Posts under ‘parents’

He’s back!  He’s better than before!  He’s José!
I met with his mother yesterday.
And his brother.
And his social worker.
You’d be surprised how many kids come with entourages these days.  It’s my second social worker conference this year.  The other one (surprise!) was Griselda’s (I just knew they had a connection).

If only their entourages brought them movie [...]

11 warning notices filled out to be sent home to kids not meeting grade-level standards
5 notes to parents (homework issues)
3 mini-conferences with parents (Kelly, Jesus, Brianna: Kelly brought a glass perfume bottle to school because Jesus, a 2nd grader in another class, called her fat and stinky; Brianna’s having a hard time counting to 20 [...]

As a mom, I walk up the path to the school with hope and trepidation.  Probably more of the former.  As a teacher, ditto.  I think this is a good thing: when teachers and parents have similar feelings and expectations.
Tonight we finally had our Back-To-School Night. 7 weeks into the school year.  Why so late, [...]

The first month of school is a crucial time in the life of a classroom. Don’t meld them into a working group, and you pay for it for the rest of the year. Classroom life is chaos. Teaching and learning are repeatedly interrupted by stretches of wildness. Days are exhausting. [...]

It’s the weekend. The Wild Things are roaring their terrible roars at home and not in my ears. In the silence I find myself thinking about José.
José who’s always playing with his erasers. Who sits as far away from me as possible. Who likes to be last in line and alone [...]

We all deal with it. Some more than others. All day I tried to find ways to teach physically. We were pirates (tomorrow being International Talk Like a Pirate Day). We were long vowels standing tall and short ones crouching down. We used unifix cubes all through math.

8 kids mostly [...]

There’s something about a new beginning in September that’s embedded in our life’s rhythm no matter how far we are from school. New season. New wardrobe. A new fall line-up.
A scrubbed and purposeful self ready to begin crisp new things.
Parents and teachers. We feel it more acutely. We live by [...]