With school back in full swing, I’m finally coming up for air! After accompanying my son to Colorado (to attend college) in late July, I came back to North Texas to prepare for my 20th year in the classroom.
Before school started, I took my ‘projected class list’ of 16 5th grade students ( a large class for a bilingual setting) and began the arduous task of reviewing records, test scores, teacher notes, discipline archives and then took on the dubious task of calling parents to introduce myself as their 5th grader’s new teacher.
I worked long hours re-setting up the myriad of tanks and containers that house the menagerie of critters that reside in my classroom during the school year. Bearded dragons, iguanas, ground frogs, burrowing frogs, tree frogs, a toad, a salamander and a newt; an African clawed frog, African Malawi Ciclids, and a collection of locally caught animals including a Texas Spiny Lizard, a number of small geckos, and a green anole.
I set up the “forum style” seating arrangement for student involvement and the content area centers for extended instruction. And by the time I got through a week’s worth of Teacher Inservices, I really felt I was ready for the parent meeting on the Friday afternoon before school started.
I personally called and invited all my student’s parents to the “meet the teacher and leave your supplies” meeting. I made up the 16 Parent Information Packets, and even had a couple of extra ones “just in case I had an extra child or set of divorced parents who each wanted their own copy of the classroom information.
My room was in order, my thoughts collected, my opening speech for the parents. In a word, I was “ready.” I was “prepared.” I wrote the children’s names on word strips and was prepared to hand the nametags to the students as they came in. They would be told to choose a desk and place their nametag on it. I had a sign up sheet outside my door with 16 slots for up-to-two parents per child to sign and be counted. I ate a leisurely lunch. I relaxed as I listened to Glen Gould’s 1959 live rendition of J.S.Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” and quietly sat and wrote lesson plans for an hour before the students, with their parents and supplies in-tow, were scheduled to arrive.
Then there was the “all-call” from the office. There were new “updated” class rosters in our boxes. My new list had 19 names on it! Needless to say, not everyone showed up for the “meet the teacher/supplies drop off” meeting, but I used all 16 of the Parents’ Packets I’d prepared ahead of time, and by the following Friday afternoon, with a full week of Fall 2009 education under our belts…I had 25 students in my classroom!
This might not sound like a lot, pretty average you might say? Well, let it suffice to say, there are only 14 lockers in my room and every student has double the textbooks 14 in all-- (7 in English and 7 in Spanish) assigned to him/her. And while “keeping up with the books” can be an ominous task…keeping up with the kids and their needs is daunting! Needless to say, I stressed for a couple of weeks with all of the adjustments that had to be made just in terms of classroom space and time. There were now 25 desks to accommodate, twenty-five sets of books, twenty-five profiles to review, nearly twice the time on task, twice the grading, twice the re-teaching…but when I realized that I was wallowing in the wasteland of “Nothing you can do about it,” I remembered a speech I saw delivered by Civil and Women’s Rights Activist Florynce Kennedy when I was in college. Ms. Kennedy said, “When you find yourself worrying unnecessarily about things, don’t AGONIZE, ORGANIZE!” The epiphany that brought me was exhilarating, the work that it’s cost me to become more organized was (and still is) somewhat of a mission. But we all need those wake-up calls now and again. Mine is here in the form of 25 children’s needs. I have the tools and the skills and the support that I need to teach. I can’t think of a higher calling.
By using the State’s and the District’s diagnostic tests, benchmark exams, English and Spanish Reading, Math and Science tests…we are able to better service the needs and deficiencies of each child. These assessments and the work that we will do this year to make sure that “every child succeeds” and that “no child is left behind” all become part of the fabric that creates the learning expectations, dynamics and environment that is the classroom. Using the data from these exams is part of the organizational process.
The environment must also be highly organized and even “orchestrated” at times. My room is full of life: plants, animals children, music, art, math, literature, voices, discovery and thought. The sounds of Glen Gould’s piano playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations provides the backdrop for journal writing, and math problem solving, Mozart’s Adaggio in C Major (with John Williams on Guitar) runs a melodious background filler for silent readings in science and other core subject areas, and we also learn to appreciate the values and sounds of silence during literature and oral language exercises.
I love beginnings. New faces, new names, new personalities. Getting to know each other is half the battle. The other half is in the expectations and performance. We all have a long way to go in order to be prepared for the State’s exams in the Spring and graduation to the 6th grade at the end of May. There will be lots of lessons and learning between now and then, but with administration and parental support, this group of students will find (as have their predecessors) that the work although challenging can be fun and interesting. They will realize all too soon that time flies when they are on the right path. It’s our job as parents and teachers to put them there, and keep them there.
At the end of this week, report cards will be going home, parents will be satisfied or elated or disappointed. Children will have begun a new grading period; a new opportunity to prove themselves and begin the process of preparation for the rest of their lives. Education is like that. We are continually beginning again, (as teachers, students, and parents) to make meaningful inquiries, thought provoking assessments and profound judgments about life’s lessons.
As teachers we’ve been charged with the challenge: “Begin with the End in mind.” As I begin my next set of lesson plans, I will keep in mind that what these children learn from me in terms of academics is useful, valuable and important for this week’s quizzes, critical to understanding next week’s lessons, and essential for passing state exams in a few months…but what they learn from me psychologically, socially and conceptually will stay with them for years, perhaps for a lifetime. And whether I have 5, 15 or 25 students in my charge doesn’t change my mission. What will they leave with in May? I want them to know and remember that they are loved, worthwhile and important. I want them to know that that they are capable, talented and focused . I want them to be successful, determined and ardent thinkers. I want them to be tolerant, compassionate and understanding individuals.
Teaching and parenting are ominous responsibilities with far reaching consequences, we have to be up to life’s challenges, so our kids will learn from our examples how to face their own challenges in an ever-changing world!
