Marquette missed his meds today

Oooh, buddy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy. Words just can't convey the things that child came up with today. You just had to be there.

But if anyone can explain this one, I'd appreciate it: "Ms. Sweetland! I can't sleep without my Pandora bear."

There's social studies, and then there's social studies

In the midst of kicking myself for not having gotten up to the Revolutionary War during the first quarter of Social Studies, I realized that I have been teaching my little butt off in civics and government. Before school started, I decided that since Anacostia is experiencing so much (re)-development, I really should engage the kids in studying the changes in their own neighborhood. So, being the good little academic I am, I looked around at local universities to see who was working on related issues. A sociology professor at Georgetown hooked me up with this very enthusiastic and knowledgeable undergraduate who, miraculously, agreed to come teach a little class every week. We've been co-planning and co-teaching some great lessons--his contribution being a working knowledge of DC politics and the time to make up readings and activities, and my contribution being the ability to help him translate his fancy Hoya politics and prose into something 10-year-olds can grasp. (This is also known as 'pedagogical knowledge,' a talent/skill/art that's completely overlooked by Teach for America or other programs designed to attract top-tier graduates to teaching, but that's a topic for another day.)

Between the two of us, we have accomplished some pretty amazing teaching, if I do say so myself. I think I've already mentioned that at the beginning of the year, almost all of my kids located themselves in Washington State when asked to find DC on a map. None knew that DC wasn't a state and they certainly couldn't wrap their minds around the implications of that. Ten weeks later, I have a group of fifth-graders who are debating the pros and cons of the City Council structure, complaining that Eleanor Holmes Norton doesn't have a vote in the House, and making a set of color-coded demographic maps that depict critical poverty indicators for all 8 wards.

I'm pleased with their progress and I love the fact that if someone would have walked into the last lesson and asked my kids what they were doing, they'd say, "Oh, we're making demographic maps of statistical poverty indicators for the 8 wards of DC. I colored Ward 8 Red because it has the highest rate of property crimes."

Or, "I'm coloring Ward 1 green because it has the highest percentage of foreign-born residents. I'm not sure I'd like to live over there. There's a lot of people from other countries and they talk other languages. I might not know what they're saying and they might act all crazy. Over on this side of the river it's 98% African American so I can relate to everyone." Rajanique actually said this as we discussed our maps. Talk about teachable moments!

Anyway, on the horizon we'll be creating a big wall map of Anacostia, locating historical landmarks such as Frederick Douglass' home, and sticking pins in the map to show recently sold property and new buildings, etc. This will involve sitting on the floor and coloring...which is the whole reason I do this job, after all...

Amazing what you can do with a whole day

Today, for the VERY FIRST TIME of the entire school year, I had my students for the entire day. No assemblies. No mind-numbing religion class or soul-sucking so-called art class. Today, they barely even left for the bathroom.

This day was a milestone because for the last two weeks, there has been an interminable series of major disruptions to our schedule. Halloween/'Harvest Festival.' All Saints' Day Mass. Picture Day. Mandatory once-a-year Sex Ed classes with the Pope-tested, Diocesan-approved nurse. Another Mass, just for general purposes. A 'celebration of Joy' to support our school's Fruit of the Spirit theme. Three half-days for so-called 'professional development' and one day off for Parent-Teacher conferences. And then I did some stupid stuff like take the kids to see Rosa Parks and visit the National Museum of the American Indian.

Anyway the religion teacher is out this week and I don't have any other plan-periods on Tuesdays, so today it was just me and kids, bell to bell. It was really amazing how much we accomplished. I got in a lesson in *every* core subject, even science. I taught a really kick-ass lesson in expository structure, with all the little bells and whistles that literacy instructors love such as graphic organizer and small-group work. I even broke out the Cuisenaire rods to demonstrate how authors "build" and organize a nonfiction informational piece. We took a practice math test, and everyone who didn't get 100% got the reteaching they needed. I read a chapter of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. We extended it with a minilesson on Michelangelo. The kids chose picture books on Native American cultures and got a good start on reading them. And at the end of the day, the kids created demographic maps of poverty indicators in DC.

'Time on task' in class is a major predictor of student success. I've got the make-the-kids-to-do-their-work part of the equation under control. The part that's out of my control is the amount of time I actually have the kids in my room. My school, like many other schools, is in need of some serious soul-searching and schedule-analyzing if we are to get down to really teaching. Theodore Sizer advocates 'essential' schools, ones where every school activity has to pass the litmus test of "does this really matter?" Plain old effective schools find ways to give teachers planning time while also maximizing kids' learning experiences; I just read about one where classroom teachers have all day Wednesday off--and the kids go to 'specials' such as art, music, and gym. This gives teachers common plan time on their 'off' day and uninterrupted teaching time on their on-days. Sounds idyllic to me...

personal and professional

Haven't been posting as often because I've been busy falling in love with a fantastic fifth-grade teacher at one of our sister schools. For the record, there's nothing quite as sexy as a man who will grade spelling tests with you on a Friday night. But my weird turn-ons are a whole 'nother topic...

Parent teacher conferences

The parent who earlier claimed that "reading is not homework" is now so incensed by my teaching style that she went to the principal threatening to pull her child out of the school. Apparently I'm not teaching her daughter anything.

The prospect of this conference cast a pall over the whole day as well as the days leading up to it. It takes a superhuman amount of psychic energy to work 9- and 10-hour days with insufficient resources for $600 fucking dollars a week...only to have someone complain to your boss that you're not doing your job. Anyway to make a long story short by the end of the conference I think I had her convinced that I had *some* inkling of how to teach fifth grade, that my homework policy was sound, and that I was neither a two-headed monster nor a blue-eyed devil. The highlight of the meeting for me was when she COMPLAINED THAT HER DAUGHTER WAS READING TOO MUCH. "There's just no reason that she should have had time to read seven novels already this year."

Um, well, actually, she's read thirteen novels so far this year, ranging from classics such as The Secret Garden to the ever-popular Lemony Snicket series, and I'm pretty fucking proud of that...but hey, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

The rest of the parent conferences restored my energy. Everyone was thrilled with the class's progress and happy that their children were happy. I had to break a lot of bad news about children's skill levels to a lot of parents, but they were all receptive and even grateful for my honest, informed opinion. In the process I made a lot of promises that I now need to keep, and it re-focused me on what really matters: that Arneshia, Tyrone, and Ernest get up to grade-level in reading; that Rakia and Anthony learn to keep up with their papers and finish long-term projects; that the children experience significant academic success and inprovement all day, every day...