As I look back over my very fast-paced month, one theme I observe over and over again is this feeling of having way too many balls up in the air. Or for drama's sake, let's make them butchers knives, because that feels like it better matches the stakes should one be fumbled. And I have been fumbling A LOT.
Of the many things to keep track of are the personalized things for specific students. I have one student who manages to bring a backpack, homework folder, AND a lunch about as often as Halley's Comet orbits the Earth, and have written several times about my co-teacher's and my developing phobia of sending anything at all important home with him. (I know this sounds like something that should be easy to fix but there are a lot of factors at play with this student's situation that I won't get into here). We have tried to establish a system where he can get the work done in class time, but he really needs an adult to sit and work with him and one is not always available. On another front, we have a student who is working on shortening his "start time" and complying with directions the first time they are given. This is a student with a remarkable gift for making 20 minutes disappear without having made a single mark on his paper. This month, he has been given a special and wonderful folder developed for him by his Speech and Language Pathologist to target these goals, but it really requires one of us adults to remind him to bring it out and track what he needs to track in it, and more often than not, we have forgotten to do this until practically the end of the day. These situations, not to mention the needs of my 8 other students, leave me with a discouraging "not enough of me to go around" feeling. Serious hats off to all the teachers in classrooms of 20 and more. I have absolutely no clue how you juggle it all.
While we're on the topic of my growing edges, here is one which I have rehashed on this very blog again and again. Basically it has to do with taking my exciting and varied ideas and converting them into a thought out action plan. All through my TIP chart this month I can see evidence of my 'big idea' brain getting excited with notions like making a group timeline or a class book of local plants and critters with their families and genomes. Then comes the part where I would actually have to break this down into the steps I would present to the students and my mind is a blank. Again and again I have reflected on and gotten feedback about the necessity of thinking through all of the steps before trying to launch ideas. It leaves me a bit frustrated with myself. It might be a little generous to call this edge "growing." Although, that being said, as I zoom my lens out and look at myself from the very beginning of this grad program, I have improved in this area a lot. I just have a lot further to go before I will be satisfied that I've made it.
Resources that have helped me a lot this past month have been Positive Discipline's Mistaken Goals chart and Pathways to the Common Core by Calkins et. al. The former is a very simplified chart that helps the adult or educator identify the motives behind behaviors that may be challenging him or her. I like it because it recognizes the teacher's response emotion and you can use the chart starting right there. For instance, when I find myself feeling irritated or annoyed, I can find that emotion on the chart and see what the child's "mistaken goal" is, which in that case is "I count only when I'm being noticed or getting special service. I'm only important when I'm keeping you busy with me" (Positive Discipline). Seeing the behavior in this light suddenly changes my whole perspective and enables me to feel more empathy and less at the mercy of my own emotional responses. It helps me remove myself from the scenario and refocus on how to actually help the child.
One of my highest highs from the month, which I was definitely NOT expecting, was Halloween week. Despite all my fears Halloween was NOT a disaster! Our kids did such a great job all day long managing the madness and I can’t think of one instance of a kid exploding or fighting or being inappropriate with their costumes. They were able to enjoy the costumes and the festivities while also remaining within the expected boundaries. I think I have to thank our regular Class Meetings for the success of the day. If we hadn’t taken the time to talk about the procedures and expectations of Halloween practically every Morning Meeting for weeks leading up, I don’t think things would have gone as smoothly. In the Morning Meeting book, Kriete does say that discussing what is to come (news and announcements) with students contributes “to students’ sense of safety and being cared for by letting them know that the teacher has prepared for the day and is ready for them” (Kriete, 2002, p.96). The topic of Halloween was brought up by students in our meetings so frequently that it kind of made my head spin, but ultimately I am glad I honored their voices and their need to talk about and verbally process this extremely exciting day for them.
Speaking of highs, while I am not yet perfect, I am pretty proud of myself for the way I have learned to streamline the taking of anecdotal notes. Both in my TIP and in my notebook and in pre-made charts I have created, you can see my habit of taking notes and reflecting on individual students and events forming. I feel like this process is becoming more natural for me, and the more I do it, the more I see patterns emerge and understand how to streamline this process to serve my teaching needs. Reading Pathways influenced my confidence a lot as the authors helped me see how the anchor standards actually look in a classroom and what I should be looking for in my student's words to learn about their learning. This has helped me focus the types of notes I take on students, which used to be all over the place and are now less so. The process is becoming almost second nature to me, which is exciting all on its own. Perhaps that's some of the muscle memory coming into play as I learn the art of juggling.
2 comments:
Katie, your blog is the best and you are an amazing teacher. YOU ARE! Believe it. BELIEVE IT NOW!!!!
Katie, it sounds like the month of October has been an incredibly stressful one. I get it, I feel like I barely made it out unscathed as well. There certainly are a lot of balls, or as you called them, “knives” in the air right now, and depending on how we function underneath them, sometimes it does feel like we're about to be beheaded!
I can totally appreciate this, and I feel like one thing that has helped me is by dropping some of the balls. I absolutely don't have a life on the weekends, and while that's okay, it's definitely depressing sometimes.
I think it's important to remember that this is temporary, and although the juggle requires huge sacrifice, it's important to be gracious with ourselves, understand that we will make mistakes, and try to move forward with the realization that the end is near, so lets ride this thing as hard as we can for the last leg of the trip. Oh, and I second Lyndsey's emotions...:)))
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