I truly do love my sophomores this year, but they sometimes drive me utterly and completely bonkers! I was warned. I can’t say I had no idea what to expect. Everyone, and I do mean everyone that taught these kiddos before they pranced into my room last September said the same thing – “great kids, very chatty, but low achievers”. It fits them perfectly.

Collectively, they are content to be proficient. There really isn’t a single one of them that puts any great effort into school. They want to be spoonfed and would rather have me give them a bunch of information to memorize than to put any real thought into how the world works, why things happened, how one event led to another, etc. It’s frustrating because I’m NOT a teacher that simply tosses dates and names at kids to memorize. I want them to “understand” the world around them. Argh!

A classic example was Friday. I was covering the end of WWI – it was time to mention the atomic bombs being dropped. Puleeze don’t turn this into a discussion about the right or wrong of it – no no no peeps, I just wanna tell you ’bout my class, not get all political here.

Sooooooooooooooooo………….

It went kind of like this (abbreviated for the sake of my purdy little sore fingers and my non-desire to type each word)

“On August 6, 1945 the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima……. (yada yada yada)

” Then…

“The Japanese didn’t surrender, and three days later the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki….. (yada yada yada)”

One of the total black and white thinker type boys interupts me to ask “Uh, what year was that bomb dropped?”

My look of utter exasperation must have shown because one of the kids who “gets it”, looked up, grinned at me, and muttered “that would have been 1946″.

I didn’t say anything, I just went on to explain the Japanese officially signed papers to surrender in September of 1945. The confused boy looked up with a rather dazed and confused expression on his face and said “Uh, that doesn’t make any sense!”

I asked why.

His reply?

“Well why would we have dropped a bomb on them in 1946, if they surrendered in 1945?”

*bangs head on desk*

Did you notice that I’d said “three days later”? Duh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes I just want to stomp my feet and cry. Those feelings were intensified when the kids sitting around him said “uh, we have 1946 written down too!” I had to explain that sarcasm boy was just messing with their heads because they should have KNOWN the year when I said it was three days AFTER August 6 of 1945. Instead of saying “oh oh oh, I get it”, they said things like “well why did he SAY 1946???”

My head hurts.

Peace

This morning I woke up to the ringy-ding-ding of the phone rather than the beep beep beep of my alarm. That can only mean one thing.

I overslept!

Fortunately, we have no kids here today – it’s a workshop day.

My first call was to the school; it went like this.

“It’s Deej, I overslept, I’m outside with my dogs, and I’m going to throw some clothes on and be right there.”

“Puleeze do.”

“Smartass! Don’t let anyone do anything until I get there. Put everyone and everything on hold!”

“Oh I will. We’ll all be standing at the windows waiting for you to make an appearance.”

I love working with a group of smartass peeps!

I flew into the building and dashed to the office to let the secretary know they could begin working only to find her, my boss, and another teacher pal gazing out the window at my car. They said “Whew, we can work now!”

Gotta love Fridays like this one.

Peace

Years ago my state initiated something called “open enrollment” in our public school system. Families and kids can choose which district they would like their kids to attend. If they opt out of their home district, they can request another district allow their kids to go there. The home district must approve the transfer, the new non-home district can choose whether or not to accept the kid. Once a kid is enrolled in the new district, they cannot force them to leave if they are failing or being a twit. On the other hand, the home district has to allow them to come back at any time.

Over the years, various bugs have been worked out of the system. For instance, the state doesn’t want kids hopping from one district to another for sports. They addressed that with very rigid eligibility rules that seem to be working quite well. Even so there are still some problems. One of them is funding. Parents continue to pay school taxes in their home district while their kids attend class in a different district. Those parents have nothing vested in the home district and tend to vote down additional funding the home district may need. It can be frustrating.

All of those problems seem inconsequential when I sit back and look at what Bush’s “NCLB” (No Child Left Behind) program is doing to a number of kids. I understand that he was hoping to fix problems in education. I know there were some problems. I know some kids were struggling. However, I’m seeing more kids being left behind in a rather ugly game that’s happening.

Kids are tested, retested, and tested again. The plan is all kids – even special learners – will be at high performing levels by 2014. Everywhere the pressure is on for districts to make sure as many kids as possible do well on these tests. To meet this goal, some things are being left out of curriculums altogether so teachers can focus on teaching to the test. Perhaps one can argue those things are not “necessary”, but I argue that higher level thinking requires more than the rote memory type things that is needed on these tests.

Within each district students are divided into all kinds of categories – males, females, Native American males and females, African American males and females, free and reduced lunch eligibility kids, special education kids, etc. etc. etc. If any of those groups doesn’t make the grade, the school has failed to meet AYP (annual yearly progress). If too many kids are absent and don’t take the tests, the school fails to meet AYP. Currently, my school is failing to meet AYP. Both our elementary and secondary schools as a whole flew through the testing, yet we needed one more special education student to pass the tests in order to meet – it didn’t happened.

While each year, the bar for passing the tests gets higher more and more school districts fail to meet AYP. Currently, over half the districts in my state are failing for one reason or another. If a district continues to fail, their funding can be cut – along with other penalties. All of this puts school and students into a pretty sad situation.

I never truly realized how much until this year. I don’t know how I missed this or why I didn’t pay closer attention to what is happening. Whatever the reason, I am saddened by what I am seeing.

Several of my co-workers and I were looking at the “list” of kids that are cross-registering out of our district this year. Each of them were kids that were struggling students; a number of them were “my” kids – the ones I’ve blogged about – the ones that I have poured my heart into – the ones that are kids in trouble that need extra help. I sighed as I mentally said good-bye to them. It didn’t hit me until someone said “This is going to help with AYP.”

It’s true.

In an tragic sense, it’s a cause for celebration among districts when their “kids in trouble” bail out and head to other districts. Along with their problems, they take their failing test scores with them. Those scores become another district’s problem; it puts another district at risk. It saves your own.

I hate this.

The very kids that we should be helping most become liabilities to school districts. No district wants to risk the loss of funding. The kids are becoming casualties. In essence, we are leaving more children behind now that we’ve adopted “no child left behind”. Districts are better off without them.

I’m angry.

One neighboring district with a large student population has come right out and said – they crunch the numbers to find out how many absent kids they can have before being cited. After that number has been determined, they tell their slowest kids to stay home the day the test is being administered. As of yet, my district doesn’t play that game – we test 100% of our kids.

Newspapers report the results. People see failing districts and mutter about how bad our schools are. They don’t realize what’s happening behind those doors. They don’t know some districts are failing because two of their kids with Down’s Syndrome weren’t able to pass reading and math tests at the 8^th grade level. They don’t realize that some are failing because too many kids failed to show up the day the test was given. They don’t realize how many variables are.

All that aside – my heart is breaking for those lost kids – the ones no district wants to claim.

Fuck the whole thing – THOSE kids have always been my very favorites. While I enjoy teaching and working with the higher achievers too, I utterly love the challenge of the troubled kids. To many many districts and administrators those kids are simply liabilities.

It sucks – welcome to NCLB.

Peace

And so the countdown begins – I’m heading back to work in a few weeks.

Each year brings changes of some sort or another; this one isn’t an exception.

New kids, a couple new teachers, and two of my bestest friends will be my bosses.

Whoa! Hold the fort on that one – that’s going to be the strangest feeling of all.

My current principal is a good friend and has been since I began working there. Even though we hang out in the same group when we are all out and all that jazz – he’s been my “boss” and not really a best pal.

This year he’s swithing to part time and they are filling the gap with two assistant principals. Both of them are already on staff and hold the licensure needed to do this. Both of them are good friends – one of them is someone I talked to almost every day. We share secrets and our lives – we’ve done so for years.

I don’t see these friendships becoming strained, but it will be a mite different I think.

I’m looking forward to seeing how it all works out.

Peace

I love going out to lunch with a group of good friends. I love the laughter and closeness. I love giggling over drinks and catching up with what each of us has been doing with our summer.

Today there were nine of us – our ages range from 20s to 60s – but we share so much. We work together, care about each other, call each other when the chips are down, look out for each other’s children, cover each other’s classes, go on vacations together, and care about each other.

I’m lucky to have them.

Not long ago a cousin was telling me about her new job and she said something I found interesting. She said “I don’t LOVE my job – it’s a good one and the money is great. I like my job, but not very many people have what you have – you actually love your job.”

These women – the ones I giggled with today – they are a huge reason I love going to work every day.

I’m a lucky ducky!

Peace

No, he’s not on drugs.

He’s just “odd”.

Today one of the guys in summer school came in from their morning break and began to pace the room.

He walked back and forth.

I asked if he was okay. He said yes, that he just felt like pacing.

He kept pacing back and forth.

He did this for almost twenty minutes – then he sat down, flipped on his IPod, and that was that.

Odd.

I guess sometimes one just has to pace.

Peace

I didn’t recognize the number on caller ID, but I knew it was local. The call went like this:

“Hey Ms. C., What’s sodomy?”

To say I was speechless is an understatement. I paused then said “Uh, who is this????”

“It’s J!” She responded as if calling her history teacher to ask about sodomy is not a big deal. Of course, this girl and I have a unique relationship. I’ve already explained breast pumps, labor pains, and childbirth to her. Even so, sodomy wasn’t something I was prepared for.

“Uh, I guess you could say it’s a legal term for anal sex” – yup, that was about as graphic as I wanted to get with this one.

Meanwhile the hub was standing near me and his jaw dropped to the floor. Quickly he starts pestering me under his breath. I guess I can’t blame him; he’s not used to hearing me discussing sodomy or anal sex on the phone while casually sipping a beer in the sunroom.

I had to ask. A part of me wasn’t so sure I wanted to hear the answer, but the bigger part of me was itching to know just WHY one of my sixteen year old students was calling to ask me about this.

She’d been watching some cop show on television. Some dude was charged with sodomy. She was clueless and figured she’d ask me. Luverly! She giggled when I suggested she use a dictionary the next time then said “Why should I do that? I have my teacher on my phone!”

Yup, she does. Gotta love that one.

Peace

I befuddled my cubs when I came home from work today and announced who my “dinner dates” were. There are a couple of women teachers that are *ponders how to put this nicely* – odd. Yeah, that’s a nice way of saying they are a bit different.

The two of them are joined at the hip and pretty exclusive. It’s never bothered me because they don’t tend to be the type of people I hang out with anyway. We get along fine at work, but that’s it. They are the kind of teachers that tend to be punitive and happy to write out detentions, take away baseball caps, and follow minute little rules that I’m content to ignore.

Today one of them asked me to join the two of them and another teacher at a local restaurant that was doing some kind of teacher appreciation thing. What the heck, why not? My dinner plans included making tacos, but there were leftovers in the fridge for the fam – I said I’d go.

They were going to call me over ninety minutes ago.

Yup, I’ve been stood up.

My kids are giggling about this one. My hub is doing a really bad job of not saying things like “you’ve been dumped by the geek squad”. My bestest work friend snorked with laughter.

I’m simply hungry because my luverly family inhaled the leftover lasagna and there isn’t much else that I feel like eating.

Let me just say, I think this is rude. Certainly we aren’t best buddies, but I’m never rude to them. We chit chat at school – we never hang out away from the building. Initially the rest of us tried to get them involved when we were all going out, but they turn us down all the time. We’ve pretty much given up.

Hmph! I think I’ll invite ‘em to Dairy Queen and drop their ice cream cones!

Peace

The drum roll is happening. It’s countdown time. The last day for students to scamper into school is Monday! Don’t ask me why oh why the schedule was set for us to end classes on a Monday. I’m not one of the “smart” people that makes those decisions.

In a moment of utter and complete weakness, I relented to pressure and agreed to take my sophomores kayaking. Did I mention this included “all” of the ones that want to go? In the past I’ve taken the summer school kids; these kids begged, pleaded, and cajoled me into this.

At the end of June their English teacher and I are going to be heading to Wisconsin with a large group of kids – most of whom have never been in a kayak. They will hop into a kayak and almost immediately be facing their first small rapids. Many will topple into the water. Others will find themselves turned around and going backwards down the river.

I’ll be giggling at their antics and having a fantastic time watching them doing something out of their comfort zone. We aren’t going until the end of June; I’ll have to write about it after we survive the trip!

Peace

Random thoughts from a random evening…

I have a fun little part time job that I didn’t apply for. Yeah, I’m still teaching, but I get to play at a local greenhouse for fun. What can I say? I love dirt and things that grow in it.

The hub took both boys off camping and fishing over the weekend. They slayed the fish, froze their asses off, but had a fantastic time. I think Babycub and I had more fun just being on our own for a few days.

I was tickled pink to see how many birds were swarming my feeders. I was ticked off when a giant black bear show up to feast at my feeders. I was a bit alarmed when I realized that the bear is taller than me and has absolutely no fear of humans. No matter how much we yelled and stomped for it to go away, it just stood there and munched. It finally wandered off when the hub fired a gun over its head. My feeders are back inside for a little longer.

The kids at school are utterly restless and anxious to get the hell out of school. I’m anxious to say g’bye to them for the summer. I love most of ‘em to bits, but it truly is time for all of us to have some time apart.

I’m scared. The governor is threatening to withhold school funding. We’re already broke beyond belief. I know one of these days will be the final straw and my school will be forced to close its doors. Sometimes I worry and wonder if I should think of a new career.

I hate funerals. I had one today – obviously, not for me – but I had to go to one.

It snowed last Thursday. It’s supposed to be spring, but I woke up to flurries, I watched them fall outside my classroom, and they just kept coming. It felt like Christmas when I found a notice letting me know that the goodies I was able to order thanks to a giant grant all showed up. My students and I spent the snowy morning giggling and laughing over the new things. It may sound dumb, but my school is sooooooooooo poor – I don’t even have text books so anything new is a major treat. Thank goodness for grants!

I want summer to be here.

Peace