All in all, I would say that this year was a success...
Next year... Let's turn it up.
Monday 31 December 2007
Saturday 29 December 2007
Reading Outstanding Unusual Stories (ROUS’s):
I am reading my kids another book for our read aloud. There are literally dozens of (and probably hundreds of if I REALLY tried) great books that I want to read my kids. Having no experience to draw on, and a stubborn penchant for doing things my way, I settled on a personal favorite of mine. I wanted to choose a book that I doubted any other teacher they would have would have them read. I wanted to use literature to teach my kids lessons while also offering the blissful escapism of a fairytale fantasy into imagination. I chose a book that was made into not just a movie, but one of the greatest kids’ movies of all time.
After hours of searching, I could not find Crossroads (starring Britney Spears) the book. So I had to go with my second choice.
My kids and I are reading the Mr. B abridged and “translated” version of The Princess Bride. It would be Inconceivable to read that book to my class without a fair amount of translating and over explanation due to their vocabularies (which have very little exposure to archaic tounge in cheeck old english) . However, If you can read at a sixth grade level or above and need/want a book to read that will make easy smiles, then I cannot recommend this book enough. My kids often BEG me to keep reading, and the more time one spends with Dread Pirates, Beautifullest Women, Inego and Fezzik the better life will be. It might not change your life in a big way, but it will make your life happier for awhile, and you never know, it might give you ideas for finding your own slices of long term happiness and taking lessons on taking life urgently, while not taking one’s self too seriously.
After all there may be rocks ahead.
And if there are, we’ll all be dead.
After hours of searching, I could not find Crossroads (starring Britney Spears) the book. So I had to go with my second choice.
My kids and I are reading the Mr. B abridged and “translated” version of The Princess Bride. It would be Inconceivable to read that book to my class without a fair amount of translating and over explanation due to their vocabularies (which have very little exposure to archaic tounge in cheeck old english) . However, If you can read at a sixth grade level or above and need/want a book to read that will make easy smiles, then I cannot recommend this book enough. My kids often BEG me to keep reading, and the more time one spends with Dread Pirates, Beautifullest Women, Inego and Fezzik the better life will be. It might not change your life in a big way, but it will make your life happier for awhile, and you never know, it might give you ideas for finding your own slices of long term happiness and taking lessons on taking life urgently, while not taking one’s self too seriously.
After all there may be rocks ahead.
And if there are, we’ll all be dead.
Barely (self) contained insanity.
Teaching all of the subjects really exposes one’s weaknesses as a teacher and the lessons I teach by. It also allows one to find deeper hidden strengths that they are unaware of. Regardless of my status as self contained or departmentalized I have no problem from prepositions nor ending sentences them with.
I am now a self contained teacher. I am far from veteran, but I have earned my stripes. Albeit a first year self contained teacher. But regardless of my experience level, or ability level, I have completed a full 9 week grading period as a self contained teacher, and could hardly see switching back at this point. Despite my parents’ and teachers’ best efforts, I never got very good at sharing things that are important to me. And few things are more important to me than the 28 hilarious, frustrating, draining, inspiring, inexplicable, wonderful 5th graders that now wake me up virtually every night with fearful dreams that they are getting into even worse trouble, getting pregnant, getting nowhere, or even worse getting set back because of the bumbling nature of my first year teaching style. Their smiles, hopes and dreams stay with me as my conscious and sub conscious grade my daily progress and reflect in weird ways on what has been going on in my classroom. A couple weeks ago after making my first totally me based decision in weeks and going to a Ben Lee concert on a Thursday night, I dreamt I was trying to teach all of my students who were now 16 to drive trucks. They kept crashing into each other because I had taught them to use the radio before I taught them where the break was. Sometimes in retrospect Mr. B’s priorities are not where they maybe should be. But when I woke up and reflected in the shower (easy ladies…) about the dream, I realized that no one had gotten seriously hurt, and maybe music is worth a few dings and bumps. Or maybe I am as good at justifying my actions as my kids are at doing the Crank dat Soulja Boy dance. Well accept Sara and Oscar, I can justify way better than that.
For the few people that read this that aren’t fully versed in teacher lingo- self contained means that I have my kids all day accept for 50 minutes a day when they are at ancillary (music, gym, library, or computer lab).
This means I start with 20 minutes for morning math warm ups, and homework checking, then I go to science lab where I co-teach lab on Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Fri. After that we go the bathroom then have math from 9:15-10:25. This, for a few weeks was a disaster of Spears family proportions. At 10:25 I take my kids to ancillary. This is supposed to be my planning period. Hopefully soon I will use it to tutor and plan. But now I am generally running around cursing my lack of materials, going Office Space on the copier, and attending asinine meetings with various members of the staff that don’t have anything to do with me. (example one: I “got to” attend a meeting between the bus company and the police office. Generally not connected to what a homeroom teacher does. But arguably useful to know. However, HISD busses do not service my school. If I was the type of teacher that wore panties, this meeting would have had them in a bundle. However, since I do not, I was just crabby for awhile. My afternoon lesson did not have copies of the poem I wanted to look at with my kids because I had to learn about what the cops do with high schoolers that ride the bus with guns.
The hardest part of switching to self contained was not rocking at what I do. For the first 4 weeks I would generally give 5 lessons a day plus 2 different lessons at tutorials. This means that on average I would have time to plan one really good lesson, 3 decent ones, and 2 boring but decent ones, and 1 real bad lesson. Then I would have the energy to merely poorly execute them all. Every week has gotten better since then, I am becoming more efficient, I had the chance to observe at a really good school (with the same student population- My second observation was at a very rich, well funded suburban school and it was hardly useful since the students didn’t have any of the same management problems that my students have, and came in on average on grade levels with larger vocabularies… that is not saying teaching there is easy, but their management and lessons and strategies were less appropriate. I just HAVE to cover more material each year. And have to figure out ways to give students without safe homes or educated parents ways to get homework and be able to do it even though they have so much to worry about.) This school gave me lots of ideas, and slowly my students have been crawling towards progress, and slowly their teacher has been crawling towards becoming a teacher and Christmas break. Equally excited about each of them.
I am now a self contained teacher. I am far from veteran, but I have earned my stripes. Albeit a first year self contained teacher. But regardless of my experience level, or ability level, I have completed a full 9 week grading period as a self contained teacher, and could hardly see switching back at this point. Despite my parents’ and teachers’ best efforts, I never got very good at sharing things that are important to me. And few things are more important to me than the 28 hilarious, frustrating, draining, inspiring, inexplicable, wonderful 5th graders that now wake me up virtually every night with fearful dreams that they are getting into even worse trouble, getting pregnant, getting nowhere, or even worse getting set back because of the bumbling nature of my first year teaching style. Their smiles, hopes and dreams stay with me as my conscious and sub conscious grade my daily progress and reflect in weird ways on what has been going on in my classroom. A couple weeks ago after making my first totally me based decision in weeks and going to a Ben Lee concert on a Thursday night, I dreamt I was trying to teach all of my students who were now 16 to drive trucks. They kept crashing into each other because I had taught them to use the radio before I taught them where the break was. Sometimes in retrospect Mr. B’s priorities are not where they maybe should be. But when I woke up and reflected in the shower (easy ladies…) about the dream, I realized that no one had gotten seriously hurt, and maybe music is worth a few dings and bumps. Or maybe I am as good at justifying my actions as my kids are at doing the Crank dat Soulja Boy dance. Well accept Sara and Oscar, I can justify way better than that.
For the few people that read this that aren’t fully versed in teacher lingo- self contained means that I have my kids all day accept for 50 minutes a day when they are at ancillary (music, gym, library, or computer lab).
This means I start with 20 minutes for morning math warm ups, and homework checking, then I go to science lab where I co-teach lab on Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Fri. After that we go the bathroom then have math from 9:15-10:25. This, for a few weeks was a disaster of Spears family proportions. At 10:25 I take my kids to ancillary. This is supposed to be my planning period. Hopefully soon I will use it to tutor and plan. But now I am generally running around cursing my lack of materials, going Office Space on the copier, and attending asinine meetings with various members of the staff that don’t have anything to do with me. (example one: I “got to” attend a meeting between the bus company and the police office. Generally not connected to what a homeroom teacher does. But arguably useful to know. However, HISD busses do not service my school. If I was the type of teacher that wore panties, this meeting would have had them in a bundle. However, since I do not, I was just crabby for awhile. My afternoon lesson did not have copies of the poem I wanted to look at with my kids because I had to learn about what the cops do with high schoolers that ride the bus with guns.
The hardest part of switching to self contained was not rocking at what I do. For the first 4 weeks I would generally give 5 lessons a day plus 2 different lessons at tutorials. This means that on average I would have time to plan one really good lesson, 3 decent ones, and 2 boring but decent ones, and 1 real bad lesson. Then I would have the energy to merely poorly execute them all. Every week has gotten better since then, I am becoming more efficient, I had the chance to observe at a really good school (with the same student population- My second observation was at a very rich, well funded suburban school and it was hardly useful since the students didn’t have any of the same management problems that my students have, and came in on average on grade levels with larger vocabularies… that is not saying teaching there is easy, but their management and lessons and strategies were less appropriate. I just HAVE to cover more material each year. And have to figure out ways to give students without safe homes or educated parents ways to get homework and be able to do it even though they have so much to worry about.) This school gave me lots of ideas, and slowly my students have been crawling towards progress, and slowly their teacher has been crawling towards becoming a teacher and Christmas break. Equally excited about each of them.
Closing the experience gap.
This is the Texas I imagined. For the first time since getting to Texas, I whittled yesterday.
It was great. I got to turn a bigger stick into a smaller stick that had less bark and was all chipped up. While wood peels in tiny curls and chips at my feet, clouds ambled past in the light blue December afternoon sky. Front porch sitting, whittling, listening to the birds sing and the Whipsaws play on the stereo: this is the Texas I imagined- December 18th brought 65 degrees and a slight breeze.
This is the Texas I imagined. Well, minus the six shooters, dancing girls, swinging doors, cacti, high school football (“I don’t wan tchyorelife!”), and whisky that flows like wine. But it is pretty close. Close enough to have a permanent smile permeate back into the deeper places of my soul that had been leased out to stress, others’ needs, inexperience, lack of sleep, and heartache: you know- life.
I am with my class at Camp Olympia, HISD’s Outdoor Education Center. I could not think of a better way to segue into break. It is a 3 day long camp about 2.5 hours outside of Houston where my kids get the chance to meet other schools, go canoeing, orienteer, horseback ride, shoot arrows, play night games, look at stars (which have been erased from the skies as effectively as the fifth ward has erased innocence from most of my kids’ lives), clean up after themselves, find bugs in water, and become kids again surrounded by nature.
We arrived at camp and pulled up a long wooded driveway and parked in a clearing- 20 seconds later the counselors ambled onto the busses introduced themselves and told us teachers to wander off. This week, we- the 5th grade staff- have had NO responsibility other than chaperone the bus rides at the beginning and end of the week. So, my team has had campfires, watched the kids, planned science collaboration for next year: Science is a major weak point for our kids, and just taken in the wonder of it all. We have smiled more, and gotten the chance to follow our kids around, falling back in love with them as people. Also, Danielle, Johnnie and I have realized how awesome our kids really are and the exhausted smiles and wonderment when we see them in the dining hall or when we join them for a moment is so filled with love, that it totally invigorates me to plan over break and return from break closer to the teacher the kids deserve. Due to this week, I am actually going to be going into a vacation not MASSIVLEY sleep deprived for the first time since probably eighth grade. Neat.
The kids learning to canoe might have been the funniest thing I have seen ever. They were given a 20 minute land course on the basics, and then a 10 minute safety quiz and then broken into pairs and put into boats. What ensued was pure chaos. Kids holding paddles backwards, going in circles, bumping into each other, paddling the wrong direction, only getting the hang of reverse, losing paddles, getting blown against the shore by the wind, and many other little emergencies signal by screams, giggles, and blushing. Then after about 40% of the kids had communicated and adapted enough to be able to generally move forward within 90 degrees of where they were aiming the safety row boat counselor Captain Wood started throwing nerf footballs for them to fetch. This reduced even the good canoes back to the original state of ineffectiveness. But several kids adapted. JJ and Peloca gave up on paddles and used hands. Oscar and Miko perfected the crab-noe which goes straight sideways. And one canoe I didn’t know only went backwards, but they were the fastest canoe out there. The high point though came with about 5 minutes left. The students were to stay within a large buoyed in swimming area with their 10 canoes and were told many times to stay in the buoys. One canoe with a pair of boys in it (unfortunately I didn’t know them either) lost control and went past the buoys and panicked as their canoe drifted at a 45 degree angels outside they start paddling frantically which only made them spin and go a little bit further out and so they did the only logical thing in 50 degree water in December. They screamed and jumped back towards the buoys. I thought I was never going to stop laughing. The rescue boat had his hands full for a bit, but in the end it all worked out, we got the boys some cocoa and I have a memory that will plant smiles in me for a long time.
There are 3 schools here and the kids are broken up into groups by the camp, and removed from their cliques and junior gangs and close friends and dumped into a loving environment. It was like slowly over the time here the fresh air, nature, and lack of people holding them in preconceived roles chipped away at scared adolescent chrysalises and most of our kids have ruddy (though dark) faces glowing like a diverse rainbow of monarchs flying outside of a greenhouse for the first time.
I only hope that after Christmas Break I can hold onto these memories and channel some of this energy back into the classroom. My kids have been learning so much and don’t even know it yet. If I can create that in my classroom even once a week, I will be taking baby steps towards being the teacher I want to be. And even if after break the energy is all gone and the kids won’t bring it break- they fro 3 days got to experience something that they otherwise never would have- the type of childhood that has summer camp, the wonder of nature, and the realization that we are a small and valuable part of something much larger than ourselves. This is demonstrated by wide exausted eyes, and a new found voulonteering to help clean up FOR OTHERS (J) after meals. Wow.
I reckon I gotta run meet the chilluns’ we is packin’ up and we might could leave soon! Y’all come back now ya hear! This is the Texas I imagined.
Ps- As I am publishing this ( a couple weeks after writing it), an Atmosphere song came on and here is a lyric that resonated with me:
“Surrounding are gonna dictate the need. I’m out I wanna live around lakes and trees.”
When I am done in Houston- I need to get back to be surrounded by nature.
It was great. I got to turn a bigger stick into a smaller stick that had less bark and was all chipped up. While wood peels in tiny curls and chips at my feet, clouds ambled past in the light blue December afternoon sky. Front porch sitting, whittling, listening to the birds sing and the Whipsaws play on the stereo: this is the Texas I imagined- December 18th brought 65 degrees and a slight breeze.
This is the Texas I imagined. Well, minus the six shooters, dancing girls, swinging doors, cacti, high school football (“I don’t wan tchyorelife!”), and whisky that flows like wine. But it is pretty close. Close enough to have a permanent smile permeate back into the deeper places of my soul that had been leased out to stress, others’ needs, inexperience, lack of sleep, and heartache: you know- life.
I am with my class at Camp Olympia, HISD’s Outdoor Education Center. I could not think of a better way to segue into break. It is a 3 day long camp about 2.5 hours outside of Houston where my kids get the chance to meet other schools, go canoeing, orienteer, horseback ride, shoot arrows, play night games, look at stars (which have been erased from the skies as effectively as the fifth ward has erased innocence from most of my kids’ lives), clean up after themselves, find bugs in water, and become kids again surrounded by nature.
We arrived at camp and pulled up a long wooded driveway and parked in a clearing- 20 seconds later the counselors ambled onto the busses introduced themselves and told us teachers to wander off. This week, we- the 5th grade staff- have had NO responsibility other than chaperone the bus rides at the beginning and end of the week. So, my team has had campfires, watched the kids, planned science collaboration for next year: Science is a major weak point for our kids, and just taken in the wonder of it all. We have smiled more, and gotten the chance to follow our kids around, falling back in love with them as people. Also, Danielle, Johnnie and I have realized how awesome our kids really are and the exhausted smiles and wonderment when we see them in the dining hall or when we join them for a moment is so filled with love, that it totally invigorates me to plan over break and return from break closer to the teacher the kids deserve. Due to this week, I am actually going to be going into a vacation not MASSIVLEY sleep deprived for the first time since probably eighth grade. Neat.
The kids learning to canoe might have been the funniest thing I have seen ever. They were given a 20 minute land course on the basics, and then a 10 minute safety quiz and then broken into pairs and put into boats. What ensued was pure chaos. Kids holding paddles backwards, going in circles, bumping into each other, paddling the wrong direction, only getting the hang of reverse, losing paddles, getting blown against the shore by the wind, and many other little emergencies signal by screams, giggles, and blushing. Then after about 40% of the kids had communicated and adapted enough to be able to generally move forward within 90 degrees of where they were aiming the safety row boat counselor Captain Wood started throwing nerf footballs for them to fetch. This reduced even the good canoes back to the original state of ineffectiveness. But several kids adapted. JJ and Peloca gave up on paddles and used hands. Oscar and Miko perfected the crab-noe which goes straight sideways. And one canoe I didn’t know only went backwards, but they were the fastest canoe out there. The high point though came with about 5 minutes left. The students were to stay within a large buoyed in swimming area with their 10 canoes and were told many times to stay in the buoys. One canoe with a pair of boys in it (unfortunately I didn’t know them either) lost control and went past the buoys and panicked as their canoe drifted at a 45 degree angels outside they start paddling frantically which only made them spin and go a little bit further out and so they did the only logical thing in 50 degree water in December. They screamed and jumped back towards the buoys. I thought I was never going to stop laughing. The rescue boat had his hands full for a bit, but in the end it all worked out, we got the boys some cocoa and I have a memory that will plant smiles in me for a long time.
There are 3 schools here and the kids are broken up into groups by the camp, and removed from their cliques and junior gangs and close friends and dumped into a loving environment. It was like slowly over the time here the fresh air, nature, and lack of people holding them in preconceived roles chipped away at scared adolescent chrysalises and most of our kids have ruddy (though dark) faces glowing like a diverse rainbow of monarchs flying outside of a greenhouse for the first time.
I only hope that after Christmas Break I can hold onto these memories and channel some of this energy back into the classroom. My kids have been learning so much and don’t even know it yet. If I can create that in my classroom even once a week, I will be taking baby steps towards being the teacher I want to be. And even if after break the energy is all gone and the kids won’t bring it break- they fro 3 days got to experience something that they otherwise never would have- the type of childhood that has summer camp, the wonder of nature, and the realization that we are a small and valuable part of something much larger than ourselves. This is demonstrated by wide exausted eyes, and a new found voulonteering to help clean up FOR OTHERS (J) after meals. Wow.
I reckon I gotta run meet the chilluns’ we is packin’ up and we might could leave soon! Y’all come back now ya hear! This is the Texas I imagined.
Ps- As I am publishing this ( a couple weeks after writing it), an Atmosphere song came on and here is a lyric that resonated with me:
“Surrounding are gonna dictate the need. I’m out I wanna live around lakes and trees.”
When I am done in Houston- I need to get back to be surrounded by nature.
Saturday 8 December 2007
Holy Crap!
It has been one month and one week and one day since I have written here.
In that time my whole life has been taken, shaken up, and poured out on its head. In retrospect, (he said in the middle of the experience), it has been quite a ride! And though stress would be my main food group, I have taken bits and pieces of my life back and am doing my best to live up to my promise that, "I'll be better when I'm older."
Soon, and very soon, it will be Christmas Break. My promise to myself is to chonical the crazy adventure that has been the last month before that.
I hope anyone that takes the time to swing here still understands how much I Love them.
Peace,
Love,
and Pop Rocks.
In that time my whole life has been taken, shaken up, and poured out on its head. In retrospect, (he said in the middle of the experience), it has been quite a ride! And though stress would be my main food group, I have taken bits and pieces of my life back and am doing my best to live up to my promise that, "I'll be better when I'm older."
Soon, and very soon, it will be Christmas Break. My promise to myself is to chonical the crazy adventure that has been the last month before that.
I hope anyone that takes the time to swing here still understands how much I Love them.
Peace,
Love,
and Pop Rocks.
Wednesday 31 October 2007
Vignettes
Here are some vignettes from my life over the last two weeks since I have not had the time to keep everyone updated as I wish. Or really reflect online like I want to.
Ms. Timon, the principal, stood in front of me with an assignment I gave that afternoon to write a persuasive letter. If her frown was any bigger it would have connected again below her chin and she would have swallowed her own face. I had assigned the letter 2 minutes after I had explained freedom of speech and the power of word choice- my kids must have heard- swear a lot. It read. "I am sorry I couldn't fucking do the damn assignment. My fucking dad died, and he was freaking shot in the fucking head. I wanted to kill the bastard that did that fucking shit..." Sometimes I am not a good teacher. Almost always, my principal is there when this happens on the macro scale. Good thing I am so smart and good looking otherwise i would think I was cursed with bad luck :)
With 4 minutes left in our meeting during lunch on Tuesday, Ms. Timon said, "oh yeah, and next week Mr. Brossart and Mr. Maddox will be no longer switching students, they are to be self contained." I had to feign shock and slight disapproval as my insides screamed "Hell Yeah Aunt Katy!!!" as loudly and happily as a blond boy in a cut off t-shirt and jort overalls seeing a gator weighing.
The door was slid open by a bearded man in a red visored helmet. He smiled at us, leaned out, leaned back in and then fell out of the plane at 14,000 feet. The wind was cold and the man strapped to my back said it was our turn. At that point I was wondering if I peed myself while I fell if my terminal velocity was faster than my urine's. Then after leaning out, leaning in, leaning out and falling away from the airplane I realized what I wanted to do this summer. We rotated and I saw the horizon rushing closer and closer and felt more peaceful than I ever could have imagined while strapped to a dude named "Boston" and having very recently having fallen out of an airplane.
My ACP advisor leaned back in her chair. This signaled for me to get comfortable, she was going to lecture me again. During class, while I should have been monitoring to make sure my kids were focused on learning. And if they were focused, I wanted to make sure they were doing it at least close to correctly. I settled in and she said, "Mr. Brossart, when we first met I had you pegged as just another clown. Now, well I can see you are one of the best interns- you have the makings of an intern of the year." Not bad. If I am going to be missing valuable instructional time I might as well be flattered.
John Glenn, who is now over magic and officially obsessing over ninjas, told a kid not to fight him because I told him that they weren't allowed to. This marks the first and only time he to date he had ever obeyed a teachers instructions that didn't immediately pertain to his grade. Bells rang, trumpets sang, and it felt like I had just high fived God.
They only had bald wig-caps for black people, and because of that I was kneeling on the floor of the kitchen at a friends house with a pillow in my mouth and a double shot of vodka in my stomach. The floor was cold. It was 11:30 at night. I had to be at school for conferences in 7 hours. I still had a lot of work to do. The pillow in my mouth didn't allow me to remind those I was with of this. I also didn't have that long to think about it. Because seconds later I had a safety pin shoved through my ear into a potato. Sure it was conference time. Sure I was way behind and sleep deprived. That doesn't take away the sweetness of the idea of googling how to pierce my own ear, doing it with two soon to be even closer friends and nearly completing my plan b costume of being a pirate. Now all I had to do was find some mascara for my beard.
The sunset on the roof of my building was breathtaking, heart breaking, and beautiful. I was smiling. My boys had just finally done it! SJU rugby was going to the final 4 for the Midwest, after 3 years of losing in the sweet 16. SJU rugby had broken the hump and was a powerhouse. Nationally ranked in Goff on rugby and peaking they sounded incredible. And as I watch the sunset I had to fight feelings as ugly as the sunset was beautiful. That was my fucking title, and Baits' and my hard work that got them the chance to reach that goal. He and I never got to reach that height, and now I have to smile and cheer from 3000 miles away while knowing I can't be a part of it, and wishing with too much of my soul that I could have done that. And somehow, even knowing I am loved, I can't shake the feelings of envy and wish I didn't want so bad for someone to call and thank me for the chance they have...
The sun disappears and a friend appears to remind me in the dusk that I am a teacher now. Helping things grow and then having them succeed without me is my job. Get used to it. Nay, thrive on it.
Conferences drain the energy of almost any teacher, and mine became an impromptu HA meeting for recovering Heroine Addicts. Twice. Both ended in hugs, with hope for a better future eating gently away at the edges of the dispare that heroine and conferences can give a person. That is until I remember I still have a girl that was kidnapped by her own mother and we still don't know where she is.
I have 3 kids that want to be fifth grade teachers now. Sometimes being Mr. B rocks.
Ms. Timon, the principal, stood in front of me with an assignment I gave that afternoon to write a persuasive letter. If her frown was any bigger it would have connected again below her chin and she would have swallowed her own face. I had assigned the letter 2 minutes after I had explained freedom of speech and the power of word choice- my kids must have heard- swear a lot. It read. "I am sorry I couldn't fucking do the damn assignment. My fucking dad died, and he was freaking shot in the fucking head. I wanted to kill the bastard that did that fucking shit..." Sometimes I am not a good teacher. Almost always, my principal is there when this happens on the macro scale. Good thing I am so smart and good looking otherwise i would think I was cursed with bad luck :)
With 4 minutes left in our meeting during lunch on Tuesday, Ms. Timon said, "oh yeah, and next week Mr. Brossart and Mr. Maddox will be no longer switching students, they are to be self contained." I had to feign shock and slight disapproval as my insides screamed "Hell Yeah Aunt Katy!!!" as loudly and happily as a blond boy in a cut off t-shirt and jort overalls seeing a gator weighing.
The door was slid open by a bearded man in a red visored helmet. He smiled at us, leaned out, leaned back in and then fell out of the plane at 14,000 feet. The wind was cold and the man strapped to my back said it was our turn. At that point I was wondering if I peed myself while I fell if my terminal velocity was faster than my urine's. Then after leaning out, leaning in, leaning out and falling away from the airplane I realized what I wanted to do this summer. We rotated and I saw the horizon rushing closer and closer and felt more peaceful than I ever could have imagined while strapped to a dude named "Boston" and having very recently having fallen out of an airplane.
My ACP advisor leaned back in her chair. This signaled for me to get comfortable, she was going to lecture me again. During class, while I should have been monitoring to make sure my kids were focused on learning. And if they were focused, I wanted to make sure they were doing it at least close to correctly. I settled in and she said, "Mr. Brossart, when we first met I had you pegged as just another clown. Now, well I can see you are one of the best interns- you have the makings of an intern of the year." Not bad. If I am going to be missing valuable instructional time I might as well be flattered.
John Glenn, who is now over magic and officially obsessing over ninjas, told a kid not to fight him because I told him that they weren't allowed to. This marks the first and only time he to date he had ever obeyed a teachers instructions that didn't immediately pertain to his grade. Bells rang, trumpets sang, and it felt like I had just high fived God.
They only had bald wig-caps for black people, and because of that I was kneeling on the floor of the kitchen at a friends house with a pillow in my mouth and a double shot of vodka in my stomach. The floor was cold. It was 11:30 at night. I had to be at school for conferences in 7 hours. I still had a lot of work to do. The pillow in my mouth didn't allow me to remind those I was with of this. I also didn't have that long to think about it. Because seconds later I had a safety pin shoved through my ear into a potato. Sure it was conference time. Sure I was way behind and sleep deprived. That doesn't take away the sweetness of the idea of googling how to pierce my own ear, doing it with two soon to be even closer friends and nearly completing my plan b costume of being a pirate. Now all I had to do was find some mascara for my beard.
The sunset on the roof of my building was breathtaking, heart breaking, and beautiful. I was smiling. My boys had just finally done it! SJU rugby was going to the final 4 for the Midwest, after 3 years of losing in the sweet 16. SJU rugby had broken the hump and was a powerhouse. Nationally ranked in Goff on rugby and peaking they sounded incredible. And as I watch the sunset I had to fight feelings as ugly as the sunset was beautiful. That was my fucking title, and Baits' and my hard work that got them the chance to reach that goal. He and I never got to reach that height, and now I have to smile and cheer from 3000 miles away while knowing I can't be a part of it, and wishing with too much of my soul that I could have done that. And somehow, even knowing I am loved, I can't shake the feelings of envy and wish I didn't want so bad for someone to call and thank me for the chance they have...
The sun disappears and a friend appears to remind me in the dusk that I am a teacher now. Helping things grow and then having them succeed without me is my job. Get used to it. Nay, thrive on it.
Conferences drain the energy of almost any teacher, and mine became an impromptu HA meeting for recovering Heroine Addicts. Twice. Both ended in hugs, with hope for a better future eating gently away at the edges of the dispare that heroine and conferences can give a person. That is until I remember I still have a girl that was kidnapped by her own mother and we still don't know where she is.
I have 3 kids that want to be fifth grade teachers now. Sometimes being Mr. B rocks.
Sunday 21 October 2007
A Difficult Discovery
Today I am trying to grade my students, am failing, and have walked smack into my own arrogance and am now drowning in frustration. For the last month they have been filling in reading/writing notebooks and on Friday I collected them. They are so messy and haphazard that I don't even know how to apply the rubric to them. And so I am having a melt-down since grades are due. I am nine weeks in and I am not the teacher I yet want to be.
I think the hardest discovery one can ever make is that we are flawed.
And the higher one holds them self in their own esteem, the harder this discovery is. As someone who uses his confidence to prop himself up like crutches when the world has cut his feet out from under him I am now tottering.
And I am not talking about flaws like being a little overweight, or blushing too easily.
I am talking about the flaw of failure. The flaw of realizing that the worst part about trying is failing. And even with a keen understanding that failure is only permanent when one quits- this still sucks. And now as I feel that I am failing as a teacher in so many ways- I can suddenly understand why so many of my kids will not try harder. I am pouring myself into this teaching job like trying to fill a swimming pool with a gallon of milk. And even if it is just a kiddy pool, my efforts still seem massively unproductive. I am standing at the ocean's edge and waving my arms frantically trying to blow the hurricane off track and away from everything I believe in. If life seems this daunting to me, someone who has been blessed mostly with success and inordinate amounts of support, well I can only imagine what my kids feel like when they fail, and most of them haven't even been taught how to fail.
This is where my parents tell me to trust in God. This is where I get upset at God for not making me invincible. This is where I stand and face myself and tell myself that each time I fail I must get stronger, and I must not focus on the failure, but looking away doesn't seem to help either. This is where I realize that God needs to be my crutch, not my pride. And then I counter that, maybe just to be argumentative: Don't I need to do the work anyways? So trusting in God... obviously important, but practically seems very similar to fighting tooth and nail not to fail using my own stubbornness and focusing on one step at a time.
This is the part of life that needs to be a montage. And this is the part of life that needs to be learned from. And this is the part of myself that I need to stop picking at like a scab and rather than focusing on the bleeding I need to face myself and find perfection in my flaws. And I need to slowly improve on those flaws, but not too slowly, because these kids, these parents, and my principal are all trusting their lives and a bit of their future to me.
I think the hardest discovery one can ever make is that we are flawed.
And the higher one holds them self in their own esteem, the harder this discovery is. As someone who uses his confidence to prop himself up like crutches when the world has cut his feet out from under him I am now tottering.
And I am not talking about flaws like being a little overweight, or blushing too easily.
I am talking about the flaw of failure. The flaw of realizing that the worst part about trying is failing. And even with a keen understanding that failure is only permanent when one quits- this still sucks. And now as I feel that I am failing as a teacher in so many ways- I can suddenly understand why so many of my kids will not try harder. I am pouring myself into this teaching job like trying to fill a swimming pool with a gallon of milk. And even if it is just a kiddy pool, my efforts still seem massively unproductive. I am standing at the ocean's edge and waving my arms frantically trying to blow the hurricane off track and away from everything I believe in. If life seems this daunting to me, someone who has been blessed mostly with success and inordinate amounts of support, well I can only imagine what my kids feel like when they fail, and most of them haven't even been taught how to fail.
This is where my parents tell me to trust in God. This is where I get upset at God for not making me invincible. This is where I stand and face myself and tell myself that each time I fail I must get stronger, and I must not focus on the failure, but looking away doesn't seem to help either. This is where I realize that God needs to be my crutch, not my pride. And then I counter that, maybe just to be argumentative: Don't I need to do the work anyways? So trusting in God... obviously important, but practically seems very similar to fighting tooth and nail not to fail using my own stubbornness and focusing on one step at a time.
This is the part of life that needs to be a montage. And this is the part of life that needs to be learned from. And this is the part of myself that I need to stop picking at like a scab and rather than focusing on the bleeding I need to face myself and find perfection in my flaws. And I need to slowly improve on those flaws, but not too slowly, because these kids, these parents, and my principal are all trusting their lives and a bit of their future to me.
Monday 15 October 2007
120 minutes well spent!
I just read 2 hours of poetry.
Time I desperatley needed to lesson plan. I spent the weekend being reminded how blessed my life has been. I have been loved beyond measure. Tessa came and visited and it was nice to be reminded of where I have come from. She was a glimpse of sunlight that reminded me of old friends and family. And in the presence of those thoughts I was able to re-appreciate the crazy and wonderful presence of this city and the struggle, beauty, and tension that is humanity trying to live together in such close proximity. And despite my continued lack of direction in day to day lives as well as long term- I now have in my head where I have come from, where I am, and frankly- that is good enough for me.
I did not do nearly enough school work this week and I am back to the grindstone soon. My kids deserve it. Today, though under-planned and unready went well. I Love my kids. I Love my subject. And someday- they too will find a place where despite being tired and fighting lingering loneliness, a book of poetry arriving in the mail can rip them from the axis of time, and throw them into themselves so deeply that they crawl out the other side of their consciousness with nothing except wonder and a fierce desire to grip every moment of life and relish it- even the dark, sorrowful moments of life that frustrate like a heart attack that occurs in a broken elevator with no recollection of those CPR classes you took in 8th grade, and a phone with a broken "9" key.
But I am not in one of those moments. Now the future seems bright, daunting, and irrelevant to the now. Now I am paying bills because the money isn't mine. Now I am finding ways to teach my kids of Native Americans. Now I am digging through books and books of poetry praying to find that one poem that might change the life of even one of my kids. And if I don't- well then I just got to read 2 hours of poetry!
Time I desperatley needed to lesson plan. I spent the weekend being reminded how blessed my life has been. I have been loved beyond measure. Tessa came and visited and it was nice to be reminded of where I have come from. She was a glimpse of sunlight that reminded me of old friends and family. And in the presence of those thoughts I was able to re-appreciate the crazy and wonderful presence of this city and the struggle, beauty, and tension that is humanity trying to live together in such close proximity. And despite my continued lack of direction in day to day lives as well as long term- I now have in my head where I have come from, where I am, and frankly- that is good enough for me.
I did not do nearly enough school work this week and I am back to the grindstone soon. My kids deserve it. Today, though under-planned and unready went well. I Love my kids. I Love my subject. And someday- they too will find a place where despite being tired and fighting lingering loneliness, a book of poetry arriving in the mail can rip them from the axis of time, and throw them into themselves so deeply that they crawl out the other side of their consciousness with nothing except wonder and a fierce desire to grip every moment of life and relish it- even the dark, sorrowful moments of life that frustrate like a heart attack that occurs in a broken elevator with no recollection of those CPR classes you took in 8th grade, and a phone with a broken "9" key.
But I am not in one of those moments. Now the future seems bright, daunting, and irrelevant to the now. Now I am paying bills because the money isn't mine. Now I am finding ways to teach my kids of Native Americans. Now I am digging through books and books of poetry praying to find that one poem that might change the life of even one of my kids. And if I don't- well then I just got to read 2 hours of poetry!
Tuesday 9 October 2007
White People
My kids think I look like Ben Bryer, the talented drummer for the band My Chemical Romance.
They even asked if I was a drummer before teaching (because despite what I say they all think I look 34). Some of them don't believe I wasn't.
White people continue to look the same to me. If you need proof- just look at my family. Eerie.
Quick Story
Today, my good friend and carpool buddy, Ms. Stacy was having trouble with one of her 4 year olds. Ms. Stacy has one little girl who has discovered the middle finger, understands it is mean, and is using it very inappropriately. (for those of you wondering, no- I am not sure if there is an appropriate way to flip people the bird)
Ms. Stacy tried to reprimand this girl, but the problem was getting worse and the student was laughing in her face and kept giving her the ol' "California hello". Ms. Stacy decided to bring her to the principal and told her, if she wasn't going to stop, then she was going to show Ms. Amos.
Well, the 4 year old tried to call her bluff and went with Ms. Stacy to the office. Then she wised up and wouldn't flip off Ms. Amos. So, Ms. Amos asked Ms. Stacy what had happened. Ms. Stacy explained the repeated behavior.
Ms. Amos immediately shrieked in terror and nearly yelled that if she ever heard of this child doing this again she was going to call the police. Needless to say, the finger happy four year old panicked and kept that finger tucked carefully in the rest of the day.
Ms. Amos won herself a big fan today.
Sometimes the best part of our job is being the worlds craziest least qualified most trial and error based child psychologists.
The crazy moments like that make the smiles come much easier even in the face of exhaustion.
Ms. Stacy tried to reprimand this girl, but the problem was getting worse and the student was laughing in her face and kept giving her the ol' "California hello". Ms. Stacy decided to bring her to the principal and told her, if she wasn't going to stop, then she was going to show Ms. Amos.
Well, the 4 year old tried to call her bluff and went with Ms. Stacy to the office. Then she wised up and wouldn't flip off Ms. Amos. So, Ms. Amos asked Ms. Stacy what had happened. Ms. Stacy explained the repeated behavior.
Ms. Amos immediately shrieked in terror and nearly yelled that if she ever heard of this child doing this again she was going to call the police. Needless to say, the finger happy four year old panicked and kept that finger tucked carefully in the rest of the day.
Ms. Amos won herself a big fan today.
Sometimes the best part of our job is being the worlds craziest least qualified most trial and error based child psychologists.
The crazy moments like that make the smiles come much easier even in the face of exhaustion.
Sunday 7 October 2007
That kind of night where coherence escapes.
This was the kind of weekend that ends with me needing to write poetry.
But the words come slowly as my thoughts keep failing to unwrap from around my lesson plans and the kids that make me want so badly for them to be perfect. The corners of my mind are gently filled with the sunset that God gave Houston several hours ago.
This is the kind of night that ends with me thinking about Grandma D a bit too often. Wondering where the balance between hard work and chasing my selfish dreams lies, and wondering where my dreams should end and where my need to make the world brighter should begin. I push thoughts of traveling the world to the edge of my mind, partly to hope that they will get bumped off the edge accidentally and leave me staring perfectly into a future full of certainty.
This is the kind of night where I go online and order 14 poetry books for my class and hope that in them even one poem plants it self in the heart of even one of my kids.
This is the kind of night that I want to drive to the coast and stare into the surf and ponder how small I am. To stare at the waves as they wander into beach and crawl as far as they can up the sand to achieve their own personal dreams, and yet fit beautifully into the rythmic whole of the surf.
This is the kind of night where I do not have lesson plans that I am happy with tomorrow. And yet I need to go to bed and trust that they will work out.
This weekend I worked on lesson plans, watched a sunset, celebrated a birthday, bought 100 boxes of pudding and had a pudding fight, went to a greekfest- drank bottles of wine in the street while howling at the moon and yelling "opa!" to the crowds of dancers, revelers, and others who were finding solace somewhere in the hedonism, in the clinking bottles, in the illusion that all is right with the world. This weekend I had crazy dreams. This weekend I smiled at a stranger accidentally- and meant it. This weekend I talked to my family, and a friend from the past who means more to me than she knows. I tried to recharge my batteries, only to discover I am not powered by batteries, and I discovered that they are always charged- I just need to let myself take each moment as perfect and celebrate each moment seeking beauty everywhere. Then, and only then, will I be able to move mountains. Then and only then will I choose not to move the mountain, but rather climb to the top, lie down, and read the clouds for secrets and search for dragons in the sky. Then and only then might I find the honor in a simple day's work. And that is my goal for this week. I want to find the beauty in each moment of teaching and exaustion, and wait happily for the future to bring what it will.
But the words come slowly as my thoughts keep failing to unwrap from around my lesson plans and the kids that make me want so badly for them to be perfect. The corners of my mind are gently filled with the sunset that God gave Houston several hours ago.
This is the kind of night that ends with me thinking about Grandma D a bit too often. Wondering where the balance between hard work and chasing my selfish dreams lies, and wondering where my dreams should end and where my need to make the world brighter should begin. I push thoughts of traveling the world to the edge of my mind, partly to hope that they will get bumped off the edge accidentally and leave me staring perfectly into a future full of certainty.
This is the kind of night where I go online and order 14 poetry books for my class and hope that in them even one poem plants it self in the heart of even one of my kids.
This is the kind of night that I want to drive to the coast and stare into the surf and ponder how small I am. To stare at the waves as they wander into beach and crawl as far as they can up the sand to achieve their own personal dreams, and yet fit beautifully into the rythmic whole of the surf.
This is the kind of night where I do not have lesson plans that I am happy with tomorrow. And yet I need to go to bed and trust that they will work out.
This weekend I worked on lesson plans, watched a sunset, celebrated a birthday, bought 100 boxes of pudding and had a pudding fight, went to a greekfest- drank bottles of wine in the street while howling at the moon and yelling "opa!" to the crowds of dancers, revelers, and others who were finding solace somewhere in the hedonism, in the clinking bottles, in the illusion that all is right with the world. This weekend I had crazy dreams. This weekend I smiled at a stranger accidentally- and meant it. This weekend I talked to my family, and a friend from the past who means more to me than she knows. I tried to recharge my batteries, only to discover I am not powered by batteries, and I discovered that they are always charged- I just need to let myself take each moment as perfect and celebrate each moment seeking beauty everywhere. Then, and only then, will I be able to move mountains. Then and only then will I choose not to move the mountain, but rather climb to the top, lie down, and read the clouds for secrets and search for dragons in the sky. Then and only then might I find the honor in a simple day's work. And that is my goal for this week. I want to find the beauty in each moment of teaching and exaustion, and wait happily for the future to bring what it will.
Sunday 30 September 2007
A Reading Teacher's Readings...
So, I read a lot still. Maybe more than I have in a long time. I get to read books appropriate for my kids because I want to be able to talk to them, and I read books on teaching to get inspiration and ideas as well as research to support my radical opinions such as "we should let the kids read a lot in reading class, and we should let them pick it so they learn to love reading" etc.
In all of the readings I do I am collecting quotes I really like:
Here are some people wiser than I am saying things that inspire me:
“Time for independent writing—and reading—isn’t the icing on the cake, the reward we proffer senior honors students who’ve survived the curriculum. Writing and reading are the cake. When we make time, giving students one of a writer’s basic necessities, we begin to make writers….If we want our adolescent students to grow to appreciate literature, another first step is allowing them to exert ownership and choose the literature they will read.” Nancie Atwell
“Until you give children extensive amounts of time to read, allow them to exercise effective choice in choosing their books, and change your approach to classroom grouping, you will find few lifelong readers and writers” Donald Graves
“If you can convince your children that you love them, then there’s nothing you can’t teach them.” Avi
"We believe that it is our job to help kids grow into healthy and thoughtful participants in society. We believe school curriculum should be designed to do just that- to help kids imagine a life beyond what is immediate and see themselves as activists in building that life"
"Imagination can be more than this[creating fantastical worlds with no connection to reality]. Instead of developing an imagination as an end, we [teachers can] use them as a means to something better and larger than ourselves. Using one's imagination with rigor and power can be the difference between life and death!" Donna Santman.
So, now I am off to write and design and try to desperately figure out how I am going to team up with these incredible minds and do just that. And do it as respectfully as a hot headed, stubborn, arrogant, first year teacher with a stick-it-to-the-man-or-stick-it-where-the-sun-don't-shine attitude can possibly do.
Thanks to those of you that are reading this. I know your prayers are helping!
Also, I discovered a used children's book store!!!! And am soon going to have doubled the size of my class library. I got the Black Cauldron series, the Narnia series, Matt Christopher sports books, hank the cow dog, some Avi, and some scary books. AWESOME!!!!! I am going to go back next week for their "every kids books is 35 cents if you are a teacher sale" and I am gonna try and spend 70 bucks! yep 200 more books! Neato!
If you have recommendations for kids books- please send them to me. (the recommendations, not the books... but those would be welcome too!) Most of my kids have only heard of Goosebumps and Junie B Jones.
Imagining a world where he is a good enough teacher that sleep exists for him,
Mr. B
"Using one's imagination with rigor and power can be the difference between life and death!""
In all of the readings I do I am collecting quotes I really like:
Here are some people wiser than I am saying things that inspire me:
“Time for independent writing—and reading—isn’t the icing on the cake, the reward we proffer senior honors students who’ve survived the curriculum. Writing and reading are the cake. When we make time, giving students one of a writer’s basic necessities, we begin to make writers….If we want our adolescent students to grow to appreciate literature, another first step is allowing them to exert ownership and choose the literature they will read.” Nancie Atwell
“Until you give children extensive amounts of time to read, allow them to exercise effective choice in choosing their books, and change your approach to classroom grouping, you will find few lifelong readers and writers” Donald Graves
“If you can convince your children that you love them, then there’s nothing you can’t teach them.” Avi
"We believe that it is our job to help kids grow into healthy and thoughtful participants in society. We believe school curriculum should be designed to do just that- to help kids imagine a life beyond what is immediate and see themselves as activists in building that life"
"Imagination can be more than this[creating fantastical worlds with no connection to reality]. Instead of developing an imagination as an end, we [teachers can] use them as a means to something better and larger than ourselves. Using one's imagination with rigor and power can be the difference between life and death!" Donna Santman.
So, now I am off to write and design and try to desperately figure out how I am going to team up with these incredible minds and do just that. And do it as respectfully as a hot headed, stubborn, arrogant, first year teacher with a stick-it-to-the-man-or-stick-it-where-the-sun-don't-shine attitude can possibly do.
Thanks to those of you that are reading this. I know your prayers are helping!
Also, I discovered a used children's book store!!!! And am soon going to have doubled the size of my class library. I got the Black Cauldron series, the Narnia series, Matt Christopher sports books, hank the cow dog, some Avi, and some scary books. AWESOME!!!!! I am going to go back next week for their "every kids books is 35 cents if you are a teacher sale" and I am gonna try and spend 70 bucks! yep 200 more books! Neato!
If you have recommendations for kids books- please send them to me. (the recommendations, not the books... but those would be welcome too!) Most of my kids have only heard of Goosebumps and Junie B Jones.
Imagining a world where he is a good enough teacher that sleep exists for him,
Mr. B
"Using one's imagination with rigor and power can be the difference between life and death!""
Thursday 27 September 2007
I feel old...
Today, one of my ten year olds brought in a picture of her 26 year old mom. I think she was trying to hook me up with her.
Since when am I the age of my kids' mother? Jeez, next thing you know I won't be understanding kids nowadays...
For those of you wondering, I am not going on a date with a mother of one of my students, no matter how cute.
Since when am I the age of my kids' mother? Jeez, next thing you know I won't be understanding kids nowadays...
For those of you wondering, I am not going on a date with a mother of one of my students, no matter how cute.
Tuesday 25 September 2007
God Bless You.
Ew.
Sometimes I feel like my life is one of those "Here is a ludicrous Bad Example to prove a ridiculous point" videos.
Today's example- I was looting for breakfast in my kitchen. I decided to open the door to the fridge to find something tasty and then i got caught unaware by a sneeze.
Boom!!!!
All an outsider would have seen is me opening the fridge and then immediately sneezing a loud messy sneeze all over all the food and quickly shutting the door.
Ick.
Hopefully my roommates don't check this.
_________________________________________________________________
Today was a good day, and I got inspired at night class. My kids will learn to read. They will know I Love them. They will learn the Love of an outsider, the far reaching Love of a teacher like I have felt as recently as a moment ago.
I have in my head as I get ready for bed ideas, and hope, and a comment from a voice that I know has blown through time and space.
Once in awhile I am thrown off my horse, a bright light shines from heaven, and where I hope to hear thunder and see brilliant white blinding me- there I hear silence, or a whisper. I am reminded despite it all, through it all, because of it all- I am here to do the work of someone I know I need to trust, and someone who I rarely let myself trust.
I am Loved by Someone I know Loves me. And I will give up and trust soon. I will. For now, I thank God for sunsets, smiles, good books, inspiration, my natural tendency to smile, cold beer, my students, my talents, my family, poetry, music, my old teachers, my friends, and this fire he has planted in me that seems to dwindle, but never ever get blown out.
Mostly God, i thank you for making yourself so real that I know you never let me go- no matter how close i get to letting you go.
God Bless You.
Sometimes I feel like my life is one of those "Here is a ludicrous Bad Example to prove a ridiculous point" videos.
Today's example- I was looting for breakfast in my kitchen. I decided to open the door to the fridge to find something tasty and then i got caught unaware by a sneeze.
Boom!!!!
All an outsider would have seen is me opening the fridge and then immediately sneezing a loud messy sneeze all over all the food and quickly shutting the door.
Ick.
Hopefully my roommates don't check this.
_________________________________________________________________
Today was a good day, and I got inspired at night class. My kids will learn to read. They will know I Love them. They will learn the Love of an outsider, the far reaching Love of a teacher like I have felt as recently as a moment ago.
I have in my head as I get ready for bed ideas, and hope, and a comment from a voice that I know has blown through time and space.
Once in awhile I am thrown off my horse, a bright light shines from heaven, and where I hope to hear thunder and see brilliant white blinding me- there I hear silence, or a whisper. I am reminded despite it all, through it all, because of it all- I am here to do the work of someone I know I need to trust, and someone who I rarely let myself trust.
I am Loved by Someone I know Loves me. And I will give up and trust soon. I will. For now, I thank God for sunsets, smiles, good books, inspiration, my natural tendency to smile, cold beer, my students, my talents, my family, poetry, music, my old teachers, my friends, and this fire he has planted in me that seems to dwindle, but never ever get blown out.
Mostly God, i thank you for making yourself so real that I know you never let me go- no matter how close i get to letting you go.
God Bless You.
Monday 24 September 2007
unlike my socks...
My posts seem to come in pairs.
Today I received an email from my father that moved me to exhausted, happy tears over my lunch break.
It was one of the best moments of my lunch history.
I teach because no one has as wonderful a family as I do. Since day one I have been innundated in Love. Wrapped even more securley than even Archer Farms, double wrapped bread. I am surrounded with role models from father down to lil brother and expanding into my extended family- if I weren't to pass on the Love I would actually explode with too much care and turn into a Care Bear or something.
And that would not help the tough guy image I use to pick up chicks...
Peace
Today I received an email from my father that moved me to exhausted, happy tears over my lunch break.
It was one of the best moments of my lunch history.
I teach because no one has as wonderful a family as I do. Since day one I have been innundated in Love. Wrapped even more securley than even Archer Farms, double wrapped bread. I am surrounded with role models from father down to lil brother and expanding into my extended family- if I weren't to pass on the Love I would actually explode with too much care and turn into a Care Bear or something.
And that would not help the tough guy image I use to pick up chicks...
Peace
The Absurd
Today....
And everyday.
When the students leave me in an empty messy classroom I begin to feel again like I might accomplish something as a teacher. The days drag from one missed opportunity to another punctuated with vague periods of success. The terrible part of this all is I know I need to teach in my own style, but I am not sure what my style is. Everyday I tweak and alter my game plan and I see my more naturally organized coworkers and corps members coast in between grading and filing like a bee and her hive. I am more organized than I have ever been, but I cannot help but feeling overwhelmed and frustrated... with so many students I am being prevented from getting to know any of them.
I had progress reports due last week, and they still are not done. My grades are either inflated everyone-gets-full-credit-for-showing-up, poorly recorded unjudgeable creativity projects, or tests that the majority of my kids fail. And along with all of this I never cover as much material as I want. Philosophically I am more concerned with creating life long learners than I am with teaching any single objective. However, right now I am busy trying to balance the two of them, and I am terribly afraid that I am achieving neither. The other group fifth graders began "ability grouping" this week, and I realize that I am unable to ability group because I cannot even tell you which of my kids are really struggling. I can tell you my 10 most successful, and my 10 least academic- but in the middle, the other 40 kids blur together tragically. I am trying to fix that, but I do not want to look at scores, I want to talk with kids. I want to smile at them, listen, debate books, and fully trust that by conversing like that we can learn so much more fully than by drilling small passages, but I have sooooo many kids, and so little time, and soooo many external requirements that I feel lost and ineffective.
Each time I feel ready to make a gain, each time I am ready to take it to the peak, something butts through- I stumble and must trudge down the hill for my boulder- Camus might have had it right... before I continue I must pause. I am emotionally tormented, egotistically bruised, and physically exhausted. And where do I turn- literature. In the poetry of Stephen dobyns, the lyrics of Ben Lee and Atmosphere, and the writings of Arthurian Legends, Victor Frankel and Albert Camus I find solace. In the company of literature I find wholeness- and i want to unlock that world- a vocabulary enhancing, life improving, character building alternative with accepting the now as it is. I need to offer that to my students and a curriculum has bound my hands and feet so solidly I am near tears.
So again- I turn to Camus:
One does not discover the absurd without attempting to write a manual of happiness... It happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile sufferings. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. there is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that silent pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
I am not sure what it takes to make people succeed in education. But right now I haven't found it, haven't tried everything. But my rock, my classroom, my hill, my students await. And so I must be happy. It is my struggle. All is well.
And everyday.
When the students leave me in an empty messy classroom I begin to feel again like I might accomplish something as a teacher. The days drag from one missed opportunity to another punctuated with vague periods of success. The terrible part of this all is I know I need to teach in my own style, but I am not sure what my style is. Everyday I tweak and alter my game plan and I see my more naturally organized coworkers and corps members coast in between grading and filing like a bee and her hive. I am more organized than I have ever been, but I cannot help but feeling overwhelmed and frustrated... with so many students I am being prevented from getting to know any of them.
I had progress reports due last week, and they still are not done. My grades are either inflated everyone-gets-full-credit-for-showing-up, poorly recorded unjudgeable creativity projects, or tests that the majority of my kids fail. And along with all of this I never cover as much material as I want. Philosophically I am more concerned with creating life long learners than I am with teaching any single objective. However, right now I am busy trying to balance the two of them, and I am terribly afraid that I am achieving neither. The other group fifth graders began "ability grouping" this week, and I realize that I am unable to ability group because I cannot even tell you which of my kids are really struggling. I can tell you my 10 most successful, and my 10 least academic- but in the middle, the other 40 kids blur together tragically. I am trying to fix that, but I do not want to look at scores, I want to talk with kids. I want to smile at them, listen, debate books, and fully trust that by conversing like that we can learn so much more fully than by drilling small passages, but I have sooooo many kids, and so little time, and soooo many external requirements that I feel lost and ineffective.
Each time I feel ready to make a gain, each time I am ready to take it to the peak, something butts through- I stumble and must trudge down the hill for my boulder- Camus might have had it right... before I continue I must pause. I am emotionally tormented, egotistically bruised, and physically exhausted. And where do I turn- literature. In the poetry of Stephen dobyns, the lyrics of Ben Lee and Atmosphere, and the writings of Arthurian Legends, Victor Frankel and Albert Camus I find solace. In the company of literature I find wholeness- and i want to unlock that world- a vocabulary enhancing, life improving, character building alternative with accepting the now as it is. I need to offer that to my students and a curriculum has bound my hands and feet so solidly I am near tears.
So again- I turn to Camus:
One does not discover the absurd without attempting to write a manual of happiness... It happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile sufferings. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. there is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that silent pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
I am not sure what it takes to make people succeed in education. But right now I haven't found it, haven't tried everything. But my rock, my classroom, my hill, my students await. And so I must be happy. It is my struggle. All is well.
Friday 14 September 2007
Rugby vs. Teaching...
So, I can't remember if I have written on this idea before, but as I sit here in my very messy classroom at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon I cannot help but ponder: what about the nearly impossible attracts me?
I have had passions that roll over like dice though out my life. However, the three most recent ones have been RAing, Rugby, and now Teaching (regularly smattered among them have been reading, poetry, particular women, good music, and experiencing new things- especially food). But Regardless of the other interests I have had RAing, Rugby, and Teaching seem to be the big ones to me right now.
The way I did them I don't know if I was drawn to their counter culture natures, the fact that I could never perfect them, the community, the energy, the creativity, or the art and challenge present in each of those three activities. Regardless of the draw, and their differences I have one thing I know is the same. I really enjoy doing them. But I almost enjoy finishing them more than doing them. In this way rugby and teaching are a perfect parallel. Sometimes rugby hurts, is exhausting, exasperating, challenging and tediously long. So is a school week. But the moment that game is over and I can stand up (wobbly though it may be), hold my chin up, look around, smile and know that I did it. I finished and (regardless of the outcome) I poured everything I had into it. That is a school week: some good, some bad, some fun, some painful, some frustrating, some exhilarating, some more challenging than others. But at the end of the week, the bell rings and i chase my kids out dig for that last bit of energy to laugh and play with them so they go home with a good taste in their mouths and peace in their hearts. Then when the last kid walks out the door and I am standing in a quiet, dark, and destroyed room that looks like I feel and is begging for a weekend to heal. Then in the classroom I smile and thank God; I am existed and overwhelmed. But I am only nearly beaten. So, I turn up the MN tunes: Atmosphere, Cloud Cult, Mason Jennings, or Prince. Then I do a little dance, start picking up and smile. I have the greatest job in the world.
I have had passions that roll over like dice though out my life. However, the three most recent ones have been RAing, Rugby, and now Teaching (regularly smattered among them have been reading, poetry, particular women, good music, and experiencing new things- especially food). But Regardless of the other interests I have had RAing, Rugby, and Teaching seem to be the big ones to me right now.
The way I did them I don't know if I was drawn to their counter culture natures, the fact that I could never perfect them, the community, the energy, the creativity, or the art and challenge present in each of those three activities. Regardless of the draw, and their differences I have one thing I know is the same. I really enjoy doing them. But I almost enjoy finishing them more than doing them. In this way rugby and teaching are a perfect parallel. Sometimes rugby hurts, is exhausting, exasperating, challenging and tediously long. So is a school week. But the moment that game is over and I can stand up (wobbly though it may be), hold my chin up, look around, smile and know that I did it. I finished and (regardless of the outcome) I poured everything I had into it. That is a school week: some good, some bad, some fun, some painful, some frustrating, some exhilarating, some more challenging than others. But at the end of the week, the bell rings and i chase my kids out dig for that last bit of energy to laugh and play with them so they go home with a good taste in their mouths and peace in their hearts. Then when the last kid walks out the door and I am standing in a quiet, dark, and destroyed room that looks like I feel and is begging for a weekend to heal. Then in the classroom I smile and thank God; I am existed and overwhelmed. But I am only nearly beaten. So, I turn up the MN tunes: Atmosphere, Cloud Cult, Mason Jennings, or Prince. Then I do a little dance, start picking up and smile. I have the greatest job in the world.
Thursday 13 September 2007
Options
I have been trying to decide on an opening line for this post. Here are a few I have brainstormed:
So, I hadn't done anything against the rules for awhile, I can't decide whether or not that plays into my decision to skip night class and blog...
If it weren't for a childhood influenced primarily by my parents and Robin Hood, I might have been one hell of a salesman....
I have decided that my biggest strength for being a teacher comes from the fact that I excel at nothing....
No math class has ever taught the significance of the difference between 28 and 22 as thoroughly as having only 22 kids in my class for 3 hours....
Do not read this blog; as of today 10 of my kids have fevers of over 103 and you are statistically guaranteed to get sick if you interact with me in any way....
I had to have a have a figurative "coming to Jesus" talk with Travis today. And either he will figuratively or literally, but dammit we are going to make him learn....
The last time I was on an emotional roller coaster this big I was in middle school...
If my kids learn anything this year the credit will be divided exclusively between my family sending down books, and the mentorship of my co-teacher...
For the sake of my immortal soul, I have to hope that it is morally acceptable to not teach anything but rugby until the end of the Rugby World Cup. Does St. Peter take references from Geoff Stalker...
So, there it is... Those are my first thoughts. At this point, that is all I ever have time to have.
Take care all.
(If people vote, I could finish one. If not, well, I will have lots of other first thoughts later.)
So, I hadn't done anything against the rules for awhile, I can't decide whether or not that plays into my decision to skip night class and blog...
If it weren't for a childhood influenced primarily by my parents and Robin Hood, I might have been one hell of a salesman....
I have decided that my biggest strength for being a teacher comes from the fact that I excel at nothing....
No math class has ever taught the significance of the difference between 28 and 22 as thoroughly as having only 22 kids in my class for 3 hours....
Do not read this blog; as of today 10 of my kids have fevers of over 103 and you are statistically guaranteed to get sick if you interact with me in any way....
I had to have a have a figurative "coming to Jesus" talk with Travis today. And either he will figuratively or literally, but dammit we are going to make him learn....
The last time I was on an emotional roller coaster this big I was in middle school...
If my kids learn anything this year the credit will be divided exclusively between my family sending down books, and the mentorship of my co-teacher...
For the sake of my immortal soul, I have to hope that it is morally acceptable to not teach anything but rugby until the end of the Rugby World Cup. Does St. Peter take references from Geoff Stalker...
So, there it is... Those are my first thoughts. At this point, that is all I ever have time to have.
Take care all.
(If people vote, I could finish one. If not, well, I will have lots of other first thoughts later.)
Monday 3 September 2007
Student Reflections
A wise woman I know once gave me a book to read. This book was rather tersely entitled "To Teach". Inside was writing that was (somewhat contrarily to the title) very emotional, insightful, and passionate. It has influenced my teaching philosophy as much or more than any single other source. In it the author recommends reflectioning on the students emotionally and writing snapshots of their social interactions as a way of making sure I, as a teacher, am tuned into them as people and not just as receptacles of the incredible amounts of wisdom I ladle out like so much alphabet soup.
I will do that on this forum. However, due to the suggestion of one of my esteemed colleages I am going to change the names of the (rarely) innocent to those of famous figures.
I have one student in my class who is significantly older than his classmates. He is a kid that comes with a troubled history. Perhaps as typical for any nearly 14 year old 5th grader, when experienced teachers heard he was going to be in my class they respond with pity and tell me to just do what I can with him. Because of his notable age difference I am going to call him, John Glenn.
John Glenn is turning 14 in November and is one of the tallest boys in the grade. He is black and not at all hispanic. He is currently obbsessed with Magic. He regularily carries cards with him and tries to get any teacher or student willing to talk to him to watch a card trick. He also found a "magic" coloring book and carries it with him many places. When I gave all of the students a choice to be called by any name they wanted he quickly said that he wanted to be called Chris Angel. Chris Angel is an illusionist that became most famouse for a show that ran for 3 months entitled "Mind Freak". After I reprimanded him for not going quickly in the bathroom and trying to do magic tricks and talking to much said "I am like Chris Angel, I use my illusion AND WORDS to do my magic". John is a tapper, always tapping his pencil and making beats. He takes his role as the older kid and one of the few "real black" kids in the classroom to be the resident expert rapper and beat boxer. All the other kids look up to him and he seems to take that seriously. However, he always has an exscuse for when he is in trouble, and meanders and loses focus easily.
John Glenn has two older brothers and a very caring and bossy mother. I do not believe he has a father at home, and responds to me when I raise my vioce and give him "man talks". I have called home twice and am working with his mother to push him hard this year. They both seem responsive to it, but I do not believe either of them are really aware of the work I want him to do. My plan is to utilize his love of magic to push his reading and writing. Ideas are welcome.
I will do that on this forum. However, due to the suggestion of one of my esteemed colleages I am going to change the names of the (rarely) innocent to those of famous figures.
I have one student in my class who is significantly older than his classmates. He is a kid that comes with a troubled history. Perhaps as typical for any nearly 14 year old 5th grader, when experienced teachers heard he was going to be in my class they respond with pity and tell me to just do what I can with him. Because of his notable age difference I am going to call him, John Glenn.
John Glenn is turning 14 in November and is one of the tallest boys in the grade. He is black and not at all hispanic. He is currently obbsessed with Magic. He regularily carries cards with him and tries to get any teacher or student willing to talk to him to watch a card trick. He also found a "magic" coloring book and carries it with him many places. When I gave all of the students a choice to be called by any name they wanted he quickly said that he wanted to be called Chris Angel. Chris Angel is an illusionist that became most famouse for a show that ran for 3 months entitled "Mind Freak". After I reprimanded him for not going quickly in the bathroom and trying to do magic tricks and talking to much said "I am like Chris Angel, I use my illusion AND WORDS to do my magic". John is a tapper, always tapping his pencil and making beats. He takes his role as the older kid and one of the few "real black" kids in the classroom to be the resident expert rapper and beat boxer. All the other kids look up to him and he seems to take that seriously. However, he always has an exscuse for when he is in trouble, and meanders and loses focus easily.
John Glenn has two older brothers and a very caring and bossy mother. I do not believe he has a father at home, and responds to me when I raise my vioce and give him "man talks". I have called home twice and am working with his mother to push him hard this year. They both seem responsive to it, but I do not believe either of them are really aware of the work I want him to do. My plan is to utilize his love of magic to push his reading and writing. Ideas are welcome.
Wednesday 29 August 2007
It is for real!
Hey Loved Ones,
I am now a teacher. Totally and completley. If I wasn't so arrogant I would now know that I am in over my head. I have 27 kids. (4 came yesterday- during day two in the middle. I did not have enough desks, chairs, assesments or anything. But made it work by trying to turn up my welcoming energy and passion for the kids. I had my class saying "the more the merrier". By the end of the day there was so many students packed into the classroom it felt like a Dolezal Party. That is how the year will be, and I Love it!
I am really tired and drained, but things are starting to come together. Please pray for my class. You will hear more soon!
Peace,
Matty B
I am now a teacher. Totally and completley. If I wasn't so arrogant I would now know that I am in over my head. I have 27 kids. (4 came yesterday- during day two in the middle. I did not have enough desks, chairs, assesments or anything. But made it work by trying to turn up my welcoming energy and passion for the kids. I had my class saying "the more the merrier". By the end of the day there was so many students packed into the classroom it felt like a Dolezal Party. That is how the year will be, and I Love it!
I am really tired and drained, but things are starting to come together. Please pray for my class. You will hear more soon!
Peace,
Matty B
Sunday 26 August 2007
Quick News!
I figured out how to change the settings, so supposedly now anyone can comment. Please say hi. If you are reading this there is a 98% chance that I either miss you dearly or I care about you greatly (or both). So make a brother smile and leave me a smile, a comment, advice, encouragemtn, jokes, quotes, lyrics, movie reccomendations, topic requests, poems or otherwise.
I (almost certainly) Love you.
Hear from you soon!
I (almost certainly) Love you.
Hear from you soon!
Mr. Brossart finds out what he is teaching...
It was a humid sunny day when Mr. Brossart first reported to Macario Garcia Elementary to work. The moisture hung in the air palpable and unignorable like the nervous excitement that coated his stomach in a queasy greasy anticipation. As he and his carpool buddy, Ms. Ashleigh Stacey treaded air to the front door Mr. B's thoughts hung on seeing his classroom for the first time. He knew that he was teaching fifth grade, but was not sure if he was going to be self contained or if the fiery principal, Ms. Mir, had made one of her off the cuff decrees that had earned her the reputation of being a fairly benevolent, impulsive, dictator that ruled the school with a absent minded fist that demanded positiveness and a passionate energy directed at teaching our kids about all the things in life that matter: namely the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test.
After a bout of introductions and names already forgotten, Mr. B was ceremoniously shown his first ever teacher mail box, was taught and almost learned the complex sign-in procedure, received a quick tour and was herded to the library to wait giddily for his first ever School Meeting. He conversed awkwardly with the few faces that seemed familiar. He proceeded to confuse two staff members from the introductions earlier with each other, mispronouncing the names but then divisively charging forward with the conversation too quickly for either of the dark Latino teachers to make the "we all look the same to you people" comment.
Mr. B then saw the principal come in and decided to go to the fifth grade table and wait. He spent the remaining minutes while she struggled to figure out her laptop and the power point presentation trying to figure out if wet behind the ears described the inexperienced or the experienced. He knew it was one or the other, but couldn't remember. He ended up deciding it was the inexperienced. It might be a cattle reference- they are born all covered in goop and so when they are brand new they are wet behind the ears. Cowboys are so good with turn-of-phrase he noted, and made a mental post-it to himself "Google: Wet Behind the Ears". He never remembered to do it since then Ms. Mir started her state of the school kingdom address.
Mr. B tuned out for the next two hours then shuffled to the gym/cafeteria at the same time as the other new teachers and hoped that nothing important happened during the morning library. He still wasn't convinced about wet behind the ears. Maybe the cowboys used it to describe the veteran wranglers that had herded cattle through a rain storm so bad that even their their ten gallon hats couldn't keep them dry. He imagined that cattle spooked easily during a storm and that only a real wet behind the ears cowboy could keep the cattle on the trail, keep the horse calm, and keep their nerves from fraying.
Or maybe it has nothing to do with cowboys? Unlikely, but worth considering.
Mr. B found himself and his musings in the gym looking through a host of new supplies that Ms. Mir informed him were "New Teacher Gifts to get y'all started in your subject areas." Ms. Mir led him to a pile of Math Games and Texts and Mr. B heard her say to him "We have had you pegged as our math guy since our first interview..."
Mr. B did not want to rattle the boat so he swallowed the "WHAT!?!?!!" that had tried to jump indignantly out of his thought. I wonder what part of being a humanities teacher who talked mainly of poetry slams, philosphy, and the beauty of exploring the human experience in texts madeher peg me as the "math guy" She probably would look at Stephen Hawkings and peg him as her star center for the fifth grade basketball team. Idiot!. I wonder if she knows that most math people don't major in Humanities or believe that the Truth is found in raindrops, silent laughter, and the phases fo the moon. Most math people probably don't grudgingly admit that numbers might be useful but by removing the gray areas of life they also suck the joy out of the human experience. Do Math guys practice crying in front of their mirrors so that if they ever get a chance to read "Where the Red Fern Grows" to their class they can cry when old Dan and Little Anne die even though they know it is going to happen and have already cried so many tears over them that even the red fern planted by the angel offers little solace. Do Math people fall in Love at least twice a week? Do math people try to write poems about how sunsets are God's way of apologizing for making a world with so much loneliness? Do math people use words like karma and human experience daily? Do I over generalize and dramatize what math people do? maybe, but still- I am not a math person and anyone that thinks I am has either never talked to me, or has a brain made out of bitch-shit....
Mr. B checked his thoughts there, feeling bad for degenerated into senseless mental swearing. He thanked Ms. Mir, collected his things and took them to room 213- unlocked it with his new keys and dropped the math stuff off and hurried off to his team meeting.
After the introductions: Mr. Burns, Mr. Maddox, Ms. Weiler, Ms. Flores. They got down to business. First on the agenda was dividing up the grade into two teams and then dividing the subjects. Ms. Weiler, the department head, announced that she had done it already based on our skills and interests. She announced that Mr. B was doing Social Studies and Language Arts. Bells Ring, Angels Sing, and people sitting calmly all over the world on park benches, in hammocks, and next to fires feel a calm pass over them and know something wonderful has happened.
The day continues and Mr. B floats through it. He finds out later that the principal had mistaken her subjects and thought he was Mr. Maddox. He didn't even get upset that she didn't know his name when she was talking at him for 10 minutes in the gym. He didn't even care that she hadn't asked him anything. The Angels were still singing and gravity wasn't as strong as usual: Mr. B was going to help kids find themselves, others, and the world in literature; Mr. B was going to help 5th graders find a voice that would help them deal with adolescence; Mr. B could maybe help history from repeating itself by making it interesting to the leaders of our future. Mr. B was going to teach reading, writing, and social studies.
He was ill equipped. He was inexperienced. He was excited.
He was about to be a teacher man! And he was going to teach what he loved to those deserving of love: children.
He also might be wet behind the ears, but he couldn't be sure since he still didn't know for sure what it meant.
After a bout of introductions and names already forgotten, Mr. B was ceremoniously shown his first ever teacher mail box, was taught and almost learned the complex sign-in procedure, received a quick tour and was herded to the library to wait giddily for his first ever School Meeting. He conversed awkwardly with the few faces that seemed familiar. He proceeded to confuse two staff members from the introductions earlier with each other, mispronouncing the names but then divisively charging forward with the conversation too quickly for either of the dark Latino teachers to make the "we all look the same to you people" comment.
Mr. B then saw the principal come in and decided to go to the fifth grade table and wait. He spent the remaining minutes while she struggled to figure out her laptop and the power point presentation trying to figure out if wet behind the ears described the inexperienced or the experienced. He knew it was one or the other, but couldn't remember. He ended up deciding it was the inexperienced. It might be a cattle reference- they are born all covered in goop and so when they are brand new they are wet behind the ears. Cowboys are so good with turn-of-phrase he noted, and made a mental post-it to himself "Google: Wet Behind the Ears". He never remembered to do it since then Ms. Mir started her state of the school kingdom address.
Mr. B tuned out for the next two hours then shuffled to the gym/cafeteria at the same time as the other new teachers and hoped that nothing important happened during the morning library. He still wasn't convinced about wet behind the ears. Maybe the cowboys used it to describe the veteran wranglers that had herded cattle through a rain storm so bad that even their their ten gallon hats couldn't keep them dry. He imagined that cattle spooked easily during a storm and that only a real wet behind the ears cowboy could keep the cattle on the trail, keep the horse calm, and keep their nerves from fraying.
Or maybe it has nothing to do with cowboys? Unlikely, but worth considering.
Mr. B found himself and his musings in the gym looking through a host of new supplies that Ms. Mir informed him were "New Teacher Gifts to get y'all started in your subject areas." Ms. Mir led him to a pile of Math Games and Texts and Mr. B heard her say to him "We have had you pegged as our math guy since our first interview..."
Mr. B did not want to rattle the boat so he swallowed the "WHAT!?!?!!" that had tried to jump indignantly out of his thought. I wonder what part of being a humanities teacher who talked mainly of poetry slams, philosphy, and the beauty of exploring the human experience in texts madeher peg me as the "math guy" She probably would look at Stephen Hawkings and peg him as her star center for the fifth grade basketball team. Idiot!. I wonder if she knows that most math people don't major in Humanities or believe that the Truth is found in raindrops, silent laughter, and the phases fo the moon. Most math people probably don't grudgingly admit that numbers might be useful but by removing the gray areas of life they also suck the joy out of the human experience. Do Math guys practice crying in front of their mirrors so that if they ever get a chance to read "Where the Red Fern Grows" to their class they can cry when old Dan and Little Anne die even though they know it is going to happen and have already cried so many tears over them that even the red fern planted by the angel offers little solace. Do Math people fall in Love at least twice a week? Do math people try to write poems about how sunsets are God's way of apologizing for making a world with so much loneliness? Do math people use words like karma and human experience daily? Do I over generalize and dramatize what math people do? maybe, but still- I am not a math person and anyone that thinks I am has either never talked to me, or has a brain made out of bitch-shit....
Mr. B checked his thoughts there, feeling bad for degenerated into senseless mental swearing. He thanked Ms. Mir, collected his things and took them to room 213- unlocked it with his new keys and dropped the math stuff off and hurried off to his team meeting.
After the introductions: Mr. Burns, Mr. Maddox, Ms. Weiler, Ms. Flores. They got down to business. First on the agenda was dividing up the grade into two teams and then dividing the subjects. Ms. Weiler, the department head, announced that she had done it already based on our skills and interests. She announced that Mr. B was doing Social Studies and Language Arts. Bells Ring, Angels Sing, and people sitting calmly all over the world on park benches, in hammocks, and next to fires feel a calm pass over them and know something wonderful has happened.
The day continues and Mr. B floats through it. He finds out later that the principal had mistaken her subjects and thought he was Mr. Maddox. He didn't even get upset that she didn't know his name when she was talking at him for 10 minutes in the gym. He didn't even care that she hadn't asked him anything. The Angels were still singing and gravity wasn't as strong as usual: Mr. B was going to help kids find themselves, others, and the world in literature; Mr. B was going to help 5th graders find a voice that would help them deal with adolescence; Mr. B could maybe help history from repeating itself by making it interesting to the leaders of our future. Mr. B was going to teach reading, writing, and social studies.
He was ill equipped. He was inexperienced. He was excited.
He was about to be a teacher man! And he was going to teach what he loved to those deserving of love: children.
He also might be wet behind the ears, but he couldn't be sure since he still didn't know for sure what it meant.
Saturday 25 August 2007
Mr. Brossart goes to Teacher Heaven.
Teacher Heaven:
This is the name of a real store. I traveled there with a couple fellow TFA CMs and we bought a lot of stuff to outfit our classrooms with...
This store is really very neat. It has tons of bulletin board things, resources, stamps, cool timers and games. I ended up spending more money there than I wanted to, but I think it was worth it.
I just hope that if i live the rest of my life as a teacher and then die and get a chance to go to heaven where there are far more beautiful women, hamocks, pie, and alcohol. Because if that is where teachers go to heaven I am in the wrong profession- There has go to be more to heaven than classroom decorations.
I need to become like a chef or super-model agent or something. I bet their heavens are neater...
This is the name of a real store. I traveled there with a couple fellow TFA CMs and we bought a lot of stuff to outfit our classrooms with...
This store is really very neat. It has tons of bulletin board things, resources, stamps, cool timers and games. I ended up spending more money there than I wanted to, but I think it was worth it.
I just hope that if i live the rest of my life as a teacher and then die and get a chance to go to heaven where there are far more beautiful women, hamocks, pie, and alcohol. Because if that is where teachers go to heaven I am in the wrong profession- There has go to be more to heaven than classroom decorations.
I need to become like a chef or super-model agent or something. I bet their heavens are neater...
Sunday 19 August 2007
T-minus 3 Days...
I am finally in my classroom again. And in 3 days I will have a classroom, kids, and a whole litany of challenges, set backs, and success to fight for.
These last couple weeks since getting back from Minnesota have been quite an emotional challenge. I have gotten into my school. I have met the staff. And I could hardly be any more excited for the school year. It is going to be incredible. Challenging. World stretching. Draining. And fun. Fun in the same way a rugby game is: It is thrilling because of how disastrous or incredible it could be. Except this time, instead of staring down 15 brutes in ugly shorts and socks reeking of booze and malice, I am going to face a classroom of kids with their own problems and fears reeking of untapped potential- and I will be trying to make them believe in themselves. That happens to be the opposite of my rugby strategy which consisted of mainly "manly" posturing, belittling banter, and maybe a few too many punches thrown... None of those will be in my classroom management plan.
We have been being trained by the Houston ISD, and I must admit that I admire the way the school district is truly doing its best to try and move towards a vision of a school district that gives all of its students (well over half of whom are FORM- free or reduced meal- students a real chance at a great education and opportunity). However, after that point, after I acknowledge that I believe they are truly working their hardest for what they believe is the good of the students, after that I MUST totally disagree with the school system and how they operate.
I believe teaching to the test does not foster the creativity necessary to thrive in a service based economy. It also sucks the joy out f learning and pushes kids that NEED it away from an opportunity to chase their dreams. I think Test Centered Philosophies cleverly stifle the potential for upward mobility (this is a conspiracy theory I came up with during a 20 minute session on who was allowed to sign our mentor form- the answer by the way is: our mentor. That is all. only our mentor. The next 19.75 minutes were spent with my trying to figure out if the presenter thought i was an idiot or just hated me...)
OK, dear reader- sorry this is so long, but I cannot end on a negative note: I made a conscious decision three days ago to stop whining, find the positive edges of life and smile through it all. I can't change the bureaucracy and while some sarcasm is therapeutic- too much poisons the soul. So, here as a going away present: here are 6 wonderful things about teaching in Houston for HISD:
1) My kids. I have met some of them- I am thrilled to get to know them more. They are like real life tiny people.
2) The heart. HISD wants to get better and is really trying to. Got to respect effort at least.
3) Texas. Nuf Said. I still haven't figured it all out, but right after the Pledge of Allegience, we say the Texas pledge- they just added "under God" to it. I gotta love the swagger of Texas doing it there way- and you can go surprise the south end of a north bound "hoss" if you don't like their style. Love the swagger even when I disagree.
4) Diversity. This city is diverse in almost every way you can imagine (except the whatever type of diversity allows for it to be less humid than a fat man's armpit. It is humid even when its raining and right after... that isn't supposed to be possible. It is like God's hot tub is always overflowing and it lands on H-town. And shucks, who doesn't like a hot tub?). I can already tell interacting closely with so many cultures, people, and beliefs closely is changing some of my biases and opening my eyes to how amazing my life has been.
5) My team. The people I teach with are awesome and eclectic.
6) Fiesta. They have a grocery store here named "Party". And let me tell you- it lives up to its name... I mean it is not a crazy party, but it they have plenty of food at the party- and i mean, yall have seen me- clearly that is my favorite kind of party...yum! )
Coming soon:
Mr. Brossart finds out what he is teaching.
Mr. Brossart's adventures on Parent Meet and Greet Night.
Mr. Brossart's cowboy hat adventure.
Mr. Brossart and the Fab 5 team (the fifth grade staff).
Mr. Brossart goes to Teacher Heaven.
Sorry for the long silence. As a writing teacher I have to keep writing or I am a hypocrit- so check here for those stories and more in the near future.
I believe teaching to the test does not foster the creativity necessary to thrive in a service based economy. It also sucks the joy out f learning and pushes kids that NEED it away from an opportunity to chase their dreams. I think Test Centered Philosophies cleverly stifle the potential for upward mobility (this is a conspiracy theory I came up with during a 20 minute session on who was allowed to sign our mentor form- the answer by the way is: our mentor. That is all. only our mentor. The next 19.75 minutes were spent with my trying to figure out if the presenter thought i was an idiot or just hated me...)
OK, dear reader- sorry this is so long, but I cannot end on a negative note: I made a conscious decision three days ago to stop whining, find the positive edges of life and smile through it all. I can't change the bureaucracy and while some sarcasm is therapeutic- too much poisons the soul. So, here as a going away present: here are 6 wonderful things about teaching in Houston for HISD:
1) My kids. I have met some of them- I am thrilled to get to know them more. They are like real life tiny people.
2) The heart. HISD wants to get better and is really trying to. Got to respect effort at least.
3) Texas. Nuf Said. I still haven't figured it all out, but right after the Pledge of Allegience, we say the Texas pledge- they just added "under God" to it. I gotta love the swagger of Texas doing it there way- and you can go surprise the south end of a north bound "hoss" if you don't like their style. Love the swagger even when I disagree.
4) Diversity. This city is diverse in almost every way you can imagine (except the whatever type of diversity allows for it to be less humid than a fat man's armpit. It is humid even when its raining and right after... that isn't supposed to be possible. It is like God's hot tub is always overflowing and it lands on H-town. And shucks, who doesn't like a hot tub?). I can already tell interacting closely with so many cultures, people, and beliefs closely is changing some of my biases and opening my eyes to how amazing my life has been.
5) My team. The people I teach with are awesome and eclectic.
6) Fiesta. They have a grocery store here named "Party". And let me tell you- it lives up to its name... I mean it is not a crazy party, but it they have plenty of food at the party- and i mean, yall have seen me- clearly that is my favorite kind of party...yum! )
Coming soon:
Mr. Brossart finds out what he is teaching.
Mr. Brossart's adventures on Parent Meet and Greet Night.
Mr. Brossart's cowboy hat adventure.
Mr. Brossart and the Fab 5 team (the fifth grade staff).
Mr. Brossart goes to Teacher Heaven.
Sorry for the long silence. As a writing teacher I have to keep writing or I am a hypocrit- so check here for those stories and more in the near future.
Saturday 11 August 2007
Tedium
I sit here in a session. bored. really bored.
I am trying to keep myself involved, or at least preoccupied, but not to much success. I just am borrowing my friend Keena's laptop to quickly shoot you all a note saying that I am going to get internet in my apartment in about a week and then I will be able to start writing again.
On a related note: They are now letting us out for lunch and I am gonna go to a CHINA B!!!!! That I discoved 3 minutes from my apartment. I have a great life :)
Peace
I am trying to keep myself involved, or at least preoccupied, but not to much success. I just am borrowing my friend Keena's laptop to quickly shoot you all a note saying that I am going to get internet in my apartment in about a week and then I will be able to start writing again.
On a related note: They are now letting us out for lunch and I am gonna go to a CHINA B!!!!! That I discoved 3 minutes from my apartment. I have a great life :)
Peace
Thursday 19 July 2007
Minnesota
If anyone ever tells you that Minnesota is not beautiful and wonderful and just about the best place anyone could live just look at them and with a small sad smile tell them "i guess good taste is not a gift God thinks you deserve."
It has lakes, parks, (my) family, less humidity than Houston (which is nice) , more heat than Alaska (which is amazing), and smells like Love, happiness, and home.
This IS my secret garden. It is good to be home with my family.
It has lakes, parks, (my) family, less humidity than Houston (which is nice) , more heat than Alaska (which is amazing), and smells like Love, happiness, and home.
This IS my secret garden. It is good to be home with my family.
Tuesday 17 July 2007
Age over Beauty. (Not the story of a Gold Digger)
Ms. H is in your face. Big time. She must be only 5 feet 2 inches tall when she is stretching up to her full height. She fills out horizontally almost as much. She has been teaching in rough areas of Houston for 23 years. She must be between 40- and 50 but has a sort of age-less energy that creates an interesting contrast to her from-the-block/been-there-done-that sassy wisdom. To me she epitomizes archetypally the sassy black woman.
When she talks I listen, half out of intrigue and half out of pure terror of what might happen if I didn't. Ms. H came and joined our CS training sessions for the last 3 days of institute in the same way that Lebron James might join a fourth grade in house girls basketball league.
She was my partner for the last 3 days of institute. Right away I knew I was out of my league and I loved it. We would play role-playing games to learn how to interact with difficult parents, principals and students. While the rest of my corps members role played with each other to easy outcomes and text book results, Ms. H made my afternoons a train wreck of learning and amusement washed down with a healthy dose of embarrassment and humility. In our role playing sessions she would run circles around me as angry parents, stressed out grandparents, gang member kids, and authoritarian principals. Then as we wrapped up and the timer rang she would look around her and hoot a bunch of times and say "he thought he had me that time!! you thought you had me!!! woooohhhh!!! Wuuheeeeee!!!! Boy you shoulda seen your face!!! You didn't see that coming!!" Ms. H would laugh and laugh and i would turn more and more red and get frustrated, but at the same time I realized that I was gaining way more from testing my problem solving and mediation against her than some other scared corps member from Berkley. Still I couldn't figure out why she had picked me as her pet Corps Member to pick on/ work with. On the last day of institute I found out.
I was walking down the hallway wearing my "thinking cap" that i used when teaching science. She stopped me and said "Mr. B. I wanted to thank you for working with me the last few days. My first husband was an Irish guy from Boston and your energy and flair reminded me of him. Keep up your earnest effort and sass and you will do great!" In my mind the scene kept rolling and we hugged, she told me I was a one in a billion teacher and she was honored to know me. We talked of Irish things, I referred to Ireland as the old country, and eventually we bumped into each other 15 years down the road while I was receiving a teaching award and she told me she learned a lot from me those three days in the library. She only hoped I learned as much as she did. In actuality she said. "That hat looks great on you. Remember to record everything or you will be eaten alive. You've got a good head, but need to keep records or you flounder and look terrified. See you later."
Well Ms. H- I learned a lot from you. Thank you.
Institute wrapped up neatly. The kids had fun the last day, wrote their big goals for the next year, promised to read every night and Adalberto gave me a really awkward hug. It was precious. I then moved all my stuff to my new apartment, watched Harry Potter (two thumbs up!), bought furniture from Target, drank beer/assembled furniture, and then caught a flight to MN. Here I am in my parents' house reflecting on the last couple days of institute and ecstatic that i get to see Chris in less than 12 hours!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank God he is home safe and sound.
When she talks I listen, half out of intrigue and half out of pure terror of what might happen if I didn't. Ms. H came and joined our CS training sessions for the last 3 days of institute in the same way that Lebron James might join a fourth grade in house girls basketball league.
She was my partner for the last 3 days of institute. Right away I knew I was out of my league and I loved it. We would play role-playing games to learn how to interact with difficult parents, principals and students. While the rest of my corps members role played with each other to easy outcomes and text book results, Ms. H made my afternoons a train wreck of learning and amusement washed down with a healthy dose of embarrassment and humility. In our role playing sessions she would run circles around me as angry parents, stressed out grandparents, gang member kids, and authoritarian principals. Then as we wrapped up and the timer rang she would look around her and hoot a bunch of times and say "he thought he had me that time!! you thought you had me!!! woooohhhh!!! Wuuheeeeee!!!! Boy you shoulda seen your face!!! You didn't see that coming!!" Ms. H would laugh and laugh and i would turn more and more red and get frustrated, but at the same time I realized that I was gaining way more from testing my problem solving and mediation against her than some other scared corps member from Berkley. Still I couldn't figure out why she had picked me as her pet Corps Member to pick on/ work with. On the last day of institute I found out.
I was walking down the hallway wearing my "thinking cap" that i used when teaching science. She stopped me and said "Mr. B. I wanted to thank you for working with me the last few days. My first husband was an Irish guy from Boston and your energy and flair reminded me of him. Keep up your earnest effort and sass and you will do great!" In my mind the scene kept rolling and we hugged, she told me I was a one in a billion teacher and she was honored to know me. We talked of Irish things, I referred to Ireland as the old country, and eventually we bumped into each other 15 years down the road while I was receiving a teaching award and she told me she learned a lot from me those three days in the library. She only hoped I learned as much as she did. In actuality she said. "That hat looks great on you. Remember to record everything or you will be eaten alive. You've got a good head, but need to keep records or you flounder and look terrified. See you later."
Well Ms. H- I learned a lot from you. Thank you.
Institute wrapped up neatly. The kids had fun the last day, wrote their big goals for the next year, promised to read every night and Adalberto gave me a really awkward hug. It was precious. I then moved all my stuff to my new apartment, watched Harry Potter (two thumbs up!), bought furniture from Target, drank beer/assembled furniture, and then caught a flight to MN. Here I am in my parents' house reflecting on the last couple days of institute and ecstatic that i get to see Chris in less than 12 hours!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank God he is home safe and sound.
Friday 13 July 2007
Late Night Reflections...
It is late. I am tired. Tomorrow is the last day of summer school and institute. I am ecstatics, or would be. But right now my emotion is fatigue. I am waiting as my printer finishes printing the stories my students wrote that i promised foolishly to "publish" and not just staple together. They look pretty cool, but have taken all night and I still have about an hour left. But tomorrow is the last day so I know I can survive just fine. It just means tomorrow night I will only need to have like one beer at happy hour and i will be buzzed. That is nice (note to self: now that I am a teacher i certainly do sound more mature...).
For all those I Love and haven't talked to enough (pretty much anyone that reads this page) I wanted to give you all insight into my classroom. As part of one of my assessments (for TFA's checking my progress as a teacher) on of my CS's transcribed 10 minutes of my class: here is a copy of that class. Now you know what it is like to be in my room for a science lesson:
( Warning note to readers- I have told my students that I am from Alaska. I make up stories and steal them from people that actually have them (in or out of Alaska) to give lessons a practical and personal note. In the teaching profession this is not considered lieing. It is considered investment. Don't judge :) )
So, there it is. That is what it is like. Confusing, low on actual content, but engaging. So, maybe there is hope that in the end I will be more than an educated babysitter with a penchant for hyperbole. Maybe.
For all those I Love and haven't talked to enough (pretty much anyone that reads this page) I wanted to give you all insight into my classroom. As part of one of my assessments (for TFA's checking my progress as a teacher) on of my CS's transcribed 10 minutes of my class: here is a copy of that class. Now you know what it is like to be in my room for a science lesson:
( Warning note to readers- I have told my students that I am from Alaska. I make up stories and steal them from people that actually have them (in or out of Alaska) to give lessons a practical and personal note. In the teaching profession this is not considered lieing. It is considered investment. Don't judge :) )
Observation Start Time: 12:30
Observation End Time: 12:40
Teacher: Matt Brossart
| Teacher | Student |
| This is something I know you’re all familiar with (shows graph) – how ice can turn into water and can turn into steam. Has anyone here ever burnt themselves on steam? | No! |
| OK, good. Just making sure. | |
| So when I lived in Alaska, the first place I lived in was like from here to…here. (shows students about a 10 foot by 5 foot square) | Ohhh. |
| So what made this place so nice is that there was a sink in it. One night I was sleeping, and it was about -50 degrees. One night I heard a noise, and I woke up, and there was water spraying all over my room. I didn’t know what to do – I’m not a plumber – so I made the wise decision to go back to bed. | Kids laugh |
| So I woke up, and my boots were frozen to the floor…water is amazing. Amazingly powerful. We can use it to power steam engines, to push whole trains, to freeze all of our stuff to the ground…so it’s the same material, and it can come in all of these forms or phrases. We’re going to look at a quick experiment that shows us how powerful it can be. | Experiment! |
| Directs kids to computer. | |
| Stops computer Does anyone know what liquid nitrogen is? | I can’t really see. I can’t hear that well. AH |
| Liquid nitrogen is about -300 degrees. It is VERY cold. It’s used with thermometers; it’s a fantastic tool for scientists. Yes, Nicole? | If you stick your finger in it, it’d be filled with be ice in a minute, right? |
| Less than minute. If you were to dip your hand in it and hit your hand against something, your hand would explode, and you wouldn’t have your hand anymore. | |
| You do not mess around with liquid nitrogen, and you’re going to see why. | |
| Did you all see what they were wearing on their eyes? | Safety goggles! |
| And is that one of our tools we use as scientists? | Yes! |
| OK, just checking. | |
| What would we use to measure how thick an inch and a half is? | The…balance. |
| Would you use the balance to measure that? Look up here. What would you use? | Student in spanglish: ruler |
| That is exactly right. And an inch and a half of metal – is that strong? | Yes! |
| Could you bend an inch and a half of metal, Wendy? You could? Wow. That’s really strong. Generally NFL football players aren’t that strong. | |
| Continue watching experiment | Kids laugh; enthralled. |
| So that just gives you a picture in your head of how powerful ice can be. |
So, there it is. That is what it is like. Confusing, low on actual content, but engaging. So, maybe there is hope that in the end I will be more than an educated babysitter with a penchant for hyperbole. Maybe.
Saturday 7 July 2007
18/22 is bigger than 1/2. My kids could tell you that now!
So, I made a rather base realization today as I read and reflected on my life, my students, the purpose of "it all", Teach for America, and the slight fog still in my head left over from the 6 hours at the Karaoke bar last night. I realized that I am 22. Then I started making some calculations: I spent 12 years in primary school: 1st,2nd,3rd,4th,5th,6th,7th,8th,9th,10th,11th,and 12th grade. Add onto that one year of preschool and one year of kindergarten (sidebar: The school I am working at in the fall, Garcia Elementary, has the mascot The Gators. The kindergarten staff has cute little t-shirts with a smiling cartoon Gator on it holding a crayon and underneath the picture the t-shirt says: KinderGator Teacher. That is far too cute and puny for its own good. I almost asked for a grade level shirt so I could wear that shirt everyday). Then add onto those 14 years total 4 more years of college. I have spent 18 of my 22 years in school learning. I have now spent 4 weeks back in school teaching and in a hyperbolic way I am not sure in which period of time I have learned more. I know for a fact that despite sitting through classes taught in Spanish, despite studying advanced mathematics and statistics. despite learning i know virtually nothing about the vast world history in regions east of Russia and south of Egypt, despite all of that- in the last 4 weeks I have finally actually learned how little I know. Also, how little life experience I have.
Something about having to explain concepts to tiny people with no background and not being able to skirt around the areas I am less clear about really exposes weaknesses in content areas. Also, something about having to teach all subjects (even at a fifth grade level) really opened my eyes at how much I want to learn if I want to become a truly great teacher. I have SOOOO much i want to learn not only about content but about how to teach and how to reach so many different learning styles. I am reading a book from a friend (Donut) called Teacher Man by Frank McCourt. In it he reflects linearly about his experience teaching and the book has really struck a chord with me. He writes of the thousand little things that effect (affect? so many things I don't know) a classroom and the students receptiveness to learn. I feel so small up there- equipped mainly with energy and a few tricks I have picked up along the way- I feel like I am walking through life with too much to learn.
On a contradictory note: I am now one step closer to becoming certified to teach officially!!!!! Today I got the test results back from the state Texas Exam I had to take to pass certification. I got a 287 out of 300. A 240 was required for certification. If I had gotten 13 more points I would have nothing more to learn from anyone.
More later on actually teaching this week.
Something about having to explain concepts to tiny people with no background and not being able to skirt around the areas I am less clear about really exposes weaknesses in content areas. Also, something about having to teach all subjects (even at a fifth grade level) really opened my eyes at how much I want to learn if I want to become a truly great teacher. I have SOOOO much i want to learn not only about content but about how to teach and how to reach so many different learning styles. I am reading a book from a friend (Donut) called Teacher Man by Frank McCourt. In it he reflects linearly about his experience teaching and the book has really struck a chord with me. He writes of the thousand little things that effect (affect? so many things I don't know) a classroom and the students receptiveness to learn. I feel so small up there- equipped mainly with energy and a few tricks I have picked up along the way- I feel like I am walking through life with too much to learn.
On a contradictory note: I am now one step closer to becoming certified to teach officially!!!!! Today I got the test results back from the state Texas Exam I had to take to pass certification. I got a 287 out of 300. A 240 was required for certification. If I had gotten 13 more points I would have nothing more to learn from anyone.
More later on actually teaching this week.
Thursday 28 June 2007
Adalberto
Teachers are not supposed to have favorites. And I really don't have one i like more than the rest. But, well, there is one student I just have to write about. I have one particular student named Adalberto whom I adore. He is a precious and shy little slightly chubby Latino boy with a blockish head, big square glasses, and quiet bright eyes that shine from behind them. I am sure one of the main reasons I adore him so much (other than i never have to deal with him in classroom discipline) is that he reminds me of my older brother, Chris.
On the first day we had them decorate a little name tag for their desk with their name, their big goal for the summer, and any design they wanted. Adalberto scrawled his name in mostly legible block letters. Then he wrote: "Be gud. get smart" He spent most of the time with the design, he drew little stick figures all over it. The stick figures were involved in complex machines, maneuvers, and landscapes. Most of them were also busy shooting little dashed lines at each other. Anyone that ever got to see Chris's school folders would probably recognize the genre of art.
Adalberto is generally quiet in class, but when called on will quietly and shyly answer questions with short and sometimes hard to decipher answers with amazing accuracy; he is not very confident in his English, but my thought is that as it improves Adalberto will start talking more and more. When he is right his eyes light up and he smiles a big smile. This piercing and happy quietness really is a pleasure to have in the classroom, but hardly noticeable when not focusing on it. The thing that makes him really the center of this post is his passion for writing. This boy will chew through books and write with a fervor that is astonishing, especially given his trouble in speaking English. He like the rest of my fourth graders is obsessed with Goosebumps Books (cute, trite, pseudo-scary chapter books for kids). But he has stepped it up a notch.
My class is working on the writing process and editing, and I am going to publish their book of myths that they are writing at the end of the summer school. I have been pounding into them (or at least trying to) the importance of the writing process and we have been brainstorming, (struggling with) outlining, writing rough drafts, editing for coherence, editing for spelling, and focusing on Showing the reader- not telling the reader- as in adding adjectives, adverbs, metaphors, and similes. To invest the kids I have been focusing on the difference between a writer- which anyone that can write a sentence is, and authors- who have the duty and honor to share the greatest ideas in the world with other people through their writing. Adalberto jumped on the train and is standing at the front of the engine begging me to make it go faster. I have him go home every night and write an extra short scary story. He comes first thing in the morning smiling into class and begging me to read his 2 page long, cute and barely legible horror story (which without fail to date forgets to include a conflict written down. for example the first one had a man go into the house and get scared- he forgot to write the man fell into a pit and couldn't get out) and tell me if i was scared. It has been a great and humorous way to work with his English, and writing at the same time. His passion and energy for "becoming an author who writes books with real covers not just paper" has been inspirational and energizing for me.
There is something inspirational about each of my students. Some are especially draining as well, but each has something amazing that motivates me to keep lesson planning at 2:30 in the morning on a Thursday night. I wasn't aware how attached to the kids I would get. I want to so bad to get good at this teaching thing, because I want THESE kids to have more doors opened for them, it is no longer some intangible statistic like by 4th grade my students in low income areas come in 3 grade levels behind. Or that a person's likelihood of going to prison in a US city can be reasonably predicted based on their reading levels in 3rd grade and 10th grade. They are now real people, tiny people who don't hold still well, tiny people who use a ton of Kleenex, and tiny people who inspire me to become the best teacher i can be as quickly as I can.
I have been struggling with teaching my students the concepts of outlining this week. Friday when i was reflecting on their assessments and overall low scoring on them was a rough one, but I will get better, and I will get better because of Adalberto, Chatty Carlece'a, Moody and charming Grace, Juan my fighter, Wendy with the big smile, cute and polite Taylor, bouncy Jeronimo, Brilliant Nicole, Insightful Jacquline (who speaks nearly no English and yet got the answer "fossils" when the rest of the class couldn't figure out how scientists know about dinosaurs), and the rest of the students I have had and will soon have.
On the first day we had them decorate a little name tag for their desk with their name, their big goal for the summer, and any design they wanted. Adalberto scrawled his name in mostly legible block letters. Then he wrote: "Be gud. get smart" He spent most of the time with the design, he drew little stick figures all over it. The stick figures were involved in complex machines, maneuvers, and landscapes. Most of them were also busy shooting little dashed lines at each other. Anyone that ever got to see Chris's school folders would probably recognize the genre of art.
Adalberto is generally quiet in class, but when called on will quietly and shyly answer questions with short and sometimes hard to decipher answers with amazing accuracy; he is not very confident in his English, but my thought is that as it improves Adalberto will start talking more and more. When he is right his eyes light up and he smiles a big smile. This piercing and happy quietness really is a pleasure to have in the classroom, but hardly noticeable when not focusing on it. The thing that makes him really the center of this post is his passion for writing. This boy will chew through books and write with a fervor that is astonishing, especially given his trouble in speaking English. He like the rest of my fourth graders is obsessed with Goosebumps Books (cute, trite, pseudo-scary chapter books for kids). But he has stepped it up a notch.
My class is working on the writing process and editing, and I am going to publish their book of myths that they are writing at the end of the summer school. I have been pounding into them (or at least trying to) the importance of the writing process and we have been brainstorming, (struggling with) outlining, writing rough drafts, editing for coherence, editing for spelling, and focusing on Showing the reader- not telling the reader- as in adding adjectives, adverbs, metaphors, and similes. To invest the kids I have been focusing on the difference between a writer- which anyone that can write a sentence is, and authors- who have the duty and honor to share the greatest ideas in the world with other people through their writing. Adalberto jumped on the train and is standing at the front of the engine begging me to make it go faster. I have him go home every night and write an extra short scary story. He comes first thing in the morning smiling into class and begging me to read his 2 page long, cute and barely legible horror story (which without fail to date forgets to include a conflict written down. for example the first one had a man go into the house and get scared- he forgot to write the man fell into a pit and couldn't get out) and tell me if i was scared. It has been a great and humorous way to work with his English, and writing at the same time. His passion and energy for "becoming an author who writes books with real covers not just paper" has been inspirational and energizing for me.
There is something inspirational about each of my students. Some are especially draining as well, but each has something amazing that motivates me to keep lesson planning at 2:30 in the morning on a Thursday night. I wasn't aware how attached to the kids I would get. I want to so bad to get good at this teaching thing, because I want THESE kids to have more doors opened for them, it is no longer some intangible statistic like by 4th grade my students in low income areas come in 3 grade levels behind. Or that a person's likelihood of going to prison in a US city can be reasonably predicted based on their reading levels in 3rd grade and 10th grade. They are now real people, tiny people who don't hold still well, tiny people who use a ton of Kleenex, and tiny people who inspire me to become the best teacher i can be as quickly as I can.
I have been struggling with teaching my students the concepts of outlining this week. Friday when i was reflecting on their assessments and overall low scoring on them was a rough one, but I will get better, and I will get better because of Adalberto, Chatty Carlece'a, Moody and charming Grace, Juan my fighter, Wendy with the big smile, cute and polite Taylor, bouncy Jeronimo, Brilliant Nicole, Insightful Jacquline (who speaks nearly no English and yet got the answer "fossils" when the rest of the class couldn't figure out how scientists know about dinosaurs), and the rest of the students I have had and will soon have.
Tuesday 26 June 2007
TFA Day:
So, this morning we woke up and went to school like we have grown accustomed to doing. I taught a raucous class of kids the importance of brainstorming and outlining to come up with good ideas. The kids were chatty, but invested. Tomorrow I have plans for trying to find ways to minimize their chatter. Keep informed, I will tell you if they ever work. I have been working on my "Teacher Look". However, unlike amazing people- like my cousin Sally, I have no teacher look to this point. I do have a proximity and posture trick that works out since i am much bigger than my students and after years of talking shit to my mirror, I have some experience in trying to look tough. Fortunately, to an 11 year old, a semi stearn looking 245 pound dude standing next to him/her with a serious tone generally operates in a similar way as a teacher look. It is just less cool and less efficient. Teacher looks are scary.
Anyways, the afternoon came around and we were scheduled to have another marathon Curriculum Specialist Session for 3 hours in a hot dark library. When we got in there the core was pretty frazled. A lot of the classes had been really chatty, we hadn't been making the academic gains we wanted, or sleeping enough. So there were some people on the verge of tears. I was actually in a pretty good mood since i had spent 8 minutes at lunch throwing a ball back and forth with my Corps Member Advisor- Katie. The monotany and simplicity of it was theraputic.
The session began with the preface that it is time for us to look at time management again and examine our values. We were supposed to write "What does TFA mean to you?" and "What is one not work related thing u are going to do tonight?"
I wrote: TFA means never being good enough- always having room to improve- closing the achievement gap. It means frustration, relentlessness, overcoming obstacles, and rejoicing in small successes. TFA means seeing Jeronimo smile and understand what an adjective is. It means not just having big goals, but living them. TFA is an organization. It is the No Fear folder of my life. TFA is the reason I know my next two years will not be wasted. It is a job, a dream, a paradigm. It means work hard, get smart. It is my opportunity to serve the country without a gun in my hand. It is a long shot and hard work, it is a step towards a better tomorrow. And it is the main reason I could really go for a nap right now.
They picked a few students and had them read theirs out loud one girl started crying as she reflected on being frustrated that her students have hardly been learning apparently, and she feels like it is her fault. She talked about being worried that she wouldn't improve their learning and was wasting every one's time. She talked about being exhausted.
Then the CMA's and CS's (our teachers and administrators) talked about what it meant to them. one group made an acrostic poem- the first groups talked really touchingly about what it has meant to them in their lives. How it touches them still now as they are alumni of the program just involved with helping train us. Then the second group of kindergartner CMA's spoke and said it stood for TOTALLY FREE AFTERNOON!!!!!!
They gave us the afternoon off and loaded us on the busses and had games and snacks and stuff waiting for us at the dorms. Everyone was in such a great mood. I got a group of 6 people and we went and played volleyball with a kickball. It has been raining constantly for about a week and so the sand was (no exaggeration) 10 inch deep mud. It was a mess and them 6 more people came and played and like10 came and watched. It was a great way to relieve stress and have fun without worrying about not making enough of a difference.
After the Volleyball game I met up with Flora, Ashleigh, and Kristen and we drove to Mario Garcia Elementary School. Those are my CM's that are going to teach there with me. Someday later i will write about what my school looked like. I just wanted to reflect that i had some down time and the TFA people are clever with morale.
I love all of you, and miss those of you reading this (whom I know).
Anyways, the afternoon came around and we were scheduled to have another marathon Curriculum Specialist Session for 3 hours in a hot dark library. When we got in there the core was pretty frazled. A lot of the classes had been really chatty, we hadn't been making the academic gains we wanted, or sleeping enough. So there were some people on the verge of tears. I was actually in a pretty good mood since i had spent 8 minutes at lunch throwing a ball back and forth with my Corps Member Advisor- Katie. The monotany and simplicity of it was theraputic.
The session began with the preface that it is time for us to look at time management again and examine our values. We were supposed to write "What does TFA mean to you?" and "What is one not work related thing u are going to do tonight?"
I wrote: TFA means never being good enough- always having room to improve- closing the achievement gap. It means frustration, relentlessness, overcoming obstacles, and rejoicing in small successes. TFA means seeing Jeronimo smile and understand what an adjective is. It means not just having big goals, but living them. TFA is an organization. It is the No Fear folder of my life. TFA is the reason I know my next two years will not be wasted. It is a job, a dream, a paradigm. It means work hard, get smart. It is my opportunity to serve the country without a gun in my hand. It is a long shot and hard work, it is a step towards a better tomorrow. And it is the main reason I could really go for a nap right now.
They picked a few students and had them read theirs out loud one girl started crying as she reflected on being frustrated that her students have hardly been learning apparently, and she feels like it is her fault. She talked about being worried that she wouldn't improve their learning and was wasting every one's time. She talked about being exhausted.
Then the CMA's and CS's (our teachers and administrators) talked about what it meant to them. one group made an acrostic poem- the first groups talked really touchingly about what it has meant to them in their lives. How it touches them still now as they are alumni of the program just involved with helping train us. Then the second group of kindergartner CMA's spoke and said it stood for TOTALLY FREE AFTERNOON!!!!!!
They gave us the afternoon off and loaded us on the busses and had games and snacks and stuff waiting for us at the dorms. Everyone was in such a great mood. I got a group of 6 people and we went and played volleyball with a kickball. It has been raining constantly for about a week and so the sand was (no exaggeration) 10 inch deep mud. It was a mess and them 6 more people came and played and like10 came and watched. It was a great way to relieve stress and have fun without worrying about not making enough of a difference.
After the Volleyball game I met up with Flora, Ashleigh, and Kristen and we drove to Mario Garcia Elementary School. Those are my CM's that are going to teach there with me. Someday later i will write about what my school looked like. I just wanted to reflect that i had some down time and the TFA people are clever with morale.
I love all of you, and miss those of you reading this (whom I know).
Sunday 24 June 2007
RENT
Before I begin, anyone that has facebook should check out my photo album "Summer School" it has pictures of all of my kids from this summer.
"How do you leave the past behind
When it keeps finding ways to get to your heart
It reaches way down deep and tears you inside out
Till you're torn apart
Rent!"
-From the musical RENT
Neat. I found a quote that captures both of the biggest emotions I have right now. This weekend I signed the lease on a brand new three bedroom apartment in a region of NW inner Houston. At least 21 other TFA corps members are living there as well. I will be living with a guy named Austin and a girl named Christina. They seem like a lot of fun and we really enjoyed spending our Saturday driving around looking for apartments. We found this place and couldn't wait to sign the lease. It is much much nicer than anywhere i had hoped to live. It comes complementary with a gym, a pool, in unit washer and drier, brand new applianced, a patio, 3 indoor parking spots, and a really nice communal entertainment area. It also comes with complimentary wireless internet!
It is sooo nice to not have to worry about finding a place to live for the rest of the summer. The day I am moving out of institute I will be able to move right into my new apartment and start being a real grown up. I get to pay rent. Not like college rent, but real rent.
That is the really exciting news from this weekend. Other than spending almost all of Saturday apartment hunting I spent my time lesson planning, wrote some poetry, played friesbee, and relaxed with some of my fellow corps members. It was a great break from the amazing hustle that has been institute. The rumor going around here is that 37 people have already dropped out because it was too hard. I haven't confirmed that yet, but I have seen fairly regularly people leaving with all of their things boxed up driving away or hopping in a Taxi. It adds a wierd combination of morbedness and pride to my day. Those of us left here are trying to see if we have what it takes not only to become teachers (an amazingly difficult proffession), but to become above average teachers in only one summer). Everytime someone leaves it seems like it is a dare going across the common room. "I dare you to become a teacher. I dare you. Do you really think you are strong enough?"
It seems like the majority of people take that challenge to heart. I have never lived with such a driven group of people. It is like finals week all the time, without management majors, and instead of grades we have the future of somebody's kids in our hands... It is daunting and exciting. The people are so nice, so diverse, so driven. We represent so many different world views and walks of life. The main thing that connects us is this sense of urgency that the educational gap needs to be closed. It is fun to finally be in an enviornment where the locus of control is placed right on us, and we can band together against the social pressure that says the problem is too big to fix.
The enviornment also makes me miss my home, my family, and my old friends. The people here are amazing. But I haven't yet found a niche of people that have either the biting sarcastic wit of many of my MN connections (Nina, Baits, Flynn, Yea-High, etc) or the overwhelming sense of hyperbole (Hawk, C-B, Cuz Anne, Doc Phil) or are just wonderful to be with (Cody, Girl-Kyle, Donut, my whole family, Tessa). I have met some very cool people, but since i hardly know them, and since things have been so challanging two things have been keeping me going- thoughts of home, and thoughts of my students.
I cannot overemphasize how amazing the kids are, and how tragic it is that since so many of my kids came from a low Socio-Economic place they aren't normally even ever given high expectations, or someone outside of their home that cares about them. it breaks my heart. These kids are so smart, and so much fun, and mostly lacking a sense of hope even at 11 years old. We are really focusing on that hope idea in my class. I can only pray that it will take hold.
Anyways. I just wanted to write to say I Love all of you. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. You are all my strength and inspiration. I thank God everyday that I came from a background that had SOOOO many people that supported me so much.
Keep it real.
"How do you leave the past behind
When it keeps finding ways to get to your heart
It reaches way down deep and tears you inside out
Till you're torn apart
Rent!"
-From the musical RENT
Neat. I found a quote that captures both of the biggest emotions I have right now. This weekend I signed the lease on a brand new three bedroom apartment in a region of NW inner Houston. At least 21 other TFA corps members are living there as well. I will be living with a guy named Austin and a girl named Christina. They seem like a lot of fun and we really enjoyed spending our Saturday driving around looking for apartments. We found this place and couldn't wait to sign the lease. It is much much nicer than anywhere i had hoped to live. It comes complementary with a gym, a pool, in unit washer and drier, brand new applianced, a patio, 3 indoor parking spots, and a really nice communal entertainment area. It also comes with complimentary wireless internet!
It is sooo nice to not have to worry about finding a place to live for the rest of the summer. The day I am moving out of institute I will be able to move right into my new apartment and start being a real grown up. I get to pay rent. Not like college rent, but real rent.
That is the really exciting news from this weekend. Other than spending almost all of Saturday apartment hunting I spent my time lesson planning, wrote some poetry, played friesbee, and relaxed with some of my fellow corps members. It was a great break from the amazing hustle that has been institute. The rumor going around here is that 37 people have already dropped out because it was too hard. I haven't confirmed that yet, but I have seen fairly regularly people leaving with all of their things boxed up driving away or hopping in a Taxi. It adds a wierd combination of morbedness and pride to my day. Those of us left here are trying to see if we have what it takes not only to become teachers (an amazingly difficult proffession), but to become above average teachers in only one summer). Everytime someone leaves it seems like it is a dare going across the common room. "I dare you to become a teacher. I dare you. Do you really think you are strong enough?"
It seems like the majority of people take that challenge to heart. I have never lived with such a driven group of people. It is like finals week all the time, without management majors, and instead of grades we have the future of somebody's kids in our hands... It is daunting and exciting. The people are so nice, so diverse, so driven. We represent so many different world views and walks of life. The main thing that connects us is this sense of urgency that the educational gap needs to be closed. It is fun to finally be in an enviornment where the locus of control is placed right on us, and we can band together against the social pressure that says the problem is too big to fix.
The enviornment also makes me miss my home, my family, and my old friends. The people here are amazing. But I haven't yet found a niche of people that have either the biting sarcastic wit of many of my MN connections (Nina, Baits, Flynn, Yea-High, etc) or the overwhelming sense of hyperbole (Hawk, C-B, Cuz Anne, Doc Phil) or are just wonderful to be with (Cody, Girl-Kyle, Donut, my whole family, Tessa). I have met some very cool people, but since i hardly know them, and since things have been so challanging two things have been keeping me going- thoughts of home, and thoughts of my students.
I cannot overemphasize how amazing the kids are, and how tragic it is that since so many of my kids came from a low Socio-Economic place they aren't normally even ever given high expectations, or someone outside of their home that cares about them. it breaks my heart. These kids are so smart, and so much fun, and mostly lacking a sense of hope even at 11 years old. We are really focusing on that hope idea in my class. I can only pray that it will take hold.
Anyways. I just wanted to write to say I Love all of you. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. You are all my strength and inspiration. I thank God everyday that I came from a background that had SOOOO many people that supported me so much.
Keep it real.
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