So... there was a fight at school today

First of all.... NO WORRIES!
Our school building houses 3 different schools. Ours resides on the top two floors of the building. Today, after a day where I gave out 3 detentions, 1 send out (kinda like in school suspension for the period) and about 19 warnings, I had the job of walking my homeroom down to the first floor to dismiss them for the day. I do this 3 days every week, so it's nothing new. However...
On the way down the stairs, I had one young man, who continues to challenge me, raise his hand as if to strike another student. I called him to the front and informed him that he would be going back upstairs with me to serve detention for the action. (This is the same student I sent out during my class). When we got to the door to the outside, he proceeded to leave me and go to the play yard. When I looked down to the yard, I noticed a fight and a group of about 40 students. none of the students were from our school.
I thought quickly and knew that my place was to protect my students from becoming involved. I corralled them to the sidewalk and attempted to get them to leave the school property thru the gated fence. Most stayed and wanted to watch the fight. I promised them that whoever stayed would be serving detention. Turns out that worked, and 90% of my students then left the area and I was able to maintain the walkway from the door to the sidewalk and get our students out of harms way. Another class was following us down the stairwell and I got them to leave also. Their teacher checked on the yard, and by this time other adults had arrived and the altercation was over and the students dispersed.
I felt good that I kept my cool, and wasn't really upset over all of this. It just was surprising. Many students from our school wanted to go and see... and they finally realized the excitement was over and left for home.

So... I've made it thru seeing my first fight. I've had a student sent out of my room... and I've played with lunch bags and cubes to demonstrate "unknown." I'll have to write about that another time.

I am still very encouraged by some of the work my students do. If I give them work, they do it and they are pretty good at it. I don't see many students who can't learn what I'm presenting to them.

Okay... I need to write a quiz. 2b + 4 anyone?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/education/22teacher.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin
I have many friends from the NYC Teaching Fellows program that are without jobs this fall. They've changed their life for a promise to teach in the city and to make a difference in the students' lives. However, they struggle every day because there aren't enough jobs for the total number of people hired.

By the way, avoid NYCity when the United Nations is in session. It's absolutely crazy around here. Even the subways are running slower, the traffic is not pretty.

But... David Blaine is in Central Park, and I'm going to go see him today.

I GOT PAID TO TEACH!

Another week of teaching is finished. Here are some highlights and lowlights:
• I got paid. So after three years of not getting any significant salary and attending school, Monday was my first New York City Department of Education Paycheck. It wasn’t too small either. I can live on what I get paid. I know teachers don’t make a ton of money, but I’m not here to make a lot of money, I’m here to make a difference.
• I had to talk to my Assistant Principal (AP) because I am having some difficulties teaching my CTT class. First of all I think that the 27 of them are wonderful individuals, but some of the personalities are difficult together. I spoke with my AP about the co-teacher in my room. She tends to yell at the students and I wanted to get advice on what to do. He asked me if I was comfortable in talking directly with her about the yelling, and I said I was. So I did sit down with my co-teacher and we did talk about classroom management style. I asked her to never yell at the students and if she felt that she was at a yelling point to get my attention, and I’ll take over. She hasn’t yelled at them since, and has started using other strategies with them, such as raising her hand and counting to five. It works well for them; they sit down and quiet down. Also, the principal came in to observe us as well as my math coach. They are all trying to guide me into helping my co-teacher into doing what we need her to do in the math room. So I felt proud that I had an issue early on and addressed it and showed my administration that I can handle difficult interpersonal issues professionally and positively. I made sure that I they knew I needed my co-teacher and I just want to help both of us to work together to teach these students.
• I had two notes from students. One respectfully asked me to change where she sat, which I did. The other was a note of admiration from a student. She realized that the noisy students in our class were a challenge and she appreciated and how I handled them. That was a great note to receive. I call it my first “love note.” The students respond very well to me and this is what I was hoping for.
• I had parent information night on Thursday. I met many parents and saw hope in them that their student will be successful. I hope to help them. My advice to the parents for homework help was to ask the student to show them their notes from class. I did however feel this strange feeling. It’s the feeling that many white middle class female teachers feel. It’s almost like we are part of the problem as we are trying to be a part of the solution. In the auditorium on parent information night, the only white women there were teachers. We have two teachers on staff that probably call themselves African-American women. I feel that I’m making a difference, but I wish there were more black and Hispanic teachers and role models in the school for these students.
• The SETSS teacher (he is a Para-professional in one of my 6th grade classes) gave me wonderful compliments at parent information night and told the parents that I could teach to all of the differing levels and skills in my class. I felt hopeful. I think that this teacher is a good support for my students and he has already seen from me, the skills that I have to get each student to participate. However….
• I started doing participation points this week. It constitutes 25% of the students’ grades. I have to keep track of hand raising, cooperation, compliments and things like that so the students can get really high participation points to help with their grade. I also track behavior warnings and detentions. So far the majority of my students max out their participation points each day.

So, it’s been a busy week. I administered exams to my students on Thursday and Friday and now I need to grade all of them. ICK. However, Andrea and Dan are here from Boston for the weekend and I’ve hired them to help me! We are going to go be tourists in Manhattan today and that should be fun.

Advisory Field Trip

Here are some images for you to appreciate the wonderful students that I teach.

First Time

Yesterday, Wednesday September 10th, a student in one of my classes came up to me on the street and screamed my name and gave me a huge bear hug. She was so happy to introduce her math teacher, Ms. Dyer to her mom. It was great!

Being in NYCity on September 11th is really quite interesting. There are a lot of moments of silence in many formats. We observed about 5 minutes of silence in homeroom. There are a lot of services happening all over the city. It's really quite warming to me that so many people want to feel connected to each other from this tragedy in the city. The students in my class were about 5 or 6 years old when the towers fell. They do not remember the skyline with the towers.

Class is good. I had a rough time with my 7th grade class today. I blame my coteacher and myself. We need to work with our own teaching styles. We need to get on board together.

I gave 5 students detention today for uniform violations. Ouch! They made it to 3rd period without anyone reminding them... well... I'm not so nice this second week of school even to the young sixth grader students.

Tomorrow I go on my first NYCity field trip to Battery park with my 6th grade advisees. They are all wonderful, yet there are a few I haven't even met yet, because they were assigned to me this week. OY!

Oh... They were taping Law and Order right 1/2 block from my school today. I looked around when I was done working, but I didn't see anyone who even looked like an actor. Cool though... lots of trailers and such.

First Week is over

Up one day and down the next.

So yesterday I felt like a real teacher. I had three classes (that’s all I have but they are double periods) and I administered an exam and collected homework. Real Teacher. I think the kids are great and they figured me out quite quickly. I don’t put up with giggling at other peoples mistakes. I don’t put up with picking on other people about anything, and I especially don’t like it when people touch my things. Thursday was a lot of fun for me and I left with a smile

However, things change quickly. Today… Friday. I had 1^st and 2^nd periods free so I planned/prepared a great lesson for seeing data put into a table. I was going to do this with my 7^th grade class. The 6^th grade class came in and I had my first teacher issue. One girl Annie accused Pasha (names have been changed) of stealing her eraser during the time we passed papers out. There are four people in the group.

I took all four out into the hall with their back packs and no one had the eraser. Pasha claimed not to have touched Annie’s eraser and certainly didn’t take it. Hmmm…. I told Annie I was sorry and we’d try to sort it out. When Pasha asked to go to the bathroom later in the class, the others at the table looked in Pasha’s desk and found the eraser. So I confronted Pasha in the hallway (I have a second teacher in the room) and asked her to think wisely before she answered my question. I asked her if she had touched Annie’s eraser (I had it in my hand which I don’t think she knew) and she admitted to picking it up and looking at it but did NOT take it. So, I gave her the thank you for being honest this time, but you lied earlier speech. I told her she was in trouble for lying and NEVER accused her of stealing the eraser. She just didn’t get it. I asked her, nope, I told her to apologize to Annie about lying. In order to make sure she had the right words, I asked her to tell me what she was going to say. She said, “I’m sorry the teacher found the eraser in my desk, I didn’t take it.” That was interesting and I instructed her that an apology was about something you did wrong yourself. It took MANY minutes to rehearse with her what she was to apologize about. OH MY!

Annie took the eraser and told Pasha some good things, like, “My mom works hard so that I can have school supplies.” She was a good kid in a bad spot. So… I took care of that one. Then…

My homeroom class was with me for 5^th period for what is usually small groups of 10 for break They couldn’t control themselves and I ended up giving the entire class lunch detention. OMG. That means that I didn’t get a chance to eat lunch. So they just wouldn’t settle down and I felt inadequate as a teacher to give them detention on day 4 of school. It turns out that they wouldn’t behave for my partner homeroom teacher either. That made me feel better. And where did they have to go after homeroom? MATH with me. I was with them from 5^th period to the end of the day. I did get the control I needed during our math class. I just started putting names on the board with warnings. It worked. Oh… then

Then….

We had a fire drill. 7 flights of stairs down and back up, with this same group of students. I was exhausted. I am so glad to be home. I was nearly in tears after they all left.

So it wasn’t the worst day in my life. It was frustrating and I made it through. I got the most difficult class in the school (it turns out). Oh well. We’ll all figure it out.

Math note. I collected summer packets from the students. The sixth graders were asked why math was important in life. EVERY single student mention money. They didn’t mention problem solving or logic or other jobs, just the knowledge to make sure you get the right change at the store, could pay your bills properly, and could calculate taxes and discounts. NOT ANY OTHER thing mentioned about math.

So, since you can do all that math by the end of 4^th or 5^th grade, these students wouldn’t need to take math seriously by 7^th or 8^th grade in their mind. How to let them know that math is more than money.

I need to go get my dinner. NYCity Pizza. Great place down the street. I’ll pick it up tonight.

First Day of Teaching!

So,
I'm tired. My feet hurt, my head hurts, I'm tired. What a day! I loved every bit of it. These kids are great! They are exactly what I expected. There are many students with great stories, and many who don't want to share their stories.

We have a school with a TON of rules, which makes life easier for me the teacher. The students wear school uniforms, and if they break a uniform rule, they get uniform detention. Just like that... break the rule, get detention.

I would love to write more, but I'm really tired and need to get to bed. I'm going to watch Andy Roddick on the US Open and fall asleep as he beats his opponent. Wish I was watching it live, it's only about 5 miles from my house. Next year, I'll go watch!

Talk with you soon!