Today was my birthday and also the Day of the Teacher.
Juan greeted me first thing in the morning with a big bouquet of calla lilies from his family's garden. "They're called Alcatraz," he kept repeating, which perhaps is a variety of calla lily. Who knows? Anyway, they were beautiful and all wrapped up fancy with blue ribbon. Our first grade buddies and my class sang me "Happy Birthday," a team of students made me a card with my name written in hieroglyphics (or a kid's book version of hieroglyphics, anyway), a bunch of my former students came back to visit me and give me hugs, and I got another big beautiful bouquet of flowers from a mystery parent when I was out of my classroom. I was happy with my students as they finished another part of standardized testing and made gorgeous Mother's Day cards. Those were the good parts of the day.
Then after school I found out that my friend's student got taken out of school in handcuffs and involuntarily committed to the psych ward of a hospital, at least overnight. He will almost certainly be expelled from our school.
This fourth grader has been extremely challenging almost from the moment he came to our school late in the fall. He deliberately tripped a first grader for absolutely no reason, gave his classmate a black eye, threw a chair in the principal's office, grabbed the vice-principal's arm so hard she had bruises, and lots, lots more. I knew him a little bit because he spent time in my classroom on two occasions - once when his class went on a field trip and he couldn't go and another time when he had a time out from his regular class. He was certainly the most challenging student I ever encountered, but he could be sweet and funny and insightful, too, just like any kid.
I don't really know what precipitated today's incident, but I do know that at lunch the office was locked down, he was in there screaming, there were four police cars outside, and in the end he was taken off to an ambulance in handcuffs.
Here's something I wrote on my train ride home:
I feel sad for the world in which this happened, for the world in which a boy could feel such anger, could be so disconnected from the social norms of behavior, could get so little help - apart from being one of 32 kids in a classroom with one teacher to meet his and the 31 other students' needs. I feel sad for the world in which a father could feel so tangibly the effects of discrimination and racism that he didn't want his son even tested for special ed services because of the stigma and the over-representation of black boys in special ed. I feel sad for the world in which a nine-year old boy could feel so unsupported, so confused within himself that the best thing he could think of do to was to hide his ADHD medication after pretending to take it. I feel sad for the world in which a boy could be laughing about basketball at recess in the morning and then at lunch be in a screaming rage. I feel sad for the world in which a nine-year old boy gets taken out of school in handcuffs. And I feel sad for the world in which this image of a black boy in handcuffs does not seem so strange; it's what his father was trying to avoid without knowing how. I feel sad for the world in which some people's spirits get broken so easily that I have a strange sort of respect for this boy's defiance, for his refusal to back down in the face of teachers, principals, and even the police. Not that he's in the right, of course.
That's what I wrote before my stop came. A few more thoughts: I feel sad for the other students at our school, too, the ones who got hurt by him physically, the ones who he scared, and the ones who were his friends sometimes. I feel sad for what seeing a boy taken away in handcuffs does to them (not that many kids saw this, but some did and many more will hear about it). And I feel sad for my friend, this student's teacher, who cared about him and tried so, so hard to figure out how to have him as part of his class.
And what I started thinking about as I rode my bike the rest of the way home is that on this Day of the Teacher, I guess it's important to remember that we teachers can only do so much. We are part of this crazy, messed up world, and sometimes we are in this web that we can't circumvent, where society plays out in ways we can influence but not separate ourselves from. And sometimes that breaks our hearts. I don't know what this student needs exactly, but I know that he needs more than a teacher and a dad and a vice principal that care about him. He needs a whole world that cares about him and his future. God, I hope he sees good doctors tonight.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Day -27: A Joke
This joke is only funny if you know a little Spanish. Plus, it works much, much better orally than on paper. But anyway ... I'll tell it first and then explain after.
It was time for lunch and my students were talking about beans for some reason. "They give you gas!" one boy said.
"Yeah," another boy added, switching to Spanish. "Mi papá dice que los frijoles tienen la vitamina P2."
Explanation:
The boy said, "My dad said beans have vitamin P2."
The letter "p" in Spanish is pronounced like the word "pay" in English.
The number 2 in Spanish is "dos," pronounced with a long-o sound.
The word for farts in Spanish is "pedos" - pronounced "pay-dos."
P2=pedos
I was excited because I hardly ever get jokes in Spanish right away, but I got this one!
Maybe this doesn't make sense online ...
It was time for lunch and my students were talking about beans for some reason. "They give you gas!" one boy said.
"Yeah," another boy added, switching to Spanish. "Mi papá dice que los frijoles tienen la vitamina P2."
Explanation:
The boy said, "My dad said beans have vitamin P2."
The letter "p" in Spanish is pronounced like the word "pay" in English.
The number 2 in Spanish is "dos," pronounced with a long-o sound.
The word for farts in Spanish is "pedos" - pronounced "pay-dos."
P2=pedos
I was excited because I hardly ever get jokes in Spanish right away, but I got this one!
Maybe this doesn't make sense online ...
Monday, May 7, 2007
Day -28: Testing Inequitites
We finished our standardized testing in English. Tomorrow we get to start standardized testing in Spanish. Makes sense, right? Our bilingual program is attempting to enable students to achieve on grade level in both Spanish and English, so of course students should be assessed in both languages.
But it's not all it's cracked up to be. In my five years of being a bilingual teacher, I have administered three different state standardized tests in Spanish - the SABE (for three years), the Aprenda (for one year), and this year the STS - State Standardized Tests in Spanish. So can my students' scores be compared longitudinally? Of course not. Can I become familiar with the format and structure of the test so that I can prepare students well for it? Nope. There are reams and reams of documentation about the state standardized tests in English - released test questions, test blueprints. What is there for the state standardized tests in Spanish? One little pdf that lists how many questions will address each state standard in language arts and math.
Plus, in their infinite wisdom, the state has decided that only students in the US less than 12 months plus English Learners in bilingual programs need to take this test. That means that my students who have developed strong English skills in our bilingual program and have been redesignated as Fluent English Proficient don't get tested in Spanish. That makes sense, doesn't it? As numerous studies show, it is these redesignated students who outperform all other students (including English-only students) in standardized tests and other measures of achievement. So let's take all our highest-achieving students and throw out their scores.
Plus, since my Fluent English Proficient students don't get tested in Spanish, that means that I have to figure out something for them to do during the 8 hours of testing we will have over the next two weeks.
And best of all, we still haven't gotten students' results back for last year's standardized tests in Spanish. Try as I might to use data to inform my instruction, it's a little tough to do when I don't actually have the data.
But my students will valiantly fill in their bubbles tomorrow nonetheless.
But it's not all it's cracked up to be. In my five years of being a bilingual teacher, I have administered three different state standardized tests in Spanish - the SABE (for three years), the Aprenda (for one year), and this year the STS - State Standardized Tests in Spanish. So can my students' scores be compared longitudinally? Of course not. Can I become familiar with the format and structure of the test so that I can prepare students well for it? Nope. There are reams and reams of documentation about the state standardized tests in English - released test questions, test blueprints. What is there for the state standardized tests in Spanish? One little pdf that lists how many questions will address each state standard in language arts and math.
Plus, in their infinite wisdom, the state has decided that only students in the US less than 12 months plus English Learners in bilingual programs need to take this test. That means that my students who have developed strong English skills in our bilingual program and have been redesignated as Fluent English Proficient don't get tested in Spanish. That makes sense, doesn't it? As numerous studies show, it is these redesignated students who outperform all other students (including English-only students) in standardized tests and other measures of achievement. So let's take all our highest-achieving students and throw out their scores.
Plus, since my Fluent English Proficient students don't get tested in Spanish, that means that I have to figure out something for them to do during the 8 hours of testing we will have over the next two weeks.
And best of all, we still haven't gotten students' results back for last year's standardized tests in Spanish. Try as I might to use data to inform my instruction, it's a little tough to do when I don't actually have the data.
But my students will valiantly fill in their bubbles tomorrow nonetheless.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Day -29: More on Colonization
I got to do another lesson this week about the attempts of Spain to colonize the indigenous peoples in California through the establishment of missions. Our role play last week of sixth graders coming to claim our classroom for their middle school and ordering us to do their homework worked so well, I decided to do another role play this time. Most of the class imagined they were Ohlone people (the first groups to live in the San Francisco Bay Area), while two students played the roles of the Spanish, coming to order the Ohlone to live at the mission. After a brief skit, I had students do a quickwrite, completing the sentence "If I were an Ohlone and the Spanish tried to tell me that I had to live at Mission Dolores, I ..."
Students' responses were fascinating. Two students said they would start a war. "Yo quiero mis derechos," (I want my rights) one of these students wrote.
Seven students said they would try to escape. "Yo me escaparía porque conozco más el bosque," (I would escape because I know the forest better) one escape planner wrote. Below his writing, he drew a picture of a Spanish soldier shooting a gun at him while he fled into the trees.
Five students wrote that they would go to Mission Dolores because they didn't want to get killed by the Spanish. We talked about how the Spanish had guns but the Ohlone only had bows and arrows, and this fact seemed to figure heavily in these students' decisions. "Yo hubiera dicho que si porque ellos tenían armas," (I would have said yes because they had weapons) one mission-goer wrote.
Seven trusting, optimistic students decided that they would go live at the mission because there might be more food there and maybe the Spanish would help them and teach them things. As one student put it, "Así yo tendría una mejor vida para mi y para los otros Ohlones. Ellos me podrían enseñar cosas que podría hacer" (That way I would have a better life for myself and for the other Ohlones. They could teach me things that I could do.)" "Yo les daría una oportunidad y ver como es así y si no me gusta allí, me voy," (I would give them an opportunity and see how it is there, and if I didn't like it there, I'd leave) another wrote.
Janette wrote a nuanced response. (She is often the most thoughtful writer in the class.) "Yo me escaparía," she wrote, "porque yo no hubiera querido separarme de mi familia. Pero si se llevan a mi familia pues con gusto voy" (I would escape because I wouldn't have wanted to be separated from my family. But if they take my family, then I'd go with pleasure."
I think these responses, which were really not guided by me at all, ended up reflecting the real range of choices that the Ohlone made - and that indigenous peoples around the world have made when faced with colonization.
I found my students' responses fascinating from a linguistic perspective, too. Social studies is basically the only thing that I teach entirely in Spanish, and I only get to teach it about 60 minutes a week now. As a non-native Spanish speaker, I had to stop and think about Spanish verb tenses when I posed the hypothetical quickwrite question in the conditional - "what would you do if ...?" These are the exact same verb tenses that even my most fluent English-speaking students cannot accurately produce. But in Spanish they could use tenses that I can't really produce correctly, like Janette's past perfect subjunctive ("yo no hubiera querido separarme de mi familia").
My students need more opportunities to write sophisticated compositions in Spanish and to draw on their knowledge of Spanish as they build their knowledge of English. I definitely can't rely on Houghton-Mifflin and other state-adopted materials for this kind of curriculum, though!
Students' responses were fascinating. Two students said they would start a war. "Yo quiero mis derechos," (I want my rights) one of these students wrote.
Seven students said they would try to escape. "Yo me escaparía porque conozco más el bosque," (I would escape because I know the forest better) one escape planner wrote. Below his writing, he drew a picture of a Spanish soldier shooting a gun at him while he fled into the trees.
Five students wrote that they would go to Mission Dolores because they didn't want to get killed by the Spanish. We talked about how the Spanish had guns but the Ohlone only had bows and arrows, and this fact seemed to figure heavily in these students' decisions. "Yo hubiera dicho que si porque ellos tenían armas," (I would have said yes because they had weapons) one mission-goer wrote.
Seven trusting, optimistic students decided that they would go live at the mission because there might be more food there and maybe the Spanish would help them and teach them things. As one student put it, "Así yo tendría una mejor vida para mi y para los otros Ohlones. Ellos me podrían enseñar cosas que podría hacer" (That way I would have a better life for myself and for the other Ohlones. They could teach me things that I could do.)" "Yo les daría una oportunidad y ver como es así y si no me gusta allí, me voy," (I would give them an opportunity and see how it is there, and if I didn't like it there, I'd leave) another wrote.
Janette wrote a nuanced response. (She is often the most thoughtful writer in the class.) "Yo me escaparía," she wrote, "porque yo no hubiera querido separarme de mi familia. Pero si se llevan a mi familia pues con gusto voy" (I would escape because I wouldn't have wanted to be separated from my family. But if they take my family, then I'd go with pleasure."
I think these responses, which were really not guided by me at all, ended up reflecting the real range of choices that the Ohlone made - and that indigenous peoples around the world have made when faced with colonization.
I found my students' responses fascinating from a linguistic perspective, too. Social studies is basically the only thing that I teach entirely in Spanish, and I only get to teach it about 60 minutes a week now. As a non-native Spanish speaker, I had to stop and think about Spanish verb tenses when I posed the hypothetical quickwrite question in the conditional - "what would you do if ...?" These are the exact same verb tenses that even my most fluent English-speaking students cannot accurately produce. But in Spanish they could use tenses that I can't really produce correctly, like Janette's past perfect subjunctive ("yo no hubiera querido separarme de mi familia").
My students need more opportunities to write sophisticated compositions in Spanish and to draw on their knowledge of Spanish as they build their knowledge of English. I definitely can't rely on Houghton-Mifflin and other state-adopted materials for this kind of curriculum, though!
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Day -30: Don't Assume
Today I introduced a unit on probability by having students do experiments with spinners. As you can see, half of a circular spinner was labeled "1," and then the remaining half was divided into two equal sections, which we labeled "2" and "3." Students did experiments to see which number the spinner would land on most frequently.
You would think this would be so obvious that it would be no fun at all. But you are not 9 years old. They were so into this activity. A fair number of students were really surprised at how many more times their spinners landed on 1 than on the other numbers. And when some of them came up with the idea that the spinner landed on 1 more frequently because the area of the space labeled 1 was bigger, they were so excited! Seeing that not everyone's spinners landed on 1 most often was useful, too. We had talked about probability plenty of times before, but always abstractly. To really understand that the spinner landed on 1 most frequently not just because of luck but because of the design of the spinner is so important! It's a useful reminder for me that when kids actually investigate a problem for themselves, their understanding is so much deeper and long-lasting.
(Note: Only last year did I discover that spinning a paper clip around the point of a pencil works great for the spinning part of spinners. There are people like Marilyn Burns who try to convince you that you need to do much fancier things to have adequate spinners, but they're just wrong. Also, what would I do without cardstock for math manipulatives like these spinners. Why do schools not all have reams of cardstock? Construction paper is OK, but it's not the same.)
Later we made tissue paper flowers for Mother's Day (which is celebrated May 10 every year in Mexico and by lots of Latino families living in the U.S.). The only reason I had time for this little project is because our school was doing make-up standardized testing and I suddenly had an extra 45-minute block of time with my students that I don't normally have.
It's also important not to assume that students can envision how to draw half of a flower's petals on their folded pieces of tissue paper! You would not believe how hard this is for some of them. Next time, I need little stencils at each table, not just drawings on the board. Primary grade teachers, I really do have sympathy for you considering how much prep time this little activity took - and my students know how to use scissors!
You would think this would be so obvious that it would be no fun at all. But you are not 9 years old. They were so into this activity. A fair number of students were really surprised at how many more times their spinners landed on 1 than on the other numbers. And when some of them came up with the idea that the spinner landed on 1 more frequently because the area of the space labeled 1 was bigger, they were so excited! Seeing that not everyone's spinners landed on 1 most often was useful, too. We had talked about probability plenty of times before, but always abstractly. To really understand that the spinner landed on 1 most frequently not just because of luck but because of the design of the spinner is so important! It's a useful reminder for me that when kids actually investigate a problem for themselves, their understanding is so much deeper and long-lasting.
(Note: Only last year did I discover that spinning a paper clip around the point of a pencil works great for the spinning part of spinners. There are people like Marilyn Burns who try to convince you that you need to do much fancier things to have adequate spinners, but they're just wrong. Also, what would I do without cardstock for math manipulatives like these spinners. Why do schools not all have reams of cardstock? Construction paper is OK, but it's not the same.)
Later we made tissue paper flowers for Mother's Day (which is celebrated May 10 every year in Mexico and by lots of Latino families living in the U.S.). The only reason I had time for this little project is because our school was doing make-up standardized testing and I suddenly had an extra 45-minute block of time with my students that I don't normally have.
It's also important not to assume that students can envision how to draw half of a flower's petals on their folded pieces of tissue paper! You would not believe how hard this is for some of them. Next time, I need little stencils at each table, not just drawings on the board. Primary grade teachers, I really do have sympathy for you considering how much prep time this little activity took - and my students know how to use scissors!
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Day -31: Overheard
On the playground today one second grader said to another, "Which would you rather kiss, your right eye or your left eye?"
"But I can't reach," the other kid answered indignantly.
"Yeah, it's a trick question," the first replied.
-----
The last day of April I pulled a kid aside for a little talk. Eddie really struggles academically. I'm almost sure he has undiagnosed learning disabilities (and yes, I have tried to get him tested; it's supposed to happen next fall). There's almost no way you can be a fourth grader born in the US yet have an English Proficiency Level of 2 (Early Intermediate) on the yearly English test without having learning disabilities. He is very socially adept and in addition to being popular in my class, he is friends with more kids outside my class than any other student. We have some sort of bond. He knows I push him and he respects me for it, I think. Anyway, I told him how I'd noticed that he had been paying less and less attention in class, goofing off more and more, turning in less of his work. I told him that I knew some of the other students at his table distracted him sometimes. Since students change tables every month, I told him that he would get to make a fresh start the very next day. "It's a new month, and I know I will see a new Eddie," I said.
He sat there with a blank look most of the time. This is not the first time he has heard one of these talks. Eventually he started crying and told me about some problems going on for him at home and how he doesn't like to see his mom cry. I listened and talked about how I knew his mom wanted him to learn as much as he could in school, that that would probably make her happier than most other things he could do for her. And then I sent him off to science class with a note explaining why he was late.
The next day, May 1st, when we were walking into our classroom, students were talking about the fact that it was a new month so we would be changing tables.
Eddie was near the front of our line with a smile on his face. "Yep, a new Eddie," he said cheerfully, not really to anyone, just to himself - but I was close enough to hear. Who knew he would remember my little line?
And he was a new Eddie. For that whole day. It didn't quite hold for today. But it's better than nothing.
-----
For those of you a little starved for Juan stories, here's one. It wasn't exactly just overheard, but still ...
He was wearing a long-sleeved gray t-shirt today and the cuffs of both sleeves each had two small holes in them. Near the end of the day, he put a pencil through the two holes on one cuff and hid his hand inside. "Look, I've been harpooned!" he cried out to me and anyone else whose attention he could grab.
"But I can't reach," the other kid answered indignantly.
"Yeah, it's a trick question," the first replied.
-----
The last day of April I pulled a kid aside for a little talk. Eddie really struggles academically. I'm almost sure he has undiagnosed learning disabilities (and yes, I have tried to get him tested; it's supposed to happen next fall). There's almost no way you can be a fourth grader born in the US yet have an English Proficiency Level of 2 (Early Intermediate) on the yearly English test without having learning disabilities. He is very socially adept and in addition to being popular in my class, he is friends with more kids outside my class than any other student. We have some sort of bond. He knows I push him and he respects me for it, I think. Anyway, I told him how I'd noticed that he had been paying less and less attention in class, goofing off more and more, turning in less of his work. I told him that I knew some of the other students at his table distracted him sometimes. Since students change tables every month, I told him that he would get to make a fresh start the very next day. "It's a new month, and I know I will see a new Eddie," I said.
He sat there with a blank look most of the time. This is not the first time he has heard one of these talks. Eventually he started crying and told me about some problems going on for him at home and how he doesn't like to see his mom cry. I listened and talked about how I knew his mom wanted him to learn as much as he could in school, that that would probably make her happier than most other things he could do for her. And then I sent him off to science class with a note explaining why he was late.
The next day, May 1st, when we were walking into our classroom, students were talking about the fact that it was a new month so we would be changing tables.
Eddie was near the front of our line with a smile on his face. "Yep, a new Eddie," he said cheerfully, not really to anyone, just to himself - but I was close enough to hear. Who knew he would remember my little line?
And he was a new Eddie. For that whole day. It didn't quite hold for today. But it's better than nothing.
-----
For those of you a little starved for Juan stories, here's one. It wasn't exactly just overheard, but still ...
He was wearing a long-sleeved gray t-shirt today and the cuffs of both sleeves each had two small holes in them. Near the end of the day, he put a pencil through the two holes on one cuff and hid his hand inside. "Look, I've been harpooned!" he cried out to me and anyone else whose attention he could grab.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Day -32: "Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge"
I'd never heard that quote until this weekend, but apparently it's from Albert Einstein. Imagination is so the opposite of what our educational system is setting me up to encourage in my students. I think if I were teaching next year I would put "Imagination is more important than knowledge" up in huge letters at the front of my classroom and make it the theme of my year - just to push myself to foster it, despite all the countervailing forces of standardized testing and memorization and carving even knowledge up into little tiny pieces that can be assessed by multiple-choice items.
I mentioned a few days ago that my students were making collages to launch the new oh-so-inspiring theme in our Houghton-Mifflin language arts series, "Nature: Friend and Foe." I gave them a bunch of calendars and magazines and told them to make fantasy scenes which somehow showed friends and/or foes in nature. Students are in the process of writing paragraphs to go with their collages. Here are a few samples of what they've come up with so far (in my words, based on students' comments to me):
I don't remember who made this or what the friend/foe story is, but I like the beaver(?) presiding over the coral reef.
A polar bear plopped into the Kentucky woods.
One elephant jumping over another on the Great Wall of China as a two-headed sea monster looks on.
A baby harp seal says "Yummy!" as he sips Coca-Cola and dreams of a tropical paradise. (I'll try to transcribe the actual story Alex wrote to go with this eventually.)
An egret(?) makes huevos rancheros for everyone as a bug squashes the people below. (Really, that's what Ramiro told me was happening.) And, yep, that's a bird smoking in the corner.
Vote for your favorite in the comments!
I mentioned a few days ago that my students were making collages to launch the new oh-so-inspiring theme in our Houghton-Mifflin language arts series, "Nature: Friend and Foe." I gave them a bunch of calendars and magazines and told them to make fantasy scenes which somehow showed friends and/or foes in nature. Students are in the process of writing paragraphs to go with their collages. Here are a few samples of what they've come up with so far (in my words, based on students' comments to me):
I don't remember who made this or what the friend/foe story is, but I like the beaver(?) presiding over the coral reef.
A polar bear plopped into the Kentucky woods.
One elephant jumping over another on the Great Wall of China as a two-headed sea monster looks on.
A baby harp seal says "Yummy!" as he sips Coca-Cola and dreams of a tropical paradise. (I'll try to transcribe the actual story Alex wrote to go with this eventually.)
An egret(?) makes huevos rancheros for everyone as a bug squashes the people below. (Really, that's what Ramiro told me was happening.) And, yep, that's a bird smoking in the corner.
Vote for your favorite in the comments!
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