denver!

it's been a while. i feel like this is the sort of thing that should go up here.

so i'm moving to denver. agh!! i applied for a job with TFA as a Recruitment Director. basically these are the people who spend time on college campuses and find the great corps members that end up joining tfa. my days will be spent in meetings with prospective applicants, holding info sessions, and hosting events. it should be a total blast.

i'm also excited because even though i was so randomly placed in denver, it'll be a great place to work ... tfa is opening denver offices now and is placing 50 corps members in classrooms there this fall. so i'll share an office with 4 denver staff and one national staff person (who is the COO of development for tfa - kind of a big deal guy), which will be, i think, really fun and also interesting to see things in denver get off the ground.

so, my secret pal at school spilled the beans to the staff when i got a card that said "look out denver!" on the front - with "mountain view" and "spring cottage" scented candles (cute) .... i haven't told the kids. i don't think i'm ready for that yet. that will be a difficult day ...

but until then - if you know anyone in denver, put me in touch!!

ms. matthews

shweeeeeet.

More Graduate Level Work

Our most recent grad class required us to find a cartoon online and then alter it. Because we are studying to be political cartoonists? No, because we need to know how to use PAINT to alter documents.

The first one is the original.


This one is the one I made. It sucks, but so does the class.

(It also represents about how I feel about my class right now.)

*censored* (david do not read)

so lately we've been discussing viruses, bacteria, immune system and the like.

today was our last day of learning about immune system disorders, and we talked about immune deficiency disorders, the most common of which is HIV/AIDS.

now, i was a little curious what my students know and how they'd respond to this. mostly, they don't care and don't realize how big 'a deal HIV can be.

however, they do know that it has something to do with sex. someone mentioned this. and one of my precious students says, oh no! then my mom and dad have hiv! before i could get words out of my mouth, he elaborated in quite some detail.

though, quickly enough, i was able to ask the always helpful question: "would your mom appreciate you sharing this information with the class?"

the answer was an unqualified NO.

thanks. it was SO funny.

thank goodness, he's my only student who lives with both his biological mother and father, who, I guess, have a good and healthy relationship.

still (apparently) not much to say

there are things to say. they just don't seem nearly as interesting as a single thing that happened last year.

today was a great day. here's an example of why:

i had just collected most of the calculators towards the end of math. i had two under my arm, 2 in one hand, one in another. i had stopped to talk to a kid who wasn't working. only moments later, one of my students comes up to me and, without interrupting, just takes the calculators out of my hands (and ... armpit?) and puts them away.

last week, they voted 7:1 that they'd rather stay for an extra hour of school every day than have any homework at all.

this is *not* to say that it has been all sunshine in room 403a. the last two months have been among the worst. but the very worst day - the very very worst one - this year does not even begin to compare to a mediocre day last year. the good days this year happened like 4 times total last year. and the days that now are boring and kind of suck because the kids weren't good, but they weren't positively miserable - those days last year were the days i walked out rejoicing.

it's amazing what a year and a little perspective can do. i don't know that i will stay for another year. it's what i keep telling people - it's the only plan i have yet - because if it continues improving at this exponential rate, why not?

why not? well, a lot of reasons. but, for now, i had a great day.

not much to say

1. having the student teacher is not all it's cracked up to be. she's not fantastic w/ the kids, and it ends up being more work to get them under control. she *does* teach pretty often, which is great for low-prep time for me. however, i haven't had a moment to myself at school since she's been there, which is a little overwhelming.

2. on nov. 1, my student who had left the second week of sept. came back. it's been havoc in my room ever since. the program he was at really did a number on him.

3. so, between the student teacher, a returned student, two tss workers - then one quitting and then a brand new one, and the life-skills student coming in, each day, my classroom devolves a little bit more. it reminds me of what a delicate balance we had struck at the beginning of the year. soo soo shaky.

dreaming

a few weeks ago, one of girls came in and told me that she had a dream about me.

she dreamt that she heard a knock on her door, and it was me.

i came in and asked her to please braid and weave my hair.

she and her sister gave me a 'do, and it looked really good.

then she woke up.

wow!

lactaid

setting: my classroom. first thing in the morning; the kids are just finishing breakfast.

scene:
(student puts down his empty milk carton. pauses to think. raises his hand.)

(student)
Ms. Matthews, um, is this lactaid or regular milk?
(nervous. points to milk carton)

(Ms. Matthews)
(raises her eyebrows in horror)
Honey, that's regular milk.

(student)
Um, uh oh. I'm lactose intolerant. I ...
(looks down at his ... belly)
Uh oh. Can I go to the .... you know.
(stands up and walks quickly and awkwardly to the front of the room. Ms. Matthews is waiting with the hall pass. They complete the hand-off and he exits stage right)

ohmygoodness

starting today, a student from the life skills class is going to come
be part of our classroom for our science period.

from now on he will be in my class at the end of the day, a generally
traumatic time for us all.

he's coming up for "socialization" ... but we do (unfortunately for
the kids) very little socialization in here. a lot of learning, but
very little socializing.

and to top it off, science is the subject that we usually don't get to
(bad, i know). this puts a little fire in the belly to finish math
class before he shows up.

oh geez louise.

ratios

i am beginning to be convinced about the effect a certain ratio has on students in my classroom.

normal student to adult ratio in room 403A: 8:1
student to adult ratio with the tss worker there: 8:2
student to adult ratio with the tss worker and student teacher: 8:3
student to adult ratio with the tss worker, student teacher, new tss worker, behavior specialist, and student teacher's supervisor: 8:6

theory: the ratio of students to adults has an inverse relationship to the negative behavior of the entire class. as one decreases, the other increases. stated more simply, the more adults there are in the room, the more poorly behaved the students are.

today, our ratio was 8:6. what a terrible day.

(maybe this held true last year too ... i just never got to figure it out)

eh, what?

i have a student teacher. as of this morning, she is with me all day, every day until christmas break.

like, i am supposed to be her mentor.

haaaaaaaahahahhaa.

spoooky!

happy halloween!

today we had a total blast. our door was decorated with paper jack-o-laterns, we did all our lessons, just using halloween-y activities and a cool harry-potter looking font.

such fun. the kids got really grossed out when they had to stick their hand in bags of questionable substances in a science activity. we played scary music and ate tons of candy.

just how it should be!

PD days sometimes suck

but today was worse than normal. not because we were told to reflect on "what is rigor instruction?" or "what the children is doing," which made it bad, but because we talked a little about some of the sensitive situations our kids are in.

so student from last year's dad died last week. another kid i know well witnessed a double homicide last week on his block. man shot two guys at point blank range. a few other kids are on house arrest for attempted murder. there's a 7th grade boy who supposedly raped an 8 year old girl. the list goes on and on.

it is so unbelievably painful to look at these kids, the ones with the the house arrest anklets on, the ones about whom you just know stuff, and the ones who look absolutely normal. it is beyond me to even begin to conceive of what their lives are like and what they deal with each day.

and somehow, amist all this hurt and pain and sorrow and evil, our school can still, sometimes, be a light. a place of joy. the kids come in all hurting and angry, but after about an hour, there are smiles all over the place. in their work they put aside all the crap at home and ask questions like "how come we know for sure that the iceman was real?" they write letters to their teachers convincing them to take the class on trips and play more games in school. they laugh when their classmate's pants fall off and they beg for candy at the end of the day. like every normal kid.

they are so resilient. but i wish they didn't have to be.

even sadder

i found out today that one of my students from last year's dad got hit
by a septa train last week and died.

precious thing. i feel so sad.

apology

one of my students accidentally tore a page in a book that belongs to my sister elizabeth. it had one of those sweet holographic stickers with "this book belongs to elizabeth matthews" in the front ... that is, in fact, why it got torn. the kid was anxious to see it and flipped the page a little too fast.

i asked him to write an apology to her.

sad

a kid came in today very very sad - and angry. he finally told me all about how he hates being at home and is angry at his mom because she ignores him. she gives all the attention to his older brother and baby sister, and pretends like she doesn't hear him when he asks her a question or asks for help with his homework.

i asked him if he wanted to write her a note to tell her how he feels ...

he said no, because he already wrote a note, but he gave it to her and she never read it, so he took it back and threw it away.

sweet thing. he was so sad.

at the end of the day, he came up to and asked if he could have a hug because he was starting to feel sad about going home.

depantsed

how do you spell that?

yesterday, i turned around from the chalkboard when i heard a kid stand up then fall back onto his chair - THUD!

and then i see him pulling his pants up from around his ankles.

he is cracking up laughing.

i instruct the girls (and myself) to turn our heads the other way while he deals with the situation ...

he laughed for about 10 minutes at himself.

all day he had been complaining about not having a belt. i knew they wore their pants big, but these things literally just fell right off!

let me add here

that one "thing" i learned in grad school class today was that, although you can cancel out factors in the numerator and denominator of fractions, you *cannot* (and she repeats, CANNOT!), *CANNOT* cancel out the 3s in a problem like this:

23
---
35

why thank you! i have always wanted to CANCEL OUT DIGITS OF THE NUMBERS IN A PROBLEM.

trogdor the burninator (aka my grad school class)

my "i am so bored i'd rather try to remember how to draw a cartoon i haven't seen in months ... years ... than listen to this woman talk about how to recognize if a fraction is 1/2 or not"-attempt(s) at trogdor. the "more different S" is harder than it looks

this is how boring my grad school class is right now. last week i resorted to trying to remember how trogdor looks. this week i made up my own sudokus and completed them.

if i were you ...

(one of my students asked if i had any kids, or if i even have a boyfriend. shocked and appalled at my lack of a future, he tells me ...)

"if i were your age and still didn't have nobody, i would just go out on the streets and find me the first clean lookin person i see. and i'd just ask her, do you wanna get married?"

the first *clean* looking person, he says ...