Adjustments

These first few months of school have been great. I love my new school, I love my students, and I love my colleagues and administrators. At my new school, administrators regularly visit the classrooms and give teachers feedback on their practice. As much as I like to think I'm open to this, it was hard to adjust to administrators who actually care and actually know something about education and pedagogy. At first, I felt criticized by their feedback, but after awhile I realized that they weren't really criticizing me, they were trying to help me to improve and that's precisely why I switched schools, to continue growing and learning as an educator.

Another big adjustment for me has been the accountability and data collection. At my old school we talked about our "data" constantly and had to collect data in every subject area on every child, but we filed this data in a binder that went in our "data center" and was never reviewed by administration. At my new school teachers have to email their data spread sheets to administrators. At first, I though the administration was asking me to email it to them so they could scrutinize me, but then I got the letters generated by the administration to the parents with their children's scores and pointers for how they could help at home and I realized that it wasn't about criticizing the teacher, the data is actually used to help children. It doesn't disappear into "Data Center" oblivion, but actually gets used. What a concept!

Other than that, I have settled into my first grade zone once again. Different school, different kids, but it's basically the same. I'm fortunate the curriculum is similar (except for math), so it really hasn't been hard to adjust in that way. My students are connecting with each other and with me and we have a nice classroom atmosphere going where everyone in encouraged to learn. We went on a field trip to the zoo on Friday and had a great time together. I have so many photos of my students with their arms around each other smiling in front of sea lions and bears. We did our usual shared writing about the trip. The kids generated the best telling of the story in all my years of teaching. I was really surprised. Most of my students are ELLs once again, so I didn't expect such rich vocabulary to come out. They said things like "the path in the aviary was narrow." Whoa! This year, when I type it out, I will actually be able to project it onto the Smartboard for my students to edit and revise.

It makes me really happy that I am able to create this positive school world with my students as I did at my old school except this time it's not isolated to just my classroom, the whole school is in on it. It's encouraging to say the least.

The ones that stayed behind and my new outlook

I went to happy hour with some my former colleagues from my old school. It was great to hear about the students and how everyone was doing. I realized as we were all reminiscing and sharing about the school that I am in a completely different world at my new school. I felt bad sharing when they asked me how things are because it's just not fair. They received the news shortly after school started that the principal was leaving. That makes 3 administrators in 4 years (not counting the string of APs who have come and gone). They weren't happy or sad about it because, while they were dissatisfied with the principal, we all were, they don't know what to expect. My new school is in a district where principals have historically retired from their positions after many years of service. One less thing to worry about.

My first grade colleagues at my old school shared with me that they are dealing with class sizes of 30+ with rosters still not finalized. My roster was finalized in early August and almost everyone showed up on the first day. I have not even had a child arrive late yet. They began sharing about the behavior of children, peeing on purpose all over the rug to spite the teacher, choking other students during recess, cursing out adults, etc. At my new school, I have the best behaved class of my entire career. I was setting up the play centers and realized we didn't have enough blocks for the 8 children who had chosen that center on Friday (I had planned to have 2 separate block areas). They all wanted to play together so I allowed them to just to see what would happen. They played so nicely together, sharing, talking, and interacting. They even cleaned up as a team. I also haven't received a single complaint from my VERY capable and loving school aide.

I have this feeling that this blog might take on a new tone this year. I have always wanted to do research in my classroom and have engaged mostly informally in conducting research over the years. This year, I feel like this huge weight has been lifted and I can actually focus on my instruction. My first goal is to assess my students for their language levels. Since I am teaching in a sheltered immersion ESL class this year I want to find out the levels of all my students, those classified as ELLs and those who have passed the LAB-R. From there, I want to make goals for them (both language and academic), and work on creating a model of intervention and enrichment in my class with a focus on language. I'm so excited!

This changes everything

These past few weeks have been like a dream for me. I'm working at a school where children are at the center of all decisions, where administrators are more than just competent, they are talented, hard-working, and dedicated. This is the first year that I haven't had to buy supplies for my classroom (I still bought a few, but the point is I didn't have to). I didn't even know that New York City schools even had money for supplies, but apparently they do if your administration knows how or cares to properly allocate funds.

My classroom set-up went smoothly and I was ready when the children arrived yesterday. I had no last minute roster additions, no confusion, nothing. None of my students even arrived late. Everyone was on time and ready to be back at school. Some of the students were a bit spacey as is expected after a 2 month hiatus from school, but they knew the rules and routines. They all used the non-verbal cues for bathroom, water, and ideas they had learned in Kindergarten and understood the concept of a "thinking chair" (non-punitive time out). All transitions and procedures went smoothly. Dismissal was a dream with all parents smiling and shaking my hand. After day one I didn't feel any stress at all, just a sense of wanting to know the children more and wanting to reach the ones who struggle with academics.

It was a strange feeling coming from my last school where everything was an uphill battle and I felt courageous for being there and for protecting my students from the evils of "the system." I found myself missing the chaos of the rosters and the preps and the copy machine that never worked. I missed the smell of the dirty staircase that never even got cleaned over the summer, the heat and the sweat, the mean secretaries who scowled and registered children for the wrong grade and with their names misspelled. I missed the flustered administrators who alternated roaming the building putting out fires and locking themselves in their offices to escape their own incompetence. I missed the noise from the inside yard at lunch with decibel levels high enough to damage even an adult's ear drum. I missed the chaos of dismissal. I missed the grittiness of the whole experience.

This is what I wanted, a drastic change, but somehow it doesn't feel like my own yet. It feels like I'm working at a temporary cushy job or something, but I'm not. I'm still a New York City public school teacher with 27 first graders on my roster.

I called one of my former colleagues to talk about my old school and to ask about her day. When I told her I missed it, she said, "well you'll get over that really quickly when I tell you what happened today..." and she was right. The stuff she was telling me was what was killing me inside, ripping me apart, challenging my moral character. I do not even feel like I can divulge the things that are apparently still going on at that school but I can tell you it is criminal and disgusting and I just couldn't fight the battle anymore. She told me that the class I would have had was downright out of control, like running out of the classroom and screaming and playing around in the stairs. I think my administrators thought it was easy for me because I had things under control, but it was so hard. They thought I was expendable. Maybe I wasn't. It wasn't just me, there were a lot of people who dedicated their lives and themselves to those children, to that school, and 9 of us left not because we didn't care, but because we just couldn't do it anymore. I left some of the best teachers I will ever have the privilege to work with. I am so thankful for everything they taught me and for the children of that school. Maybe that's what I really miss.