Posts under ‘parents’

It’s been a while.  A new grade, a new curriculum, new standards, 33 beings each with his or her own concerns and quandaries, and not to mention my own in-house proto-teenager draped over the couch in poses of iPodded distress.  Not a lot of energy to write.  Complete sentences.  Even.
When there are that many kids [...]

So often life is about the bad and the ugly.  Not today.
I’m helping three of my 5th graders apply to private schools for next year.
This is a private school in LA:

And this is a public one:
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
The application process is, as you might imagine, lengthy and complicated.  Not quite a [...]

Today a mother came to visit after school, four children in tow.  Her son Efrain was a 2nd grader with me last year, and her son Elijah is a fifth grader with me this year.  They are both behind grade-level in all subjects.  They are both small, sweet boys with broad, white smiles and a [...]

I’ve been on a calling spree.  Didn’t do your homework?  Here’s my cell.  Call your mom–or, preferably, your dad.  First you talk, then I talk.  Sometimes I make six or seven calls a day.  The parents seem to be happy about it, but some kids continue to be repeat offenders.
The downside for me: parents have [...]

Not just a couple of weeks, but a couple of months.  I needed to get FAR away from the wild things, and I did.   I roamed all over.
But now tomorrow’s the first day of the new year, and today was wrap-up of last year.
We got our scores today, both last year’s class’s results and this [...]

The marathon is over.  The Wild Things have gone home (or what passes as home).  All that’s left is bits of ratty paper and crumbly memories strewn through my room, through me.  A school year.  Nine-ish months of intense proximity.  Just like a pregnancy, only with 20: viginitituplets?  Puts Octomom to shame.
As I look back [...]

They came to cart our couches away today.  One month after declaring them a fire hazard.
Our Very Nice Custodian:  We’re here for the couch.
Kids: No!!!
Me: Now guys.  You know it has to go…
Kids:  Why?
Me:  It’s veryveryvery dangerous.
Kids: Why?
Me: Don’t you know, couches have a disease.  It’s called random spontaneous combustion.  Can you repeat that?
Kids:  Random.  [...]

We had a lovely day last Monday.  Worked excitedly on all sorts of new words: yank, topple, wince, wide grin, heartwarming, corduroy, infant, sum, addend, process, cobble, shards, pulverize, currents, grains, weathering.  Read them in context, discussed them out of context, acted them out, placed them in new contexts, shared personal experiences that related to [...]

I had to do it again today.  Call the Department of Child and Family Services to report a parent.
This one haunts me for different reasons than the last one: last week, I knew the mother intended well but just needed some parenting help; today I know the mother intends bad.
This mother instructed her seven-year-old child, [...]

This week I had to make the phone call all teachers dread.  To the Department of Children and Family Services.  The supreme form of tattling.
Kelly walked at the front of the line holding a water bottle with ice in it.  The last time Kelly was carrying a water bottle with ice in it, she’d brought [...]