halloween

I had some trouble coming up with a good costume for Halloween this year and the pressure was on because my two lead teachers were dressing up. So I sat back and thought a while and came up with this:

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs!

I glued cotton balls to the top of the umbrella and then put paper-covered foam balls on fishing wire and hung it from the umbrella pokies. During the school parade I carried my umbrella along with my plate and fork. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures, but I thought it was a teensy bit clever. The people who got it loved it. The ones who didn't get it, just thought I was weird which is still pretty satisfying.

i heart read alouds

I knew I would love reading out loud to my class. On roadtrips, I'll read novels aloud as a form of entertainment (that is, in between playing Celebrity and the license plate game).

The teachers and I have been taking turns reading a chapter book to the class. It is currently my turn. It was hard to choose what book to read. It's not easy anticipating what book will light the little fires in these little bellies. Between what I could find in the library, my vague memory from my own early reading career, and the upcoming holiday, I decided on The Chocolate Touch.

There is nothing more rewarding than reading to a group of kids and looking up at their faces as they listen. Seeing the kids leaning 5 inches closer toward me; having 26 sets of eyes bugging out; noticing when the room will collectively hold their breath during climax moments of the story; knowing that the students who have a tendency to roll around on the carpet and disrupt other are sitting like criss cross applesauce statues. The love to make predictions on what happens, and they go whine (endearingly) "awwwww" when the end of the chapter comes and I stop for the day.

It is hands down my favorite part of the day.

abcs of science v. religion

At the end of journal time today, I caught and briefly participated in the following conversation:

K: Do you believe in God?
G: Yeah
K: Really?!
G: Yeah. God created the Earth.
K: God didn't create the Earth. The Big Bang created the Earth.
G: No, God created the Earth.
K: No, the Big Bang created the Earth. Miss Vi, who created the Earth?
[long pause]
me: Well, that's a hard question because there are a lot of people who think differently about it. [avoidance accomplished!]
K: Aww. I wish there was one answer. I wish I knew the answer.
G: Well, there's only one way to find it out...Time travel!
K: Time travel?! What? How would you do time travel?

patricia polacco

Author studies are part of my Reading and Language Arts class, and something I'd like to do with my students some day. A few weeks ago we discussed and read through the prolific author, Patricia Polacco. She was especially intriguing because she is local to Oakland and spent a lot of time near my neighborhood.

Polacco's books are particularly striking in their illustrations (done by her) and her "real deal"-style of writing. She writes about her Babushka, fear, shame, family, adventure, isolation, bravery...list goes on. She doesn't write down to kids and doesn't shy away from topics that I think some people believe are too heavy for kids (e.g. death, homelessness).

Here are two that I fancied (I haven't had a chance to read them all yet!):

Thank You, Mr. Faulker - about her struggle with dyslexia (almost cried at the end)





I Can Hear the Sun: A Modern Myth - about an orphan who befriends the caretaker of the Lake Merritt geese, two homeless people, and of course the geese. I love Lake Merritt!

jonathan kozol

Last Friday I listened to Jonathan Kozol speak in Berkeley. He is an educator and advocate for public education. He was speaking on his new book, Letters to a New Teacher. I was first introduced to Kozol's work through his book, Savage Inequalities, as part of my Ed20 class (Contemporary Issues in American Education).

He appeared rather thin and a bit frail: his sleeves rolled up around his sticks-for-amrs, his voice wavering throughout his talk. Turns out he is on a partial fast in protest to No Child Left Behind (NCLB). His thoughts on NCLB were pretty clear and not surprising. To paraphrase Kozol, NCLB has created an environment where students are learning out of a source of fear instead of learning out of joy and for the sake of learning. This "regressive pedagogy" that exists in a lot of public schools can be linked to the corporate take-over of schools (where school missions include words like "global market") and hope to churn out entry-level employees to do their bidding. An outraged Kozol's response to these corporate figures: you should be preparing these kids to be the ones who are going to be buying you out!

One point he emphasized that rang true was the issue of class size. It makes so much sense and is so simple. Face time with a student is undoubtedly important. I am lucky to have a 1:9 ratio in my class (3 teachers, 27 students), and still it doesn't feel like I have enough time with the kids. One colleague of mine (who just started teaching and is not yet credentialed) is a head teacher in a 6th grade class room with 37 kids. 37! That is shocking. In a 7-hour school day, that comes down to only 11 minutes per student if the teacher were to give equal one-on-one face time with every student. Imagine writing that fat check for your kid's Catholic school education knowing that!

Kozol was inspiring and awesome to listen to (funny guy, that Kozol). His talk strengthened my desire to enter public schools determined to teach and learn, despite NCLB's attempts to prevent meaningful instruction. This is no easy task. Question is: Will I ever be ready?!

Other interesting tidbits from Kozol's talk:

• "Why should they [kids] care about the global market? They care about belly buttons and itchy elbows."
• If a child is retained (held back) once, their chances of graduation decrease by 50%. If they are held back twice, there is a 90% chance they will not graduate from high school. (!!)
• On the issue of those $20k/year preschools: "How much is that per pound?!"
• Why are we holding a 9 year old accountable for their education and not the White House?

rainy day in san francisco

Mud mud glorious mud
Nothing quite like it for cooling my blood
Follow me, follow
Down to the hollow
Where we will wallow in glorious mud.

Rain rain glorious rain
Nothing quite like it for soothing my brain
Follow me follow
Down to the hollow
Where we will wallow in glorious mud.

Sun sun glorious sun
Nothing quite like it for having some fun
Follow me follow
Down to the hollow
Where we will wallow in glorious sun.

storytelling

We had a visitor in tonight's Reading and Language Arts class tonight, a professional storyteller, Muriel Johnson. She was wonderful. It made me really want to practice my read aloud/storytelling skills (something that is seriously lacking right now).

She had an outlook on the question "What is appropriate for kids?" that really makes sense. She thrives on telling stories that are, as she says, scary. She wants kids to experience a whole range of rich emotion in a safe environment (the perfect place would be schools!). It definitely makes me want to pick books to share with my class that are a little more substantive and emotionally-challenging.

She told us awesome stories, including stories about a girl and the Gunny Wolf, Briar Rabbit, and one about a baker and a beggar woman. I'm going to practice my delivery of the stories and then maybe one day you'll see a youtube post of my new and improved skillz....

politicians

My Kindergarten teacher friend came over to me during lunch to tell me about the conversation her students were having.

K Teacher: "My kids are talking about good guys and bad guys...The context being that the good guys are Democrats, the bad guys Republican."

When asked about why Democrats are good guys and Republicans bad guys, a Kindergartener responded:
"I dunno. Democrats just make better choices."

hELLO!

portrait

For my birthday, my first grade class put together a book full of drawings of me! They are all pretty amazing. Not that I play favorites, but here's one I especially like:
I'll be using this drawing as inspiration to complete the trilogy of the Edward and Edwina the Emu series.