Teaching is the life for me.

I am really happy to report that I love teaching here in NY City. I have an excellent administration, I have good colleagues and I have amazing students. I enjoy my days so much. That isn’t to say that every day is perfect…. HA! Far from it.

I have a student who wouldn’t acknowledge my existence for about four or 5 class days. He would defy any direction I gave him. He was sent out of my room 4 days in a row. It is hard to teach a student who isn’t in the room. His mom was called in, we met with him and his mom. He was honest with the Assistant principal that he wouldn’t respond to me and wouldn’t do what I asked. He has a long back story and has some emotional baggage that he hasn’t worked thru in his 13 short years of life.

So on Thursday, he started to raise his hand in class and when I asked him if I could help him, he asked me to check his work. That one moment where he didn’t ignore me helped me to put my toe in the crack of the door he had just opened. I hope to keep this door open for him and me. I called his mom that afternoon and told her that I was proud of her son and that she deserved to hear that he had had a successful day in math class. Again on Friday, he was kind and courteous to me. I even spoke with him one on one and told him I saw a difference these last two days in his self control. Maybe … Maybe…. He’ll have a good week next week.

I have been accepted by my students in so many ways. One piece of evidence of my acceptance is that the girls want me to do the “Harlem shake.” I see them dance and move their shoulders and won’t even pretend that I would do this, but the simple request that they want me to do it with them, says that they accept me. They like to laugh with me and are very kind with their compliments to me. They frequently tell me I look nice or that they like my shoes. It seems trivial, but in an environment where I’m still learning the rules and language, these moments are assuredly an acceptance of me into their circle of trusted adults.

The math is going well also. I have taught my 7th grade class why multiplying a negative times a negative equals a positive. I did it while teaching some geography of cities or places on our planet that are cold. We demonstrated that each city’s temperature dropped 5 degrees as fall set in. We represented that decrease in temperature with a -5. We did that to 4 cities. Then global warming came along and TOOK AWAY the -5 degrees from each of the cities. It turned out that the temperature went up when we took away -5 degrees and if we took away 4 times then (-4) (-5) = 20. That was a successful lesson. I know because I had many students having that great mathematical moment called the “Ah-Ha Moment.”

So these students can learn and they want to learn. They can be lazy, but if I compliment the hard working students, the rest of the class craves the attention and public praise and try hard to receive it from me. My praise is genuine and warm. The students want to hear good things about themselves. I’m trying to do that more and more each day.

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.