the realities of life.

Words cant' describe what I've learned in just these past 4 weeks of teaching. In an instant, as one student walked in at 10:00 after 2 weeks of school, I watched my controlled class disappear before my eyes. The old teacher saying, "it only takes one" is so true. One child who refuses to follow any procedures, can be quite the headache, and not only that I've seen it anger my well behaved children having to deal with it day after day.

I spent an hour talking with the school psychologist to begin a game plan. I'm a new teacher, yet I know this child is more than just an "active" child. Two other children in my class do have disabilities and aggression issues, but I had figured out what motivates them, and what calms them down. But not with this new child, a week has gone by with him, and nothing works. 

This is why I am here though, to teach. So my challenge has just been increased. I won't back down!

I've also experienced the realities of working in a low-income community. For whatever reason, it has taken a while for some "free lunch" applications to process. In the meantime, if the child does not pack or bring money, they get a pack of crackers and juice. I got a new student last Friday. Very quiet, sweet boy. His pants fall down past his hips, and he holds his pants up with every step that he takes. He's not trying to have the "thug" look..his mom just didn't give him a belt to wear. 

When he went through the lunch line, he received crackers and juice I see the look on his face, embarrassment, and I think more than anything he was just plain hungry.  I think to myself that besides the breakfast we gave him at school..that could be his only meal all day. I had to just look the other way and leave the cafeteria. As a teacher in schools like this, you have to become hardened to an extent, otherwise with a heart like mine, you will constantly be saddened by the situation in front of you.

I couldn't get him out of my mind all night. So I just packed him a lunch. I didn't tell any teachers, or anyone else. I figured they would say something like, "Oh..you don't want to do that, the parents will take advantage of you." or something to that nature. Not that they are wrong for saying that, they are probably right, they have taught for a much longer time than I have, and they have learned how to deal with the environment.

But in church every Sunday, I am thinking about all of the needy people in this world, and how I wish so much that I could help them. Here I am, spending 6+ hours a day with needy kids whom I love, and they live just miles away from my own home. I just decided that I would do what I could do help them. Sometimes we just need to look right under our noses to see the needs of this world. 

Anyway, back to Jake I will call him. It was time for lunch, and I noticed that Jake just had a bag of chips in his bag. So I quietly handed him a paper bag and said, " Do you like peanut butter and jelly?" You would have thought it was Christmas. Not only did he feel happy to be part of the group again, but he was probably happy to eat! As I saw him smiling from ear to ear, munching on his apple at lunch, my heart smiled. 

The next day, same routine, "Line up for lunch, " only this time, I noticed he was just crying at his desk. I realized that this day he didn't even have chips, so he thought he was going to go lunchless. I said, "Jake, come here, your lunch is over here remember?" Suddenly, the once crying boy was smiling from ear to ear, skipping back into line. 

As happy as it made me feel, my heart broke as well because he has two older siblings. Knowing that they probably didn't have lunch broke my heart. But after lunch I saw the secretary walking with the two siblings into the cafeteria, she asked if Jake had eaten lunch and I said yes, I took care of it. She said that she was doing everything she could to fix the problem, and at 1:30pm she was taking them into get a bite to eat. Thankfully, the problem was fixed the next day, and they all ate school lunches.

But this is just one family, and one meal. Imagine afterschool, and on weekends..

Oh..the realities of life.

Funny quote of the day from one of my sweet first grades who was crying. 

I will call her Gina.

Me: " Gina, why are you crying?"

Gina:" Because my beanie babies are at home, and I know they are worried about me."

Reasons Why I Love Teaching

So I am working on my own experiment, testing out whether my own attitude can keep my positive about teaching. When substituting and teaching in the past, there were many time when I thought..please remind me why I choose to do this??? Teaching is such a strenuous job. You can't quite possible imagine what it is like unless you've done it yourself. I know that people look at teaching thinking.." oh come on, how tough can it be?" Well let me tell you, it is.

But as I embark on this journey of my first year, I am working on maintaining my positive attitude. One way that I do this is by trying to see all of the little sweet moments. 

For example yesterday, Josh, one of the babies of that class walked in and said, 

" Ms. Adams, I broke my ankle." Obviously he was walking completely fine, so instead of just ignoring it, I like to have fun with it, to give myself a laugh. I'm not making fun of him in anyway, instead I am actually validating his feeling by asking him questions about how he broke it. And all through it, I get a little giggle inside of me seeing his innocence in the funny things that he says.

Another cute thing I notice everyday is when one sweet girl calls another girl "Uniquewa." Her name is actually "Ineaqua", but every morning I hear, "Uniquewa , Uniquewa. " I hear this in the mornings before school starts while they are waiting to come in the room. It makes me smile each and every morning.

Even when the kids are acting up, I try not to let it get to me. I stay firm, but sometimes I just understand that it's the last 20 minutes of the day, and I can't reasonably expect them to follow to every little direction that I give. 

So that's all for now. Oh, by the way, did I mention that tomorrow is Friday? I worked extra long today so that I could be out the door tomorrow at 2:30. We start our literacy program Voyager on Monday, so it will be a busy week. I need my rest!

the stresses of teaching

I'm starting to realize what all of the teachers mean when they say that there is just not enough time in the day to teach everything! Boy are they right. We are expected to teach sooo many things, but are not given the time to do so.

On top of that, there are so many tedious things that get in the way. But, I try to keep a positive view, and try to remember that I am here for the kids. This is my dream, and I am determined not to get caught up in the negativity that plagues so many teachers. 

I am so blessed to have this job. On top of having a new school, I got a new Macbook today! We also have document cameras and Smartboards in everyroom. It makes my life as a teacher so much easier. Having a document camera is truly amazing. I love how the kids are so engaged when looking at the board. It's also makes just about any text more interactive.

That's all for now.

I survived week one!

Well, I made it through my first week. I am not as tired as I thought I would be. But I did work about 11 hours each day. Considering my first day of class started with a mom saying, " she like to use that perverted language..don't let her do that.." it hasn't been too bad.

The worst part of the week was when the lunch ladies ripped the pizza lunch away from 3 of my kids! The school said that they didn't pay, but without giving a warning, but sweet first graders were embarrassed as their lunch was taken away on the second day of school in front of all of their classmates. I wanted to cry for them! It really upset me because I am their protector when they are away from their parents, and I felt like it wasn't fair because neither me, nor their parents were notified..so I was a little shaken up.

As it turned out, one of the students was supposed to get free lunch anyway. So I took him out of library class to get some lunch and to eat with me. He was so happy. As he was carrying his tray I said, "Wow, you are so strong!" He replied, "It's because I do push-ups everyday." That made my day. I live for those cute little comments.

Another cute comment I live for is this: After singing the "Days of the week song, a student said, "Mrs. Adams, you have a cute singing voice." 

These are reasons that make the teaching day so enjoyable. 

First day of school!

So the first day has come and gone. The news was there watching my every move as I walked in with my umbrella at 6AM. My only mishaps were going the wrong way to work..yes, I only live 5 minutes away, but still managed to go the wrong way. Also, my ID badge got stuck in the laminator.

However, the day went relatively well. Although the day started out with a child's mom saying, "Don't you go using those perverted words again." I thought, oh gee, what did I get myself into! Only 12 of my 20 kids showed up, but it wasn't a disaster. We read, " No, David" by David Shannon, and a little bit of Junie B. Jones. We created out own class rules, and even signed them.

I woke up at 5:30 AM and here I am, 11 hours later and still have energy. We didn't accomplish everything that I had wanted to, but we practiced out procedures a lot! We are a redesign school, so we started 2 week early so that we could have extra time to prepare for testing. It is also nice to have extra time for procedures so that we aren't too rushed.

All in all, MY first day of first grade wasn't too bad at all. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Time to work on lesson plans!