Time off in the middle of the week

Today I had the day "off" because Jazzman had cataract surgery. I had a sub, for whom I spent untold hours writing up detailed plans for the day, so she doesn't get completely overwhelmed, like I was the first four weeks of school. I'll find out tomorrow how that went, I don't expect great things.

I feel like I have to over plan for the sub, in case they find a way to get through the massive amounts of material that I can't even do in a day, and have extra time. There is nothing worse than extra (unfilled) time when you're a sub. You don't usually have the resources to quickly pull that proverbial rabbit out of a hat, and create a new activity out of the blue.....so having lots of material to fall back on is the kindest thing to do. In addition, it holds down the possibility of the chaos factor creeping in to the picture and adding more damage control to my tomorrow.

I thought that I'd be uber productive today, pick the garden, bake, mow, get lots of work done, since it's sort of an unintended vacation. Jazzman doesn't really need anything other than transportation and meals, so my day is pretty free. Of course I didn't get much done, mostly because I went back to bed at 10 and slept until 1...so those three hours were pretty much spent in dreamland.

I WAS busy in dreamland, though, I coached a winning football game, gave the dogs a bath, and went camping with my granddaughter. I fought off one monster on the campgrounds and killed a very large snake with my bare hands. If one can count the amount of productivity that one does while dreaming, I'd be the most productive person on the planet!

Of course my garden still needs to be picked, the yard still needs to be mowed, and the house could use a good scrub down....instead, I've decided to dedicate this day to personal pursuits of happiness. Blogging, reading recipes (yeah, my blog is nerdy mimi for a reason) and basically taking it easy.

Tomorrow, on my way to work at 6:00 a.m., I'm sure I'll be thinking, "Now, why didn't I do more yesterday, while I had the time?" But for now, I'm just going to continue my personal pursuit of nothingness. After all, I've been told that tomorrow's another day.

Air quotes and other signs of the time

The other day, someone in my little first grade class said something that was really kind of mean. I've been really working with them on not being so mean to each other, since it seems they can be just vicious! Example: One little girl has chickens and she talks about them all the time, one little boy likes to hunt, and is not above saying, "and when I'm out hunting, I just might shoot your chickens." Ouch...for real! Of course this puts them into what I'd call a "pissing match," where she tells him that she'll call the cops, and he says that he has a license to hunt, and she decides to "faint" dramatically, and cry hysterically until he apologizes. Seriously, Scarlett O'Hara has nothing on this little girl.

Anyway, someone said something mean. You know, like..."Yeah well you have bad breath." So I thought I'd try to step in and break things up before we got to fainting and crying. I said, oh...little girl, that was so "nice" (with air quotes, using my fingers) to say to her. This stopped everyone, because apparently they had no idea what the air quotes were for. Little boy said, "Why do you say that telling someone they have bad breath is nice?" Me: "Well, I said it like this....showing him "nice" with air quotes. Little boy said, "What is this (making air quotes).

At this point everyone was interested, so we had a little lesson in air quotes. I explained that if someone brings their dog over to your house, you have a lot of fun playing with the little dog, but then it goes home. Over dinner that night with your family, you talk about the dog, and your mom says, "You sure had fun playing with that "cute" (air quotes here) dog." But what she really mean is the dog is not cute at all, but you friend called it cute, so she's using the friend's words but expressing her opinion that the dog was not cute.

I thought this was a pretty good explanation and the kids seemed to understand. But the thing they just couldn't figure out was why air quotes are even necessary, because if mom thought the dog was ugly, why couldn't she just say ugly, without all the hand gestures. I told them that mom was using someone else's words that she didn't agree with, and when we use someone else's words we use quotes...or in this case air quotes.

Little girl in the front row said, "Yeah, well (air quotes here) that's really "smart." Yeah, I think they got it!

And one more thing...oh, and one more....

This week I was sent to my "encore" meeting, where I receive "training" about various things. So far, at these meeting they have gone over the various software things that are required for the inordinate amount of testing that must be done for first grade. These tests are intended (I think) to make sure that no teacher can slack off, and all the kids get moved along. They are also, probably unintentionally robbing me of the desire to teach. You see, there are 7 tests, for each of the 22 kids, which are one minute long. In that one minute, the kid demonstrates whether or not s/he is competent at a particular required skill. If during that one minute they are deemed not competent, then they are required to be "Progress Monitored." Which, as best as I can figure out right now, means that they are going to be continually tested to see if they're making progress.

This of course requires intervention, for which time is scheduled each day, where no active teaching goes on, only intervention with those students who need it. The rest of the students are to be doing activities that can be done independently and quietly. Now the intervention, to me, is pretty much what first grade is about. Taking them from where they are, and devising strategies to get them further along the path. I have some ideas about what that looks like, and some intervention strategies that just might work, but I never have time to implement them because there is this computer program that has interventions built in, plus additional interventions to use, so I'm compelled to use that as my intervention, rather than the intervention I would prefer. So, you see, the intervention is intervening on my intervention....Oh, the horror!

And then on Friday, during encore, we were introduced to "one other thing" that we must do, via a "test." and some type of computer generated intervention plan. This would be the "Behavior Module." I'm not sure what this really means, but I think I document behavior, put it in the computer, and the behavior plan is written for me, complete with teacher instructions about how to carry this out. So, you see, all that education that I got, the MS, the additional 30 hours....needless, the computer will tell me how to teach and as long as I follow what it says, don't vary from the 1's and 0's, I'm pretty sure I'll turn out excellent students.

I was told, seriously, "This program sees what is needed and you can print out a worksheet to address that issue, it requires no thought, just click and print." Wow...seriously? That's the kind of education I set out to provide?

As you can guess, I'm philosophically bent out of shape. I don't know how I'll bet bent back into shape, but I did ask for some training on the software, so if I can at least figure out how to use it, I can make an effort to fit it into my style of teaching. I'm not opposed to these kinds of helps, but I am opposed to thinking that there is a prescription that a computer could generate that will solve all of a child's learning and behavior needs. Geez, if it were that easy, we could just turn on the television, set them in front of it and....wait, didn't we already try that?

School Daze

There has been so much happening at school, that I decided to save it up and put it all into one, rather rambling post. Some of these are stories, some of them are observations, and some of them are just plain whining moments. Read on, if you're on board for any of those things.

First graders are incredibly resilient in some ways. They can be totally disappointed and mad at someone in one minute, and laughing hysterically with them the next. They can be best friends and enemies with the same kids in about 20 seconds. They can get their feelings hurt, but turn that around to an awesome moment. But the one thing they are not resilient about is boo-boos. I think this is probably my fault, because the mothering instinct kicked in, and I let it get out of control.

It all started with a tooth falling out on the first day of school. I made a big deal of it, showed it around, and then wrapped it and ziploc bagged it, so it would make it home without incident. I had the tooth loser rinse out his mouth until the blood stopped, then gave him a sticker for being so brave. After that, at least once a day, someone has a sore tooth, loses a tooth, or a tooth starts to bleed, so I'm handing out stickers and rinsing out mouths, and wrapping up teeth right and left. They are in the prime age for tooth loss (well, other than the octogenarians who are losing them for other reasons) so it makes sense that I'll be on this job for most of the year.

Then there are those who fall at recess, get a little scratch, show it to me, and I think, "Well a bandaid will make it feel better, and we can move on." Sure, that's just how it works, however now, when anyone has any little scratch or bump, we need a bandaid. And I can tell you that I'll likely run out this week. Oh...My....Gosh...what WILL we do THEN??? I thought about buying some fancy bandaids for the rare occasion someone would need one, good thing I didn't follow through until after I realized the allure that getting a bandaid provides to the injured party.

There also ice packs. My tooth hurts, I need an ice pack, I have a headache, I need an ice pack, I fell on the playground, I need an ice pack, I have a bug bite, I need an icepack...you get the picture. Ice packs are very prestigious, 'cause if you have one, it's sure that you've been mightily injured and must be so very brave to stay in school, and not be on your way to the hospital for surgery....:>)

So that's it for the medical observations, I'm sure there will be more, but so far I've been lucky not to have any one throw up or have an accident, although one of my colleagues got to experience both of those in one day, last week.

Sometimes kids say the funniest things, they seem to have a knack for making me laugh, when I'm mostly not feeling like laughing. Last week, during math game time, one of the students was disturbed that it was "too loud." Here's how it went: "Ms. Crabtree, me and K were over there trying to play, but it's so loud that I can't even talk." Me: "Did you ask them to quiet down?" Him: "Yeah, but they didn't listen." Me: "What would be another solution?" Him: "I think you should yell QUIET really loud." Me: "Is that something I've done before?" Him: "No, that's why I'm thinkin' it would work this one time."

Pretty logical thinking, get me to do what he really wanted to do, so he was satisfied and it was quiet...well, at least it would be for about 10 seconds. We chose another route, that better fit my personality, but he said that he still wasn't satisfied, so I moved him to another area, and it seemed to soothe his jangled nerves.

Finally, there's the bathroom thing. I have to take the whole class to the bathroom, or they can go one at a time with a pass. This works fine for most of them, however there are a few who go to the bathroom because they don't want to do the work, because they don't like the subject matter, or because they just want to move around. So, I've taken to having them put their name up on a chart when they go, this way I can tell whose gone an inordinate amount of times, check with home to make sure they don't have medical issues, then remind them when I see them going too much. Who knew I'd also be the bathroom police. I mean when I posted about Jr. High kids and their leaving for whatever, I really never thought I'd need to hear, "I need to pee." But, here I am in first grade, asking them if they really have to go bad, or can they wait until the next break....geez potty police here I come!

Until next time, I'm just working on doing this better, finding humor in the small things, and trying to pick topics that are fun for the kids and have lots of experiential activities that work well for my little peanuts.....if I can manage to stay organized, and I have to do this again next year, it should be easier...maybe :>)

3 Minute Fiction Entry

NPR has this cool writing contest, called "3 Minute Fiction," where novice writers can submit entries for their contest. They usually have a theme, or words that must be used, and it's always interesting to see the stories that come out of the minds of all the writers who submit.

I've never submitted before, but this month's story starter got me hooked, and I did...I submitted a 3 minute story. The rules were, under 600 words, start with "Some people swore the house was haunted"...and end with "nothing was ever the same again."

So...following find my entry... a little melancholy, perhaps because I'm tired today....

My Ghosts:

Some people swore that the house was haunted, and I would agree that it was. I just let the rumors circulate because it kept people away. I wanted solitude, craved it, ached for it, and the house was the only place that I could truly get away from it all. A busy life, full of people, often afforded me no chance to reflect on the purpose of my life, on the richness with which I had been blessed, on the love that I’d shared.

This house was full of laughing ghosts who remembered all the summer evenings in the front yard chasing fireflies, or the winter months huddled around the fire making campfire popcorn, on days when school was cancelled. There were ghosts stomping through the kitchen with wet boots to show me the latest find from the creek out back, and ghosts who came to crawl in bed with me during those late summer thunderstorms. I often saw ghosts who sat at the table and smacked their lips waiting for the latest sweet from the oven. And on nearly every school evening there were ghosts doing homework, and listening to music, and tormenting their sister or brother.

While warming up soup I could feel a ghost sneaking up to hug and kiss me, and of course the same one who rolled over in bed at night and pushed up against me to let me know he was wanting. There was a ghost rolling a cigarette and smoking on the front porch, or perhaps tinkering with one of the broken down cars in the garage. The only ghost missing was the one that would hold me while I cried. I really wished that ghost would show up.

The house wasn’t always empty, as you can imagine, it had been filled with my wonderful family, the children, then teens, then young adults, and the love of my life, who came into our lives quite late, but changed us in ways we could never have imagined. This house, sitting here so near the road, was haunted with ghosts of times past. I could see them in the garden, on the swing, and riding their bicycles down the road. I could hear them singing, arguing, and saying “I love you.”

I often went into a dark room and hesitated to turn on the light, because I was sure, if I waited just a moment, the ghost would become real, and I wouldn’t be alone any longer. The solitude that I pushed so hard to get, would be broken by the one person who would make me want to talk, want to dance, want to laugh. And then, I’d flip the switch and for just one second the ghost would be sitting in his chair, taking a drink, and then…gone.

There may come a time when the kids, all grown up now with lives of their own, don’t seem so far away. It may be possible to believe that the ghosts won’t haunt me forever. Perhaps, even, a time when the pain of his death is lessened by years. But when he died, all quiet and softly in his sleep, on the most beautiful night of the year, it became very plain to me that nothing would ever be the same again

Dirty Days

As you all know, I am a first grade teacher. Left 8th grade and went to first, not by choice, but by force. I could stay angry or resentful, but the bottom line is that this is what I'm doing now, and it's in my best interest to try to enjoy it, and ethically sound to do my very best at teaching these little kids. I always knew, even when I was sad to be leaving 8th grade, that I would enjoy this job. I had NO idea how much work it would be, or how long my days would become, or that I'd spend a lot of time on weekends, working on being a good teacher....nope, NO idea!

That said, even though I am spending long hours (average 11 hour days) and time at this job, I often feel as if I'm still a step behind. Just today, I figured out how to find a way in the daily schedule to have a spelling and phonics lesson, and be able to teach grammar during reading time. Oh, my, so much to do, so little time! I've had tons of mentors helping me, advising me, and telling me what I should worry about, and what things I can let go. That's been tremendously helpful to me. It's because of this that I have "fun Fridays," at school. During this day we do a bunch of themed activities that go along with the Social Studies or Science theme of the week. They involve all subject areas, but are themed in a way to make them fun.

It's with that information that I can now begin to tell you about "Dirty Day" at school. You see, we'd been talking about soil. We'd been discussing what grows in soil, what we need soil for, how to conserve soil, how to protect the soil, what type of soil is best....well, you get the picture...lots of conversations about dirt. In one of our little educational videos there was a piece on composting. Now, if you know me at all, you have to know that this would be something that would just really be exciting to me. Talking to kids about mixing dirt and garbage to make really good dirt to grow things in...a serious winner in my book!

So, the plans for a Fun Friday and Dirt were well under way. The kids each brought in a ziploc bag of dirt from home, so that we could plant beans in their dirt and see which beans grew best. We compared their dirt, weighed their dirt, and then planted in their dirt. They made a little plant stake to put their name on, so we could tell whose plants were whose. They made a bean book, about the life cycle of a bean. But the biggest, and best part of the day was when we made our own compost bins.

Yeah, four big plastic containers with a little dirt in them, add garbage, carted in from their homes in ziplocs. "Hey, that's my garbage, I want to dump that in.." and then taking their hands and crunching it all together to create a lovely, muddy compost bin. Hand washing was a necessity, and also took longer than making the compost. Kids love to rub foaming soap on their very dirty hands and then show their friends just how "gross" this is!

My favorite part of the day was the dirt pudding trick that I pulled on the kids. I made dirt pudding (chocolate pudding, oreos, whipped cream and gummy worms) the night before and put it in a flower pot. I picked up the pot, so the kids couldn't see inside and said, "Hey, look, someone left us some dirt." Then I proceeded to take a spoon and eat "dirt." Their faces were so shocked, and disgusted, they couldn't even comment! I have to tell you, it was probably the best trick I've ever done.....still makes me laugh when I tell the story.

Of course I had to quickly tell them is wasn't real dirt, it was dirt pudding, and offer each of them a cup full to taste. They were all for that, well all but one little guy, who just couldn't seem to compute that the dirt everyone else was eating, really wasn't dirt. He said, "I have to put my head down, it's making me sick to see everyone eating that dirt."

I LOVE Fridays, they are more relaxed, and the kids leave for the week feeling really happy to have been in school. I leave exhausted and already thinking about next week, and next Friday and what I'm going to do to keep their interest. I think apples....and we'll just go from there.

The Car and Jazzman

I'm not sure if any of you can relate to this, but do try! You see, Jazzman is this really cool, creative, and kind person. He's so smart it's scary, and so patient that he makes me look like the Tasmanian Devil. He takes a long time to make a decision, but it's almost always the right one, and he NEVER rushed ANYTHING! Knowing that I'm pretty much a spaz on wheels, you might wonder how the two of us peacefully co-exist? Well, I'm going to try to demonstrate how that works in the following blog....but you have to remember, it's about cars, and Jazzman, together, with me, for six hours, traveling, and well....just hang in there!

This Labor Day I was planning to go in to school, spend the full day and get my sh...tuff, organized. I had a plan, get lesson plans done, figure out copies, re-do files and clean out those cabinets, so I can find things. Maybe even go looking for some other furniture in the storage room...when no one was around to scold me. Yeah...plan....A...but then on Sunday night, the Jazzman tells me he wants to travel to PA (That's Pennsylvania, for you non-Ohioans) and look at a car. He tells me that it's about a three hour drive (one way) and he will not buy the car on Monday, but if he decides to buy it, will make another trip back the following week, with me, so I can drive the "other" car home.

Now, one might think that six hours in a car to look at a car, and then come home to do it all over again, would not sound like my cup o' tea...However, it sounded SO much better than all day at school, that I immediately found myself figuring out how to make it work. Early morning lesson plans, stay late after school all week, then PA bound I could be! I LOVE to travel with Jazzman. It's not that it's so exciting, but we enjoy looking at the scenery, talking to each other, and occasionally listening to some good classical or jazz music. I like being with him in the car, smelling that tobacco smell (yeah, former smoker, love the smell of fresh tobacco) and just sitting there feeling that all is right with the world. It's probably the only time that I don't get antsy to move and DO something. So, to me, time in the car with the Jazzman is very relaxing. I should probably have him take me out for a spin each evening, so I could relax before bed time...just like a baby in a carseat...but I digress.

Anyway, the car buying thing is new. You see Jazzman has told me for the longest time how much he loves this car. And, I must admit that I love it too. It's comfortable, spunky, has a great classic look, and is a very nice car. Not to mention that he maintains it in tip top shape and it looks like someone detailed it, each and every day. He has told me many times that this is the car he will drive until he dies....which should be for a long time. Lately, however, it's been a car which needed a lot of maintenance, and that is expensive (German car=expensive), so he's decided that he's done pouring money into it, and now that it's really in good shape, it's a good time to get rid of it.

This means he's looking for another car. One that's zippy, dependable, a little less expensive to maintain, but still a really cool car. And he has it narrowed down to a few selections. This is where he spend his leisure time, looking for cars. He's a bonafide motor head! He LOVES cars. He reads Auto Week and can't wait for the next edition...needless to say, this is sort of a hobby, and it has paid off for me, since when I need a car, I put him "on it" and I always get a good deal. Hence the trip to PA, to look at a car. This promised to be just what he wanted, and we arrived to see it looking pretty sharp from it's place in the driveway.

Jazzman got out, spent about half an hour looking around, and then told the poor guy, who'd been pacing and being entertained by yours truly, that he found it to be in poor shape for what the guy wanted for it, and it was a "no go." I'm not sure if the guy was more disappointed than Jazzman, I'd say it was a close race. You see, Jazzman knows cars, and he looked in this car, up and down, underneath, and at each door, hinge, rug, window, sunroof, well you get the picture. While this was going on, I was kvetzing with dude who was selling it, asking about his army son (to whom the car belongs), talking about being a teacher, asking him about his golf game, you know doing all I could to keep him from pacing worriedly and watching Jazzman shake, rattle and roll things.

So, when the answer was "no," it was a sort of deflating moment. Of course it was at this time that Jazzman realized that he needed to use the facilities, and asked if we could do that before he left. Which of course placed me in the kitchen with the lady of the house, doing more schmoozing about their lovely house, and their son, and...well, you get it. Let's just say I was dying to get into the bathroom and get out of there.

We left their house and I programmed the GPS (who I named Rachel, and he calls Ethyl) and we headed home. I was just happy to have had a great scenic drive and great company, Jazzman was really disappointed, and kept saying, "darnit..." over and over. In the end, he didn't get his car, which made the day totally suck for him. I, however got a great drive with the Jazzman, on a beautiful day, and felt totally fulfilled. Now that I've written this, I'm not sure if this points out how we co-exist peacefully, or further confuses everyone about why we do...but trust me, it works...for whatever reason.