Four Feet More

Today was the first day of school, and also my first day teaching kindergarten. Making the leap from 5th and 6th grade to kinder has been quite an adjustment. While I like the shorter teaching days (I teach for 3.5 hours and assist the afternoon teacher for 3 hours), and am glad for the easier grading, I'm also mourning the loss of my history curriculum. History is a great love of mine, and I had the best time teaching Ancient Civilizations and US History. I believe kindergarten Social Studies consists of topics like what it means to be a good citizen and maybe a lesson or two on police officers and firefighters. All important things, to be sure, but not really my area of interest.

The other adjustment has been how I will relate to my students. I'm one of those teachers who tends to call her students "Dude," and I'm not sure how it will fly the first time I let a "dude" slip with 5 year olds. One of my 5th grade colleagues said that me teaching kindergarten is "like Rodney Dangerfield teaching kindergarten." I'm not quite sure how to take that. (I get no respect, I tell ya!). Since this teacher likes me, I think I'll take it as an observation of my playful quirkiness, rather than an actual criticism.

Adding to my kinder-anxiety is the fact that I have 3 kids with severe food allergies in my class (both from ingestion and contact), 2 of which are life-threatening and require epi-pens. Fortunately the parents of two of the kids are pretty reasonable an practical about the difficulties presented by a kindergarten situation. We've been working together to make the classroom and playground as safe as possible for their children. The third parent... well, let's just say that the jury is still out on that one (although I think a verdict of "crazy" may be imminent).

Despite these anxieties, today went surprisingly well. The kids were all pretty sweet and seemed to enjoy being in class. There was one "Oh crap!" moment when I had the kids sorting school supplies on the big carpet while I brought students to their cubbies one by one. After I led a child to her cubbie, I turned back to the carpet to see kleenex tissues flying in the air. Sitting in the midst of this tissue downpour was a little girl, gleefully tearing kleenex from every box around her. I so did not anticipate that! When I asked her to stop, she looked up at me in confusion and said, "But they're my Kleenex."

Kindergartners will certainly keep you on your toes.

Hopefully tomorrow will go even better and by the end of the month, the kids and I will have our routines down. I think it is going to be a very interesting year.

After school today, as I sat grading tests, I noted with both amusement and dismay some of my students answers. To be fair, one of these students is an English Language Learner who recently moved here from another country. But the other two, well they really have no excuse. We are currently covering the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence. I think I may need to go back and review some key details....

Question 1: What was one good effect of having the British around?
Answer: One good effect of having the British around is that American colonists can kill them. (I guess this does make it convenient when trying to defeat your foe, but the correct answer was: The British gave the colonists protection from warring Native Americans and French and Spanish invaders.)

Question 2: How did life change for the colonists after signing the Declaration of Independence?
Answer 2 (from EL student): They get their freedom and they live like bird is flying in the sky and with love. (While I like the imagery his response brings, the correct answer is: After the colonists signed the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War began, affecting the lives of many. Neighbors and families were torn apart based on their support of the British or the Patriots and there were many bloody battles until America finally won it's independence from Britain.)

Question 3: If you had lived during the Revolutionary War, which side do you think you would have been on? Why?
Answer 3: If I had lived during the war, I would have been on the American's side because I don't like red coats at all. Blue is an OK color for me." (I guess for some people, color choice is more important than political ideals.)

I love teaching about the birth of our country because the students have such interesting questions and we are able to make some wonderful connections to events that are going on today (for example, the colonists pulling down King George III's statue and Iraqis pulling down the statue of Saddam Hussein). However, with answers like the ones above, I'm also finding that students have some interesting interpretations of historical events as well.

For all the conflicting emotions I’ve been having about school lately, this week my colleagues did something so touching, that I think my heart actually may have grown two sizes bigger.

Remember my student, “Peter?” Well, he’s still a challenge for me every day. But I really like the kid. He’s completely honest and while his ADHD is one of the most severe cases I’ve ever seen, he genuinely wants to do well. He just doesn’t always have control of himself. Adding to this is the fact that he and his mother are homeless. They fled an abusive father in another state and have been staying at various homeless shelters in our area since September. One shelter was clear across town, and Peter walked 2 hours, in the chilly morning air, to get to school. His determination to attend class amazed me. But I also felt bad that he had to walk so far, and for so long. I mentioned to him that there might be another school closer to the shelter that he could go to, so that way he wouldn’t have to walk so far. Peter looked up at me with a slightly panicked expression and said, “But I don’t want to go to another school. I want to stay here.”

It was then that I realized that our school, and my class, is probably the only consistency he has in his life. And I could see how important that was to him. I quickly assured Peter that I didn’t want him to go to another school either, but that I didn’t like the idea of him having to walk so far. Soon afterwards, he and his mother began renting a room in the apartment where another student lives.

Despite his big heart and good intentions, Peter constantly gets into trouble, and as a result, spends a lot of time in the office. The school secretary (L) and clerk (M) have gotten to know him quite well, and L even served him dinner once while volunteering at a local homeless shelter. The three of us often talk about Peter and his situation, and while he drives us nuts sometimes, it’s clear that we all feel a certain fondness for him as well.

On Thursday, when I was in the office doing some work, M came up to me and said that there was a green duffle bag for Peter by her desk. I went to get it, thinking it was his things from the shelter, but instead found that it was an enormous duffle bag filled with clothing and a new backpack. L and M had collected various items for Peter to give him for the holidays. They also had a bag containing a shiny wrapped gift for Peter (it was a basketball) and another Christmas gift for his mother (a warm sweatshirt). I was completely stunned by their generosity. The fact that they took the time to get these things and help make the holidays brighter for him and his mother left me speechless (no easy feat), and I stood in the office sputtering for a moment, trying to find words to express my gratitude. M just smiled and shook her head, so I loaded myself up with the packages and went back to class to deliver them to Peter.

When I handed the duffle bag to Peter, he was confused. “What’s this?” he asked. “I’m not sure.” I replied. “It looks like Santa may have come a bit early this year.” Understanding slowly dawned on his face, and Peter broke into a big smile. On Friday, he came to school proudly spinning the new basketball on his finger (and laughed at me when I protested that he wasn’t supposed to open the gift until Christmas).

Even though they don’t know of this blog’s existence, I’d like to publicly applaud L and M. They not only made a difference in this boy’s life, but they reminded me of how lucky I am to work with such wonderful people. It was an amazing Christmas moment – one I won’t ever forget.

Whenever a situation seems really bad, this movie title from an episode of “Seinfeld” always comes to mind. Unfortunately, I received news this week that leads me to believe that the prognosis for my career is very negative, indeed. I don't know if any of you have heard about the budget crisis in California, but it's affecting public schools in a big way. The budget cuts that just went through dropped our state to 46th in the nation for funding per student. If the proposed additional cuts go through (which looks quite likely given California's current economic woes), we'll drop to 50th in the nation. That's right. Our state, which is something like the 6th largest economy in the world, will rank 50th in the country for per-student funding. I think the problem is that all the people with money in this state send their kids to private school. They think that cuts to public schools don't affect them. However, what is being created is a greater class divide, where the "haves" get the good educations, and the "have-nots" get the shaft.

Can you tell I'm a little disgusted by this whole situation? Here are some highlights we received this week from the list of proposed cuts:

• Laying off temporary teachers, maybe as early as mid-year (that means me. In our district all teachers are "temporary" until they've worked full-time for 2 years. At that point, they become "probationary.")
• Getting rid of class-size reduction in K-3rd grade and 9th grade. This means the classes would all be 30 kids to 1 teacher, unlike the current 20-1.
• Eliminating kindergarten altogether. Kindergarten is not mandatory, so the state could save some money by cutting it from the public school system and making it something parents have to pay for privately.
• Loss of librarians, music, drama, art, and technology classes. Also on the chopping block are school counselors and nurses (although we currently only have our nurse for an hour or two a week, so this may not make much of a difference).
• Cutting all athletic programs and electives in high school. This has already happened in a San Jose school district, where all high school athletic programs were cut this week. I feel bad for all those kids who may have received college scholarships based upon athletic ability.
• A 4-8% salary decrease for all district employees.
• Loss of prep classes. This means that teachers would lose their preparation time during the day, and that the kids would lose their P.E., Science Lab, and Computer classes.

Needless to say, the future for public education in California looks pretty bleak. This concerns me on so many levels, first of all because I may not have a job after March of this year. My bigger concern though is for my kids and my students. I don’t like the idea of them receiving their education in a public school system that is not funded or valued. It seems that it is more important for our governor to avoid raising taxes than it is to ensure a good education to ALL children in our state, not just the ones whose families can afford private school.

It’s a disturbing situation all around, and I’m scrambling right now to find a Plan B and a Plan C. Hopefully it won’t be long before the pendulum swings the other way and education once again becomes more of a priority for our lawmakers.