"We're gonna get you back!"

Four days a week I get to do guided reading with the students in the intellectual disabilities program at my school. This is far and beyond the best part of my day. The other day of the week I'm in meetings or doing paper work all day. This is not my favorite part of the week, although as the year has gone on I've enjoyed it more and more. At this point in the year all the students know I won't see them on Wednesday, so on Tuesday they'll start talking about how they won't see me tomorrow. Lately, one student in particular has been pretty clear about his plan to solve this little Wednesday problem.

"We're gonna get you back Mrs. Lipstick," he starts telling me every Tuesday. "My friends and I are gonna come to your meetings and get you out. We're gonna take you. We're gonna come get you back."

I now sit through my Wednesday mornings with my eye on the door, hoping at any moment a band of fourth and fifth grade students in the intellectual disabilities program are going to break into the room and kidnap me, taking me back to their room so we can have our guided reading lessons. Just the thought makes my Wednesdays a bit more exciting.

Random Children's Lit Thoughts After a Trip to the Library

A recent trip to the library with Little Lipstick introduced me to a whole new set of Maisy books.

Maisy's world is of course confusing in general because there are very few adults, her parents don't exist and yet she still goes on these adventures- the city, the doctor, swimming, preschool- with only her slightly scatterbrained friends.

Yet after reading Maisy Goes to Preschool and Maisy Goes to the City back to back I was horrified to see that poor Maisy's preschool teacher- Mr. Peacock- has a second job working in the city as a toy store clerk. Times are even rough for teachers in fiction. Poor Mr. Peacock- not only does he have to take care of Maisy (who keeps her panda with her throughout the entire day at preschool- and gets paint on panda- you know that wasn't easy on Mr. Peacock) he also has to check out Maisy at the store in the city and help her when she gets lost (because who lets preschoolers wander around the city by themselves????)  I hope his next call was to CPS to alert them that Maisy and friends had somehow taken a bus and a subway train all by themselves and were loose in the city. But it doesn't look like he does. He must be one depressed teacher. 

Three characters that are NOT in Mo's version

On another note, we also checked out Mo Willem's Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs. Little Lipstick is too young to get the humor, but I found it hysterical. I cannot wait to read this to a kindergarten class. It is perfect for ending a unit on Goldilocks and the Three Bears as well as teaching predicting- at each stage you can predict what you think is going to happen based on your background knowledge of the Goldilocks story, but then Mo surprises you.

My favorite part of the book is that the dinosaurs take the time to test the temperature of each bowl of pudding to make sure one is hot, one is cold, and one is just right. As someone whose read a lot of Goldilocks lately it always bothers me that Mama Bear serves everyone out of the same bowl of porridge but only Baby Bear's is just right. I mean, shouldn't his get cold first since it is the smallest? 

TGIF

Today a third grader asked me if I swallowed a baby.

This of course prompted another third grader to ask how the baby got in my stomach anyway.

I'm so glad it is Friday.

~~~~~

By the way- I just realized that I missed some comments from previous posts. I'm sorry! It wasn't personal- not sure how I didn't get the emails.

Hazards of Being Pregnant and Teaching

The larger my stomach gets the more my badge and keys bounce as I walk. As I walk down the hallway I'm my own personal marching band. I think I must disrupt every single classroom in the hallway now, and the problem is only going to get worse as I keep growing...

Stating the Obvious

One of the biggest transitions between working exclusively with students with intellectual disabilities and working with a more general education population is how aware the kids are. They don't miss a thing. My students in my classroom last year were accepting of most adults and situations. They didn't question if your clothes didn't match, if you had a bad hair day, or if you made a mistake. They would roll with it. I guess I started to take that for grant it.

Of course if you work with typically developing elementary school students you know this isn't the case. At least one kid in each class is going to be aware of something out of the ordinary. My first year teaching I had a student ask me, "How are you even going to get a husband if your hair looks like that?" 

You know, that kind of thing. Comments your friends would find a way to point out to you nicely and your acquaintances would simply ignore. 

Last week I went over to speak to a boy who was loudly whispering to a friend in line. He was very into his conversation and clearly didn't want to be bothered by this new teacher who'd suddenly showed up in his classroom. He turned to me, slightly, as I reminded him to stand quietly in line. He looked like he planned to ignore me, but then his eyes started to get big.

"Are you having a baby or something?" he asked in horror, staring straight at my stomach. 

And I knew, immediately, that I was back in a typical elementary school classroom, for better or worse. 

Feeling Old

This weekend while running errands I ran into one of my former students at Home Depot. It had been years since I'd been his special education case manager, but he gave me a huge smile and was clearly excited to see me. As we walked away from him my husband asked, "Is that the Johnny* H. from your second year teaching?"

"No," I laughed, "Johnny H. is in high school now. That Johnny is from 5 years ago."

My husband looked at me in utter horror and confusion. I could see what he was thinking as he tried to hide it- there is no way that cute little 6 year old  Johnny that filled our lives with stories is now in high school.

Whenever I am running errands in the neighborhood where I teach I find myself looking oddly at tweens and teenagers, wondering if they are the grown up version of the six year old person I taught. It's always a bit unsettling. The other day I drove past My Smart Cookie. I almost didn't recognize her, until I realized there was only one person who it could be. She was laughing with friends, her hair wild and unbrushed, but she looked happy.

*Name has been changed :)

Pop!

I'm not sure what made me think about this today, but it was a memory that made me laugh. It's the small things that are great reminders of why I love my job. I wrote about the incident once, but it's worth repeating since I'm still giggling about it years later.

~~  ~~  ~~

When I was pregnant- and really pregnant-one of my little ones came up and gave me a huge hug- a big, tight squeeze and didn't let go.

"Oh no," I said, "gentle hugs please".

"BUT I WANT TO SEE THE BABY NOW!" she bellowed, in full kindergarten frustration.

Her over zealous hug was no mistake- she was intentionally trying to pop me.

Job hazards of kindergarten.

No, Mine! No! Mine! When does my teacher look work on my own daughter?

The glory of the classroom, I'm slowly coming to realize, is the beautiful, beautiful structure we get to put into place. There is reading and writing and math and recess and then- behold- the END OF THE DAY. There is the "I'm serious" teacher look at the "Now you're in deep trouble" teacher look and the quiet spot. There are silly songs that are brought to silence by the pre-arranged quiet signal, and children are trained to silently line up when the teacher just magically points her finger and smiles. When your classroom looks like this it is magic. When you train your own children to do this you are creating monsters. As teachers we say that the kids need structure, but let's be honest- the adults are really the ones who need the structure. And oh, how I'm missing it already.

My husband and I are sitting in our living room too tired and confused to even process what just occurred. Our "vacation" involved taking our not quite two year old daughter to the beach to spend the week with her not quite two year old cousin.

It's one thing to live life as a guest inside the world of an almost-two-year-old, but it is quite another thing to live life as a guest inside the worlds of TWO almost-two-year-olds, particularly ones who aren't used to sharing a house with one another.

Two year old logic is phenomenal. There was lots of "mine, mine, mine", a lot of "MY TURN!", "MY MOMMY", "MY NANA" (This proved to be difficult since neither of them could comprehend that Nana belonged to BOTH girls). 

Our days consisted of this:

Two girls giggling hysterically with each other for what seems to be no logical reason anyone who is not almost two can comprehend. It's adorable. We snap pictures and awe at how great it is to have cousins. Before the automatic lens of the camera closes disaster strikes. One cousin's foot bumps into a random object that neither girl would ever have looked twice at if it hadn't been for the accidental bumping. This draws the second cousin's hyper-focused attention to the object (because both girls were on a vigilant alert for something her cousin had that she didn't.)

 At the same moment the second cousin realizes the object exists the first cousin realizes that the object should be hers because she TOUCHED it first. Yet the second cousin believes it should be hers because she SAW it first, and both think it should be theirs because they can yell "MINE" the loudest. Chaos and drama ensue until someone manages to put the camera down to intervene. The girls retreat to opposite sides of the house to get sharing lectures from their mommies while their tears get wiped. Peace slowly starts to return. A gentle silence hovers over the house, a promise that our ear drums might recover from both the happy squeals as well as the angry cries. Yet inevitably one girl asks "Where did my cousin go?" in her sweet toddler voice, and before either mommy can stop the terror the girls would be drawn together again for a total of .5 seconds of happy giggling and another 5 minutes of crying.

Did I mention it rained for the first three days of the trip?

A moment of calm

Not that we didn't have a great time, but there were moments I missed the classroom where I could employ five year old logic, give my teacher look, flash the quiet signal, and if nothing else I could load everyone on the bus at 3:00 and happily wave goodbye, sending them off to their parents.

Driving Miss Lipstick (random, non-education related moment)

I sit in traffic, my hands on the steering wheel, staring out at the road in front of me, feeling like a chauffeur. The two girls in the back seat giggle and squeal in what seems to be their own language. Their music blares from the back seat- nothing I would ever choose to listen to on my own. My rides with  my daughter are usually filled with conversation. We talk about everything, our observations, our plans for the day, what we should have for dinner. Now though, as she chats non-stop to her best friend in the back seat I am silent. My few attempts to join in the conversation are met with a long silence, followed by a sharp "Mama". Her normally sweet voice is short and exasperated. As if to say, "Drive women. Your opinion isn't wanted for back here." A new song comes on and they squeal in delight and start singing along. Again I am silent. Usually we swing The Wheels on the Bus together, but today it's clear I've been replaced by a perky 18 month old. A week of carpooling with her best friend to daycare has left my almost two year old with a new sense of independence in life I didn't think I'd experience until she was 16. Or 12 at least.

End of Year Inner Struggles

I have decided that it is fundamentally impossible to pack up my classroom. There aren't enough hours in the day/boxes available/ space to store items to make it so that one week from today my classroom will be packed and ready to go.

This time of year, and the stress of "how will this all possibly ever get done?" always brings about the same inner turmoil.

Inner struggle #1- I am absolutely determined not to take anything off the walls yet. The minute things come off the walls the kids know that it is OVER. The posters we've referred to all year, their art work, the rules- once it's gone the classroom no longer looks like it belongs to them. And once they know longer feel that the classroom is theirs, well, why bother acting like it is theirs?  EXCEPT that OMG taking things off the walls is so easy to do, and makes you feel so much better. The room is a disaster, you have piles of work to do, but at least your walls are clean and ready for next September. Every year I tell myself I'm going to wait to take things off the walls. And I'm going to wait, and wait, and...  eventually I crack. We'll see how far I can get this year. Let me tell you, right now it's rough.

Max is also a fan of the "stuff and run" method

Inner struggle #2- Do you take the time to organize materials now so they'll be ready for unpacking in August, or do you stuff everything in a box and pray that you have enough time to deal with it in August? Every year I'm determined to organize in June. Some years I even start in May. It's admirable really. Today I even brought Little Lipstick back to my classroom and let her "help" me pick up the linking cubes and put them away so I could take time to really organize my math games. Once she started to melt down and my own stomach was rumbling I did the "stuff and run" strategy of "I'll deal with this tomorrow so I'll just stuff this into the closest box right now."  Let's be honest. Those games are staying in those boxes until September. But since I probably will no longer be able to find them because of the stuff and run, they'll be staying in them a lot longer.

Inner struggle #3- Do I methodically wipe down all of the book baskets and plastic crates? Do I scrub stray marker and pencil markings off the supply caddies so that next year feels more like a fresh start? Or do I just roll my eyes, figure they'll only get dirty again by the end of September and just stack them in a corner? Yeah. That's usually the option I go for, but the inner struggle occurs when I feel guilty about the stacking with the crayon markers still on them.

Inner struggle #4- All lessons up until the last day will be meaningful and engaging. No movies, no meaningless activities designed to keep the kids busy so I can get work done. Good intentions really are something, aren't they? The book room books have been turned in, the math materials are packed up waiting to be turned in, report cards are completed and progress reports are typed and ready to go. Define meaningful and engaging activity. I mean, a movie, when given the right intro can be meaningful and engaging,
right? (I have not yet shown a movie. That doesn't mean it won't happen. I'm trying, I really am.)

And so I will fight my inner battles right up until the last day. Please, oh god of teachers, help me be strong.

Just 30 minutes... 30 seconds?

My poor cat gets the brunt of most everything around here, especially now that we have a little one. But seriously, after a full week of taking care of students then coming home to take care of my daughter and then just being a friend and wife to my husband I can't take it anymore. All the poor cat wants to do is cuddle but I am absolutely incapable of giving anything, even a cuddle to anyone else for the next 30 minutes. I need time to not have to think of anyone but myself.

30 minutes. That's it.

The look the cat is giving me tells me that I am not going to get it, but at least she's quiet and not yelling "MRS LIPSTICK" or "MAMA" loudly into my ear...

(Not) Managing Life While Teaching

There is a hole in my kitchen ceiling. Back in July an overly ambitious plumber put it there trying to find the pipes (in his defense he was our third plummer in our quirky old house and he was absolutely determined to do what the other two couldn't.)  At the time we'd called contractors and handy men and they all said they were too busy with Derecho work to help us out. School started and we quickly realized that we wouldn't have a chance to get it fixed until next July.

It's not pretty. It's jarring when you walk into the kitchen. People who have been to our house multiple times look at us in confusion and ask nicely if we'd like the name of a good handy man.

Yes, we say. Someone who works on Saturdays only. And who takes calls after business hours. And will only call us after business hours.

It's nearly impossible to get things done when you're a teacher. We don't get to just pop in and out of school for the little things in life. Popping in and out of school means substitutes, lesson plans, leaving lessons un-taught, getting off pace with our planning, and just creating a general break in routine for our students. And in my district you have to get a substitute for a minimum of three hours. If I want to be home to meet with contractors I have to dedicate 3 hours of my precious, precious sick time.

I have a doctors appointment that I keep cancelling. I don't want to tell you the last time I had a physical, but I finally found the time to make an appointment. Then a meeting came up so I postpone the appointment a week. Then another meeting. Then a child is having a rough week and I know I can't take off.
Don't ask me the last time I've been to the dentist. Baby L was prescribed physical therapy. That's on hold until the summer.

Before Baby L it was different because I could risk the occasional doctors appointments and household chore hours. Now I have to save my sick time for being home with a toddler who is exposed to all kinds of germs in daycare.

Occasionally I'll meet someone who went into teaching because it gave them the same schedule as their kids. This confuses me. I know other professions make it difficult to take off from work as well (I mean, Mr. Lipstick is equally responsible for the hole-in-the-kitchen phenomena) but he manages to get to the doctor. He can leave work for an hour or so. It's not easy on anyone, but it is possible. Teaching is that strict set schedule that doesn't allow you to be flexible for life. As a carefree 20 something when you don't have to be flexible this isn't too bad. As a parent it is ridiculously hard. I know so many moms missing their "muffins for mom" breakfasts just to host their own.

At some point I'll fix the hole in our kitchen (and yes, I'd love the name of your contractor/handy man/ neighbor who wants to get into the business).

Nose Blow

Today I watched one of my kiddos very carefully take a tissue from the tissue box and wipe his own nose. This was a huge, awesome, amazing success and I sat there happily thinking about how far he's come.

Then I watched as he carefully pushed the dirty tissue back inside the tissue box. He turned and gave me a huge grin, knowing that he'd just accomplished something very big.

Baby steps.

Mom vs Mouse

*this post has nothing to do with education, other than the fact that the events that transpired added stress to my life and therefore negatively impacted the education of my students I'm sure*

Around spring break I started to notice something distressing in my car. Tiny little black pellets seemed to be sprinkled around the floor of my car. That's odd, I thought, but I was late for work so quickly forgot about them. The next day there were more sprinkled in new place along with a tissue that overnight had become very holey- the type of holes a small creature may make with its mouth. Black pellets plus small mouth holes could only mean one thing.

This was decidedly NOT OK. There could not be a mouse in my car. Absolutely not. It did not have permission to live in my car. My car is not an inhabitable place. It is for driving and for singing the ABC song at the top of your lungs* even when Raffi's toddler-friendly voice is singing something totally unrelated to the ABCs.Yet it seemed that even after explaining my Absolutely Not reasoning to the mouse he had no intention of leaving my mouse-house of a Corolla.

I realized I had limited options. I could:
1) Ignore the fact that a mouse was living in my car and pray that he'd go away on his own
2) Sell the car
3) Leave the car unlocked in an unsafe place and pray that it got stolen and never returned
4) Catch mouse, clean mouse droppings, disinfect car
5) Name mouse, adopt him as a pet. Leave him food every night and pretend that we live with Stuart Little.

Option 4 sounded way to hard but since Mr. Lipstick refused to let me do options 2 and 3 and option 1 and 5 seemed bad for my daughter's health, I gave in. I even called a car service station and asked them if they could get rid of the mouse for me. They laughed. A little too hard, and then told me that having a mouse in your car is a huge problem and that I should get rid of it. Thanks, that hadn't occurred to me before.

So we set traps*. We woke up in the next morning like it was Christmas day and ran to the car to see if we would discover that we'd caught the little guy. Nothing. Maybe he left on his own, we thought. Maybe with the warm weather he's off to better places. Maybe he realized that my car isn't a great place to live.

We cleaned the car and then drove it to one of those car detailing places to get it professionally cleaned. We paid for the fancy anti-mouse cleaning and then marveled at the beauty of the car. Post-cleaning we even contemplated selling it because it was never going to be that clean again. But alas, we decided to be responsible.

Turns out we should have sold it (mouse included) because the next morning we came out to the beautifully cleaned car only to find brand new mouse droppings. The mouse had in fact not left, but had hidden somewhere during the cleaning, watching and plotting when it was safe to return out into the open to poop around my car.

We put down the traps again and waited.

Nothing inside the traps but just to mock me the mouse pooped all over the traps. The mouse, who at this point we'll call Herman because he's practically become a part of the family (but not a good part, like an evil step mother who's out to get you) was clearly thumbing his nose at us. Fine, little mouse. BRING IT.

And yet...

For two weeks he pooped beside the traps and at one point even managed to unset the trap making it safe for him to sneak inside to steal the peanut butter. This mouse was good. I wonder how many other "Squatter Car Rights" he's pulled in his lifetime.

For two weeks I drove around in my car knowing that Herman was sitting nearby just watching and waiting. Perhaps like my daughter he was bobbing his head up and down to Raffi, enjoying the tunes. I felt watched constantly.

Yet this afternoon I sank into my car seat only to find that my car was filled with an unmistakable odor- the stench of a dead rodent on a hot day.

Unless Herman was just a low level mouse in a much bigger mouse conspiracy, my car is mouse free. Or at least Herman-free. I hope he died while happily gorging himself on peanut butter and singing Raffi songs in his head.



*It should be noted that my 19 month old is not actually singing the ABCs. She sings "A,B, EIEIO, LMNP, SSSSSSSS, XXXXX, MINE, MINE, MINE AAA".  I like the fact that 1) EIEIO shows up in every song she sings 2) Her interpretation of the end of the ABC song is to announce that they are all here letters (as in, "now I know MY ABCs") and 3) She is, for whatever reason, obsessed with the letter S.

**There was a time in my life when I was totally a no-kill trap type of girl. That was before the internet and before I had a daughter. Once I googled and realized just how dirty those mice are I wasn't taking any chances. However I do feel confident in the fact that my car momentarily provided Herman a very nice house for a few weeks. He had a good thing going for awhile.

Congress and Lice? Who Likes 'em?

Long time readers will know that I have an absolute hatred of head lice. I believe it is one of the leading causes of the achievement gap, and that it is actively working on trying to destroy school attendance.

So I was ridiculously confused when I read that congress has a lower approval rate than head lice. Who approves of head lice? I can't comprehend. Is there someone out there that finds the benefits in it?

I'm not overly pleased with congress either, and yes, they are probably actively working against the achievement gap in their own special way just like lice, but there has got to be something about them more redeeming than head lice...

Talking, talking, talking

Every morning I meet two of my students at the bus and bring them back to my classroom. Waiting in the gym is too noisy and overwhelming for them, so we go straight to our room and get started on our day. As we walk down the hall (it's a long walk) I find myself chatting with them, although it tends to be a one-way conversation.

"Good morning! I missed you this weekend! Did you have fun?" Pause for an answer. One of them may repeat the question, but both will keep walking.

"Did you do anything exciting this weekend?" Again, one may repeat the question, but I don't really expect an answer. When we're in the classroom and I've got visuals and it's quiet I'll ask the same question in a more appropriate way for my kids to answer. This is just...  chatter. Because that's what kids and teachers do- they talk to each other in the hallway.

Every morning we walk past the same kindergarten students. One little boy smiles at me every morning as I'm walking with my friends. Today, after weeks and weeks of watching me ask questions and get no response he blurts out,

"I had a GREAT weekend! It was SO exciting!" he gives me a winning smile that seems to say, "It's OK teacher, I don't know who you are, but I'm listening to you even if your own students aren't."

I can't help but feel that he was feeling sorry for me- surely wondering why my own students don't talk to me. I must admit, I appreciated the kindergarten sympathy, even if I didn't need it. It's nice to know someone is listening.

Well played, PBS

While I was home with sick Little L I introduced her to Daniel Tiger, PBS' newest show. A few of my students love Daniel Tiger (although they are probably too old for it they still really enjoy it) and so I thought I'd check it out. Plus, we needed a break from reading Good Night, Moon.

I couldn't help but feel a little tricked. PBS is so sneaky. Taking the familiar characters, songs, and phrases from Mr. Rogers and putting them into a new show is pretty clever. Today's current parents are the same ones who watched Mr. Roger's themselves. Even if we don't acknowledge it we're going to be drawn into Daniel Tiger by the pure familiarity of it. There was something comforting in watching the characters and hearing the same songs from my childhood. Little L and I cuddled and talked through the show and I found myself wondering if I should DVR it (until yesterday we'd never sat down to watch a show with Little L. Sick babies get special treatment sometimes).

Well played, sneaky PBS. I respect your ability to connect with both the parents and the kids. Well played.

Helicoptering the helicoptered

Over Thanksgiving break Mr. Lipstick shared some management articles and blog posts he's read recently about the problem with the Millennials in the job market. I'm paraphrasing and I didn't read the post myself, but our conversation mainly centered around the difficulty bosses are having across the country as the millennials- the first results of the helicopter parents- enter the workforce. Managers are having trouble motivating their youngest hires and instilling in the work ethic they are accustomed to seeing in the work place. 

I've read and heard articles myself about companies who are reaching out to helicopter parents in order to work with their newest workforce. I believe it is Enterprise who has bring-your-parent to work days. Other companies are becoming accustomed to parents attending interviews or chatting with HR about salary. (I wish I could find that article- this is all coming from my memory)

So what happens now that the Millennials- the products of the helicopter parents- are becoming teachers? How will they react to the helicopter parents who have high expectations of their child's teacher? How will they handle the mismatch in the teaching pay vs the workload? Or will the true products of helicopter parents not become teachers? It doesn't seem like a job that would lend itself to someone who is used to having their parent defend them in tough situations.

Will Millennials force a change in teacher work-ethic expectations, or will they create an even further gap between parents and teachers? Or will they understand where the helicopter parents are coming from and find ways to work with them as opposed to locking them out? 

Around the world?

I keep getting edu-spam on my work email. Lots of happy go-lucky emails from generic names like "Sarah Jones" that sound like they could be your coworkers, asking if I've seen such and such amazing website where I can get great materials. These emails are filled with exclamation marks, smiley faces, and phrases that make you cringe- if this is how they think teachers write to one another we're in trouble.

The latest edu-spam I got offered me a trip with my class around the world.

They even had the name of my school in there so they knew I worked at an elementary school. Even if I didn't have a class with students with intellectual disabilities I would like to see a general education elementary school teacher take her entire class on a trip around the world. I think this program may need to re-think it's edu-spam strategy. High school teachers, Spanish teachers- maybe they'd jump at the chance. Kindergarten-second grade students with intellectual disabilities? Ummmmm....

I love my class, don't get me wrong, but I'm not sure we're ready for world travel yet.

The mere idea has been making me giggle all weekend.

curb cuts revisisted

Last week I blogged about the bouncy curb cubs and how horrid they are for one of my friends. Turns out, he's not the only one with the problem. Someone recently visited my classroom to look at ways it could be even more physically adapted to meet the needs of the kids (It is compliant with the law, but we could still go further). 

I mentioned the curb cuts and he just shook his head. "I know, I know, but there isn't anything we can do." 

He told me that people all over, especially people just like my friend have the exact same complaints about the bumpy curb cuts. 

I know there is a reason behind why they are like that, but it would be nice if we could find a way to make curb cuts safe and comfortable for everyone.