Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Nailed It!

It feels good.  I don't want to brag.  I don't want to boast, I want to be humble.  Dang that L___, one of my administrators and mentor, I suppose.  She's already pushing me to be better.  I like that and I hate that but I do appreciate it.  Today I was observed again by my principal, the vice-principal, my faculty head and L___.  When I was informed a few weeks ago that the "event" was going to occur, I began to fret. I counted my blessings that it was a few weeks away, but I worried. 

If you've read my blog called "Ground Rules,"  you will know that my last observation was a disaster.  I think it may have scarred me for life.  I'm no sissy when it comes to observations.  During my Reading Recovery training year I had to go behind the glass at least six, or maybe nine times.  I'm not sure anymore, that whole grueling ordeal is somewhat of a blur in my mind now.  But, the point is, I've always come through somewhat unscathed. Maybe a little bruising to my ego, but basically I've developed a thick skin when it comes to evaluations.  I'm usually tougher on myself than my observers.  So, I decided, I needed to nail this observation.  But, you know, the whole thing isn't about me, it's all about what those little bodies in front of me do.  How they respond, how they buy in to my dog and pony show.

Well, today, BAZINGA!  I've been wanting to say that all day.  I don't think it fits here, but it feels good to say it.  Two nights ago, I worried, I didn't sleep.  Four days ago, I was sick.  I went to hospital to see a doctor and get a head X-ray.  I guess I've finally "had my head examined."  I digress, sorry.  I was sick.  Sinus infection.  The doctor says I have allergies and that I will probably be better when I go home.  I guess I'm allergic to the UAE.  Sigh.  But, I knew I was being observed on Tuesday, so I went to work on Sunday, over achiever that I am,  and promptly came home after a half day of work. I couldn't rest to get better because I had to go back to hospital to get a sick leave note.  Silly, I know.  So, Sunday's lesson was shot.  I only had one day to set up prior learning to present an outstanding lesson on Tuesday, and on Monday, I still was uncertain what I wanted to do. 

The dog and pony show part of me wanted to be outstanding and different, the theorist in me said, "don't depart from the known."  So, I just did what I've been doing, but this time I did it even better. Either all of the stars lined up or perhaps, just maybe perhaps, all of the scaffolding that I've been setting up has panned out for me to experience success.

Today, I feel like I have accomplished some of what I have set out to do since my arrival. My boys are starting to notice high frequency words in text. Today my little Mohamed R called out words in text during a shared read.  I heard bugles blowing somewhere I'm sure. I love that little guy.  And they listened.  My boys listened and followed directions and searched through text and cut and pasted and used their reading finger to point to words and read text to me.  I was in teacher heaven.  I didn't even notice the observers in the room. I was "in the zone," I guess.  It felt good, and it still does.  It felt authentic and I was so glad when they all finally decided to leave.  I was exhausted, I didn't have any more to give.  I knew when I went into school today if everything fell apart it would be out of my hands because I couldn't work harder than I have been working.  If it wasn't good enough then I was in the wrong place.

Two nights ago, like I said, I didn't sleep.  My mind would not stop.  I'm not a month long planner type of person.  I have ideas of where I want to be in a month, but the next day's lesson for me is not scripted, it often hinges on what learning occurred the day before. I am a strong believer in following the child. Sometimes lesson plans just have to be thrown out the window and something new evolves, like the day I read a big book to my boys about a dinosaur.  They loved that book and I loved sharing it with them.  But, the clock was ticking, we couldn't savor the moment and I sent them back to their seats to work on some math grouping.  It took me a few minutes to find what I was looking for and my colleague and co-teacher Susan, plopped a blank white sheet of paper in front of each boy while I searched for counters.  My mind was thinking counters, groups, math.... and then I turned around, and on those blank white sheets of paper emerged the most beautiful first grade dinosaurs I had ever seen.  Their little minds were still thinking about seeing dinosaur toes and tails and teeth and drippy dinosaur noses.  

I looked at Susan and our eyes locked and I think we both had teacher tears in our eyes.  "They're drawing dinosaurs," I cooed.  "They're supposed to be getting ready to do math, but they're drawing dinosaurs."  I love those dinosaurs.  Those dinosaurs are an authentic unsolicited unscripted response to reading.

I had so much fun with those dinosaurs that I decided to use the same book with another first grade class that I ended up subbing in later that day.  Because it was better planned, I was able to draw a dinosaur as a model for this other group of boys.  I was sad because their dinosaurs looked better than my boys' dinosaurs.  I showed them to my friend Y___.  Y____ in all her wisdom said, "No, they are not better.  If you drew the same model for your boys, they would do just as well if not better." So, the next day, we read about crabs.  I modeled drawing a crab for my boys.  I tell you what.  Those are some stinkin' good crabs.  Those are probably the best looking first grade crabs I've ever seen. My boys can draw, and they draw well.

So, my lesson went well. I feel good. It's one of the first times I've felt good in quite a while.  I feel good about my teaching and I feel good about myself.  After school, I stopped in to L___'s office to chat about my lesson.  I was expecting just a little bit of praise, maybe even just a, "Wow! You've come a long way, baby!"  But, no, she tilted her head and looked at me over the top of her glasses and with a slight smirk on her face, she said, "Your lesson went well, but ...."  I hate "but."  "....I don't know how yet, but we need to work on helping you so that you aren't working so hard.  You are still so much a small group teacher.  You were zooming around that room so much and so fast, you tired me out watching you," she said.  "You can't keep up that pace all the time."

Sigh.  She's right.  My heart is in the small groups and in the Reading Recovery one-on-one lessons.  I can pull groups of students all day long and be happy.  I've been asking my principal for a table to be able to pull small groups of my boys together for guided reading lessons.  Today was an opportune time to make the pitch again.  Shortly after my request, in came a beautiful table.  It's not really like any table I've ever had before.  When I envision my favorite table I recall my horseshoe table with a nicely cut out center making it easy to lean in to hear all the children read.  This table is simply beautiful.  It is covered on top with silky material gathered in rosette bunches and stapled into place. The sides are draped with complementary silky material with more bunching and pleating and rosettes.  I will need to make it childproof and cover it with a durable clear plastic tablecloth. And then, I will gather my boys near and set up the rules and set up the groups and, insha'allah.... magical shifts in learning will occur.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Wasted Days

Have you ever had one of "those" days?  You know when you just wake up cranky, and continue on to be crankier and crankier as the day wears on until nobody really wants to be around you and eventually you don't really want to be around yourself either?  Well, today could be my day.  What a crank I am.

It started this morning, probably because I decided to skip church so I could sleep in, when my phone rang at 6:00 a.m.  I decided to ignore it because I deliberately left it downstairs last night.  Who wants to run all the way downstairs that early in the morning on my day off anyhow?  Next, through the fog of my sleepy brain, I distantly heard a text message come in to my phone, followed by the distinct sound of Doug's phone ringing, also downstairs.  By this time alarms started ringing in my head that I was desparately needed at home. I began to mentally calculate what time it was on the other side of the world.  Dreading the worst, thinking some one was hurt, the dog got hit by a car, one of my horses was colicking, or that at the very least there was no power at home and all the pipes were freezing, I stumbled down the steps and rummaged around in the dark trying to locate one of our phones.  My worst fears were confirmed, yes, it was home calling.

An immediate return phone call determined that Emily was having power issues in the barn and she needed to talk to Doug.  That didn't bode well for me.  That meant that I had to wake him up and the coffee pot hadn't even started to perkolate.  Sigh.  So much for sleeping in.  Eventually he was able to help her begin to trouble shoot and I made my way back to bed.  There's just not much to be said for going back to bed to try to catch a few more hours of sleep, it's just not the same.  Two hours later, I still felt groggy and cranky.

So, I decided I should cheer myself up with a chilled KitKat bar.  Just one little smidgeon first thing in the morning, it's not like I'd eat the entire candy bar.  My first bite reminded me that one of my dental caps had loosened and dislodged.  Sigh.  I reminded myself that now I need to locate a dentist.  I hate going to the dentist, and I don't think it's going to be a better dental experience in Abu Dhabi.  I can't seem to find any denture grip goop to stick it back in place until I suck it up and make the call for a dental appointment.  Sigh.

Okay, I knew I could get past this.  I could still turn my day around, it doesn't have to be totally ruined.  I began to cook breakfast for Doug and myself.  After I seasoned and cooked the American potatoes I look over to see Doug with his paws in my cooking.  "Sorry," he says.  "I added some salt to the potatoes."  Salt was literally crusted all over the top of the taters!  Now, I was beginning to become a little bit agitated.  My tongue lashed out, with an immediate retort, something in the neighborhood of, "I already salted them, stay the hell out of my cooking!"  "I didn't see you salt them," he replied defensively.  "YOU WERE ON THE PHONE IN THE OTHER ROOM!  I WONDER WHY NOT?"  I replied calmly and cooly, yeah, that's the way I remember it coming out.  And then he has the audacity to say, "I said I was sorry."  Good grief.  This guy just doesn't get it, does he? 

We made it through breakfast, and Doug immediately made an exit out the door, busying himself with washing the car.  Our car sits right outside our front door. I could hear him cheerfully whistling while he worked.  I decided I needed to check my important social network site and finish some bill paying chores while sitting at my computer.  Earlier this morning, Doug had chosen to install himself in my office chair leaned back with his feet propped up on my desk while he carried on a lengthy phone conversation with his son while I was cooking the aforementioned salty potatoes. 

I sat at my desk, settled myself in, and commenced to mentally escape before completing my important "work."  It was in the midst of my stimulating game of Spider Solitaire that I discovered my laptop seemed to be hot.  This couldn't be, I thought, I have a cooling fan underneath, and that's when I discovered, no I didn't really have a cooling fan under my laptop, I had a non-functioning cooling fan underneath my computer.  It's not that old, and I haven't used it that much.  After disconnecting the fan and attempting to twirl the blades with a pencil point, I gave it up for lost.  Sigh.  More dhirhams to spend.  Dentist, fan....

I decided to check on my "flowers" in our "garden."  One of our flower bushes didn't look so hot.  It wasn't thriving like the others we planted.  I decided it should be transplanted to another spot.  The new spot I chose was hard.  Rock hard to dig into.  I scratched around ineffectively with our only garden tool, a hand trowel.  Not making much progress, I decided to drench the spot with water and maybe come back to it later.  Eventually, I made my way out to sit on the front step and watch Doug wash the car.  That's when I noticed two things. 

The first was the gigantice scrape across the front driver's side of our rental car.  Ouch.  More dhirhams to the rental agency.  Doug explained that one away just last night when I discovered it while we were out and about, some quip about a tight squeeze and backing up and scraping a curb.  Arggh.  And that's when I spied it.  My dish towel, one of my favorite dish towels, brought from home, to the UAE, the most absorbent cotton pastel yellow and blue striped dish towel in our bare bones kitchen, sitting on top of the recycling bin outside.  Doug chose that moment to say, "Hand me that drying rag will you?  I've been using it to dry down the car."   I had wondered why that dish towel had those great big brown smudges all over it the last time I washed it.  I snapped.  "That's not a drying rag, that's one of my favorite dish towels, it's the only one we have that dries well."  I scooped it up, held it safely against my chest, made my way into the kitchen and rummaged around the bottom drawer to find one of the non-absorbent kitchen towels and bestowed that upon Doug.  Ha!  That ought to fix him, I chuckled to myself.

At some point early this morning, Doug called from the utility room, "How do you run the dryer?"  "Not easily," I replied.  We have this washer/dryer combination machine.  You can wash 6 kg of laundry, but only dry 3 kg of laundry.  So, I had to patiently explain that whole concept to him.  At which point he pawed through the clothes he washed yesterday, still wet in the machine.  He separated out a few items and we deliberated together over which buttons might make the machine function as a dryer.  We decided we might have made the right choice and went on to other tasks.  The timer said it would take 3 hours and 30 minutes to dry.  Hmm.  It's his clothes, I thought, and smugly went on my way.

Eventually, I made my way back to my computer.  Doug started up the stairs.  At that time, I chose to roll my office chair backwards.  There was a resounding SNAP!  And I found myself deposited neatly on the floor.  Remember the aforementioned leaned back foot propping phone conversation that took place earlier this morning?  Doug quickly came to investigate and found me still sitting on the floor staring stupidly at one half of the rolling feet on my office chair.  Sigh.  "I think that may have started to happen when I was sitting in your chair this morning."  Doug says. 

I made my way to the couch with a very thick book.  Doug made his way to the currently closed pool with the broken filter.  Three hours and thirty minutes later, my dryer sang a little song to me and I went to check on Doug's clothes.  Wet, soaking wet.  Not cupboard dry.  I shut the utility room door and made my way to my blog.  Currently, I am sitting in my lawn chair at my warm laptop wondering if Doug will find his way home.