The trains were conspiring against me!

I so wanted to make yoga today before the long Thanksgiving weekend.

I taught Extended Day today which ends at 5:15. Just enough time to rush to my yoga class on St. Marks, change, and have a few minutes to spare. Today I had to make a quick phone call after dismissing my class to pay off my student loan (I'd been missing business hours for so long and the interest has been racking up daily. It had to get done today). The call went quickly but as I left the building I saw that I had somehow lost thirteen minutes in the process.

I raced to the train and just missed the J train. Then I got to the F and as the minutes passed and no train came I realized there was no way I could make it to class.

Dramatic, I know, but I was so looking forward to going.

Speaking of "Where did you learn that?"

Today one of my first graders was writing about her mom in the family books that we are making. She wanted to know how to write that her mom was playing and demonstrated sitting cross-legged with her hands on her knees and thumbs and index fingers pressed together.

"Oh, your mom does yoga?"

"Yeah!"

It was so funny that she mentioned that because I remember catching her playing around on the rug last year in what looked suspiciously like downward facing dog and side plank. I wasn't sure if I was just imagining that it looked like yoga though because many poses I do in yoga are ones that I did as a kid playing around or in gymnastics class. I tried to ask her where she learned that but she wasn't really able to explain it to me. Now, a year later, she can verbalize that she watches her mom do yoga at home.

How I Spent My Halloween

On October 31st when others were dressed up and gallivanting around the city, I was at a panel discussion about Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York. I wrote about visiting the exhibit at the Municipal Arts Society and this event was related to that exhibit.

Here are eight minutes edited from the two hour panel discussion. You can catch a glimpse of me in the audience (in the red v-neck) right at the beginning of the clip. You'll notice that many people were wearing Harry Potter-esque, round, black-rimmed glasses. They were handing them out for audience members to wear as a sort-of tribute to Jane Jacobs who was known for wearing similar glasses. I did actually wear the glasses for most of the discussion (and was so proud for actually "dressing up" for Halloween after all), but alas, they filmed me at the one moment that I wasn't wearing the glasses.

Three Day Week!

It's Sunday night but we have just a three day week to look forward to so I'm feeling OK about that. On Tuesday I have a PD about preparing ELLs for Day 2 of the EL*A. So really I have the easiest week ever. I'm actually worried that I don't have ENOUGH time to finish everything that I wanted to get done by the break.

Today I went shopping for Thanksgiving dinner. I'm so excited. Thanksgiving at my apartment has become a tradition since I moved to NYC. This year Jules and "Boyfriend" are coming again and I am so excited. My sister is coming on Wednesday. It's going to be a good break. I just have to get in two more yoga classes by Wednesday because I know that I won't be going while my sister is here. (Four whole days without yoga!!)

This Year I'm Doing it All . . .

. . . Saturday Academy for three hours each week, Extended Day twice a week for an hour and a half, and a "study group" every Wednesday for two hours (not to mention this week was parent-teacher conferences!). I'm exhausted! But I'm making it through. And after three whole days, I finally made it to yoga so I'm feeling good.

Now that it gets dark so early it's hard to do anything but go straight home after school. As I'm walking out of the building at 5:15 it feels like I should have been home hours ago and already in my sweats and making dinner. It takes everything I have to remember that 5:15 really isn't late at all. If it were May, it would be afternoon and I'd be feeling thankful that I'm a teacher and have a chance to be free and out of work so early. But for now, it's dark and cold for another few months.

***

Extended Day went sooo much better today than last Thursday (which was our first session). Coming into the class not knowing the kids (they are fourth graders that I don't normally work with), not knowing the materials I'd be working with (the AP gave me the books 15 minutes after the session started), not having any snack provided by the school, and--seemingly insignificant, but--not having working clocks that day, really spelled disaster for the end of a long day.

Today however, I came in prepared: I put the desks in a new seating arrangement (one long table with all the kids), brought pretzels (to be handed out to on-task students), and came armed with some better teaching strategies. It made all the difference and today the class a pleasure. The time flew by and before I knew it we had just 20 minutes to complete our last section and go over it. I don't know if the timing felt better to the kids too but at least with the clocks working they didn't have to ask me the time every two minutes.

There is one girl that is driving me crazy though. She always wants to read, answer the question, or add to what someone else said. If she doesn't get to talk every time she starts getting really frustrated. The first day I finally snapped and yelled at her about there being nine other kids in the room and she can't speak all the time; she has to wait her turn. Today I was a little more patient. I also tried to make the turns predictable by having them read and answer round robin-style so she knew when her turn was. I had wanted to write names on popsicle sticks to draw randomly but I didn't have time to prepare that for today. At one point I was really trying to get the kids to understand that getting the wrong answer isn't something to be embarrassed about; now is the time to talk about our answers so that we can figure out why we got the wrong answer and be able to get it right the next time. Well, she really took that to heart and (I swear) when I asked "did anyone get an answer other than C" (which we had just determined to be the right answer), she said that she first chose D but then changed her mind and put C (and then she went on and on as to why). I was sitting right next to her and she picked C the first time. So she wants to share out so badly that she is willing to lie and say she got the wrong answer because she knew I was only calling on kids with the wrong answer at that point. Seriously, I don't know how to deal with her. Somehow I have to tame her a little bit if I am not going to go batty every week. Ideas?

Saturday Morning Yoga at the Y

I'd been looking forward to this class for a while now (I hadn't been able to make it because I was teaching Saturday school). The pace is much slower than the classes that I usually take at Yoga to the People and perfect for a Saturday morning. The change of pace and the change of routine made all the difference in my practice. Today every pose felt right. Each transition flowed smoothly into the next.

Sometimes slowing down is just what we need.

"Where did you hear that?"

Whenever one of my students says something in class that I am surprised that he/she knows, I can't help but ask "Where did you learn that?" or "How do you know that?" Just this week I found myself questioning two students.

*In my kindergarten class we are making family books and on the cover the students drew pictures of their families. J drew her sister. She explained that she is sixteen, lives in Mexico, and has a baby. "Wow. Does she go to school?" I asked. "Yes. My grandma keeps an eye on the baby." Just in case you didn't catch that, my five year old English Language Learner said her grandma "keeps an eye on the baby." I wonder where she could have learned such an idiomatic expression because I know that she speaks Spanish with her family so she didn't overhear it in a conversation about the baby. Did she talk about her baby-sitting grandma to her teacher and then the teacher rephrased it and she just remembered? I did try to ask "Where did you hear that?" But being five she really didn't get what I was asking her and just explained again that her grandma keeps an eye on the baby.

*There was another story that I did get to the bottom of this week. One of my second graders read an independent book about a grandpa who was bored because he didn't work and had nothing to do. Then found a new hobby and was happy again. On the graphic organizer E wrote that the problem in the story was that the "grandpa was fire." I understood that he meant "fired." I asked him to show me where in the book he saw that the grandpa was fired. He showed me the line that said "Grandpa Martin did not work." Smart thinking, I thought. He inferred that the Grandpa was fired because the story said he did not work. But why would he think he was fired? How did he even know that word? Was someone in his family fired? I asked "How do you know that word 'fired.' Where did you hear it?" He explained that in his class they have jobs such as librarian, pencil monitor, etc. and if they don't do a good job the teacher fired them. I praised him for the inference and the connection . . . and then explained what it meant to be retired.

I don't know if it's odd for a teacher to ask "How do you know that?" but if you don't ask you'll never know. I usually find their answers to be quite interesting.

Oh, PD, how I do not love you!

School is kind of a quiet, sad place with no kids--especially on a cold rainy day like today. The building was eerily quiet. The two times I had to walk to the other end of the hall to get something from my room, I rushed to get back to the library where the noise and energy of the teachers spilled out into the hall.

The day, as expected, dragged on and on. The topic of the day: DATA. Specifically, the school progress reports that were released today. We took the entire day to "delve into" the report to figure out what it was saying. And it certainly took a lot of explaining: we got a D.

The best part of the day was the hour and a half lunch break and trip to Dumont Burger.

I Don't Know What Got Into Me Today . . .

. . . but for some reason I felt the need to cook all day.

First, I started a French beef stew. It's a three day process so I'm making it to eat on Monday. Here's what it looks like so far marinating in my fridge.


Then I made a Tuscan white bean stew. It took almost four hours to make but at least it was ready for dinner tonight.


Finally, I made this apple pie. I'd been having the urge to make an apple pie for a week now so I figured while the second stew was cooking I may as well bake a pie. The lattice top isn't the most beautiful but it was my first try.

Talking About Halloween

In the spirit of Halloween I let my kids play a game today. It was a speaking game similar to Taboo. Students partnered up; one pretended to be an alien who just arrived to Earth today, and the other had to explain to the alien what Halloween was without using the taboo words: Halloween, candy, costume, scary, pumpkin, witch, ghost, party, or trick-or-treat. If the student made a mistake and said one of the words, he/she had to give the alien one M&M (each student had a handful).

I did the activity with all of my groups from Kindergarten to Fifth grade. It was interesting to see how the different groups did with the activity. I first did it with my second/third grade group. They had a little trouble with it because they didn't really get that they needed to make someone *understand* what Halloween was about. I was prompting one of the second graders by asking, "What do you do on Halloween?" She said, "I play around." They were all so worried about saying the words that they didn't really explain the holiday and not much candy was exchanged in the process. My fourth/fifth grade group on the other hand couldn't stop saying the taboo words. The youngest groups actually did a pretty good job with the activity although it took a lot of modeling to get them to understand what they needed to do. In all of the groups the students that did the best with the speaking activity were the students who spoke the least English. It actually makes sense though; they are used to having to talk around words that they don't know. For example one student was describing trick-or-treating but couldn't say "candy" so he said, " . . . you get chocolates and other sugar things." That is exactly what someone learning English would say if they didn't know the word for candy. My more proficient speakers had more trouble realizing there was another way to get the meaning of "candy" across.

And That's How You Know It's Been a Really Long Day

When it’s 3:00 and you’re passing out math manipulatives to Kindergartners and say: “J and S you get the green triangles. K and R you get the orange squares. N and V you get the yellow . . . the yellow . . . thingys.”

And N says: “You mean hexagons?”

“Yes. Hexagons.”

“Ms. M, did you forget?”

Newcomer English

Saturday school was not bad at all today.

I got to school with a minute to spare (I forgot to account for weekend train delays). I had just three students. I was hoping for all five but two of the boys have Saturday school at their church--or their mother would have brought them "con mucho gusto," she told me as she dropped off their younger brother who is in Kindergarten. I told the AP that he didn't really need to come. I thought he was doing pretty well in his regular class and was progressing nicely but she said it couldn't hurt. He actually seemed really disoriented during the first part of the morning and probably didn't understand why he was at school on a Saturday without his brothers or classmates. He warmed up though, and so did the other two girls. We had a lot of fun and they were all speaking more than I've ever hear them. (That is repeating after me in English and trying to explain things to me in Spanish, and occasionally attempting to try out some new words or phrases on their own.)

We did my basic first ESL lessons today. A lot of "What is this?" "This is a (insert item you're pointing at)" to get them used to asking and answering about new vocab. We did a lot of TPR (total physical response) to practice things they will often hear their teachers asking them to do in class. We took a tour of the school learning the names of the different rooms (such as library, office, lunch room). You would think that after almost two months of school they would have picked up some of these words but most of the words they didn't know or couldn't produce on their own. Actually the Kindergarten boy knew more then two girls (in second and third grades) did in most cases. He has been in the country about nine months longer than they have and he went to Pre-K at the school for part of last year.

Over all it was a good day and it went by really fast. I was happy with what we were able to accomplish today. It's really unfortunate that my schedule is so full that I don't have a separate time in my schedule for these kids during the regular school day because it is so crucial. I'm glad that I was given the opportunity to teach this Saturday class though.

City Ballet

I really enjoyed the Jane Jacobs exhibition today. It was small but well put together. The first room laid out Jacobs' four principles of urban planning (mixed uses, short city blocks, concentrations of people, and a mix of new and old buildings). A lot of the print and photos on the walls were immediately recognizable from her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Along side that were current examples from New York City (the book was published in 1961). Cleverly, the exhibit made use of one of the windows in the room overlooking the busy street below (I'm not sure exactly which street it was, but in the vicinity of 51st and Madison). On plexi-glass placed in front of the window each of the four principles were printed with lines seemingly pointed at various parts of the street below. It invited the viewer to consider the street below and how well it fit with Jacobs' ideas. In fact, most of the exhibit was centered on inviting the museum goer to consider his or her own neighborhood in relation to the concepts presented.

The second room was all about activism, both by Jane Jacobs and current groups and individuals. One pamphlet available was called "Can One Person Change the City?" and it laid out the eight steps you can take to get involved with your neighborhood.

I especially liked a video that showed two high school students giving a tour of their neighborhoods. One a boy from Williamsburg and another a boy from a housing project in the Bronx. The contrast exemplified perfectly what Jacobs was all about.

I went to college in Arizona and studied Jane Jacobs in my architecture and urban planning classes. Reading her work made me want to live in New York so badly and highlighted everything I hated about Arizona. My parents thought I was quirky when I went on about "sprawling chaos" in Phoenix. Cities just make sense to me. The first real city I lived in was Florence, Italy. Thinking about how Jane Jacobs described the "city ballet" in her neighborhood in Greenwich Village, I wrote about the city ballet that I encountered every day on my walk to school from one side of Florence across the Arno to the other. I still think about it.

I can imagine living somewhere other than here and hearing about this exhibition wishing that I could go. But here I am in NYC. I've been really soaking in the pleasures of urban life lately. I really feel like this is where I am supposed to be.

Cool exhibits to visit on a Saturday . . . just another reason why I love living in New York.

Saturday . . . School

It's my third year teaching and I'm finally going to teach Saturday school. I was so hoping that I would get the position and now that I have it I'm sort of wondering what I've gotten myself into. It won't be so bad. Just 10am-1pm. And there are only two Saturdays in October (well, there were three but for some reason they didn't tell me I was teaching it until after the first day) and then none in November (one is canceled due to Thanksgiving, and another due to the AP and some teachers taking a day trip to Atlantic City, and the others I'm not sure about). In any case, it's really good that I am teaching Saturdays because I will finally get a chance to see all of my newcomers in a separate group, that is beginners in English rather than grade-level groups. I just don't have time for that in my regular school schedule.

Even with Saturday school I'm planning on having an awesome day tomorrow. I'm going to go see the Jane Jacobs exhibition at the Municipal Arts Society and then a yoga class at Yoga to the People. I've finally found a yoga class that I love and now I'm addicted. I've been going four or five times a week for the past few weeks. Another great thing about the studio is that it's donation based so you "pay what you want." Finally yoga is affordable!

Loving My Schedule

I know I sort of mentioned this already, but I just had to elaborate.

Being a pull-out ESL teacher I have the privilege of being able to write my own schedule. The first year my schedule was a mess. Trying to coordinate nine grade levels (that’s Kindergarten through eighth grade) around two lunches, preps, math lessons, etc. was a nightmare. I finally worked something out but I was always forgetting my schedule and picking up the wrong kids, not to mention eating lunch and taking preps at a different time every day. The second year was much better. I only had grades K-5 so just that helped a lot in the organization. Still, not every day was the same so occasionally I was off, and in hindsight, having a prep every day during first period wasn’t the most productive.

This year I have finally figured it out. It sort of happened accidentally because it wasn’t as if I set out to make myself the perfect schedule, it just sort of worked out that way. The main change this year was that I have too many kids that need eight periods a week to actually give it to them (that’s another story in itself) so, in order to make the schedule somewhat fair I decided to give each group five periods a day. This means that I can see each group for one period a day. Every day. The same schedule. And after planning around lunches and preps my schedule is:

First Period: Kindergarten

Second Period: Push-In 4th/5th

Third Period: 4th/5th

Fourth Period: 2nd/3rd

Fifth Period: Lunch

Sixth Period: Prep

Seventh Period: 1st

The obvious bonus is having lunch and prep together everyday. That’s one hour and forty glorious minutes to eat and get soooo much planning and work done. But it gets better. Kindergarten is my favorite (and probably easiest) class, so it’s great to have them first thing in the morning. I actually look forward to picking them up from the cafeteria. Next, my push in class is pretty easy as the teacher already has the students working, I just come in a take my groups aside to work with them. I then go back to my room and the 4th/5th graders meet me at my room (soo great to not have to go “pick them up”). After most of the morning has breezed by it’s the final push for 2nd/3rd grade until lunch. They are by far my most difficult group but I know that soon it will be time for a much needed break so I make it through. And then suddenly it’s 12:15 and the day feels practically over. I just have 50 minutes left of teaching (after my hour and forty minute break) and they are my first graders–my second favorite group. And the day is done! (Well, apart from the 37.5 minutes).

Seriously my days FLY by this year. And, when my prep finally comes, I feel like I have really earned it! I have stuff to take care of from the previous classes and planning for the rest of the week to get done. I am really in love with my schedule. And it only took three years to figure out! I’ll have to remember this for next year.

Finally Time to Teach

Well, it's the first week in October and I just finished teaching my first week with my kids. (Crazy, I know.) And let me tell you, I was exhausted ALL WEEK. After all my weeks of "searching" for students I ended up with 49. That's about thirteen more than last year. More students plus more of them at a lower English proficiency than last year equals I don't have enough time in my schedule to give them the required number of minutes per week. To achieve that I'd have to combine three or more grades and have twenty students in a group which just isn't feasible. So instead, I gave each group five periods a week so that it is even (some groups should get eight periods a week). Even with this compromise there are 12 students in my kindergarten group and 14 in my second/third grade group. I know that may not sound like a lot but when you are pulling kids out of their regular class it's nice to be able to give them more individualized attention.

The good thing about my schedule this year is that it is the same everyday so it is much easier for me, the classroom teachers, and the students to remember and stick to. Also, by sheer luck I was able to put my lunch and prep together in the afternoon so now I have a huge chunk of time to get some real work done during the day so that I don't have to take much home.

As usual, the Kindergarteners are my favorite. I just love the little ones, they are so much fun. My big 2/3 group is the biggest handful seeing as half the class is boys and all but two of them are quite a handful on their own let alone all together.

I'm happy to finally be teaching now. Even though I know I have a ton do do as far as ESL paperwork at the beginning of the year, I start to feel a little guilty like the other teachers in the building are wondering why I STILL am walking around without kids. I tried so hard to get everything done quickly this year but it really takes me a solid three weeks to finish everything. Now I'm free to teach until about November when I'll be taken away for more reports.

In Search of Students

At this point in the school year as other teachers are writing about how the first week of classes went, what their new students are like, and what they have been doing to get their students ready for the upcoming year, I am still doing administrative work and trying to sort out who my students are. I've written before about the long process of going over reports and test scores and rummaging through cumulative folders of new students to determine ESL eligibility. I swore that this year I was going to get through the process more quickly so that I could see students as soon as possible. So far my plan isn't working. There are always things stopping me from doing what I need to do. First of all, the main report that I need to tell me which kids passed last year's NYSESLAT and what proficiency level the other kids scored won't print (or show up on the computer). I've been trying all week! I finally figured out another way to look up the info but that only tells me if they passed or not (knowing the proficiency level is essential to forming pull-out groups).

Another thing is that the secretary, who is supposed to help me get the reports and student data I need is always too busy to help me. I understand that this is a busy time of year for her too but I feel like she doesn't realize that sometimes I can't do ANYTHING until I get a particular report from her. So when she just tells me that she can't do it now and doesn't tell me when she can, it gets really frustrating.

With all of the information that I've gathered so far, I can tell that I have a minimum of 47 students! That's eight more than I started with last year and I'm still not done finding students. Thirteen of those students are kindergarteners! (I think there will be at least a few more too.) That is sooo many. When I pick them up for ESL they won't really be in a small group setting but a class that is almost as big as their regular class. That's going to be a huge challenge. Also about five or six of the kindergarteners have a low level of English. Previously most of my students have just had low literacy levels but a fairly high level of spoken English. These kids don't know basic words that they need to understand or speak to their teacher. I'm definitely going to have to start rethinking how I teach my kindergarten class.

As for the rest of the administrative process, I still have to finish identifying new ELLs, get proficiency levels from last year's test, send out parent letters to all students who were tested in the spring or fall, and hold an orientation for parents of new ELLs. With the short week coming and who knows what unforeseen obstacles, I'm thinking end of next week before I'm finished. So much for getting done early.

Here We Go

After a month off, it's back to blogging (and back to school).

I didn't go into school this week, unlike last year when I did for two days and was chastised by a few fellow bloggers (the comments are no longer there). It's not that I necessarily agree that we absolutely shouldn't go in before school starts, it's just that I haven't been very motivated to get back to school this year. I haven't bought or planned ANYTHING for the new year yet. I suppose that is partly because I know that I won't have kids in my room for two to three weeks so I have a little extra time to get things sorted out once school gets started.

So . . . instead of spending today in my room cleaning, organizing, and decorating, I took full advantage of my last glorious day of summer. After sleeping in, I went to my first yoga class at Laughing Lotus. Then I met one of my friends who has been out of the city for the summer for lunch in the East Village to catch up and talk about the dread of returning to school. We walked around for a while and after she left to get a pedicure I went to the Sugar Cafe on Allen/Houston for a slice of tiramisu cheesecake and iced coffee while reading my book. A fabulous day and so much better than going into school.

Now I'm trying to do about ten things at once including make dinner, wash my laundry, write this post, and catch up on a few shows I have recorded on my DVR. My body is not at all programed to be going to bed early and getting up at I can't even remember what time. I don't want to think about it yet.

New (International) Teacher Blog!

Today I met some girls at my hotel in Coban. We went on a tour of the local coffee farm and then walked around the city together. We had a lot in common as I found out she is teaching at an international school in Guatemala City. When we went to the internet cafe together I found out she also has a blog about her experiences teaching and traveling in Guatemala. She just got here this summer and will be teaching for two years. I'll definitely be reading her blog and living vicariously though her until I go abroad too. Check her out! www.kellyseagraves.blogspot.com

I can't make a link at the moment as the keyboard is American but it works like a Spanish one.

Market Day

Before coming to Guatemala there were two things that I wanted to see--a coffee farm and all of the beautiful textiles and crafts. Thursday I went to the market at Chicicastenango which is known for its twice weekly market. Since I got here I have bought so many things just because I was attracted to the color or pattern (and I'm usually not a big souvenir shopper). Luckily at the big market I was able to abstain from buying too much and just took some pictures instead.