viernes, octubre 27, 2006

 

haciendo progresos

alright, here we go...

THE KIDDOS
  • La Chaparrita: One of my biggest challenges, this gal is reading far below level and Mom is essentially useless in terms of home support or responsibility. I taught her brother a couple years ago so I knew what I was up against from the beginning and used that to my advantage with both administration and her family. We're doing weekly tutoring and daily guided reading. She actually wrote a comprehensible scary story this week that had some semblance of a plot and even a little suspense. She is writing word problems that MAKE SENSE. I totally didn't expect this much progress in two months.

  • The Hardass: This guy is Mr. Bipolar - he's either totally on the ball, doing amazing work and participating constantly, or he's throwing a fit and refusing to budge. My patience is running dry with him although his fits occur with much less frequency. The frustrating thing is that he had an amazing teacher last year and this fit-throwing runs in the family. After many powwows with his sister's teacher, I'm beginning to think whatever is done at school will ultimately not make that big of a difference since whatever the hell is happening at home is just reinforcing this ridiculous behavior in all the siblings. I'm certainly not giving up, but I'm getting tired of behavior contracts and bribery.

    THE ADMIN
    Things have been mild. The principal has shown a surprising amount of faith in me and our assistant principal is right up my alley. I could deal with less insulting meeting topics but I doubt administrators will ever realize that treating several dozen teachers the same way we treat our students is not acceptable. Our reading specialist gets on my freaking last nerve but hey, you can't like everyone. Especially those that think with youth comes an inability to be responsible for test data (which I am) and to understand strategies and lessons (which I typically digest with the first explanation). It amazes me how limited the social skills of teachers can be when it comes to dealing with adults.

    THE FUTURE
    Not sure what I want to do next year. Our school demographics may be changing, I've acquired another certification, and I'm not sure what grade I want to teach. A friend went abroad to teach first grade at a private school. Tempting for sure...

  • domingo, octubre 22, 2006

     

    quickly, quickly

    1. Jesus Camp is one of the most disturbing films i've seen in a long, long time.
    2. the kids are improving, without a doubt. all of them.
    3. personal life's been... interesting. sorry about the lack of blogging.
    4. more details about the kiddos soon. ¡cuidense!

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