The best thing I've ever done

Up until a few months ago, I would have said that the best thing I've ever done was teaching. And the hardest. And the most rewarding. And the most important.

Teaching is now second in all of those.

This is first.

He's almost six months old now and I can't even believe how fantastic this kid is. He's so much fun. And so exhausting, and frequently frustrating, and often confusing.....but so fantastic. I get it now, the baby thing. I was never a baby person - I've always preferred kids. Once you can talk to them, they're a lot easier, in my opinion. But now I get why people just lose their minds over babies.

I'm taking a year off to stay home with him. I'm really lucky to get to do this, I know, and I'm enjoying it tremendously. Currently I'm in the process of figuring out what's coming next. I won't be going back to my old school, primarily because it no longer exists - shut down by the district because of low test scores and declining enrollment. I plan to switch districts to the one that I live in, but I'm not sure if I'll do middle school again or try high school, if I want to stay a teacher or get a MA in school counseling and become a counselor (no grading to take home....but I do love teaching), if I'll go full time or try for part time somewhere.....lots of decisions to make.

And I'm thinking about those decisions a lot....but mostly I'm just enjoying this gorgeous, gorgeous baby.

I'll be back someday. Until then, <3. I hope you're all as happy as I am.

Ultimatum update

I posted this in the comments, but thought I'd update here as well, re: my homeboy Drama King and my possibly unwise ultimatum.

I got very thoughtful comments from several people, but OKP's especially made me think.

I think you did the right thing. Let me start there.

I just don't know how it's going to work on your end. How does he know what it means to not be trusted? What does that look like?

If the trust is gone, does that mean he can't come to your room? You stop riding him about his work, or requiring him to come in? You don't call him by his first name (professional distance)? You don't give him tasks? Or treats?

Does it mean more detentions, more often? Calls home?

If the loss of trust has a consequence for him, then maybe he can try to earn it back.

I still think you did the right thing.

As soon as I read that, I was like, "....oh. Right. What does that actually MEAN." So then I thought about it, because, yeah, forever, awfully long time, and what DOES it look like, and decided that it would mean that he was no longer allowed in my room for lunch, but would be able to earn the trust back if he got the work done.

(Didn't end up being much of an issue, though, because he came in with the work. It wasn't completed, but it was a lot closer, and it was good enough. He'd stopped because he was stuck on where to go next with the piece, so he came in early this morning (he was absent yesterday), I helped him think through it, and he got it done.)

But that, I think, is why the ultimatum was the wrong choice - it didn't necessarily mean anything. It would have been better to be more concrete and have specific, measurable consequences, like not being able to come to my room, or like not being able to call me Mom, as with Honey.

I don't think telling him that I would have lost trust in him was wrong; I'm completely with TeachEnEspanol:

[T]his is a very important life lesson about the kind of man he is going to become and it is a true test of how much he values the relationships that means something to him.

He needs to know that promises should matter, and do, and breaking them isn't something to do lightly.

And as Rachel said, I could've asked him what it looked like. That would have been interesting for me, and useful. It's always good to ask kids what they think consequences are/should be. Gives good insight.

I'm really glad it worked out, that he did keep his promise. Next time I do that though, I'll be more clear on what my grandiose statement actually means.

(Also - see? This is why blogging is awesome! Because I got totally good insights and thoughts from super smart teachers whom I would never have otherwise known! Yaaaaaaay Internet!)

Saying sorry helps!

So I never actually got to send my email to the parent (I was trying to track down my administrator to clear it with her), because before I managed to sit down with my admin, the parent apologized. She said she'd been stressed with everything her family was going through but hadn't meant to be so rude and was sorry, and thanked me for everything I've been trying to do to help her son.

Her son still didn't have a pencil on Friday, but he did turn in the missing major assignment, and he's at least passing now (I'm assuming - haven't actually graded it yet).

So. There we go. Still not the most pleasant moment of my life when I read her first email, but I'm pretty impressed that she actually made the effort to make it right. Not enough of us apologize when we mess up; doing so goes a long way with me.

I'm like Lola, in that I never get to stop running.

I sure have not been posting much since coming back from winter break. I've just been swamped - although I have way fewer kids (just over half the number I had before), I now have twice the planning to do. Since we do workshop-style, for the most part that's not a big deal because of lot of my actual teaching is done in individual conferences, but I still have twice as many focus lessons to plan as I did before and I need twice as many resources to get through a class period, and it all just takes some time.

Also with the schedule change have come some personal changes. I was the leader of my core beforehand, doing agendas for our weekly meetings and tracking down information we needed for things; we no longer have cores, so that's no longer a responsibility. So me being me, I'm all, "Oh! Sweet! Got tonnnnnnnns of extra time now! SURE, I can take over the leadership of a school-wide team, 'cause that only meets once a month instead of once a week!"

Which is technically true, but with that also comes joining our school-wide leadership team, and that adds additional responsibilities, including things like a five-hour-long meeting once a month. Yep - FIVE. Suddenly I have less extra time. Go figure.

I also recently planned a grade-level-wide field trip, including the pre-field trip lesson, the post-field trip wrap-up (all told, about an hour and a half of material) and the lessons that the non-field trip attenders would do while we were gone (which had to fill about four and a half hours of time).

This week alone, between that and checking and organizing permission slips and haranguing the kids who hadn't brought theirs and going to the library to get twelve picture books on the topic to help build background knowledge and and and and and, I spent about 10 hours on that. Outside of my, y'know, actual job. But it was an awesome field trip (though a few minor bus glitches which I will know how to deal with for next time): the kids both learned a ton and really enjoyed it. And in the end, only about 20 kids (out of 250) didn't go, and 10 of those couldn't, due to suspensions or illness or family emergencies. So that rocked.

Overall, everything is busy, but good. And since it's always busy, the good part is the only thing that changes, and I'm glad it's on an upswing right now.

Updates.

I don't have time tonight for a real post, so a quick update will have to suffice:

* Going on a field trip tomorrow with our G/T kids - we're going to an independent bookstore so each kid can choose a book, taking a tour of the downtown of our closest city to expose them to some history of the area, and visiting an art museum for some culture'n'stuff. The kids are SUPER excited, as am I - when we're back, we're going to do a Socratic seminar on beauty (specifically, is it in the eye of the beholder or is it universal?) and it's gonna be suh-weeeeeeet!

* We're about to start a unit on commentary and I've spent the last hour pouring over Leonard Pitts' collection Forward from this Moment. I'm a little bit in love with Leonard Pitts now. I knew he was good, but DAMN. He makes me laugh, he makes me cry, he...well, he makes me want to be a better person and stand up for things that should be stood up for. My only problem? Narrowing the columns I love to a reasonable selection. I've gotten it down to seven (from fourteen) but I need to cut to five. Husband's being enlisted to help because how can I drop any others?

* Feeling better from yesterday. Being back at school, seeing my kids, actually experiencing all the things I love and not just trying to remember them....it helped. Immensely.

* I like how even my short posts are actually kind of long. Writing too little has clearly never been a problem of mine.

(Image credit to wwarby)

Moving forward (I think?)

About twelve minutes after I posted yesterday about how I’d been bailed on by the Charmer’s mom, my phone rang. (Apparently me whining on this blog is like magic; the universe listened. Hey, universe, I am feeling discouraged about painting my living room. I wish someone would show up at my door and do it for me. ….No? Nothing?)

The Charmer’s mom was calling to apologize for missing my call; she’d had a tough night and a tough morning (I don’t know what that means. I asked if everything was okay and she said she thought so, so I didn’t push it). I asked if she wanted to reschedule. She said yes, as soon as possible, so I drove over.

When I got there, I saw the Charmer walking down the stairs. I called a greeting, and he looked over. After a moment, he muttered, “What the hell…..what’re you doing here?”

Ah. “Your mom invited me…she didn’t tell you I called?”

“No. Why’d you call?”

I headed toward his door. “C’mon in. Let’s talk.”

When we got inside, the Charmer disappeared into the back of the apartment. I heard him yell, “Mom? My teacher’s here. WHY is my teacher here?” They came back a moment later, and we all sat down to chat. I explained to him that I was worried about him, that I think he’s smart and funny but that he pushes teachers’ buttons, that he’s at the time of life where he could either choose to succeed or to fall apart.

His mom jumped in to say that I was there because I thought he had a lot of potential and that he should appreciate me seeing that and be grateful that I wanted to help him. He listened, asking the occasional question.

I said I wanted to keep mentoring him, trying to help him, but that it had to be up to him. If he wasn’t down, we wouldn’t do it. He didn’t say anything for a second, then said he wasn’t sure. Fair enough.

We moved on to the specific areas that concerned me most – grades, attitude, mouth. My friend here failed two classes and got Ds in two others in the last trimester. That’s crap. He’s way too smart for that. He was shocked to hear this (apparently he never got a report card mailed home – probably owed the school money and they hold report cards as an incentive to get fines paid) and claimed he had no idea how his grades were so bad. Which is bullshit, but our current grading system can’t be accessed outside of the building or by anyone other than the teacher (we’re switching to an internet-based one that anyone involved can access anywhere), so we couldn’t go far with that.

Then we moved on to attitude, and mouth. Which are linked, but different. The Charmer has a really hard time treating people with respect if he doesn’t feel they’ve earned it, which I get, but….kinda doesn’t matter. I’ve talked to him repeatedly about how it doesn’t hurt a teacher if he gets an attitude with them and gets kicked out of their class, it hurts him – they have a job, they’ll still have it, and they can just get rid of him and not deal with him if he causes problems. Same thing with a future boss – he’ll have bosses who suck, but if he gives them attitude and gets fired, again, he’s the one who gets hurt.

At one point during this conversation, his mom said something that he disagreed with, and he told her so in no uncertain terms. Voice raised, challenging posture, language that wasn’t particularly polite. It was the perfect example. I interrupted his tirade, “Hey. That right there. That’s what I’m talking about. You can talk that way to your mom because you guys have been building a relationship for the past thirteen years [although, seriously, still rude, but that’s his mom’s issue to deal with if she so chooses]. But you talk that way to teachers and administrators and you don’t have the relationships with them to be able to get away with that. That’s exactly the sort of thing that gets you in trouble, and you have to stop.” He shut right up, and I think it actually made him think.

Mouth…ugh. The Charmer is smart. He’s popular. He’s funny. He’s good with language. He’s a thirteen year old boy. He comes up with very clever things to say or do (as I have experienced to my chagrin a few times) that are incredibly inappropriate. I mean, wow. It’s almost impressive how he has absolutely no filter, but not in a good way.

As I explained that, I tried to dance around the specifics as his little sister was in the room, saying that he says things that offend people, that aren’t school appropriate, that go beyond how he should be talking in front of adults, but I could tell his mom wasn’t getting just how inappropriate I meant. She was agreeing with me and telling him he shouldn’t be cursing or calling people gay, which, yeah, also true, but it’s way more than that. Finally I asked her if she minded if I gave two specific examples. She agreed. I asked if she wanted her daughter to leave the room. She said it was fine, so I asked the Charmer if he remembered some of the things he’d said at the year-end kickball game.

He got defensive. “Yeah, but that kid called me Asian so that’s why I called him a --- ”

I cut him off. “Not what I’m talking about [though I will remember that to address another time].”

“Oh, when I said that kid was gay?”

“Also not what I’m talking about. But this is interesting – what else did you do that day?”

Finally he realized that he was screwing himself here and shut up. So I shared the teabagging and the balls in the face stories. His mom was horrified, or at least acted like she was, saying she was offended by that one as a woman.

To that he got defensive. “No, I did not say that. I know exactly what I said. I said—I said ‘Balls in her face!’”

I shot back, “And that’s not any better. She got hit by one kickball – singular. You said balls, plural. You knew exactly what you were implying by adding that ‘s’ to the word. It changed the meaning and you did it on purpose. That’s the kind of crap I’m talking about.” He actually blushed at that.

The conversation lasted for a little over an hour. Toward the end I asked again if he was okay with having me mentor him. He hemmed and hawed for a minute, not saying anything real. I waited. Finally he looked at me and blurted, “You know I’m not going to say no to you.”

I said, “So you’re cool with this.”

He said, “I guess.” I was okay with that as a response, but his mom wasn’t. She made him say that yes, he was cool with it.

We’re meeting Tuesday. I’m not totally sure how this will work; my guess is we’ll hang out, talk, play cards maybe, I’ll bring up stuff that I want him to think about, and periodically, when something’s bothering him, he’ll bring that up. It’s pretty much how our lunches this year went. Not that those were so terribly effective (two Ds! Two Fs! Double-you-tee-eff, seriously), but I’m not sure what would work better. If anyone has any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

Either way, though, it was nice to get to know his mom (she’s a lot like the Charmer and clearly loves him a lot and wants what’s best for him, even if she’s not as involved in his education as I think she should be; I do think it's interesting that she didn't tell him I was coming over, though....any thoughts on what that's about?), and it’s nice to have a direction to go with this. Now (hint, hint, universe) if I can only get the Eyeliner Queen to call me back…

(Photo credit to y_davechen, http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewrongglass/3001504461/)

Movin' on up!

Yesterday was our last day of school. I’ll post more about some of the highlights later, but I just wanted to mention one thing. I’m simultaneously exhausted and delighted to have a break, and heartbroken that I won’t see my kids again for two and a half months. It was a fabulous, fabulous year, my kids are delightful and talented and incredible, and I will miss them terribly. But I’ll get an opportunity to teach at least some of them again in two years, as I’m moving to 8th grade. It’s not quite what I’d been asked for, but it’s pretty close.

I’ll post again this weekend with more details, but I hope all of you who are done are as emotionally mixed as I am about it, and that those of you who aren’t are still energetic and excited for the rest of your year.

Happy summer, y’all. We are the luckiest people in the world; I fully believe that and I hope you do too.

Updates.

The Eyeliner Queen is back and attempting to stay out of trouble. So far, it's going okay. She and I are going to keep in touch over the summer just so she knows someone is there if she needs support. I get super antsy over vacations if I don't have stuff to do, so this will be good for me too.

DC declined to pursue the issue with Ms. Science. He said he felt better after the weekend and it was just a few more weeks of school, so he could deal. I said okay, and he’s seemed fine since.

I readdressed the issue with the Charmer & Co. the next time they asked to eat with me. Reiterated how I was uncomfortable and why it was inappropriate. They apologized. I said if it happened again, we were done with the lunches. They agreed. It’s been perfectly appropriate since. It better stay that way.

The Natural Athlete filled out a sort of “don’t hurt yourself without talking to someone first” contract. At school, I’m his first contact if he’s feeling majorly upset and Ms. Counselor is his second. At home, it’s Dad and Grandma, I think. He was sent home early on Wednesday – I guess his parents thought it was kind of silly, but Ms. Counselor talked about how they might not agree, but his emotions are his emotions, and we needed to take it seriously. The next day, we touched base. He’s much better but promised to come talk to me if he needs to.