The Green, Green Grass of Home...

Okay,

Los Angeles has been my home for more than two decades, and before that, I lived in NYC, Connecticut, Boston, New Jersey, and Cape Cod (random order). And, well... I've never actually lived in North Carolina.

But home is, after all, where the heart is. And could my heart have a better home than here where my youngest brother, sister-in-law, mother, and step-dad live? (not to mention all the four legged family members here).

It was a very quiet 4th of July here. Just a traditional (for my family) barbeque with enough food to feed the first continental congress. As I type, everyone is downstairs playing Wii Fit. Who knew that my 72 year old mother could hula hoop???

Tomorrow, we'll be having left-overs and playing in the pool. Perhaps my jet lag will have passed (I get it whenever I take the red-eye anywhere...probably because I don't sleep well in a moving vehicle). Perhaps I'll use vacation as an excuse for a nap. Perhaps I'll just enjoy hanging out with the doggies. Perhaps I'll talk someone into taking me on tour of the area with my camera.

The one thing that is certain? It's time to bid goodnight and sweet dreams to all.

The secret of life...

One of my favorite songs is sung by Faith Hill, it's called The Secret of Life.
The lyrics are :
the secret of life is getting up early,
the secret of life is staying up late,
the secret of life is try not to hurry, but don't wait, don't wait.
the secret of life is a good cup of coffee,
the secret of life is keep your eye on the ball,
the secret of life is to find (be) the right woman,
the secret of life is nothing at all, it's nothing at all...
I suppose that one of the other secrets is forgiveness, beginning with forgiving one's self.
Being repeat season, I got the chance to see Dr. Wayne Dyer on the Ellen DeGeneres show. His new book is called Excuses Begone!
As I listened to him speak, I realized just how hypercritical I am about myself. It made me wonder, have I always felt this way about myself? Or is this because I am finding myself feeling less in control of my life and consequently, more overwhelmed?
If I rationalize to myself, I can find validation and yet, it seems so hard to internalize and make what I know become how I feel.
I suppose that once I commit this blog to the world, I'll regret how self-indulgent it seems. But for now, I'll hope that someone stumbles across this posting and perhaps feels less alone in their own self-doubts.
And on that note, I bid goodnight and sweet dreams to all.

Lazy days of summer

Even though school officially ended a week ago, today actually felt like summer.
My day got off to a late start. Shaina and Yuki decided to sleep in and permitted me the same luxury. I woke up to a truly glorious, sunny day.
After making some coffee, the neighbors came to call. Reese bounded in with her usual energy and made herself quite at home with a large leather chew chip. My pups grabbed their chews and stretched out to enjoy some canine bonding.
The blankets were hung off the patio to enjoy the breeze. It seems so strange that even living a block off of a very busy street, the blankets still came in smelling fresh. They smelled so inviting that I took an unplanned nap on one.
I woke up in time to take my father for a belated birthday dinner. Between the glass of wine and his limiting the theater talk, it was a remarkably pleasant evening.
And now, I am again curled up with the beasties on the fresh blankets, getting excited about the Fourth of July in North Carolina.
So for now, goodnight and sweet dreams!

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more"

The beauty of the internet is the ability to learn more about any given topic.
The dark side of the internet is the ability to learn more about any given topic, and by doing so become obsessed by it.
My obsession du jour (okay...du tous les jours) has become education.
As a teacher, I've been very interested in education (as it pertains to my students) for 21 years. Lately, however, I'm becoming obsessed with the politics of education.
This is an exceptionally strange concept. To me, one of the most precious things about teaching was having the ability to isolate myself in my classroom with students and curriculum and thus shut out the noise of the world, largely? educational politics.
With the inception of No Child Left Behind and the shift from teaching children to teaching programs, politics encroached upon my warm, safe, and creative sanctuary. The past three years have been especially odious with an administrator who spent an inadequately brief time as a teacher before her promotions.
My prior administrator did grievous damage to our school because she saw discipline as a necessarily unloving act toward the students. As a consequence, children ran amok and safety became a major issue. But in matters of academics, she looked at the evidence.
While I do not teach 'conventionally' (that is to say, I don't adhere to the structural protocols of the scripted programs, instead teaching the concepts and skills in a more rigorous, child friendly manner), my students were successful. Upon learning how well my kindergarten students were reading and writing, she encouraged me to continue with my methods.
The current administrator does not have that same sensibility.
She feels the need to restrict my teaching to the protocols of whole group instruction, despite research and rationale that supports small groups. She doesn't seem to understand why my students write letters instead of tracing them in the air (and then holds the expectation that they'll have 'nice writing'). And worst of all, she cannot fathom why my students write in journals when Open Court does not include it. She particularly can't understand why I would use their journals to assess their grasps of concepts when there are tests available that allow them to circle pictures instead.
This past year, I lost an enormous amount of sleep trying to reconcile wanting to do everything possible for my students with wanting to not be insubordinate. I suspect that my insomnia will be working overtime reconciling my desire for positive feedback from my boss with my much greater sense of duty to the community that looks to me to be their teacher.
(these kids are adults now. it sure doesn't seem that long ago...)

Still crazy after all these years...

I'd like to say I'm astonished, surprised, or even just miffed, but it wouldn't be true.
My father is here visiting and this morning he did something that in the grander scheme of things is barely out of the ordinary for him. He has spent a lifetime being self-centered, disdaining any rules that violate HIS sense of right and wrong, and having even greater disdain for any person who feels that there should be boundaries.
The thing that really needs to be stated is that he is staying at my home, however dinky this apartment might be. My home = my rules, that was how it worked when I was in his home. I can deal with some of his eccentricities, including his disregard for sanitation when it comes to leaving food uncovered in the kitchen (guess he never heard of bugs in all the years he lived in NYC). Today was a whole new level of gross. 80 years old and still does not understand that common courtesy and respect for others are neither fascistic nor tyrannical.
So, I spent another day in school as though my school year has not already ended. Avoidance behaviors begin almost the moment that I arrive at Angeles Mesa. Instead of packing the last two boxes of miscellaneous classroom stuff, I emptied my art closet to rearrange it and brought in several reams of paper to make my journals for fall's new students.
The entire time, I thought about being home and knitting in my hammock, or some card making, or maybe just an extended nap. But home is not my home until next Tuesday when we put him on an airplane to go back to his home.
The Little Princess was once my very favorite book. Sara Crewe was her daddy's little princess, a plot point that could only be fantasy for me. I've always wanted that Hollywood-style, romanticized image of the father daughter relationship. And even after all these years, it's hard to reconcile myself to the fact that at best we can have a pleasant breakfast together.

I did it my way...

I began my teaching career in a classroom that had almost no textbooks. It wasn't in some remote village in a 'third world nation' but rather a marginally inner-city school in California, one of the top ten economies globally. I was teaching on an 'emergency credential' based on a wonderful letter of recommendation from the head of my previous union, M. Contreras, a valid BA degree, and passing scores on the CBEST and NTA exams.
Fortuitously, I had spent time in my mother's classroom, have a natural rapport with children, and learn quickly. I trusted my intuition and worked very hard with that first class of third graders. One of my principal assigned mentors had retired from teaching in a juvenile detention facility, another was a fellow teacher who could intimidate adults, but somehow I managed to bring compassion to the situation and gain the trust of my students.
With the help of our computer teacher, E. Armour, and our coordinator, J.Polite, I was able to pull together a 'curriculum' with the books that I was able to find around the school and materials that I purchased or borrowed. I was frequently at Kinko's making copies that would be clear enough to read.
I found 'core lit' books that were supposed to be for fourth and fifth grade and intuitively modeled comprehension strategies. Somehow I managed to get through the year unscarred and unscared by the LAUSD teaching profession.
The following year, I began an internship program where I got support from a network of mentor teachers. Everything was tailored to the needs of a new urban teacher. I took a great number of professional development classes in curriculum and management. Over the next two years, I got my credential as I honed my skills in the classroom. I even became a solid disciplinarian without having to become someone else (think Miss Nelson is Missing). I continued taking various professional developments and even managed to earn a bilingual credential.
I quickly became one of those teachers who parents request for their children and whose classroom the students wanted to be in. I was selected by my principal and a group of colleagues to be a mentor teacher and assist new teachers. My students' scores on standardized tests showed significant improvements. One year, my entire class scored above the 50th percentile (many scored 80th and above) in listening skills on the state test despite being English Language Learners.
Lest it seem that I'm trying to 'toot my own horn', my point is that I've been able to make a positive difference for my students. I even dealt with No Child Left Behind's scripted program and did whatever I could to make it work for my students.
I had one administrator who tried to mandate my methods of teaching, but upon seeing how well my class was progressing decided that I should keep doing whatever I had been doing, and help my grade level colleagues do the same.
Now, I am dealing with a principal who spent very little time in the classroom before climbing the career ladder. I don't begrudge her choices, but she does not have a good sense of what real teaching is. She mandates classroom schedules, pacing plans, and this year she mandated how I teach to force me to instruct 'whole group'.
Whole group means that five year old children sit through tedious scripted lesson for most of the time instead of being actively engaged in activity. I'm not even referring to the developmentally appropriate activities of painting, singing, socializing, dancing, building, and exploring. I'm referring to selecting books to browse, drawing pictures to develop their oral and written expression, cutting and pasting, and independently 'writing'.
My students suffered this year. Because of the "whole group mandate" I was unable to give them sufficient individual attention. This translates to my being unable to work on clear speech articulation, differentiated instruction, phonemic awareness, and explicit direction in letter formation (not exactly the cookies, milk, finger-painting, and nap-time of my kindergarten days). My insomnia went into overdrive, unable to sleep because I felt horrible weighing the choice of insubordination and failing my students.
Next year, she wants to mandate how my classroom will be set up? Everyone who has entered my classroom has commented positively. Kids want to be in my classroom, parents want their children to be in my classroom, even administrative visitors like the environment.
I have spent 21 years working on being the best teacher for the community I serve and I'm undermined by my principal and yet, I go online and find all kinds of teacher-bashing. I just wish that some of these people could walk a mile in my shoes. If they only walked a quarter mile, they'd recognize that there are dedicated teachers. And if they walked another half mile, they'd see that it's not teachers who are failing students.
As for next year, I think I'll do it my way.