The Wild Things Are on the prowl. The blog is moving to a new site, Tattleteaching.com. Click here to move there. Please don't forget to RSS or bookmark the new site!
Also, look for MizzB's guest posts on Tech Savvy Mama over on the Washington DC Moms Blog network last Friday, 10/10/08, and this Thursday, 10/16/08.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
The Principal
Every school has to have one. They're loved. They're hated. They're sometimes ignored. A charter school in New York is working hard to minimize them by choosing to pay its teachers principal salaries and its principal teacher salaries. 125K for the teachers, 90K for the head guy. But minimized or maximized, they're still there walking around the yard, parading through the classrooms, greeting parents.
We're getting a new one. Our old one left suddenly at the end of the summer, which pleased many teachers greatly and saddened a select few. The man (why are they so often men in a profession dominated by women?!) was an indifferent educator and a divisive leader who created cliques better than a high school drama queen. He was, shall we, say [fill in the blank from the movie poster].
The new one seems much better. Professional. Cool. A bit reserved, yet willing to smile. Only time will tell.
How can one person make such a difference in the social fabric of a school? T eachers, parents, students, former students:do you have principal stories to share, good or bad? OMG, dish, puhleeze!
Sunday, October 5, 2008
2 Steps Forward, 1.5 Steps Backward
Last week José smiled. On a fairly regular basis. When he wasn't frowning, that is.
And, he sat downstage right or left most of the time we were at the rug, rather than practically out the door and with his back to me.
I considered all this enormous progress and worked hard to acknowledge it. I made him office monitor. I gave him reading logs to hand back (which, for some reason, is understood by children to be a great privilege). I rubbed his furry hair and
told him how much he'd improved.
Then along came Friday.
No homework. No reading log. Yakyakyaking all day long. Airplane eraser battles. Sharpening pencils on both sides (dangerous when they fly missile-like through Griselda and Kyle B.'s airspace). It was as if everything he'd learned about classroom and academic behavior had gone for a long weekend in Vegas.
And it wasn't just him. I had to call two parents on Friday. Esteban's for his hurling of an eraser at another child after two warnings to stop, and Randy's for his punching out his own brother before school. It was a Friday frenzy.
I came home this weekend discouraged. Whereas on Wednesday I had imagined for the first time staying with this class for more than one year (something I generally do), Friday I was checking out my blog countdown post-it. Two hundred and how many days?
It felt so hopeless.
I went for TWO runs.
I put it out of my mind all weekend.
And then just now it came to me. In a play, a movie, a story, you can't have the problem solved in the first ten pages! That's when you're just setting up your inciting incident. I've got to think of this class like a script. We're only on page 10. 90+ to go.
Characters have obstacles. No one grows in a straight line (in good scripts, that is). I'd never write a character like that, so why would I expect a person--and a child at that--to behave linearly?
Setbacks are a good thing. Drama. Tension. Excitement!!! Yes! Bring it on.
As I told the class on Friday: "Boys and girls, use up a lot of energy on the weekend, and then on Monday, we'll try it again!"
And, he sat downstage right or left most of the time we were at the rug, rather than practically out the door and with his back to me.
I considered all this enormous progress and worked hard to acknowledge it. I made him office monitor. I gave him reading logs to hand back (which, for some reason, is understood by children to be a great privilege). I rubbed his furry hair and
told him how much he'd improved.Then along came Friday.
No homework. No reading log. Yakyakyaking all day long. Airplane eraser battles. Sharpening pencils on both sides (dangerous when they fly missile-like through Griselda and Kyle B.'s airspace). It was as if everything he'd learned about classroom and academic behavior had gone for a long weekend in Vegas.
And it wasn't just him. I had to call two parents on Friday. Esteban's for his hurling of an eraser at another child after two warnings to stop, and Randy's for his punching out his own brother before school. It was a Friday frenzy.
I came home this weekend discouraged. Whereas on Wednesday I had imagined for the first time staying with this class for more than one year (something I generally do), Friday I was checking out my blog countdown post-it. Two hundred and how many days?
It felt so hopeless.
I went for TWO runs.
I put it out of my mind all weekend.
And then just now it came to me. In a play, a movie, a story, you can't have the problem solved in the first ten pages! That's when you're just setting up your inciting incident. I've got to think of this class like a script. We're only on page 10. 90+ to go.
Characters have obstacles. No one grows in a straight line (in good scripts, that is). I'd never write a character like that, so why would I expect a person--and a child at that--to behave linearly?
Setbacks are a good thing. Drama. Tension. Excitement!!! Yes! Bring it on.
As I told the class on Friday: "Boys and girls, use up a lot of energy on the weekend, and then on Monday, we'll try it again!"
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