wake up calls

I have so many wake up calls sounding. There is the one that rings each morning just before the sun, there is the shuffle of feet telling me that my children are here, there is the one that alerts me when things are about to become pandemonium, and there is the one that reminds me each day to remember the lives of my students once they leave the classroom. I have found it easy to forget the realities of the lives of my students and their families, and I must wonder if it is because it is simply easier not to think about it. This week however, the wake up call was made of paper, resting in my hands, telling me exactly what had been so easy to overlook the past four weeks.

This week the parents of my students applied for the free and reduced lunch and breakfast program offered by the Department of Education. It was surprisingly personal information to be passed through my hands, as my eyes were the liaison between the application and the district office. As a result, I now know the income of many of the families in my classroom. It is shocking to discover that the parents of most of my students, with at least one child and in many cases more, make far less money than I do. And I have no one to support but myself, no children, no parents, no debt. Thus sets in the guilt. However this realization instilled within me the greatest levels of admiration for the parents of my students, dispelling so many myths of poverty. Particularly, the myth that parents struggling financially cannot or do not care for their children, as many of the parents of my students demonstrate on a daily basis that they care so deeply about the success of their child.

Still I must wonder, seeing these numbers in front of my eyes, numbers that often were less than half of my monthly salary with four children's names written on the application, how do they have anything? How will they have anything that they need to succeed? Could I have succeeded had I not had so many books in my bedroom or texts and resources in my classrooms? Would I be a great reader if I never had access to books? When I think of those people who blame low income students and communities for low graduation rates, college attendance rates, and test scores, stating that they are 'bad kids' or 'stupid kids' or 'their families don't care about education' I wish that for just a moment they could see what I see and take a moment to reflect upon their own lives and ask themselves the question, "If this were me, where would I be?"

locus of control

It is painfully difficult to admit the things you cannot control. My locus of control is so small and so limited, particularly at this point when there is so much to be done that I cannot think about it all at once. And it is so painfully difficult to come to the conclusion that you have little to no control over the home life of your students. What are you to do, for example, when you know that sending a student home with a negative mark on his behavior log will result in a dark bruise across his cheek? Your first response is most certainly to not send him home with a negative mark on his behavior log, even when he deserves it. But the reality is in fact that you would be lessening his chances for success in his future by holding him to lower expectations than the other children in class. It is a difficult but necessary conclusion that all teachers in my situation must come to: you must send him home with the check mark anyway. No excuses is the policy under which I must operate.

I have a student who used to be my angel. He responded so strongly to positive reinforcement that I would whisper in his ear that he was my personal star and he would be on point for the rest of the day. Suddenly I found bruises on his right arm like someone had grabbed him roughly and his behavior took a 180. He refused to participate or join the community of our classroom, he was disruptive, wrote that he hated himself in his journal, and covered his face with his hood all day. Of course my natural inclination was to reinforce his self-esteem and encourage him gently to rejoin our classroom, but soon the entire class was suffering and the behavior was unacceptable. He went home with another check mark that day. This morning he appeared with a dark purple bruise on his cheek that he told me he got when he hit his face on a slide and his behavior has now done a complete 360. I spent the morning unable to reconcile wanting to be gentle with his feelings when I know that he may need to feel loved with not tolerating his unacceptable behavior in class. Thus, I have no choice but to realize my limited locus of control. I must hold him to the same high behavioral expectations to which I hold all of the other students. Today, he went home with two check marks on his behavior log.

I wrote him a small note after class which I left for him on his desk, encouraging him to bring his positivity back. He crossed out all of my words, including his name, and wrote the name of another student on it. Still, I must remember why I am here and the things that I can change.

wishes

I wish that I had the time to write on this blog every single night because every day is so incredibly different, packed with different triumphs, different losses, different struggles, and different hopes for tomorrow. Unfortunately, I do not have that time and I wish that I could say I will soon become efficient enough but I know that I will not. The days and weeks fly by so quickly that I have come to bank upon that fact, when a day or a week is tough I know that it will be over so quickly and the only thing left for me to do is look back upon it and hope beyond hoping that I taught something that mattered. I have no idea what I am doing or how I am doing it. The only option is to merely accept that it is normal to suffer from the feeling of self-doubt in one's first year of teaching. No teacher anywhere has ever said that they felt completely in the know during their first year, let alone their first weeks. The benefit and simultaneous draw back of working in a charter school that operates very much as an interwoven team is that you are never allowed to make mistakes alone. I have made mistakes so far, many, and while it is beneficial that as soon as I made them there was someone there to tell me what I had done wrong, it is difficult to be so under the spotlight when it is inevitable that I am struggling at this point.

This week was difficult and wonderful. Our classroom was finally starting to function as a real class, with routines and true learning occurring, but our class management was little more than a mess. While firmness is not my natural strong suit, I am surprised at how tough I have become. I can now look a crying child in the face and tell them that they have 5 seconds to end the tears and return to their seat. But I am still not scary, and a little bit of fear never hurt anyone. Learning was not occurring like it should have been because so much time was wasted upon getting the attention of every student in the class, and it needed to change immediately. We have begun the process of toughening up and it is working and will continue to do so, however we are battling against unjust circumstances that prove to make classroom management much more difficult. Many of our students experience structure for the first time in school, and it is up to us to demonstrate for them the power of becoming invested in your own education. I have one student who is in and out of shelters, infrequently comes to school, and has led such an unstructured life that it is difficult for him to understand what it means. It is not his fault, but it indicates that there is work to be done. I have a student whose arm I found harsh purple bruises on this week, the same day when he transformed from my personal angel to a student who wrote "I hate myself" in his journal and rebelled against all of our activities. How am I qualified for this?

However, there is so MUCH to be done and so little space in my mind, so few hours in my day, and so few tasks that I can tackle at one time that attempting it all at once I have determined to simply be a bad idea. It would kill me and thus should not be the expectation. I do not think that the goal of Teach for America is to kill their corps members. Thus, I have found that it is healthier to approach this job with three mindsets:

1. I can learn and I will get better

2. I am not suppose to feel like I know what I am doing

3. Make great leaps by taking small steps

Attempting to utilize every strategy in the book in one day of class while establishing new systems for tracking mastery of student objectives, behavior charts, calls home, personal interventions, strategies for challenging kids, and all that there is to think about is simply impossible. Therefore, I have decided to set small goals, one a day, that I can tackle and know that I am heading in a positive direction. This is very TFA of me.

Last Friday I set the goal of being consistent with my consequences across students and offenses, which will assist me in gaining the trust of the students. Tomorrow, my goal is to increase the pace of my lessons. Tuesday, I must take notes during my guided reading sessions about each child. Each of these small steps are things that I feel confident that I can manage, and thus while alone they made little difference, together they will lead me to become a better teacher.

It is a very good thing that I love my students and my job, for it is taxing, and that alarm sounds frighteningly early. But I have found a place that eventually I hope I can feel confidently a part of. The reason I know that I can make it is that even after the longest day, when I have caused tears in the eyes of six children (Friday, for example) they never get me down. We move on together and hopefully towards an even better place.

Forgive yourself every night, and recommit yourself every morning.

look how cute my kids are

A tiny peek into my classroom to fulfill an assignment for my course in mathematics instruction for my masters. Enjoy the peek, though I still have absolutely no idea how to get them to stop wiggling. I am open to suggestions. Notice the boys in the lower left corner figure out there is a camera on them...

what's tough

This is exhausting! You think you know, but you have no idea. My class is lovely but tough. Extremely tough and the challenges are constant. I've been feeling so negative which does not suit my personality, the behavioral expectations at this school are so high that one scholar with their eyes not facing forwards while in line in the hallway warrants a snap and a redirect. Tomorrow I am trying a different approach, a chain that will hang from the ceiling to which I will add links, not take them away. This exhaustion is not sustainable. To add to the mix, my purse was stolen two nights ago right from my chair inside of a restaurant in union square, along with my wallet, my cell phone, my keys, and thus my alarm clock. I was seated facing someone who was apparently so taken by my incredible beauty and illustrious shine that he did not even notice the purse being taken! Who would have thought. More than anything, this is a hassle right in the midst of an I-really-don't-need-this-right-now-week. And without an alarm clock, I used my back up alarm last night which, alas, did not go off this morning at 5:30 AM. The leftover exhaustion from sitting in the police station until midnight on Tuesday evening left me with such a need for sleep that when my alarm didn't go off I slept until 8:15, woke up to see light outside and knew that I was in trouble. I was two hours late for school in my first week, humiliated, embarrassed, mortified and without coffee or makeup.

Though sometimes I just need to stamp my foot at 6 pm and say to myself, "I must go home right this instant," I do love my job. I have never worked so hard in my life and I never have any idea what I am doing, but I do love it. The conclusion that helps me sleep at night is realizing that no matter how hard I try, I probably am not going to know what I am doing for the next year of my life. It is my first year of teaching, and anyone I have ever asked told me that their first year of teaching was rough, not smooth, and often I have even heard the word, "disastrous," involved. Mine is not disastrous, thankfully. In a way, I am not terrible and I actually am pleased when things do not go well because at least I am confident that the next day things will go a teeny, tiny, little bit better.

I did get my first real love letter. It read, "Ms. Hahn, I love when you teach. When you are happy I am."

The first three days

I wonder why it is that the intention of this blog was to share my experiences in the classroom and yet I have been in the classroom for three days now and I have not shared one experience. I am guessing it is because there is so much and at the same time so little to say that it is easier to say nothing at all. It is that, mixed with the sheer exhaustion of managing 28 seven year olds from 7:15 to 4, with their wiggling, nose picking, sometimes crying, and often chit-chatting little bodies. But oh are they cute.

To those people who have read my blog since the beginning, you have seen how difficult it was at times. Those first two weeks of my experience as a first year corps member in a brand new city gave life to some blog posts that inspired friends to call me just to ask, "Are you okay?!" They would say, "I've been reading your blog!" Those readers could see through my words that I was scared and lonely, unsure if I would be able to live up to the huge pressure that was about to be placed upon my shoulders. At the time, I felt like I had to prove to others and myself that I was not the type of person who ever got scared or lonely, but that I was the type of person who hopped on planes to Guatemala fearlessly and moved across the country, leaving friends and family behind. Yet now that I have built a life for myself here I am not at all ashamed to reflect upon those first two weeks and share them for what they were...a rough time, but a rough time that is now over. I am certainly happy here. I feel as though my life has great purpose and I am taking charge over the kind of life that I want to have, I love my neighborhood and my apartment, I have my own Netflix account and my own health insurance, a TFA family and entirely new set of friends. Even in the shade of those first two weeks, lonely and missing my comforts, I knew that the hard times would pass. I knew that I would end up in this place soon, with friends and roots. I knew that by Labor Day weekend I would be ready to show off my new fabulous Carrie Bradshaw-esque lifestyle to visitors, but strangely the only common variable between my old life in LA and this new life here is me. In the end, I was the one who stuck with me long enough to see it through, so now I will show off my life to me and see it for what it is. With the beginning of school I have now really begun my journey, a time which will be the most challenging of my life and will most certainly fly by. Who knows what my life will look like when it is over, but at least I know who the common variable will be. The journey leading up to the first day of school has now ended, and here I am as a real teacher.

Teaching is hard. Teaching second graders is even harder. I love them so much already it is hard to imagine how much more I could love them by the end of the year but I know that I will as my journey has only just begun. I have so much to learn it is completely and all-consumingly overwhelming, as every moment in the classroom I am hovering in this unsettling balance between "I have no idea what the hell I am doing, " and "I desperately want to find out." I can tell that the learning curve this year will be amazingly steep and incredibly necessary. First and foremost I need to identify the extra needs of my students, 100% minorities and 77% on free lunch and breakfast, while simultaneously accepting no excuses. I must not accept excuses from myself either, as I am officially on this journey and failure is not an option.