It was another trying week in third grade, as most weeks are these days. Not only am I exhausted from five going on six straight weeks without a break, but everyone around me--staff and students--is exhausted too. It's been compounded lately by concerns about budget. People are being laid off left and right, we ran out of copy paper today and evidently won't be getting any more until December, and it's evident that the pressure is being put on the principals to do something about it. There has been a lot of frustration and anger at students and teachers alike.
It's tough to be in such a pressure-cooker situation, where you feel like you're constantly being judged on your test scores, your behavior management, your relationships with students, and your professionalism and enthusiasm. It's also tough to improve on all these things when the support staff you thought you were able to rely on shrinks every month as more and more layoffs are necessitated. In many ways, we feel like our school is a target within our network. As the newly-opened turnaround, we seem to be getting the short end of many sticks--CMO attention, layoffs, support--even though our scores on benchmark tests are almost identical to the scores of the second-year turnarounds. As we talked about in our weekly staff meeting today, that turned into a bitchfest, this isn't really about performance anymore. It's about money. And that is a little bit nervewracking--that if they're not going to look at what we're achieving with our kids and the limited resources we have, what are they going to look at when they decide who to keep and who to let go?
But, as always, I am reminded every day why I am there--for the little people.
This week, it was for three little girls. The first is Sandrel, one of my favorite students (because yes, of course I have favorites), a very bright, well-behaved girl who walked into my class looking sick as a dog yesterday. She'd been sick the last two days, and mom sent her to school yesterday with strict instructions that she would be staying there the whole day. And so even though Sandrel had those glassy feverish eyes, she sat through all of math class. I called mom, no response. And so she sat some more. She asked to skip out on her celebration--a lunch with the principal from Wendy's that only 7 out of 64 third-graders got to participate in--to nap in my classroom during lunch. And for the last half-hour of math, she sat in my chair at my desk and dozed. I felt horrible for this poor little girl who looked so sick and who had nowhere else to go (the nurse was, of course, absent). But today, Sandrel walked back into class looking much peppier and gave me a hug. At the end of the period, after they got their 15 minutes of free time as a reward, she handed me this note: "Dear Ms. L, Thank you for helping me when I was sick. I am glad you are my teacher. I love you."
The second is Nia, the perennial behavior problem in my homeroom, who for the first time finished on level 3 (good behavior) for three days in a row. I pulled her out into the hallway during dismissal and made a positive phone call to her mother. Nia asked if she could talk to her after I was done, and seeing her face as she talked to her mom--beaming with pride because her mom has probably never received a positive call home--was so rewarding.
Then I walked back into my classroom, and the third girl, Zoe, who had been sharpening my pencils, came up to me. "My daddy died," she said. Not quite knowing what to say, I said, "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that," thinking that it was something that had happened years ago that she was just telling me about. But as it turns out, her father was shot and killed yesterday. There's no PD session that tells you how to talk to an eight-year-old who has lost a parent to a violent crime. So I just did what I could--gave her a hug, ushered the other kids out of the classroom, and let her sit in silence with someone who would listen. Zoe didn't talk, and I worry about how this weekend will be for her--what kind of support she has at home, the exact details of her father's death, if she is in danger. The school's social worker has already been called into the case, which gives me a measure of relief since she will know so much better than I what to do to help the situation. But giving Zoe a space to feel safe was, I hope, at least some small comfort to her.
We had a dinner last night with my PD cohort from TFA to talk about what's at stake for our students. It devolved pretty quickly into a discussion about poverty, its challenges, and how we fit into the picture. One of the second-years in my cohort said that he wanted to be a role model for his students, to be the strongest person in their life. For so many of my students, I think that's what they need--someone that they can rely on, someone to be strong for them. Sandrel needed someone to validate her feeling sick. Nia needed someone to believe that she could do it--and to reward her for the small steps she made this week. And Zoe needed someone to trust and to be there. This week, I was able to be there for those girls. It's not enough to make it all better, to bring them back up to grade level, to set them on this bold path towards college and a successful career that I envision for all of my students. But it's a first step--to recognize them as people who need love, trust, and strength more than anything else.
It's tough to be in such a pressure-cooker situation, where you feel like you're constantly being judged on your test scores, your behavior management, your relationships with students, and your professionalism and enthusiasm. It's also tough to improve on all these things when the support staff you thought you were able to rely on shrinks every month as more and more layoffs are necessitated. In many ways, we feel like our school is a target within our network. As the newly-opened turnaround, we seem to be getting the short end of many sticks--CMO attention, layoffs, support--even though our scores on benchmark tests are almost identical to the scores of the second-year turnarounds. As we talked about in our weekly staff meeting today, that turned into a bitchfest, this isn't really about performance anymore. It's about money. And that is a little bit nervewracking--that if they're not going to look at what we're achieving with our kids and the limited resources we have, what are they going to look at when they decide who to keep and who to let go?
But, as always, I am reminded every day why I am there--for the little people.
This week, it was for three little girls. The first is Sandrel, one of my favorite students (because yes, of course I have favorites), a very bright, well-behaved girl who walked into my class looking sick as a dog yesterday. She'd been sick the last two days, and mom sent her to school yesterday with strict instructions that she would be staying there the whole day. And so even though Sandrel had those glassy feverish eyes, she sat through all of math class. I called mom, no response. And so she sat some more. She asked to skip out on her celebration--a lunch with the principal from Wendy's that only 7 out of 64 third-graders got to participate in--to nap in my classroom during lunch. And for the last half-hour of math, she sat in my chair at my desk and dozed. I felt horrible for this poor little girl who looked so sick and who had nowhere else to go (the nurse was, of course, absent). But today, Sandrel walked back into class looking much peppier and gave me a hug. At the end of the period, after they got their 15 minutes of free time as a reward, she handed me this note: "Dear Ms. L, Thank you for helping me when I was sick. I am glad you are my teacher. I love you."
The second is Nia, the perennial behavior problem in my homeroom, who for the first time finished on level 3 (good behavior) for three days in a row. I pulled her out into the hallway during dismissal and made a positive phone call to her mother. Nia asked if she could talk to her after I was done, and seeing her face as she talked to her mom--beaming with pride because her mom has probably never received a positive call home--was so rewarding.
Then I walked back into my classroom, and the third girl, Zoe, who had been sharpening my pencils, came up to me. "My daddy died," she said. Not quite knowing what to say, I said, "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that," thinking that it was something that had happened years ago that she was just telling me about. But as it turns out, her father was shot and killed yesterday. There's no PD session that tells you how to talk to an eight-year-old who has lost a parent to a violent crime. So I just did what I could--gave her a hug, ushered the other kids out of the classroom, and let her sit in silence with someone who would listen. Zoe didn't talk, and I worry about how this weekend will be for her--what kind of support she has at home, the exact details of her father's death, if she is in danger. The school's social worker has already been called into the case, which gives me a measure of relief since she will know so much better than I what to do to help the situation. But giving Zoe a space to feel safe was, I hope, at least some small comfort to her.
We had a dinner last night with my PD cohort from TFA to talk about what's at stake for our students. It devolved pretty quickly into a discussion about poverty, its challenges, and how we fit into the picture. One of the second-years in my cohort said that he wanted to be a role model for his students, to be the strongest person in their life. For so many of my students, I think that's what they need--someone that they can rely on, someone to be strong for them. Sandrel needed someone to validate her feeling sick. Nia needed someone to believe that she could do it--and to reward her for the small steps she made this week. And Zoe needed someone to trust and to be there. This week, I was able to be there for those girls. It's not enough to make it all better, to bring them back up to grade level, to set them on this bold path towards college and a successful career that I envision for all of my students. But it's a first step--to recognize them as people who need love, trust, and strength more than anything else.
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