Dirty Harry aka Bad Boy

Yes, I know, it's been a long time. Such is life when one reaches this time of year, but I have been saving things up and so plan on some more regular postings. At this time of year, when there are only 11 days left of school, everyone goes a little nuts. The kids, the teachers, even the administration. Last week, they were suspending kids left and right, although when you have 2 fourth-graders who pee in the garbage can, you really have no choice, right? In my own little kingdom, the jesters have taken over and I am in danger of being de-throned.

Last week, Drama Boy comes up and tells me that he is off his medication and probably will be for the rest of the year. Trying to keep the panic from my voice, I replied "WHAT?!?!" He nodded and grinned at me. Now let me state right now that I am not normally in favor of medicating kids. I think we do it waaayyyyy to often with kids, especially boys. But in this case, the medication keeps DB from crawling around under the tables and cutting and eating his own hair (which he did the last time he was off his meds.) So when he announced this stunning development, I can only hope that my eyes remained in place and did not bug out of my head. Turns out he is a little underweight (the meds really kill his appetite) and so the Dr. wants him off them so he can gain a few pounds. Perfectly reasonable, but the man could not have waited two weeks? REALLY?!?!?!?!

By the second day of DB medication-free, the choices were down to either he goes or I do. I would have preferred to leave, but it's frowned upon to leave 23 9-year-olds un-supervised, so I told Bad Boy (who has been remarkably awesome lately) to take him to Mrs. K's room. Get him a clipboard with his work and go. Now. BB, DB and a partner were gone almost 25 minutes. When they came back, we had this conversation:

Mrs. L: Where have you guys been!?
BB: (sighs, shakes his head and looks at me) Well, Mrs. L., about halfway there, DB decided he did not want to go anymore. So I had to pick him up and carry him. And you know how he's little and really skinny? Let me tell you, he gets heavy after a while.
Mrs. L: You carried him?!  How? (keeping in mind that BB is one of the smallest kids in the class as well)
BB: Yeah! Like this (indicates a fireman's carry) What else was I supposed to do?
Mrs. L: (really slowly) Ummm....what happened then?
BB: I had to throw him into Mrs. C's room!
Mrs. L: Oh. OK...... Wait! I told you to take him to Mrs. K's room!
BB: I know, but she's too nice, and he needed to learn a lesson.
Mrs. L: (looking stunned) Umm yeah, ...great, thanks, ok.

So apparently, I need not make any decisions anymore...justice can be meted out by a 9 year old.

FOLLOW UP -
After a conversation with Mrs. C at which she expressed surprise at having DB in her room and confirming that yes, indeed, he had been carried and then tossed into the room like a sack of Idaho spuds, she asked BB why he put DB in her room. The reply?

BB: Mrs. K is too nice, and I knew you were already in a bad mood, so I thought it was better this way.
Mrs. C: Oh.

11 days, friends. 11 days.

I write, therefore.......my hand cramps

I know.....it's been forever. But there has been a lot going on. On February 9th, the fourth grade took the FCAT writes. Now, for those of you not in education, let me explain a little about the FCAT. Thanks to the stupid No Child Left Behind act, states have to prove their competencies through a series of tests.In Florida it's the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or F-CAT. If you really want to know how I feel, go here.

Anyway, in fourth grade, we have to prove how well we write. So from August to now, we spend an hour a day doing writing prompt after writing prompt. Learning about 5 paragraphs, creative language, expository and narrative. The whole thing is so phony and canned. But, of course, we are not teaching to the test! I want to tell everyone that kids DO NOT learn to write this way!!!! I want to tell them that it is totally counter-productive!!!! But I can't, because the truth is, it's my ass on the line. And guess what? If my scores suck, I get blamed for it. So we practice, practice, practice. I try to make it fun and creative, but by the end of January, we are all sick of writing. Really sick of it. I had 3 kids who just refused to write anymore. And I kind of don't blame them. So we sat down and had a conversation. All of us. And I told them that we were finished with writing. We were tired of it, and really, we had practiced as much as we could. They knew what to do, we had gone over it a million times and they could do it. So the deal was, no more writing. But on the day of the test, we all had to give our best effort and write, write, write.

"Yes, Mrs. Lewis!" my friends all chorused together.

Liars.

On the day of the test I had one kid who wrote one line. and then erased it. And then wrote half a line. Total. In 45 minutes.

Another had 4 lines and one more had one paragraph. And that was it.

When I glared at the one-paragraph kid (because I cannot say anything during the test. I am not even allowed to know what the prompt is) He looked at me all indignantly and said "What? I'm done!"

4-liner just put his head down and went to sleep, and when I asked 1/2 line kid what happened, he just shook his head and said "I don't know".

Now part of me feels really bad that these kids hate it so much, but part of me want to scream "YOU KNOW THIS!!!! I HAVE SEEN YOU DO THIS!!!!!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME??????????" But I didn't.

The biggest surprise? Bad Boy! That child put his nose to the grindstone and I saw him plan, write, edit, re-read and edit again! He worked the entire time!!!!!! At one point, about halfway through, he put his paper down, heaved a huge, resigned sigh and got back to work. I was so thrilled! I told him how proud I was of how hard he worked and he looked at me and said:

"What do you mean? I just did what you told me to do."

I almost collapsed.

Chaos Part Deux

I believe I left you all at Wednesday of last week. Go HERE if you would like a re-cap.Then came Thursday. At that point, we were back in our room, but if you re-call, had done absolutely nothing the day before. So we had two days worth of work to get done. We are motoring along, getting our work done. At 9:10, I realize that I had never sent our attendance cards up to the office. I grabbed the bag and sent Drama Boy and Lip Gloss (who happened to be my two messengers) to the office. They were gone an awfully long time. When they come back, Drama Boy has got a bowl of cereal and chocolate milk in his hand. Our rule at school is that if a child does not have time for breakfast at home, they can have it at school. We also allow children who do not have time to eat in the cafeteria to grab a bag that has 2 slices of toast and milk to bring that and eat it in the room. Toast. Which, you know, does not spill. At 8:00. It was now 9:30. The conversation that follows:

Me: Drama Boy, what are you doing with cereal?

DB: I got it from the cafeteria. I was hungry. 

Me: And they gave it to you?(I find out later that there was a misunderstanding, because, at the time, I was livid that they had given it to him.)

DB: Yes

Me: Well, I'm sorry but it is past breakfast time. We are doing writing and if you were hungry for breakfast, you should have gotten it an hour and a half ago when you came to school. ( I know, you think I am awful for denying a kid breakfast when he is hungry but you know what? He could have gotten it at 8:00. Also, Drama Boy tends to think that rules do not apply to him, and he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants. Plus, if he was eating the cereal, no writing would get done. At all.)

DB: WHAT?

Me: You need to go put the cereal on the back table. We are writing.

DB WHAT?!

Me: Now.

DB: (Stands as straight as he can drawing himself up to his full 4' 1",  extends his arm and points a finger directly at me.) FINE! FINE! BUT IF I STARVE TO DEATH IT WILL BE ALL YOUR FAULT!!!!!!!!!!!! (He then throws himself at his desk and weeps copiously. I ignored him.)
He proceeds to build a tower of books over and above his head while still crying. I thought my class was going to lose it because half of them were red in the face from trying not to laugh out loud. The rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully. Then came Friday afternoon.

In the grand scheme of things, Bad Boy was having a pretty good week. Then his mom came to pick him up Friday afternoon. I love his mother. She is awesome. She is totally supportive and really involved. I find out that Bad Boy, who has not been turning in his homework, has been lying to her about having it done already. He has also been lying about his writing and when I dig through his backpack, I find a ton of "correct and return" papers that he never returned. His mother was at a loss, I was at a loss, and so I laid into him. Really, really hard. I have tried to be kind, I have tried to be strict, but he is just being lazy. And I let him know it. I have never laid into a kid that hard before, and I would not have, except for the fact that him mom was a) standing there and b)on the same page as me. I started to feel really bad when he began to cry, but I was determined not to let up. I finally ran out of steam and let his mother take over. The poor kid! But I hope this will get through to him. I feel like if he does not begin to learn about consequences now, he can easily get lost in the shuffle of middle school. So that was the week. I am thankful for a three-day weekend for me, but because we have report cards due, the kids get a four-day weekend. So I won't see them until Wednesday. And when I do, I will give Bad Boy a big hug and we will sit down and talk.

Chaos Theory In Practice

Kids need routine. Kids like predictability, and when you mess with that, you better be prepared. Change one element, and it can throw off the whole delicate operation that is the elementary school day. As predicted, this week has, indeed, been one hot mess. Monday, we moved out of our classroom. 24 children lugging backpacks, textbooks, coats, sweaters and recess equipment while their teacher pushed a large grocery cart with books, cd player, computer, paper, pencils and other items. We looked like some sort of deranged parade. Along the way, I lost several of my kids. I'm not sure where they went, but they showed up 20 minutes later.
We settled comfortably into our temporary digs and dismissed from that room. Fine. The next day, we hummed along as best we could. Until the afternoon. When Bad Boy comes back to the room from going to the bathroom and delivering a message to another teacher for me. (20 minutes later)

BB: Mrs. Lewis? I have paint all over my hands.

Mrs. L: Why?

BB: Because I stopped by our room and touched all the wet paint.

OF COURSE HE DID!!!!!!!! But I have to give him props for admitting it. So when the kids were dismissed, I took him down to our room and made him apologize to the painters who now had to re-paint all of our shelves because someone's little fingerprints were all over them. And he did. And so I sent him away. That was Tuesday.

We were told we could move back into our room Wednesday morning. However, the painters finished our room Tuesday night and told that art teacher she could move into our temporary room right away because her room was next in line. Move into where we were. Which we had no idea about. Wednesday morning, I walk in and find her there. Getting ready for her first class. In 20 minutes. Of course, we had PE on Wednesday, and as you know from HERE, on cold days, PE has to be inside. And it was 35 degrees out. So the art teacher, who is, no doubt, a Super-Super Colleague rearranged herself to accommodate us. Because there was no way, even though the paint was dry, that we could have had PE in our room. And this is why:

The kids desks are somewhere under there. No idea where. While the kids were doing PE, I hastily packed up all our stuff, again, and tried dragging it by myself back to our room so the art teacher could get into the temporary room right after PE. It was not pretty. Things spilled. I crashed the cart twice and cracked my shin against it at least three times.

At exactly 9:05 I dragged my kids out of the room with all their stuff. Three went missing again. I found out later they had an unfortunate meeting with the assistant principal. They came back, unscathed, although I later heard that one of my girls told someone to "Kiss my butt", which brought about the meeting with the VP.  We are all assembled back in our room, and it occurs to me that there is no way we can do anything until we put some order back into the room. So we try, but the kids are totally wound up, and I am seriously losing it. As I am about to blow a gasket, along comes an angel. A wonder. A woman whose debt I will forever be in. The fourth grade teacher on my row pops her head into my room and sees the chaos that is the day. She offers to take my kids, and, not only keep them in her room, but do a writing lesson with them!!!!!!!! While her kids are in there too!!!!!!!  I mean, seriously, does it get any more super than that?!?!?! NO!!!! WOW!!!!! So She takes them. For 2 hours. And I take two trustworthy kids of mine and we put the room back in order. She also takes them for half an hour after lunch. I love this woman. I worship at the altar of her awesome-ness. I, of course, will do the same thing for her when she has to put her room back together, but I am still feeling the glow of her kindness.

And that was Wednesday.

The drama of Thursday is coming up, but re-living the first part of the week has exhausted me all over again, and now I must take a nap.

I AM BAAAAACK!!!!!!!!!

Yes, Friends, it is I. Your wonderful blogger, back from vacation/holidays (holi-daze, really), last week of school/first week back, etc. Needless to say, it was hectic, exhausting, but ultimately great. And so I resume. But be prepared, because the following is a lot.

First things first:
Holiday vacation. To have two weeks off is great. It is restorative, it is restful, and it allows me to re-charge. Truly. The truth is, if I did not have these two weeks off, someone would die. The kids were cranky, I was cranky, and no one was getting along. On my vacation, Mr. L and I went home and spent the time visiting our friends and families, seeing plays and movies, and generally catching up with all and sundry in NY. For the very first time, Mr. L and I were home for the entire vacation, together. Usually, he leaves a day or two after Christmas and I do not return until New Years. This time, we had 11 days to do all the stuff we never seem to have time to do. It was great.

Then, it was time to go back to school. And deal with the hot mess that was the first week.
Now the last time I was in my classroom was the day we let out for vacation. Which means I was just as eager as the kids to get out of there. Needless to say, my room was a mess. "No problem" I thought, "I will organize and clean before the kids come in". Wrong. When I got into my car on January fourth, I was horrified to discover that it was 32 degrees outside. 32. In Florida. Now that may seem like a small inconvenience to some, but for me it is huge, because the rule at school is if it is below 40 degrees, the kids have to come into the classrooms. Now when I was a kid, we always walked from the bus into the room and waited for our teacher. No such luck anymore. Kids are not allowed to be in classrooms without adult supervision, ever! As such, the kids all line up on two central courts in the morning where they are supervised by teachers until the first bell rings. I then usually truck out there to get them. Except when it is cold. Then, the kids have to come inside the minute they get there. In other words, I cannot get anything in my room done, because all of a sudden, my kids are in my room a half-hour before normal. Plus, if it's a PE day, that means that PE is in the rooms. During my planning time. So again, nothing gets done. It has been cold all week. I am already behind.
And then, on Thursday, the painters come in and tell me that our room is going to be painted on Monday. And we have to pack up the room like it's the last day of school.
And move to a portable. (read: trailer)
On the other side of campus.
And we don't know when they will be done.
So instead of reading our new story, learning our spelling words and trying to finish "The Tale of Despereaux" we will be packing up our room. Fun.


P.S. - Stay tuned. Stories of Drama Boy and Bad Boy to follow in the next few days. I just have to figure out how they end.

Dirty minds....again.

So all is now well in the Land of Lewis. The kids have all come back, but, of course, I am now sick and fuzzy-headed, which makes my reaction times slower. Which, as you will see, is a bad, bad thing. And they keep saying things like "How'd you get that cold?" I simply stare and let them gaze on my red-eyes, runny-nosed self. In keeping with the theme this year, my little ones continue to have their minds in the gutter.  This week, we are studying the /or/ and /ar/ spelling patterns. You know, like door, floor, argue, spark....those sounds. I had my small group of spellers-in-need with me at the back table. And guess who was with me? That's right. Bad Boy. We were breaking up and "graphing" our spelling patterns (where you space out the word according to the sounds). They were having a really hard time deciding how to break up the word "shoe". Is is a long "o" or a short "o" or something else all together? So I whipped out the white board and wrote down the following words:

Cool
Moo
Hoot

and I asked if "shoe", even though it is spelled differently, sounded like any of these. Stupid, stupid me. I walked right into this one. The conversation that then happens (and it took place in, like, a second and a half!) right in front of me between Lip Gloss and Bad Boy:

L.G: That's not right
Mrs. Lewis: What's not right?
L.G.: Hoot
M.L.: What do you mean?
L.G.: It's supposed to be "Hooters", not hoot!
Bad Boy: She means "hoot" like the owl! Hooters is the restaurant, the place with the boobs! Hey! That has a long "o" sound too!
L.G.: What does?
B.B.: Boobs!

at which point the whole table lost it. And I had to pretend to drop my pen so I could duck under the table before they could see me laughing. They are definitely feeling better.

Well Wishers

I have had a chronic ear infection for about 2 years now. Last week, my doctor put me on new medication. My body does not like it and neither do I.  I took the first (and last) pill Tuesday night around 10 and by 3 am I was puking my guts up. In addition to all kinds of other intestinal distress, I puked so hard I burst blood vessels in my face and a blood vessel in my ear. It was lovely. I decided, however, that if I had stopped throwing up by 5 am, then I could probably go to school. Sometimes, believe it or not, it is just easier to go in and have the kids watch a movie and work on spelling than to try to get all the nine million things done for a sub. Plus, I am super picky about my subs and only want the two I like in my room. Yes, these are the things teachers think about even while praying to all kinds of gods a 3 a.m., porcelain or otherwise.
      
Anyway, I went in, because after falling asleep at 5 am and not waking up until 6:30, it was too late to call anyone to come in for me. Big, giant, huge mistake. I was nauseous all morning and silently retching behind my desk. (not, btw, easy to do.) One colleague said I looked gray. One told me they had never seen me look so bad, and everyone kept asking if I was ok. Finally, at 8:45 when I threw up during my break, I knew the party was over. I got my kids from PE and as they were doing their writing, arranged to grab one of my favorite super-subs (and all around pal) to come fill in. She was volunteering in a kindergarten room that day and was around. In the meantime while I was waiting, my kids just kept staring at me as if waiting for me to blow. Bad Boy even asked me "Mrs. Lewis, do you need a trash can?" At 9:45, I grabbed my stuff, my sweet little friends all said good-bye, that they hoped I felt better, and all the other things 9-year-olds can yell to their green and gross teacher as she is trying to leave before things get worse. As the door closed behind me and I sighed with relief, I heard one concerned voice get in a final farewell:

"Don't puke in the car, Mrs. Lewis!"

Thanks, guys.

Definitions

Yesterday we were happily doing our math. Everything was humming along and Bad Boy says - in the total silence, loudly and without any hint of shame- "Mrs. Lewis? What's a prostitute?" He even said it correctly. I was not sure he said what I thought he said so I said "What?!"
"What's a prostitute?"
"Bad Boy, does that have anything to do with place value? No. Get back to work."
I had to turn around to hide the laughing.

 

10 days down....170 to go!

3 things to talk about this week:

So the last two weeks have been really....um....interesting? We started our school year with the death of a colleague who had been very sick. We all hoped she was going to make it, we all hoped she was going to join us for the year, we all hoped she would be part of our lives again. Alas, it was not meant to be and she passed away the Friday before school began. So the year started out rough. Viewing the first day, funeral the second. (death in Florida is weird. Seriously. The night before the funeral, you literally line up on one side of the funeral home, walk past the coffin to "view it" and then walk out the other side in a giant circle. That's it. It's like a drive-by! One of my colleagues and I sat down thinking that, you know, there would be words or something. Nope. Another colleague informed us that that was it and what were we waiting around for? Okaaayyyy...)Although she and I were not good friends, she was one of those people who was just really nice, you know? One of those people who had a kind word for everyone and always had something nice to say to you. It was doubly sad for the kids who had her as a teacher in the past. One of the positive things that came out of all this if indeed such a thing can happen,  was that the person who has taken over her class so far is a woman who has been at my school since God was a child. Like 42 years or something. She was forced to retire 2 years ago and subbed all last year. To see her back at our school, despite the circumstances, is a great thing. She is an amazing teacher. She is a super rock-star of teaching, and all though we don't know how long the district will let her stay with us, I know that if the kids in this room could not have their assigned teacher this year, Ms. B. is a hell of a sub. She is the kind of teacher I wish I had had. So that was how our year began. Sad.
My friends are beginning to settle down into a routine and I am discovering all their little quirks. True conversation while they were working on their Social Studies foldable. (FYI for those of you not in the know, a foldable is a study and /or review aid that is disguised as an arts and crafts project.)

DRAMA GIRL: (to 5 other girls sitting at her table) You know Ted Kennedy is dead? It's sad. My life is sad (She is 9)


From across the room, no idea where it came from, comes another voice: Didn't someone shoot him?

DG: Yeah, I think so.

ME: (from my desk) No one shot Ted Kennedy.

DISEMBODIED VOICE: Well I know someone someone shot Obama.

ME: No one shot Obama

DV: So Ted Kennedy got shot?

ME: No.

Another DV: Then who shot Obama?

DG: No one! Don't you listen?

ADV: Someone got shot, all I am trying to find out is who! Geez! So who shot Ted Kennedy?

ME: (standing in the middle of the room) No one got shot! No ONE! Kennedy had brain cancer, he died after being sick and this has NOTHING to do with your Social Studies! Now get back to work!

silence descends......until after a slight pause you hear:

ADV: Does brain cancer hurt as much as getting shot?

                                                        FIN.

The thing is, this whole conversation took about 3 seconds, pinged across the room and did not faze me at all. It made me laugh later in the day, because honestly, in fourth grade, this is exactly how the whole day operates.

And now: GOLDEN MOMENT OF THE WEEK!
I have a little friend in my class we will call Bad Boy. Bad Boy is not bad, but he thinks he is. I had his brother last year, and if I had to live up to that....well, I would want to consider myself a Bad Boy too. So Bad Boy and I have a relationship from last year, and I think we understand each other. He and I get along and right now, that's a great thing. On Thursday he came up to me and motioned for me to lean over. (he is pretty short). He whispered in my ear "Mrs. Lewis, I did all my homework!" Now this may not seem like a lot, but for Bad Boy, it is huge! I looked at him and said "All RIIIIIIGHHTTTT!!!!  HIGH FIVE! Now I have to do my Bad Boy dance in celebration!"
(My kids all get their own dances in my room. If they do something awsome, I will treat them to the dance named after them. It's pretty dorky, but they love it and think it's just about the funniest thing they have ever seen.)
I did my Bad Boy dance. He stood totally still for about 5 seconds after, looked at me and said "I will always do my homework for the rest of the year if you promise not to ever to that again"

Deal, Bad Boy, Deal.