Teaching

I've been going back and forth between trying to find another teaching position or going back to school and doing something entirely different. I wanted to put down some of the reasons to, or not to, teach.

This last year was a very difficult experience for me. The school where I taught was an inner-city school without any funding for basic supplies. I guess that's how most schools are now, but unlike schools who have fundraisers and parents who are willing to donate time and supplies, our school was bare bones. That didn't bother me too much. What did bother me was the attitude of my principal and other teachers that the students were second-class citizens--or not citizens at all in the case of the few Hispanics.

Paddlings occured everyday. Sometimes several times a day. The first time that one of my little first graders got paddled last year I cried all the way home after school. I stopped sending them to the principal's office, until I got in trouble for not sending them often enough. There was a weekly conduct sheet and so the principal could see that they were getting in trouble for talking, bothering others, etc. She informed me that they needed to come see her every time they "moved their clip"--referring to the classroom behavior management chart where students began on green and then moved their clothespin to yellow, orange, and red everytime they misbehaved. An example of something my principal actually said to one of my girls was "It is on. You keep on acting this way, you gonna be down here in my office getting a whooping. We gonna do this everyday until you learn how to behave." Yes, the girl in question did drive me crazy by daily throwing herself along with all the contents of her pencil box on the floor and throwing temper tantrums, but no, I didn't want her to be threatened and subsequently paddled by the principal. She eventually moved to another school.

There were lots more examples of run-ins between my students and the principal, other students and their teacher, and general bad-mouthing of the students by the teachers. Why do people who obviously don't care for children get into education?

What was good about last year? We test DIBELS twice a year. The first time the benchmark is 20 words per minute. At the end of the year it is 40. Only about 4 of my students benchmarked on the first test. Wow! and I was supposed to get these guys up to 40 in a manner of months. We dibbled like crazy all year, everyone does at least once a week, but our class did their individual dibbling and then we also ready chorally and individually on the ELMO. At the end of the year all but 3 of them benchmarked. Several of them were up in the 60 range!!! They can learn.

One of the things that I enjoy most about working with little kids is hearing their ideas. One day I introduce the "amazing word" explanation. Before I gave the definition I asked if anyone knew what it meant. One boy raised his hand and answered "A line with a dot!" Wow, that's random, I thought. When I asked him if he could tell me or show me what he was talking about he came up and drew an exclamation mark on the board. That's great! because we learned about exclamations the week before. Good recall!!!

I had one little boy, who I call Little Precious. I could have a blog totally dedicated to stories of Little Precious. When he started 1st grade he couldn't even write his name. We worked so hard on his handwriting, even though it is not a required standard in the curriculum. Sometimes you just go out on a limb and do things that need to be done. By the end of the year he had some of the best handwriting in the class! And he could express himself in writing. One of his last journal entries was: "Mis [Jones] is get on my nurvs". Hallelujah!!! That's when I know I'm doing my job right.

Will I try to get rehired? I don't know right now. There is enough day-to-day stress with teaching. When you add the possibility of a pink slip at the end of each year (at least until the 3rd year) it just doesn't seem worth it. I'm still considering all my options.

Sorry for such a long post today.