Turn & Talk

Woof. I feel like I finally have a minute to slow down and process my life, and share with all of you! So I'm working at this AMAZING school. It's a charter, which, if you know me, I never thought I'd ever find myself working at a charter school. But I'm so happy I got over my stereotypes and generalizations of charter schools and applied. So my school is basically designed around the fact that students in the welfare and preventative services system underperform their counterparts in school. It's like Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs...They're too busy worrying about where their next meal is going to come from or where they're going to sleep to concentrate on memorizing multiplication facts.

Anyway so we have this cool model of intergrating Academics, and Social-Emotional needs as part of their curriculum. There's actually a Social-Emotional curriculum taught by the social workers and behavior interventionalist...It's all whole-child focused and SWPBS and love and logic. SO MUCH LOVE AND LOGIC.

I have a co-teacher which I was really concerned about because I tend to think I suck as a teacher and knowing someone was going to be in my classroom ALL THE TIME watching scared the crap out of me. Her name is Jenny and she is an amazing genius. She went to Montessouri school and did 4 years of Pre-Med and a year of Med school ay Brown, decided she didn't want to be a doctor and decided to be a teacher instead. And that usually would make me grrrr people turn to teaching when there's no other choice, but in this case it totally worked. She's so committed to the kids, and to my growth as an educator...I totally lucked out.  My whole staff is pretty awesome..young...but they're all married/engaged/pregnant...and I'm the youngest one...and sometimes it's awkward because they'll be talking about like engagement parties or afterbirth waters breaking..and i'm just like blech.

My kids...are amazing...difficult..and such strong little people. 3rd grade is apparently the toughest cohort...and I believe it. Students are being moved in and out of homes, evicted, reunited then seperated from birth parents, just SO MUCH going on with them that I can't imagine going through as a 22 year old. But because of all those things going, on a lot of them are wicked stubborn and I feel like I'm going through this phase of having to earn their trust...They're like not used to people sticking around and so why should they accept me...They are testing their little hearts out...but I can tell that I love them because even when they are awful to me..I'm still thinking good thoughts and miss them on the weekends...I didn't have that with my student teaching group so it's such a nice new feeling to have. And they are so smart. Most of them. That doesn't always translate to their test scores...but they are wise.

My biggest issue so far is that I'm still really having a difficult time having the kids see me as their teacher too...They had Jenny last year and here I am...new teacher in the school, and I spent the first two weeks kind of sitting back observing seeing how things ran...In that time the students also observed who was boss...I'm still trying to gain that authority and respect.  I'm also not a yeller and I don't want to be, and don't think I will have to be...but it's been a challenge reversing that Ms. H is the teacher and Ms. B is the assistant thing that I obviously have going on.  Hopefully this will get better as I continue building relationships with the kiddos.

Ashley.