It's official

I am a teacher.

I am a first-year teacher.

As such, I don't really have time to be on here blogging... I should either be sleeping or planning, by all rights. There is so much to talk about, though, after just four days. It's been amazing.

The kids are savvy. They undoubtedly can outpace me. What I feel unsure about is my ability to provide engaging lesson plans. I feel like they need a really hands-on experience that I am not very good at providing. Even so, they have been very well behaved. They all really, really want to speak English. I tried doing a lesson in Spanish the other day and they all wanted to switch to English. My Spanish certainly isn't perfect, but I think it was more their desire to get better at learning English.

They are motivated. I believe the community has a passion for learning. You can see it in the kids--their parents or family know they need to learn and have infused the children with that passion. It's the only way out of the neighborhood--and it is tough neighborhood. The kids probably know more than I do about many aspects of life, even at only 9 or 10 years. They reacted positively to our goal--what I have to do is keep enforcing it.

The kids have four aspects to the goal. They are going to fill out their passports, which I am using to track their progress in the objectives that are set out for them. They are going to get 100 AR points when the goal for them is 60 (one asked me today about it, he was reading the chart on the wall with that goal and said "but we are going to get 100?". And I said "yep, you can show them. Get 100!..."). Okay, they are all going to pass the TAKS, reading, math, writing. Writing especially will be a feat. More on that later. Their last goal is writing too--being "three point writers" on the four-point TAKS rubric.

This is crazy. I almost felt guilty after giving them this goal becasue I am so unsure of my ability to get them there. But that is part of it--now I am trapped and committed to doing it for them. They are such great kids. Even the "worst" of them, behavior-wise, just talk too much, don't follow instructions. They're not hitting people, throwing things, anything like that--at least not in my classroom.

I have a very wide range of abilities. Writing ranges from the kids who write a whole page in their morning journals to those who write a few sentences to those who write two sentences. They all want to get better, I can feel it, but some don't know where to begin. What they need is just lots, lots, lots, and more vocabulary. That means more reading and listening exposure, but at the correct level. And therein lies the vast challenge. I gave reading diagnostics today. I have (according to Cloze) kids who can't read English [that was obvious before, of course] and, on the other end, kids who are at a high fourth-grade English reading level. Somewhat of the majority is probably second or third grade level. And, of course, I have to teach to the two kids who don't really speak English and who, I assume, are going to be testing in Spanish (while working at improving their English too, so they will be ready to move on). At least the ideas are the same, but it will be an uphill battle.

They also don't like to open up. I get along with them fine--they respect me, I respect them--but it is difficult for us to get beyond that. They don't like giving public compliments. They don't share things, yet, with me, though they might in the future. Yet at the same time they come together around each other. One kid cried today in class. Some of the girls were trying to help him out and they said things like "everyone cries...". Nobody laughed. Nobody made light of it... even my "bad" kids, who aren't that bad.

Okay, I'm tired and still have plans to finish. But there is more to be shared later!