Finally getting in our BIG GOALS! Our goal is 80% mastery on all spelling, math, science, and unit comm. arts assessments. We also want each student to grow 1.5 years in their reading. Each week I post the objectives for comm arts and math on colored construction paper and we are making a multi-color brick road (from the book) around the classroom as we pass objectives! "Oh, the Place's We'll Go!" is our theme.

Below is one part of one wall in my very big classroom. Here you can see class rules, our community board (with their behavior chart cards, class jobs, etc), our math board, and our mailbox_. And my super cute scarecrow!

A look at our Big Goal board as well as our Word Bank and a little of our handwriting center, part of the library, and our weather board for morning meetings.

Above: My third-graders from institute along with Mel and Hilarie! I miss these kids so much! They didn't test me enough :) My proudest moments: Amarie (white shirt on the bottom left) went from not knowing his numbers to adding two-digit numbers and subtracting! Beyonce (left pink) grew 2 years in reading, and a few are still calling us :) Love those kids.

Okay, maybe not the type of heartbreak John Mayer is singing about, but Walbridge is definitely the site of constant heartbreak warfare. My heart is broken daily by the things I hear and see daily, both those in and out of my control. This last week or so my focused emotional investment in my kids was less on every wrinkle they add and year they slice away from my life each day, but more on what happens before and after they are in Room  206, and what I can do to make their experience in my classroom with ME as their protector the best that it can possibly be.
It's an impossibly daunting goal to wake up to each day. Maybe that's why the Snooze button has never looked so tempting. How am I equipped to be this person?
Last week I realized how my own little girl (the hallway artist and stealing extraordinaire) has more anger and anxiety than any 7-year-old should ever feel. The girl's muscles are constantly tight, a permanent grinch-like scrunched face, and each day for this girl is full of fits of rage and uncontrollable sobs.
No 7-year-old should ever have her days, especially every day.
One of my boys has been suspended twice. He cannot read or write. Again, more anger in this 40-pound boy just by sitting in a seat than I have maybe ever felt in at least most of my life. One more suspension and he's kicked out of school. I, of course, am doing everything I can do keep that from happening, including avoiding office referrals despite office referral behavior. I can't let him out.
No 7-year-old should be kicked out of school. No 7-year-old should have his fate sealed for him. No 7-year-old should already be labeled as "left behind."
I say one, but that truly describes at least three others in my class, the graffiti queen included. And not to mention this particular boy lost his mother a few years ago, his father is scraping by with everything he has (and like many students in my class), his guardian can barely read.
More students in my class don't come to school because their parents can't take them - they have to catch an early bus to work. Others "fall" a lot. And "run into things" a lot. Particularly this week I'm working hard with social workers and the nurse at our school because of personal instances where I am tracking evidence of abuse - I put it that way so as to not share personal information. It's breaking my heart, comforting this little one each day as he sobs and sobs and shrugs when I try to get him to tell me what's going on. It's the most helpless feeling.
And then yesterday two of my roommate's students almost beat one another to a pulp as she was scared and helpless watching one student repeatedly bash in another's head against a desk.
How on this earth am I going to help these poor children and their families escape?

There are silver linings, silver linings that look thin against my faded rosemary glasses but I know are thinner than they may appear. Three of my parents are getting hired by the school, which means jobs for them and parent proximity for me and the kids. Plus, plus. I've narrowed down my most troubled students, which is seeing incredible improvement in the rest of my children. I'm seeing more actual work and answering, and hopefully we are actually starting to have some learning days. But it's sporadic at best. I'm going to make it happen each day.

And then realizing, of course, that my real job here is to take notes. To dive in. To get the most inside look at this educational and social injustice and take my own background and future into my hands and use them to help these children - not my children directly, and maybe not any of them will get that much real help from me, but I realize that in TFA, I am unavoidably charging myself as their ambassador.

This really isn't a "toot my own horn" by any means, I'm just starting to see what TFA is really about. Those of us who aren't amazing teachers will at least make our futures count for the benefit of those suffering from the achievement gap. Not because we are some amazing breed, not at all, but because you cannot see what we see, be as intimate with these experiences as we are, and NOT change it. It's impossible.

What a most interesting week to showcase, almost overly-obviously so, the typical ups and downs in the life of an urban turnaround elementary school teacher's life. What began my week was THE best day in Room 206. Yes, three good days in a row - I knew that only meant trouble was brewing. Those three days, and especially the last two amazing ones, gave my kids too much time to plot the perfectly disastrous rest of the week. Kudos, kids, kudos.
Monday was truly magical in terms of going back to those ideas about how I want my classroom to run if I want to truly play a role in closing this darned achievement gap. My kids were, ok Walbridge I'll give it to you, "On task, on time, and on a mission!" - and as my little boy Chris" would say, "I'm not going to say this but ..." I can't avoid the fact that 5 of my 8 biggest behavior problems were not at school on Monday. And it really showed. Because all the almost-troubles and almost-greats kept their composure and showed me what they are made of, both academically and behaviorally. Behavior wasn't the day's focus for the first time all year - it was LEARNING and FOCUSING on our BIG GOAL for Friday! Really!
And it helped that after looking at my post-tests from Friday, I saw that one of my little girls (homeless, nonreader, emotional outbursts) who I moved to the front with me, who participated more than anyone else all week, who kept on her GREEN card all week ... met our BIG GOAL in EVERY ASSESSMENT!! An 80 in math, 100 on spelling, and 100 on communication arts (we only got 3 in the whole class with 100 on the comm arts one!).
 I was proud.
And then, Tuesday. And then worse, today.
Yes, I am still proud. Overall. I've seen the potential, Today, I'm disappointed.
I'm pretty stick, as in immune system on the fritz  fighting who knows what to keep me functioning. And an hour out of school with a sub meant total and utter chaos with the sweet librarian aide. I walked into a chaos I haven't seen from my class in a while - and that even compares to the breakdown-or-two-a-days of about a fortnight ago (sorry, Shakespeare in me returned briefly!).
She listed on the board all the things that happened in that hour. I can't remember all of them, but I did remember:
kicking, cursing, shouting, dancing, throwing, stealing, rapping, yelling, fighting, bullying, skipping class, standing on desks/chairs, tantrums, talking back ....
ONE HOUR. She has spread the word that she cannot believe I come back to THAT CLASS every day. "I truly sympathize with you, Amanda."
So goes the life .... so much more to post ... but so much more need for rest. Until

Today was maybe the best day I have had with my class - I've never been prouder of them, and I've never seen more of a sense of accountability and focus on actual learning. They were using our content to drive their own development in our week's focus, including "Ms. Davis, that word in our story is a contraction! Can we read as a class every contraction you come to in our story??" to "Ms. Davis, I know how you feel about our class today. What was that 2nd grade word we learned for happy about our work yesterday? Proud? I'm proud of us today."
.... is this my class? Here's what we did, and I actually want to document this to remember their successes and my own in what worked.
Spelling - We are learning contractions. The first few days they seemed pretty confused about how they work, why the matter, and where that darned apostrophe goes! (which letters do we drop). That meant lesson planning on the seat of my pants while in front of that daunting black chalkboard. I had them use graphic organizers to sort their spelling words by the apostrophe placement ( "n't" words versus " 's " words, etc). THEN to understand how they work ....
IT'S LIKE HAVING TWO PIECES OF BREAD. WOULD YOU RATHER EAT TWO PIECES OF BREAD OR MAKE A SANDWICH? IT'S QUICKER AND YUMMIER, MORE INTERESTING. OUR TWO WORDS ARE TWO PIECES OF BREAD (INSERT LEFTHAND AND RIGHT-HAND GESTURES), AND OUR APOSTROPHE IS THE PEANUT BUTTER SMUSHING THEM TOGETHER! IS - NOT - ISN'T! (AND STUDENTS CLAP THE PIECES TOGETHER)
It was fabulous. We also practiced summarizing and drawing conclusions, and for the first time all year I introduced our new way of expression - 2nd graders answer in complete sentences. What is your answer, and how did you come with that answer? They LOVED it, or at least appreciated feeling responsible for higher thinking. We reviewed old stories and had reading time - intense oral reading time that included focus on contractions, proper nouns (they loved that lesson today), our colors, our predictions, how friends treat one another.
And then after lunch I introduced the wall number line I bought. And surprisingly, I got "Ooooh thank you Ms. Davis!" We practiced evens and odds with the big green crayon (my pointer, thank you Crayola plastic bank). Rather than calling out, thumbs up and smiley faces mean your answer is even, because we are happy with even because it means everyone has a partner. Thumbs down and a frown for odds, because it means someone's left out.
They did great! We also used animal crackers to pair up animals to show how odds+odds= evens, evens+evens=evens, odd+even=odd. 5 right answers means we get to give the class a roller coaster (they chug up the coaster "ch, ch, ch" then down doing a wave with their hands "whooo --oooo --ooo" and the class gives some love for right answers.
I even, last minute, had them right letters to the person who they think is the best friend, someone very special (to no-name, from no-name) that would make them happy if they were mopey and lonely (went with our book), which ended up being a good handwriting, sentences structure, and behavior/language/investment lesson. I had them turn them into their own mailboxes and I'm going to have them place them in random mailboxes so that every one gets a happy letter.
Lovely day in the second grade. :)

1. You paid to live in a freshman dorm AFTER graduating from college.
2. "So why did you join Teach for America" replaces "So what's your major" as most obnoxious and repeated phrase from people your own age or older.
3. A graduate school essay sounds like a relaxing break from lesson planning and tightening your management plan.
4. The word "reflect" makes you physically sick.
5. Hand sanitizer, after pencils and pencil sharpeners, is as valuable as aspirin was in undergrad.
6. You look forward to Friday nights ... in.
7. You can't do "OK" signs in class because your 2nd graders say it looks too much like the Bloods sign.
8. You check TFANet as much as you do your Facebook, and given your nonexistent free time, your TFANet has more action.
9. There are no longer good days and bad days. "How was your day?" is an unacceptable post-work question.
10. You don't even remember what your degree is in.
11. You actually know what "I gotta use it" means.
12. You still don't know what your vision is supposed to be?
13. You know that if kids know every lyric and dance move to a "T", they can learn how to walk in the hall.
14. Pencil sharpening and bathroom breaks are worse than most hangovers you've ever had.
15. You can decipher the phrase: My LTPs, UPs, and BGs are on the backburner until you can get your MP and LPs with perfect INMs, GPs, IPs, and ETs - and that's before breaking in down to good CFUs and DOKs. Plus, DRAs are better than SDQs but hard to manage. Add in some institute lingo of CS, CMA, MS, LS and then our current PDs and LGs to help us and ... yes, that makes complete sense, sadly.
16. You chose TFA over graduate school, only to see that you are now a member of 1-2 graduate schools on your way to certification and a Master's.
17. One word: laminate.
18. You can whip up a tracker in about 100 different forms on call, from targets, to bus's, to thermometers, football fields, rocket ships, and every race car and runner track in between.
19. Lunch break? Planning time? Yeah, maybe for TV teachers ...
20. You're holding out for your ducks to get into that row (and silent, eyes forward, hands behind your back in the mean time) or the milk to turn to butter ....

Add some as you think of them. I could add ghetto realizations and STL

It's been one of those weeks, well, two weeks, well, you get the picture.
I've been mulling over what I say, how I say it, what my face looks like when I say it. My plans, my teaching, my reactions. Do I show how sincere I am? Am I too nice? Too forceful? What am I doing wrong? How can I stop failing my students?

So after hours and hours of researching and planning, reworking it in my mind, all weekend and all week, I had another terrible terrible day and broke down in tears to our Curriculum Specialist. Way to go, Manda. Staying in school re-working my classroom by moving furniture, changing direction, cleaning out = dedication.

But I did leave before dark, after Ms. Angie, my favorite custodian, reminded me "It's murder central out there girl, you need to get yourself home."

Let's see what happens tomorrow. Good news? Our bully's uncle manages the landromat on the corner and I marched in their and had a nice little chat. Fix-ish? And a few parents are excited about afterschool tutoring AND I'm invited parents into the classroom next week to watch the kids in action.

We shall see. Now I need to stock up on water bottles, because a major crying session each day for the last week (and all day of a few of those) .... I must be dehydrated by now!

Ughhh, I can't fail them ....

Cue Ellen's voice as Dory. For me, it's keep swimming to keep my head above water and remember that I am making pSomething that I've struggled with is, obviously, behavior management. I'm not sure if it's me or my students, but I do know regardless it is my job to get a handle on my class and fix it. You've read it before, but I have to mold my students into students this year. It's not fair to them to waste another year getting back into how to behave in a classroom - they deserve to be learning during that time.
As rough as today was, it wasn't. I have to remember how much better they really are getting. Because today we did our Daily Fix-It, we wrote individual class goals, we had an amazing Spelling Pre-Test (amazing in that they were absolutely silent with no cheating and they were keeping up with me - I didn't let myself cave in and slow down!), learned sequence of events, read our story in groups, they picked their favorite event and wrote/draw about it, they corrected their pre-tests with crayons, they wrote their spelling words, abc order spelling words, even/odd number charts, and began writing their 2s, 3s, 5s, and 10s before I assigned incomplete work for homework. I even got to San Diego Quick test 5 students!
So yes, wow, they really are improving. I know it was a better day because for most of it some of my behavior troubles were really trying. The hard part with my group is that they tend to react poorly to positive narration and positive consequences:
"So and So is in ready position. So and So looks ready to rock this spelling test. Yellow Table looks excellent showing the class they are ready to lead the way!" Only gets responses of "UGHHHH I was ready too!!! (cue pouts, cries, and kicked desks)" that, or the ones who were just given positive narration then suddenly drop their positions, happy with themselves, and start talking and getting out again, as if they reached their quota of a single "good" and they are done for the day.
But, again, they really are getting better -- we just need an exponentially greater rate of improvement so that I can actually get to teaching the way I want to teach.
Tutoring starts tomorrow, which I am beyond excited about. I am going to hassle parents about having their kids come.
My Spirit Squad (dance, cheer, and guard) also starts this week!
On top of that, I'm figuring out my Centers for good this week to start teaching and practicing with the class next week. And my BVU research papers must be done this week so that I can put all of my graduate work focus on next weekend's full UMSL workload (2 full working days as a graduate student after 5 days of teaching ... yay!!). AND our tracking is supposed to be done tomorrow for TFA.
Yay .....?
Busy week, but I gotta get re-motivated. As frustrating as Professional Saturday with TFA was, I'm happy that my PD's advice for my class was what I've been trying to improve on -- working on the class. It's been my struggle from Institute Day 1. I think it's my lack of confidence in my actual teaching knowledge -- how long SHOULD a second-grader spend on a spelling test or writing a paragraph? I'm okay with cutting short a talker and de-focus-er, but I don't want to discourage those students who really need more time on assignments. This is where organizing my INM and GP and IP will help me, so that these students either have different assignments, different levels of those assignments, or time to work on those assignments in our May Dos.
TFA, for the record, don't worry about me quitting. I'm frustrated, I'm overwheled, I'm annoyed and disappointed at my progress, YES, but this just makes me work harder. You should have gotten that from my interview. I'm pretty sure that's why you chose me. I'm going to do this.
Special shout outs to the same amazing supporters. I miss my Cola friends and my besties more than I can ever say - Jenna, Cal, Leigh Ann, Ali, Kate, Meredith, Em, Mel, Ed -- I love you SO SO SO much and I'm sorry I'm horrible at keeping in touch. This blog is the extent of my conversation free time :( And I'm dying to know what your classes are looking like Jen, Cal, and Meredith :) Thank you for being amazing, all of you. It's the gameday, Criminal Minds, Five Points, dance sessions, car wrapping, Vegas invading, main moon demolishing, embarassing recapping at Carolina Cafe memories that make me smile every day when I drive past that arch to and from school keeping my head up. Even when you don't know it, you're still the biggest part of my life every day.
My roomies, ps, are awesome. Special thanks to Nikki for stepping in during my breakdowns and helping me get through each and every one, especially since she's going through the same. And my PD, thank you for reaching out. I know you don't have all the answers, and I know you kind of get stuck with our wrath when we are looking for them. Your encouragement and help is always appreciated.
And Mom and A.J. deserve something big for all the crying/venting over the phone sessions. I couldn't get through this without you, especially with any sanity in tact.

I hate to admit it, but that's how the last hour of my school day played out today - with clenched fists. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. I wanted to tear apart my classroom the way my kids were just to get out all of my frustration for yet another day of fully-planned fun wasted on practicing how to sit and stand and show the smallest bit of respect and ability to follow directions when an adult is talking to us.
UghhhhhH! Aghhhhh! How do you spell that scream of frustration?
It's hard when you devote all your time, money, energy, and heart to designing teaching lessons that fit your students' needs and abilities while also investing them and keeping them moving because they are so energized and unfocused that they need that extra attention, just for them to act so ridiculously you can't get them to walk in a line to the classroom. And then the 30 seconds or so every few hours that I've pulled them in, the slightest bit of responsibility for their individual work means all chaos needs to break loose. Because it's impossible, impossible, to listen to your teacher so that you can do that fun left/right even/odd activity. And standing versus sitting, whispering versus screaming, cooperation versus threats and gang violence, is really really difficult.
I don't hate my kids, and I don't want to bombard the office referrals. I avoid it at all costs, actually, because I feel deep in my heart that THOSE REFERRALS are why these kids are so behind - they need to be in the classroom learning, not sitting in a chair waiting for someone to yell at them or a parent to take them home.
But when students are trying to hang themselves with their bookbags, throwing chairs across the room, punching every student along the warpath to the cubbies, tackling students against walls in the bathroom, organizing group attacks on single bullies, stealing everything in sight, dancing, cursing, throwing up gang symbols, kicking the teacher, screaming across the classroom, holding on to doors while I pull them and pick their fingers off the handle as they scream to passerbys in the hallway ... crawl on the floor in all-out scream-crying, and running down the hallway screaming "I didn't do nothin!" .... you have to do something, right? Because the four kids sitting with their hands crossed on their desks, eyes up at you, waiting for you to stop yelling and teach them .... deserve just that.
And that, that, is why I took all my bags of candy, toys, center activities, cookies and chips, all rewards that I bought and prepared for a surprise FUN FRIDAY to wrap up the week for the second grade .... that is why I took all of that and dumped it out in front of my kids and said "This is what we should have been able to do today. Doesn't that sound fun? I wanted to do this with you. You could learn so much! But I can't, because then you might think that the way you have treated each other is okay, and it's not. I can't give you this fun time to work together, because you might think this is how our class can work towards our big goal. You weren't a team today, not the kind you can be. So I hope next Friday you can earn our Fun Friday, because I want our school to see our smart second-graders cooperating and having fun learning in the hallway. I want to hang your high grades and awesome work all over our school, but I can't do that until you can listen as I tell you how to make those things, how to spell your words, and how to do all of the work you want to show off. When you walk into our classroom next Friday, you will not be the class you were today. You will be the class that makes you proud, that makes our school proud. You will show our school what Walbridge 2nd graders look like."
They listened for a bit, apologized, looked like they cared .... and ran into utter chaos again. Two more referrals later, I got the kids outside to go home.
TGIF.