Year Seven

Saturday, August 11, 2018

For the past seven or so weeks I thought about this blog and how to proceed as I enter my seventh year where I've had a really interesting view from the back of the room.  Over the past six years I have had as low as three scholars to a high of nine scholars in the Special Education classroom for scholars that have an emotional handicap.  All of that is water under the bridge as I now occupy a general education classroom that, at present time, has thirty scholars sitting around the classroom in one of those alternative seating arrangements.  In addition to the thirty scholars that occupy what I call my home classroom, there are another thirty scholars that will rotate from another classroom into my home classroom for their math block.  If you do the math, that is sixty scholars that I will be working with primarily doing math.

For the past six years I've assigned each scholar that I worked with a totally fictitious name to make it easier for everyone to follow along.  Sorry, that is not going to happen when I'm working with sixty scholars.  Therein lies the problem.  How can I identify the scholars that I work with so you can follow along.  Right now I'm clueless but I'm working on it.

Although I had a great summer break it occasionally had it's dramatic moments.  In fact, there were four dramatic moments, all school related.  One made me really irritated, one was very surprising, and two fell into the category of don't let the door hit you in your butt on the way out.  Here are the four dramatic moments.  Let see if you can match the dramatic moment with one of the following categories: really irritated, very surprising, don't let the door hit you in your butt.  The school lost a teacher due to a lack of seniority.  Someone with much more seniority had to find a job because of a school closure so this person bumped a teacher from my school out of their job.  Not just any teacher, a damn good teacher. TheBigB left to take on a different role in the school district.  A person that was at my school for approximately ten years just up and took another position in our school district.  The LittleBigB resigned and left the school district.  You make your decision.  If my memory doesn't lapse I'll give you the correct answer in the next blog post.

During my summer off I continued reading education related news items so I could stay on the cutting edge of innovation in the classroom.  My main source of education news came from a  website called Chalkbeat Indiana.  I also started following the Chalkbeat Detroit website.  I you think there are crazy things going on in Indiana you should follow the education news coming out of Detroit.  As I read these two websites and their articles regarding innovation in the classroom I began to think, what the hell are these pointed headed intellectuals with their PhD's doing to our schools.

Here is the first of the pointy headed intellectuals with their PhD's classroom innovation.  We need to start teaching a social-emotional learning curriculum.  Why?  To teach kids respect and responsibility, self-awareness and self-management, relationship skills, and good decision making.  In doing so we will accomplish this, we will have less shootings and less violence in our schools.  My part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse chimed in on this innovation.  "Animals do a much better job of raising their young than many of the parents that have school age scholars."  

Here is your second innovation, we need mindfulness training.  Mindfulness, the mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations.  If you trace mindfulness origins back a few centuries you will find that it has a link to Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism.  Those are religions so I ask this question.  Where is the American Civil Liberties Union now that religious teachings are entering our public schools?

Sunday August 12, 2018

Here is the last one, my personal favorite.  We need happiness classes.  The stress scholars face today are causing anxiety and depression issues.  They have to pass a state mandated reading test, a state mandated math test, and a state mandated language arts class.  They stress about their ACT and SAT scores and their GPA so that they can get accepted into the local university.  Hell, they are so stressed about their ability to play Fortnight, that their parental units are hiring tutors at the rate of twenty dollars an hour so their totally depressed scholar can be competitive playing this totally useless on-line game.  All this pressure, all this stress, all this anxiety can be solved quite simply.  Just block out one hour a school day and teach these scholars how to be happy.

Happiness classes, mindfulness training, and social-emotional learning curriculum are products of the 21st century.  How anyone alive, beginning with our county's declaration of independence in the 18th century through the end of the 20th century, managed to get an education without all of this touchy feely baloney and sausage is beyond me.

Alright, year seven began on August 6th.  Here are the returning adult players.

Teacher - T4
Volunteer - that would be me
Behavior Specialist - FBG
Principal - this will be TheBigB#4
Vice Principal - blank, waiting to hear but will be call LittleBigB#2
Part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse - unchanged for forty years

Here are the scholars that might cross my path throughout the year.

MiniJ - sixth grade
Uh-Uh-Uh - sixth grade
Tourette - fifth grade
Grr! - fifth grade
Huey - fourth grade
Cue - fourth grade

All six of the scholars listed above will be rotating from either the primary special education classroom or the secondary special education classroom to a general education classroom for math and language arts.  That means Huey and Cue will be in the same classroom with me for math.  During the summer FBG contacted me to see what my interest would be in maintaining a relationship with MiniJ, Uh-Uh-Uh, Tourette, and Grr!.  Given the amount of time I've spent with each of them, going back as far as the second grade, I agreed to lend my support when needed.  All four of them will rotate to a general education classroom that is either right next to me or just a short distance down the hallway.  If bad things are happening with these four scholars FBG will text me, when needed, to sit with them in their general education classroom until they get themselves under control.

Let's see.  What else do I need to tell you.  My view varies as I could be working at a half round table in the hallway, sitting at T4's desk, which is an experience in itself, parked in a rocking chair on the back right hand side of the classroom, or sitting at the hexagon.  If you recall, from my final blog post from the last school year, I negotiated my payment for services rendered.  On the first day of school, two Payday candy bars were waiting for me on a shelf next to the rocking chair.

That's it.  Let the school year begin and I'm anticipating that it will be a great year.