Bloated Self Esteem and Haterade

No time for introductions or fancy prose. Too much to say....

Monday the letters went home telling the parents about the move. We were instructed to NOT reach out to parents until Thursday when our CEO would be at the school holding a meeting, but you all know I am not one for patience, so I strategically stayed late at school hoping parents would approach me, or called families for other reasons (field trip chaperone confirmation, great test scores) and waited for them to bring it up, just to gauge interest. Parents generally confirmed three feelings a) the distance was rough b) the size made them uneasy and c) at least I would still be with them. By Thursday, my most apprehensive parents went to the meeting and besides personally feeling as though the meeting was more a PR move than genuine helpful or empathetic transfer of information, my most apprehensive parents were more on board with it by the end. I am more hopeful now than I was last week that I will retain my class.

My emotions were up and down all week long. Some days I was so optimistic and excited for my new resources, a chance to revamp some classroom systems through the move and just the excitement of starting over, another adventure. Some days my attitude was extremely cynical (I'll let your mind wander into the thoughts I was having), but one positive that came from this week was the support I felt from parents. My kids parents adore me. Really. I always criticized myself a bit for not spending more time reaching out to parents. Some other teachers I know call parents once a week with a positive about their student, some teachers plan parent events constantly and get to know them beyond the connection of the student. With the craziness that has been my first year, I have had to triage parent contact into what is sustainable and practical and it has resulted in daily communication via the homework folder (just behavior scores and sometimes very brief comments), two field trips with over 5 chaperones each, a couple phone calls/parent conferences when students are cutting up in school, one parent night, one report card conference day and lots of informal communication when parents bring in or drop off their students. Honestly, this is an area of deficiency for me.

With this in mind, I think I was surprised at how insistent parents were that I stay with their students. Honestly as a white 21 year old woman working in the ninth ward of New Orleans, you always anticipate that you are going to have to overcome negative images and perceptions from parents and therefore are going to have to go above and beyond in the field of relationships with families in order to squash any negativity. But for some reason, my parents love me. So many parents pulled me aside and said variations of my student is learning so much, you have been such a wonderful teacher, my student talks about you constantly, this is such a great atmosphere, I can't lose you as a teacher. Being myself, I know that I love their kids more than I love my right arm and spend absolutely absurd amounts of time planning, preparing and reflecting on perfecting my instruction and management for their kids. I know that my arm blew up to four times the size it was before when C scratched me hard and the wound got infected, but I still would raise C as my own in a heartbeat. I know that while I am not an experienced teacher or notably fantastic, I am at least giving my students my life in some sort of effort to make up for my inadequacies and the inadequacies life has served them up to this point. But I did not know my parents knew this. I mean to some extent, my parents do not know this fully, but this week has shown me that they sincerely know I am in this for real, not as a way to pay bills or boost my resume or pass the time, but I am in it to make real academic gains. One mom shed some light with me when she said, "You know I go to this church here and my student stays after school at the nursery and I see you sneaking in on Saturdays and Sundays and I see you here at 6pm and you do not look like you are leaving anytime soon", she continued, "You know everyone at the church just talks about how hard you work and how you are here all the time and my student has learned so much from you. He sits at home and says, '/b/ backyard, that's b! /f/ fence, that's f!' all day long. That is why I don't care where you move the class, as long as my student is with you, I'm staying."

Feel good moment. Granted, I do not deserve this level of praise. I know that there is SO much more I could be doing and my physical exhaustion and to be frank, selfishness, on some days prevents it from getting done. I know I lack experience and have so many areas to improve and I will not even say that my students are better off with me than they would be with another teacher because I do not know that. But, what I do know is I CARE and it is nice for someone to acknowledge the fact that I do care, probably an unhealthy amount. So maybe actions really do speak louder than words sometimes.

With the bloated self esteem aside from parent sentiments, let's move onto the hard data. My end of the year goal is for 100% (all 20) of my students to be at a pre-read level on the STEP test. Basically it is a reading test, that if you pass, qualifies you as "pre-read" or kinder ready in literacy and if you fail, qualifies you as "before pre-read" or below kinder in literacy. But I have until May to make this a reality in my classroom. This is such an important goal, as 95% of the kinder students in our school came in at the before pre-read level or under grade level this year. That means already at the Kinder level, the Kinder teachers are required to produce more than a year of growth in only one year in order to "catch students up". I know I am getting technical, but bare with me . So we had our students take the test for the first time to see how close they were passing the Pre-Read, their areas of improvement, what they already know, etc. FIVE OF MY STUDENTS PASSED! 25% of my class has reached their end goal in literacy at this point in time, less than half way through the year. Now, I feel as though I can only take credit for one of the scores fully, as four of the five who passed came into the year knowing a lot, especially compared to the rest of the class. Granted, they would not have been at a passing level on a day one, but getting them there did not take long. The other one of the five however, I am going to brag about because that little girl came in knowing nothing. I was honestly shocked when the other Pre-K teacher who tested her (we test each other's kids to reduce bias) told me she passed.

This is what I am more proud of: alphabet knowledge! My students came in knowing NO letters. Seriously, letters were like foreign objects to my kiddos. I'm not talking letter sounds, or writing letters, I'm saying they looked at letter A and then looked at me blank, unable to connect verbally that that was letter "a". On the STEP test, we test 54 letters (all 26 uppercase, 26 lowercase, typed a (as opposed to the typical a) and typed g (as opposed to the traditional g). To pass the test, you have to know 15 letters. My quarter goal was knowing 20 letters and my end of the year goal is to know 40+ letters. 95% of my students, or all but one knew 20+ letters. Many were closer to the 30s or 40s in how many letters they knew. My one student who did not know 20 only knew 6, so she is a huge concern for me, but I will get her there too.

I know this is a weird one to be proud of, as letters seem pretty easy to teach, but they are so significant. Some prisons use 3rd grade reading scores in communities to plan for how many beds they will need in the future (AOI Business Viewpoint, July-August 2006). I have known this for a long time and this has motivated me in so many ways. However, what I learned recently in a professional development (and I apologize for no citation-perhaps she made it up) is that the NUMBER ONE predictor of 3rd grade reading scores is as plain and simple alphabet knowledge. Not sounds, not writing, just verbally being able to see a and say, "a". The more letters students know, the more likely they are to read on level in the future.

So, I am going to get them there. Plain and simple. I have had progress that I am proud of, but it is not time to stop yet.

On a less exciting note, some more people have been drinking the Hannah Haterade. Despite my immense growths in self image due to positive parent feedback and great test results, I still got some haters out there (sorry Roger, I know you don't like the term haters, but I do). Unfortunately, the new school I am being integrated into is being a little negative towards us, as we discovered at our district wide professional development. Not realizing I was from the school, I overheard my future coworkers talking about my current school and how the only reason we got such great test scores (our students started out LOWER than the other three schools in our district in all grades, but are now almost caught up or higher than the other three schools in literacy) was because we were small and it must be NICE to be so small. Biting my tongue, I didn't retort about our lack of resources, being displaced half way through the year, our absolutely exceptional behavior issues or starting from literally nothing, but just took a breath and knew we would prove them wrong. Also, more upsetting, I was speaking with one of the Pre-K teachers at the school I am going to and casually talking about how I have ridiculous behavior problems in my class and she would get to know my loves quick. Instead of laughing with me about how ridiculous my problems are (seriously-who gets clawed and bit in their daily job who is not a vet), she said, "Oh we had behavior problems at the beginning of the year, but we fixed that in the first two weeks of school. B (referring to the other veteran Pre-K teacher) will fix your kids too." I know for a FACT that my students have come a LONG way behaviorally, but yet again, my kids started off low behaviorally. Just like our school was lower academically, our poverty and societal stressors are even more intense than the other schools. I mean I work in the ninth ward. Granted, I do not want to sound petty, all the schools in my district work with families from essentially the roughest and toughest parts of New Orleans, the state and the country to be transparent. But from talking to B, the woman who my co-worker insisted will "fix" my kids, she said flat out that they got lucky this year and really do not have exceptional behavior problems. The administrative assistant at my new school said flat out, oh you are the teacher who teaches T and C, I have heard you are doing a great job with them! because my students are so infamous not just in our tiny school, but in the entire district. I am not complaining because I know I love T and C most likely more than my other kiddos, but I was not dealt an easy card this year. So maybe I am being shallow and trashy, but it legitimately angered me to have my future co-worker imply that I was the problem with their behavior, when I know they have both improved tremendously since day one. And excuse me, but they do NOT need to be fixed because while they have tremendous problems, they are not broken.

So yeah, the haters are at it again. Drinking the haterade. But I am going to try not to be bitter. This teacher who said this to me is a first year teacher as well and honestly, is probably just apprehensive about having two more pre-k teachers come over to her neck of the woods. She has only been a teacher for one year, so she does not realize that some classes are legitimately just rougher than others. I learned this lesson quick as my class curses and fights constantly and the other Pre-K class at my school has been quiet and shy from day one. Classes just have different personalities and manifest themselves in different ways. My other pre-k teacher has trouble keeping her kids awake and enticing them to interact with their peers, as they are incredibly timid and shy as a class. I have trouble getting mine to sleep and they love to talk about Chuckie or prison or how they had to switch bus stops because people kept getting shot there. I only have one girl who is even semi shy. As my para always says, "Our kids are not four. They are grown up men and women." And it is true. Our kids are from the same neighborhood and go to the same school, but for some reasons, they are two different groups of kids. Just the way life works. So this new pre-k teacher will see. Hopefully B will be able to help me, as in all honesty, I do need help with my special cases. I am not narcissistic enough to say otherwise. But I will not let the other pre-k teacher make me feel inadequate or like I am the problem (although she did succeed in making me question myself for a good two days), when I know that this year, it was just the luck of the draw and I was lucky enough to pull the kids with the most intense of behavior problems, which in all honesty, is exactly what I wanted. I may have the hardest kids, but they need me the most and have the most room to grow.

So I know that post was SO long. I am sorry. But I had major events happen this week and needed the reflection of an empty text box to sort out my emotions. Hope you enjoyed the read and keep my kids in your thoughts.

"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence" -Robert Frost