Last Day of School

I can't believe this is my last day as a City Year  corps member! All of my corpsmates will graduate from City Year and Americorps tomorrow, but I am headed North again to be with my family for my brother's wedding. 

This has at once been the hardest and longest and best and quickest year of my life. I've been struggling to come up with words adequate to express what this year has taught me, but I can only say that it has been invaluable to my future career as a teacher. I'm so thankful that I postponed teaching full time for a year to come to San Antonio and give a year of my life to this very important service. 

Corps members' roles are much different than teachers' in that we focus on a small number of students to tutor and coach. I tutored 9 students individually in reading and writing, and coached ~15 in behavior and attendance. As a result of the relatively small number, my relationships with these students were so different than a teacher's would be. I had time to know each of them personally and learn their strengths and weakenesses and see what is beautiful and ugly about each of them. I fell in love with all of them individually and I will remember each of them and cherish the time we spent together, even the time spent saying, "WILL YOU JUST PLEASE STOP PUTTING HIM IN A HEADLOCK?!?" 

As I move on from my City Year, I strongly encourage you to learn more about the program and apply if you are eligible. It's the most important work I've ever done. 

Lightning Bugs

I have thought up a simile for catching and keeping a group of 6th graders' attention. A simple, summery simile.

Keeping the attention of 6th graders is like catching lightning bugs. Like catching lightning bugs with one hand. Like catching lightning bugs with a jar without a lid and without a bottom. Like catching lightning bugs with jet engines strapped to their behinds; jet engines that are badly balanced so that they fly in an erratically unpredictable pattern. Yeah, that's just about right. 

In other news, I will tell you an after school story today. There is a student who is a regular and with whom I like to joke around. He is such a joy to have in our program, and he has improved his behavior so much this year it's not even funny. His heart is so kind, it makes me smile just to think of him. Today we were joking around and he took it a step too far. Other students were getting a little out of hand, so I had a moment with all of them in which we decided that we were going to either do what we were supposed to do or end after school early and spend some time calling all of their parents. 

Everyone settled down a bit, except this student thought this would be a good time to start mimicking my every word with a horribly annoying affectation. I asked him seriously to stop because this wasn't an appropriate time to joke around. He didn't stop, so I told him that we would call his mom (which he mimicked in a high-pitched voice). He kept pushing it, and I had a really weird feeling that he kept pushing it almost out of habit, like he didn't know what else to do. 

After everyone else had left to do today's fun activity (egg toss competition), we stayed behind and I tried to get to the bottom of it. I asked what had set him off to continue being rude after the mimicking thing. He said that I had started it. I asked how, because if I did something that was disrespectful I wanted to apologize ASAP. He said he couldn't think of anything. I asked if he was mad that I had gotten stern with the others. He said no. I still had a weird feeling that he wasn't really upset or disrespectful, but almost that he was acting like he was. I finally told him about my feeling. I told him that I was so proud of how well he'd been acting and that I didn't feel like this was him. I said that I like to joke around and I know he does too, but that sometimes we need to be serious and that he just crossed the line a little bit. I said that's okay, sometimes we go a little too far and we just have to apologize for that sincerely and move on. I asked if he was just feeling a little too embarrassed to apologize for going a little too far and he didn't know what else to do but keep being disrespectful. Bingo. He apologized, I forgave him, and we went along our merry way. Not before I asked what he'd do differently the next time or in a similar situation. "Apologize sooner, Miss." 

Also, my partner and I won one of the rounds of egg toss, but only slightly before a hail-mary egg pass smashed in my hands and got on every part of my uniform. Needless to say, I did laundry tonight. But not before I attended the band concert and cheered embarrassingly loud for all of my students in beginner band. My  mom woulda been proud. 

STAAR Wars

It was a day of extremes. Today, we found out the STAAR (Texas standardized test results). Two of my 9 students "met standard" for 6th grade.

To understand how this news was delivered and taken, you would have to spend a year in a school that from day one of the school year talks about the STAAR and the students scores the previous years and the implications of the scores they will receive this year. When classes are disciplined with the question, "Do you want to pass your STAAR?" and confronted with the query, "Do you know what happens when you fail the STAAR?" you begin to  understand a little more clearly the pressure that is put on these students and the importance that is placed on a very difficult test.

For some of my students, it wasn't a big deal to tell them that they had failed. For two of my boys, their failing score this year was almost double their score from last year, so we had a lot to celebrate. For a few, though, it was a blow. I had a student who has asked me at least 3 times a week when we would hear the results because his dad said they would go on a summer trip if he passed. He did not. It was heartbreaking to tell him. It was awful to tell Blossom as well. The disappointment was just so raw when he said, "But I tried my best!" He immediately asked if I could get him extra reading practice that he could do. I said that I think he's all caught up in class and that he has a good grade, but that I could get him extra pages for him to do just for his own practice for next year if he wanted. He said he wanted that and also to practice writing because in 7th grade they have to take a writing STAAR. It's amazing how these kids can exasperate you and inspire you in the same day, sometimes in the same minute.

In all cases, my students don't understand that they've been behind since they started elementary school and that it takes incredible amounts of motivation and hard work and TIME to get back to the level that the state expects all students to achieve! They can't conceptualize the size of the problem that we are facing in inner city schools and instead are taught to bear the burden of failure entirely on their own shoulders. People may say a lot about apathetic youth, but these students cared that they failed. They cared a lot. And there was no question on whom they placed the blame: themselves. Not that they aren't at least partly to blame; and believe you me, we talked A LOT about what this means they have to do differently next year, but it is simply not all their fault.

Now, please allow me to tell you about my students that passed. One of my only girls had failed her simulation test that they took a couple months ago, and did not have high hopes for her STAAR. After the test, she said that she had taken the whole time and that it had been very difficult. She passed it and I was so thrilled to tell her that I almost cried! I gave her her score on a post it note, with the passing requirement below her number and let her figure it out. She was so happy! She also passed her math STAAR and was proud to say that she was the only girl in her class to pass it. An extremely sad and depressing achievement, but an achievement nonetheless! I was unspeakably proud of her. I'm serious, I feel like I can't convey here how much pride I felt in seeing her reach her goal after she had doubted herself. She doubted, but she didn't use that as an excuse, and she worked her butt off before we took that test. She deserved every bit of that passing score. I went to watch her at her choir concert tonight and I got to meet her mom. I introduced myself, but she said that her daughter had already mentioned me and what I had helped her with. That felt really good.

Romeo passed it too! He had failed it last year and was placed in a reading intervention this year, as well as on my focus list, due to his score. Despite all his know-it-all-ness and tendency to say that he already knew everything I was telling him, he remained focused on his goal throughout the year and made huge progress in his reading level and his STAAR score. He was obviously, yet understatedly pleased with himself when I shared his score with him. I'm trying hard to focus on these two students' success.

I am not even close to including everything that happened today, but this will have to do. I am in the midst of writing personal goodbye notes to all of my students, so my work days are lasting a little longer.

The post in which I shamelessly ask you to support my students' fundraising efforts

So, since I was absent from the blogosphere for so long, I might as well recap some memorable moments from a few weeks ago.

One of my favorite weeks was when my family (Dad, Terri, Ben, and best friend Cassie) came to visit and spent some time at my school. My little brother is 13, pretty close in age to my 12-to-14-year-old students, so I thought it'd be a great experience for all of them to mingle! I organized a lunch basketball session for them to get to know each other, and it went pretty well! Ben probably met around 20 of my students total and they were all (slightly-suprisingly) really polite and welcoming to him and my family. All of my guys shook hands with my dad and Terri, which made me glow a little bit with pride. Once they were shooting around on the basketball court, one of my students even said to the others, "Hey, let Ben shoot some!" Four of my students wrote Ben a pen pal letter the next week, and I'm setting them up so they can continue to be pen pals after I leave San Antonio! Bonus tidbit: all of my female students thought Ben was quite the looker, and I oft got asked the question, "Miss, where's your cute brother?" after my family had gone. But don't tell him; it'll go to his head. :)

It was also really cool for my dad to meet Blossom, whom he had corresponded with about engineering earlier in the year. I was dumbfounded as he was incredibly, cringe-inducingly shy around my dad and pretty much avoided looking at anything but the ground for the whole lunch, after bugging me about their visit for the previous EVER. It was sweet that he was so shy, but I was glad that my dad walked over to him to strike up conversation. These kids are full of surprises. 

Back to current times. I've been working with a consistent group in one of my classes, and we have talked a lot about the achievement gap and where it comes from and how we can help fix it. I was a little tentative to introduce such a big topic with 6th graders, but as always, they have taken it like champs and been really engaged in the discussion. FYI, the achievement gap refers to the huge differences in test scores between people of different groups (i.e. race, income, region, etc). Predictably and outrageously, minority and impoverished groups consistently perform lower than their white and middle class counterparts across all subjects. With this group, we've discussed the gap between middle class families and impoverished families. We've talked about lack of school funding as well as family resources. I've been especially adamant about summer learning, as it accounts for 75% of the achievement gap. Think about fun things you did over the summer; I myself went to several sports camps, library trips, educational family vacations, participated in reading programs, swimming lessons, etc. Families who have the money to send their children to these programs do so en mass. Children from more impoverished families miss out on these resources for any number of reasons and instead spend most of their summers literally doing nothing but watching television. On an exciting side note, a charitable educational center 2 blocks from our school, The Good Samaritan Center, is offering a free all-day educational summer camp for just our neighborhood and OVER 300 CHILDREN ARE SIGNED UP, proving that cost is the main barrier between these children and summer learning.

So, I laid it all out for my students. It might have been uncomfortable and risky for me to broach the subject, but I felt like they could handle it and that I wasn't doing them any favors by keeping my greater mission a secret. After we'd discussed it twice, I asked the students why they thought I was telling them about it. I asked if they thought I could close the achievement gap. They said, astutely, "No, because you're from that top line [the middle class data on the graph]." I told them that I was, that I had been given a lot of opportunities when I was growing up and that they didn't have anything to do with me being smarter or better than anyone else; that I was just lucky. I asked again why they thought I was telling them about it, and one of my students responded, "You want us to fix it. We can close it if we study hard."  YES. 

Another student in that group told me when we started talking about going to college that he has wanted to be a barber. He said that he doesn't want to go to college because there is a barber college in his neighborhood and that he thinks he would like that job. I told him that barbers are important and that it would be neat for him to stay so close to home, but that he shouldn't feel like that is all he could do. I often talk about Purdue and all the activities and intramural sports and marching band and football games and friends I made and taking classes I am interested in with my students, you know, because duh Purdue is awesome. When we were talking about the achievement gap and the differences in income that you can make based on the amount of education you get, he said, "Miss, I think if I can get into college, I'll go. I could play football and learn about things I want to learn." YES.

Even more currently, I decided to expand my leaders' lunches to include guests because we are working on raising money for AIDS orphans with Hoops for Hope and the kids are actually really into it. By the by, so far I can only promise them 10 cents per basket because that's what I have pledged from viewers like you. If you would be willing to pitch in a dime, nickel, or quarter per free throw, PLEASE let me know. So far, my group has collectively made 70-odd free throws and I'm worried I'll have to tell them that we have to be done because I don't have enough donors. Help! 

Anyways, I've told them that they can invite a few friends to help us reach our goals, and boy did they take me at my word. My teammate JoAnn and I took a group of 20 sixth graders outside to a basketball court with two basketballs and only ourselves for supervision. If that doesn't sound extreme to you, remember that the original group of 7 that we started with are the students that were referred to our leaders' lunches based on the number of administrative referrals they had gotten over the year. AND I let them invite their friends. AND it was fantastic. I had a quick heart-to-heart with every new addition about listening to me and JoAnn or the whole deal would be off. I deputized Blossom and another student to be in charge of the basketballs and inform the other students of our mission. One of my teammate Alex's students, whom teachers were actually trying to get put in in-school suspension for the rest of the year due to his behavior, told one of the girls to put her phone away because 'Miss C. had said that phones weren't allowed'. My heart was soaring and even though we were teetering on the precipice of mayhem at every minute, I wouldn't have uninvited any one of those beautiful students. 

Last anecdote from today: I was telling Blossom of my plans for lunch time during first period, and he asked if another student in the class could join. This student is rather new and my only experiences with him have been negative, with him ignoring what I say or blatantly doing the opposite. So I told Blossom that the other student hasn't really shown me that he respects me and that I can trust him to listen when we're outside. Blossom turned to him and said something unintelligible, at which point the other student looked at me and said, "Sorry, Miss." I asked what he was sorry for, and he shrugged. Blossom said, "He's sorry for not listening. Can he go now? You forgive everyone when they apologize sincerely." That ploy may not have been enough to get his friend on the "in" list for our lunch, but it made me feel like I had been doing this job right. 

Living for Lunches

Well, ladies and gents, I'm firing up the printing presses once more. I officially have 12 school days left of service with City Year San Antonio and I know that I am going to regret not doing as much as I can to preserve them for posterity. Today's post will serve as a catch-up to my current situation, so then the rest of my posts will make sense to Future Mae as she reads this while she feels nostalgic one night while relaxing with Future Pat on their porch overlooking a secluded glen with a stream running through it. Or whatever.

The situation in my classroom has changed slightly. I still have the same teacher, but after a few months working together and after the STAAR test (the Texas standardized test) had passed, she encouraged me to begin (or re-begin) pulling out students during class to work on ELA things. So I have been pulling a group out pretty consistently from her most difficult period. I take my focus list students, including Romeo, hater of all non-NBA books and knower of everything, and two students who aren't on my focus list, but just happen to be some of the louder, more rambunctious students. It's almost as if it was a strategy. We are currently zooming through the class group-read, Bunnicula, and using our extra time to discuss important topics like the achievement gap, teen pregnancy, conflict resolution, and the history of lacrosse. Hey, they picked the topics.

Speaking of STAAR, all of my students took it on time and tried their hardest to meet the goals they set for themselves (some said 70% or higher) but we haven't received the results yet. I am equal parts anxious and excited to hear how they did. There is a lot riding on the test in Texas, and my school certainly puts a lot of weight on it, but I am really confident in how hard they worked to get prepared for it and that they really gave their best effort.

After they took the test, we still had 5 weeks of school left. I'm not exactly sure why they take it at such an awkward time, because now the students don't really see any reason to continue learning things, even though we still have a month of school left! However, it is how it is, so we make do.

And I make do by playing games with my students. Earlier in the year, I met with pre-assigned student groups on Wednesdays and Thursdays for behavior coaching lunch. Now, I meet with students for lunch every day I'm at school for two out of the three lunch groups to eat together and play basketball and football outdoors. Every day. And I still don't get to take all the students that I would like, because it's only me and I can only handle 10 at a time in such a high-energy, loosey-goosey environment. Today I took 12, and it was a little much. I live for these lunches, you guys. I always insist that I get to play, because duh, and the students always include me. Blossom even picked me first to be on his team one day! Several students ask me every morning if we'll get to play, and I have made minions out of several of them to keep our group in check and push each other to be good sportsmen and wish each other well while we're playing.

Speaking of, one day I took only 3 boys for one of the lunches, and we got out to the court to find 3 8th graders who had the same idea as we did. I told the boys that they should ask if they wanted to play 3-on-3, and the older boys obliged my 6th graders. My guys played well, but got schooled a little bit, but I was SO proud of their sportsmanship. They congratulated the other guys and didn't foul once! One of my students who could win a cursing match with a sailor any day made it the entire game without uttering one dirty syllable. When I pointed this out to him at the end of the game and told him how proud I was, he said, "I guess you're right! I didn't curse!" That's mah boy.

Guys, this is going to be really bad in a couple weeks. I am completely in love with my students and I literally had a moment of panic today when I thought about the last day of school and leaving them. I've watched so many of them grow so much. They make me so proud so many times a day I've literally not been able to keep track of moments that I wanted to record. Two examples, and then I'm going to bed.

One day we were working outside when one of my students spotted an obviously pregnant student across the courtyard. She said, "Sheesh, Miss, I've heard all about that girl. I can't believe she would even come to school." I proceeded to remind the whole group how brave that student was, because she would obviously be aware of everyone talking about her. I also pointed out that it was definitely not only her decision that resulted in her pregnancy, but that the father didn't have to deal with nearly as much at school as she did. The next day, I was with a different group at lunch with some overlapping students, and they spotted the same student. One of them started gossiping about her, and one of the students who had been with me the day before said, "Hey, be quiet, it's not just her fault. Imagine if that was you."

Another one of my students who has had behavior coaching with me all year got hit in the eye with an elbow today, so we had some time to chat while he iced his orifice. I knew that he was in band and choir, but that he really hated band because he didn't get along with the director. In November, I had even accompanied him to the guidance counselor to discuss the conflict he had with this particular teacher. Today, I asked if he was going to sign up for band for 7th grade or if he was going to stick to only choir. He said that he was going to do both again. I expressed my surprise, because of the conflict with the director, and he said that he actually really liked band now. I asked what had changed from the middle of the year. He said, "I finally started listening." 

I measure my weeks in books.

Sorry for the super long gap between posts: I was reading the Divergent series, and those of you who know me well know that I am completely consumed when reading teen fiction. I barely come up for air. But now I'm done with the series and the accompanying post-series depression that is inevitable with the termination of an engrossing trilogy. I am back!

School has been going pretty well. I'm working with all of my students to encourage their independent reading. Most are reading Lightning Thief, one is reading its sequel, Sea of Monsters, one is reading The Giver, and all are thoroughly enjoying them! I've set up an incentive system to encourage reading at home. Each student has a page with 25 squares on it. They each set a goal for how many pages they feel that they can read on their own at home (2,3,5,10, and 1 chapter are the different increments students have landed on). I check in with them every day to see if they met their goal (I just ask them what they read about the last night. Most of them are extremely forthcoming about not meeting their goal. Blossom VOLUNTEERED to write a short summary every night so that he wouldn't forget what he read about. I about fainted dead away from shock and happiness). If they met their goal, they get to mark off one of the squares. When they've completed the chart, they will receive a prize of their choice, within reason. Prizes chosen so far include basketball time with Ms. C. during lunch, a Nerf football, and a nice notebook in which to write notes to friends (an idea I gave my student after watching her pass note after note during class. My best friends and I had a small spiral notebook to keep our clandestine writings in. The kids really bring me back.). I am currently in the 3rd day of this plan and the students are not remembering to read consistently, but I have high hopes that as I begin to check in every day, it will become more routine.

I had a great tutoring session today with one of my students. We reviewed figurative language techniques (simile, metaphor, alliteration, etc.) that she had been learning in class. I gave her Post-It tabs marked with each type we were studying and set her free to independently read Lightning Thief. I asked her to use the sticky tabs to mark any use of that figurative language technique in her book as she came to them, but otherwise just to chill and read outside with me. Side note: It was a gorgeous, warm day out, so we sat at a picnic table in the shade while we read. Paradise. I read my current book, Son of Neptune, a Heroes of Olympus book also by Rick Riordan, a sequel of sorts to Lightning Thief. We both read and found figurative language for 30 straight minutes. This student told me at the beginning of the year that she didn't like to read. It was torture to get her to take a comprehension test because she kept getting distracted by anyone or anything walking by. Today she sat quietly, read, and placed her tabs even though several extremely loud and distracting people were walking about. She found 5 similes, 2 metaphors, 4 cases of hyperbole, and 3 instances of onomatopoeia. Big success.

I'm also excited about our after school program's expansion. We've swelled to an average of 15 students a day (from about 8 a few weeks ago) and we're planning another field trip! We're going to take students to the Witte Museum to see a special exhibit of Alien Worlds and Androids to capstone our Sciences unit. Oh, and yesterday we shot pieces of potato across the parking lot to learn about physics. Livin' the dream.

I've been feeding one student in my class books like an under-the-table dealer, and I'm not ashamed one bit. She's huge into dystopian fiction. Her previous favorite book was The Giver, and I helped her find its sequel, Gathering Blue. Then, I scavenged The Hunger Games trilogy for her and moved swiftly into Divergent. I was unfortunately too impatient to wait for print copies of the second and third of that trilogy when I was reading them myself, so I only had Kindle versions and none to lend her. She had to wait an excruciating weekend for me to acquire the second book. She's done already. So I bought Allegiant, the third book, and am going to surprise her with it tomorrow. I couldn't imagine making her wait over spring break to read the conclusion!! I also picked up the series Matched, by Ali Condi. I want to read it, but I know she'll have plenty of time over spring break and the only cure for the emotional hangover caused by Allegiant is to plunge immediately into another book. I hope she likes them!

As you can tell, I've been reading a lot. I think it helps me deal with a lot of the burden of what my students are dealing with at home. A lot of them share bits and pieces of what their lives outside of school is like, and it's a lot to handle. I won't go into any details, but tears tend to flow for no apparent reason and topics that should be taken extremely seriously, like suicide, are mentioned like a funny anecdote. Even if it's not as dramatic as all that, the chaos of where they will be staying that night and who with is boggling. I can't imagine not having a constant place to call home or even not knowing who you'll be sharing a room with that night. And then they come to school.

This weekend, I'll be traveling to Nashville to visit my school in full swing. I'm really excited to get to know my school and staff better and catch a glimpse of what my life will be like next year. Oh, and I get to see my fiance for four days as well. :)

The Gamut

Every day in this job runs the gamut of emotions and feelings of efficacy. I'll give you glimpses of a few.

Monday I took my final test that I needed to transfer my teaching license to Tennessee for next year. On the way home, I started to get overwhelmed. It wasn't a necessarily emotional response, and it's really hard to describe. In my tutoring with my students, I feel fairly confident in my ability to convey information and teach them. But a combination of observation, critique, and looking at data began to make me insecure. Because, you see, a lot of my students haven't improved on their tests. Haven't gotten better at reading according to data-collecting assessments. Haven't improved their attendance or their behavior. On my drive home from my test, these thoughts were circling in my head, and I started to consider: most of my teammates are doing this job for one or two years. They are also struggling with feelings of inadequacy and looking at the seemingly insurmountable problem of unequal education, but to them it is an episode in their lives. For me, I'm signing on for 30+ years of this. That's when I panicked. I felt like I wasn't good enough, that these students have such hard lives and it JUST ISN'T FAIR. How could I be a good teacher if I couldn't even manage tutoring effectively? I don't want to end up like a lot of my classmates: teaching because it's a job and it makes money and you get summers off. Nothing sounds worse to me than that. 

So I called the City Year Corps Member hotline. Yep, City Year has free counselors on call all the time to talk corps members through issues. Because we spend a lot of time in a lot of hard situations. We're often more emotionally close to our students than other school employees, which is dangerous because these kids have scarring experiences. Just for an example, my student was absent the first 3 days of this week and returned today. I celebrated his return and asked what had kept him away. His brother passed away, he said. He was 15. I didn't ask what happened. So anyway, I called this hotline and talked to a counselor about my insecurities and my worries that I'll burn out and want to quit my avocation. It actually helped a lot! I realized a lot of my insecurity was just stemming from my propensity to hold myself to unattainable standards and feel like I need to be better than everyone else because I'm the only tutor with an education background. So I'm gonna stop that, I think. Obviously I'm still going to do my best, but I need to try harder and be more intentional about celebrating my strengths while trying to being even stronger!

So that happened. I would say that was definitely the nadir of my week. It got better from there. 

Blossom received more answers to his questions courtesy of my good engineering buddy at Purdue. He's working on a second set of follow-up questions. He was also early to school every day this week.

Romeo, which I'll call the basketball-fanatical student who is a reluctant reader, is still totally digging The Lightning Thief, and he is already excited about reading the sequel. 

I got to laugh and play with my students while learning words they chose from Lightning Thief as words they didn't know. We played 'trashketball' while discussing meanings and parts of speech of words such as 'vital', 'kleptomaniac', 'solstice', 'frustrated', and 'obnoxious'. Lots of fun was had.

Today, a student arrived at school at his usual early time and walked straight up to me with a bag in his hand. He handed it to me and said, "Miss! Look!" I unwrapped it to find a GIANT chocolate-covered strawberry. "Wow!" I said, "Who are you going to give this to?"

"You!" he said. :)

Over half of my students improved their reading level over the first half of the year. 

My teacher is excellent. She works really hard and cares deeply about the success of our students. She gets frustrated with their behavior, but for all the right reasons. She wants to find a way to structure the class that will help them improve themselves. 

A student threw away the Valentine's treat I gave all of my behavior lunch students. It wasn't a statement throw away with pageantry or flamboyance, but the throw away of genuine apathy. That really hurt.

I'm telling you, every day is like this. There are a million things that make me want to cry. Half a million make me want to cry of sadness and despair, half a million want to make me cry with joy and fulfillment.

I think I'm definitely hooked on this profession. I will definitely need the support of all my best people to stay in one emotional peace, but I can't imagine giving up now that I know every thing that I can do and how many students need someone to care about them. That's it for me. I'm a goner.