My First Full Day

Today was my first full day and I have to say it was LONG! My students have a late lunch and related arts the last period of the day. This equals a ridiculously long day for me! I am really going to have to put some management in place because I will have to check folders and stuff them while keeping the students engaged. I will also have to make sure to print and set out everything I need for the entire day each morning--making sure I have easy access to it. Right now I am using my kidney table as home base, but that's definitely not going to work when we start small group activities.

I am pretty tired so here are a few highs, lows, and points of interest for today:

Highs:

Many of my students are very kind and responsible for their classmates without me teaching it. I have had zero instances of pushing or line cutting and it is very clear that many of my students watch out for each other. I have one student (one I can guarantee I will be writing a lot about) that many of my girls take care of.

We voted on our class "team" name today. It was a close race, but the peanut butter fish, the electric fish, and the fish with big tales could not stand up against the "Rainbow Fish."

Lows:
Did I mention today was LONG??

On a more serious note...One of the forms we are asked to collect from each child is an application for free and reduced lunch. It is also the form that our school turns in to receive our Title1 funding. I got about 10 forms back today. Of the 10 families returning forms only ONE of my families has a household income of more than $1000 (and all 10 families have one working adult). To put this in perspective... I make  about $34,000 as a new teacher. My first paycheck will be more than most of my families will make in a year. This realization was a huge reality check for me. I knew my students would be low income, but I had no idea that it would be this low.

To make me feel even worse almost all of my students brought in school supplies. The first grade general supply list (which I had absolutely no part in making...) costs about $20-30. For a lot of my families this equates to 5% of their income. I actually feel guilty about taking their supplies. One idea I had was to use any of the extra materials to make a take-home summer kit for my students. This would not only relieve my guilt about much of the unused supplies, but also be a small step in eliminating the notorious "summer slide."

Point of interest:
We had a new student join our class today. He happens to have the same first name as another student...and the same last initial. To make this even more fun...I have a really hard time pronouncing my new student's last name!

Extreme Classroom Makeover

I am back! It has been a LONG couple of weeks. We had TFA orientation,  MNPS new teacher orientation, a 2 day staff retreat, 4 PD days leading up to school AND classroom set-up!

I have been working non-stop. Over the past few weeks I have been been following a sleep-work-eat-work schedule with very little free time. Now that school has officially started, I am trying really hard to find a balance and get back into a routine---one that includes time away from school! I have a trip planned back to Akron next weekend, and even though the drive is going to suck I am so excited to get a way and talk about something that is not school or work!

I hope I don't sound like a complainer, because I really do love my job so far. My co-workers have been extremely supportive and I feel VERY welcome at my school. And...the hard work really does pay off. I inherited one of the least student-friendly environments possible, but my portable is starting to look and feel like a classroom! I have gotten a lot of compliments from staff members on my classroom which has really helped validate the work that has been put into it.

Here is a picture of my classroom as it currently stands (functional, but not finished) and below that is a link to the transformation process.

and the transformation: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1990449207394.2100739.1428270161&l=9142d892b7&type=1

Thursday was my first day of school and it went REALLY well. My students are adorable. I am still working through some language issues and really need to take some time next week to talk to students one on one. I think after next week I will have a better idea of what strengths and challenges we will have....now I just have to do some planning to make next week happen!

Schools Shopping...Deals for teachers!

School shopping has officially taken on a new meaning in my life. Something comparable to hell. That might be a slight exaggeration, but the fact of the matter is that school supply shopping is downright stressful. I have spent almost all of my allotment of money and am now starting to calculate how much I will save by returning non-necessities or finding different supplies at different retail venues for cheaper (composition notebooks are a great example of this).

Here is a basic list of supplies I have bought:
-class set of crayons/ crayon holders
- table sets of markers
- 1 glue/ student
- Ziplock bags-all sizes
- 1  folder with fasteners/ student
- 2 folders with no fastners/ student
- 1 composition notebook with "primary" paper in it (space for picture)...my splurge/ student
- 1 wide ruled composition notebook/ student
- 10 3-ring binders for teacher use
- 6 Discovery Kids Nonfiction books
- class set of dry erase markers
- 2 teacher multi-pack of dry erase markers
- Thick pencils for beginning of the year use/ student (helps with handwriting, needs sharpened less frequently)
- Skin-tone construction paper for student self portraits
- Crowns for King/Queen of the week
- number line
- Bulletin board borders (3)
- sheet protectors
- 1 set of 8 sharpies
- table boxes
- 1 pair of scissors/student

I still need:
- White board cleaner
- mailing labels
- containers for classroom library
- electrical tape
- duct tape


A little bit of good: I am starting to get the hang of what goes where. There are also a lot of very generous teacher deals this time of year. Here are a few that I have found...

- Office Max: bag day. They gave us a large reusable bag and 20% off of everything that fit inside. They also had a small teacher care package that included a couple of sharpies, a planner with monthly coupons, and some free samples. They also have a teacher rewards card that give you $5 back for every $75 spent.

- Staples: the up the limit on sale items to 25 (instead of 3 for regular customers).

- Walmart: best prices on general school supplies

Also, a few shout outs..

-the guy at Office Depot who received a free backpack from his purchase and donated it to my classroom.
- the cashier at Office Depot who gave me two more backpacks other customers had left.
- The manager at Office Max who called another store and arranged for me to pick up a few extra composition notebooks with primary pages so I can have a class set
-my mom for making cushions to my childhood rocking chair that I am putting in my reading area along with the two beach chairs she bought me.


It has been a long week of shopping and setting up my classroom, but today I really felt that it was starting to look like a classroom. There really is a light at the end of the tunnel!

Different Directions

It is decision making time. I have been getting ideas, strategies, "rules" and suggestions from so many people and from so many settings that I spent most of this week extremely overwhelmed. Instead of getting a  better picture of my first few weeks teaching from all of this support, my first few weeks were becoming less defined.

Today has kind of been a turning point for me. I have stopped listening to "must do's" that everyone seems to have and began to take them as opinions on what a classroom should look like. I need to regain my OWN view of a classroom first and then I can incorporate some of the very helpful suggestions I have been given. I also created a series of lists (I am a big list maker) to help organize myself. I have the following lists: Ask Emily (my team leader), to buy, to make, bulletin boards, centers, and teacher to do. Everything fits on a list and even though I have not started a single thing on my list, I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER!

I also received the keys to my classroom portable (aka trailer) today and even though there are some things I am definitely not thrilled about (post coming), I have a better idea of how I can set up my classrooms and classroom processes. Again, a huge step to making me feel better about the next few weeks!

The moral of the story: stay true to yourself and ideas, but be open to making changes and modifications based on the feedback of others.

The Cost of Dropping Out

NPR is starting a week-long series on the cost of dropping out of school. Their goal is to discuss the economic and emotional consequences of dropping out of school by putting faces to drop out statistics. Even though I have heard many of these statistics before, I am humbled by the magnitude of the achievement gap.

I look forward to reading this series and I cannot wait to meet my students and help give them the opportunity to an education that will hopefully help keep them in school. My goal is to create life-long learners--students, that no matter their circumstances, want to learn and will continue to keep learning. In my classroom I hope to start this by instilling a sense of independence into my first graders. I want them to realize from an early age that they are responsible for their own education. I believe that this will "plant the seeds" for not just staying in school, but benefiting from it.

Institute Debrief

Well, I am finally back from Institute and a long weekend of moving and driving. I am semi-settled into my new house (until the POD with all of my furniture and boxes gets to Nashville) and we have started Round 0 orientation.


Institute is over and with so much driving time I have had time to think of some key take aways. The thing about the majority of TFAers (myself included) is that we are very critical--especially of ourselves.We see a problem and we want to fix it. My Institute experience is no exception. The reality is that I failed my students. We did not meet our goal as a class and the majority of my students did not meet their individual growth goals.

So my question is..What went wrong? The answer...a lot of things! Most of these things have been written about in previous posts as I was going through them, but the major things that I believe I need to change for next year so that my new class does not have mediocre growth are:

- Spend more time on investment...There is a huge jump in our data after the three week mark. I felt the difference in relationships with my students and the numbers proved it. Once I started learning about my students and having some fun with them, they started achieving. The other side of investment is helping the students to understand that what they are doing in the classroom, that the goals we have for them, are important to their current and future success.

- Build strong routines and procedures...I really want a classroom that functions independently. My students are more than capable of doing many of the things I did for them this summer and, as a result, I lost a lot of time for individualized and small group instruction.

- Give students more opportunity to experience and engage with material. I felt like I was talking all of the time and the reality is that while I was talking very few students were learning.
- Differentiate more...I saw so much growth during AIT and I need to make sure that small group and individualized instruction has a strong place in my classroom.

- Find what works for me as a teacher...All of these things above, and so much more, are things that I knew going into this experience, but knowing and doing are two very different things. I lost sight of who I was as an educator and what I could give to my students. As we moved further into weeks 3 and 4 I became more comfortable with my teaching style and how my style impacted my students.

These are all things I am working on building into my classroom vision and plan that we are working on during Round Zero. I am confident that my new students will benefit from my mistakes over the summer because I refuse to let my classroom and my students go in a direction that I am not comfortable with again. I am in the process of making changes and I will never let my classroom be a place where the teacher's mistakes hinder student progress.

So there is the bad and what will come of it. Here are some of the good things that have helped rekindle my teaching "fire"....

- all of my students eligible for promotion (including special project #1) who met the attendance requirement met their goals for promoted! Together the first grade team using a collaborative AIT model promoted 8 students to first grade. There are so many statistics to support the urgency for students to achieve promotion in the early grades and we helped make it happen for 8 students!

- All of my students showed growth in both math and reading. Even though it was not the growth we wanted our students still learned SOMETHING over the summer.

- As a teacher I learned about how to use data to drive my classroom and my students. Assessments are so much more purposeful and meaningful to me now than they ever were before.

- I am leaving Institute with a strong network of support and many resources to explore.


I am leaving Institute on "The Brain Train." I have been motivated to learn more, to do more, and achieve more. Not only have I put faces to the Achievement Gap, but I have a better understanding of my role in helping my students get to "Destination Success." I made an impact on my students and they have made an incredible impact on me.

Tomorrow is...

...THE LAST DAY OF INSTITUTE!

What an experience this has been! Tomorrow is an early morning to what is going to be an emotional day so I am going to leave it at this has been a life-changing experience and I am sad to leave my students when I still feel like there is so much progress that can be made, but PUMPED for my return to Nashville and my own classroom!

Night!