We return to the classroom from lunch at 1:00. The return walk down the stairs is always a little fidgety, the effect of a thirty minute bombardment of non-stop noise.Once we step into our room, there are usually small outbreaks of students propelling into, then falling on top of one another, cuddling in corners, quiet giggling, and an occasional lunchroom crisis to adjudicate after the fact. By the time we're settled and ready to begin Read Aloud, sometimes as much as ten minutes may have passed. Once I open the book of the day and read the title, inevitably someone raises a hand and asks, "May I go to the bathroom?"
This is one of those moments a first grade teacher needs to have (and put to good use) a sense of humor. I admit this question sets my teeth on edge. Each day at the same time I remind 1D students they have 50 minutes of recess and lunchroom to take a bathroom break. I emphasize that once we have returned to the classroom, I like for them to stay put. They're on "my time." Never fear, good readers, of course I send the student with the raised hand off to the bathroom, with the caveat: "Try to return as soon as possible -- you're going to miss the beginning of Read Aloud!" That usually gets them back to the room in less than 2 minutes, and that includes the commute down the hall to the bathroom!
There's a reason our students return to class as quickly as they do -- they love Read Aloud! In November we dreamed daily about Read Aloud Dragons. We thrilled to tales of Saint George slaying the Dragon, Chinese rain and fire dragons, fire-breathing dragons, dragons who possessed many heads, (Hydra) dragons who looked like serpents and lived in the sea (leviathans) -- you name the dragon type and we learned a little bit about it. We talked about the fact that dragons appear in stories from cultures the world over; we discussed why ancient peoples finding large fossil bones and footprints might have imagined that large monsters slithered over the land or flew through the skies. We discussed how myths evolved as people told stories to explain things about their world that they could not understand. We really found a terrific source of dragon lore in Gail Gibbons' Behold...The Dragons! (William Morrow and Co.,publishers, New York, NY, 1988.)
After Read Aloud, we have recently begun a new aspect of Writing where one student chooses to share a recent journal entry with the class. Prior to Read Aloud I ask if any student is willing to share a recentjournal entry with the class. I need to find a willing reader/writer prior to their reading the piece for the simple reason that I will need to get this student's permission to copy his or her journal entry onto a white board for the whole class to see. After the journal entry is copied, the class sits down in front of the white board and the student writer reads it to the class. After reading, he or she may take four student comments or compliments about the piece. These days we're working on making specific references to the writer's content; for example, a student listening to the piece might comment, "I really liked the way you read the story!" which, although a pleasant and reassuring compliment, has nothing to do with the student's writing. We have discouraged comments about how someone reads because we want to focus on what the writing is about.
A better comment, we're learning, focuses on something about the writing that is worth remembering. We're looking to spotlight words and ideas that help us to see what the author is writing about. For example, the other day Meghan wrote about buying a fairy book. In her piece she told us that over the weekend she bought a book about Pearl the Winter Fairy at a bookstore with her mother, her father and her brother. In her journal she said she was looking forward to buying another fairy book soon. When we made comments about Meghan's entry, students noted that she had included details about who went with her, what she bought and when she made her purchase. Someone said they liked that Meghan told us the name of the book she bought. We are trying to encourage our student authors to include information that answer the "5Ws and an H" questions (for the uninitiated: Who, What, Where, When, Why and How questions).
Taking comments in the form of feedback turns out to be the easy part. Sharing writing also means that the whole class will examine and edit your writing for spelling and punctuation -- which is the reason I wrote the journal entry down on the white board. After listening to Meghan's piece about purchasing her fairy book, we looked really closely at her spelling and her punctuation. She made a couple of spelling errors (e.g., we added an "a" to "Perl" to become "Pearl"; we added an "e" to "brothr". Meghan had also forgotten to capitalize the first word in one of her sentences and forgot to capitalize Pearl's name.
We read through the piece, word by word and made corrections. The students have learned that we will look for spelling and capitalization errors and make corrections on the board in a different color. They also know that we're going to point out the work that was done correctly. We will mention when a student followed the rules correctly. In Meghan's case, she remembered how to spell all but one or two words, and she remembered to use the rules of punctuation and capitalization correctly in all but two instances. I want the students to know that when you share your work, you trust that your peers will value your work and your effort. It is a very brave thing they do when they show their classmates their writing. In effect they proclaim to everyone in the class, "I'm proud of my work and want to share it with you. I'm prepared for you to find a mistake or two, because we're going to learn together by looking carefully at my work!"
At the end of our sharing session, we give the student author a huge celebratory round of applause. Everyone knows it can be challenging to take a chance that they may have made a mistake. If I have done my job well in preparing the students in our class to take risks, they will know that because they have shared their work with their peers, everyone in the class will be better writers.
After our sharing session, we adjourn to our seats where we write for one-half hour to forty minutes. In the next few weeks, we'll move toward publishing our best entries. Some of our students will write about facts, some will write about personal experiences, some will retell favorite stories. Look for more stories about 1D writers in coming entries.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
My Mother-in-Law died this week
My mother-in-law died this week. Actually she died one week ago today. The reason I mention this is to note her passing, since she was a terrific woman, and one could argue, my model for the past thirty-eight years. As a young bride of twenty-two I watched her evolution as wife and mother, dedicated daughter and confidante to her three living siblings into scion (scioness?) and matriarch of a large extended family of far-flung children, grandchildren, numerous nieces and nephews. Mom gracefully navigated above the fray, always generous with her time, making endless cups of team while mentoring family and other non-family members. She spread joy, news and cheerful advice liberally, always refraining from criticism. She prayed formally and informally for everyone, celebrated life and the lives of her offspring with a joy that we all envied and appreciated. A faithful member of the AOH, (Ancient Order of Hibernians) she regularly attended ceili where she danced the jigs and reels of her youth, and only gave up dancing when her spouse of fifty-eight years passed away four years ago.
So why speak of her at a blog dedicated to talking about teaching? Well, I want to write about her! But I'll try and connect the dots because I think she gave me so much material to make sense of. It may take a while to truly comprehend how much influence Mom actually had upon me, which was considerable.
Let me start at the events which immediately precipitated her entering the hospital.
A week ago Thursday on my way to a get-together with the Mavens, a group of (some retired and some not yet) educators from my school who meet for a monthly dinner, my husband called and informed me that his mother had gone to the local hospital earlier that evening. She had apparently taken a fall upon returning from her great-niece's birthday party that afternoon. Her niece had been with her, and although she had gotten up and walked away from the fall, the niece was concerned that she had been disoriented and needed to be checked by a doctor. My mother-in-law remained in the emergency room, where she was waiting test results. Since my husband was an hour and a half away, it fell to me to check in upon her when her niece left.
I arrived in the emergency room to discover my mother-in-law nauseous and bruised, but cautiously optimistic that she would be home the next day. She proceeded to outline the day's events and regale me with stories of her great niece's elaborate 12th birthday party which had taken place in various stages: a luncheon (she expressed amazement at the sophisticated palettes of the 12 year-old guests: they ordered "just like adults" she mused), a stop at a store/spa where the guests entered a backroom and had their make-up done, and nails painted ("so grown-up, so indulgent!") and a final treat from her niece -- each guest was allowed to pick out a piece of jewelry from the store. My mother-in-law thought this was all very exciting for her young great-niece. She wasn't convinced it was necessary - or even advisable -- ("Whatever happened to a party given at your parent's house, with cake and ice-cream and favors?" "Wouldn't a sleep-over have been just as much fun?") but, at eighty-six, she was pleased to be included in the merriment.
We spoke about the day's events and what the doctors planned for her the next day: tests and more tests -- they had given her a clean bill of health from the fall -- nothing on the catscan, no broken bones; however, they had detected an arrhythmia and wanted to see if her very fast beating heart would "right itself" during the night. In the meantime, she was given fluids and a drug to assist in slowing down her racing heart.
Assured that she was in good hands that night, I went home with the promise that I would check in on her the next day, either at home or in the hospital.
Mom remained in the hospital all day Friday. Her rapidly beating heart simply wouldn't slow down. The doctor planned on giving her coumadin, a drug which thins the blood. Apparently the continuing arrhythmia meant the possibility (although low, only a purported 5%)of a stroke risk. When I saw my mother-in-law Friday night after work, she was sitting in a large comfortable chair in an I.C.U. The hospital claimed there were no beds in the Intermediate Care Unit, and the I.C.U. was virtually empty so Mom was pretty much guaranteed a lot of high quality care. I arrived at 6:00 and we spent the next three hours gossiping about children and grandchildren. My sister-in-law and her cousin had all visited earlier in the day, and there was always much to discuss. My husband called during the visit and Mom dismissed my husband saying, "Let me off the phone -- I want to talk to your wife." My husband later ruefully noted that these were his mother's final words to him.
I thought my mother-in-law seemed a little downhearted and with good reason. She had spent the day cooped up in a room full of medicinal bells and whistles, stuck (literally) to an I.V. with the impending threat of continuing needle sticks and ongoing need for blood-thinners. Her heart continued to run amok, and Mom's willing it to slow down was not doing the trick. So after a slight diversion by a Celtic-cross-tatooed red-headed phlebotomist who flirted unabashedly with my mother-in-law, and, I suspect, every other woman whom he encounters, I decided to veer the conversation towards my first graders and their bathroom woes. In retrospect, I find my decision to share 1st grade bathroom stories a little odd. Perhaps I just wanted to lighten things up a bit. Maybe I just wanted to shift the stage radically from hospital to school. Anyway, it's what we talked about that night.
First graders in our building are confronted with a very long walk to the bathroom. In Kindergarten the bathrooms are, in two out of three classes, adjoined to the room. The walk is short. If there is an emergency, it only takes two or three steps to get to the required space. For first graders, the walk is daunting. Our three first grade classrooms are down a long corridor, a big turn and then halfway down another hallway. Emergencies are truly emergencies. At the beginning of the year, we spend time practicing walking through the hallways, acclimating ourselves to where everything is, where to go when you need the nurse, when you need a drink, how long it takes to get to different places, etc. We talk about what bathrooms are for; bathrooms are not places to have parties and you don't want to spend a lot of time there, you should "do your business" carefully and quickly, wash your hands and then, get back to the classroom as quickly as possible. Sometimes the lure of the long walk can be a good way to take a break and some students take advantage of it. I try to encourage the shortest break possible by telling the student making the bathroom request, "I'm counting how long you will be gone!" " I really need for you to return as quickly as possible." "Let's not waste time!" For the most part, students are responsive to these cues and return quickly.
Almost every week there is a bathroom story. Some are more interesting than others, and some are funnier than others. Sometimes I find my student's bathroom habits amusing and other times they can be annoying. They always reflect common six-year old behaviors and you just have to roll with the punches, so to speak. On Friday last, I told Mom a typical first grade bathroom stories that happened earlier this fall.
A male student who likes to take a bathroom break returned to the classroom from the boys' room with a look of horror on his face. "Mrs. D, when I was in the bathroom a second grader (always a culprit) crawled over the wall and looked at me when I was naked! I told him to go away - then he turned out the light!" There's nothing more frightening in our first floor boys' room than turning out the light, because our boys' and girls' rooms are completely without natural light - they're very dark.
"Do you know who it was?" I asked. "He was wearing an orange-striped shirt." I informed my student teacher where I was going, Jimmy and I excused ourselves and headed for the second grade classroom. Once there we quickly spotted the striped-shirt boy who was in my classroom the previous year and I told his teacher the scenario and problem. She agreed to send the perpetrator into the hall for an interview. The three of us stood outside the second grade classroom door. George knew the jig was up; he looked at his feet and couldn't look me in the eye. I opened the conversation with, "George, did you crawl over the bathroom stall wall and look at Jimmy?" "I did," he nodded quickly. He didn't try to conceal his perfidy. "You know that is completely unacceptable, don't you? George, each one of us deserves to have privacy in the bathroom! How would you feel if someone crawled over the wall and looked at you?" George looked very innocent and said, "Well, Rafi and Jan told me to do it!"
This response is one of my favorites because it is so transparent. George claimed he was manipulated by his two non-present friends. In a way, I was surprised he didn't try to cover up his behavior. Having spent a year in my classroom he should know what was coming next: "George, were Rafi and Jan in the bathroom with you?" "No, but they told me.. it would be fun!" "George, do you have control over what your body does?" "Um, yes..." "Well, you made the decision to crawl over the wall, and no one was telling you to do it. You control yourself and you made the decision to crawl and look. Then you turned the lights in the bathroom off. You need to apologize to Jimmy." "I'm sorry, Jimmy." "You should tell Jimmy that you won't do this again. It was very scary for him." George had the grace to look slightly downcast. "I'm sorry, Jimmy." "It's okay." As we return to the classroom I said to Jimmy, "You know, I think George feels bad he did this. If anything like this happens again, please tell me or another adult as soon as it happens. It's important that you feel safe when you go to the bathroom."
This story or something similar plays itself out several times a year. Sometimes I hear about it, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I hear about it later from another teacher or a parent. The bathroom is a place where first graders (and second graders as well) get to be independent. They get to leave the classroom and walk to the bathroom on their own; once they get to the bathroom they are effectively on their own without adult supervision for the first times in their lives. We have no male adult teachers during the school day in the K-2 cluster, so the boys' room is even more separate than the girls' room where an occasional female teacher will wander in. If there is an emergency which requires an adult male I must scout one from the second floor or go in search of a custodian, who may or may not be working on the downstairs floor. I mention this because it means that least there must be a pretty high degree of trust that things will go well and the students will behave responsibly on their way to and inside the bathrooms.
That Friday night my mother-in-law laughed whole-heartedly at the stories of six year olds making sense of their independence. She appreciated the time it took for me (or any teacher) to work through Jimmy's predicament and the community's need to ensure bathroom safety. She understood well that George needed to admit his culpability and apologize for his bad behavior in the bathroom. We laughed about how people thought teachers spent their days teaching... as in reading, writing, math, and science. She swore she couldn't imagine how teachers found the time to teach anything when they had to spend their days dealing with issues like teaching individual responsibility, preventing teasing, bullying, and issues of physical and emotional safety. By letting me tell my school stories, Mom helped me to make sense of what happened during my school day; telling my bathroom stories gave me the opportunity to understand and identify the reasons all of us did what we did, and sometimes her questions helped me think about how I could have done things differently, for the next time around.
When I left Mom on Friday night I promised I'd see her back at her house the next day. We laughed about her nurse's hairdo ("very utilitarian - frightful!") and I gave her a quick kiss and a hug, not even considering for a moment that it would be the last time we'd confide in each other, laugh and tell stories together.
The next morning she suffered a massive brain hemorrhage and never awoke, passing away quietly in her sleep on Sunday morning.
So why speak of her at a blog dedicated to talking about teaching? Well, I want to write about her! But I'll try and connect the dots because I think she gave me so much material to make sense of. It may take a while to truly comprehend how much influence Mom actually had upon me, which was considerable.
Let me start at the events which immediately precipitated her entering the hospital.
A week ago Thursday on my way to a get-together with the Mavens, a group of (some retired and some not yet) educators from my school who meet for a monthly dinner, my husband called and informed me that his mother had gone to the local hospital earlier that evening. She had apparently taken a fall upon returning from her great-niece's birthday party that afternoon. Her niece had been with her, and although she had gotten up and walked away from the fall, the niece was concerned that she had been disoriented and needed to be checked by a doctor. My mother-in-law remained in the emergency room, where she was waiting test results. Since my husband was an hour and a half away, it fell to me to check in upon her when her niece left.
I arrived in the emergency room to discover my mother-in-law nauseous and bruised, but cautiously optimistic that she would be home the next day. She proceeded to outline the day's events and regale me with stories of her great niece's elaborate 12th birthday party which had taken place in various stages: a luncheon (she expressed amazement at the sophisticated palettes of the 12 year-old guests: they ordered "just like adults" she mused), a stop at a store/spa where the guests entered a backroom and had their make-up done, and nails painted ("so grown-up, so indulgent!") and a final treat from her niece -- each guest was allowed to pick out a piece of jewelry from the store. My mother-in-law thought this was all very exciting for her young great-niece. She wasn't convinced it was necessary - or even advisable -- ("Whatever happened to a party given at your parent's house, with cake and ice-cream and favors?" "Wouldn't a sleep-over have been just as much fun?") but, at eighty-six, she was pleased to be included in the merriment.
We spoke about the day's events and what the doctors planned for her the next day: tests and more tests -- they had given her a clean bill of health from the fall -- nothing on the catscan, no broken bones; however, they had detected an arrhythmia and wanted to see if her very fast beating heart would "right itself" during the night. In the meantime, she was given fluids and a drug to assist in slowing down her racing heart.
Assured that she was in good hands that night, I went home with the promise that I would check in on her the next day, either at home or in the hospital.
Mom remained in the hospital all day Friday. Her rapidly beating heart simply wouldn't slow down. The doctor planned on giving her coumadin, a drug which thins the blood. Apparently the continuing arrhythmia meant the possibility (although low, only a purported 5%)of a stroke risk. When I saw my mother-in-law Friday night after work, she was sitting in a large comfortable chair in an I.C.U. The hospital claimed there were no beds in the Intermediate Care Unit, and the I.C.U. was virtually empty so Mom was pretty much guaranteed a lot of high quality care. I arrived at 6:00 and we spent the next three hours gossiping about children and grandchildren. My sister-in-law and her cousin had all visited earlier in the day, and there was always much to discuss. My husband called during the visit and Mom dismissed my husband saying, "Let me off the phone -- I want to talk to your wife." My husband later ruefully noted that these were his mother's final words to him.
I thought my mother-in-law seemed a little downhearted and with good reason. She had spent the day cooped up in a room full of medicinal bells and whistles, stuck (literally) to an I.V. with the impending threat of continuing needle sticks and ongoing need for blood-thinners. Her heart continued to run amok, and Mom's willing it to slow down was not doing the trick. So after a slight diversion by a Celtic-cross-tatooed red-headed phlebotomist who flirted unabashedly with my mother-in-law, and, I suspect, every other woman whom he encounters, I decided to veer the conversation towards my first graders and their bathroom woes. In retrospect, I find my decision to share 1st grade bathroom stories a little odd. Perhaps I just wanted to lighten things up a bit. Maybe I just wanted to shift the stage radically from hospital to school. Anyway, it's what we talked about that night.
First graders in our building are confronted with a very long walk to the bathroom. In Kindergarten the bathrooms are, in two out of three classes, adjoined to the room. The walk is short. If there is an emergency, it only takes two or three steps to get to the required space. For first graders, the walk is daunting. Our three first grade classrooms are down a long corridor, a big turn and then halfway down another hallway. Emergencies are truly emergencies. At the beginning of the year, we spend time practicing walking through the hallways, acclimating ourselves to where everything is, where to go when you need the nurse, when you need a drink, how long it takes to get to different places, etc. We talk about what bathrooms are for; bathrooms are not places to have parties and you don't want to spend a lot of time there, you should "do your business" carefully and quickly, wash your hands and then, get back to the classroom as quickly as possible. Sometimes the lure of the long walk can be a good way to take a break and some students take advantage of it. I try to encourage the shortest break possible by telling the student making the bathroom request, "I'm counting how long you will be gone!" " I really need for you to return as quickly as possible." "Let's not waste time!" For the most part, students are responsive to these cues and return quickly.
Almost every week there is a bathroom story. Some are more interesting than others, and some are funnier than others. Sometimes I find my student's bathroom habits amusing and other times they can be annoying. They always reflect common six-year old behaviors and you just have to roll with the punches, so to speak. On Friday last, I told Mom a typical first grade bathroom stories that happened earlier this fall.
A male student who likes to take a bathroom break returned to the classroom from the boys' room with a look of horror on his face. "Mrs. D, when I was in the bathroom a second grader (always a culprit) crawled over the wall and looked at me when I was naked! I told him to go away - then he turned out the light!" There's nothing more frightening in our first floor boys' room than turning out the light, because our boys' and girls' rooms are completely without natural light - they're very dark.
"Do you know who it was?" I asked. "He was wearing an orange-striped shirt." I informed my student teacher where I was going, Jimmy and I excused ourselves and headed for the second grade classroom. Once there we quickly spotted the striped-shirt boy who was in my classroom the previous year and I told his teacher the scenario and problem. She agreed to send the perpetrator into the hall for an interview. The three of us stood outside the second grade classroom door. George knew the jig was up; he looked at his feet and couldn't look me in the eye. I opened the conversation with, "George, did you crawl over the bathroom stall wall and look at Jimmy?" "I did," he nodded quickly. He didn't try to conceal his perfidy. "You know that is completely unacceptable, don't you? George, each one of us deserves to have privacy in the bathroom! How would you feel if someone crawled over the wall and looked at you?" George looked very innocent and said, "Well, Rafi and Jan told me to do it!"
This response is one of my favorites because it is so transparent. George claimed he was manipulated by his two non-present friends. In a way, I was surprised he didn't try to cover up his behavior. Having spent a year in my classroom he should know what was coming next: "George, were Rafi and Jan in the bathroom with you?" "No, but they told me.. it would be fun!" "George, do you have control over what your body does?" "Um, yes..." "Well, you made the decision to crawl over the wall, and no one was telling you to do it. You control yourself and you made the decision to crawl and look. Then you turned the lights in the bathroom off. You need to apologize to Jimmy." "I'm sorry, Jimmy." "You should tell Jimmy that you won't do this again. It was very scary for him." George had the grace to look slightly downcast. "I'm sorry, Jimmy." "It's okay." As we return to the classroom I said to Jimmy, "You know, I think George feels bad he did this. If anything like this happens again, please tell me or another adult as soon as it happens. It's important that you feel safe when you go to the bathroom."
This story or something similar plays itself out several times a year. Sometimes I hear about it, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I hear about it later from another teacher or a parent. The bathroom is a place where first graders (and second graders as well) get to be independent. They get to leave the classroom and walk to the bathroom on their own; once they get to the bathroom they are effectively on their own without adult supervision for the first times in their lives. We have no male adult teachers during the school day in the K-2 cluster, so the boys' room is even more separate than the girls' room where an occasional female teacher will wander in. If there is an emergency which requires an adult male I must scout one from the second floor or go in search of a custodian, who may or may not be working on the downstairs floor. I mention this because it means that least there must be a pretty high degree of trust that things will go well and the students will behave responsibly on their way to and inside the bathrooms.
That Friday night my mother-in-law laughed whole-heartedly at the stories of six year olds making sense of their independence. She appreciated the time it took for me (or any teacher) to work through Jimmy's predicament and the community's need to ensure bathroom safety. She understood well that George needed to admit his culpability and apologize for his bad behavior in the bathroom. We laughed about how people thought teachers spent their days teaching... as in reading, writing, math, and science. She swore she couldn't imagine how teachers found the time to teach anything when they had to spend their days dealing with issues like teaching individual responsibility, preventing teasing, bullying, and issues of physical and emotional safety. By letting me tell my school stories, Mom helped me to make sense of what happened during my school day; telling my bathroom stories gave me the opportunity to understand and identify the reasons all of us did what we did, and sometimes her questions helped me think about how I could have done things differently, for the next time around.
When I left Mom on Friday night I promised I'd see her back at her house the next day. We laughed about her nurse's hairdo ("very utilitarian - frightful!") and I gave her a quick kiss and a hug, not even considering for a moment that it would be the last time we'd confide in each other, laugh and tell stories together.
The next morning she suffered a massive brain hemorrhage and never awoke, passing away quietly in her sleep on Sunday morning.
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