Note to My Kids before the Big STAAR test

This time of year is like the Super Bowl for teachers.  It is the "Big Show".  I hate that.  It is one day that puts a scarlet number on me and my students.  Testing is boring.  I stare at the same kids and silently pray over every single one of them by name.  I pray that they ate a good breakfast, that they have a snack, that they remember EVERY SINGLE THING we have ever done in class, that they use their strategies.  Then I remember... I am but one teacher, that has had then for less than one year, and they are 11 and 12 years old.  So from that reality I wrote them this letter to read with their parents the night before the test.

Dear Ones,

Tomorrow is your science STAAR test.  I know we haven't talked about it very much.  In general we don't talk about tests very much anyways.  Testing is important.  It tells me what you understand and what I need to provide you more support in.  At the end of a test there is always a score.

A score is a number.  It is not a memory of a lab that we did together.  It is not your complete understanding of science.  It does not define you as a student.  It does not define me as a teacher.  It does not represent the work of your family on vocabulary each week.

It is just one small glimpse into your schooling in science.  It will not keep you from going to 6th grade.  You will not retake the test if you are not successful on it the first time.  Most teachers would say I am crazy for telling you this because this could give you the impression that you can blow this test off.  I believe better of you than that.  I have instilled better values in you than that and so have your families.

Tomorrow is an opportunity to give your very best effort.  I expect and demand nothing but your best effort.  When the scores come in I will ask you honestly if you gave your best effort.  If you can say that you did, then it doesn't really matter what the number is because I asked for your very best and you gave that to me.  Have enough pride in yourself and your own learning to not cheat yourself out of being successful by blowing the test off.  You are better than that.

Furthermore, your STAAR test is over Thursday.  Do not get that confused with the end of the school year.  We have more time together.  There are more hugs to be had, more projects to be presented, more concepts to learn, and more labs to complete.  Show up Friday ready to work.  

I am putting a snack and a note in each of your testing classrooms for you all.  Be sweet tomorrow.  Respect your exhausted teachers and your bored classmates.  Give your best.  I am cheering you on my dear ones.

Love you dearly and most sincerely,

Mrs. G

Popcorn Reading and Mrs. G

I wrote this poem in college in my first ELAR pedagogy class.  In true slacker form I asked if I could take the early literacy experience writing response and respond with a poems as opposed to the essay requested.  The teacher was thrilled with the idea of my creativity and "risk taking" with writing.  I was actually just exhausted from all the fun I was having and wanted a quicker product.  Never the less, here it is.  A very dyslexic's child's view of Popcorn Reading.  Enjoy!

Ode to Popcorn Reading

By: Mrs. G

 

Oh popcorn reading let me count the ways,

The dread of you filled my elementary school days.

Words on the pages melted bellow my finger tips,

And I could never get the words to roll off my lips.

I would bury my head in my books,

While avoiding my classmates searching looks.

Oh No! I am caught,

All my thoughts are racing through what I have been taught.

My hands are clammy and I begin to sweat,

It can't really be my turn just yet.

Okay, I can do it,

After all it is just English lit.

Five measly sentences is all I have to read.

It will go by much quicker if I pick up the speed.

I hold my breath and race through the page,

It's all because popcorn reading has put me in a rage.

My eyes bug out,

And my lips turn into a pout.

My heart pounds and I think of running to the door,

And just when I think I can't take it anymore.

I call on the smartest kid in the class,

Because I know if I popcorn them they won't kick my …

Oh popcorn reading I hate you.

The WHY...

My administrators asked us to write a simple statement declaring why we chose our profession.  This seems like a pretty cliche task.

We are exactly 6 days away from Thanksgiving break.  We are looking a little haggard, tempers slightly shorter, peers more annoying, emails increasing, etc., etc., etc.

So this felt like a small relatively mindless task I could produce in moments, during the commercials of reruns of The Big Bang Theory.

I found that I turned the TV off and all my attention was on the reflection of my choice to be an educator.  I wish this was a required essay for student teachers and then we could mail them back to them after they had been teaching for 5 years, then 10 , and 15years in the trenches.  To see the changes in who we have become as the potters of the clay we mold.  My response to "The Why" is as follows:

I am addicted.  I am driven by the moments when my young scientists arrive to a conclusion that had previously been an enigma.  I am motivated to see the growth as their dendrites form pathways from trying new and interesting things.  I am fascinated by the struggled and frustrated faces trying their best and busting through the ceilings they create for themselves or have been placed upon them by others.  I am infatuated with the failure of lessons with the promise of a new idea waiting to be implemented.  I am renewed by the sweet smiles of excitement at the beginning of each bell.  I am addicted to falling in love with a new batch of scientists each year and fostering a relationship that makes me tearful on the last day of school.  I have been in a classroom for almost 2,000 school days and I have yet to break the addiction, I refuse to find sobriety in a job that is less important than molding the minds of young people.

To my fellow educators I wish you a snow day, coffee in real coffee mugs, warm fireplaces, time with family, bellies full of home cooked meals, and homes filled with laughter this season.

Rest and rejuvenate your souls, minds, and bodies, our work is hardly over and the desks will be filled with promise and hope.

Leadership Training: Days 3 &4

These past two training days certainly appealed to me so very much!  Number crunching and geeking out on data.

I love numbers because they are not up for interpretation, negotiation, or emotions.  It is what it is and there is not much you can refute about facts based on numbers.  I LOVE IT!  So these two days looked at using data to guide instruction just about had me standing in my chair shouting in true baptist form "Preach It, Brother!".  All decisions in your classroom should be purposeful, intentional, and prioritized.

I enjoy structure.  It allows me to run an effective classroom with policies and procedures that create an environment for my students to be successful.  However, there are times that I neglect the simple tasks.  So one of my largest struggles is expressing the WHY to my team, students, and even myself at times.  But really when I thought about it is the most simplest of truths.  Why we do EVERYTHING in our classrooms is so that all children can learn and grow to their full potential.  The team planning, organizing of supplies, purchasing of materials, allowing for controlled chaos, and the like are all for the kids who just hasn't got it quite yet, need the additional challenge, or a new way to look at something.

Looking at data has always be a pleasurable task for me.  Even when my scores are at an all time low I feel such great hope in them.  They tell me where to go next with my kids, if instruction was effective, and what is our greatest strength/weakness.  At its very essence it is purposeful, intentional, and prioritized.

So to help beef up my team's planning I will be instituting some new techniques.  We will begin using a UbD (Understanding by Design) template to really delve into what the state requires of our students.  Here is the template.

In addition we will be following a new agenda so that our planning is purposeful, intentional, and prioritized.  Are you seeing a theme?

Before planning teachers submit all of their great lessons and resources to a common area so that we can look at what we already have access to and evaluate what needs they would fill and the instructional gaps that still need to be filled.

Below is our planning guide.  I will write a blog following up on this process.  If you see any areas that could be changed be sure to email me so that I can put that on our next attempt at this style of planning.

5^th Grade Science

Earth Science Extended Planning

Planning Frame

·         We Will unpack the TEKS and align instruction to fulfill the TEKS and ensure success for all students.

·         I Will evaluate lesson components presented in planning to see if they meet the needs of my students through regular instruction, extension of learning, or intervention.

Re-establish Team PLC Meeting Norms

Why are we here?

1.

2.

3.

Celebration related to the Why.

1.

Norms for Presenting Lessons

1.       Presenter: hand out paper copies or direct team to location of your artifact (1 min.)

2.       Presenter: tell the gist of the lesson component (2 min.)

3.       Presenter: How would you use this piece in your classroom (1 min.)

4.       Presenter: supplies needed to complete this lesson (1 min.)

5.       Team members: “I likes” related to the resource and the TEK it intends to fulfill (2 min.)

6.       Team members: “I wonders” possible considerations or adjustments to component presented to meet the needs of your students (2 min.)

7.       Team will make notes for their own reference and personal planning time and place item into the Case Study Matrix. (1 min.)

Based on Our Planning, Our Next Steps Are…

1.       Possible Materials Needed:

2.       Additional Lessons/ Resources Needed:

3.       Professional Development:

Parking Lot (space to write down your thoughts while everyone is presenting their lesson ideas):

Case Study Matrix

TEK: Readiness or Supporting
Data based on Pre-Assessment for this TEK	1st Period: 3rd Period: 4th Period: 5th Period:
What is it we expect students to learn?
How will we know when they have learned it?
How will we present this material?
How Will we Respond when they don’t learn it?
How will we respond when they already know it?

Keepin' Up with the Jones' in Suburbia

So here it is.  Let's get really open and honest.

I live in a nice neighborhood.  Certainly not starter homes but not mansions either.  We have a nice school down the street.  We have community pools and several other nice amenities.  A typical nice suburbia neighborhood.

When I changed schools to be in the district in which I live and for my boys to attend the neighborhood school I envisioned something along the lines of an updated version of Ward and June Cleaver.  Normal families with normal jobs.  Normal kids with normal evening activities.  Go to church on Sundays.

Some of that is true for every family and maybe even all of it for others.

Here is what I have learned in roughly 6 weeks of attending various activities in my daily life.

1. My pastor is right.  It is harder to be a Christian in Suburbia than in a far off deserted place with minimal resources.  The temptations to find things to fill your soul are endless.  When you have nothing but God you tend to spend a lot more time with him as opposed to random activities that give the allusion that your family "has it all".  I find it more of a struggle to come to HIM now in a better financial and living situation than when I was a single mom living on frozen chicken nuggets.  We try to manage everything.  Especially the things out of our control.
2. School parent meetings.  When you are a teacher but attending as a parent you are in a very sticky situation.  You are there to be an involved and concerned mother.  Prepared to host parties, cut out laminated posters, and collect box tops.  As a teacher you watch the blood bath that is crazy parents and you have to fight every urge to not come across the table and choke the other mother who does nothing more than live on her elliptical machine that faces the front window.  It is the real Desperate Housewives.  If you enjoy that kind of brain candy go volunteer at your kids' school, you will be in diabetic coma by the end of it.
3. Problems.  Every one has them.  What goes on behind the door of a two story stone faced brick home is no different then the government apartments down the street.  Families are in turmoil and struggling.  Food, finances, time at work, time at home, raising children, and activities are being juggled behind every closed door to some degree or another with varying severity.
4. Teaching is hard.  No matter where you are.  The emails don't stop.  The meetings are regular and irregular all at the same time.  Kids are learning.  Documents are piling up.  There are challenges everywhere.  The grass is not necessarily greener on either side.  It is just a different kind of grass.  Every yard has its issues and a beautiful shaded part.
5. Change will grow and break you.  For some reason I feel like this year has been a bit of an upheaval in our lives.  My new job and the boys starting a new school.  I feel completely right in the decision to change both of those last year.  Sometimes waiting to see God's plan is frustrating.  The waiting game has never been anything I am good at.  I am by nature a very impatient person.  Most of the time in my life when bigger changes were made I felt broken during the process.  Struggling and drowning.  Waiting to understand the journey but in the end He always reveals to me exactly my purpose.  Often times waiting for that moment takes every ounce of my being, but my hope is in Him and His plan.
6. I am imperfect.  Not just a little imperfect but completely flawed.  I think we all are.  But my intense desire to keep up with the Jones' at work, at home, at my children's school, in my craft room, etc....  The list goes on.  I need to stop trying to kill myself to attain perfection but be very judicious with the time and talents I have and reach out to others with varying time and talents to supplement my own short comings.  I hate asking for help.  I think because of the years I was pulling myself up by the boot straps I try to be very independent.  Maybe I should work on that.  Along with an ever growing laundry list.
7. My fat girl habits are coming back.  I eat and drink way too much coffee when I am stressed.  For that very reason I will be enjoying a liquid diet next week to remind my brain and body that we all need to be on the same team fighting for the same cause.

So that is all for this evening.  My postings have been sporadic at best.  Life has caught up with me but the cathartic-ness of blogging is ever so sweet when it happens.  To all my other go-getters and peeps trying to #GetOnMyLevel, keep at it your life and the ones around you are worthy of your efforts.

Leadership, new and improved

Last year I was an epic failure in the way I tried to lead the science department.  Sure there were somethings I did right but for the most part... Epic failure.  When I took my new job I was under the impression that I would be just a member of the team not the leader.  I was thrilled!  No responsibility beyond myself.  Failures and successes would be of my own.  Wrong.  I found out on move in day that I had been chosen to lead my new teammates into the battlefield of education and win victory over standardized testing.

I was asked to join a PLC leadership training.  Two days to figure out why I sucked as a leader previously and become a new and emproved version.  I immediately felt like the speaker was talking specifically and almost exclusively to me.  Here are a few of my take aways from those two days.

1. Don't try and perfect a plan.  The Wright brothers made a plan and almost immediately executed the plan with the full expectation the plane might not fly YET.  All members of the team were expected to arrive to work with five replacement parts for the aircraft and ready to crash planes.  I loved perfecting a good plan but rarely felt prepared for the aftermath of the crash because I was confident in "the plan". This year I will work with my battle buddies (my teammates) to put plans into actions and crash planes with replacement parts at the ready, even prepared to fly an incomplete plane and assemble mid air.

2. Don't try to move someone who has made up their mind.  It is the quiet thinkers that need the most encouragement.  They are sitting on the fence deciding on the right course of action.  They are ready to make a change and just need to see enough of a benefit to make the move to join you in your desire to make a plan, crash some planes, and prepare to fix them.  I wasted countless hours hating and complaining about the steadfast rocks within my habitat that I never noticed the sweet birds on the fence waiting to make up their minds.  I will look to the fence first from now on.  The rocks decide to be birds once they realize they are alone and if they don't... Well heck you are a bird and have flown away from the rock anyways.

3. Expectations must be outlined and norms set.  I have rules that I enforce in my classroom with ease but have never thought once to have norms in a meeting.  Stupid!  Teachers make the worst students. For real, stick me next to my bestie in a staff development and good luck getting anything productive out of either one of us.  Setting norms as a group creates comfortable perimeters for all and allows for the most productivity.  I will be setting norms in my classroom this year with my kids and with my teammates so we have the most time to crash planes.

4. I might have the title but we are equally yoked in the team and all have responsibilities to one another.  In the past I have felt that if one of the teachers I was leading didn't have the scores they had hoped for then it was my fault, I had not lead them or our students to success.  We kept our scores a top government secret and often times wore them as scarlett letters of shame.  In the words of my mother-in-law, "it is, what it is".  We will own it ALL as a unit.  No Teacher Left Behind.  We are a team and we will succeed and fail as such.  One of my teammates said that we should get Phoenix tattoos if our kids score 95% or better.  Being a team player I agreed and added to that I would also get my teammates names on the Phoenix.  I agree to the goal but mildly regret adding my aggreance to the tattoo.  My teammates get me so fired up about the work we will be doing together that I get carried away.  I fear I will end up getting coaxed into other outlandish things throughout this year.

All in all I am so blessed to be given another chance at leadership.  We have several more leadership training sessions and I am so excited to hear more ways to get my battle buddies and I closer to our Phoenix tattoo. To my previous teammates... I am sorry I failed you and I am grateful for the lessons I learned in that journey the hard way.  Best wishes my fellow educators to a week filled with meeting and chaos.  Hug your battle buddies this week and get prepared to crash planes.  The children with be here ready for a first class seat in one week!

My New Habitat... before pics

Desk Area

cabinet area

white board

This year I will be starting my 10th year of teaching.  I have taught in 4 districts, and 5 schools.  That is a lot of mobility.  I know that.  Every move I have made has been to put my family in a better position financially, geographically, and/or logistically.  This year I asked God specifically to use my family.  So that when we pass on we are used up and He was able to use our gifts to His glory.  My church family has so many amazing things going on in my hometown.  I know that my spiritual gifts can be put to use in those movements.  My children have never attended their home campus because logistically it was a nightmare for Stud Muffin and I to get them to and fro.  So in May I applied for a science position at my local intermediate school.  Ironically, I attended this intermediate school as a student.  When I interviewed for the position I was not completely convinced that I was able to convince these administrators to hire me.  I felt like the interview went well but I was sweating through my floral dress the whole time.  My car refused to start in the parking lot and carpool commenced upon trying to depart from my interview.  I just wanted to get home and get out of my sweaty dress.  I felt like that was God's way of saying "Not this time kid." Truly, I was fine with that.  I LOVED my old school.  The principal, hands down was the best administrator I had ever worked for.  I was part of the family in that school in a way I had never felt at any other school I had been in.  I was comfortable and doing good work there.

teacher work area

I had not even pulled back into my neighborhood which is within a few miles of the school when I was called and offered the job.  I asked the principal if I could have the weekend to discuss the opportunity with Stud Muffin before I made my decision.  As my honey cooked out hamburgers I watched my boys play in the back yard as we discussed the possible job change and how that could effect our family.  A group of boys rode by our house on bikes.  The look in Beans' eyes was of utter longing.  Longing to have friends in our neighborhood, bike rides, sleep overs, and trips to the pool with friends from school.  The decision was made.  I called Monday to accept the position.

NOT my new class pet!!

I was surprised by the timeless appearance of my new campus upon moving in.  The school, for the most part, had not changed much from when I had attended  the school almost two decades ago. With the exception of my very first job, I have been blessed to be in a brand new school.  Seriously, every classroom I have ever taught in has been no more than 5 years old at most.  Pristine walls, new desks, matching chairs, and stain free carpet were the makings of my domains.  I spent hours looking for the best way to attach anything to painted cinder block.

glass cabinets

Because of my love for labels and organization I immediately went through the room and supply closet with a fine toothed comb and another teacher who has quickly become one of my favorite co-workers for his wit and sarcasm.  I have met my two other teammates and have fallen into budding friendships with them as well.  I am feeling more at home in my new habitat.

I miss the pristine quarters of my old school.  The feelings of comfort I found with in the campus.  The deep friendships I had developed with my peers.  The familiar sounds of the building and the children with in it.  I miss the steadfastness of my old principal.

other half of glass cabinet area, the two most friendly janitors ever

Despite my ability to make decisions easily and carry out a plan quickly, this change has surprised me.  I will continue to teach science and be in a leadership role.  The job for me has not changed much over the past 6 years.  But something about this place feels different.  I am intrigued by the possibilities and the newness of this old school.  I learned how to play the clarinet and tuba in this building.  I got in my first fight in this building.  I played basketball in this building.  I ran laps in the bus loop of this building.  I completed my dyslexia classes in this building.  I served my one and only Saturday school punishment in this building.  A school that once felt so small to me now feels gigantic.

Stay tuned as I navigate the waters in this new adventure and prepare for the school year ahead.  I am where God wants my family and I to be and the anticipation of what this year holds is exciting!