Turn this into a life that we can live

I'm becoming human again. Slowly. It starts with ten minutes each day devoted to writing. Add a little space for stillness in saying compline before bed each night with my husband. Mix in a neighborhood walk every other day or so. Even, dare I say, plan a weeknight dinner with friends. 


It's happening. Humanness returns. Little bits of self shine through even while I am teaching. It's becoming easier to see this time as plain ol' life rather than some sort of strange, glimmering torture I have committed myself to for two years. Each day is still a testament to the servitude of teaching, but it does not require forsaking all else. It does not leech energy from every corner of my selfhood. 


I've passed the threshold. I will survive. Scratch that. I will thrive. Let it not be said that I came here to wither. Let it not be said that I came here to surrender. Let it not be said that I came here with dreams and left with fears. 


This time is a heavy gift. I am a different person in many ways than I was in May. It was inevitable. My directness of communication at school has flowed into the way I communicate with family and friends. I'm not afraid to deliver words that I know people will not want to hear. I am more appreciative than I ever was before for the unconditional love of family and friends and the comforts of home. We were without heat and warm water at different times over the winter, and Lloyd and I became so grateful for those things afterward, keeping some of my students in mind who have neither heat nor warm water. 


Teaching could be an exercise in temporal acceptance. Oh, my husband has chipped nearly every one of our dishes in the sink? Not a big deal. I'm at home with someone who loves me, and no one is asking for a pencil sharpener or lead. Oh, we got locked out of our house at 11:00 p.m. on a Saturday night and have to break a window to get in? Not a problem. Nothing can mar the sweetness of Saturday, a day when no one will be saying, "Can you tell him to stop tapping his foot on my desk?" 


At times I have said that I never want to work again after these two years, that I have put in my working time. I have thought that I would make an excellent professional crafter. I could crochet and knit, quilt and make cards with sewn-on fabric and buttons and ribbons. They would involve a lot of bird and cotton boll images and things in the shape of Mississippi. I could make candles and mixed media clay sculptures. This would be a peaceful life. 


I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that home may never be such a place of sweet refuge and glorious play as it is now. I may never care less about broken dishes or smashed windows because I can't really afford to worry about these things right now. There's too much else to worry about. Ah, what am I saying? I'll always play. This time is just refining my play. 

Sometimes it is a wonderful life

Written 12-11-10: 

It was like all of Holly Springs decided to turn Christmas on at the same time. One school night Lloyd and I drove down Chulahoma Street and saw more wreaths and lights in succession than I can remember seeing in a long time. In past neighborhoods where I've lived, decorating was staggered from house to house, but here it seemed continuous and coordinated. 

Maybe it's because it's my first married (merry-ed) Christmas or maybe it's the stark contrast between stress and spirit, but Holly Springs is really the perfect place for the holidays. I became so overjoyed by the lights and the spirit of the town that we drove through the square and decided to go sit in the light-strewn, decorated gazebo on the square. 

Of course it couldn't be a Holly Springs Christmas without noticing that the city had strung the lights the wrong way in half of the gazebo such that there was no outlet within five feet of the plug. I guess they just called it a day and went home. I also plugged in one unlit strand. And the lights that they had taken so much care to string like a canopy from the top most point of the courthouse were also left dark! But Holly Springs cheered me more than it Grinched me. 

I went to a Christmas tree farm for the first time to pick and cut down a tree. It was a small farm with some true Charlie Brown varieties, but the air was crisp and the cider was steaming. Perfect. It also would not be a small-town Mississippi teacher's Christmas without seeing one of my students wandering around in front of a trailer on a country road on my way back from the farm. 

Having a tree in my living room sparkling with my late grandmother's lights and handmade family ornaments casts a much brighter light on my weeknights. It doesn't even matter how many ornaments our cat, Fenian, attempts (and usually succeeds) to swat down or how many chocolate truffles our dog, Eppie, tries to sneak. 

I think it's comforting to see that life goes on as usual for the rest of the world around me. It's convinced me that my life goes on untouched by school in ways, too. Seasons come and go, and "this too shall pass." For now, Of course, the imminence of a true break certainly helps bring the cheer. 

Expanding my comprehension of comprehension

I feel so many inadequacies as a new teacher. There are far too many to enumerate. I always leave my readings feeling like I'm now even more aware of what I am NOT doing to help my students, but where is the energy and the time to develop all of these strands of improvement? It often seems like some kind of voodoo is required to harness the powers of all of these strategies of assessment, classroom management, and literacy aligned with the curriculum and still be a living, breathing human being.

How will I get through this? Will I go get through this? Certainly I will but at what cost? My health, my friendships, my family relationships, my sanity, my faith in human kind, my faith in myself?

Ok, I'm kind of in a rut, and I'm at home sick with a throbbing sinus infection, so I'll try to focus on practices for expanding comprehension, as I'm called to do.

Over and over I have been told that we need not only teach our curriculum but also teach strategies for thinking through our curriculum. For example, our students do not know how to go through the internal questioning process required to determine which of the eight parts of speech this word "sleep" actually is.  I need to model for them how they should be approaching this task. "Is this word a person, place, thing, or idea? If yes, then it's a noun. Does this word show action? Is this word a form of "be"? Does this word describe something?..."  I need to give them a framework for thinking through these problems.

I've also found that my students overlook key words that clue in skilled readers to important parts of the text. "Where is our most important reason in this paragraph? .... Do you see any words or phrases that clue us in to one reason being more important than all the others? ... Yes, there it is, the phrase 'most of all.' And which reason follows that?"

At first it was a bit baffling to me that all but a few of my students did not register this type of distinction in text. All of the words seem to look the same to them, and the importance of the words they read seem to lack hierarchy. Unfortunately I feel like I have done little in these thirteen or so weeks to help them see those distinctions on their own. I continue to guide them through these questioning techniques but have done little to give them the tools to do it without my direction. I found the "List of Common Connecting Words and What They Signal" to be helpful in spurring ideas for how I could present these text clues to them.

Other resources that I found helpful were the illustration of text mapping, the opinionnaires, and the class discussion strategies. I feel like partner and group work would greatly benefit my students. My sixth-graders find it very difficult to stay quiet in the classroom, and they all want to make a comment at the same time. However, I'm still in that novice/insecure teacher mode of not feeling confident enough to take the risks that come with group work.

Let's keep this in perspective. Six months ago I knew almost nothing about teaching or managing a classroom. I've had my own classroom for four months. At this point, I may be learning more than they are. I suspect that they are learning something in spite of my learning curve.

Five rollings and October's gone

I wrote this mid-October:

The funk of October has set in without my permission, and yet it feels like October is extinguishing itself. I drift in and out of days and weeks like a long morning sleep--not to be confused with my actual abrupt wake up at 5:15 a.m. October feels like a waking dream;  it's almost black when I pull out of the driveway in the morning, and before I can shake off the mental replays of the day, it's dark again. 

How am I already halfway through the month? It's crept in and out like the vanishing day-lit hours I get to live at home. It was set up to be the great white shark lurking in the water. It's more of a lingering, nagging dark albatross than a great white. 

Funny thing is, I'm a creature of the night. It was very difficult at first for me to force myself to go to bed at 10:00. I love the darkness and the adventurous, unknown landscape that night provides. Late night drives, impulsive hour-long e-mails written to old friends about the latest life revelations, sitting and staring to music, reading my favorite poetry call-and-response style with Englishy friends…whatever it is that kept me up until 2 a.m. most nights for no real reason. 

The difference between the night then and the night now is that the darkness feels oppressive. It means that I'm that much closer to the next cycle of school day. Darkness means time to go to school in the morning, and at night darkness means time to plan my next day's lesson. Darkness does not mean adventure and wandering freedom; it means responsibility and obligation. 

I've reflected on the questions, "What's the deal with October? Why do people loathe it so?"  While I was resistant for awhile to giving October the special attention as "the most difficult month," I must admit that it got the best of me. There are the obvious reasons: the accumulated tiredness, the end of the honeymoon period of student behavior, the classroom floor getting streakier and streakier by the day, and the papers piling up. 

In my case, I noticed that I was a bundle of emotions for the last half of the month. I felt like I had regressed. School seemed more daunting again; one Monday morning, I literally cried my way out the door. I think that after the first nine weeks came to a close, I felt more pressure on myself. I could see clearly my failings from the first nine weeks, and as I became more knowledgeable and gained more experience, I had the classic consciously incompetent person's revelation: I know close to nothing about what I'm doing. I was terrified that at parent-teacher conferences I would be discovered as a fraud. This type of scenario was playing through my head: "Yes, I teach your baby. Do I know why she got such a low grade on test 3? What did she not understand about the material? You know, I can't really pinpoint it, but it may have been the fact that I taught the material in a confusing order, and by the time I figured out how to teach it the right way, all the students were bored with the material." 

The self-examination set in. What am I doing here? Am I helping anyone? Am I teaching anyone anything? Why am I putting myself through this experience if I'm not even helping anyone? 

But there were excellent, affirming moments, too! Like when I received a letter from a student on a day when nothing seemed to go right:

"Dear Ms. Gray,

You are a nice teacher and I love your class very much that I want to go to your class in 1st period but it be board in Homeroom time.

So sometimes you are not mean you are nice on everything you have or got and I promise that you are not going to have a fit on every student at school.

From: KJ

P.S. Ms Gray how old are you?

And another thing: you are sweet like candy."

On the non-school life front: 

The Holly Springs community seems to be heartily welcoming Lloyd and me. This is evidenced by the fact that our house has been rolled or attempted to be rolled with toilet paper five times in the last three weeks. Each one is a story. The common thread is that all the stories involve Lloyd and me chasing the Marshall Academy kids down the road; the variations involve our injuries (sharp pebble lodged in the bare foot, large asphalt cuts on the palms) and our tricks  (hoses, a sawed-off baseball bat, vegetable oil, Mrs. Butterworths, taking hostages, calling police, and sprawling on the hood of a getaway car). I've seen something very strange in myself in a couple of the instances. When I'm roping in those private school rollers to clean up our yard, I hear Mrs. Gray. I never would have said those things to those kids before I was a teacher. Mrs. Gray had edged her way into Catherine. 

Time to face the assessments

Assessment is a big weakness of mine right now. It just seems like there are not enough hours in the day to properly grade and process my students' work. As a writing teacher, I could spend countless hours reading the work of my 140 students and providing feedback. If I spend merely one minute on each student's work, that comes out to 140 minutes--2 hours and 20 minutes. And it certainly takes me longer than that...

On top of that, I started out with no real idea of what effective assessment looks like. How do I effectively measure student learning of an objective when there are so many variables: word choice and format of the questions, comprehension and recall, the amount of time testing takes? It's overwhelming at best and sometimes seems impossible. I have hope, however, that the more I get the hang of the everyday motions of being a teacher--lesson planning, issuing and documenting consequences, calling parents, attending meetings, handling paperwork--the more time and energy I will have to assess my students before, during, and after learning objectives.

The chapter we read on "Classroom Assessment of Literacy Growth and Content Learning" was helpful in providing ideas and models of assessment. I particularly liked the idea of having students create learner autobiographies in which they "examine their personal histories as readers, writers, and learners both in and out of school" (101). It would be helpful to understand a student's experience with and feelings toward the subject area in his or her own words. The Observational Checklist to Screen for Struggling Readers was also helpful in providing ideas for informal assessments. I liked its specificity in body language and the links between content comprehension and behavior.

I agree that effective assessment involves students as partners. I liked the idea of having students recommend possible assessment activities, create rubrics, use rubrics in grading their own and each others' work, and engage in self-reflection about their performance. I have used rubrics in editing and peer review in the past, but I would like to challenge students to create a rubric for an assignment in the future. I also liked the idea of fill-in-the-blank learning inventories such as: "This week I really liked ______ because __________; what really confused me this week was __________; and I would like to know more about ________ because _________." I think that for my sixth graders this would seem less intimidating and would provide more structure than simply asking questions reflecting on the material.

I think I will return to this chapter in the future as a resource for assessment ideas and as a guide for specific modes of assessment.

Is the teacher fair?

Most of my students think I'm fair. I asked "Is the teacher fair?" to all five of my classes. Seeing my students' responses delighted me. Even my most vexing and draining class gave me pretty good reviews in fairness, which was a big surprise. I thought they pretty much despised me and thought that I was inflicting cruel and unusual punishment on them by not taking them to the bathroom as a class after lunch.

Reasons cited for fairness include: the fact that I let them go to the bathroom (which is required by school policy, by the way); I treat everyone equally; I give tickets for answers; I don't get angry; I am nice; the rules are easy to follow; I call on many people in class; I "do the right thing."

Reasons cited for unfairness include: the fact that I don't let students go to the bathroom; I give too much work; I don't let the class have parties or watch movies; I gave someone a check when he/she didn't deserve it.

I'll take it. Seeing these responses made me proud of the foundation I've laid in my classroom. Students seem to think overall that my room is a place where justice reigns--where if you did something wrong, you deserved a consequence, and you got one. They also think it's a place where they will be rewarded for hard work by getting tickets and having the chance at picking something from the Treasure Chest. They know what to expect in my room. Some of them said that I am "nice," "caring," or willing to help.  I was happy my students could see these qualities in me, since I certainly feel a lot less caring and nice than I do in every other part of my life. On the other hand, some of the comments about being "nice" and "fun" worried me a bit because those aren't necessarily the best qualities for a student to associate with you.

The responses also made me proud of my students. Most of them are mature enough to see the reasons why I'm running the classroom the way I am. Even if they groan or roll their eyes about a consequence, they know later that they deserved it. I'm reading between the lines a bit.

I'm very glad I asked my students the question. It made me feel like my students really respect me, which is such an important difference from summer school. I'm seen as an authority figure but not as a dictator.

Below is a solid, lenghty sampling of student responses. But first, here are some of my favorites/most interesting:
 "Yes because they yell at us. She are trying to help us do better. She is fair because she lets us draw ticket when other classes don't. She is trying to teach to go to the next grade."
"Yes because she always cares for everyone and she always treats everyone equal and she's very nice."
"She will not punish the class if one person is talking. She will help the best way she can."
"Yes because when you get a warning you do not get mad."

"Yes Mrs. Gray is fair because she's only teaching us reposabiluity and manors."

"She is fair she treats everybody the same and she does not have favirites."

"Ms. Gray is fair because she is careing for every single class she has."
"Yes, she is doing the right thing."

"Yes because she never get loud with you she's a good teacher. And she's one of my faviort teacher."

"I think she is fair because she is a good teacher and she is not being mean when he as to make rules or consequences. She also lets us do activities and fun little challenges."
"The boy ran to school, I love to play football. The games is good."

"She lets everyone get a turn and everyone gets consequences."
"I think the teacher is fair because all the rules are easy to follow and if your nice to the teacher and follow directions, you'll make a good impression on the teacher."
"No. Because we never have a party or something like that."
"Yes. Because she treats everybody the same."
"Yes because if we mistreat her then she will mistreat us."
"Mrs. Gray is nice she is fun she try to make class fun for us so we will learn better."
"Yes she treat all children equal."
"Yes because when we have a test you let us review before the test."
"Yes because she always try to do the same for everyone if she see someone doing something she gives them a check she will do that for everyone."
"Fair about what, but I know you are"
"Mrs. Gray you are fair."
"Sometime because sometime she want let you go to the bathroom but else she is fair."
"Yes! Cause she lets us go to the bathroom but some people mess it up for ones who want to go to the bathroom."
"No because she don't take us to the restroom after lunch."
"Fair because you let us take turns going to the restroom."
"Yes because you shouldn't let us go to the restroom everyday because you are suppose to go when you leave activity instead the student are talking in the hallway that is why she is fair."
"No because she always give the whole class a punishment because of a few people."
"No because she don't give people checks when they do something wrong"
"Because we do too much work not"
"No because when someone gets in trouble at lunch she don't take the class to the bathroom."
"Yes because you let us go to the bathroom."
"Yes because you let us do stuff fun."
"is because she get the people who be bad."
"Yes because she does things right."
"Yes because she treats everyone equally to me."
"Yes she is fair because if you and a person are talkin shell get both of you"
"Mrs. Gray is fair because if we be nice to her she will be nice to us."
"Ms. Gray is fair I do not know why she would'nt be fair she lets us do fair work and gives us breaks and lots of tickets."
"I think Ms. Gray is fair because she only gives us checks for a reason and thats for talking, getting up out of our seat, and touching somebody. Also shes made it clear to us the rules, rewards, and consequences, so we should not be breaking the rules"
"No because she always giving us checks."
"Yes your rules are simple."
"Sometime because she is nice but I said sometimes because she gave me a copy assignment and it wasn't me talking because I stopped when she told me too."
"Yes because gives us warnings and then she gives us consequences but other teachers just give you no warnings they just give us an referil."
"Ms. Gray is not fair for that is that she gave me a check by my number becas derol had got my pensol and throwe it on the floor and I went to get it"
"Yes because she always let you answer question if you want to"
"yes because she is nice"
"No because when Jamel waz talking yesterday she put a check by my name."
"Yes she tell everyone the same thing."
"Yes she is fair because when someone gets in trouble she has the right to give you a warning or write you up."
"sometimes and sometimes not?"
"Yes because she is a nice teacher and she do everything fair and right."
"No be cause she gives checks to me but not to other kids."
"Yes because she thets ever stunteds have a cance to talk"
"Yes because she give us tickets when we get a question write"
"Yes because many people need consequences for their actions."
"Yes because she is nice."
"Yes. She lets us use her: pens, pincels, paper and she lets us go to the bathroom."
"Yes because she is nice and we have a lot of fun in her class."
"No, she's just not"
"She is fair, she gives us updates on how much time we got left on assignment and she gives directions"
"No because you should give us two warnings instead of one and we don't really do any fun things like watch a miove if we be good."
"Yes because she's not like all the othe teacher giving people writing assiments or conceuences for no good reason."
"Yes bcuse she have is the nisest ere in the school"
"halfway. sometimes she the best but sometimes she not."
"yes, because she is nice and cool and her rules in her classroom should be followed and if they are not she will give you a check."
"Yes becaue if were stuck you help us and if are grade is low you can do extra credit."
"Yes becaus every friday she let us git somethin from the Tresure Box and she is nice and a smart teacher"
"Yes, the teacher is fair because she let's you answer questions, and you get a ticket when you answer a question right. Also, at the end of the week the teacher would pick a ticket out of the bucket and who's ever name gets picked they get a prize."

Gold dust at my feet on the sunny side of the street

"How are you liking it?" "Are you enjoying teaching?" 

These are questions I often get from friends at home and new people I meet. "Like" and "enjoy" would not really be appropriate words to use for what is happening in my life in a little corner of North Mississippi. Neither would they be an appropriate measure for what I feel to be the worth of what I am doing here. 

"I'm glad I'm doing this," I can say on my good days. "It's exhausting. It's a struggle, but I'm making it," I can say on most. "I'm  pushing through Friday to Friday," I say on others.  

The experience is less difficult than I thought it would be in many ways but as difficult as I thought it would be in others. Summer school was a roller coaster, a whirlwind. It was painful, and then it was numbing. I think I was in shock. Each day I felt like I could step on a land mine at any moment and end up with the most vulnerable parts of me blown to pieces in a room full of overgrown eleventh and twelfth graders just dying to make a summer classroom a fun spectacle of gladiatorial hilarity. Excuse all the mixed metaphors. I'll go with it. Basically just picture me exploding on a roller coaster in the middle of a gladiator pit while 17-21-year olds point, laugh, and throw spitballs. Welcome to English 11/12. A place to teach and learn? Hardly. A place where you'll get out alive? Likely. 

I felt so helpless and never knew what to expect. I just knew to expect something horrible. But that mess of intestines and tendons blast-strewn across trees turned into something beautiful. It made me brace myself for two terrible, horrible, no good, very bad years. 

Those are two terrible, horrible years that I'm not going to have. (And not because I'm packing up and going home.)

Waking up at 5 a.m. when it's dark, and you feel like no other person in your time zone is living--it's hard for a day. It's really hard when one day turns into another and another until you've been wrenching yourself out of bed IN THE ABSOLUTE DARK OF NIGHT for 7 weeks. 

It's hard to get used to saying the same thing five times in a day, operating like a robot on replay, giving out consequences with the same objective detachment in every hour. "Won't there be a day when they just know how to act?" "No. There will not be," you soon realize.

It's hard to feel like you'll never get ahead, like there will always be one (or three) too many assignments to grade, parents to call, homeroom paperwork fluff to turn in, lessons to plan, pieces of paper to pick up off the floor, and readings to do for your grad school classes. Oh, and that planning period of yours? You may end up subbing for another teacher, which means that your only window for peeing between 7:25 a.m. and 3:35 p.m. has just been closed. 

It's tough as hell. Every day you just have to keep going, keep moving, never stop, keep going. There's a huge difference, though, between summer school and real school for me. I know most of my students respect me. I know that I'm in charge.   I know that I'm a real teacher with real consequences. And I can dish them out. I know that when a few kids are actin' a fool, at least half of the class is probably thinking, "Why they gotta be so difficult? I just want to learn." Ok, maybe that's wishful thinking, but I don't think it's too far of a stretch. I know that I genuinely like a lot of them and that even that kid who's giving me trouble may point to my Eiffel Tower figurine on my desk at the end of the day and ask, "Mrs. Gray, you been there?"

I still live Friday to Friday. I still groan multiple times every morning and drag my feet on the way to school. I still love and crave being at home more than I ever have in my life. But I think I'm going to be alright. 

Plus, Quentin and I are joining a church choir in Holly Springs, and we'll be participating in the Christmas Cantata. Can life be too bad? No, it's getting better all the time.