How are you today? I'm superfantastic.

Warning: Your heart may grow three sizes.

I started work last week for an organization that's working on a grant to do reading interventions in low income schools in Florida. First we have to do three standardized assessments on every child who returned a consent form. So I spend my days pulling one first or second grader at a time out of class to come to the storage closet I work in to do these three assessments. (Said storage closet contains prizes, so I also spend parts of my day saying, "Those aren't mine so I can't give you one." I hid the candy on my first day.)

This job has definitely reaffirmed that I have no desire whatsoever to teach elementary school. I don't know how you elementary school teachers do it, at least without nonstop consumption of espresso, Red Bull and/or amphetamines. But one at a time, the kids are pretty cute.

The one who stands out for me is a little guy with his hair in his eyes and a super-thick southern accent. He worked incredibly hard to sound out the words on the first test and when he came to one he couldn't figure out ("they") he said he'd work on it at home so he'd know it the next time.

The second test has pictures the kids have to identify. This results in some funny answers from the little ones. Two kids have called the cactus a "porcupine tree", one girl identified statues as "things you shouldn't touch", and another girl named the tweezers a "nose-picker".

This little guy came to a treasure chest and told me he wished treasure was real. He'd take it to the pawn shop and get a thousand dollars.

And then he said, "And I'd bring the money to school to help out."

You guys. YOU GUYS.

At six, this kid knows what a pawn shop is. And his first thought of what to do with a treasure of one thousand dollars is not an X-Box or a bike, but to donate it to his school.

And then I wondered how elementary school teachers operate without wanting to wrap all of the kids in bubblewrap to keep them from ever developing hard edges.

Back to Work

I'm sitting here at my desk, which is covered in papers for various things I need to take care of and a pile of mystery cords and chargers unearthed in unpacking. Behind me, the dog sighs on the couch and to my left, I hear the scratching of what we've decided are most likely squirrels in the wall. Through the window, I see a heron standing in the neighbors' yard, looking out over the water, as I spend too much of my day doing as well.

I'm back in Florida, back to regular life, which means something different these days. I never thought I'd envy teachers going back to school, but there it is. I know that beyond the excitement of setting up the classroom and seeing the rosters there's a lot of hard work that's much less enviable, but it still doesn't stop me from thinking about what I might be doing if I were there.

I guess it also just feels like a big part of my identity is gone.

And maybe that's an ok thing. Maybe somewhere down the line I'll feel comfortable identifying myself as a writer in the way that I previously had as a teacher. Right now, there are a lot of errands and paperwork and wedding stuff (and squirrels) competing for my time and attention. And prioritizing has never been a strength of mine.

I did get a job here, sort of accidentally. I posted an ad for tutoring and was contacted about a part-time reading interventionist job. I'll be a substitute since we won't live here for the whole school year, so it'll likely be just a few hours a week. I may, at this point, have spent as much time on application and HR paperwork as I'll ever spend working. It's a lot of paperwork.

Tomorrow I'll get up and run before it gets too hot, then I'll spend the day running errands and turning in paperwork with the hope that by Thursday, I can sit here with the dog and the squirrels and a shorter stack of papers on the desk and fewer things on my to do list. Thursday I'll be a writer. And then I'll go from there.

Your tax dollars are much better spent on having all of my shoes packed and transported.

Where to even begin, Internet? It's been a long and eventful couple of weeks. For instance, all of our stuff is now in boxes and in the process of being loaded in a truck. And I did nothing! Well, I packed a suitcase of stuff to have with me for the next two weeks, as well as all of my, you know, unmentionables. It's definitely weird, having someone else pack your belongings, but also awesome. Two guys arrived yesterday around 10am and had our entire apartment packed my 4:30. Today, three guys are moving all of our stuff in the 100° weather while we sit out of the way in the air conditioned bedroom. I don't feel guilty enough about it to offer to help or anything, but just bad enough to not want to eat in front of them while they work. So I'm pretty hungry.

Last week, I worked a special program with 600 kids in one hotel. The organization that brought them had a grant, so all of the kids came for free. Most of them, apparently, without having gotten much information on what they were coming to. "Would you like a free trip to Washington?" they were asked. One boy thought he was going to Washington State until after he'd gotten off the plane. True story. So they weren't prepared for, and in many cases deeply not thrilled about, the 16 hour days of academic programming. It may not surprise you to learn that when averaging five hours of sleep per night, I had very little sympathy for the whining and bitching that ensued.

There were good parts though. Some of the kids were really cool. And we got to see Air Force Two and the Air Force Honor Guard Drill Team out at Andrews Air Force Base. The drill team spins eleven pound rifles with bayonets attached. I spun rifles back in college and can tell you with 100% certainty that had my rifle included a bayonet, I would absolutely have maimed myself.

While we were at Andrews, the Air Force Celtic band played for us. So yeah, the Air Force has a Celtic band. Our tax dollars at work. The really fun part of their performance was during an Irish drinking song when they had all of our middle and high school aged students chanting "Harp" and "Guiness". Super appropriate.

And we got to hear Eric Holder speak.

Sure, I wasn't surprised to discover that none of my 22 high schoolers knew who Eric Holder was. It was a little more disconcerting that none of them had the first clue what an Attorney General is. No matter how many times and different ways I tried to explain it, they kept referring to him as "the general guy" and I'm quite certain expected him to arrive in uniform.

We also got to hear from Arne Duncan. Whether my students thought the Secretary of Education takes notes in meetings about schools, I do not know. I don't have a picture of him because I was sitting far from my bag in order to keep telling a bunch of jerk kids to be quiet.

Then on Wedenesday evening, I was done! And now I'm unemployed! (Technically, I guess I'm under contract with my school through August.) And we can go back to the way things should be, wherein if one of us is leaving so early in the morning that the other one is still sleeping and also returning home after the other has gone to bed, the person working those unreasonable hours is Raj. And the person doing all of the sleeping is me. We tried it the other way around and I didn't care for it.

One day, the movers will have all of our stuff loaded and we can finally eat again. Then we'll spend a few days crashing at Katie's, before heading south to embark on the Florida adventure. In the meantime, one last DC Fourth of July and as much as possible of the other DC stuff that we'll miss or never got around to before.

Raj asked if I'd be sad to leave the apartment since I've lived here for two years. I said it was a little sad, I guessed, since it was our first home together. "First of many," he said. Which was a sentence so full of promise that it's hard to be very sad at all.

(It's working.)

First this:

Coworker: Well, you can't leave now. You'll just have to tell Raj you can't go with him.

Then these:

Student runs up to me in the hall, hands them to me, tells me "[other student] and me made ours Packer colors for you" then runs back down the hall. (In middle school art, every student got a white tagboard guitar to decorate however they wanted.)

I told the same coworker, "It's a conspiracy. The children are trying to break my heart."

Programming note: There won't be a lot of posts in the next couple of weeks. I start work on Sunday for Close Up, meaning I'll be staying in Virginia at a hotel full of high schoolers and spending fourteen hour days educating them about civics. I do that for two weeks, then our movers come, then we'll stay with Katie for a few days, then drive to Pensacola, where one assumes there will be no internet in the house at first. I'll do my best to put something up here, but can't make any promises about frequency or quality.

What's next?

People keep asking me what I'm going to do in Pensacola. It's a fair question. After all, we move there in just over a month. (Yikes.) Will I get a teaching job?

I explain that no, I won't be looking for a teaching job since we'll only be there for six months. I tell them that I plan to pick up some tutoring kids. Maybe I'll do some subbing or temp work. All of this is true, but isn't the whole truth.

When we first started discussing Raj's options for the next couple of years, it was assumed that if he got accepted to flight school in Pensacola, I'd stay here and teach first semester. Then, when he started his assignment, I'd join him. The real discussions began when Raj was accepted to everything (rockstar) and was deciding between flight school or going directly to work with Marines. My input was that he should pick whichever he preferred, but I'd rather we not spend six months apart.

We talked about the possibility of me going with him and the reality of my limited employment options, given the short time we'd be there. And then I asked what Raj would think about me taking six months to try writing full-time. I'd have a chance to see whether, given the time and the freedom, I could get a lot done. If it turned out that I accomplished nothing with all of that time, I'd sign up to sub or temp. Raj said that was fine with him.

So that's the plan. And I'm excited about it. I'm getting the itch to start creating again now that school is winding down. It's a desire I haven't felt much of in quite a while, mostly I'm sure because I create plenty during the school year. As in, pretty much everything I use with kids. I teach a remedial class. There is no curriculum for high school reading. And the whole point of having such small classes here is so everything can be individualized for the needs of each particular student. I take that seriously. Meaning that I'm basically writing materials for six different classes, five days a week. When I get home, I don't want to create anymore, just consume. I'm looking forward to writing something that isn't meant to teach or assess.

But of course it's pretty scary as well. What if it turns out that, given all of that time, I just waste it and don't write anything anyway? What if I write and it's bad? And after August, when my teaching salary stops coming, I'll basically be a financial drain. I do intend to do some tutoring, but that's hardly going to equal pulling my financial weight. Hopefully, the writing will turn into money eventually, but that's not guaranteed and even if I did get a contract, wouldn't materialize for quite a while.

Which is part of why I don't tell people. It feels like I'd be saying that now that I landed a doctor, I intend to be a kept woman. Who needs to work? And it just sounds so flaky. I'm going to write! There's a whole Twitter account devoted to making fun of people who include the phrase "working on my novel" in tweets. Because, unless you're published already, there doesn't seem to be a way to say that you're working on your novel without sounding like a jackass.

Anne Lamott, in her own tweets, has taken to calling it "scribbling" rather than "writing" as a way to demystify the process, to free the rest of us from the notion that published authors write pristine first drafts. Maybe I should go with that when people ask me what I'll do in Florida. At least it sounds less pretentious.

So there you have it. In Florida, I'm going to scribble. And tutor and collect seashells for wedding centerpieces. But mostly scribble.

At least he has a firm, if accidental, grasp of irony.

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week. Or as I like to call it, teacher enfattening week. So much delicious food. We got lunch from one parent on Monday, breakfast from our board of directors on Tuesday, lunch from the PTO on Wednesday, and happy hour from our head of school on Thursday. Also, one mom brought in the homemade pound cake, whipped cream and fruit she brings every year that will be the reason we never, ever graduate her son.

(Here's my yearly teacher appreciation PSA: if you want to show your child's teacher your appreciation, the best way to do so is to write a sincere thank you note and have your child do so as well if he or she is able. I have donated plenty of apple-shaped paraphernalia to Goodwill, but still have every thank you note I've ever gotten from a parent or student.) (We also like Starbucks gift cards, you know, if you're hell-bent on buying something.)

Every year, I ask the students to write in their journal about a good teacher they've had. I make it clear that there are no extra points for picking me (and most of them don't). This year, I had a couple who did. One of them has the hardest time with spelling of anybody I've ever met. And a person in my profession spends all day with people who struggle with spelling.

He wrote that he picked me for teaching him "how to read and slep."

It's a good thing there are five school weeks remaining, because clearly we've got some more work to do.

Wisdom, please.

An interesting thing about my school is that it's almost entirely boys. Of around 75 students, around 15 of them are girls. This gives the girls we do have an inordinate amount of power and somewhat less incentive to form friendships with one another.

So one of our administrators started a club called Girls Group. They have lunch once a month and talk about things like self-esteem and making good decisions. A recent field trip included going to the grocery store to shop for a menu they were given and discover how much that would cost, as well as getting bra fittings. I thought that last part was genius.

They're having their end of year lunch next Tuesday and all of the female teachers were invited to come and share our wisdom with the girls. I have a few ideas, but was really hoping you might have some more wisdom for me.

If you had the opportunity to address a group of teenage girls, what would you want to tell them?

On the Other Hand...

Our newest student is a fifth grader and completely adorable. His mother tells us that he used to come home from school crying every day because he felt so lost and behind. These days, he gets in the car happy and chatty about what he did and learned. She's so happy about this she cried at our open house last month.

He's never gotten very good grades before and I think was in trouble a lot because he's pretty much physically incapable of sitting still and quietly for more than a few seconds at a time. I am not exaggerating. In a class of three students, we can work around that. Put him in a class of thirty and you've got a kid who's considered a behavior problem.

So when they called his name to come and receive his certificate for honor roll, he thought he was in trouble. And once he understood that no, this is a good thing, he thought it was because we like him. When he finally got that it was because he had good grades, you should have seen the smile on the kid's face.

Which is how in the middle of all of the crap we have going on, I got to send an email to my coworkers saying, "[Student] turned in his book report on a biography of Teddy Roosevelt. Under personal connection, he wrote, 'Teddy Roosevelt and I are both honor students.' And that right there is why we do what we do."

Thoughts from tonight's run

Fellow runner smiles and says hi: See, we're all runners! Why did I ever worry about whether I looked like a real runner? I never thought anyone I ran past didn't look like a real runner. They're running, hence: runner. I shouldn't be so insecure and hard on myself.

Different runner passes me: Augh, why do I suck so much? Why am I still so slow after all this time? And look at her legs! Not only is she faster than me, she's thinner and more muscular. If I ran more and didn't eat so damn much, I could have legs like that too. Wait, what happened to the not being so insecure and hard on myself again?

Beginning of run: I'll run four miles.

Just after beginning of run: It's hotter and more humid than I'm used to and I didn't take any Sudafed, so I'll be really congested by a mile or two in. I should run three miles.

Running down big, glorious hill: I'll run four miles!

Running back up big effing hill: Hey Past Self, what is WRONG WITH YOU?

Near top of big effing hill: Just run to the top of this one and then you can walk up the smaller one later. [Stomach: Must. Vomit. Now.] Ok, walk the last block up.

Near top of smaller hill: And walking up the last block of this one too.

And then I nearly started crying. Because the half-marathon in a month will be at least as hilly and I can't even run four miles of hills and the half-marathon is going to suck so much except that wasn't really why. Not that the half-marathon isn't going to suck. It is, but I don't actually care so much about that. It's that work sucks and has sucked and will continue to suck for a variety of reasons, most of which have very little to do with actual students or teaching and very much to do with paperwork and litigation and generally being made to feel like I'm not doing my job well by people who have no idea how well I do my job and/or have a legal and financial interest in making other people think I don't do my job well. And I am mentally and emotionally exhausted.

Then I ran the rest of the way home and finished with a decent (for me) time, especially considering the two blocks of walking. 44:32. I run eleven minute miles. Which is fine. 

When I got home, my current favorite song came on my iPod and got me a little bit out of my funk. It's sort of an anthem for me at the moment. It is Do It Now by Ingrid Michaelson.

"Don't waste a minute on the darkness and the pity sitting in your mind."

Indeed.

To End the Word

You may have noticed, in the past week or so, a big flashy thing over to the right. If you click on it, it will take you to www.r-word.org, the website of Spread the Word to End the Word. Today was their annual Spread the Word Day.

The word they want to end? Retarded or retard. I have a hard time even typing that, so strong is my negative reaction to those words. Words people throw around without thinking to mean bad, stupid, thing I don't like or approve of. Words that are hurtful, judgmental, offensive, and damaging.

My students have learned not to say them in my presence. The frequency with which one of them starts to say it and stops herself shows me how often she's using it outside my presence. "What's the big deal?" she asks me. "Nobody here is retarded."

I tell her that the big deal is that I am someone who cares about people, specific people as well as people in general, with intellectual disabilities. The big deal is that she sounds ignorant and bigoted when she continues to say it. And the big deal is that she communicates that people with intellectual disabilities are not deserving of respect or dignity. That to have an intellectual disability is synonymous with being bad, stupid, or something to be disapproved of.

Sadly, the word has become so ingrained in our society as a pejorative term that people still don't seem to realize that it's offensive. Spread the Word often calls celebrities out on it, asking supporters to post on those celebrities' Facebook pages about why their remarks were in bad taste. These people, far more often than not, apologize. The same happens (my student, who desperately needs to feel better than someone, aside) when you call someone out on it in real life. You calmly explain why you'd prefer they didn't use that word. Generally, they will apologize and make every effor to stop. It's that easy.

Spread the Word is also working to support legislation in the states to remove the r-word from official use. Many states, as well as the federal government, have passed laws to change the designation to intellectual disability. Some states have bills introduced on the issue, but not yet passed. Some states have had no action taken. You can find out what the deal is in your state at www.r-word.org.

And if you're still not convinced, or if you just want to watch something sweet and moving, you can watch this video by a mother of a child with an intellectual disability. Though he prefers to be called Max. The video is titled, uncomfortably for most of us, Would You Call My Child a Retard?

Well, would you? Would you let someone else do it in front of you? I hope not.

 

With breath that is bated

See, I like to imagine that you all wait with breathless anticipation for my annual State of the Union post. And this is not it. It's been a crazy week or two of school. Grades and progress reports and subpoenas! Oh my! (The phrase "progress reports" sounds so innocous unless you're in the special ed business, in which case it brings on sudden specific urges for a bottle of whiskey and a career change.) The end of the semester is also not the ideal time to be served with a subpoena for a truly obscene amount of paperwork on a student. Paperwork from last year. My body has responded to all of this by deciding that it no longer needs sleep. At least this is what it believes at night. By the time my alarm goes off at 6:30, my body is very much interested in sleep. It would like four more hours, please. Instead I get up and go to work and then get frustrated with the children for not being able to read.

I'm tired is what I'm saying. And I want to do a good job on the post and that's not going to happen tonight. Tomorrow, friends. (Where by "tomorrow", it turns out I actually mean "sometime this weekend when I'm fully lucid".) In the meantime, please enjoy this video of a blind kitten fighting a hair dryer.

 

From the mouths of teenagers who lack social skills

It's spirit week at school, folks. Monday was pajama day, aka The Whole Entire Beauty Part of Spirit Week. I wore my black flannel pajamas that have pink lips all over them. I tried to convince myself to walk to work in them, as a sort of aversion therapy for my strong dislike of attracting attention, but couldn't do it. So I wore jeans and changed when I got there. Chicken.

Today was GQ Day. I don't think any of these kids have the first clue what GQ is (Was? Do they still make GQ?) (Google says yes.) but it's explained as "Dress in your best." So today, I wore this dress to school:

Upon seeing me, a seventh grade girl I teach had the following to say:

Her: Oooh, I looove your high heels!

Me: Thank you.

Her: And I looooooove your dress!

Me: Thank you.

Her: The only thing is, it's a little skinny here (indicates abdomen) and a little tight on you, but otherwise it looks so good!

Me: Uhhh...thanks.

I'd be more offended, but the thing is, the girl had a point. This dress could use some Spanx. But I was certainly not about to wear binding undergarments for eight hours for the benefit of some pre-teens and teenagers. My limits: let me show you them.

(Only after writing that sentence did it occur to me that I'm allowing the juniors to spray paint my hair pink tomorrow morning. And I won't have time to wash it out before going to dinner in DC tomorrow night. Poor boundary-setting and attention-related aversion therapy in a can!)

No bulletin board, no budget, no problem.

I wanted my classroom to look different and be more organized this year. But I didn't want to spend any money. Tricky.

There was some stuff that I had to hang up again, but I put it in different places. I've got to have my world and US maps so I can point out the places we're reading about and also maybe plan hypothetical vacations. So I put them where my calendar used to be and moved the calendar behind my desk. Like this.

That green sort of Virginia-shaped thing there is my I think I can... hill. I made it a couple of years ago when that was my school's theme for the year. It has train tracks drawn on, with each box labeled as one week of the school year. The little train moves forward every week, providing a visual on where we are in the school year. I'm not sure I would have put it up again, but one of my coworkers told me I had to because she needs to watch the train move forward. Ok.

But I did make some new stuff. Extremely cheaply. Freely even.

Quotes! Printed out on legal sized paper and mounted on Astrobrite paper that I bought a long time ago for something else. Mounted with...Scotch tape. Sadly, my school has no laminator (I KNOW. Are we sure it's even a school?) and I'm not paying Office Depot $2 a square foot, so my high class posters are all vulnerable to water damage and tearing.

If it's class you're after, you should definitely not look at my new organizational system. What I needed was a place to put copies I make for each class or other things I need to hand out and not lose. A place that isn't a pile on my desk. Et voila:

Packing tape would have looked nicer, but didn't seem likely to be as durable. Plus I had a roll of duct tape in my car already. For the purpose of holding on my side mirror.

What, you thought my Clampett-ness was confined to my classroom? Hardly.

(That cord there isn't my fault. It's the network cable that's supposed to go to my desktop computer, but is instead currently pulled across the room to connect my laptop since the wireless network was down for pretty much the entirety of teacher inservice week.)

I've got a pretty challenging schedule this year, student-wise. It turns out that if you earn yourself a reputation as a good teacher, you also earn yourself lots of difficult kids. I seriously should have shot for mediocrity last year. But who needs cooperative students who are interested in learning? BOR-RING!

Students: bring it. (As long as it isn't beverages. The posters are not splash resistant.)

Sometimes people ask me why I teach special ed.

The expression is "get schooled" for a reason.

You know how I told you about having arm-wrestled my student who, after losing, still believed that she had to be stronger than me because she's younger? Well. The smack talk has resumed. This time, it concerns her ability to outrun me. Conveniently, we'll have an opportunity to test this claim a week from Friday during our annual school walkathon.

The distance is four miles. My student claims to have nearly beaten her science teacher last year. Said teacher, who runs full marathons, claims that the student was only capable of running the first half-mile before needing to walk. I know whose claim I believe.

So I'm not overly concerned that I'll have to purchase the Starbucks beverage of her choice that I promised to my student, should she beat me. Which is a good thing, considering that I've already been hit up by one other student to sponsor her in the walkathon. I'd prefer that my five bucks go to a worthy cause, rather than a coffee empire.

The worthy cause in question this year is Food and Friends, an organization that provides meals to people with illnesses, including cancer, HIV/AIDS, and multiple sclerosis. I figured as long as I have this here internet megaphone, I may as well offer the opportunity to anyone who might be interested to sponsor me as I endeavor to put a stop to teenage smacktalk, one delusional teenager at a time.

And help provide meals to people in need, of course. If you'd like to sponsor me, you could do so via the Donate button over there on the right. That'll take you to Paypal. I think you can put a note in that it's for the walkathon, but I'll go ahead and assume that anything coming in between now and next Friday (May 20) is in support of Food and Friends.

After all, the sick people will still need food come next Friday. Unlike my student, who will be full up from eating her words.

Better Than Average! Probably!

I found out last Monday that we were having a teacher appreciation week happy hour that Thursday. And there would be awards! And YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS IT. So it sort of sounded like one of those This is fun! Not work! And it's optional! Except you really, really need to show up or it will be very much frowned upon! Unofficially! work things.

So I canceled my regularly scheduled tutoring student in order to attend. And thank goodness I did, Internet, because I won the coveted (so our Head of School kept calling it) Rookie of the Year Award! Here it is in all of its glory.

Not pictured: the piece of cardboard taped to the back where you write your own name and year in the pen or marker of your choosing.

I co-won it in conjunction with the new teacher I thought would win it outright. So it was a pleasant surprise. One of the other new teachers won a different award. The remaining new teacher was not present. Meaning:

1. Given that there are only four of us, one of whom shares the award with me, "winning" really means "being in the top 50% of new teachers".

2. One of whom may have been out of the running, seeing as how he won something else.

3. One of whom may have been out of the running simply for not having shown up to the event.

4. Meaning that I may have only co-won because I was present. This might not have felt like a real possibility had our Head of School, after having gone on at length about the six prior winners, said one single word about why either of us deserved to win. But he didn't. On the upside, he did get both of our names right when announcing them.

I shared these thoughts with a co-worker who had won the award two years ago. She co-won it as well with another teacher. They were two of the three new teachers that year, the third having been so incompetent that she was asked not to return. So it was even less of an honor, given that the criteria for winning seemed to consist of "being adequate".

Still, it'll be a privilege to have this thing in my room until halfway through next year, when I pass it off to my co-winner, the other most not below average new teacher in school.

Doing my accidental part to create temporary Packers fans

My friend Jennie is a Redskins fan who teaches in New York. She has a deal with her students: every Monday, if the Redskins won the day before, they have no homework. This way all of her students are, at least on some level, rooting for the Redskins. It's especially painful for them the two times a year when the Redskins play the Giants.

I stole that idea and made a deal with mine before the Packers played the Redskins that if the Packers won, they wouldn't have homework the next day. They felt that was cruel, making them be torn about who they wanted to win. I said that was the idea. The Packers lost, so homework proceeded as usual.

A little while later, one of those students asked if the Packers won that Sunday, could they not have homework the whole next week? I told them that wasn't the deal. It was only for the Redskins and only for one day.

"What if the Packers win the Superbowl? Then can we get no homework the whole next week?"

There were several weeks left in the season and the Packers had lost to the Lions and all.

"Sure," I said, convinced that the Packers wouldn't be getting anywhere near the Superbowl anyway.

Whoops.

On the bright side, it could save me a lot of time grading that week.

Victory Lap

My two seniors, both of whom dislike reading because it is so difficult for them, have fallen head over heels in love with To Kill a Mockingbird.

One of them admitted to having read ahead. The other one was upset because he'd wanted to read ahead but didn't think they were allowed.

This has not been the case from the beginning. They were deeply suspicious of this book for the first several chapters. But then it got good. And they got better at reading and understanding it. They were getting the stuff beneath the surface and making good predictions and they knew it. And they were proud of that.

Plus, it's just a damn fine book.

"I've never read a book like this!" one of them told me. He's not only excited to read the rest of this one, but about whatever we read next as well.

Admittedly, Harper Lee did the heavy lifting here, but still. This is about as good as it gets for a reading teacher. I shoot for helping kids get better at reading and understanding what they read. Getting them to love reading - to love reading literature? Feels like winning something. Not just something, but everything. It's winning the Superbowl, minus the Gatorade bath. I'd like to thank the Academy. I'm going to Disneyland!

Only not until after second period. We're about to read Atticus's closing argument and I don't want to miss it.

Just a teacher

You all have been great in your comments on anything I post related to teaching, so I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I've got to get this off my chest.

I'm realizing that I can't have a rational conversation regarding education right now. I overreact and take it personally. I've prided myself on my ability to discuss ideas without emotion, but I'm not that person regarding teachers these days.

I saw on the cover of Time Magazine "Why is it so hard to find good teachers?"

Then I read all of the things about how teachers need to be held accountable for standardized test scores. Those same people are also incensed that critical thinking isn't being taught in schools anymore. Somehow they miss the contradiction between wanting us to make kids do better on multiple choice test while at the very same time, engaging them in higher order thinking. One of these things is not like the other, folks.

And I see what happens when I tell people that I'm a teacher. Either they look at me like I'm Mother Theresa, making an enormous sacrifice of my time, talent and earning potential or they think they should speak more slowly and use smaller words. Perhaps this, Time Magazine, has something to do with why it's hard to find good teachers. Society's apparent feeling that teaching is for people of middling intelligence and no ambition. And the expectation that those of us in the field who display some talent and a polysyllabic vocabulary must be in it as an altruistic stopover on our way to a real career. Surely we don't intend to just be teachers?

Leaving us with yet another contradiction. How is it that society expects people they assume to be only average to fix all of society's ills? Because you name it, the fault for it has been laid at the door of public education. I honest to God once had a man blame the public schools for the fact that his hashbrown casserole would be arriving three minutes after his meal during a screaming fit he threw at the Cracker Barrel. Not to mention juvenile delinquency, obesity, drugs, gangs, drop outs, and America's falling position in the world economy.

You know who has more to do with every single last one of those things? Parents. Or they should. It should not be my job to teach children to say please and thank you, to shower regularly and put on deodorant, or to value education. If a child's home and community tell them that these things are not important, then it is an uphill battle to say the very least for us to do it. If every message a child receives is that he just has to stay in school until it's legal for him to drop out so he can go to work, then everything we say to him to the contrary is moot. And if parents teach children that there is no accountability for their actions by trying to strong-arm schools into passing kids who've earned failing grades or out of punishments that are justly deserved for misbehavior, then society suffers.

And please, please let's stop hammering us with the statistics of our test scores versus other countries'. How many of those countries guarantee a free and appropriate public education to every student? How many of those test scores include students with special needs? How many even include students who haven't been selected for college preparatory schools? It's not an accurate comparison. Compare our scores to how we did last year or to how schools with similar demographics to ours are performing, but don't compare us to schools full of students chosen for their academic ability.

And yes, it can be difficult to get rid of bad teachers. Believe me, this makes no one crazier than those of us who have to teach with them. The unions should stop protecting bad teachers. But good teachers need unions. Because if my student who I constantly tell to keep her chair on the floor falls over and cracks her head open and her parents sue me, I need legal representation. And that, right there, is best lawsuit case scenario. If you watch the news, you know it can and does get much uglier.

It's an election year. I know that's why there's so much negative talk about us right now, but does that make it any better? Why is it ok for teachers to be the whipping boy for candidates who don't have any actual ideas on how to fix anything? "Hold teachers accountable!" is an easy sound byte. How about if you stop by my classroom for a day?

Better yet, stop by my neighbor's classroom. See what teaching can and should be. See that teaching, like anything else, is a skill in and of itself and that some people are gifted in it. See an intelligent, creative, engaging and kind person teach, not because he stoops to it, but because he knows it's work that should be done by intelligent, creative, engaging and kind people, regardless of what society would tell him about his wasted potential for bigger and better things. If everyone could see what happens across the hall from me, they'd never think "just a teacher" again.

Game On

Thanks to all of the not sleeping, the first week of school is a bit of a blur for me. I have a heck of a time remembering, each period, which students will be coming in. This despite having only one to three students in each class. There's the girl who told me, "I can be a handful." (Bit of an understatement, per her recent teachers.) The boy who asked if the homework was going to get harder. I asked whether he wanted it to and he said yes, because he needs someone to push him. The middle schooler who calls me Ms. Grah-ham and I don't correct him because it's just too adorable. Then, of course, there is the student who tells me every day that hates school and he's ready to go home, despite having two more classes after mine. The one who has already done neither of the two very short homework assignments I've given.

Because our school is full of kids with language disorders and is very literacy-based, every student has to have a battery of reading tests administered at the beginning and end of the school year. The students and I were equally tired, I think, by the end of the week of test taking and administering. I spent a few hours scoring tests after school on Friday. With almost every score I'd write down, I'd think to myself, "Poor guy." It's sad to see the kind of deficits these kids are up against. I was exhausted and getting ready to pack up and bring the rest of it home to do when I decided to get reading their journals out of the way before the weekend. 

Internet, their journals. I fell a little bit in love with each and every one of them.

I know I can count on some of you to throw those words in my face on days when they are making me crazy. But it will be those days when I will need most to be able to look back on where a boy wrote earnestly about his goal of having all of his assignments turned in on time for a whole month because he's never done that before and it would show his teachers that he doesn't give up. The girl who can be a handful, who believes it is her duty to keep teachers on their toes by only occasionally doing what she's asked, wants to go to college and become a teacher. Another boy wrote that he knows what it's like to go through a hard time and have to pretend everything is ok. He knows from the time when he and his mom and sisters were homeless. His goal isn't to be rich. It's to change someone's life when that person is going through a hard time like the one he went through.

On those days, I can look back at their words and remind myself that I'm lucky to be entrusted with this particular odd and wonderful bunch of souls. No matter how tired and crazy they may make me. My goal ought to be at least as lofty as my student's, I think. I want to change lives too.

Ladies and gentlemen, school is in session.

I can't think of a title either and it's after 9:30 now.

Internet. It is nine pm. I've been daydreaming about going to bed for about nine hours now. The post with the witty narrative and the bons mots and whatnot will have to wait until I'm somewhat more motivated to remain upright. Until then, here are some photos of my classroom.

Now that I've stared blankly at the computer for a while trying in vain to think of a way to end this post, I'm giving up and going to bed. Good night, Internet.

I think he's right.

We're working on describing. In the scene below, I am trying to get him to tell me size, color and texture of the polar bear in the story we're reading. I am looking for "furry" or "soft" for the last answer.

Me: How big do you picture the polar bear?

Student: Big! *Gestures with hands to show very big and tall*

Me: Good. What color do you picture him?

Student: White.

Me: Great. If you touched the polar bear, how do you think he would feel?

Student: Mad!

Good Stuff Tuesdays: Teacher Edition

Probably this is most useful for you teachers out there, but the rest of you can still read it. If you want.

Best thing I bought for my classroom: two cheap paper maps (US and world) that I laminated and hung in my room. Geography is a pretty abstract concept for my kids, many of whom really only deal well in the concrete. The whole city/state/country thing seems to elude them. Also, many of my kids have never left San Antonio, much less Texas. They don't really expect to either. So knowing the world beyond their neighborhood doesn't seem very important. I've felt like I was at least doing my part to try to combat this by pointing out on the maps any place we read about. Including today, when we were reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and one of the students asked me whether Kansas was a real place.

Best thing I did, instruction-wise: journaling. I used this with the college classes I taught in NY in large part to buy myself ten minutes to figure out which class I was in and what, if anything, I'd planned for us to do. I was teaching four subjects to seven classes in two different buildings with only a few minutes between classes. But it also helped me get to know my students and helped them build some confidence in their writing because they could write about subjects they had knowledge about. So I added it into my English classes this year. It showed me what we needed to work on at the beginning of the year (ranging from lining writing up with the margin to writing in complete sentences to idea generation, etc.) and has showed me the progress they've made since then. The kind of students who have me are mostly intimidated by writing. Giving them an easy topic to write just a few sentences about where spelling and grammar don't count can really help to unlock something in some of them. Plus it established a routine for starting class and getting calmed down and to work right away.

Best technology tool discovery: WordTalk. It's a free text-to-speech program that loads directly into Word. My students don't need to use a whole separate program to have things read to them. They can be in a computer lab typing a paper and look like every other kid, but instead of music playing on their headphones from whatever website they managed to get to around the filter, my kids can be hearing WordTalk read their paper back to them so they can check it. Or listen to the spell check read them the words it suggests so they can pick the one they were going for instead of whatever's first.

Best educational game website: Spelling City. Put in words for a kid to practice and they can play a bunch of games to practice them. HangMouse is a favorite in my room.

Best educational website overall: National Geographic for Kids. Here's the best commercial they could get: one of my kids, upon going to the website, said, "I'm going to learn about the world!" We used the Creature Features to do very simple animal reports. The kids like to play the games and watch the videos when I give them free computer time.

Best punt: My death plague snot invasion coincided with two days of reading standardized tests aloud, meaning that by noon, I'd have no voice. I used Storyline Online to show Knots on a Counting Rope. It's the story of an American Indian boy named Boy Strength of Blue Horses by his grandfather. The first day, I looked up meanings of the kids' names and had them make a thing with their name, the meaning and an illustration. The second day though was the one that turned out really well. The boy in the story is blind and asks his grandfather "What is blue?" His grandfather explains it by saying things like "You know morning, boy?" I had the kids pick a color and describe it using a feeling and other things like music, food, season, weather, etc. Overall, they did so much better at this than I expected. Their answers were fascinating and really very accurate-feeling at times. And I didn't have to talk much. (I was also pleasantly surprised with how they did writing their own versions of William Carlos Williams' This Is Just To Say as part of our work on adjectives.) 

Best compliment from a student: "You look like a secret! Like a spy lady!" I was wearing a jacket that was vaguely trench coat-like, I suppose. No matter where it came from, it was awesome.

Best compliment from a coworker: When I told my boss that I'd considered becoming a librarian, her first comment was about she could see me doing that, working with kids and loving on them. I come off as somewhat standoffish, so it made me really happy to hear that she sees that in me. Because I do love my kids and there's nothing I wouldn't do for them. It just maybe looks different from how other teachers show it. It's not always easy to figure out what I, as a teacher, can do for kids who often come from rough situations at home, whether it's abuse, poverty, neglect, shootings right outside the apartment, or just general difficulty with being a preteen who's not like everybody else. All I can figure out is to be a stable and safe person in their lives, take an interest in them as people, compliment them anywhere I can, and make their lives better and easier by teaching them to read and write better. That may not look like loving on kids to a lot of people. I'm glad it does to her.

Best vaguely-related job perk: teacher discounts! I knew about Barnes & Noble and Borders. Then I found out that AT&T offers one, as well as Sprint. Then someone told me that Ann Taylor has one and when I told another teacher about that, she said they have one at New York & Company. So today, when I went to check out at the Container Store, I asked and sure enough, they offer a 15% teacher discount. But you have to sign up online, so I had to leave my stuff and come home to sign up so I can go back and buy my stuff. (I wouldn't have given you a fake email address, Container Store, if you'd let me sign up there. For I love your fancy organization solutions very much.) So now I will be asking absolutely everywhere.

Also good stuff: six school days remaining. If anybody has discovered the best way to de-crazy middle schoolers, please let me know. Otherwise I'll just be counting the hours until we can release these wild children into the summer they've already mentally checked into.

Pollyaaaaaanna!

"Pick a number between one and ten."

"Thirteen!"

"No, a number between one and ten."

"Eleven!"

Find a happy place, repeating to self, I can be glad that I don't have to teach them math.

That ain't workin'. That's the way you do it.

No Internet, I will not be playing the guitar on the MTV. Nor will I be loading any refrigerators or color TVs, as far as I know.

But I did get a new job. ON THE VERY FIRST TRY. For those of you keeping score at home, I got no jobs in one year of applying in Austin, no jobs in one year of applying in Madison, and it took me six months to find a job here in San Antonio. That represents I don't know how many hundreds of resumes and cover letters sent over the cumulative two and a half years. I sent one resume this time. ONE.

I started looking into schools in the DC area. One stood out for me. It's what I'd do if I got to design a school for my kids. The website said they were hiring, so I sent an email. The principal called me that same day. He was excited about my experience, seeing as how they needed a reading teacher. The head of the reading department called me a few days later. She was excited about my experience since I have the exact same background as the teacher who is leaving. They called references on Friday and then called to offer me the job. This was nine days after I emailed.

I cannot tell you what a relief this is. It's hard enough leaving my job since I love my school and coworkers. Add to that terror over the prospect of another long, drawn-out job search, more months of temping or subbing and never having a minute of guilt-free time spent doing anything but looking for and applying for jobs. But look. Here we are, four months from when I need the job and I already have it. Incredible.

Even better than that, it sounds really very perfect for me. I get to teach reading full-time to small groups of kids with learning disabilities. And I get to work with a bunch of literacy nerds.

I still have to find a place to live and figure out how I'm moving and transferring my teaching certification and lots of other stuff. But the biggest stress is over and in a very exciting way. Not even a blister on my little finger to show for it. Whether there will be chicks for free remains to be seen.

Spring Break: GET HERE FASTER.

With six school days remaining until spring break, the children are out of attention span. And I am out of patience. It's...not going well.

I started a class the other day with "I am in NO MOOD." I've been speaking in all caps pretty regularly. Other instances have included RIGHT THIS INSTANT and WHEN I SAY NO TALKING I MEAN STOP MAKING SOUNDS WITH YOUR VOICES.

Also this gem:

Student: [Spanish curse word he knows I know]

Me: I don't want to hear that word in here.

Student: [repeats it]

Me: ONE MORE TIME AND WE ARE GOING TO THE OFFICE.

Student:...

Right. This is the way of things very often in my classroom right now. There have been some highlights though. For instance, when brainstorming movies we like, two of my kids said The Goonies. I had no idea that today's preteens knew The Goonies existed. I was pretty proud of them for their cinematic taste. Also, having worked my seventh graders like mad to get them ready for the writing TAKS on Wednesday, I decided to show them a movie the rest of this week. I am introducing them to one of the all time classics of American film.

Student: What is that?

Me: Only the greatest movie ever made, The Princess Bride.

Student: Is that a girl movie?

Which was adorably Fred Savage Is This A Kissing Book-esque, I thought. They were a little thrown by the 1980s-quality graphics on the video game at the beginning of the movie, but 45 minutes later, they didn't want it to be lunch time because then I had to stop the movie. 

Almost three-quarters of the way through the school year, I've finally gotten through to these kids on something. Too bad it couldn't be commas or the proper usage of there/their/they're. But at least they won't make it through the whole year having learned nothing from me.

Also, I went to see this kid play tennis on Monday. I brought a sign I made on posterboard and had the other teachers and administrators sign. Nobody has ever been more grateful to anybody for showing up for an hour to stand around, hold up a sign, and occasionally yell, "Good hit!"

And there's my former thief, who is a whole new person now that he's actually taking his ADHD meds every day. No, really. He was spending the majority of his time in In School Suspension before, for stealing and other non-gray-area offenses. He was failing most of his classes, including mine. He hasn't spent a day in ISS since he started taking his meds. He's passing everything and proud of it. Today he asked his counselor if he could be my student aide during his study hall period. AND I SAID YES. Because he's a good kid now. He's not a zombie either. He's a kid who can converse with you and do his work and not only learn things, but articulate what he's learned. Pharmaceuticals, I salute you.

As it is my goal to maintain a mostly lower-case tone of voice tomorrow, I ought to get to bed.

Good night, middle schoolers. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning.

This Just In

SAN ANTONIO - Minds were blown today when local teacher Ms. Graham (alias: MISS!) added a desk to the semi-circle arrangement in her classroom. At least one student had a total meltdown as a result and was unable to do reading, English, or keep his head up off the desk. His hair was also extremely itchy, though the connection to the added desk portion of the outburst remains unclear.

When questioned about the offending desk, Graham responded, "It's for a new student."

As there was no new student sitting in the desk at that exact moment, questions persisted. "He's in sixth period," she claimed. Graham's credibility is already in question, after having denied that she ever got her cell phone taken away when she was in middle school and her repeated assertions that grammar practice is good for you, like broccoli.

"What if you get a bunch of new students next year?" a student, who totally did mean to be writing in his journal, but was too distracted by the new desk abomination, worried.

Graham blithely dismissed his concern. "Probably I'd rearrange the desks. Do your journal."

It should be noted that this teacher has a history of erratic and disruptive behavior, including wearing glasses on some days instead of contacts, putting the wrong lesson number on the agenda that one time, and having moved the desks from rows into the semi-circle in the first place.

In related news, any tremors felt around 3:00 on Friday, March 5 will likely result from the Earth spinning off its axis as Ms. Graham leaves 8th period early for a doctor appointment. It's just for a check up. She's fine. She won't be absent again like she was those four times, the dates of which at least one student can recite from memory. 

Though many students see it as too little too late, coming on the heels of Extra Desk-gate, Graham does promise to never, ever again do prizes on a Thursday instead of Friday like she did that one time she was going to be absent on Friday. She explains, "The resulting tear in the fabric of the universe required far too much paperwork to document."

We'll bring you the latest details on this story as it develops.

This post is brought to you by the letters F and B

No, not Facebook. The Fun Bunch! This is what I've named my first and second period class. They're my lowest kids and also my kookiest. I have them for English and reading back-to-back and since they're usually early to class, we spend about 100 minutes together every morning. They can be a little crazy-making, but for the most part they're very sweet and often hilarious.

One of them is a tiny boy who could easily pass for a third grader. Except he has these thick glasses that slide down his nose, the effect being a tiny old man. He was pretty excited about the Valentine dance last Friday. 

And with good reason, it turned out. One of the eighth grade girls, who was only being nice because this little boy is so adorable, danced with him for most of the time. She spun and dipped him even. He is now deeply in love with her. On Tuesday, he brought her the gift of a tiny plastic pink squirrel, still in the plastic bubble it came in from the machine at the grocery store. Then yesterday, when he finished his test ahead of some other kids, he asked me if he could write a letter. God help me, I gave him paper and an envelope. I am an enabler. I wasn't supposed to read it, but I snuck a peek when I was folding it for him and saw that the last sentence said "I will see you later my love." So far, the girl has been nice about the whole thing. Hopefully his love will fade before that changes.

I have another little girl who is obsessed with birthdays. You remember how in Elf, Buddy answered his dad's phone "Buddy the Elf, what's your favorite color?" If you met this girl, she'd say, "Hi, what's your birthday?" Then she will remember it. Forever. Forgetful people could pay her to memorize the birthdays of all of the important people in their lives and then call them to remind them.

She's also excellent if you like some attention when you are sick or hurt. I remember a friend of mine telling me how her sister loved medical accessories - crutches, boots, bandages, slings - anything to get some attention regarding her injury. I thought of her today after I sneezed and this exchange occurred:

Me: *sneeze*

Her: What's wrong? Are you ok?

Boy: She just sneezed.

Her: WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR NOSE?!?!

That was said with genuine panic. So if you're not getting enough sympathy regarding your minor illness, feel free to stop by my room. It will be taken very seriously. Just be prepared to hear about a little boy's dance partner (no really, he can never remember her name, so he calls her My Dance Partner) and to disclose your birthday and the birthdays of your immediate family members.

And possibly partake in some Christmas carols. Yes, we know it's February. Welcome to the Fun Bunch.

Toys for Tots Update

I wanted to let you know how we did. I ended up with $21 in donations from the kids. Thanks to a donation here on the blog to help cover it, I only paid a little over half that.

But there's more, internet. We had a consultant on campus one afternoon last week, chatting with us in the special ed office. I'd met her over lunch, but then had to go back to class. My friend Kristen kept talking to her, and somehow our donation drive came up. The consultant went to her wallet and got $30 out for Kristen to give me to add to whatever we raised.

So I got to spend $51 on toys on behalf of my kids. This was a very fun shopping trip. Here's what our money bought at Target:

 I tried to cover both genders in a range of ages and interests. The school bus has big legos inside and it's ages 1-3. The Sock Monkey is all ages. Everything else (Candy Land, Barbie, My Little Pony, and Fisher Price monster thing of some sort) is ages 3 and up.

I'm hoping that we've helped make it a better Christmas for a few kids. Either way, I know that doing this has improved mine already.

IMDb has nothing on us

I have the same four kids for first and second period, English and reading, back-to-back. They're my lowest kids and my kookiest group. I've taken to calling them The Fun Bunch.

All of the kids were nutty today, of course, with the break approaching, but The Fun Bunch was mostly just uncharacteristically grouchy. We had worked on our Standard having to do with procedural text (read: I printed out some coloring pages and then wrote step-by-step instructions on the board for how to color them. 1. Color the star yellow. 2. Color the bows blue, etc.) and then during second period, we watched A Muppets Christmas Special: Letters to Santa, courtesy of Hulu.

As is the case with many Muppets movies and specials, several legitimate stars have cameos. Uma Thurman, Nathan Lane, Jane Krakowski. And Whoopi Goldberg. Whoopi's claim to fame turned out to be a bone of contention among The Fun Bunch.

Boy: She's from the AT&T commercial.

Girl: No, she's from Sesame Street.

Boy: And the yogurt commercial.

Girl: No, she's from SESAME STREET.

Me: She's from a lot of things.

Girl: SHE'S FROM SESAME STREET.

Me: Yep. Let's watch the movie.

I'm assuming that Whoopi Goldberg would be even less flattered to know that it was with much greater enthusiasm that the boy announced when a large, shaggy Muppet came on screen, "HE'S FROM MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND!" His classmate, in this case, wholeheartedly concurred.

Also courtesy of Hulu, another class is watching The Secret of NIMH. I remember very little about the movie except that it scared me a lot and I think I may have at one point also watched it on a film strip. My guys in that class don't seem scared, but they do like it so far. You never know, when presenting what is to them ye olden timey talkie film.

In a couple of classes, we're watching Wall-e. I hadn't seen it before and so far am really enjoying it. My question for those of you who have seen it is this: how long does the image of that fat man unable to get up after falling out of his flying chair continue to motivate you to get your butt up off the couch? Will I need to watch it monthly? Weekly? I might need to get my own copy since the one we're watching is borrowed. Or maybe they have that clip on YouTube. I'd check, but I'm kind ofOH NO IT'S WEARING OFF ALREADY.

And finally, I am doing my part, America, for our children's attention spans. When one kid asked me whether, while watching the movie, they could also play games on the laptops, I said no. In my day, we just watched. Unless we were the person responsible for advancing the film strip, in which case we also listened for the tone and turned the little knob. Uphill both ways in the snow. And so forth.

Kids These Days

Most of my students are considered economically disadvantaged. I got it in my head that maybe they might like a chance to do something charitable this holiday season, but it had to be in a way that didn't cost them or their parents any money.

The students can earn tickets in my class for good behavior. They get up to three tickets per class. Most of them have me twice a day, so theoretically, they can earn thirty tickets a week. The catch is, I often forget about giving out tickets. I told the kids that they're in charge of remembering about the tickets. If they leave without reminding me, they don't get them. That way, they can't complain about not having gotten them. Or trick me into giving them extra tickets by telling me that I forgot to give them out when I really didn't. Even special kids can figure out how to manipulate the absent-minded.

Anyway, all of that to say, the well-behaved kids probably get around twenty tickets a week. They tend to drop and otherwise lose things, so most come in closer to fifteen by Friday. On Fridays, they get to buy prizes with their tickets. Most of these come from the birthday party aisle and Target dollar spot. Pencils, erasers, stupid little toys, Mardi Gras beads, and other cheap crap.

So I decided that I'd give my students an opportunity to give by donating their tickets. I made some half-sheets that say "I'm using my tickets to give a $1 donation to Toys for Tots from:__________" The students could write their names on them and I'd hang them on the front bulletin board. I took a chance and put them in for ten tickets. That's pretty pricey as the prize box goes, so I figured if nobody bought any the first week, I'd knock it down to five tickets the next week. However many I got, I'd spend that much (plus however much more it took to buy something respectable) on a toy to donate.

That was a week and a half ago. I'm currently in to Toys for Tots for $17. I only have eighteen students.

Not everybody is participating. But that also means that some kids have bought multiple donations. Including my thinks-he's-a-tough-guy student. It's a lot more than I expected. I'm so glad that I gave them an opportunity to pleasantly surprise me, even if they are accomplishing that by donating a surprising amount of my money. 

Kids these days. Give 'em an inch, they'll find a way to give it to someone who needs it more. Apparently.

It matters to this one

He often comes to school dehydrated, especially after the weekends. He can't reach the drinking fountain because he's in a wheelchair. One of the assistants, who makes just above minimum wage, bought him a water bottle to take with him to his classes. The boy's parents are well-paid professionals. 

The school nurse bought him a Longhorns t-shirt to wear for college t-shirt Fridays. Nobody has ever received a gift with more genuine delight and appreciation. A t-shirt. 

Earlier this year, I had my students write in their journals about their most treasured possession. Most picked computers, iPods, or cell phones. This boy wrote about the SAPD baseball cap our school police officer had given him for his birthday the year before.

Last year, when we finished our workbook in English, he asked if we could have a party right then. I put on music and the kids hit a beach ball around the classroom. He said it was the best day of his life.

Public school employees cut his nails, wash his hair, and launder his clothes. They find a way to rig up the ripped wheelchair seatbelt that his parents don't replace. They push his heavy electric wheelchair around when it doesn't get charged at home.

He hugs us, kisses our cheeks, and tells us he loves us. And we tell him that we love him too. Because we do.

And that, not a test, not a program, not data collection, is how we make sure a child isn't left behind.

CSI: SVU

The crime scene:

At first glance, everything appeared undisturbed. Shaping minds, touching hearts. Check, check.

Upon further investigation, however, all was not clearly right here:

Where are the red flags? They were between the light blue and purple flags when I last looked and now they're ALL GONE.

The evidence

BUSTED. Suspect was apprehended. He maintained his innocence, despite incontrovertible evidence. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to In School Suspension.

The victim is coping as best she can what with the Post-Its being ALL UNEVEN AND WRONG AND EVERYTHING IS RUINED FOREVER.

Honestly, I don't know how I can be expected to shape minds and/or touch hearts under these conditions.

From the pencils of babes. Actually, the babes mostly forget their pencils and use mine.

It's the end of the first quarter, so I graded journals on Friday. The following are some excerpts that I thought you may enjoy.

On the topic "What are you looking forward to about being an adult?"

I will be a good driver. I will be a good parent. I will get a priecing on my bully bottom.

I can cleen my own room (Some parent is clearly doing it wrong.)

you could choose your male or female (Choose a male or female to date/marry? Choose to be male or female? I don't know and more importantly, I'm not asking)

And on the topic "What grade should you get in my class? Why?"

I should get 100. I am go at English.

Finally, I give you some inventive spelling. Extra points to the first person to tell me what word this is supposed to be:

cherobul

Oh, fine. I may not have gotten it either without context. Here's the sentence:

I don't get in cherobul.

Got it? I won't even make you raise your hand and wait to be called on.

Friday Love List: I have no snappy title for reasons associated with the last list item Edition

I went to a seminar today that was really good. It's so invigorating to listen to someone really well-informed and passionate about a topic speak on it. Particularly, in my case, when it's about what I can do to better understand and help my kids and I leave with a bunch of ideas that I have to write down before I forget them. Most of these training things are not nearly so inspirational and/or useful. I love it when one is.

I love it when some of my kids stop outside my door on their way to another class to wave to me. And equally, if not more so, when kids who would sooner die than acknowledge me in the hall are bursting to tell me a story as soon as they get into my classroom.

And in non-school items, we have:

Chipotle's chicken burrito bowl

Glee (the TV show, not the emotion, although I suppose I'm for that as well)

my new red fleece from Target

a grilled cheese with dipping sauce tomato soup

Liz Lemon ("Another successful interaction with a man!")

Raspberry Pomegranate Michelob Ultra

college t-shirt Fridays which mean that I get to wear jeans and don't even have to think about what to wear with them

Nyquil

Your turn. Oh come on, I haven't done one of these in weeks. Surely you've got some lovable stuff to list for us.

One of these is how it really happened. I'll give you one guess.

"Miss," she asked at the beginning of eighth period, "How does it feel to be a teacher?"

A lot of words went through my head...

the story continued as written on a brochure for my teaching program

...challenging, empowering, dynamic, rewarding, yes at times even overwhelming. I thought of how nervous I was on my first day of school, all of those little faces looking to me, their teacher! I wondered whether all of the long hours were paying off. Was I reaching all of my students? Was I having the impact on them that I had hoped? One thing I knew for sure, my students were having an impact on me. I had learned so much from them already!

My student was waiting, so I just said the most honest word that came from my heart.

"Wonderful," I said. "It feels wonderful to be a teacher." She smiled and went back to work. It was the kind of moment I had dreamed of when I started my journey toward teaching.

the story continued as written for this blog

...and I said the first one that seemed appropriate to say out loud.

"Tiring," I said. She kept talking about something and I went back to trying to get sight words written on the board so we could get started reading them together.

I had only stopped in the first place because I find that ignoring the "Miss!" leads to auto-repeat with volume escalation. "Miss! MISS! MIIIIISSSSSSSS!" It haunts my dreams.

[Disclaimer: Not only was it the last period of the day, but my eighth period class and this student in particular work my last nerve. She had shouted this out, despite the vast amount of time we continually spend on the skill of raising our hands and being called on before speaking. A student asking politely at an opportune moment would get a more positive answer.]

Sub-par

I was sick on Wednesday. It started early Tuesday morning with what I assumed was the lamest hangover of all time. I had two beers while watching football Monday night. I hadn't eaten since 12:30 and was well into the first beer by the time my wings arrived, so I thought maybe the two beers had just hit me bizarrely hard.

By the end of the school day on Tuesday when I felt no better, I thought perhaps this was an actual non-self-inflicted illness. (Unless you consider any illness I get to be self-inflicted on the grounds that I choose to work with children, in which case, you'd have a point.) So I made sure to update the seating charts in my Emergency Substitute Plans binder and to leave the binder on the front table for just in case I should have a sub.

Wednesday morning was indeed pretty ugly, so I put in for a sub online, including instructions that the Emergency Substitute Plans binder was on the front table. I texted my boss a heads up that I'd be out and then I went back to sleep. Until 2pm.

I felt better this morning, so I went to work. And thank goodness.

I arrived to a full page of angry scrawling on the instruction page of the Emergency Substitute Plans binder. He went on and on about how THERE ARE NO PACKETS and THE PACKETS SHOULD BE IN PLAIN SIGHT and I WENT THROUGH YOUR DESK AND FOUND ONE LOOSE PACKET BUT I DON'T KNOW WHICH CLASS IT IS FOR. He explained that he had a teacher aide make copies for all of the classes because HE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO although the teacher aide COLLATED AND STAPLED THEM BACKWARD. (This was a group of random worksheets, so there would have been no actual forward or backward.)

It becomes clear from the scrawling that at some point he discovered the packets I left for him. Cleverly hidden behind the tabs numbered by class period. He had even turned to these tabs to find the seating charts, but neglected to turn that one page to find the packets directly behind them. What could he have thought all of that paper was separating that seating chart from the next tab? We'll never know.

I found out that my boss had stopped in during third period to find out how it was going and was greeted by him shouting at her about how I hadn't left any plans. She showed him where everything was located and suggested (somewhat firmly, I think) that he ask for help in the future rather than freak out. At that point, he started writing me notes about how he had not previously been able to find them because my INSTRUCTIONS WERE UNCLEAR. He took it upon himself to root around in my desk to find a red pen with which to underline that.

He'd later point out that one of my students needed a lot of help. Well, yes. Being mentally retarded will have that effect. And he wrote up another student for excessive talking during class. Seriously? It's a class of six kids. And the worst problem was one of them talking. I cannot feel that this man has much of a future in substitute teaching. Or any business being in it at present.

On the upside, the worst critique of him that my students offered was to call him "weird".

On the downside, one of my students told me that I looked pretty today. Which, yes, sounds nice. But given that I went this morning with a look that could be most aptly named "Stay Back!" I have to feel that her having said it today renders void all of the times she previously said it to me. It can clearly bear no actual relation to how I look that day.

And then some of my students talked in class! And needed help! The nerve!

Even more pictures of me skydiving! Just somewhat more...abstract.

Yes, the green area of both drawings represents me.

I brought my skydiving DVD to school to show my students. My second period kids like their routine. And they perseverate. So we might be watching my skydiving DVD at the end of second period every day for the rest of the school year. Excuse me, the music video. Because this is how it has come to be known. I am the Courtney Cox of middle school special ed teachers. Or something.

Below, we see my birthday haul and my very own No Run-Ons poster. The student who created it not only grabbed onto not writing run-on sentences as a personal mantra, but he is also fascinated by In School Suspension, or ISS. He's a good kid, so he's never earned ISS, but his teacher did send him for an hour to try to remove the mystique. Nevertheless, when he made me a No Run-Ons poster, he included ISS as well.

I like how it implies that students can be suspended for writing run-ons. If only there were real world punishments for grammar crimes!

Finally, we will see the results of a little group project that my third and eighth period reading classes completed last week. A book that we read included step-by-step instructions for how beavers build their lodges. Following instructions in procedural text is one of our standards, so I could totally justify having the kids build beaver lodges. I thought on it for a while and settled on pretzel rods and sticks for the logs and branches. After dismissing peanut butter as way too messy, I decided on Play Doh for the mud. And for our river beds, paper plates.

Here you will see the vast difference between my third and eighth period classes. My third period students struggle more with reading. My eighth period students struggle more with impulse control. A visiting college student gingerly asked whether I would say there was some ADHD. To which I delicately responded, "YOU THINK?"

All of that to say, third period beaver lodges:

Our groups were girls and boys. The lavender and blue being the girls' creation, yellow and orange the boys'. They are structurally sound(ish), fully enclosed, and leave an entrance for the beaver. The boys even decorated their roof with a B. For beaver.

On to eighth period:

These were coed groups, selected on the basis of who would least likely kill each other. I said to the group working in purple Play Doh, "You should really figure out how you're going to do this before you start." When I returned from helping the other group and saw this final product, I said only, "Your beaver will be killed almost instantly."

Thus concludes our gallery tour. We hope you enjoyed today's pieces. Sadly, none are available for purchase at this time.

Give in to the faulty logic

Student: When do we get our progress reports?

Me: (whispers) Shhh, it's the moment of silence.

Student: (whispers) When do we get our progress reports?

Me: (whispers) Friday.

The Random Roundup

The students are selling cookie dough for their fundraiser. Some of them have asked me during class whether I'll buy it from them. I tell them to come before or after school to ask me. But all staff members have to cover areas inside or outside of school before or after school for three weeks per semester. I'm doing my three weeks all in a row, starting last Tuesday. Which led to this conversation with a sixth grader.

Me: Oh, but I won't be here after school for the next two weeks. I'll be standing outside the front doors.

Him: Why?

Me: I have duty.

Him: Heh. You said doodie.

Me: Heh. Yeah.

Oh, what? IT'S A FUNNY WORD.

* * *

While standing outside on duty (heh) I heard a kid from a short distance use a phrase beginning in F and ending in you. I gave them my Teacher Face.

Kid: You might not know, that's an expression we use that means "I'm very sorry."

Me: Oh, really? I've never heard that word before.

(Note: This student understood that I was being exactly as sarcastic as he was. Nope, he's not one of mine.)

* * *

The kids, as I've mentioned before, can earn tickets with good behavior and hard work that they can then use to buy cheap and crappy prizes. They get to spend their tickets at the end of class on Fridays.

My seventh period class is all sixth graders. They've been making me crazy with their inability to work quietly, follow directions, and exhibit any impulse control whatsoever. So I gave them a pretty good lecture on these things during class on Friday. I forgot to watch the clock during class and the bell rang before they'd gotten to look at the prizes. When the students complained about not getting prizes, I told them that if I hadn't had to spend class time talking to them about respect, then we would have had time to do tickets.

Now, I know that one had nothing to do with the other. You know that too. But my sixth graders don't need to know anything of the sort.

* * *

I sat next to Melissa at Darin and Staci's wedding on Saturday evening. While gossiping inappropriately behind our fan programs, a thought occurred to me, which I shared with her:

"Oh my gosh, we're Those Women. We need big hats or something."

Could you get on that, Internet? Finding us some big hats? Consider it your duty. And if you'd rather not, then at least try to stick to the more commonly used and well known expressions of regret. My mom reads this.

How was your day, Lori?

I can't actually tell you very much, due to student privacy restrictions and wanting to keep my job and teaching license (provisional though it may currently be).

That might give you an idea though.

Nobody was hurt. Tomorrow is another day. Thursday, in fact, which is almost but not quite as good as Friday. And a three day weekend so close I can taste it.

(Interestingly, three day weekend does not taste like chicken. More like ice cream with hot fudge and fun sprinkles and not doing any work all weekend, no matter how late it means I have to stay next week to catch up.)

Good night, Internet.

No really, we have worked on -ed endings. Over and over.

Most of my students have me for both Reading and English. The majority of them will have me for all three years of middle school. Some students love this. Others not so much.

This is especially true of one student who we'll call Bob. Bob can be a good kid, but he and I had our days last year. He hates my classes because reading and writing are incredibly difficult for him. He at least very strongly dislikes me because I force him to attempt these things. Although I'm told that his behavior is pretty much the same in his other classes, meaning that his disdain for me doesn't even make me remarkable.

He did announce at the end of last school year that he was NOT having me for two classes again the next year. I let him go ahead and dream. Then I scheduled him with me again this year, twice a day.

Today, we started journaling. I gave them the topic and told them that they had to write at least three sentences. "Tell about something that makes you happy."

Bob first went to his go-to: "Miss, I'm finish."

To which I responded, as I always do, "Bob, you haven't started yet."

Step 2: Put his head down on his desk and refuse to do anything.

Surely he could think of one thing that made him happy. Nope. Nothing ever makes him happy. Not lunch time. Not school being over. Not riding his bike or playing soccer or any of the other things he's told me that he likes to do. Finally, I hit on a winner.

"Does it make you happy when I'm not your teacher?"

He smiled. Of course, when I looked at his journal later, he'd written four or five words, most of which were totally unreadable. (No, I don't mean illegible. I mean they were groups of letters that do not form words in English and did not appear to resemble Spanish either.) Then he scribbled for a while.

One more year, Bob. Then you go to high school and you and I are officially finish. Surely THAT is worth three sentences of happy.

The Calm Before the Storm

Yes, this is another photo post. Before leaving school on Friday, I took some pictures of my classroom because it's my first real classroom that I put together myself and also I am a nerd.

The front of my room. Notice how neat, how utterly devoid of clutter and piles of paper the top of my desk is. It will never look like that again.

See the green blob on the bulletin board on the right? The one that kind of looks like Virginia?

That's me, verging on the cutesy by embracing our school's theme for the year, "I think I can..." See, it's supposed to be a hill. I made tracks with one tie for each week of the school year and labeled where we have breaks and TAKS testing. I'll move the little train forward each week. This is largely for my own benefit, so I can see the weeks go by.

I bought US and world maps for my room since often when we read about someplace, the kids have no idea where it is. Unfortunately, my world map got a little smushed while going through the laminator.

Whole countries were lost. Not that the kids will notice, but it's hanging right over my laptop table, so I assume I'll spend an inadvisable amount of time staring at the map while I'm supposed to be working on my computer, mentally planning trips.

It used to be a science room, so I get all of those wonderful cabinets. I am extremely fortunate that the teacher who I took over for is still in the school in a different position and she left me most of the books and posters you see, plus a ton of supplies.

We're making some little projects tomorrow to introduce ourselves, and I'll have those hanging up soon. Probably on the glass in the upper cabinets.

That big poster with the red around it at the back is new. I had seen "Twelve Powerful Words" on our in-service schedule for last week and prematurely rolled my eyes, thinking it was going to be some hokey motivational thing. I was too quick to judge though. It turned out to be a list of words that are commonly used on things like tests that we tend to assume our students understand, when often they don't. Words like trace, infer, compare, contrast, summarize, and predict. I was already perfectly aware that my students don't understand these words (but I don't teach the average middle schooler - far from it) and I was pretty excited to score a free poster that lists the words and simple definitions in English and Spanish.

On the whole, in-service last week was useful and enjoyable, which are not words I've always heard associated with it. Our administrators did a good job of lining up sessions that gave us good information and ideas, making them short, and giving us plenty of time to work in our rooms. I was still there until 5:00 on Friday trying to make sure I was as prepared as I could possibly be before walking out of the building for the last time before school starts.

It's my first first day of school as a teacher. I'm a little nervous. Maybe a lot nervous. Once the first few days are over, I'm confident that I'll find my rhythm and everything will be ok. For now though, I've got my worst case of back to school jitters since probably the night before I started high school. But hey, at least I don't also have a perm for this one.

Milton Bradley hates women. Pass it on. Clockwise, starting with the highest roller.

Are you familiar with the game Guess Who?

Because I am not a monster, I give my student a break in the middle of her three-hour sessions. We have a snack and play Guess Who? (this parenthetical aside represents me giving up on attempting to correctly punctuate the end of that sentence.) I've noticed some things about this game.

First of all, there are thirty people pictured. Five of them are women. FIVE. Half the population is women and yet Milton Bradley, the misogynist, believes we only count for one-sixth. Also, it makes it really hard to win if you draw a woman.

Not only that, but two of these five women are wearing hats. Girl hats. What percentage of the female population actually wears honest to goodness women's hats? Milton Bradley would have us believe that it is nearly half. This leaves us with more redheads in the game than non-hat-wearing women. Redheads, genetic aberrations that they are, make up one to two percent of the world's population. Yet there they are, all over my Guess Who? game board, represented in greater numbers than women who are not either balding or at the Kentucky Derby.

We are also led to believe that a stunning percentage of men wear either a mustache or beard, but none have both concurrently. Oh, and roughly five percent of the population has no eyebrows, a phenomenon I've yet to encounter, outside of Whoopi Goldberg.

Even more disturbing than all of that, I am starting to think that Joseph and Kyle are kind of cute. It might be time to pick a new game.

Warning: Contents May Be Heartwarming

She was one of the students in the very first reading camp I ran here in San Antonio. It was the summer of 2004 and she had just finished third grade. She would go on to become one of my all-time favorite students as I continued working with her during the school years and summer before I left San Antonio in 2006. I still use a coffee mug that she painted for me for Christmas when she was in fifth grade. (I know the grade because she wrote her name and 5th on the bottom.)

She was back for camp last summer, almost as tall as me. When I talked to my former boss about coming back this summer, she said they weren't running camps this year, but she had some individual students for me. I was so happy to hear that this girl was among them.

In fact, she represents the bulk of my schedule this summer. I'm working three days a week, Monday-Wednesday. I see her for three hours each day. Now, imagine that you have to spend your summer afternoons sitting in a room with just one other person for three straight hours doing the thing that is most difficult for you. How would your attitude be?

She's a teenager now, going into ninth grade, which I cannot believe even a little bit. But she is, in most ways, very much still a child. If I phrase it, "Now we get to do spelling!" she's excited to do it. If I tell her that she's especially good at breaking multi-syllable words then she can't wait to show me how well she can do it. She has only complained about one thing in the nine hours I saw her this week, which was having to draw pictures on her vocabulary cards. Drawing is extremely difficult for her. Once I told her that I'd draw the pictures if she'd write the definitions and sentences, she liked doing those again. She's pretty much the ideal student.

Except that it can be hard to see her struggle. And it can be frustrating to watch her miss words that I know she knows. She has multiple delays and diagnoses, which mean that she struggles with pretty much every facet of reading. When she gets reading too fast, she'll just sort of make up the words as she goes. In a weak moment last summer, I threw my head and hands on the table, shouting, "[NAME], YOU ARE KILLING ME!"

She is doing so much better this year. We're reading Stuart Little. We go through each section, pulling out unknown words so she can figure them out before reading, and then she reads for me. When she substitutes words, she often stops and goes back because she realizes that it doesn't make sense. This is huge. This will revolutionize her reading. Her comprehension is still low, but it was nonexistent before.

We stopped after reading so I could write a note to her parents, telling them how very well she's doing. They are wonderful people, realistic, yet hopeful. They don't want me to fix her, but they do want her to reach her potential. I read her the note before handing it to her, and despite some difficulty in keeping track of things, I'm pretty sure she'll get it to her parents.

I guess all of that is to say, I had a good day at work. I thought I'd let you know.

If you ignore the run-on sentence and use of text speak, it's really very sweet.

In our collective defense (the student's and mine), this girl has learned not to use the text speak in her compositions and other school work. The run-ons...persist. Perhaps a slightly more awesome teacher can work that out next year.

Yes, of course, you can get that engraved on a flask.

We have a magnet on our refrigerator, no doubt given to Holly by some student, that says, "To teach is to touch a life forever."

My Teacher Appreciation Week gift was an assortment of Post-It Notes and Flags (actually useful!) in a faux-pleather case with, on the cover, a gold apple (of course!) and something along the lines of "Teachers, Opening Minds and Touching Hearts".

I've been teaching for a lot of years in various non-school settings, but as a certified public school teacher, I finally feel qualified to say that THERE ARE NO APPLES IN TEACHING. Nobody has ever brought me an apple. At no time in my four months at the school have I even seen anybody eat an apple.

I have, however, seen a lot of teachers down a lot of margaritas. And beers. And shots.

All of the tchotchkes in my Truth in Teaching Knick Knacks shop will feature alcoholic beverages in place of the apples. There will further be no ABC, 123, 2+2=4, chalkboards, crayons, or sweater vests of any kind. Looking for a School is Cool denim jumper? Look elsewhere, friend.

I have also come up with some new slogans for my wares:

To teach is to train your bladder for a pre-set peeing schedule.

To teach is to be able to live with hearing yourself say, "Don't be sorry, be quiet."

To teach is to count backward from 180 accurately from August to June.

To teach is to accept "mean" as a compliment.

To teach is to decide multiple times per day whether other human beings are allowed to relieve themselves.

English teachers, manning the front lines in the battle against text speak.

Because 3:30 on Friday is the happiest hour of all.

There is no I in teacher, but there is Cher. (Sure to go straight to the clearance bin, as even I have no idea what that means.)

You can have my E-Z Grader when you pry it from my cold, dead hand. Or if it's summer. Either way.

Teacher's Lounge Lizard (available in several sequined items)

Special Ed: Because sometimes love isn't only blind; it's also learning disabled, autistic, and/or mentally retarded.

No really, Officer, that's chalk dust.

Exhibit A

As I walk in to school, I pass the designated parking spaces. Front row, center is the Teacher of the Year parking spot. And every time, I think, "Man, if you had that parking spot, you'd really have to be on time. Every day."

Then it occurs to me that this thought alone is probably sufficient evidence that I'll never have to worry about it.

Telling tales out of school

This morning, Know-It-All Student raised his hand to say, "I thought you weren't allowed to wear jeans." I explained that we had a free dress day for Teacher Appreciation Week. I bet he would have turned me in otherwise. Nobody likes a rat, kid.

***

Which possibly makes it a bit hypocritical of me to report to you that I made my first office referral this week. A student of mine, who by the way was being a real pill all throughout class, later told another student, right in front of me, to shut the f*** up. But in Spanish so he'd be sure to get away with it. Wrong! I hauled him down to the office (not literally, although ear-grabbing was all too tempting) and he was sentenced to two days of in-school suspension. I am drunk with power.

***

Did you read Sideways Stories from a Wayside School when you were a kid? Do you remember the story where a boy has a bunch of mosquito bites and his teacher tells him to count them because then they'll be numbers and numbers don't itch? Well, I tried that today on an incessantly-scratching (and admittedly highly-suggestible) student and it actually worked.

DRUNK WITH POWER.

Literary nerds unite! And do my work for me!

I always knew that having all of you written word geeks around would pay off at some point, and I am hoping that today (or, you know, the next few days, NO RUSH) will be that day.

See, my students have been working their way through a structured reading program, which has many things going for it. The students, in addition to other work, read stories that are phonetically controlled and divided up unto short sections for ease of comprehension. The stories are sort of interesting. I guess. But boy, oh boy, is the writing just terrible. Really dismal.

I get that the focus is not on literary merit or aesthetics. But I am allotted two days a week off from the program and I'd like to use these to expose students to good quality writing. We read "Thank You M'am" by Langston Hughes and they really seemed to get into it. The language was simple enough that they could both read and understand it, but it was also just something well-written for a change. I like to think that they saw the difference from the usual drivel.

We're starting a unit on literary devices (seeing as how none of my students could correctly identify a simile last week.) (And before anybody gets up in arms about the sorry state of the public schools, I guarantee that my students have been exposed to literary devices time and time again, but have just not retained the information, so cool your collective jets.) I'd like to use some quality pieces while talking about similes, metaphors, alliteration, personification, hyperbole, and onomatopoeia. (We will be making SMAPHO books, oh yes we will.) I have a couple of poems picked out, but I could use more.

Either for literary devices or reading in general, can you suggest anything that's written in simple language (about a fourth grade level, if that helps you) that either they could read or, if it's short, I could read to them? I don't think kids should be denied the whole world of beauty that is well-written literature just because reading is difficult for them. They may never appreciate words they way that you and I can, but by God, it won't be because I didn't try to show them what there was to be appreciated.