the best way out

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The 'Hoodest White Girl You Know

Overheard a moment ago at the end of my 5th period class:

Tariq: "Miss, I'm gonna start calling you Shaniqua. No, Shanaynay."

Me: "Oh yeah? Why is that?"

Tariq: "'Cause you is the 'hoodest white girl I know."

Me: "Wow, thanks Tariq. No one has ever said that to me before."

I try to connect with my students, to work and interact with them in such a way that they don't see me as some uppity white woman who's trying to teach them a brand of literacy that they can't relate to. I want to create a teacher-student connection that makes it easy for them to become better readers.

But I didn't see myself as being 'hood. Oh well. Maybe it's a good thing, after all.

come on baby, light my fire

From the archives of Barbara J. Feldman, the purveyor of the web's Light A Fire daily inspirational quotations, comes this little nugget o' truth:

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." - Mark Twain

This reminds me of the people who I've been lucky enough to know who are among the "really great." I remember how they have made me feel: powerful, capable without limit, warm, positive, benevolent. People who seemed to radiate goodness in such a way that I could practically absorb it, like sunshine, and shine brighter myself as a result. I just want to be that kind of teacher, that kind of person. It's the kind of fire that I want to light for my students. Some days, though, it seems it's all I can do to fan the embers enough to light my own way.

Dope Sick

Here in the clink, there's no rest for the weary. We're moving right along, from yesterday's rhyming whimsy of Dr. Seuss straight into the harsh realism of Walter Dean Myers' Dope Sick. Actually, it is an impulsive choice to read this book aloud, mostly because of a first period scheduling error (I had two students of drastically different reading abilities paired together in the same class). At 8:00 am, I decide to go for it, and dive right in:

"My arm was hurting bad. Real bad. The bone could have been broken. I couldn't tell. I just knew it was hurting and swollen. I felt like just taking the gun out and throwing it away and giving up so I could get the mess over with."

Glancing at my two students, I can tell immediately that I've got them. Hooked. I swear, this job is so much like being an angler. That I love both fishing and teaching reading really comes as no surprise. There's this thrill I get when I know I've got a bite. I feel as though Dope Sick is great bait for my students, my (mostly) reluctant teen readers. So I let out the line, and give them more:

"I started to lift my arm to look at my watch and the whole arm just lit up with pain. The bone had to be broken. I figured it was two or three o'clock in the morning. Skeeter had called me just past midnight and told me they got Rico. I knew Rico was going to punk out. In a way I was glad they got him, but I knew he was going to blame everything on me."

"Yo Miss, what's this book? This book is crazy," remarks Jose. Jose, who reads at about a first grade level, is a self-proclaimed "non-reader." I think that this status is probably less a result of him not wanting to be a reader, but due more to the fact that reading brings such frustration. And shame. Jose knows that his classmate, Denzel, is a much more able reader, probably at a 7th grade level . But I'm reading aloud to both students with purpose, to level the playing field, to make the same text as accessible to one as the other.

"So, guys. What's happening here so far? Why do you think this character's arm is broken?"

I sit back and listen to their responses, and we talk about making predictions based on what we know so far and how it might relate to the title of the book. Before I can continue, Jose implores me to keep reading, and he wants to know if we'll be reading this book every day this week. "Well, I imagine we can fit this into our lessons this week. You like this book, huh?" Jose, wide eyed and alert, nods vigorously.

Hah, I say to myself. I got me a fishie.

Yo, Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Today in the clink we're celebrating the birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss. Here are some sound bites from the day so far:

"What? Man, Dr. Seuss is like for babies, Miss. What we readin' that for?"

"Yo, you didn't show me the pictures. Show me the pictures after you read the page. I mean, please show me the pictures, Miss."

"You skipped one. You skipped a page. Miss, lemme read that. Gimme that book. Miss, can I read now? I can read better than that."

"All that brother had to do was rhyme, and he got rich? That's easy, man. I'm 'bout to do that."

After building the background of the legacy of Dr. Seuss, including the fact that Theodor Geisel was born in the city in which most of my students grew up, the boys appear to warm up slightly to the fact that I am reading a "babyish" book to them for today's lesson. "Go get your pillow, if you want," I tell them, and I see a little glint in their eyes, something that reminds them of the magic they perhaps used to feel when they were in early elementary school, and someone read to them while they got to lie on a soft carpet, listen to a kind voice and look at pictures. The idea of reading for pure pleasure...they go to their rooms and get their pillows (one brings back his blanket) and off we go.

"The news just came in from the county of Keck / That a very small bug by the name of Van Vleck / Is yawning so wide you can look down his neck..." I begin reading, with my most animated reader's voice, from Dr. Seuss' Sleep Book. I happen to be reading this one to my first grade son's class this afternoon, but I also thought this to be the PERFECT book to read to these kids, who are constantly telling me how tired they are, how all they want to do is go to sleep, how weekends are all about sleeping as late as they can. Ah yes...teenage boys. They can't help it, I suppose.

I finish reading the book and remark how similar the rhyming patterns that Dr. Seuss used are to rap and hip-hop lyrics. "Here, Kyle," I say, handing the book to a student. "Read a page as if you were rapping." Kyle, an aspiring rapper, easily obliges and puts on a little impromptu show.

"Everywhere / Creatures / Have shut off their voices / They've all gone to bed / In the beds of their choices," Kyle raps, complete with a puffed out chest and lots of hand gestures. "Miss, you're right!" Kyle chuckles. "That's funny."

We talk about the different rhyming words in the Sleep Book, and about rhyming patterns, including the difference between perfect and slant rhyme. I can tell they're getting into it. I assign a short writing exercise in which they create a rap, poem or song using whatever rhyming pattern they like. "Think about what you want your rap to be about. What kind of story do you want to tell? Or, what question could you ask?"

They jump right into this assignment. I don't have to say another word. What they come up with is clever, hilarious, and intelligent. And it all came from a lesson based on some "baby" book.

one simple thought

I'm not going to wax too poetic on this blog entry. But I feel an urge to put down this one simple thought: that all of the materials I use to teach comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, phonics, and all the ins and outs of turning out better readers - would never lead to my desired outcomes if I left out one key ingredient: love. There is a certain kind of love that exists in my classroom. It cannot be defined, but it can be detected. My students come from places where they cannot let their guards down, where they lie, steal and cheat to survive. Somehow--I honestly don't know how--I figured out that my success depends on my being able to offer these boys a place where they feel respected, valued and safe on a consistent basis. Mine is a small classroom, but it offers deep dividends in potential for learning. And it's because of love. Without it, I'd be a failure. And I could never live with that.

10 Things On My Winter Vacation To-Do List That Will Help Make Me A Better Teacher

Well, it's Day One of Winter Vacation. Most of the kids at G House didn't even realize that they had this week off when I told them last Friday. From the looks on their faces, you'd have thought I told them they were getting out of the clink early. "You know, you get a week off of school every February," I pointed out. They remained incredulous. I think that so many of these kids have been either incarcerated or truant for so long that they have lost that certain intrinsic rhythm that goes with the public school year.

I have to say that I am every bit as psyched as my students are. I felt this thrill this morning when my eyelids fluttered at 7am, a full two hours later than my normal Monday morning waking time. "Ahhhhh....yesssssss!!!!!" I thought to myself. Vacation week. I closed my eyes, smelled the coffee that the hubs started brewing (normally my task), and made a mental list of all the battery-charging things I will do this week that will, I tell you, WILL make me a better teacher once this week is over and I return to my third floor classroom to fight the good fight and teach my students how to become better readers.

And here's that list:

1. Olympics, Olympics, Olympics. It's all about the Olympics, baby!!! I am an Olympics addict, and this condition started when I was three years old and I watched the 1972 Munich games on a little black and white TV in the house I grew up in in New Jersey. I loved everything about it then, and I have watched every Olympic Games broadcast since. My first job after college was with CBS Sports, where I worked as a runner at the '92 games in Albertville. I didn't "run" as a competitor; rather, "runner" is/was a term that CBS used for temporary hires who worked for the duration of the games. I worked in the videotape archives. CBS housed us in a little ski resort called Valmorel. When we runners weren't working, we skied. There was a little pub at the bottom of the slope, and another one at the top. By the end of the games, Valmorel had been dubbed "Val-immoral." In '98, when I was pregnant with my first son and went into preterm labor at the end of January, I was thrilled out of my mind, because it meant that I would be able to watch each and every second of the Nagano games! The baby ended up being born past his due date. Uh, anyway, I'll be watching as much of the Vancouver 2010 games as I can. Thank goodness for DVR's.

2. Snowshoeing. If there's snow on the ground, I want to put on the 'shoes and go! I am lucky enough to live adjacent to conservation land and a state forest in western Massachusetts. When I want or need to be invisible, commune with nature, and get an excellent workout, opportunity is at my back door. Snow is forecasted for tonight and tomorrow. In the spirit of Napoleon Dynamite, I say yessssssssssssss.

3. Yoga. Why? It's simple, inexpensive, and centering. Plus, I can supervise my kids while practicing my asanas. Om.....

4. Spend time with my kids. I want to do lots of stuff with my sweet little red headed sons: read to them, play games with them, make popcorn, play outside in the snow, make indoor blanket forts, watch movies. I love having more time to do this kind of stuff, because the work/school week is always so darned structured that we tend not to get time to do the fun stuff.

5. Go see the new Percy Jackson movie. My older son is an avid reader, and he devoured the Percy Jackson/Lightning Thief series as soon as each book was published. Some of my students who were formerly reluctant readers have been really turned on by this series. So I'll take the kids to see Percy, and I'll consider it professional development (I'll need to preview this film in order to use clips in my classroom...some day).

6. Watch Season Two, Disc 1 of the HBO series "In Treatment" with Gabriel Byrne and Dianne Wiest. If you haven't seen it, it's a must for your Netflix queue. I could listen to Byrne's Irish brogue all day long.

7. Continue my nightly PTI "date" with the hubs. PTI stands for Pardon The Interruption, which is a show on ESPN that airs at 5:30pm Monday thru Friday evenings. Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon review the day's athetic events in a mock-debate format, offering their colorful commentary and critical insight. The Mr. and I are both lifelong jocks and, I guess you'd say, scholars of the connections between sport and culture. Eww, that sounds so erudite. Mr. Tony would probably tell me to SHUT UP if he read that.

8. Get myself to a museum. I've been wanting to hit Mass MOCA for a while now. I'll take the kids and load us all up with a bit of cultcha.

9. Do a few pedis. As some of you may know, I am indeed a licensed nail technician. Long story. But it's something I do on the side, and I have a few steady clients. And they pay me well. So I'll continue this little moonlighting gig, saving up for that sick mountain bike I've got my eye on...

10. Make my birthday cake. I turn 41 at the end of this week. I want a cheesecake for my birthday cake, dammit. So, over the next few days, I will peruse a few cookbooks and foodie blogs in search of the penultimate cheesecake. And then I will make one. And it will kick booty. And mine will get larger as a result.

There's nothing standing in the way of my accomplishing every task on my Vacation Bucket List. I know that completing each one will make me a better teacher, the way that students become better readers when they have more life experiences to draw from in building that necessary background for richer comprehension. I wish the next week would take a month. Even though it won't, I plan on making the most of every moment during my vacation week. I hope you do, too.