Wednesday, May 28, 2008

End of the Year Poetry Slam

Today was our end of the year poetry slam. I will admit, if I hadn't made a commitment to another teacher to do this with her class, I would have skipped it this year. This year seems so hectic and crazy. I am glad I didn't skip it.

Our class had less time to prepare this year than last, but we came through! I love to hear those little voices reading their very own poems over the mic. My kids were beaming when the audience "snapped" for them. I love to see the faces of the parents when the kids begin to read their poems. I think they are shocked that 1st graders could write "real poems". I love that, not one of my students tried to rhyme the words in their poem. I love that each kid gets to take home an anthology of poems created by his/her first grade class. I hope that the kids keep these anthologies for years to come, as a keepsake of their 1st grade year.

I am glad I didn't "skip" this event this year, not because the kids would have missed out on an important learning experience, but because I would have!

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The Little Things

I have been noticing lately that it is the "little things" that have been effecting me most in these last weeks of school. I may have 24 DRAs to administer, 24 writing rubrics to complete, and 24 math tests to give and grade, but the thing that puts me over the edge... completing 11 flower pots for the assistants that are losing there jobs at the end of this year and then hearing that 2 more might be going also. The flower pots are no big deal. They were easy to make. They were cheap (but a little hard to find). It is the uncertainty that is constant in our schools these days that is really the problem, I guess. (I say this with some uncertainty)

For those of you who may not be familiar with our school, we are adding a 4/5 intermediate building to our corporation and redistricting for next year. We REALLY need these changes, however, this means that we will be losing half of our teaching staff to the 4/5 building. I used to teach 5th grade so I consider many of these teachers my friends and I will miss them. We are also losing all of our classroom aids because the corporation says that they will reduce our class sizes, reducing our need for aids. Every teacher in our building will be moving classrooms except three (OK, I have no room to complain here because I am one of the three) There will be alot of new teachers in our building next year. We do not yet know if our art, music, P.E. teachers will be here next year. I understand all the changes and also understand some of the delays in the decisions being made, but it doesn't help the aura of anxiousness filling our building. It seems that everyone is on edge.

O.K., so what can I learn from this? I have been thinking that if uncertainty and the unknown can make my mind so unfocused, what must it do to a 6 or 7 year old? If I can become grumpy and irritated by not knowing who will be in the room next to mine next year, what must a 7 year old be feeling if s/he doesn't know who will be in his/her room next year or who his/her teacher will be? Should I be so hard on these kids when they start acting up? Should I give them a break? If I do start changing the rules now, aren't I just adding to the uncertainty? If I give them more chances than I have all year or let them be noisier, am I just adding to the stress? I understand why they may be acting out, but I can't excuse it or let it go. If I change the expectations this late in the game, I think I would do more harm than good. I will however, be more empathetic. ("Thanks Mrs. K. for your empathy, it really makes me feel better while sitting in detention.")

So for now, I will keep the structure as constant as I can during the last 8 days of school. I will try to inform my students what to expect in 2nd grade. I will try to keep my iritation at a minimum and I will be empathetic to my sweet 7 yr olds. I know this is the best plan. (OK, I don't know anything at this point, I am uncertain if this is the best way to handle it. There may be a much better way...)

The one thing I am certain about is that I am writing on my blog right now to avoid grading the 18 or so writing samples that are located on the desk next to me as I type this. They are due tomorrow :(

Friday, May 9, 2008

The race is on !

You know the one; the one where the last few weeks seem to be an eternity and yet three weeks doesn't seem to be near enough time to get everything done. It seems like just yesterday when those little 6 year old, mostly non reading, scared, dependent students walked in our classroom. Now, the room is filled with BIG, independent, readers and writers. First grade is awesome, in that we get to witness such great transformations!

I have been doing DRA's this week and I just can't believe what great readers some of these kids are. It is fun to see them confidently take on these tests. When you administer a level 18, one of the first things the kids are asked to do is read the first three paragraphs and tell you what might happen next. I love to hear each and every one of them start his/her answer with "I predict that..." We have been practicing using exact language in our discussions (I infer, I wonder, I predict, etc...) It was fun to see them transfer this knowledge to the DRA.

I have tested 9 kids so far and they are all above grade level. YEAH! I will probably have a few more above and then a handful at grade level. Of course, I will also, most likely have 4 below grade level. I have really been thinking of these 4 lately. What could I have done differently? What do I need to change in my room to reach these kids? These 4 plus 2 more in my class have all received Reading Recovery this year. I think Reading Recovery is such a strong intervention for these kids, but yet 4 of them are still not "where they should be".

Then I begin to wonder: "where should they be?" Are they following the path at their own rate? The rate that is just right for them? Will they still make it to the finish line or will they always be behind? Will they begin to believe that this "reading race" isn't worth all the work? Will it be easier for them to drop out? What does "grade level" mean? Don't kids mature and grow at different rates? And yet I know that kids that are below "grade level" in third grade have a hard time being successful in school. Is that because they really can't make it to the finish line or because we have convinced them that if you can't be at the front of the race the race is not worth running?

I look at J and the things he is learning, how much he has grown, all of the hard work he has put into both Reading Recovery and Reading Workshop, and I wonder how I can label him "below grade level". This is a kid that always wants to talk to me about text. He is the kid that told me, "It's harder to read pages that you don't have much schema for", This is the kid that earnestly reads for 30 minutes at a time in two different blocks during our day and is almost always on task.

And again, I am back to the questions, "What can I do differently?", "What can I change in my room?", "What other resources are out there for kids like J?"

"Would J have had a better chance if he hadn't spent 1/4 of the year in a class of 28 students?" I fear that we will be in the same situation next year. Too large of classes and we will not have our paraprofessionals next year. That means there will be no one there to take that small group back and work on phonemic awareness, or letter sounds, or just give them one more set of ears to listen to them read.

Well, I vow to celebrate all the successes in my classroom, not just the ones that were made by kids "at or above grade level". I also vow to keep plugging away, just like J. I will be reflecting on what to change for next year, while mourning, just a little bit, the lost opportunity to bring all of my kids up to "grade level".