It's A Wonderful Life

        Today I was informed as I was walking my 32 first graders to lunch that I would be given a break by our amazing title teachers (teachers who pull students out of class who are below grade level to help them make significant strides towards catching up). I was grateful for a break in the action. I usually arrive at 7:00a.m to prep for all of the lessons I will be teaching that day: reading, math, and science. The students begin arriving at 7:35 and from the moment they step foot inside the building it is game time. After 5 hours of straight teaching I was happy to relinquish my little ones into other hands while I took a break to grab my lunch and take a bathroom break. I walked back to my room to find my principal and DCI (Director of Curriculum and Instruction) who informed me that my co-teacher and I would be the recipients of an extreme classroom makeover.
       After an observation by my principal during a  particularly challenging math lesson on place value (I felt like pulling my hair out) she decided that our current classroom set up was contributing to sensory overload for our kids... who have enough challenges without adding the inability to see the SMART board or hear us when we are teaching. I thought these "home" improvements would be made in the weeks to come, but I should have known better. My principal doesn't let moss grow under her feet. She started rolling up the carpet as she explained that we would need to find an alternate lesson plan to conduct outside of our classroom while they worked to move our math meeting bulletin board, white board, and rolling cabinets. I was so excited to start making changes that would help the kids focus and me to find my voice again (I lost it on Thursday this week).
       However, that was not the end of this makeover. Unbeknownst to me or my co-teacher my DCI had sent an email asking for some help from anyone who was available to put our room back together. For those of you who have seen It's A Wonderful Life, the end scene comes to mind as I think about what happened next. Similar to George Bailey realizing the amazing community and family he lives in, I realized how many people were willing to give up their Friday afternoons to pitch in and put our class back together again. I counted over 10 staff members who came in to put down new transition tape, hang up posters, hang up bulletin boards, and generally clean and organize. I hope my gratitude was palpable. I could never say thank you enough ,not only for the manual labor but the feeling of support in knowing that other colleagues care about me and the kids in my class being successful.
      When I first started working at my school I was informed by the other teachers that the reason why people continued to do this work was because of the incredible colleagues we all have. Thanks to their hard work and village mindset my Rochester yellow jackets now have a little more happy in their hive.

Redemption: a new story of self

Redemption, that is what this year is about for me. Last year I lost my co-teacher, taught alone for 3 weeks, and tried and failed to teach a new teacher how to do her job while continuing to do mine. I left the year feeling defeated, hopeless, and depressed. Many of my students did not reach the accountability goals I set for them. At least 2 of them left the school because their behavior in my class was so atrocious, one of them charged my co-teacher with raised fists, another one crawled in between my kidney table and the wall while screaming and crying. I felt personally responsible for my students’ abandonment issues, their poor behavior, and their academic misgivings. I was depressed for part of the year, not feeling like myself especially when I had to rely on my roommate, MTLD (Manager of Teacher Leadership and Development), and colleagues at work to simply finish the school year. I teacher swapped in two separate classrooms to take a break from my own and was sent home from work one day crying because I was so overwhelmed.

                At the end of the year I was promised a move up to first grade from Kindergarten and the opportunity to co-teach with another 2012 corps member who I respected for her organization and classroom management skills. It was a promise that kept me going through most of April and May when my class was still in disarray and 4 out of the 6 kindergarten teachers had quit. Three weeks before I was supposed to return to school I found out I was being placed with a teacher who was new to the preps. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I started applying for other charter schools near my home in Rochester and had a very difficult conversation with my DCI (Director of Curriculum and Instruction) over the phone during which she told me that they would not be changing their minds about who my co-teacher would be.

                After sulking for several days I contacted my MTLD who helped me come to a difficult but important epiphany, I was projecting all my disappointment and perceived failure onto my new co-teacher, a woman I had never met and never given a chance to. I decided that I was too young to already become so bitter and let my bad experiences inform my new decisions. After our discussion I emailed my new co-teacher with a list of what I hoped to be rapport building questions.

                We have worked hard to create a space where students feel welcomed and it is my hope that they progressively feel a sense of belonging, purpose and honor for each other.  This year may not be perfect but I want to give back the year that was stolen from my kindergartners last year. I want to build our school’s community and thereby win our students’ trust back. We will succeed this year and when we do we will find out what hope really means. Meliora. Ever Better.