Well, there’s a lot to say right now, because I’m blogging about two weeks of placement here in this one post. Graduate school seems to be kicking my big butt right now, and the time that I could use to blog was better spent on impending assignments, sleep that was much-needed, or time with the fiancée—as that is always the first priority—taking care of my relationships. This was an incredible two weeks at the middle school though. I really am excited to be there every day, even though it makes me tired, even though it is very, very hard. I am full of energy in the first hours of the day, bouncing up and down, forcing each and every student to respond to my boisterous, “Good Morning!” when I meet them at the door. That enthusiasm never wavers throughout the day, but I do feel it getting hard as the time goes on and the kids talk back. I really appreciate that two period break right before the end of the day. Middle school is such a hard age, and these kids are hard. They teach me so much every day, and each day I find myself wishing I had more time with them, and more opportunities to craft meaningful lessons with them. More on that later in this post…now it’s time to see if I can post five pages of notes in a thoughtful manner.

Last week started off with an off day. I spent Valentine’s Day hiding in my apartment due to bad weather and cancelled school. I returned to school on Thursday the 15th refreshed and caught up on most of my work that I seem to be consistently behind on this quarter. There are not enough hours in the winter day.

So Thursday’s QW was: “What happens when a character steps into a pair of magic shoes?” This made me think…where do the quick writes come from? What do they mean to the students? Why are the quick writes not positioned so that students can draw from their own experiences as well as use their imagination? The quick writes I have seen so far are completely different from what the students are saying when I am listening and what they seem to be thinking about. Maybe I can make a difference in only this small way while I am at this placement…I am trying to go by the motto of state parks—always leave a place better than when you found it. I worry about the arrogance of this thought; can I really expect to make anything better in such a short time with my limited experience? I guess all I can do is try, and in small ways make a difference if I’m lucky.

At the start of the day in my mini-conference chatting with the teacher, I learned that the reason students have been acting up more this year is because of the lack of a time-out room. Students used to be able to be sent somewhere else during the classes, but when the ninth period was taken away, the lunch schedules became complicated and the area was no longer available. Also, I found out that the “police” are coming in today. They are the review committee, and they are going to do formal observations next week to make sure that teachers are doing the things they are supposed to be doing due to their academic emergency. They’re sending in feelers today.

When first period started, so much time was spent running through the morning announcements. There were four different interruptions throughout the period over the intercom, and this really bothered me. It seemed like it took a little longer to settle the kids down after each interruption. This happens again and again throughout the day, and over all three days that I am blogging about today.

In this period we did a read-aloud of a short work called, “Fame and its price.” They read it together, and then talked through the questions and how to answer them. She really tried to make the kids apply it to what they knew about paparazzi and today’s celebrities. I noticed one student today who is constantly off task, but I feel that this might be one of the coping strategies I am reading about in one of my classes. Only more observations will tell.

There was no time for performance today, but at the end of class, the teacher read from Think Big, a book that she is reading aloud to the students (reading aloud is one of the success strategies promoted by the administration at this school). I noticed that the book has some distinctly Christian undertones, and the character is overt and frank about his relationship with God and he reads the Bible faithfully. I wonder what message this is sending to the students who might not be practicing Christians.

They had a few minutes at the end of class to talk to one another, and no one took it. They just sat quietly to pass the time.

During second period, one of the seventh graders said that he didn’t want to read out loud because he’s not a good reader. He then proceeded, when prodded, to read loudly, clearly, quickly, with no mistakes.

These students followed the same routine as the first class, and had some time for performance at the end of the period. Students were cracking me up as they performed. The same five students volunteer over and over again. They make me giggle, and this is because there is a lot of giggling going on during performances.

During third period, I got to go out with two girls and work with them on a scene they have been practicing. I have seen it a few times in class, and I went out in the hall to work with them independently and give some direction. This was amazing. I struggled hard against giving line readings, which is something I really hate. I believe that the performances should come from inside the actors, rather than be imitations. The girls were really receptive to the direction though, and I was able to work with them on their speech patterns and word choices…reminding them that grown women politicians wouldn’t say, “gonna” and so on.

Fourth period is quickly becoming a nightmare period. The students are extremely difficult to handle, and the teacher gets fed up with them. There are 20-25 students in the class on any given day, and only about 5 -7 are engaged at any time. Each time she asks a question, she yells, “Hands!,” and it hardly ever works anyway. Six lunch detentions were given out during this period. I haven’t yet seen her let this class perform anything, because she feels that they shouldn’t be able to until they can control themselves. Today was a constant barrage of students acting out and talking back. The students have no respect for me and little respect for the teacher. This period is going to be mainly one of observation for a while until I can reach the students somehow.

At lunch today, two boys from fourth period who had lunch detention and I sat at the back of the cafeteria and had an interesting discussion about the use of the n-word. I asked the boys not to say it because I didn’t feel that it was appropriate language for school. They quickly informed me that they could say it, but “people of my color” couldn’t. This prompted a discussion about why they use the word, why it’s not okay for me to use the word, and whether or not anyone should be allowed to use the word in school. I wanted to take this conversation further into the critical realm, to talk about the history of the word and why it’s said today and what it meant in the past. I wasn’t able to do this because I didn’t know how to properly direct the conversation. I’m just working on my boundaries and what they are right now, and I wasn’t sure how to end this conversation up where it could possibly go. This is something I will work on, but I’m kinda proud of myself for broaching the subject at all.

After lunch we had the sixth graders, and I just adore these kids. The classes are very small, which is nice for me because I can get to know the kids a bit better. Today I negotiated some space for me to tell the kids some stuff about me and let them ask questions. The quick writes are improving as they get more comfortable doing them, and one student in particular is setting the bar higher and higher for himself each day.

I notice that this group has few volunteers when it comes time to perform, and they drag their feet about going up there. They wait for the teacher to feed them lines before coming up with anything original, and they really don’t even get there. I understand the point of feeding them lines as a support while they get used to performing, but at what point do we leave them out there to fend for themselves, in a sense?

I also got to run some physical warm-ups in these classes because at the end of the day, the kids seem to drag a bit. I know that I am dragging by that time as well.

The next week was really interesting. The kids are getting used to my presence, and in some ways that’s good and in some ways it’s not. I stuck my foot in the door with the QW today, and got to choose it myself. I pretended to choose it from the journal starter book, but in fact, I had made it up the night before. The teacher seemed happy to have one less responsibility in the morning, so I think that the QW is mine when I am there, and we’ll see how I can play with it. The one I chose for today was, “You have to save someone’s life. What happened?” I’m not going to lie; it felt a little dangerous to choose this as the QW. And some of the stories that I got from the students validated that feeling.

First period had 13 students today. They were all about the QW, some telling true stories, and some making up imaginative tales. I can’t tell for sure yet if they responded to the QW because it was different than usual, or if they are just getting used to the process.

There were four interruptions from the intercom during this period today. This is incredibly frustrating for both the teacher and me. Students have to stop right in the middle of improvs to wait for the announcement to end. During this period, I took some notes for data for my Inquiry class, and that took up my observation time during this period.

We had 11 students in period two today. They also focused on improv.

Period 3 today was 30 students. That is such a HUGE class. When checking the QW, I decided to just write down the names of the students who were refusing to do it, instead of repeatedly asking them to do it and failing miserably. The students are memorizing pieces of the “I Have a Dream” speech by MLK Jr., and today they got up in front of the class and were supposed to be graded on their performance and memory. After so many missed days, some students faltered, but she seemed to not be too hard on them. During this period one of the students called something “gay” and I was glad to see the teacher take action. This is a big thing for me, it’s a word that I won’t tolerate. She told the kid that he better shut his mouth, and reminded him about Isaiah Washington and how he might lose his job for say “Fag.” I really wish she wouldn’t have actually said the word. It made me flinch to hear it come out of the mouth of an educator, but I believe that it had the impact on the students that she hoped it would.

Period four today was another struggle, and would continue to be tomorrow. Today she sent two people out of the classroom to another teacher within five minutes of the beginning of class. She also chose one student and called the student’s parent IN CLASS on her cell phone in front of all the students. This probably goes against everything we learned in classroom management about not embarrassing your students when disciplining them, but time will tell whether or not this move will prove effective. One of the students in this class was AWESOME today. He is usually up and out of his seat all throughout the class, talking out of turn and wandering around. I feel sometimes that I constantly have to keep saying his name, and today he was really good in class. He listened, he worked hard, and he even continued his good behavior in the auditorium and in the cafeteria later on in the day.

At lunch duty today I had a run in with an eighth grade boy who was trying to stand next to the line and pick a fight with this other kid who was waiting to buy his lunch. When I noticed the voices getting a little raised, I stepped in between them and told the kid who already had food to go and sit down. He told me repeatedly to “Stay out of my f-ing business.” He’s about a foot shorter than me, so it wasn’t that scary, but he swore at me and wouldn’t stop. The teachers told me later that this student had fetal alcohol syndrome and was a “crack baby” and has severe emotional and behavioral problems because of it. No one ever says anything to him about his behavior; they just let him run as he pleases. This really bothers me for some reason. I know that sometimes we have to make allowances for certain behavior, but this is troubling me and I’m not sure why.

Period seven had something going on today. The students kept talking out of turn and were very disruptive and sullen. It was almost every student in the class. The teacher made them sit out the last 15 minutes of class in complete silence. They couldn’t even work on homework. I wonder what happened in the last few days, because this group is usually so quiet and sweet and hardworking. I’ll bet some classes just have days like these, and there’s nothing that can really be done about it when it happens.

In period 8, the young boy with the prostitute shirt from last week is still mad at me. Last week I made a boy change his shirt in eighth period because it said ho and prostitute on it, and no other teacher had said anything. When I pointed it out to my teacher, she made him change it immediately, and he was really upset with me because of it. He’s still mad at me. He won’t look me in the eye or answer my questions. I also noticed a pattern today of girls not playing parts that are “for boys” and vice versa. The teacher must always pattern the gender of the improv after the gender of the participants.

All in all, I think the new QW I chose today was successful. I seemed to have less students refuse to do it, and the students that did wrote more than usual. Some of them told me true, heart-breaking stories, and some made up imaginative tales of heroics that were equally fun to read. I really enjoyed the creativity and the honesty of some of the pieces. Tomorrow I’ll choose another one that I think might be meaningful for these kids. It’s very hard for me to know what’s meaningful, but I’ll keep shooting and hope I make it.

Thursday started off with me in such a good mood, and that mood continued throughout the day. I just feel good in the morning when I’m at school. I was pretty tired because I had worked until midnight the day before, but I think that things worked well for me because I really love getting up and going to school there.

A few things from periods 1 and 2: I am collecting data on who volunteers for performances for a project in another class, so I am focusing my observations there and reporting that data elsewhere, but here are some questions that I thought of today:

When you become a teacher, does your ability to remember names fly out the window?

How can we continually weave current events into the classroom, even in the theatre classroom?

How many times can you repeat something to a student before you just know they aren’t listening?

How can you get a good balance between calling on the students who want to volunteer and model good work and the students who need to get up sometimes because they never volunteer? And how can you protect the students who don’t feel like participating on a given day? What if I gave the students so many off days per nine weeks that they can opt not to participate in?

Period three was a madhouse today, as some fifth graders were visiting the school and were in and out of the class the whole period. Better this period than fourth, I suppose. The students performed for them, and then when they were gone, something really significant happened. One student (a Black girl) was supposed to get up and perform, and another student (a White boy) called her a baboon. The teacher immediately sent him to his special ed teacher to tell him what he had done. She was furious. Some of the things she said included: “Not a very smart thing to say, especially in a school that’s 80% Black” and reminding the students that she found racism “very annoying.” We talked about it afterwards, and she admitted that the boy probably didn’t realize the racial ramifications of what he was saying, but that she wanted him to understand how dangerous it is to spew that kind of language. She congratulated the girl after he was gone on how she had handled it, “with grace and dignity” and I was very impressed with the level of maturity the class showed. It could have erupted into a very nasty scene, but the other students in the class were able to let it go until he was already gone so they could discuss it.

Period four started off in a bad way and just continued on that path. This is the period that I am going to just sit back and observe. They barely respect the teacher, let alone this stranger in their classroom. I think it would be best for all involved if I just let the teacher handle this one in her way, which seems to be successful. Here are just some random thoughts and events from this class.

One of my really great students in this class was called out by the AP today at the very beginning of class, and he was in big trouble for something. I am disappointed, but I’m not sure yet what he’s done. He’ll be spending some time at home until a parent can come in and have a conference, that I do know.

I’m wondering if some of the students in this class that have really made improvements in their quick writes should still be receiving check minuses. They used to refuse to write, and now at least they make an effort, even if it is poorly punctuated and not strung into complete sentences.

All of the students who act up in class frequently are seated at the very back of the classroom. Is this so the distractions are behind the other students?

Two students were sent out of the room today and another guardian was called. There were five interruptions over the intercom during this period, and it was a big pain each time to get the few students who had been paying attention back on task.

I am getting some ideas on how to handle a class like this, but I certainly hope I don’t have one in my first year.

Today at lunch I learned to always write down who you give a lunch detention to, and I’m pretty sure that while I was walking by a table, one boy told another boy that he thought I had “Nice tits,” but I can’t prove it. Sigh.

The sixth graders did much better today. I can’t wait to have Justin come and work with these kids on improv. They are going to LOVE it. They are working on more complex pantomimes, groupthink, and body language. They worked on building a character worksheets, where they had a picture of a boy and a girl and they had to create a character based on the pictures and present these characters to their class. I think this is a great way to get the kids started off with working with partners, as they will need to do if they want to do scenes later in the quarter. She explained why they had to get up and present: to practice their projection skills. This is big for this group. Their voices are all so little. Hopefully this will improv as they gain confidence and get more practice performing. I can’t wait to see them grow into it.

Okay, so that’s my last two weeks at CMS. I don’t have much longer here, but I plan to come for at least three more weeks, maybe two. We found out that we got a reduction in the hours we thought we had to have, and I’m pretty much done, but I’m not quite ready to leave this group. They are teaching me more than I ever thought they would on the first day. See you next week!