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!""

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.)

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.