Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart

What's that? You're so excited to read about my synopsis of the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe's most famous literary work, Things Fall Apart?  How does Ms. M have enough time to teach such fabulously interesting lessons AND critically analyze classic African literature?  HOW DOES SHE DO IT?

...hopefully this isn't the biggest disappointment of your day.  I'm just borrowing the name from the late, great, Mr. Achebe to reflect on my classroom so far this month.  This post focuses less on my eclectic extra-curricular activities and more about how my splendid things in my classroom have slowly been deteriorating.  To start, let's begin with the physical things.

'Lil Bub

Remember 'Lil Bub my pencil sharpener?  A gift from my sister for my birthday?  Here's what I surmise happened last week, Thursday, during my second block, told through the internal thought of the culpable student:

Uuuuuuugggghhhh...I don't want to do this essayyyyyy....agaaaiiinnn...

I'll just wander around the room and pretend to be doing things until class is over....

My pencil is already sharp...what else can I do...

Hm...I wonder if I put my pencil in backwards, the eraser come out all pointy-like, like a pencil.  How cool would that be!  You could erase really tiny mistakes.  I'll be a genius!

Uh oh...

"What are you doing?  You're going to break it..." -some other kid

Oh crap oh crap oh crap it's stuck!  How can I get the eraser out?  I'll stick another eraser in there to dig it out.  

Nope.  Nope, that didn't work. 

This is how I found myself on Friday night, (still wearing mouse ears and a tail), sitting on the floor with the custodian, trying to figure out how to put my pencil sharpener back together.  While one of my sixth grade students so eagerly took the pencil sharpener apart to get the eraser bits out, putting the thing back together was a very different task.  

Stress Ball

After reading some reviews of the isoflex stress ball I was so readily endorsing, I realized that they weren't industrial sixth-grade-clammy-hand-proof. 

Thank you Joseph Kugelmass for your review in 2009.  Strangely enough, Isoflex is still in business;

"Here is what this is: a little leaky bag full of sand, with a fairly fragile plastic covering. I'm not sure why, in this day and age, Isoflex can't find a plastic that lasts longer than a few months, but I assure you that the other reviewer is right, and the bag will break. Once the bag breaks, little clear grains of what is (probably) artificial sand start to leak out and you have to throw the whole thing away. The whole process has made me extremely stressed out and I will probably have to buy another stress ball just in order to cope. Also, you will find yourself wondering why you paid good money for something you could have made yourself with a sandwich bag and a trip to your local beach."

...I'm on the lookout for a better stress-ball...

Exercise Ball

Again, another lovely gift from my sister for use in my classroom.  

(The flat ball pictured above is not the one from my classroom, but very currently resembles it).  My students are in no way abusing the exercise ball, but again, I'm finding that the product is not holding up its end of sturdiness (the package says it can take up to 300 pounds...even two of my students together wouldn't make 300 pounds).   I will attempt to pump up the balloon again...

My Brain

Ok not really.  But here's a list of dumb things I've done just today;

*Locked myself, and my entire 3rd hour class, out of my classroom following a fire drill

*Re-read the incorrect word on an assignment all day, and didn't catch it until a student in my last hour pointed it out 

*Attempted to hold class outside due to the unbearable heat in our classroom...(it worked for ten minutes until the students decided that dealing with the heat was better than battling the horrifying spiders and mud.  They were very vocal about this realization.)

What I'm Reading

I've meticulously planned out my trip to Aruba, so I may better understand our sixth grade anchor texts.  I'll spend five nights and six days at an all-inclusive for $1,650 (including airfare).  Pretty sweet, right?  I can dream :)  While I'm dreaming, I'm also contemplating The Cay by Theodore Taylor.  I learned a bit about the history behind Aruba and it's status as a country.  It is still run by the Netherlands; however, with it's ever-changing history, it remains very culturally diverse with its population of over 100,000 Arubans.  

I'm excited to start this book and discuss the several hypothetical situations of "...if I were trapped on a deserted island..."  (It also opens up a great natural opportunity to teach the homonyms dessert and desert).   Some writing prompts that come to mind....

"...trapped on a deserted island, with which type of animal would you prefer to be stuck?"

"...upon finding yourself deserted on an island, what would be the first thing you'd do in order to survive?"

"...who would be the most useful person to have on a deserted island?"

Things may fall apart.  I could wake up tomorrow blind, with a pet cat, and a stranger whom I barely understand.  There is nothing but possibilities in life.  And with that, I'm going to rest my weary brain, and hope that it doesn't actually fall apart one of these days....

insta-post

.....because I don't have instagram....

(a name that always makes me think of graham crackers?)

The top ten most haunted places in Wisconsin

Phobias :)

Teachers believe in the moon

Ask any teacher.  They'll be able to tell you when it's a full moon--without looking outside at night.   How?  That's probably the day that it took a full 10 minutes for the class to settle in and get quiet.  Perhaps the same day when two verbal fights had to be mediated, and when three different young ladies broke down in tears over broken nails, promises or hearts.  When I walked outside on my 28th birthday, at an ungodly early hour, I was slightly confused at what I was seeing.  

     My first thought was--bad omen?  
    
     Whilst waiting for Panera to open, I scrolled through Facebook.  Thank you facebook post-happy people; I quickly learned it was a lunar eclipse.  According to space.com, "Lunar eclipses occur when Earth's shadow blocks the sun’s light, which otherwise reflects off the moon. There are three types — total, partial and penumbral — with the most dramatic being a total lunar eclipse, in which Earth’s shadow completely covers the moon.

The last lunar eclipse was on Oct. 8, 2014. "

     Did it affect my day?  I honestly cannot remember.  This week was such a whirlwind, I didn't know which way was up.  It was one of those weeks where it was Tuesday, and in a blink of an eye, I was wrapping up the week.    Between cheer/dance practice and teaching, I managed to do a few fun things:

I woke up to this on the lunar eclipse day.  Presents!

We had a field trip on Friday to Skateland!
HOW FUN!  Here is a fellow teaching strapping on
the skates.

Gifts from my sister; Octopus and Whale Squishable.  THANKS SIOBHAN!

The boys getting ready to race

My door!  Our Collections theme is fear, so I had students
look up and illustrate a phobia.  They had some pretty good ones :)
In case you can't read it, it says, "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?
(Probably the Lupophobic)."

     I had a blast at the roller rink.  Aside from two things; I dropped the ball on turning in some lunch orders for some students.  That, and during the last half hour of the day, we had like five injuries in succession.  After the boys had a race and the ladies had a race, they called any teachers on the floor.  

Remember that student I gave a detention to in my last post?  He was the first one to point and shout, "Ms. M!"  

     I waited for anyone else to come out onto the floor so I wouldn't be the only one to race.  Luckily, Mr. C (pictured above) and a paraprofessional Mr. K came out to race.  Mr. K took the lead pretty quickly, and I was doing OK--trying my darndest to catch up-- until all of my momentum turned into an epic barrel roll.  All I remember is tripping, then knees, back, knees, back.  Later I found out that Mr. C wiped out as well, but more like a cartoon character losing their footing, then suddenly falling all at once.  I wish someone had taken a video, but it probably didn't look as awesome as I imagined it did.  All the kids kept asking, "are you OK?!" I assured them I was just fine, then followed up with asking how awesome my wipe out was.

      "Um...it looked like it hurt a lot."

    Making memories. 

The Ying and Yang of Friday

Today was awesome and awful all at the same time.  Of course, the emotional roller-coaster is very student-centric.

I'll start with the bad; let's call him Will.  I've been trying my darndest to connect with this kid and understand his creative process.  He worked really well yesterday by first writing out all of his ideas on the whiteboard, and then transferring them to a piece of paper.  It seemed to work for him.  I thought it was fantastic; I was flexible to meet his needs, and he was productive to meet my expectations.  Today, he was not meeting me halfway.  He was being obnoxious while everyone else was diligently, and silently, toiling away.  It killed me that his constant interruptions were unending, and on top of that, he jokingly would make disrespectful comments towards my class (long story).  I finally gave him the final warning, "Will, my next step is issuing you an ELO."  (ELO in this district means Extended Learning Opportunity after school, which is the nicest way of saying detention.  Students have an individualized character-building lesson to target their offensive behavior, and come out of it with a goal to change things in the future.) Either he didn't believe me or he thought, in the moment, that he didn't care.  He took that last risk, and I issued the due diligence.  Our interaction ended with him in tears, and me calling administration.

HOWEVER!  Here's the highlight of my day:


In my first hour is a student, let's call her Amelie, who has an emotional/behavioral situation which disrupts her life.  In the mornings, for some reason, she's super chill and with it.  She does pretty OK in my class, which is her first block.  After lunch, however--good luck.   She's been seen up and down the hallways, sitting on the counters in the main office, using disrespectful language towards staff, whathaveyou.  She has a paraprofessional with her at all times to track her behavior and re-direct, and ultimately remove if necessary.  This morning in Language Arts, I was having the students focus on finishing their writing assessment piece.  She had only gotten about a half a paragraph down, due to absences and off-task behavior (but more so the absences).  Today, she completed three handwritten pages, and typed the finished product, topping it off with an illustration as well!  I was blown away and gave her the biggest high five to celebrate.

Horseteeth

There's a student in my second hour block...let's called him Alan*.  Alan has a tendency to shut down when faced with a task.  Especially language arts tasks....

This is what my class sounds like to him:
Me:   "Write a dialogue about how the color orange talks to the color blue!"  
Him:  "Um....no..."

Today, he was facing the daunting task of the Seedfolks writing assessment; write the next chapter in the book, either using an already established character, or him/herself as a character.  (The stories my classes have been coming up with are amazing.  I feel like I'm just facilitating a creative writing class at a university.  I'm honestly terrified that I will have nothing to teach my brilliant authors.)  However, Alan doesn't find this task so easy or inspiring.  He's had a blank writer's notebook for three days now.  

Until.  Today.

I had him at the table in the front of the room with me, along with two other students afflicted with writer's block.  One student got his idea rolling, and the student next to him was adding on details to her already budding chapter.  Alan sat there with his usual pout, counting down the seconds until class was over.

"Ok, are you going to use yourself or an already established character?"
"I dunno." 
"Alrighty, we're going to use you.  So, you're in Cleveland.  Why are you in Cleveland?"
Shrug.
"Ok, you moved there.  Who did you go with?  Your family?  Your friends?"
Another student at the table chimes in, "all by himself."
"All alone.  All alone except for your pet cat.   Poor kitty.  What's the kitty's name?"
Shrug.
I meow.  In my best feline voice:  "Alan...meow...what's my name?"
A long pause ensues.  

I was awaiting the next inevitable shrug.  But instead: "Horseteeth."
I rolled with it right away, like he had suggested the name Fluffy, "OK, Horseteeth-- is Horseteeth hungry?"
That cracked him.  He was giggling, even though he was trying to hide it behind his hands.  "That sounds so funny."
"What, Horseteeth?"  He, and the other two students at the table, were giggling uncontrollably at this point.  I drew a quick cartoon of what I imagined Horseteeth looking like.  This, of course, just fueled the giggle fire.  
"Ok," I say, "Horseteeth is hungry.  Where do you go to get food?"
Between giggles, Alan answers, "down to the pet food store."
"Neat, which character in the book do you run into there?"
"Oh, Virgil.  He's buying food..."
"Ah, for his pet donkey!" I suggest.
"He had a pet donkey?"
"No, but you're the author now, you can make him have a donkey."
Before he left for the day, he had a smile on his face and agreed to working on his piece at home.  It was the highlight of my day.  

Story number two: third block, my squirmiest class.  In the midst of a great discussion about our latest chapter in the book, Norman* raised his hand.  He has this habit of asking a series of questions, and prefacing it by giving me an outline of his questions to come, "I have three questions.  Firstly..."
His third question he admitted wasn't even a question.  "You look like an old-school school teacher, ready to whip the back of our hands."  The class erupted in laughter.  Let me explain.  I have some sweet new Prada classes, in a style that I believe my grandma also had...in 1954...  I was wearing a fitted, short-sleeve, white, crew-neck sweater and a knee-length black skirt, complete with black and white striped peep-toe pumps.  I was carrying around a metal rod from one of my older-model filing cabinets (the piece that helps unlock the door...which explains why I can't get into it, and why there's a strange odor which emits from the drawer above...)  I was using the metal rod as a pointer to point to a chart on my back wall which displays all of the editing marks we use in writing.  Could I get  any more old-school?  It was true though.  I noticed that students would flinch when I would circulate around the class room.   

I hope you've enjoyed my stories.   

*All student names have been changed

Word

As promised, here is my lovely door :)  Look at all of these fabulous words!  I totally forgot about "polychromatic" and "bumfuzzle."  So funny.  I gave this same assignment for the weekend, but I'm thinking this following week to have a vocabulary quiz on what they come up with :D  Can you think of anything more student-centered?  (Well probably...now that I think of it...)

Friday was awesome.  I handed out the Scholastic book order form, which I know takes you right back to your own elementary experience.  We shared what we thought looked really interesting and worth buying, and one item for sale is...

This book teaches the reader how to create their own catapult to chuck (small) pumpkins!  WHAT!  It tied in nicely to something we talked about, which was the increase for STEM jobs available (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics), as featured on CNN Student News on Friday, September 26th.  Some other interesting reads for kids this month in October:

From School Library Journal

"Grade 6–10—Thomas wakes up in an elevator, remembering nothing but his own name. He emerges into a world of about 60 teen boys who have learned to survive in a completely enclosed environment, subsisting on their own agriculture and supplies from below. A new boy arrives every 30 days. The original group has been in "the glade" for two years, trying to find a way to escape through a maze that surrounds their living space. They have begun to give up hope. Then a comatose girl arrives with a strange note, and their world begins to change. There are some great, fast-paced action scenes, particularly those involving the nightmarish Grievers who plague the boys. "

"World's Scariest Prisons will explore the most terrifying prisons of all time. From the Roman Coliseum to the Bastille, the Tower of London to Alcatraz, World's Scariest Prisons will captivate young readers! Each prison will receive its own photo-intensive overview as well as a sidebar, a break out fact box, and a quote. Each prison profile will be followed by a feature spread that explores high-interest topics such as prison slang, prison clothes, and prison food, as well as little known details about kids in prison, famous escapees, and ghost stories. World's Scariest Prisons will be equal parts informative and fun. Perfect for reluctant readers, the text will be simple and engaging." (amazon.com)

"Torrey Grey is famous. At least, on the internet. Thousands of people watch her popular videos on fashion and beauty. But when Torrey's sister is killed in an accident -- maybe because of Torrey and her videos -- Torrey's perfect world implodes.

Now, strangers online are bashing Torrey. And at her new school, she doesn't know who to trust. Is queen bee Blair only being sweet because of Torrey's internet infamy? What about Raylene, who is decidedly unpopular, but seems accepts Torrey for who she is? And then there's Luis, with his brooding dark eyes, whose family runs the local funeral home. Torrey finds herself drawn to Luis, and his fascinating stories about El dio de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead.As the Day of the Dead draws near, Torrey will have to really look at her own feelings about death, and life, and everything in between. Can she learn to mourn her sister out of the public eye?" (amazon.com)

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There were some other really creepy books that sounded suspenseful and intriguing, but I can't remember the titles!  It seems that a new fad in juvenile literature is post-apocalyptic scenarios.  That makes me think of the book Empty; I almost read it in it's entirety during one of my substitute-teaching days.  

   In other news, highlights from my week:

"Ms. McAlpin, I'm sad."

"Why is that Alaina*?" 

"I have to go to the dentist today."

"Oh, you don't like the dentist?"

"No, I do.  But I have to miss your class for it."  

D'awwww. 

*name has been changed

Just one of those days

 
    I thought for sure that today was going to be one of those days where my kiddos were just...off.  It was pajama day, the second day of a very quiet, lengthy reading assessment...it had all the ingredients for students to be nutty.  I wouldn't say they were nutty, but I felt like my brain was all over the place trying to answer everyone's questions.  There was one student in particular that I was dreading having to deal with today because he's one to do ANYTHING to get out of a work task.
    "I have to go to the bathroom."
    "You had break two minutes ago."
    "I have to go to the science teacher to get a pass for..."
    "That can wait until home base."
    "Errrrrrrr...uuuuuugggghhhh....I don't understaaaaand this...." He flops on the floor.
    "The thing is, Sam, (name has been changed) you actually do understand this, you just have to DO it."

    I was trying to find the number to call for our in-school detention-like room.  I couldn't figure out the number, and my 'buddy' teacher wasn't answering--I believe he had a cross country meet today.  I was racking my brain, trying to figure out what in the world to do; the expectations for this task was the same for everyone.  I wasn't going to let him just putz around and do nothing while everyone else was working away diligently.  I finally just decided to walk him through the assignment like I would with a student with additional needs...and strangely enough...it worked.  He was groaning through the whole assignment, but with prompts for each step, he would follow through.  We were down to the last one, and he asked me, "Isn't this good enough?  Am I done?"
    "C'mon man, this is like a marathon and you're at the finish line, you just have to bust through that tape!"  And there was my moment of the day--he smiled.  (He usually has this pouty, tough guy front, so to get him to genuinely smile was huge for me). And then he did the last piece of the assessment.  It was my win for the day.
    The rest of my day wasn't perfect, there were still several students mentally floating around in the clouds, giving me 5% effort on their final assessment that makes up 80% of their grade.  But I focus on the positive, always.  It was also pajama day; which is always a positive.  I wore my matching owl pajama pants (designed by Jean B. Marie) and owl slippers.
     Tomorrow's Friday.  Life can't get much better.