Category Archives: Teaching

Jun 02 2012
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Teaching Gallery

Let’s get crackin’!

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“Mrs. M, can I tell everyone a joke before we get started?” my most challenging student leaned across his desk to ask.

“Umm, what is it?” I replied, cautious of some of his less appropriate attempts at humor.

“Let’s get crackin’!” he beamed, grinning like a 50s car salesman.

“Okay, that one will be fine, thanks for remembering to ask this time.”

Yesterday, two fourth grade classes sat in eager lines in our performing arts studio to drop their eggs from a 20 foot lift.  Peanut butter jars were the most popular choice, with varying degrees of success and post-drop mess.  Retrieval from the goop of peanut butter was the most fun or gross part, depending on who you asked.

Biggest thinking-outside-the-box points went to my student who brought a tall bucket of water and requested that her egg be dropped into it as it waited below on the tarp like a bullseye.  Despite a couple of misses/splats, the egg that made it into the bucket gracefully survived.

With around a 60% egg survival rate and 60 happy students, our egg drop was undoubtedly one of the most memorable parts of fourth grade.

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May 31 2012
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Teaching Video

Teaching: I’m a First-Year Survivor

As I prepare to wrap up my first official year of teaching on my own, I find myself hyper reflective.

This year I’ve successfully administered the Heimlich Maneuver, managed various student anxiety and focus disorders, broken up near fist fights, and provided outlets for students to express themselves about challenging home lives that include everything from parents in prison to neglect and abuse.  I’ve grinned my teeth and beared it while being yelled at by parents, coughed on by sick students, and hated by those few kids that take an extra long time to learn how to trust.

I’ve taken deep breaths when my class would not be quiet or that one student felt the need to put on a show…

In short, I’ve survived.

But, I’ve also done more than survive.  I’ve fallen in love with every one of my students.  I’ve successfully led two back-to-school days in a room stuffed full with parents and navigated two field trips without losing any kids.  I’ve built a classroom out of practically nothing and learned how to shuffle to Party Rock.  I’ve scrounged together jackets for cold kids and field trip money for our Exploratorium adventure.  I’ve laughed uncontrollably and become a much tougher person.  I’ve pushed respect, caring, and the creation of a classroom family.

“Mrs. M, you’re kind of like my mom because you love us and spend all day with us.”

“Yes, I guess in a weird way, I kind of am.”

So even if the days are long, the work is hard, and I often feel like I barely survived, I’ll be back next year, ready to do it again with my same kids as they move on to fifth grade.

H-U-S-K-I-E-S, Huskies are the very best…

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May 30 2012
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Teaching Gallery

College for Certain

The charter school organization that I work for has a slogan, College for Certain.

Today, I watched what this means in my classroom.  After a field trip to Sac State yesterday, my students came in eager to talk about college.  Finally able to run their own morning meetings, I eavesdropped from my back table as our Husky of the Day, (our classroom is UW themed),  decided to ask the group where they wanted to go to college.

One by one they eagerly shared their top picks.  Duke, Harvard, UCLA, Sac State, UC Davis, Stanford…  An eclectic mix, no doubt, but a much more thought-out selection than you would have received at my predominantly white, middle class elementary school in fourth grade.

Listening to their lists, I was struck by the significance of their self-created conversation.  They nodded in support as new colleges were introduced and gave excited connection signals when their favorite schools were mentioned.  Some kids had already picked their future college roommates among their classmates.

It reminded me of my first experiences teaching as a guest teacher at a private school in East Sacramento.  There I had been blown away by the conversations that third graders would approach me with– “Ms. O’Bryon, would you like to hear my top five list of colleges?”

College, I thought, aren’t you a little young to have that list prepared?

Young or not, I’m glad that my students, a diverse mix of predominantly low-income kids, are receiving the inspiration necessary to share the same goals with their more affluent peers on the other side of town.

Image

Every Friday is college shirt day at my school. My favorite, above, features all of the colleges that our students were accepted to last year.

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May 29 2012
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Life, Teaching

Summer in 8, 7, 6…

Today marked 8 instructional days until summer vacation.  Tomorrow leaves 7.  Needless to say, I’m excited.

Over the moon would not be an exaggeration, (although my students would happily tell you that this is both an idiom and a hyperbole!).

It has been a long, hard “first” year.  I am ready for mid-week teacher pool parties (yes, these really exist), Saturday night concerts in East Sac, a Pacific Northwest road trip, plenty of time to work on my book, plenty of time to read other people’s books, and a week in Kauai.

Maybe I’m a little over ambitious.  Regardless, I am determined to make every last second of it count.  Bring on 7 weeks of bliss, I’m ready.

I leave you with my summer anthem.  It truly stays stuck in my head for weeks:

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May 26 2012
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Teaching

No, we ain’t gonna take it!

I’m feeling a bit revved up.  And, yes, Twisted Sister is stuck in my head.  This week was hard at school.  I will do my best to express myself while being careful not to overstep any professional boundaries, but I really wish that I could just say everything that’s on my mind.

The hardest part about my job can be how I am sometimes treated.  I work my butt off.  I put my heart and soul into my work.  I care about every single one of my students, even the ones that are the most behaviorally challenging.  Fortunately, the parents of my most behaviorally challenging students have been supportive this year, so that’s not what’s eating at me.

I just wish that I could invite the families of all of my students to come in and spend a day in my classroom.  I would like them to see what it is like to balance the individual social, emotional, physical, and mental needs of 30 students simultaneously while also attempting to teach a class.  A lot of times, I only have a couple of minutes to solve problems that come up in my room, and it’s not because I don’t care, (imagine one student having an asthma attack, while another is crying under her desk, while two others are bickering… that’s not an unusual scene after recess in my room).

I’m a very reflective and pragmatic human being.  I am willing to admit when I make mistakes and grow from them.  However, there are also times that I feel like families have to be present in my room during the event and know all of the students involved to truly understand the choices that I make.  Being a teacher is not the same as having children, unless you have 30 of them.  I’m not saying it’s harder, I’m just saying it’s different.  You’re more likely to get the teacher to understand where you’re coming from if you approach him or her with respect and a willingness to admit that maybe you do not fully understand what happened either.

There, I feel better.

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May 24 2012
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Life, Teaching

Separation of School and Home

I know that I run a risk having a blog and being a teacher.

I try to use my maiden name for writing and my married name for teaching, but sometimes this is not enough.  Some students found the online me today.

Teaching can be all consuming.  Papers to grade at night, lessons to plan on the weekends, after school events to coordinate, parents texting and calling at all hours.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my job (most of the time), but I also need a separation of school and home.

So, tonight, when I discovered that I had been discovered, I was pretty disappointed.

Sometimes I need a little break to be me, even if it’s public, on the internet, in pursuit of my other passion, writing.

Hopefully, they found me so boring that they don’t come back…

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May 09 2012
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Teaching

Oh, May.

While other teachers count down the days until summer, I childishly declare my love for May.  In fact, May might just be my favorite month of the teaching year!  I think it goes back to that correlation between anticipation and happiness– May is like the Friday of teaching.

Oh, May.

You bring two weeks of testing,
With four minimum days.
Oh, how I love thee,
Let me count the ways.

First there is time,
Each day out by four,
No more long evenings,
Watching the door.

Second there is sunshine,
Evenings stretch before dark,
Time to do yoga,
And take the dog to the park.

Last there is teaching,
With the tests over and done,
More time for history,
For art, and for fun.

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May 02 2012
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Home, Life, Teaching

Happy May Day: Let’s Bring Back the 40 Hour Work Week!

Life is so much happier when we spend 8 hours a day at work.  The days that I leave school at 3:30 feel so much more complete.  I have time for a nap, yoga, writing, walking the dog, and spending time with my husband– all in one evening!

However, 3:30 days are rare.  And, I know I’m not alone.  Eight hour days were uncommon at my old job.  Friends all complain of being overworked.  Companies blame the recession.  A recent media debate exploded around whether people have to be parents to justify leaving work at 6:00.

I know that I’m lucky.  If I plan my time right, I can leave at 3:30 some days.  As a teacher, I also get breaks.  But, I sacrifice pay for these luxuries.

In honor of May Day, I proclaim my support of a societal shift back to the 8-hour workday!  Call me a Marxist, but we could all use a little more life in our life!

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Apr 20 2012
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Teaching

A Happy Little Story…

Today was one of those days that I remembered why I like teaching.  Please understand, there are many days that I forget.  Between challenging behaviors, long hours, and pressure to have high test scores, it can be easy to lose sight of why I chose this profession.

Today I remembered.

After school, I work with a group of students that need extra academic support.  One student, a girl who is routinely behaviorally challenging and does not easily express herself with words, did not feel like learning.  It was too much hard work.  As the other students worked away at converting fractions to decimals on their white boards, she gave up.

However, our little group decided that we were not leaving her behind.  She had to do the hard work whether she liked it or not because we believed she could.  Still, she didn’t believe in herself.

To sweeten the deal, I told the students we would have a party if she could figure it out.  Reluctantly, she and another student went to the back of the room and worked diligently for twenty minutes.  They called me back.  She still could not do it.

I told them to keep working, and they did, until finally she was able to show me she that understood.  The look on her face told me she was proud.  We were all proud.  The students cheered, the CD player flew on, and we danced, and laughed, and played catch with their stuffed class mascot, a Husky.

Still, the student was quiet.  She was too busy doing something to join us.  I didn’t know what it was.  Then, she appeared, proudly holding up what she had typed on her Barbie laptop, her show-and-tell for the day:

Mrs. M, You’re Nice.

I smiled, she smiled, then she joined the dance party.  The afternoon light soaking through my windows, happy children dancing because they were proud to learn and help each other, I felt happy.  I danced too.

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Apr 17 2012
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Life, Teaching

You’re as smart as you work to be!

I love this!

I’m telling my students over and over this month that you’re not born smart, you work hard to become smarter: “Your brain is like a muscle.  The harder you work it out, the smarter you get!”

This has fascinating implications for praise.  If we tell our kids that they’re smart, they’re less likely to take risks, because they’re afraid they’ll look dumb if they make mistakes.  On the other hand, if we praise their hard work, they’re more likely to take risks, grow, succeed.  For anyone interested in this concept, New York Magazine has a great article from a few years back:  “How Not to Talk to Your Kids.”

Makes total sense to me.  It took me 26 years to decide to try something that I might be bad at, (and, it’s still painful when I don’t immediately succeed).  Granted, my parents did not just praise intelligence, they also praised hard work, but I’d be curious to know how much praise I’ve received in life based on intelligence alone.

Maybe effort-based praise does not solve everything, but it’s still a very motivating concept for kids.  Anyone can be the “smart one” if he/she works at it!  I guess it’s a good reminder for us adults too…

Time to do some brain push-ups!

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Apr 05 2012
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Teaching

Every nerd has her day.

Are you from Harvard?

Are you a professor?

Are you a nerd?

No, I’m just highly intelligent.

That’s what I told my students every time they inquired about my attire today.  It was Nerd Day.  Every Wednesday in April, we dress up with a different theme for the equivalent of a pep rally to get kids excited about the otherwise dull act of taking the STAR test.  We started the day in the gym, rocking out to Teach Me How to Study, (aka Teach Me How to Dougie).  The result: students loved it, I’m pretty sure that nerd fashion will be making an instant comeback, and that silly song is still stuck in my head.

Teach me how to study, 
All my teachers love me.

While I was happy to dress up, I realized that it hit a nerve.  I was a nerd, am a nerd, will always be a nerd, and, let’s be honest, people are not always nice to nerds.  I remember walking around high school keeping my intelligence very quiet because it didn’t feel cool.  Heck, even my own siblings gave me a hard time about studying all of the time. 

So, today, I dawned my nerd gear, (items that I regularly wear anyway, just not all at once), and set off to tell the world that I’d rather be called highly intelligent than a nerd.  It felt good.  I let my nerd flag fly. 

Who knew that telling ten year olds that it is better to label people as highly intelligent than as nerds would feel so cathartic?  I guess it makes sense that a nerd would grow up to be a teacher.  Who better to love school and push others to do the same? 

Today, this nerd, I mean highly intelligent person, had her day.

My best nerd face.
It’s a good day when the sparkly Toms make the cut.

Sidenote:  I can take no credit for finding this YouTube gem, the other teachers on my team are responsible!
 

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Mar 23 2012
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Life, Teaching

Willingness to Fail & Succeed!

As a new teacher, I feel like I fail in new and exciting ways everyday.  I say exciting because I have to remind myself that failure shows us how to live better.  In fact, since I stopped being afraid of failing, I opened myself up to pursuing endeavors that actually excite me.

Before, it was too demoralizing to think that I might fail at something that I really loved.  I mean, think about it.  You finally go after your dreams, don’t achieve them, and then what?  What are you left with?  I feared that if I lost the dreams, then I’d really hit bottom.

Fortunately, my view of failure magically shifted.  I realized that the people who achieve anything worthwhile, fail, then try again, and again, and again.  So, here I am, “failing” in little ways at teaching and writing on a regular basis, but still doing them both anyway.  In fact, I’d wager that my little failures help me get better everyday.  And, at least now, my dreams are potentially achievable.  I was getting nowhere by protecting them from failure.

This may seem obvious, or repetitive with things I have said before, but it’s a reminder that I have to give myself all of the time.  Even though I also have little successes everyday, it is still the failures that keep me striving to improve.  Why are some of my students still not learning?  Why is that student still so behaviorally challenging? Why does that whole section of my book still feel like it sucks?

Now, here’s the thing, focusing on our failures may seem pessimistic or overly harsh, but I disagree.  As long as we also celebrate our successes, failure is our chance to grow, to take action, and to be amazing!

***

On this note of eventual success, I want to express my gratitude for two unexpected sources of generosity today:

Out of the blue, my stepdad and mom solicited a donation from O’Bon for a class set of colored pencils, (and, these aren’t just any colored pencils, they’re eco-friendly, durable, and just-plain cute!).  My kind helpers were inspired by a story from my classroom when students received their own packs of crayons, (also thanks to my stepdad).  The kids were so excited that they cheered.  Ever since then, we’ve colored coded EVERYTHING we do and the students are much more engaged in their note-taking, math lessons, and worksheets as a result.  Amazing what a little color and art can do to stimulate the brain!

Thanks Dave, Mom, and O’Bon!

Seriously cool art supplies!  Click here to check out O’Bon’s site!

I don’t know what was in the air today, but a parent also called to offer to buy pizzas for our class lunch party tomorrow.  We’re celebrating the learning growth of students that kicked butt on their spring tests and her daughter was among the highest performers.  Because our school serves a very low-income population, I often have trouble getting basic supplies, (like kleenex and dry erase markers), so the offer for pizza was extra generous!  The parent told me that she was just grateful for how much I’d helped her daughter grow.  This touched my heart and reminded me that even amidst the failures, there are still a lot of successes to celebrate!

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