September 11th, 2009

I felt comfortable today. Even though it was a completely full day with no prep and back to back classes, I liked being able to feel that flow. The classes went well enough. I really love teaching kindergarten. They’re new to school and seem to be really getting The Family School vibe. I feel like part of the challenge with many of the 1st and 2nd graders is their familiarity with how PS90 used to be run. I don’t know what that did or didn’t look like but it’s still an adjustment. Because of that, I’m having to take that time I reflected on yesterday to work on community and expectation. Part of my expectation is that we respect other classes and students in the building.
That is why I spent an entire period with a 1st grade class in the hallway. If they were not going to walk in the community space as we do, and additionally completely disregard me or anything I had to say then we were going to wait. At first I again worried about the idea of power and whether or not this was a power thing for me. It’s not. I would challenge the idea of doing this if it was, but I couldn’t even create space for discussion of why we were doing what we were doing because of the behavior. Other teachers who would stop and talk to the class would turn the corner and the students would laugh at them. It was really hard for me to have that patience and truly wait. I don’t want to be trampled on though. I want to be able to create a classroom of mutuality and reciprocity and I cannot do that if respect is not had for myself and their peers. I think I may make a phone call home about this on Monday after I speak to their classroom teacher again.
Aside from that today was great! I’m still working on showing and demonstrating the expectations that we all talked about in each class. Again, this will take time, but I’d rather wait to start the curriculum and have a safe and engaging classroom then to try running away and leave people behind. I met a couple new students this morning who brought in during my time with a Kindergarten class. One was a sweet young boy who I think may be a high functioning autistic student, or just perhaps be slightly mentally “handicapped”. The other was such a shy young girl. It was her first day of school ever and she came to my class first since I was covering. We sang her name including her in the song we were doing and slowly brought her into the class as she was comfortable. She was so upset and refused to leave at the end of class. When she came back later that day when they were again scheduled, she was so excited and talkative. It was so amazing to see that transformation in such short time. I give so much credit to Ms. T for that!!
It was also nice being able to be done at 2:40 on Friday. I enjoyed that immensely. As much as I enjoyed the ensuing happy hour and sleep. I made a list for myself in terms of things I wanted for my classroom and things I need to get done this weekend. That will be my project for tomorrow. Monday will be a whole new adventure as I have two classes at Columbia after school. For now, I will breathe and enjoy the weekend.