big storm aftermath

My ceiling just fell down!

Photos of the wreckage as soon as I find my camera cable.

NCLB

Setting higher standards doesn't help us educate our children. No Child Left Behind demands higher expectations without provisions for reaching that goal.

If a swim instructor demanded his students to swim twice the length of their normal workout, you would expect he would give them pointers on how to conserve their energy or increase endurance. Simply expecting them to aim farther does not automatically cause them to succeed.

I teach in a low-income, urban elementary school which is starting its second Program Improvement year. More than standardized tests and comparisons to other schools, what would help my students is a teacher's aid, vegetables besides iceberg lettuce for lunch, funding for fieldtrips, and better access to computers and other technology. Dare I even mention our mandated, scripted language arts program which de-humanizes teachers and bores students?

NCLB's intentions are good, but a carrot on a stick only gets you so far.

sexyback

new year resolutions

1. go Green
   

perfect apartment = not so perfect

I woke up early this morning, at six thirty, my soul in limbo between the book of life and the book of . . . not life, as my ceiling poured forth a shower of rainwater. Still dark, I rushed around frantically for a pot or a bowl to put under the leak. I mean leaks. Two. And then I went back to sleep on my gigantic, orange, velvet couch.

The manager of my apartment is so nice, I'm thinking of falling in love with him. He came upstairs to check out the leaks MINUTES after I called him (I waited until the more humane hour of nine), and then he immediately went out and purchased a plastic tarp to save my carpet. He made an appointment with a roofer and a painter and assured me that he would cover the cleaning costs if any of my furniture or other stuff got soaked. My old landlord would have waited a few days before bringing over a bucket to sit under the hole.

Here is where I admit that I am completely INSANE and still suffering post-traumatic stress, that when I first awoke to the dripping, I thought an animal had gotten into my apartment and was PEEING on the carpet. And for ten whole seconds, all I could do was curse, WHO LET A FUCKING DOG INTO MY BEDROOM??!??

yes they are Black

During Read Aloud time, my students were all lying on the carpet as I acted my way through The Enormous Crocodile. One particularly wiggly student called out and interrupted me. I immediately went on the offensive, took a deep breath to chide her rudeness, looked down and saw her face full of anxiety. The beads in her braid had gotten stuck between the pieces of another girl's braid. Like, her tiny little braid was all swallowed up in the twist of the neighbor's fat braid.

I cracked up.

smile

They (you know, "They") once did this study where they randomly divided up students at a school and assigned them to different teachers. Some teachers were told that they had the worst students, while some were told they had the best of the lot. At the end of the year, the students in the "best" class had made the biggest gains in achievement, while the "worst" students lagged behind.

Every day, I tell my class that they are the best third grade in the school. I tell them how proud I am that they work together as a team. I tell them how smart they are.

At first, I was totally lying through my teeth. Or not lying, really, it's not a total falsehood, I'm sure some of them entered third grade at the top of the class.

On Monday, we had a not-so-good day, students were restless, the afternoon just draaaaagged on, you know what I mean. I kept getting sterner and sterner, which made me more annoyed, which made every subsequent called-out remark more grating, and I went home hating my class. On Tuesday, I put Monday away and greeted my class with a very big smile. I told them how happy I was to see them, that the best class in school had some important work to do. Immediately, I liked them again. And we had an awesome day. And today was even more awesome.

If you say it enough, and you hear it enough, you become the part.