Anxious to Sub

Now that my student teaching has ended and I have turned in my work-sample I am anxiously awaiting all of my teaching documents so that I can go and register to sub.  I am excited about the variety of classrooms I will be working in. I want to compare and contrast my past experiences with my future ones. It will be hard some days I’m sure, but overall I feel I will be learning a great deal more and taking away something with every new situation, be it ‘good’ or ‘bad’. I will be stating in Eugene for at least the next six months , but who knows where life will lead me after that. I want to end by saying that I had a great time with all of you and I wish you the best of luck now that we depart on our own separate paths. I believe everyone will make a great and wonderful difference in the lives of many young adults.  Thank you all for your love and support and friendship. See you at the shed!

A girl who stopped coming

There is a girl in my draw paint class who stopped coming half way through the term. She hasn’t been there in 3 weeks. It’s a pity two, because since she has been gone we have been doing some fun projects. I tried to call her parents to let them know what was going on but got no answer. I made a memo of this in my grade book. Then, last week I looked out the back window during my draw paint class and saw that she was hanging out outside the auto-shop class with what I like to call “the over achievers club”. I knew I couldn’t leave class to talk to her so I asked my mentor teacher what I should do. He told me to call Sonya, who does school security (she’s tough. she gave me the what do you want look, thinking I was a student, when I knocked on the staff room door in the east wing looking for Andrea one day.) So I called Sonya and left a message. I said that H.G. was seen hanging out outside the auto-shop and was enrolled in draw paint. I said that if she was wondering where H.G. was supposed to be during 3rd period it was in my class. It wasn’t much, but it was the least I could do. After all, as long as she is on my roster, I feel I am technically her legal guardian for an hour, and if she is going to be doing nothing during third period, at least she can be doing nothing where she is supposed to be. It’s really a shame she doesn’t just come to class. She is a senior failing art , which can’t be good for her transcript or graduation status. Failing people is hard. I have to fail a few and it breaks my heart. Art should be an easy A, as long as you attempt to do the work. 

Missing Students

The trimester is winding down  and I will not be with my students for much longer. This makes me melancholy. No mater how many problems I’ve had, or issues with particular people, it has not overshadowed my affection for the faculty, staff, and students at Junction City High School. I hope I can find as nice of a community again in my future occupation’s, perhaps I can come back and sub for my mentor teacher in the spring. I  was also saddened last week by news that a student of mine, who was always on track and pleasant, will not be returning to class. Her mother came in last week and said that she was in the hospital. I asked if she was alright. The mother said yes but she would like to keep it quiet among her class mates. After she left my mentor teacher asked what that was all about. I said K’s mother said she is in the hospital and not coming back this term. He asked if she mentioned why. I said no, she wanted to keep it quiet. He said he thought he knew why. I said what. He said he thought it was an eating disorder, but not to quote him on it. I  asked why he thought that. He said she had been 20 pounds heavier last year. I said oh. The next day I received an email confirming my mentor teachers notion. K was in the hospital for anorexia. I had never knowingly met someone with anorexia before. She was skinny and introverted, but I thought this was normal. Perhaps if I had known her before I would have recognized her weight loss, but being as I met her when I did, I was absolutely clueless. I gave her sister an assignment for her to work on, designing and painting a tile. I hope that maybe it can be therapeutic to her. I hope she gets better.

Areas of improvement

My supervisor came in on halloween to observe my class. It went well, I only had one incident when  two of my more ‘outgoing’ boys broke each others coil pots. She suggested I not have them sit together. I also had a few times when I was talking over students. But for the most part, I believe the class and I have it pretty much together. My goal has become to create a safe and enjoyable environment for each hour that a different  group is in their. The students seem to work and learn the most when I set up the task and then let them go about doing it. I address behavior on an individual basis. Students who are doing nothing I found I can only remind once. after that I leave them to start the project at their own pace.  Hassling them makes them defiant, but reminding them once that they are supposed to be doing something seems to alert them to the fact that everybody else is working on something, and eventually they get to it, and if they don’t they get a bad grade on the assignment. When they are there and not doing anything, as long as they are not disruptive, they are not a problem. They don’t seem to influence the others not to do work, and they are where they are supposed to be, so I just remind them once and move on to the others who need my help. There are plenty of these. My supervisor said I need to think of two areas that I could work on, classroom management or organization or something.  So I thought about it and decided that I can work on supply preparation. Having supplies out and ready to go promptly before class, and put away promptly after. I can also stand at the head of the class and zone in on areas which need to be circulated through when the class gets noisy. Things are going well but there is always more to learn and consider.

Painting, more fun than drawing

Painting has been a hit with everyone. After weeks upon weeks of drawing, painting must seem like  a great privilege. The students who once were giving me a hard time are now being nice and doing assignments, most of the time. And unfortunately, one of the best artists in either of my classes has become wordlessly disrespectful. She has been close with my mentor teacher for all four years of High School. He has nothing but nice things to say about her. She is also his teacher’s aid first period. She never says hi to me but always tells him hello and good bye. She takes over my space, moves my stuff around and replacing it with her stuff and acts as if she ‘belongs’ there more than I do. I wanna say, “Yes you belong here, you’ve been here for four years, longer than I  certainly have, but you belong here for a different reason. You belong here as a high-school student and I belong there as a graduate student.You have to be here but I chose to be here.”  If she only had been a little nicer to me, and said hello to me at least once, like her younger sister, who is a joy to have in class, than I wouldn’t feel as strong as I do about the situation. She also has a friend who is not in one art class, who has started comming in with her, to the art room all the time, and this girl is just as rude. Another thing that bothers me is that she never asks me if she can be excused from class, or anything else, she asks my mentor teacher and rolls her eyes and says “whatever” when he tells her to talk to me. So he just gave in, started to allow her to do things in my class. Today I didn’t even she her in class, she was randomly walking in and out of the back door with her friend. I assumed that she was doing her monochromatic painting outside, but realized she wasn’t when they came in with a pile of painted  t-shirts. I looked outside after they left and saw that they had painted their names in acrylic paint on the sidewalk too. I told my mentor teacher about it, but he wasn’t startled by it.  Oddly, he had been sitting at a desk in the back, facing out a window that had a direct view of the area where the girls were painting, throughout the entire period. He said oh they’ll be scrubbing that off on monday. He didn’t sound very sincere, so I decided to ask him the last name of the  friend and what grade they were in. He told me, and I wrote each of them a referral for vandalism.

Good Talks at Parent Teacher Conference

At the parent teacher conferences on Thursday and Friday I saw and talked to many people. The conference was held in the cafeteria. The tables were arranged against all the walls, so that the teachers could sit on one side of the tables and parents could sit on the other. On the walls were posted the different teachers names. Parents came and talked with my mentor teacher first. He saw a few parents, a number of them who had been students of his themselves, years before. Some students came and said hi, even though they weren’t in his class anymore. It was wonderful to watch him talk to them, and to talk to them myself. The parents of students in my classes were nice as well. They seemed very caring and all wanted to let me know that they backed up my decisions as a teacher. One mother even emailed after the conference to reassure us that she should be informed if any bad behavior was going on with her son in my class. Another great thing that happened there was that I sat by the football coach. He asked me about a few athletes that I was having problems with in my class, said he heard word somehow that this was going on. We talked a bit about a few boys. He gave me some good tips and insight, and when I said a few positive things about the boys he said “well it’s nice to hear that you can see that side of them. If you can handle those guys your doing pretty darn good because they are giving all their teacher a hard time.” Hearing oes words and the words of the parents that night made me feel like I had the reassurance of a few support system. It is very nice, Especially when I can’t expect to get much at all from the principal, secretary, attendance lady and various others who don’t care to know me. What I got is great, and I am thankful for it. Plus being overlooked is good most of the time, because it’s better than being recognized for something negative. 

Acting like the leader Works

Throughout the week I have been acting like the leader, and it has been working. I don’t have to say much if I hold myself high and lead the way. I try to get past yelling and act as if I am still a respectable person. I also made a syllabus so that they would know what was going to happen on a daily basis. This really came in handy when I had to give a girl who was having surgery a week’s worth of work to do at home. I go through with my curriculum I am stern but not mean. I just try to help the kids who need help and who are working, and look past the ones want something else other than to learn how to draw. I respond to behaviors on an individual basis, quietly, well not for one student, but he sets himself up and he’s ok with me being quick with him in front of the class. The students have been drawing portraits. On the day that we needed a model I had table groups pick a tmodel in period four, a class of 34 and in draw/paint, a class of 15 I asked these snobby girls, who have been coming in late and giving me sas, to be the models for the whole class. They were happy about this for many reasons, some of which you can probably imagine. 

A Debate to Balance The Mood

Today I put the desks in a circle assigned seats and tried to have a rights and responsibility discussion. Before the discussion I said that the class was like a boat, and I drew a little boat on the overhead projector. I said that for whatever reason they decided to get onto this boat. I drew more boats and compared them to other elective classes; I labeled them business, woodshop, cooking etc. I said, “now this ship filled up fast, and as more people got on this boat the tippier it got ,and it is our responsibility to not tip the boat over before we get to our destination or what’s going to happen….that’s right, we’er all going to drown. I then said, “now were almost there, but some people decided to start dumping water into the boat, and then other people stated to watch and rock the boat out of control, so even if your not dumping water into the boat if your running over to watch then your still adding to the problem, and lessening our chances of reaching our destination, the skill of drawing, clay. and t-shirts” I then tried to have them list off their rights but we got a little side tracked debating what they were allowed and not allowed to do. I was able to establish, however, who the people were who were always talked in class, they were the ones talking the most during the debate. I also found out the various attitudes of my class, 70% like art and want to learn how to draw 15% need to take art class to full fill an AP requirement and just want an easy A, and 15% are just there because they are required to take an elective and they thought art would be the easiest one. I also got a request to make a calendar and to give more workdays. I have been working on the calendar and also have factored more workdays into the unit as my personal contribution to the group. We’ll see what happens during this next week. 

Worse and Worse

Behavior all around has gotten worse and worse. After the tree incident I had to lecture for the first 10 minutes of the following class. I then did my lesson and was only able to give the students twenty something minutes to work on the assignment. The class got really loud. I tried to ignore it and help the table full of delinquents where the troubled soccer player managed to find his way to. Every time I would try to help a student at that table he would hit me with a smartass remark. After about four of these, with only four minutes left in class, and not being able to concentrate on the student who needed help I lost it. I got up in front of the class and said, “it is way to loud in here, what grade are you in.” The soccer player shouts “10^th grade,” I said well your are acting like your in fourth. If you guys want to do some real learning and not just some elementary school arts and crafts, like paper mache, then you should start acting like adults. I should not have to get up here and do this. You think it so funny to advantage of my niceness, ‘lets go to miss Damon’s class it’s just another extension of our lunch.’ “ The bell rang, I said, “nobody is dismissed,” and went on, “ ‘We can just bring food and eat and text through her class and she won’t care, she’s cool’. And you talk all through class about who’s dating who and what your doing after school, but I don’t care about any of that, I come home everyday and remove myself from your personal lives, but while I’m here I care about you and I care about your learning. If you wanted a teacher who didn’t care about you and just gave you worthless assignments, that would just give you an A and not help you learn you should’ve singed up for a different elective.”

 “Can we go now,” Said the soccer player, 

“You can go.” I said ”and never come back,” as I pointed towards the door, “Go”.

He didn’t leave and he just sat there and glared at me.

I looked at the whole class said, I don’t know what to say anymore just go, turned around and waited till they left to sit down and cry. I felt embarrassed. But I went home and rested it off and it was ok. 

Up in the Tree, Not the Place to Be

Up in the Tree, Not the Place to Be

The day after The Vomiting in the Parking lot incident we went to the church again, this time with the whole group. I made the students sign a contract before leaving. It said that if they did not follow instructions, were not safe, or did not come with the group, and stay with the group that they would get a referral. They all signed, went across the street to the church and drew for the entire hour. I figured since that day had been a success that we would continue to draw the church the next day. This day did not work out as well. For one thing, I let a group of kids sit a good distance away from the rest of the group. These students were the same table of students who never did their work, back talked me and were also involved in the vomiting incident the day before. I walked over and tried to convince these students that drawing the church was worth their wild, but it was only in vain. One student didn’t even bring a piece of paper. So I walked back to check on the other students. While I was side tracked helping a student who really wanted to learn someone said “why are V….., R……., and B…….. in the tree”. I ran over to the tree that these students were in. One of the special ed teachers was yelling at them, and “Don’t worry their all getting referrals” I yelled at them and sent them back to class. Other students started telling me what to do one student tells me, “whoa Ms. D, cool down”, another tells me “I would just let them go”. In the heat of the moment I tell them “Oh yeah, you try being responsible for 34 kids and have 3 of them climb a tree and potentially break their arms, while the administration watches you and thinks you don’t know how to control your class”. I returned the rest of the students to the class. Waiting in the classroom were the 3 students that I had caught in the tree. They wanted to apologize. I set them aside and told them that they were still going to get referrals. One kid told me that he had forgotten to take his ADD medicine. I told him that it was his choice not to do that just as it had been his choice to sign the contract and misbehave. I told him that he had to accept the consequences that he had signed on for. This is when the Vomiting girl V…. piped up and said “I didn’t get a contract, I was absent that day” I said that it was my fault to overlook her signing the contract and still let her go but that it didn’t negate the fact that she was being unsafe. I asked them what they thought would happen if they were hired to do a job and the boss caught them out side climbing on the building. They all admitted that they would be fired. I said that I couldn’t make them learn and that I wasn’t their enemy, but if they acted up I wouldn’t hesitate to enforce the logical consequences. I asked them where they wanted to go from there and they said they would try to behave better. I dismissed them and waited to see if their behavior would improve over the next couple of days.