erinteater

It’s true.  My students are little geniuses.

Yesterday was infinitely better than Monday.  Of course it was.  How could things get worse, right?  I was so impressed with my students.  More so than I have been all summer, and that’s a big deal.  Yesterday we published our personal narratives.  Yep. Even though Ms. Teater lost their rough drafts, they pulled through and did remarkably well!  The class average was an 83, which is terrific.  They all worked so hard during those 65 minutes.  Every single one of them was writing their hand off.  I gave them all crisp, clean new paper and kickass feather pens.  What’s an author without a feather pen, right?  Even my “Monday Student” was back in school and ready to learn.  What a champion!

What I’m most proud of, though, is what they wrote.  22 out of 24 students wrote with complete sentences and used paragraphs.  This is only a few days after they wrote rough drafts that were basically just one big run on sentence without any kind of break.  For a teacher, seeing that much improvement is the best feeling in the world.  I feel like I actually taught them something worthwhile that they can use for the rest of their lives.  The two students who did not use paragraphs and complete sentences worked really hard, and I still saw massive improvements in their work.  I mean, they actually ‘produced’ work…BIG DEAL!!!

I could go on and on about each student and how well they did, but I won’t.  I made copies of each narrative last night so I will always have that to reflect upon.  It just goes to show you that these kids are perfectly capable of achieving great things in a short amount of time.  Just push them a little bit, give them the right motivation and they’ll blow your mind.  I love my job.

Also, I love the smoothie I just had for breakfast!  Why haven’t I been drinking these all along?  And guess what they finally gave us for lunch?  TURKEY ON WHEAT BREAD!!!  Hallelujah.  Three days left and they finally get it right.

Everyone has bad days here at Institute.  You don’t sleep the night before, they’re all out of ice packs for your lunch box by the time you get down there, your kids organize a malicious mutiny, and you get tracked for dozing off in your CS session.  Well kids, I think I have you beat.

I woke up at my usual 5:27am feeling so sick I could hardly move.  My only motivation was to get out of bed in time to make it to the bathroom to throw up.  It might have been nerves.  I knew this morning was going to be tough.  My collaborative worked hard this weekend to organize our classroom “talk” about racism and respect in hopes to educate them an prevent more incidences like last Thursdays.  I was nervous, sure.  But I didn’t think I’d react like that.  I forced a bagel down and felt OK, then drove my collaborative to Jackson.

Yeah, oops, I lost my kids’ rough drafts.  What the hell?  I had them at the bar on Thursday during my collab meeting, but I hadn’t seen them since.  They weren’t in my room (I drove BACK to Moody to look), they weren’t in Pearland, and they weren’t at the bar.  So basically they were gone.  My lesson today?  Peer editing.  Sans rough drafts.  Yeah, this is where I get REALLY good at winging it.  I had a kickass Revision Checklist for them to use and they ended up writing some really strong new RD’s.  All was well.

But before that even happened, we had to have “The Talk.”  It was quite organized.  We sat in a circle, and we passed around the notebook so they could all see why we were there.  We then had them all stand up and do a gallery walk around the classroom to look at pictures representing discrimination and civil rights.  We then had them reflect on what they saw.  Two students I spied on wrote nothing more than,  “These pictures mean nothing to me.”  Cute.  We went on to explain to them how powerful our words can be and how we have to make a choice every day whether we are going to use them to build people up or knock people down.  We talked about the Mexican American movement and the ever-growing anti-immigration sentiment in our country.  We flashed words like “Spick” and “Wetback” across a power point and asked them how it made them feel when people called them that.  We were really starting to get somewhere.

AND THEN.

And then the student whose notebook was vandalized had a seizure.  At first none of us knew what was going on, but then we remembered her telling us that she suffers from chronic seizures.  In a flash we had the rest of the class in the cafeteria and the paramedics on the scene.  It all happened very fast, but it was horrible.  My first thought was that we had stressed her out so much that we caused it.  All of the students thought that their words had caused it.  Turns out she hadn’t taken her medication since Saturday, but there’s still a part of me that wonders if maybe we contributed something to her fit.  It took her forever to regain consciousness, and even when she was finally responding she seemed out of it.  Her head was killing her and she wouldn’t look anyone in the eye.  I am so glad that all 5 teachers AND Aisha were in the room at the time.  It could have been a lot worse, but I’ll never get that image out of my head.  Fortunately she is doing just fine and will be back in school tomorrow.  I have a stack of letters from her classmates to give her.  Hopefully things will be different for her from now on.  I hope those kids treat her like a human from now on, and I hope that she can finally feel safe and equal among her classmates.

So what do you do after a day like today?  You go out with 15 of your best friends and eat large quantities of Tapas and drink bottomless Sangria. That’s what you do.  And that’s what I did.  I love my CMA group more than anything.  I can’t imagine what Institute would have been like without them.  We made a pact tonight to stay in touch no matter what after we all part ways on Friday.  Some of us are going all the way to Hawaii, others to The Valley, Denver, or St. Louis, and a few of us are lucky enough to stay right here in Houston.  I am so, so blessed.

Also, I LOVE Jackson Staff.  I love all of the CMAs who were so incredibly supportive of my collaborative today, I love our CS Sam and LS Nella for letting us miss their sessions so we could be with our kids, I love Eric for being on the scene in RECORD time (seriously, I don’t know how he does it), and I absolutely love Aisha more than anything for being as strong as she is.  The 5 of us can go in there and say what we want to say, but the second she opens her mouth, everyone within earshot shuts up and listens.  She has a real presence in the classroom.  I know I won’t get that in 4 weeks, but I can only hope that I’m half the teacher she is some day.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jackson MS.  XOX.

P.S.  Shout out to The Lukes for sending me a care package of healthy goodies!!!!!!  It’s like the little box from Heaven!  Everyone on my floor is SO jealous.  I promise a phone call ASAP to deliver a more appropriate thank you.  Somehow the time between 4pm and 12:30am just slips away from me and I forget about the real life stuff.  Calling parents, making appointments, paying bills, wedding stuff…there’s always tomorrow.

Every night, Alaina and I walk through the Moody Commons to watch the “crazies.”  These so-called “crazies” are the ones who are working relentlessly on their lesson plans, collaborating, and studying.  It doesn’t sound so bad, but it’s like watching a feeding frenzy.  Every face is panic-stricken.  There will undoubtedly be tears.  And for some sick disturbing reason, watching these people freak out makes Alaina and me feel better.  We’re not freaking out, our LP’s are pretty awesome, and we’re probably going to sleep before 2am.

I always prided myself on not crying.  If my kids were especially rude one day, I wouldn’t let it get to me.  If I’m still up at 2:30am, I’m not going to cry about it.  No matter how bad it gets, I refuse to shed a tear.  I’m having too much fun to cry about it.  But they broke me today.  For the first time all summer, I was the girl in the TFA office at the end of the day crying to Aisha and Eric.

The writing teacher has a really cool job.  We get to read some of the innermost thoughts that our kids have in their little prepubescent heads.  We have a rapport with our students that no other teacher could have.  I’m also fortunate enough to get to eat lunch with my kids every day.  Needless to say, I feel like I know a lot about them.  I especially feel close to one of my students who tends to get picked on a lot during the day.  She’s a very smart, very bright, very enthusiastic girl who loves to talk about anything and everything that comes to mind.  She’s also African American.  One of the few non-Latino/Hispanic students at Jackson.  The kids tease her relentlessly.

Today during their 5th period class, a few of the students decided to write some horribly offensive and malicious racial words on this girl’s spiral.  Her teacher immediately ripped the front and back covers off and went on with her class, but brought it to our attention right after class.  Our collaborative took the evidence to Aisha and Eric (the school director and the operations manager) and filled them in on everything.  Within minutes half of the room was in tears.  Of course I knew that these things happen in our schools.  We learned all about it from our Curriculum Specialist.  But when you actually see it, and when it actually happens to one of ‘your’ kids, it’s the worst feeling in the universe.  This girl has enough on her plate when she gets home every day.  Then she comes to school and gets called words that no 6th grader (or anyone, for that matter) should be saying.  She has no safety net.  Everywhere she goes she’s in danger of getting put down.  This constant injury has made her violent, and she’s been in trouble many times this summer for hitting people.  But how can I yell at her now when she hits someone who has been calling her these names?

We’re taking action on Monday, but I wish we could do something about it now.  I don’t know I’ll be able to relax and enjoy my long weekend when I’ll be constantly worrying about my student.  Especially when we think we know who it is.  When we find out who’s responsible, they had better tie me down.

I feel like I let it go too far.  I’ve watched them tease her all summer, and I haven’t done enough to stop it.  I’ve never heard anyone say something racially offensive to her, but I’ve seen how much it gets to her when they make fun of her hair or how big a nerd she is.  I’ve even pulled a few of them aside and tried to reason with them.  I tell them about how I still remember things people said to me when I was in middle school.  They forget about it 5 minutes later, but I still remember it a decade later.  Clearly that didn’t work.  I feel like I’ve been so caught up in protocols and classroom management strategies that I forget the reality of the situation.  I guess I just never knew how bad it could get.

On a more positive note, I am so blessed to have the team that I have at Jackson.  Our entire staff is incredible.  They’re brilliant, passionate people who have answers for everything.  I want to BE Aisha when I grow up.  I’m so lucky to have people like her to guide me and lead me this summer.  If I’m half as good a teacher as Aisha, I’ll feel like I have succeeded.

As I start my third week in the classroom, I have a lot of things going through my head.  First of all, we started rough drafts on Friday.  Even after countless lessons on Narrative Writing, only a handful of my students actually produced what I would call a narrative.  Others almost made it, but most missed the mark entirely.  Where did I go wrong?  At what point did I lose them?

On another note, reading these narratives has been a real eye opener.  Yeah, I know these kids are from a tough neighborhood, but some of the things I’m reading are shocking.  It’s humbling to hear how much these 12 year old kids have been through already.  How can I possibly stand in front of them and tell them that their story about their mother leaving them is actually structured more as an informative essay than a narrative?  I want to scoop them up and bring them back to my castle in Pearland and give them all the attention they deserve.  I also want to sit a few of them down in a corner and yell at them for sneaking out in the middle of the night to go see a fight at the cemetery.  But that’s not my job.  I have to find the line between teacher and parent.  I didn’t think it would be this hard.

Every person on the TFA staff has warned us not to get too involved.  It does more harm than good.  We have to teach them how to be better people and make good choices for themselves.  We’re not supposed to step in and assume the role of Mom or Dad.  But when I know what these kids are going home to, when I read the notes I confiscate during class, and when they tell me all about their difficult lives through their narratives, what CAN I do?

On a lighter note, this weekend did me a world of good.  I slept for 14 hours on Friday night, had a wonderful anniversary with Ryan, and got to spend a lot of time with my family.  It’s nice to relax and forget for a while, but it’s also nice to be back in action.  I can’t wait to get into my classroom today and see what else my students can do.  The best part of my day comes in the 30 minutes after class when I’m reading their assessments.  I get to see exactly how much I taught them, and they get to show off how brilliant they are.  Have I mentioned lately that my students are geniuses?  Because they are.

This morning, Wednesday June the 25th, marks a milestone in my Institute experience.  That’s right.  It’s Half Way Day.  For the past 2.5 weeks I have lived, breathed, and loved TFA.  Part of me is thinking, “Just another 2.5 weeks?  Psh, I got this.”  But the other, ‘bigger’ part of me is thinking, “Just another 2.5 weeks…?  That’s not enough time…”  I have to make it enough time.

This week we delved into something that boggles many an English pro: Simple, compound, and complex sentences.  For the past 2 days my students have been trying to differentiate between FANBOYS and AAAWWUBBIS.  You think it’s easy?  Sure.  Most of us can probably look at a sentence and say, “Hmm.  Two simple sentences?  Comma, conjunction?  Compound.  Bam.” or “Simple sentence with a dependent clause?  Complex.  In the bank.”  But try explaining them to 24 12 year olds who barely know what a subject and a verb are.  Not so easy any more.

I learned two major things from this.  First, I need to plan more purposefully so that I can execute more effectively.  I can’t rely on my prior knowledge to get me through a lesson.  I have to practice.  I have to think ahead and anticipate misunderstandings.  I have to cater to every kind of learner, and I have to make them PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.  When I’m comfortable with the 6th grade explanation, then I teach it much better.

Second, I have got to get behavior under control.  Are they bad students?  No.  Not at all.  As a matter of fact, they were little angels yesterday (comparatively).  I started off the class with an awesome quote, had them respond to it in their journals, and then tell them that  I know how tough this stuff is, but we’re not going to stop until everyone gets it.  I call this “Ms. Teater’s No Child Left Behind Act.”  Today we’re moving on, but not until I finally assess them on their progress via a Pop Quiz.  I know, it sounds mean, but I finally realize why teachers do this.  Not to torture the students, but to make sure no one’s getting left in the dust.

I sit with my kids every day at lunch.  We talk about my dog, we talk about their dramatic little 12 year old lives, and we talk about writing.  “Having a rough day?   Write it out.”  I love being a writing teacher.  Progression-wise, I’ve seen everyone improve since their diagnostic.  A couple of them have already met and surpassed their summer goals!  But that’s just a couple.  Out of 24.  Friday, while they write their rough drafts, we’re going to have individual conferences so everyone knows where they stand.  We’ll start at lunch, but I don’t want anyone in the dark about their progress towards their goal.  Hopefully they’ll use this as motivation to really push these next couple of weeks and write outstanding narratives.

On a non-TFA-related note, this weekend Ryan and I are celebrating our anniversary.  It’s hard to believe I’ve only been with the man of my dreams for one year.  What did I do before him?  I don’t even remember.

I’m gonna be honest.  Institute is tough.  It’s rigorous, it’s demanding, it’s emotional, it’s exhausting.  Yesterday I learned that many of my colleagues have decided to leave Teach For America.  It’s not even Week 3 yet and people are throwing in the towel.  It made me really appreciate the difficulty of what we’re all doing here.  20 people have decided to leave.  Many more are ticking bombs.  I see at least 10 emotional breakdowns every day.  Bouts of, “I can’t do this” or “This is too much.”  I’ve somehow managed to maintain sanity throughout all of this.  Probably because I have a safe haven in Pearland to retreat to when Moody gets to be too much.  (Sometimes you just don’t want to be around all the stress and tension.)
Today is Friday.  Week One - CHECK.  Here’s hoping next week is even better than this week.  Here’s hoping my students actually learned something.  I had a breakthrough with one student yesterday.  She gets overwhelmed by new material and gives up, but once I helped her through it one-on-one she got it.  She filled out her whole worksheet alone.  And I had my first parent-teacher conference.  I love it when parents get involved.

I’m off to the races.  TGIF.

I realize I haven’t written anything in a while.  Mostly because I haven’t had a second to myself since…wait…what’s today?

A quick recap before I get back to my amazing lesson plans.  My first day was…an experience.  All I did was give them rules and a test.  Grading the diagnostics certainly validated our being here this summer.  My little 6th graders are smart, they just don’t know the material.  Yet.

My first “real” day was a lesson on the writing process, aka the most boring lesson in the world.  I tried to make it interesting, and they seemed to be on board for the most part, but I felt like I was pulling teeth.  They were confused, they were discouraged, and I felt like a failure.  If they don’t “get it” it’s not their fault - it’s mine.  My 26 6th graders ‘want’ to be 7th graders and they ‘want’ to learn, they just need to be taught.

I was relieved to find, upon grading their assessments, that they actually learned something on Tuesday.  They nailed the writing process!  Confused as they seemed, something must have clicked.  With that experience under my belt, I made today’s lesson on narrative writing SUPER awesome.  It was interactive, they were participating, their hands were shooting up every time I asked a question, it felt great.  I’m starting to feel like a teacher.

I do have a handful of students who certainly don’t belong in my class.  They are acing the material.  One student in particular, Rudy, is so bored that he refuses to participate or do his work.  Rudy is my favorite.  He’s sassy, he’s stubborn, and he’s absolutely brilliant.  I just have to drag it out of him.  He now sits right in front of me where I can keep an eye on him and ask him the more challenging questions.  Yesterday he turned in a blank assessment.  After a little talk today, he turned in a half-blank assessment.  We’ll see what tomorrow holds!

I’m more tired than I have ever been in my life.  Some people on my floor are already starting to crack.  I might be up until 2 every night and up at 5:25 every morning (breakfast is at 5:30) but I’m finally doing something that I’m 100% committed to.  If I didn’t love every second of this, I’d be crying on the phone to my parents every night, too.  I have heard many a horror story about Institute in my day, but I hope my story will be one of success and inspiration.  The first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, my body aching and my eyes heavy, I think about the day my students all pass the 6th grade and become 7th graders.  That’s why I teach.  I teach for Alexi, who has yet to say a word in my class, I teach for Rudy, who I WILL inspire to write, and I teach for Flor, who is brilliant but too embarrassed to let her true potential show.  I love these kids.  Every day, I can’t wait for tomorrow.

P.S.  The bathrooms are finally tolerable.  I still wear flops in the shower, but Moody is growing on me.  (As Ryan so sweetly put it, “In the form of a fungus.”)

My attitude when I walked into Moody on Sunday was one of confidence.  “I’ve got this.”  I’ve been singing TFA’s praises for a year now.  I know the stats backwards and forwards, I know the alumni and have talked to them, I know just about everything there is to know about this.  I felt like a pro on Sunday.  I thought I knew everything.  This week I realized that there’s much more to this than just regurgitating numbers and heartwarming alumni success stories.  In four short days, I have to walk into a classroom.  From that moment on, I am responsible for the futures of 26 twelve-year-olds.  I am responsible for teaching them enough to advance them to the 7th grade.  If they don’t learn what they need to from me, they go back to 6th grade.  No pressure, or anything.

During all of my informational sessions this week I have felt really good about teaching.  I understood the concepts, I got it, I wasn’t exhausted, I was excited, and I felt ready.  Today that came to a screeching halt.  It finally occurred to me that there’s more to all of this than just “getting it” and writing fabulous flawless lesson plans.  I have to actually present it to 26 6th graders.  That’s the trick.  We watched some videos of incredible teachers today.  One teacher in particular had a class full of 3rd graders, and he got them so excited about learning that they actually WANTED more homework.  They were practically wriggling out of their seats with anticipation.  It was the most incredible thing I have ever seen.  I felt inspired for about 30 seconds before that warm tingly feeling turned to utter terror.

I think I would feel better if I actually got to see my classroom before I walk into it for the first time on Monday.  Unfortunately, I’ll be leaving early tomorrow for a wedding and won’t get to set up my room with the everyone else.  I feel so unprepared.  They threw all of this information at me, asked me to do all this preparation, and I don’t have the weekend to focus on any of it.  Have I mentioned the terror yet?  I wish I could have some sort of mental reference for my room.  Where will my desk be?  How will the seats be arranged?  Where will my table be for Writing Journals and Exit Tickets?  Where will I hang my posters?
It’s day 4 of Institute and I’m already finishing off my second 12 pack of Diet Cream Soda.  I think I’m beginning to develop an unhealthy addiction.  I need to stop blogging and get back to my Rules and Procedures.  My Faculty Adviser pretty much scared the crap out of me in a matter of seconds today.  Really, I think I was feeling pretty good until she informed me that they’ll eat me alive if they sense the slightest bit of weakness.  Awesome.  Thanks, Faculty Adviser.  That’s awesome.

In conclusion, the bathrooms at Moody still suck and my room smells like feet.

First, I would like to begin with an open letter to the University of Houston Drumline:

PLEASE STOP PRACTICING OUTSIDE OF MY DORM AT 9:00 AT NIGHT.  NO, SERIOUSLY.  I WANT TO DIE.  THANK YOU.

They’re so loud my window is vibrating.  I’m blasting some Damien Rice to try to calm my nerves, but I have a feeling that if this continues for the next 5 weeks they’re going to have to put me on suicide watch.

Besides this unpleasant interruption, today was really quite miraculous.  It started at 5:00am.  I woke up before my alarm, too excited to sleep.  Alaina and I hit the cafeteria for some delicious breakfast, but I couldn’t find a whole grain to save my life.  How do they expect us to become successful teachers if we start our days with glazed danishes and sugared cereal?!  I think it’s time for me to make a run to Randall’s for some wheat bread.  This girl can’t eat hard boiled eggs for breakfast every day.

I won’t even get into the lunch and dinner situation here.  This isn’t about food, after all, it’s about becoming a teacher.  Which I’m one day closer to doing!  We loaded up the HISD buses and drove the 3 miles to Jackson Middle School.  Much to my surprise, it was a beautiful facility.  Old?  Yes.  But really lovely.  That said, I had the opportunity to observe a veteran teacher and realized why we’re there.  The students are completely unmotivated.  I had to remind myself that it’s their summer vacation and they’re stuck in a classroom at 8am, but I swear half of them were sleeping sitting up.  When asked to read a prompt aloud, some of them read very well.  Others struggled with words like “paw” and “Appalachian” like they had never seen them before.  I wanted so badly to jump up there, but I’ll just have to wait my turn.

After my observation, my day was filled with informative sessions with our Curriculum Adviser and Literacy Specialist.  I’m beginning to feel more ready to be in front of the classroom.  I found out today that I will be teaching 6th grade, which is SO exciting!  If I get the job at Pilgrim for the Fall, I’ll be teaching 6th graders.  This will give me some invaluable insight into what these kids are like.

I can’t wait to get back to Jackson tomorrow.  We’re finally going to talk about Lesson Planning so we can make one on our own for next week.  I believe we’ll be meeting our Collaborative, as well.  Each class of kids travels to the different subjects together, so my students will have all of the same classes.  Their other teachers will be my Collaborative for the next 5 weeks.  I can’t wait!
I joined the campus gym today.  Secret: I only joined it so I can take advantage of their glorious clean showers.  I’m pretty sure if I keep showering at Moody I’m going to catch something.  Like ringworm.  It’s a great gym, though, and I have a feeling I’ll need that outlet in the next few weeks.  Right now my biggest problem is my dwindling Diet Cream Soda supply. Only two left.  I really need to learn how to ration.

Well, fortunately the food isn’t as bad as the bathrooms.  Actually, it was quite good!  The breakfast was relatively healthy, though we all learned the hard way that we should probably get to the cafeteria earlier.  After breakfast, we packed our lunches (read: crappy sandwiches and cookies) and started a looong day of motivational speaking.  Today I also learned some more TFA lingo.  After a year of RAs, RDs, SOPs, CAs, SLX, etc, I got to expand my acronym vocabulary.  I met my CMA, CA, CS, and LS…or something like that.

After dinner, I tried my darndest to download the latest episode of The Office, but failed.  Then we headed over to the Welcoming Ceremony, which leaned slightly toward a cult rally.  There were cheers, there was yelling, there was more motivational speaking, but the best part was our “surprise guest.”  Of course we all knew Wendy would be there, but I had never actually heard her speak before.  Hearing about our movement from the woman who first envisioned it was truly inspiring.  I was pretty psyched before, but the excitement of the TFA staff and all the other CMs (corps members) is truly contagious.

Tomorrow morning at 6:52 I hop on an HISD bus and go to Jackson Middle School to teach, get this, WRITING.  Could my summer school placement be any more perfect?  My CMA (corps member adviser) is also an avid writer, and I love her already.  I can’t wait.  Now if only I could hear back from my interview…