taught the lessons.

In our English class of 31, I'm less the disciplinarian and more the equal partner, partly because the English teacher, a young woman, already has a firm grip on her classroom and because I'm a much better in English than in history. Though, so far, I've developed the entire lesson plans for our first unit, it's clear that eventually we will be sharing more and more the responsibilities of that job. So far, in both classes, I've also done all the grading of assignments -- because I believe that letting kids know exactly where they stand in class (and that you KNOW what they are doing) is extremely important.

Both teachers have opened up their usual processes in the classroom to accommodate my needs -- and this isn't easy. I can no longer stand for long periods of time and in my own space, I arrange students so I'm in the middle of them, sitting -- either in a rolling chair or on top of a desk. Both teachers have gone away from straight rows into group seating to accommodate my needs. This is huge!

Both teachers have pulled back on their own egos to allow me to interject into lessons, to dialogue with them and with their students -- and to find ways to give me equal "billing" with the kids. To teachers who have been "king" or "queen" in their silo-typed classrooms, this a decided and complicated change.

So the first week with kids has been fantastic. I believe we are improving the educational process -- and I think we are forming a pattern that can be copied by other teachers. But -- this is HARD work on all of us. The meetings, the sharing of space by very different personalities, the changing of methods that we have always found comfortable . . . this is real work.

Lastly, as to the title of this little piece -- this IS my 300th blog entry.

Whew!

Just got an E-mail from my prof on the final paper. Hallelujah!

Shoot me now!

Last week, in my grad class called "The Professional SPED Educator," we were required to write eight (8!!!) essays. I thought that was a tough week.

This week we had seven (7!) essays but the prof threw in a mid-term exam -- all essay questions. There were five (5 -- F I V E -- 5! 5! 5! 5!) questions.

That makes 12 essays in one week. There are only seven days in a week. Don't college professors realize that? Plus she assigned three chapters to read - another 150 pages. And some kind of form to fill out that I haven't yet even looked at.

One of the questions asked us to design a collaborative teaching model for our school with by-in from all staff members -- as well as design the training program from the model. This was one of the throw-away questions. This could a disertation! It can't be covered in a couple of pages!

Another asked us to interview a consultant in our district and write a detailed overview of his / her training.

Yet another essay must be developed as a group process, including four other team members. The topic: how to provide treatment integrity for a given intervention.

Finally, for this week there is the essay test -- the directions were: write in-depth answers with annotation. Four questions required some creativity but mostly were answerable by doing research from our reading -- with a lot of explanation. But the last question was a case study of a first grader! The kid is six! I work in high school, for pete's sake.

There is still a huge project due at the end of the course. I have an idea in my head about what to write about -- but I can't find any time to even outline my thoughts.

This is simply beyond incredible. This is I M P O S S I B L E.

Change the conversation

R-word.org - Change the conversation...

I found this link on another blog -- and was totally impressed. I have been reading about people friendly, people first, language for a while now.

If you agree, please pledge.

Going to Hell in a Hand-Basket

Weird stuff happening in my city . . . and it's not good.

I grew up in the "lily-white" area of my city known as Waldo. Close to the state line (and the street is actually called State Line), upper middle class white folks moved into this area as 39th Street began to get seedy and black folks moved across Prospect, then Paseo, and (gasp!) actually right up to Troost. Once black folks crossed Troost, white folks fled in great numbers west into Kansas and east into the Independence area, abandoning Waldo. Even my parent fled -- but they went so far as to move to Colorado into a town where no black folks lived. Me? Well, I moved across Troost into a little bungalow and there I've stayed for nearly 40 years. I've never been the only "white folk" on my block, because the gay couple has been there nearly as long as I have. The recession has also made the prices of the fairly nice houses on my block look attractive and we've had another white couple move in.

Waldo became an area of nice family houses and middle class to lower income people. Closer to State Line and the houses got bigger and fancier. Closer to Troost the houses were a lot smaller.

Waldo now has a serial rapist stalking the streets -- attacking at least four women in the last year. That's bad. However, the news media has latched onto the story and turned it into sensational fodder. The rapist, as you might guess, is a black male of very general description -- balding, 6 foot, 25o pounds, round faced, and maybe 25 to 35 years old. They have a sketch of the guy culled from the victims description. Because of the hype on nearly every single daily newscast (Waldo Rapist Still at Large -- Women in Panic) and because the reward for his capture has grown so large ($12,000 and counting), now every black male who shops or drives through the Waldo area is suspect. Last week the police questioned a balding black male who was a grandfather -- nowhere near the reported age of the actual rapist. My husband looks very similar to the sketch of the rapist . . . and I've actually wondered if the police was going to show up at our door. We spend a lot of time eating and shopping in the Waldo area and we live just a smidgen away from the actual area. So far, the police aren't questioning 75 year old men - but you just never know.

It's important that women be aware to take precautions when something like this has happened - but the fanning of racial flames by our media, both print and video, seems out of all portion to the actual problem.

The Kansas City mayor is a joke. Mark Funkhauser was elected by people who thought they were getting away from old line Democratic and black politics in this city. They got a buffoon and an idiot. From trying to make his wife "co-mayor" to making decisions without the city council input, he has left out city leaderless. His newest media push was to help improve the Kansas City School District by using funds for curb appeal around the schools. We don't have enough funds to keep schools open but our mayor wants to mow lawns and plant flowers and this will make 50 years of poor education disappear?

Then, of course, we have the Kansas City School District who has made national news because they must now close 30 of their schools due to declining enrollment and lack of funds. For 50 years this school district has been an embarrassment to our city. Whites who might have wanted to remain in the city were forced into flight if they had children, especially those of high school age.

Kansas City proudly boasts of the new Sprint Center and proudly hosts college basketball tournaments. We brag about our luxury shopping on the Plaza and our delicious barbecue. But the truth is we are a failing city. We should be held criminally responsible for the harm we have done to our minority children through our educational system. We are a city that fans the flames of racism without a second thought when our "white" women are a risk -- but we have little to say about the harm we are doing by branding every balding black male as a threat. We elected a white mayor over an extremely competent black opponent and now our city government is in shambles.

When will we learn?

It's All Good

The foot feels wonderful! It's too bad I was so scared / busy to take care of the problem earlier. I assumed, based on past experience, that the cure was going to be at least as awful as the problem -- and for a couple of days much worse. Instead, just as the doctor promised, there was nearly no pain involved at all. My foot never hurt worse in the last 24 hours than the pain caused by the original problem. When Hubby helped me remove the huge bandage tonight so I could soak the foot and add the required medicated drops, I had no pain at all. None. I could see only slight bruising and the actual incision site looked clean and healing.

Also got through my last class tonight. Made the final presentation and heaved one huge sigh of relief.

At school today (Thursday) the kids assembled the faculty gift boxes -- 15 total. The theme this year was "Happy to be Home" and we had cookbooks, soup mixes, Godiva chocolates, Christmas ornaments, and calendars for everyone -- as well as really special fancy boxes to arrange the items in. The school psychologist said every time she saw one of my kids today they were just glowing.

Friday we do the celebration lunch -- Hubby has made a huge vat of spaghetti, the 40 gift packages are arranged under the tree, and we are set to entertain outside guests and selected members of the administration -- as well as the kids themselves.

Yes, I'm tired. But all this effort is worth it.

Kaput!

I just typed the last few phrases into my next to final paper for grad class. Whew! I feel so relieved. It only ran 30 pages -- I thought it might go longer. I have one form to send home from my school computer to paste into the adendum and I'm all wrapped up. The final-final presentation is already in the can -- created, printed, and copies run for the class (because we have to stand up and present the dang things). This time around I'm not sweating out the grades -- so far I have 100% in the class, so even if I blow this final paper, I should be okay.

I'm not taking a spring course. Instead I'm concentrating of building curriculum for the two English classes I'm teaching. Spring semester will be English 1 second block and English 2 fourth block. The English 2 class is pretty large but I know a lot of the kids already so that will help. The English 1 class will be the pain in the patoot. These are really, really low Special Ed kids and I'm not the most patient of people. I may need to take up meditation. I'll also be collaborating in American History.

Our weather is blasting cold air. We were predicted to have a heavy snow, once again the really awful weather skirted us and we only got a misting. I'm going to have to dig out the thermals for tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. though.

Never Post When You're Tired -- and the Osmonds Get Me Readers

Yes! To every responder from the last post.

Yes. I do not recall the exact first name of the any of the Osmond Brothers from the Branson show -- and I didn't look them up. The only one I know is Donny. And Maria but she's not a brother. And they both were in Vegas. Not in Branson.

Yes. Rolls are NOT roles. Silly me. You eat rolls. The Osmond who came for the rolls did play a role in the show. I clearly do not know his name. He had white hair. A lot of it.

Interesting to have so many anonymous readers. I never knew . . . I don't keep stats, I have no idea how many times this poor little blog is accessed, and lately I haven't been posting. I write only for me and the "family" so if you happen along, please respond nicely. My feelings get hurt easily (NOT!). Actually, just finding responses is kind of cool. So write anything you want. I've been teaching for 26 years now -- my hide is so tough I can't even see the slings and arrows, much less feel 'em.

No posts lately because grad school is kicking my butt. Big time. It's awful the amount of work required in the last four weeks of this semester. Up to now things haven't been bad and so, of course, I should have been doing the work all along (writing massive papers) but I wasn't and I haven't and I didn't . . . and now I'm overwhelmed. I did the final, final paper for a final presentation over the weekend but I have a huge project due on Thursday. The final presentation is due a week from Thursday. I'm not so worried about the grade this time -- I've gotten 100% on everything so far.

Last Friday I got diagnosed with a mild case of MRSA. My doc says he's been seeing a whole lot of these skin infections lately. I've got a referral somewhere to a specialist to have the offending problem looked at . . . but I've got to get this grad stuff done first and I've misplaced the referral. The infected area is on my foot so I just can't wear pretty shoes -- which I don't do anyway anymore and it only hurts when something touches it.

The school kids are hyped for Christmas. We put up the classroom tree and strung the fairy lights everywhere and we plan a big party for the last week -- with the 20 boys. Should be interesting . . .

We've read over half of Huck Finn and boys are really into it. They can even identify irony now without a prompt. That's a real achievement!

The Houston presents are ready for Christmas travel if I can just remember where they all are stashed when we're packing the car. Thank goodness sister-in-law does all the decorating. That WOULD be the last straw.

So mea culpa on the previous post. I'm NOT fixing it. The comments about it were just too priceless . . .Happy Holidays everyone!

Is It Because I'm Tired?

Damn! I held to my good intentions for the last three years -- and in year four I blow it. Well, hopefully not big time, but blown, none the less.

My goal this second round of teaching was to stay out of trouble and off every administrator's radar range. I'd tilted at my windmills, I'd fought the good fight -- and in so doing I'd left education in 1990 after 22 years of teaching. This time I was doing it differently.

Until Friday morning.

The school Alma Mater song is short and dull - but loud. It starts off "Wyandotte forever, we'll be true to thee" and never gets much beyond that actually. Our principal, good intentioned I'm sure, played it through one time every single morning last year - over the intercom system.

The song was recorded from her computer and it was of the girls' choir singing the song with a piano accompaniment. The playback was from her computer at full volume to the intercom turned full volume. The sound was awful. Every morning at seven a.m. this song blasted through the hallways of an empty school except for staff.

I could understand playing the song for the students -- but for the staff? The staff requested the practice be eliminated this year. The principal gave her reasons for continuing to play the song. The alumni had heard it once and told her it meant the "world" to them that the song was still around. Also, the song is to build a "family" spirit for the staff and students.

This year for the last two weeks the song has been played at ear-splitting volume not just once but three times every single morning. Friday morning at 7 a.m. she played it four times.

F O U R freakin' times. It reacts on my eardrums exactly like fingernails on a chalkboard.

I lost my mind. I went crazy. I got so angry that if you could have seen me, steam would have been rolling not just out of my ears but from my mouth, nose, eyeballs, and out the top of my head.

So I sent an e-mail. I did title it "Heartfelt Request" but I was still very angry when I composed the e-mail. I had some sensibilities left and I did re-read and try to temper the worst language out of it -- and it did occur to me that it was NOT in my best interest to send the note off -- but then I thought about Monday morning - and maybe we'd be hearing that god-awful song FIVE times and I pushed send. I still had sense enough to avoid requesting she stop playing the song altogether -- I merely asked that she turn the volume way, way down so the sound was not so distorted.

The problem is -- I really have followed my rule of "being invisible" to the staff. I stay way up in my third floor classroom and do my job. The admin doesn't have to deal with discipline problems from me. I'm a good teacher and can impress "wildly" when / if an admin needs to visit to see me teaching -- but because my students aren't creating disturbances, nobody ever needs to visit. Even for the required observations (really). I invite the admin to my special classroom events and they come, meet the students for five minutes and go away. My room is pretty -- if you stop by and glance in the door, everyone remarks that they would like to spend time there. It is always neat and clean and full of sunshine -- even on gloomy days. My door is always open and my kids are always engaged in learning -- not always quiet but working at normal sound levels for students actively participating in the learning process.

I am always early to school - by at least 30 minutes, usually more. I stay in my classroom when the kids are there. I am not absent unless I'm sick. I go to the meetings I'm required to attend.

But. I do not join committees. I don't volunteer. I don't go to sporting events this time around. Bleacher seats hurt my back and Hubby's knees. I don't want to hang around school after 3 p.m. I don't offer to tutor gen ed students. I don't toot my own horn. I don't brag about my accomplishments. I don't party with any of the staff members. I don't carry gossip and I don't take sides in faculty feuds. I really have tried to stay off the radar screen.

Until this year. Last year the SPED department asked me to pilot and teach a new English class for SPED kids. Somehow the Language Arts coordinator got wind of the class and because I wasn't attending the English curriculum meetings, his nose got out of joint. He went to my SPED department, our administration, and finally to downtown about the classes. This year when I still showed up on the schedule with even more kids, I got wind of his discontent. Ever since I've been trying to "build bridges" between the English teachers and me by providing them proof that my work actually does dovetail nicely with theirs. In fact, I've been sharing my curriculum with them and agreeing to develop some lesson plans for them. Right now things seem to be smoothed over.

But I have become a blip on the administration radar screens. Hopefully not a big one - but now I've sent off a complaining e-mail. So -- when I finally surface, I've done so in two negative ways right at the very beginning of school.

Darn it!

The response from the principal to my e-mail was very cryptic: point taken. I'm hoping this does not mean that I'm the one actually "on the point" -- and skewered.

It's ONLY the First Week?

Tomorrow, thank the lord, is Friday. I'm just holding it together physically until I can be rolled home Friday evening and fall into bed. I don't intend to get up until Sunday -- evening.

Teaching is wonderfully satisfying but never let anybody ever say it isn't a physical activity. This year, even more so, with my schedule.

I have co-taught in social studies second block for the last three years but really in name only. I love the social studies teacher but being in his room for 90 minutes drove me nuts and my need to verbalize with my kids drove him nuts, so contrary to actual district policy I did "pull-outs" with the students. I taught a group in my room with students that benefited from lots of interaction and he did "quiet seat work" in his room. We were both happy. In my room I have it set up so I can work with up to 10 students without having to move around on my feet constantly.

This year, however, we (okay, he decided) that we would have a "protected" classroom. He is fluent in Spanish and is a certified ESL teacher and I know how to teach "slower" students. So second block we have a 23 students who need lots and lots of interaction. He gets credit with admin for meeting student needs and they get special funding for our work and we no longer do "pull-out" sessions where we separate the kids because everybody is pretty much on the same level. This means that I'm on my feet for at least 60 of the 90 minute period, moving between desks and doing my "interaction" thing. The kids benefit -- I know that. But by 10:30, I'm already tired.

My 110 minute third block English group can be paced a little more evenly. I have the room set up so I can use my rolling chair (a desk chair with wheels) in the center of the room and I can get to everybody without having to always stand up and walk around. During my oral readings I sit. Tomorrow I'm stealing three more student desks from the first floor with the help of my guys and then we will be even more "comfortable" in my class. Right now I'm short two student desks but with the addition of three even I can sit comfortably with the students when I need to.

The 90 minute fourth block is split between my classroom and the physical science room. This is the first time since my first year in the building that I've tried collaborating with science. We have a new, young, energetic teacher who seems to like kids and is willing to do a true collaboration (which is different than co-teaching) and he has agreed to take the health community SPED kids and make modifications to his curriculum. I'm working with him three days a week for 45 minutes to help him out. Today during his class period, my first in his class, we had a fire drill. Down three floors (six flights of stairs), stand outside for ten minutes, back up the six flights of concrete stairs. Then it was move around lab tables for the next 30 minutes, bending down to help students take notes and learn vocabulary.

By the time I hit my own final literacy study hall for 45 minutes, all I could do was sit in my rolling chair and gasp. Luckily these kids are the ones going to the vo-tech school, so they had work they needed help with and I didn't have to initiate a lesson.

I explained to Hubby on the way home that there was no enticement in the world that could get me to go anyway other than home to bed. Obama could send his jet and limo to get me to the White House for a state dinner and if I had to walk onto the plane, off the plane, and from the limo to the White House -- I'd refuse to go. I simply didn't have any strength left.

Next week grad classes start -- 7 to 9 p.m. I'm not sure how I'm going to make it.

The Man Thing

Walked into my combined junior / senior English class to find: 16 male faces and only 5 females. Shocking!

Collaborating with the Health Community I usually get girls, lots and lots of girls. Girls with attitude. Girls gossiping. Girls needing the bathroom every 15 minutes. Girls with boy trouble, girl friend trouble, and parent trouble.

If I saw a boy, he was usually a man by the time I got hold of him. Last year's junior / senior mix had 10 girls and 4 men.

But this year they are boys. Sweet faced, gentle, responsive, courteous. No back biting. No gossip. Just lovely, even-tempered boys.

My planned lessons have gone out the window. I'm digging up sci-fi, Huck Finn, Poe, and war stories.

So far these sweethearts have been receptive to nursery rhymes, cartoon drawing, and actually learning the vocabulary words first time around.

I LOVE it!

First Week Successes

The first week of school went smoothly -- of course, we only had students on Friday and then only freshmen for their orientation day. Still, I'm heaving a sigh that many things were accomplished:

Juniors and seniors were in the building to provide most of the interaction with the freshmen on Friday; they trained for three days prior to meeting the incoming students. That meant we had students around and about and with them came their brothers and sisters, which for me meant that one of my senior boys was available and willing to help me set up my room. All the heavy labor -- and there was a lot of it -- was done by him. I'm forever grateful!

• My room looks nice. My kid did a herculean job of moving furniture and desks. We got everything out of storage and set back up and while I orchestrated, he pushed and shoved. We even have a reading corner in the room this year. The frig is cleaned, turned on and chilling and my boy even got the clock set on the microwave.


• My SPED presentation on Tuesday to the entire secondary SPED staff went well. I managed to be brief and sound intelligent at the same time.


• I worked with the English department at my school but avoided the all-district English meeting and hopefully can avoid them in the future. I'm trying to align myself with the reading crew for all-district meetings.


• I tried making "nice-nice" with the English coordinator because it seems he has gone to the district level to complain about my teaching an English class. Luckily my SPED coordinator is always in my corner but this means I'll have to tread with diplomacy and tact throughout the year with the English teachers. I think my plans for matching their benchmarking have so far been successful. When I presented them at their meeting and gave a copy to the Instructional Coordinator (IC) they reported back to my coordinator that they were very "happy and impressed" with our current level of cooperation. This means, of course, that I'll have to be willing to meet with them often and put on a positive face, and honestly, I'm not much of a bridge-builder, but in this cause I'll try my best.


• I have a plan for the first day of school. Admittedly I don't have a plan for day #2 but partly that's because I have no clue what this new group of students is going to be like. I need to get a feel for them because the class roster shows I've got 14 boys in a class of 20 -- and that's way, way different from the make-up of the class from last year which was mostly girls.


• I have 18 regular student desks in my room, but I've got a plan to have my favorite seniors sit around my back table in wooden chairs. I think (hope) they can cope.


• Hubby provided breakfast for the NEA folks -- and it was beyond delicious: just scrambled eggs topped with smoky links but all hot and bubbly and tasty. During the meeting it was announced that our salaries are frozen for the year but we were grateful not to be taking a cut in pay.


• My collaborative teacher is pleased we are working together again, as am I. We have an easy time of making our second block class work well.


• My SPED team is, as always, my home base and my grounding in the school. I'm so tickled to be working with them.

Monday the entire school arrives. We've had over 1300 students enroll and that is about 250 more than planned for by the district. Classes will be over-flowing. We have many new first year teachers in our building. I imagine they won't sleep very well tonight. We will cope, though. We are urban-core teachers -- we ARE invincible!

First Days

Wow Boy! Monday was tough -- physically tough. During the summer the janitors remove everything from your room so they can buff the floors. It appears they don't do much else except maybe turn your desk upside down six or seven times and shake it and leave your lounge chairs in the classroom across the hall and completely lose your bookcase. They don't clean anything. But the floors sure do shine. After doing the floors, they put stuff back in classrooms, but they don't much care whose room things go back into.

The first days are always spent on a scavenger hunt, looking for your desk chair, the keyboard to your computer, and your overhead projector. I didn't go in to school early this year; I spent the last free days of summer wallowing in TV reruns of Stargate and Burn Notice. So Monday, I came into a huge classroom mess.

It was hot. And humid. Very humid. Though we are air conditioned, the size of the school and the height of the ceilings preclude us getting nice and chilly. I spent the first hour pushing around loaded bookcases and file cabinets. By the time I had worked up a complete sweat it was time for the first all school faculty meeting.

I spent lunch snacking on the sandwich Hubby had provided and moving my teacher's desk and setting up the computer equipment. Then it was time to head down four flights of stairs to the cafeteria to get the equipment needed for the newest faculty push -- MIRP (used to be called Sustained Silent Reading back in the '80's -- now it's Monitored Independent Reading Practice). The whole school will be participating this year. The tub, the file folders, and labels, and the hanging strip blanket (which looks a lot like a shoe rack with much smaller cellophane panels) had to be lugged back to the third floor.

Next we had MIRP training. Then back up to the third floor to push around more furniture and work up a good lathering sweat before finally going home at 4 p.m.

I got home, fell into bed, and passed out. Hubby fixed me a plate of pancakes (comfort food) for dinner, I took a bath, and passed out a second time. My whole body hurt. I told Hubby the only thing not in dire pain were my lips, my ear lobes, and my eye lashes. Somehow I had wrenched my bad knee, strained my back, and pulled my shoulder and neck muscles. I took a muscle relaxer at bed time and when I woke up at midnight I swallowed my second Celebrex of the day (I try for only one a day and only if in dire pain -- but by midnight I was still unable to walk upright).

At 3 a.m. when I woke up to turn over (the arthritis is bad enough I can no longer turn over in my sleep) I was still in misery. But two more hours helped enormously and by 5 a.m. I was feeling much more normal.

Today we had Convocation -- away from my high school. Then it was SPED meetings in the afternoon at the downtown convention center. I spent the day, happily sitting on my butt. It was much needed rest.

Tomorrow I'm once again back at my high school, going to meetings and pushing around my classroom furniture to try and find a pleasing arrangement. Thursday is dedicated to spending a whole day in our classrooms, working on lesson plans and adding "pretty" touches to make the room feel more home-like.

On Friday the Freshmen will come for a day of orientation but this year, for the first time, a group of student mentors will be handling the entire day -- and the faculty is delirious with the joy that this freedom brings us.

Let me add that Convocation today was really lovely. Instead of importing pompous speakers and people of dubious importance, this district puts on a home-grown show of good cheer and support. The faculty members who can play instruments make up the band. The ROTC brings out the flags. The teachers of excellence selected throughout the year are honored. The superintendent tells some funny stories about her year. This year, at the conclusion, a kid came out and asked if we believed in him (the district motto is "We Believe") and he was charming and outgoing and well-rehearsed and we cheered him lustily, as he ran through the secretaries, the custodians, the cafeteria workers, the principals, the down-town administrators, and the teachers. It was a sweet, warm, soulful experience from a district who is proud of its accomplishments and aware of its shortcomings.

I'm very, very proud to say I teach in here. Now if only my poor old body would just cooperate . . .

Oh the Terror!

Finals week. Oh, my God! Deliver me from grad school. I kiss the feet of any professor that does NOT give a final. But this one does . . . and though it's an on-line final, it's still a test. A test called a final. A final worth triple the points of any written assignment. Short answer questions. Two huge essay questions. A variety of multiple choice questions. Interestingly, I do far better on the essay questions. I tend to over-think the multiple choice -- or in some cases -- read them completely wrong and I always miss a couple. Even when I honestly do the know the answers.

I have huge test anxiety. Couch-potato analysis would attribute it to my grade school years. I have never been a good speller, it is NOT an innate talent for me: I don't hear the letters, I never learned phonics, and in grade school the weekly tests were always spelling tests. I failed a good many of those. I hated memorizing the words . . . so I didn't. I could define them. I just couldn't spell them. Then there were geography tests and I'm not very good with maps, either. And math tests. I failed almost every one of those from fifth grade on until someone (my grandmother) realized when I got to high school that I never learned my multiplication tables.

So huge test anxiety. Sweaty palms. Heart palpitations. Sleepless nights. Stomach aches. I get them all.

Studies show that one of the common nightmares among adults is about not showing up at the right time for a test. I go one step further and in my recurring nightmare of the last 30 years, I have enrolled in a grad school class but then forgot to show up until it was time to test. Then I remember I need to attend the class so I drive to campus and can't find a parking place or the the right building or the right classroom -- and when I finally get to the testing room, with only 20 minutes left on the clock, I open the test booklet to discover I also forgot to read the text and I can not answer a single question. Every time I've had this dream I've always awakened KNOWING that I have my masters and that I never need to go back to grad school. You can imagine my delight in being back after a twenty-five year absence.

The final is Thursday. It is open book, it is web-based, there are only two essay questions and I've done all the research on the reviews offered by the professor. Over the weekend I finished off the last three papers for the class. Now, all I've got to do is endure the test terrors that will overtake me until the last question is finally answered.

School Days (Daze?)

Last night was my first night in summer grad school. I'm taking Technology for the SPED Classroom. I liked the new professor -- have no idea what happened to the old one, but the reports from last summer's class filled the fall semester students with shudders for those of who had yet to take the course. So I'm glad there has been a switch in profs.

The class is large -- about 30 students. We did a minimum of interacting with each other -- just enough to get to know the folks around us. All-in-all, the evening was fairly entertaining; it's hard to be really inventive for three solid hours. Best of all, she let us go home to access our own computers and do the lab work assignment. I like when I'm treated like a professional and I'm trusted to actually complete the assignment without presenting proof I actually did it.

This morning I popped out of bed at 7 a.m. and started doing my homework. Because the class is every Tuesday and Thursday there is little time in-between to get assignments created. We had a short (X in the blank) survey to complete and then one that took me over an hour because I had to compose answers. The downloading and reading took another hour. The on-line media presentation was supposed to take 20 minutes, but I needed notes so it was more like 40 because I had to rewind a couple of times. Then I faced the miserable assignment because we had to use a free source tool called Bubbl.US to create a graphic organizer of all we had read and watched in the presentations. Awful tool. Looked easy to use -- but the reality was that it was too simple. You couldn't maneuver the text boxes, add notes or titles, and saving for use in another medium was difficult. It took me three hours to create a simple "organization" type chart that was readable. Bah! I had the chart created on paper in 10 minutes -- and then it was three full hours of futzing with the software to make the chart legible.


I hope that the other tools presented in the class are more manageable than this. The information presented during class though related directly to technology assistance that should be used in creating IEP's and I've never really had a lot of information about that, so all wasn't lost -- just the three hours using Bubbl.