Gettin to know the boys

During inservice, a fellow teacher cited an interesting statistic: teachers have the 2nd most stressful and demanding job (beat out by air-traffic controller). She also said that the average teacher makes 20,000 decisions each day with regard to his/her students. Needless to say, I get home absolutely drained every day. I have about 2-3 hours/day tops during which I'm able to do what I want. The rest of my day is comprised of eating, sleeping, teaching, and planning. It's been a little hard maintaining my sense of identity when nearly everything I'm doing pertains to 5th grade reading and math. However, I'm trying hard not to let teaching completely consume my life. 10 minute drum break-outs, cooking projects, frequent work-out sessions, and soccer have offered much-needed respites.

Frequently, I feel like a therapist in my efforts to most effectively manage behavior and motivate my students. One student in particular has given me much trouble, and I'm still trying to figure out how to work with him successfully. This student, Tydario, is quite unique. His mother is in jail, and his dad is out of the picture, so he lives with his Grandfather and some other woman who, from what I can tell, serves as guardian. Fortunately, she works in the building. Tydario is one of my brighter students, but he is easily frustrated by a lot of things, seems to have ADHD, and gets into these 'funks' where I can't get him to do anything. During these funks he refuses all of my directions, cusses out other students, and just completely shuts down. I spoke with his guardian about it after school one day, and I spelled out the situation very delicately, fearing what kind of punishment might result at home. The woman was very responsive and friendly, and said she would talk to him. The next day, Tydario handed me a stack of papers, on which he had written, "I will obey all rules" 250 times. "I won't have any problems today, Mr. Stewart," he said confidently. That day actually went smoothly, though I may not have agreed with the method. A day later, I had to give out progress reports. Tydario had a C in both Math and Reading, and he freaked out. He was extremely upset because of the "whooping" he would get for his grades. I didn't really know how to console him, and I was unable to get him to take the progress report home. Two days ago, he had another one of his funks after being unable to work with his table group. I asked him to write a letter explaining why he refused my directions. He wrote that he hated me, that I was mean, and that he wanted to switch to Mr. Earle's class. Yesterday, he had a better day ;)

Oh, by the way-- yesterday, some fifth grader wrote f*** Mr. Stewart in the bathroom. That was pretty neat. I'm pretty sure who it was, and he's been a real handful thus far. I think he's bitter that I've been disciplining him. Deal with it Edward. When I talked to the fifth grade chair, he recommended that we get in touch with Edward's mom, because "his dad is soft." He said that what Edward needs is a good beat-down, one that would leave him unable to talk. I chose not to call Mom. I think I must be "soft" as well.

Yesterday I also found out that the district is planning to redistribute alot of teachers across the district and cut 126 teachers due to a 41 million dollar deficit. Although my school is not surplusing any teachers, teachers in other schools that are surplused could apparently decide "hey, I wanna teach at Brewster Elementary and I have more seniority than Mr. Stewart. Mr. Stewart, you're bumped." So, then I would get bumped. Since I have no seniority, this is a possibility. How much of one, I'm not sure. I find out next week. I'm actually not at all worried. If I get bumped, whatever. I've had so much change in the last few months that it wouldn't really seem like a big deal in the least. One of my teaching partners is a single mom of 5, and because she started halfway through the year last year, she has the same seniority as me. If she had to move (2 of her daughter go to the same school), I would feel terrible. These district decisions are pretty frustrating, and they don't seem to be considering the students at all. The domino effect from this surplus-bump procedure could be horrible. The Memphis City School district is in bad shape. The district is suing the city for funding, and the city is counter-suing. It seems that education is not valued very highly in Memphis.

I'm now on the Garden Committee (our school is planning on starting an urban garden with help from the community) and the Musical Committee. I'm also an unofficial member of an unofficial committee: the Translating Committee. My responsibilities include, but are not limited to, filling out (read: forging) registration paperwork for families that speak only Spanish, giving impromptu behavior instructions to the ESL students in Pre-K and Kindergarten as their classes walk by, and communicating with Spanish speaking parents.

I'm currently reading Harry Potter (the first one) to my class, and they love it. I told them that they could draw pictures if they drew pictures of what I was reading. Some of their drawings were really sweet: Harry Potter's cupboard under the stairs, Harry Potter's lightning scar, fat Dudley Dursley. I think the H.P. books are perfect for them because she writes with vivid, descriptive language and the content is very appealing for their age. Indeed, their favorite time of day is when I read aloud to them.

We had an opera singer come on Friday to demonstrate for all the 5th graders. One funny moment occurred when she announced that the next song she was singing was entitled "Does Anybody Here Love My Jesus?" Half the students' hands jerked up. The woman was confused why so many people suddenly had questions and started calling on people, which then confused the students. I had myself a chuckle.

So we'll see if I still have a job next week...