Happy Birthday America!

On this, the 229th birthday of the United States of America I feel blessed and proud to be an American. I am grateful for the sacrifice of so many who made this such a wonderful land. We are free to speak our minds and live our lives. We are free to worship God without fear. God has truly blessed America and I am so thankful that I live here. May God continue to watch over us and bless us.

As I Suspected

As I mentioned previously, this week of math training was in deed horrible. There is nothing worse than a training like this. If I believed in purgatory, which I don't (just in case you were in doubt), I am convinced that professional development training that is mandated by the government would be it. A week- long training on a math series that I have already been using for the past three years feels exactly like punishment.

Those of you not familiar with the public education system might be wondering, " what could possibly take an entire 5 days from 8:00 am to 3:30 pm?" Well ...I have just sat through my second week-long curriculum training and still couldn't really answer you. I can give you a snapshot of some of the things involved...

• endless lectures on what the legislators think teaching should be
• group activities that involve numbering you so you never work with the same group twice
• summarize what you just learned using markers and chart paper
• read the following and answer these questions
• here is an activity that your students might do, now you grown-ups try it for yourselves for the next 25 minutes
• as a group...Write a song, poem, or skit that will show the class what you've gotten out of this training

and on and on and on and on and on

The presenters could have been a million times worse. They were not nearly as bad as reports from other grade levels. But, the state gives them little creativity. We all had binders that were approximately 250 pages thick that the presenters walked us through EVERY PAGE.

To top off the misery of the week, my principal (whom you all should know that I despise) , sat at our table for the whole week. She was lazy and didn't contribute to the group projects. She copied our homework (yes, we had homework along with strict attendance guidelines and scheduled potty breaks). She talked about things that were off-topic during the presentations, which I found to be incredibly rude. Our table got several dirty looks throughout the week. But then again, I guess I don't have to worry that they will tell my administrator that we were disruptive.

My disdain turned to pity as the week progressed. This woman has no social skills or common decency. I can't imagine that she has many friends. There was an eerie sense of junior high in this aspect of the experience. It felt as though the hall monitor had been given the mandate to eat lunch at the cool-kids table. You can't stand that person but have no viable recourse. (Other than to make sweet yet sarcastic comments that illicit laughter from your friends and an oblivious chuckle from the principal because the slight went over her head.)

I vow that I will make it a point to be thankful everyday that the fallacy of purgatory was rooted out during the Protestant Reformation. The thought of spending hundreds of years in a place like the one I have described would indeed breed despair.

School's Out for Summer

Well, Friday the 10th marked the last day of school for the kids. I must say that I am sorry to see this group go. We had some laughs. I caused some tears. But all in all, it was a good year. All of my kids, save the five-week-spanish-speaking-only kid, were reading at or above the standard for first grade. I am really proud of them. They worked hard and are prepared for next year. I had a few bumps in the road along the way, but I have high hopes for this group...tear.

So what does a teacher blog about during the summer months..you might ask. Well, the ridiculous antics of the public education system don't end when the students are out of school and running wild in the streets. No, we aren't done, not by a long shot. I have a week off (which will probably include several trips to my classroom to prep for next year). Then, just when I have gotten used to waking up late, I will have a week-long training session to teach me how to properly implement the math curriculum that I have already been using for 3 years. If it is anything like the week long reading training seminar I had to attend last summer, you, my faithful 3 readers, should have a couple blogs to entertain you until I have a new class to reduce to tears. But hey, thanks to the union, I will be paid per diem. But thanks to the district, I won't see that check until August 31. It is a cruel, cruel world.

Mad Props to Me!!!

In a previous post ranting about the current state of public education, I said I should have been an auto mechanic

I take it back...I should have been a computer programmer.

All by myself, (well mostly by myself, hubby helped a little) I figured out how to add links to my friends' blogs. Sadly, it is a short list. Blogging hasn't quite caught on with my friends.

I also added a teacherly counter to my site. The real number isn't known. I guess it counts a hit every time you preview your blog before committing to changes. So you can see how many times (around 50 or so) I had to mess with the HTML to get it to work right.

Maybe I'll keep my day job. :(

Funny Site

For all you fellow anti-liberals out there...

I just stumbled across a hilarious site of conservative and inflamatory political T-shits. Check it out... it is sure to make you laugh...or you have no soul...or you are a liberal, in which case I hate you anyway.

Tears of a six-year-old

Sorry for the extremely long set-up...but oh well...it is my blog.

As the end of the school year draws near, the behavior of the students continues to tank. Any teacher who stumbles upon this blog knows exactly what I am talking about. The natives are restless. I am about to lose my mind. First graders are a delicate piece of society. I don't quite know how I feel about this, but I made the same kid cry, not once, not twice, but three times in the same day. I don't like to be a tyrant, but sometimes, ya gotta make em cry.

Discipline in my first grade room is dealt with much as a soccer game. (The sports reference was thrown in there for my little buddy.) I have a series of color cards, one for each student. Everyone starts on green. Green means I am having a good day. Yellow is a warning to shape up. Blue means you miss your recess in the detention room. Missing a recess is so devastating to a child of this age that generally it gets their behavior under control. Red is the end of the line. If you turn your card to red, the fury of hell, or at least my fury, is unleashed upon you. The red card is a blissfully rare occurrence. However, should one's behavior necessitate the red card, the student is written a citation, and is ejected from the room for the long walk to the new VP's office, who is awesome by the way. They get a phone call home and a tongue-lashing from the VP.

I generally don't like to use the kids' real names on my blog, but I felt that yet another ridiculous name needed to be exposed. (I reiterate...what are these parents thinking???????)

Deshelon is a bright student and a sweet kid. However, his in-class behavior definitely leaves something to be desired. He is loud, hyper, and very distracting to the other students. The fact that he is very smart only makes his behavior worse. He always understands what is being taught and therefore finishes his work much faster than the other students and then proceeds to get himself into trouble.

Now, it is a horrible thing for this kid to turn his card. His mother and I have an understanding. She knows how the system works and is as intolerant of his behavior as I am. She asks him daily what color his card was. His sister comes to me the next morning to verify his tale. His mom is on the ball. If he lands himself on blue or worse, he gets a whoopin' and is grounded for two-weeks. As you can see, this cooperation between parent and teacher (which is as rare as a dodo bird in my school) has been very effective with this student all year.

Friday, however, was a different story. He was chirping away starting with the bell. It did not stop even after a verbal threat..."Do you want to turn your card?" He was ordered to turn his card to yellow at 9:30 am. Tears ensue. He does a little better until around 11:30 when he threw an eraser across the room to his buddy. The girl that sits next to him (the notorious tattle-tale) came and told me what he had done. (Internal monologue: crap...never turn your back on them...not even for a second!) Deshelon and his buddy, Keonsy...again what the hell parents...who is another monster, both have to turn their cards and land themselves on blue. Bye, bye recess. Tears ensue. I ask Deshelon why on earth he is crying. He said that that girl is always tattling on him. He receives a tongue-lashing from me on the finer points of how rules work. It doesn't matter how I find out blah blah blah...a rule was broken blah blah blah... Then as I am trying to teach these young minds to do double-digit addition, the two boys have interrupted the lesson for the last time. Time: 2:00 pm. Consequence: ejected. I don't speak. I walk calmly to my desk. I pull out two citation forms and quietly fill them out. The students wait with baited breath. I look at the two boys and say sternly...Please leave! Hysterics ensue. I ignore them and politely open the door. The last hour of my day was peaceful.

Sometimes you have to be a tyrant to keep the peace. Ah yes, sometimes you gotta make 'em cry.

The summer better come quick

Yesterday I was upset by the arrival of a new student who spoke no English. I was frustrated that I only had 5 weeks to...I don't even know what I would have hoped for. Today I am thinking, 5 friggin weeks? I'll never make it! It seems as though someone has slipped crysal meth in to the milk at breakfast (yes we feed 85% of the students 2 meals/day). The kids have gone wild. I have rewarded the good students with red vines to encourage the rowdy...Nothing. I have threatened to take away recess. Nothing. I have taken away recess. Nothing. I have raised my voice to the Miss B "Peace in the valley troops " level. Nothing. I have spanked...err...wait I would go to jail... I am at wits end and now all I can think is ...5 more friggin' weeks.

On the lighter side we have a high-risk sex offender moving into our schools neighborhood. This guy received a harsh sentence for his 2nd offense (of which he only served half the time) he told the judge that next time he would just kill his victim so there would be nobody to testify against him. His victims were both minors. So he has been assigned to the group home "The Last Chance for Enlightenment Home". It is located within a half mile of an elementary and middle school. I thought to myself how horrible. Then I checked the Megan's Law website map and found that these group homes are littered all around our district. And the hits just keep on coming.

It is about that time...

Well I suppose it is about time for a post. I guess if I post bi-annually some people will be satisfied.

UPDATE: Sadly, I must report that the aforementioned twins are no longer attending our school. I have received notice, however, that I have been asked by their hideous mother to fill out an ADD referral form for the girl that was in my class. My guess is that her mother has figured out, that if a physician diagnoses her children with ADD, she can receive Social Security income for them. I think I will state, that in my professional opinion, there is nothing wrong with her. Which is in fact my opinion. The twin I had in class, exhibited signs of parental neglect, which caused her behavior issues. The other twin may in fact have something more significant going on.

But on to the main reason I am resurrecting my blog. It is a totally different frustration in the area of my career. In our district, many students come and go. And with 5 weeks left in the school year, one student has gone and was immediately replaced.

What kind of a parent would uproot their children so close to the end of a school year you may ask? Apparently, illegal immigrants do. The student that left was a Mexican-born child as so was the child that replaced him. Don’t get me wrong. I feel for their plight. I really do. And, I knew what I would be getting into teaching here in Southern California. So it is not at the children, or even the family that my intense loathing is directed…it is at the political, bureaucratic powers that be.

The child I got in class today speaks NO ENGLISH at all. In fact, I don’t think her parents even told her what to expect when entering a classroom en Los Estados Unidos. After sitting in the room for 20 minutes she burst into tears sobbing the question, “why doesn’t anyone speak Spanish here?” My Spanish is awful (and no blame should be placed on Señora Silva). I had to have another student translate for me.

I called the front office to speak to my (boo hiss) principal. I asked her what was I supposed to do with this child with five weeks left in the school year. She asked me what I meant. I explained that the student could not write the Spanish alphabet, nor could she read simple words in Spanish. Her reply was a curt, “well, we can’t retain students for language issues.”

What the !@*#… George Bush…yes I voted for him, created the lovely No Child Left Behind act. This act puts rigorous and unattainable testing constraints on schools (which by its very nature is set up so that all children and teachers will get left behind) and doesn’t give schools the resources to adequately implement such a program. His argument being that we continue to push students through who are illiterate. Well duh. The state won’t let you hold a student back because they speak a different language. That would be discrimination!!!!! Well Mr. President, close the damn border, and maybe, we can focus our attention on reading, writing, and math in one friggin’ language and maybe, just maybe, create a more literate society.

By the way, because of our school’s poor test scores we are being monitored by the state and have been granted approval to get rid of minor subjects like science, social studies, PE, and art. Even though the students are given a standardized assessment in these subject areas to determine whether they are in compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act.

I should have become an auto mechanic.