Another Beginning.

Life has moved fast these past two weeks. It is hard to believe I only posted 12 days ago because it quite literally feels like a century ago. In the past two weeks I have moved into a new house, transformed a classroom from an empty room (not a desk, chair or rug to be seen) to a room full of centers, posters and 20 untamed but loveable four year olds. I survived (with some bruises and cuts) my first week of teaching as a first year teacher in a first year school.

I must admit after working with third graders this summer, I thought I would have it easy with my little pre-k kids this year. I thought, even though institute was hard, I will have more time to prepare my classroom, I will have more resources at my school and how hard can it really be to work with four year olds? How far behind can they really be? They are little sponges, they haven't learned how to oppose authority yet, they haven't learned to be afraid of their own potential or how to hurt. I was wrong. SO wrong.

Do NOT get me wrong, I LOVE my kids. But they are a handful. I thought before I started, between myself and my para, how hard can classroom management really be? How out of hand can my kids really get? Well, I had not met who we will call "T" yet. I knew who T was before I even met him. Bright and early Monday morning, I was approached by another teacher who said, "You have T don't you?". Checking my roster, I looked down and agreed and asked why. "He wet his pants" she answered matter of factly. And that was the beginning. T is the most loveable child I have ever met, but also incredibly exhausting. He runs everywhere. He runs around the classroom, he runs down the hall, he sometimes gets up and runs out the door. He hits. He hits other students, he hits teachers and he hits everything that can be hit. Not to mention, he screams. When he does not get his way, he screams. If you hold him down (which we constantly have to do for his own safety and the safety of his classmates) he erupts into the loudest cry I have ever heard. His favorite word is NO. I hear it 24/7. He is a living, breathing, screaming tornado. He pulls things off the wall, out of boxes, out of cubbies and then has the audacity to tell me something is not where it goes with an insistent point of a finger. But oh my god, is this kid loveable. When T is good, he is an angel. Several of the boys and girls in the class have "missing mommy" syndrome, where they cry periodically throughout the day for their mommy to come back. When this happens, T often goes up to the crying child and rubs his/her back and says, it will be okay, don't cry. He greets me with a HUGE hug most mornings and sits up with the most proud posture with the mention of the positive behavior he is exhibiting. Oh my god he knows how to make me mad, but at the end of the day he is just a four year old boy with a huge personality, an endearing smile, contagious laugh and an obsession with his stuffed horse. He is adorable and smart, but takes the full attention of the classroom.

The rest of my kids are manageable with two teachers; however, since my para is constantly on T patrol, it often ends up being a 19:1 ratio of students to myself, which is not manageable when three of students constantly want mommy and six of my students show their emotions by hitting, punching or pinching. Not to mention the occassional pants wetting, throw up or spill (we don't have janitors by the way). I could type for pages about the funny personalities and quirks of my students and I've only known them a week. G is a little businessman who wants to grow up to be an IT guy and constantly gets in trouble for wrestling with his best friend in the class. Tr is a sassy girl who loves to get up in the middle of rug time while I'm in mid sentence come up and try to sit in my lap, tell me someone pinched her (even though she ALWAYS pinches first) or crossing her legs for dramatic effect, demand that she HAS to use it NOW. She has also been known to wear about a thousand hair decorations in her hair just to oppose the tyranny of school uniforms imposing on her ever growing fashion sense.

So this week I have been working 13, 14, 15 hours day trying to problem solve, prepare and get my head above water. I have this crazy idea that when I can get T under control (which I am SO confident I can once I figure out how his precious little mind works), I can really start teaching my kids. Then today happened. One of my students who has been a no show came into class today for the first time. Just when I thought T could not be outdone, in walked C, who promptly shyly took a seat, looking nervous and holding a tissue to his nose (which I assumed was to keep his sinuses in line, which are currently plaguing the entirety of the school, including myself). I did my best to make him feel welcome and being told he had special needs, but not being told what specifically, I let him sit quietly and observe the other kids before asking him to immerse. Working in our centers for about two minutes while C watched, I heard a noise and looked over to see C scream, hit himself hard in the nose and begin bleeding everywhere (did I mention we don't have a janitor). Of course, four year olds FLIP out when they see this so my para rushed him out of the room while I tried to bring order to the other 17 kids, keep T from running out of the classroom and oh yeah, clean up the blood as quickly as possible. This happened two more times over the course of the day.

So yeah, I am in over my head. Life is not easy. I am sick, I am working 13-15 hours day and plan to work at least 20 hours this weekend (but definitely not tonight). However, I am not broken. I hope you do not think this blog is meant to complain, as it is meant to reflect. I am confident I can overcome the craziness that is my classroom environment right now. Already, T has been making very minimal, but nonetheless substantial gains. The rest of my class does have serious behavior issues (especially the hitting, punching and pinching), but we can move past that. With hard hard hard work, patience and diligence, I know I can get there. With proper accommodations for C, a behavior plan that works for T and a commitment to teaching my pre k kids what it means to be in school, I can open up the classroom for learning.

Last year, my charter network only had 40% of kindergarten ready for 1st grade at the end of the year. Now, this is a huge improvement from before the charter took over the failing school, it was only the first year of the charter and the kinder students started substantially behind grade level (as odd as that sounds). Yet still, that means 60% of kinder students were already victim to the achievement gap, at five years old in a high performing school. This is the first year of pre-k in the charter district and I will NOT allow myself to let my 20 little munchkins go to Kinder without being Kinder ready and above. The achievement gap starts before the kids ever even enter into the school grounds and I am round zero, I am the first chance to catch my kids up before they get 2, 3, 4 years behind. If it means 60-80 hours + weeks every week so be it. I will not rest until T, C and all my other little scholars are ready for kinder. So if you are my personal friend and you feel abandoned by my lack of communication, know that I love you, I just have a big task in front of me. Keep me in your thoughts and know that I miss you! I did not come to New Orleans to teach, I came to New Orleans to change the life trajectory of all my students and as silly as it sounds to think I can impact someone that much at 4 years old, I am going to work knowing that any step in the right direction is impactful for any student at any age. I leave you with this.....

“What is happening to our world is almost too colossal for human comprehension to contain…To contemplate its girth and its circumference, to attempt to define it, to try and fight it all at once, is impossible. The only way to combat it is by fighting specific wars in specific ways.”
-Arundhati Roy