One day at a time (finale)...

And now I'm at the end of a long day and a long week. I arrived at school this morning armed with Red Grammer and a smile for each of my kids. We bopped along to Down by the Sea, Two Hands Four Hands, and Grandfather's Clock (one of my all-time favorite songs, which many of my students said they know and one even said his mother learned to play!). The kids were fascinated by my iPod and the speakers, so I taught them how to use them (they are growing up with an intuitive knowledge of technology that I find amazing - when I was home visiting M, his six year-old nephew was able to get on the computer, search the web, find games he'd never played before, and figure out how to play them, all without any help from his parents...probing...).

And then before we took our science quiz on trees, I took them outside to actually look at some trees - they were fascinated. We looked at deciduous trees and coniferous trees and talked about why we didn't have any tropical rain forests or coastal forests. We picked up pine cones, pine needles, fallen leaves, and then ran back to the classroom (because it was FREEZING this morning) and had a wonderful time pulling pine cones apart, finding seeds, (these pine cones look different than the ones at home and I had just as much fun as my kids did) and then drawing them.

Then for the last 25 minutes before lunch we had "R, D, F together" time - when they are allowed to read, draw, or fold (origami) in pairs or groups, which they love doing and I think is an incredibly important part of 3rd grade. Learning to work together is invaluable and encouraging their creativity is equally important. Today I asked one of my girls, AM, to teach me how to draw because all the girls in my class can draw and I have noticed over the year that they have been teaching AM (or she has been learning) how to draw like they do. AM is foreign and didn't grow up with this style of drawing. Since I didn't either and I am a terrible artist, I thought I might as well get in on this! If I take one thing away from my year... Plus, I think it is a good for the student to become the teacher - at one point when I was distracted by something going on elsewhere in the room, she said "Pay attention!" And I teased, "Now you know how I feel". She really enjoyed showing me what to do and before I knew it I had three more volunteers to teach me "their styles" (apparently they're all at different drawing "levels" as they call them and each is eager to teach me what they know. They also defer to certain students who know the most or are at the "last drawing level".) I can't wait to keep learning.

But here's the rub. It was an amazing morning and they had a great time, but doing an entire day like that is hard with limited resources (like construction paper, shoe boxes, any art supplies, etc.). Even when the textbooks do suggest a hands on activity to supplement a lesson, I often don't have and don't know how to get the supplies I need. And I don't have a budget to get them with, so I end up simply buying them, which I don't mind doing to a point (I bought music and origami paper), but in the end...

And the location of the school is not ideal in terms of spending class time outdoors - looking at trees is about it in terms of what's around the school. There is a tiny playground (really meant for very young children) and an enclosed lot covered in gravel with soccer goals where they spend recess. But no field, no flowers, no enclosed space to be in (there is a street running between the elementary building and the other building). When it was warmer we have played classroom games outside, but in terms of exploration or piquing their curiosity I feel a bit stymied as far as outdoors goes. And taking a field trip is made more than usually difficult given the language and cultural barriers - I think I would be very uncomfortable taking them anywhere by myself certainly.

Anyway, this afternoon we watched a movie, Fly Away Home, with the 2nd and 4th graders, which they enjoyed (and was supposed to be a treat to celebrate the end of the semester, which was today), but in reality a full length movie is basically just outside their attention span, especially when they are combined with the 2nd graders who have even shorter attention spans. It is also difficult to combine classes because you combine teaching styles too, and it is hard to know exactly how much you can shush someone else's student in their classroom. I think as much as they love the idea of watching a movie, they had much more fun this morning then they did this afternoon watching the movie. So now I'm trying to figure out what else I can do to engage that level of interest. What other things will get them as excited as staring at dead leaves on the ground and pulling apart pine cones?

Maybe we'll bake cookies! Or make butter by shaking heavy cream in a jar (if I can find heavy cream here...).

Anyway, after the past 48 hours of frustration and self-reflection, I'm now feeling both resigned and somewhat smug. It's as if how much I love my class and how many fun things we're going to do is my little secret. But it also feels like by accepting everything that's going on now, we're all being set up for future frustration. And my big fear about the fact that I've given up on the administration to focus on my kids (which is what an ungenerous reading of Kozol might seem to suggest doing) is that this is reflective of a broader trend among teachers, and indicative of why so little change to the system occurs. If everyone pulls into their shell and toughs it out for their kids, then no one is left to make things change, to fight for the teachers and their kids.