End of year ideas?

Because it's close, people, awfully close (at least for those of us non-East-Coasters - I know some of you go to like the end of June). I've got 17 school days left - 17! And then.....goodbye.

So I'm trying to figure out what I want to do to wrap it all up. It's different this year since I'm teaching 8th graders; they won't be back in the fall and I feel like we should mark the passage to high school in some way.

Here's what I've got so far. Some is the same as every year; I want to add some new, though.

- I'll do my end-of-year notes and composition notebooks. I stocked up on those last summer when they were on sale for 50 cents each rather than the usual two dollars - feeling pretty proud of myself for thinking ahead here. :) I'll also do a class picture of each class and give each kid a copy.

- All my kids will sign a yearbook for me to keep as a memento; I really like doing this and would recommend it to everyone if you don't already.

- They'll do an evaluation for me about the year and my class and things I should change and things I should keep and all that good stuff. It'll be a little more extensive than my trimester-ly one, but not a whole ton.

- I got a fancy copy of Oh, the Places You'll Go! and may get another one, because this might take two. We're going to have every 8th grader write a sentence about the places THEY'LL go in the book and then keep it in our library for future kids to look at, or for themselves to come back and see.

But....that doesn't feel like enough. I could do letters to their future selves and deliver them to the local high school in four years, but with our mobility, a lot of these kids won't be there in four years....a fair chunk won't even be going next year.

I've thought about doing a Summer Literacy Challenge. I think it's such a cool idea, and while I don't know that too many kids would actually do it, it'd be awesome if any of them did. And I could totally come up with sweet stuff for a high school survival pack. Plus that would offer a way to continue our relationship a bit; they'd be able to email me or mail it to me or drop it by the school....and actually I could go to the high school one day to collect them from the kids who do go there (which is most of them). And I could talk to them about the summer reading gap as encouragement to do it....okay, as I'm writing, I'm talking myself more and more into this, so I think I will do this too. Actually, I'm kind of in love with the idea now and can't wait to start planning it.

But still. I want more. More of a celebration - maybe have kids read bits of their favorite portfolio pieces? As one final class celebration, and bring snacks and stuff again? Make a banner for next year welcoming my new students to class - ooh, maybe with six word memoirs about the year on them?

What do YOU do?

(Image credit to Eleaf)

New year nerves.

I have a confession to make.

I am nervous about this year. Like, really nervous. Teacher-dreams, stomach-tension, don’t-wanna-talk-about-it jittery nervous.

What if I can’t handle eighth graders? Sure, I did some student teaching in 8^th grade – but my CT had really set everything up and while I had to prove myself to some extent, maybe they just treated me with respect because they liked her.

What if the kids I had in the past are completely different now than they were in 6^th grade? What if they are nightmares? Yep, still saw them around the school last year, but in class is a whole different thing.

What if I can’t run a workshop effectively? I really want to try it – it sounds so empowering and engaging for kids – but what if I can’t handle the giving up of control and finding ways to get kids engaged in their learning? Self-direction and choice are great…if they choose and direct.

What if I’ve taken on too much? A new curriculum and grade level, three different leadership teams (one of which I’m really going to be spending a lot of time on, I think), running the school newspaper, an ongoing professional development opportunity….it’s a lot. Can I handle it all without something being done badly? Without several things being done badly?

I think part of my problem is that I haven’t gotten to sit down with my planning partner to figure out how this is all going to look. Nor have I heard back from my principal about our department planning day that we’re supposed to be having. Plus the whole mess with the Charmer sort of discouraged me – perhaps I CAN’T create relationships with kids who are older than sixth grade. I don’t really believe that, but it was a downer.

Today I’m going to sit down with my pals The Writing Workshop and Study Driven and have a heart-to-heart so that I have a better vision of the process and can start working on mentor texts. I’ve emailed and texted people about setting up meetings – if I don’t hear back, that’s on them and I’ll plan by myself. They’ll just have to live with the results. And if I decide I’m doing too much, well, I can always drop a committee or something. Plus who needs sleep anyway?

It’s going to be fine, right? Please tell me it’s going to be fine.

(Poor little turtle. At least HE has a shell... Photo credit to bionicteaching)

Another Freakin' Teaching Dream.

I dreamt last night that I was running my classroom as a writing workshop.

It's not even August yet, people. I don't officially report back for another three weeks. Apparently, though, my brain is done with summer and ready to plan plan plan for the new school year.

At least it was going smoothly in the dream...

Looking forward.

Hi. I am better today.

Still confused as hell, frankly, but writing about it helped, and then I put on a pretty dress and cute shoes and went to a dinner party with friends. Between the delicious food, the even more delicious wine, and the scintillating conversation (and I’m not being sarcastic, it really was), it was a good way to recover from feeling slapped in the face.

Today I worked out, and next I am getting my highlights redone and then going to another teacher game day, this time pool-side. I will tell my friends my story and receive their commiserations. Then I will try really, really, really hard to put it behind me and not dwell. I am an exceptional dweller (as you have probably figured out by now), practically a squatter in the mess of past problems, but I don’t see it doing any good in this situation (or most of the time, actually).

I am going to look forward. Some of my class lists are up on the district website, and I love several of the kids who are currently scheduled to be with me (though one is Miss Opinion, so we’ll see how that goes); they might change, but that will also be fine.

I left a message for the other eighth grade Language Arts teacher about starting to plan, and I have a pile of books that I am actually going to start reading. (I realized yesterday that I have all these great books [or I hope they’re great, anyway] and have felt all smug and self-righteous all summer about having them, but, um, I still have to actually READ them. A pile of books will do more if they are opened and understood. Unless you just need a doorstop or something, in which case they should probably stay stacked. But my doors stay still on their own, and I need to do some learnin’. So. Reading it is. Study Driven is going with me to the salon so I can be enlightened by Katie Wood Ray as I let chemicals cook my hair into a blonder blonde.)

I am also going to start working on a little cartoon thing I want to do for back-to-school night, and I am stalking the office supply store sales for cheap pencil sharpeners and the like. Staples is looking pretty good for next week. Then I will clean out some closets and organize the garage.

Forward.

The Stress of a New School Year

I realized today that a new school year is quickly approaching.

Seems like that should not have been a surprise, right? Pretty expected that as summer comes to an end, a new year correspondingly approaches (yes, I know that for many of you, summer goes till Labor Day - I have till mid August), and yet, it was a shocker.

I was at a baseball game with teacher friends at the time. We'd been talking about a variety of topics (the delightfulness of pedicures, why that guy a few rows down was wearing such a definitively unattractive shirt, my overuse of the word delightful) when one of my friends mentioned that she was feeling stressed about the new year. She's going to have three and a half preps and is unenthused, especially as she reports back next week and just learned about this yesterday.

And as I sat there and commisserated with her, I suddenly thought, hey. I have a new year starting soon too. I have to build new relationships with kids too. I have to get to know IEPs and figure out differentiation and learn how to work with my school's new admin and prep for a new grade level and find new model texts and figure out my room layout and learn a new software grading system that we're adopting and try to implement a pilot advisory program and reorganize my classroom library and and and and and.

Mild panic attack in the middle of the game, there.

But I worked through it quickly. I think the issue is that I loved last year so much. So so so much. It was such a great year - not to say I couldn't do better in some areas, but it really was delightful and it ended on such a positive note. So I'm a liiiiiiiiiiiittle nervous that this year won't live up to last. Maybe it won't, but it'll definitely have some great pieces to it.

Mostly I'm super excited for next year - since I'm going to 8th grade I'll have some kids I had two years ago, and I loved those guys, so that'll be fun. Plus I'll get to see my kids from last year again and catch up with them, and THAT'LL be fun. I hear good things about our new admin, I'm really excited to work with the other 8th grade Language Arts teacher because she's a rock star, I have a friend who's offered to share some of the model texts she's found with me, I'll almost certainly do cooperative learning pods because that's how I roll....it's all gonna be fine. It'll be busy, and overwhelming, and stressful, and exciting, and awesome. And I believe that.

And I'm going to keep believing that every day until the end of next summer. When it'll start all over again.

(Photo credit to Stephen Edmonds.)

Celebrate Good Times, Come On: Celebrations in the Classroom

I've spent the last two weekends at weddings, celebrating with friends and family from near and far. It's been fabulous, though exhausting (last weekend was in Vermont, this one is in California wine country) . My feet hurt from dancing and my eyes are heavy with lack of sleep from laughing and talking late into the night. I've spent time with friends I haven't seen in years and with those I just met two days ago. Flowers, wine, music, love. Wonderful.

It's made me realize that we need celebrations in our lives. Or, specifically, that I need to work more celebrations into my classroom. Weddings are an insane amount of work for the people throwing them, but the work is worth it for the sense of community and hope that come out of them. Same thing with classroom celebrations, I think. I need to do a better job of acknowledging kids who go above and beyond, as well as everyone who does what they're supposed to do. My grade level is hopefully going to piloting a way to do some of that, but I can do it my room too.

What does that look like? I'm not 100% sure. I've got a few ideas so far, like doing publication nights periodically where kids could present their work to audiences of family and friends, or having students of the week for each period. That might be a lot to keep up with, but I'm betting I could keep it fairly simple, and I'm hoping it would be meaningful for the kids.

What do you think? Any other ideas for ways and things to celebrate in an eighth grade Language Arts classroom?

Anger in the Classroom Part II

One more bit to add about the anger stuff. A teacher I work with is legendary for his rage. When he gets mad at a kid for behavior he considers beyond the pale (like the time a student put a “kick me” sign on the back of one of our severe needs kids), he loses it. He takes the kid out in the hall and yells so loudly that we can hear it in my room, and I'm four full rooms away.

Honestly, it would scare the crap out of me to get reamed like that, so I imagine it's true for the kids as well. That's one of the reasons I'm resolving to yell less and try to not get so angry – I hear how the students talk about him and I just don't want to be known that way.

I'm not saying that when kids do dumb or inappropriate stuff they shouldn't have consequences, because they should; that kick me sign was deeply not okay and the student involved needed to know that, but I don't think that yelling did anything to change that student's future behavior. I think all it did was humiliate him and make him hate the teacher involved.

I'm also not saying that we should make decisions about our behavior based solely on how students will react, or that we should worry about our reputations too much, but, again, I believe that I can be more effective as a teacher if my kids like and respect me, and they'll like and respect me more if I treat them with compassion and respect.

A few weeks ago I read this great book (and I'll post about it more extensively coming up because I loved it so so much) that Angela Watson from The Cornerstone Blog recommended. It was short and simple, just some advice about fourteen things that great teachers do differently. The whole book really resonated with me, but one part in particular stood out for me – the section on treating everyone with respect.

Whitaker writes, “If everyone in a school is treated with respect and dignity, you may have nothing special. However, if everyone in a school is not treated with respect and dignity, you will never have anything special. Of that I am sure.”

I want to have something special in my classroom, and so I need to make sure I treat everyone with respect. The change I personally need to make to ensure that happens is to reduce my anger and my yelling.

(Photo credit to bethany actually)

Anger in the Classroom

Yesterday I talked about four instructional goals. I have one other main goal this year, and frankly, it’s my number one goal – it’s not instructional per se, but it absolutely affects instruction, because it affects the classroom environment.

Anger.

I have a temper, and I just...get mad quickly. My biggest pet peeve is kids talking when they aren’t supposed to, whether that’s when I’m talking or when they’re supposed to be working, or (worst of all!) when another student is talking. It drives me up the wall, because it comes across as so incredibly disrespectful, and it’s such a waste of time, and we have so little time as it is, really. And then I get angry, and then I yell, and then no one is happy.

It’s not good. I know this. It’s a huge problem, honestly, and I’m deeply ashamed of it (I’m ashamed enough that I really don’t want to be writing this post, but again, pushing past my comfort zone). Because really, who likes to be yelled at? No one. I sure don’t. It sucks. So how can I justify behaving like that to my kids?

At the end of the year, I did a little student survey – what they’d liked, what they hadn’t, what they and I had done well at, what they and I could have done better with. Answers varied in most categories, but one…one was consistent. What I could do better was yell less*. Almost half my kids wrote a variation on that theme.

I read those, and it made me sad, and embarrassed, and angry with myself for letting that happen. And I resolved to do better next year. Now I’m hoping that posting this here will also help me change – public accountability and all that. I’m not sure just how to manage it yet, but I’m hoping just being aware of the issue will make me notice it more when I start, and that will remind me to stop. I have one other thing I’m going to try that I hope will help, but I’ll post about that another time.

Here’s what I’m going to do. Once a month, let’s say on the first Monday of each month (I will put it in my Google calendar to remind me), I will post about how I’m doing with the yelling. That will keep me focused on it. Plus, you know, public shaming if I’m not doing well, but public congratulations if I am! Of course, if you all think this is the worst idea ever (the posting about it part, not the reduction in yelling part), then I’m sure I could be convinced to do that differently. But I think it might help.

So stay tuned for the first Monday in September (two months from now, just about), and find out how I’m doing with it after my first few weeks with the eighth graders.

*They wrote that, or to do nothing differently – many of my little charmers wrote things like, “Nothing because you are the best teacher ever!!!!!!” Suck ups. And these were anonymous, so they didn’t even need to. :)

(Awesome Anger Bot image credit to StickBus)

A good two years.

I finished moving to my new classroom yesterday. My lovely husband came in and helped me get it done, which was really good – the two of us spent close to three hours working, so had it just been ME, it would have taken me probably at least eight (he is stronger and more efficient than I am; I get distracted by shiny things and student notes and stuff).

I’m a little sad to leave sixth grade. Their exuberance and enthusiasm are so great, and they really want to love their teachers. You just have to give them a chance, and they’re in. Eighth graders…I don’t know. They’re a little more jaded and you have to prove yourself more, as I recall. Which I can totally do, but. It’ll just be different.

Mostly I’m excited. I found out that one of the reading teachers in my building whom I most respect will also be moving to my core with me, so that’s pretty rockin’. She and I are very different in some ways, but we both hold our students to very high standards, we both manage our classrooms in large part through rapport with the kids, we both believe in including ethics in our content lessons…we may butt heads at times as we are both strong-willed, but I think it’ll be awesome.

It’ll be fun to see which of my former kids I get again. The Eyeliner Queen probably won’t be back (long story), and BB Bob and the Charmer probably won’t either (another long story, which I’ll get to). But I know I’ll have some familiar faces, and that’ll be nice.

When I left my old room for the last time, I stopped for just a minute to look back. I’ll be in it again, of course, I’m still in the building and I’m sure I’ll be sharing curriculum with whoever is hired for that position, but it won’t be the same. Yesterday was the last time it was my room, or really ours, because it belonged to my kids as much as me, filled with our energy, our memories, our work and laughter and tears.

It was a good first two years. I can’t wait for the next twenty.