Things work out...

For two years I watched one of my students greet his little sister after school. She'd wait for him at the door of our school with her father and as soon as her brother came around the corner she'd grin with excitement. I loved watching how this little kindergarten boy treated his younger sister with such kindness and patience. I was usually so impressed with the little family that I couldn't help myself- I would go out to talk to her and his family. I frequently told him that I couldn't wait for his sister to come to kindergarten so I could teach her. He would shake his head, "She goes to a special school" he'd say every time.

"No, I want to teach her, I want her to come here!"  But she never came to our school and the family moved away. I hadn't even thought about them in a few years.

This morning I looked up to see the boy- now a fifth grader- walking into my classroom after a young girl with a sweet smile. It took 4 years but I finally get to teach the little girl I'd always watched in the afternoons. It felt like a wonderful sign that I am exactly where I am suppose to be. 

Balance?

One work day left until the first day of school and I'm trying not to panic. Since this is my first opening of the school year when I am a parent I feel like I'm a first year teacher again learning to balance it all. In the past I lived and breathed school for the first few weeks. I stayed late at work, got to work early, and when I was at home I frantically did paper and prep work.

Those options are out and I have no idea how I'm going to get it all done. I don't understand how it's possible to do this job working limited hours. I'm feeling disorganized and panicked- jobs are half-done, my to-do list grows longer by the minute and I keep thinking of all the things I've forgotten to do.

I met with parents today and listened to them talk about their babies and everything they want for them this school year. Their eyes teared up as they talked about what they were worried about, what they were excited about, and what they wanted for their children this school year. I listened to them and felt a sense of panic- can I give you want your child deserves while giving my own child what she needs? Is there time in the day to allow for that? 

How I feel. 

I honestly have no idea. I'm ridiculously excited about the school year but am equally nervous and frustrated in my need to sleep. 

Teaching Impulse Control

For those of us in the primary grades teaching impulse control in the beginning of the year is essential. It can be a fun way to build community and get to know your kids, but it is also a way to survive the year. 

A few years ago I wrote about the games my partner-in-crime and I played with our kinders to teach impulse control and many people commented about other great impulse control games. Here's a list of some great impulse control games- what else do you recommend?

Teaching and Practicing Impulse Control:

• Red Light, Green Light
• Laughing Machine-  The teacher drops a tissue from in the air and the class laughs until the tissue hits the floor. This teaches them to control their laughing- something that comes in handy when you're ready to move on from a funny part of a book and they just aren't...
• Freeze Dance- Play music and when you stop it the class stops dancing.
• Freeze Game- Freeze when the teacher rings a bell or does what will be the classroom's quiet sign
• Follow the Leader- The class simply walks behind the teacher while copying whatever motion she does. Which means their eyes have to stay on her. And not their friends, or their shoes, or the frog, or the window, or the bathroom. Every time a little one looks up and realizes the whole classroom is taping their heads while he is still taping his knees it's a reminder to the kiddo that he needs to look at the teacher (and a good sign to us teachers of who may need more help with impulse control!)
• Doggy, Doggy, Where's Your Bone? One child sits in the center of the circle and is the "doggy" with an eraser or another object under the chair to act as the bone. The teacher silently points to another child to "steal the bone". Once the thief is sitting on top of the "bone" and it is completely out of sight the whole class sings, "Doggy, Doggy, where's your bone? Somebody stole it from your home?" The child in the center opens his eyes and has to guess who took it. The impulse control pieces comes when the whole class has to sit silently and not tell the 'dog' who took the 'bone'. Harder than you think for some of our little ones. (This also gives you an idea of who has a strong concept of mind and who can't keep a secret).
• Four Corners-  one child is in the middle of the room with their eyes closed. Kids walk quietly to one corner of the room and the kid in the middle has to guess where the most kids are. Then those kids are out until there is only one person left. It's not exactly impulse control in theory but it can be if they are so excited they want to sprint to the corner! (Thanks Kelly with a Red Sox Cap!)
• Into the river- This is where you have the class in a straight line and they are next to for example, a straight line on a basketball court. The line represents the river. The children can step either side of the line which represents the bank. You all start on one side and begin."Into the river, onto the bank , into the river, into the river." Those jumping off the line and onto the bank are out. Game continues. (Thanks Magpie!)

Alright- I know there are a million other ones out there- what are your go-to impulse control games??

Parent's Hopes and Dreams

In the beginning of the year many of us ask our students to write their hopes and dreams for the coming school year. A part of the Responsive Classroom philosophy, Hopes and Dreams is a powerful tool for connecting with students and beginning a discussion on what rules a classroom needs in place if they want to accomplish their hopes and dreams.

We can't forget that our students' parents have hopes and dreams for them as well. This is the perfect time of year to ask parents what they want their children to learn by the end of the year, where they want their child to go with what they learn this year, and what they dream about long-term for their child.

A few years ago I worked with our awesome parent-liaison to put on a meeting for kindergarten parents. We gave the parents sticky notes and asked them to tell us what their hopes and dreams were for their child. The results were amazing and provided an excellent reminder that we are all hoping and dreaming for the same results with our children. It was a perfect way to open a conversation about how we need to form a team between the parents and the teachers in order to help our children achieve these dreams.

Two Miles

My old school and my new school are two miles apart. To be specific, 1.99 miles. I'm sure if you were walking and didn't have to deal with the roads you could do it in a mile and a half if not a mile. There is almost nothing separating them but one main road. A road that is essentially "the tracks" with my old school being "on the other side".

We met many of our kindergarten students at kindergarten orientation earlier this week. They were lively and excited, wide-eyed and smiling. On paper some of the students are the same as my old school. They are learning to speak English and they receive free or reduced lunch. Yet just from the few hours at orientation we could tell the difference. The way they followed directions, respected adult authority, talked to their peers, drew pictures, and wrote their names was vastly different than what I am use to from kindergarten students. In fact, it was what I would except to see from first graders at my old school.

While many of us were excited as we watched how capable these children were I couldn't help but feel devastated.  The difference is enormous and frankly, in the words of a five year old, just not fair.

The apartment building the new school is pulling from is a palace compared to the buildings my old school pulled from. The playground on the apartment's grounds is clean and bright. The balconies look well taken care of and large. A drive through the parking lot of the building looks like it would be a place I'd like to live. In fact, I've known teachers who lived there.

A drive through the parking lots where my students lived last year did not leave me with that same feeling of security. Inside their apartments are usually many families sharing too small a space- one family per room, a living room divided into two to create room for yet another family, with people constantly coming and going. There is even a sign people use on their balconies to let others know they have space on their floor and people can come in and sleep their that night. It is a different place. A different world.

On paper the families in these two apartment buildings look about the same. Yet as I watched the rising kindergartners draw and smile and follow directions the vast difference in their backgrounds was obvious. I wanted to cry for my old students. It is a reminder that the struggles in education isn't about race or what language they speak or where the children come from. It's not about what's on paper or what we see when we take a quick look at a classroom filled with children. To fully understand where children are coming from you must look deeper.

 It's about the resources their families have. If you come from a family who has the resources to live alone in an apartment, to have each adult only work one job so they are home to put you in bed at night, if your family can put you in daycare where you are talked to, loved, read to, and played with- if your family has someone to go to when they are frustrated with your five year old antics- if your family has the energy and time to put routines in place for you between their jobs and responsibilities- if your family can read in their native language, or has more than a fourth grade education in their native country, you are blessed no matter what your race, language, or poverty level.

As a teacher I became accustomed to the backgrounds of my students until they were normal. I stopped questioning or being shocked at what I heard and saw from my students. Watching these new students jolted me awake.  As I adjust to the new culture of these new students I have a feeling I'll be thinking about my former students frequently, wondering how they are doing.

How can two miles make such a difference?

Newness

Many times when I'm chatting with another teacher about my new school their eyes get big. "I am SO jealous!" they exclaim. "It must be heaven."

The assumption in education is that any new building must be nicer than an old one. In many ways that's true. Some public school buildings have been around since the 50s. They are old and falling apart and were built in a time with different priorities. Still, a brand new public school building is still a public school building. It's still built by a school system on a budget. I'm not complaining- the new building is nice- but it doesn't mean that crickets aren't chirping in the corners or that there isn't water dripping through the tiles. Things happen, even in new buildings.

A school is really built by whose inside it- the dedication of the teachers and the smiles of the students. When I student taught I was in a building in the midst of a renovation gone wrong. The classrooms had been stripped of any paint on the walls and the floors were cold concrete, the tiles pulled up long ago. The ceiling tiles were also non-existent and the kids could look up and see all the wiring in the ceiling. Yet because of the dedication and determination of the teachers it was still a school.

There are some downsides of a brand new building. For one, we don't have the furniture collection older schools have. At the think-tank we thought we didn't have enough book shelves. Ha! When everyone's been issued the exact same shelves and those shelves were bought with precise math of how many go into each classroom (no storage room to rummage through for the previous years' discarded shelves) we have what's in front of us to work with. Same with the book collection- classroom libraries, the book room- only contain one year's order of books. Everything is new, but it also means we don't have the surplus of books and supplies older schools have.

I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining because the new building is beautiful. The staff is amazing and the energy is palpable. But a new building isn't going to automatically make it a great school. It's not about the building itself, it's about what happens inside the building. Are teachers energized and dedicated? Are the students motivated? Do they feel safe?

*All that being said I'm going to take a moment to brag about my storage. OMG they are building new schools with CABINETS. I have so many cabinets I don't know what to put in them. Places to put materials away from the kids' little hands- meaning that what's on the shelves in the classroom can purely belong to the kids themselves. Staring at the empty cabinets trying to decide what to put in them makes me giddy, I'll admit.

Assessing for Independence

How will you know if your students use what you taught them when you are not around?

If a student falls in the forest and there isn't a teacher around to see it, did the student perform?

Independence is what we strive for as teachers. We want our children to take the skills and knowledge we teach them and use it independently, away from us. We want them to apply what we teach them in reading when they are curled up in bed reading for fun. We want them to be able to read for fun. We want them to be able to use their math skills at the grocery store without thinking twice. We want them to be able to understand the way the world works scientifically so that they can understand the world around them when they are outside examining an ant away from any adult.

But most of our assessments are teacher directed. We take anecdotal notes on our reading conferences- when we are one on one or in a small group with students. We take running records- when we are one on one with students. We look at how they perform on tests and quizzes or during discrete trials- unnatural settings where we are probing their knowledge in a way the real world will never do. These are great ways to assess where they are with their knowledge in school- but how do we assess what they know when we are not around and how they will use that knowledge independently?

A literacy coach asked this question last week at one of our balanced literacy training and I haven't been able to get the question out of my head since. How do we assess that our students are able to use a skill independently? How do we know that when we teach them to make text-to-self connections that they do it even when we are not around at times when they are reading for fun? 

The literacy coach discussed strategies for doing this with upper-grade students during independent reading time when they are reading books for pleasure- not teacher assigned. Ideas like looking at whether or not students are they putting sticky notes in to mark words they don't understand. 

Once I started thinking about how I will know what my students do independently when unprompted by an adult I started to change how I thought about even presenting the material. Instead of wanting to know how they will read on a running record I started thinking about how they will read when I'm not over their shoulder. It completely changes the long-term goal.

Once I realized that it changed my long-term mindset I was almost ashamed of myself. The long-term goal never actually changed. Of course I teach for independence. We all do- it's why we are paid to do what we do- not to teach kids to take a test, but to give kids skills and knowledge to help them be successful in life. But we haven't been assessing for that. 

It takes creativity, patience, and a dedication to being a "kid watcher" to assess for independence. It takes building a classroom environment where you can release responsibility to your kids so that you have time to sit back and notice what they are doing when you are not telling them what to do. It means reshaping how we think about assessments and those independent activities- how can we structure independent activities so that it shows us where the children are and where they need to go next?

I'm excited and challenged by this way of thinking. For kids like mine, for whom independence is essential, it is an excellent question to always be asking myself- "How will I know they can do this when I am not around?"