Frustrations...

The frustrations in my life come so many at a time and so close together...at school, at the grocery store, and on and on I could list the things that happen.

Last week I experienced something that I realize happens a lot (both in my classroom and in everyday American life), but for some reason this time it struck me to blog on the topic. Homeroom 240...my most challenging class this year! For whatever reason, children and adults alike find no room in their pea-sized brain to simply follow instructions...if we all did that, our lives would be soooooo much easier!

As I stood in front of 240 this past week waiting for them to realize I was waiting on them, I simply observed human nature. "Shut-up!" "No you shut-up!" "Why don't you BOTH shut-up!" This situation happens all the time in my classroom. Well, it didn't used to...they used to just continue to talk and not care. Now they get annoyed at each other, then yell back and forth for ten minutes until they run out of steam...don't be fooled though, they get it back in no time!

Frustrations such as this have happened to us since we were kids. I think that understanding manners and common courtesy could easily solve the problems we have in daily life. Heck, not only daily life, I think we might even have world peace!!! The point is that so many people have grown up being treated withOUT love, common courtesy, even faith, and I really believe that it has been detrimental to society.

Another example, or frustration rather, that could have been solved by a little love and faith in a child-hood...As Ryan and I were gone on Friday evening, we returned to find our lovely little apartment had been broken into! Blast! The moron took my computer (a cherished old friend who I have had for five and a half years!), Ryan's iPhone charger (creepy because they had to be snooping in our bedroom, come on now!), my iPod, and our jar of change that we've been saving. Now, in all honesty, WHO DOES THAT?! It makes me sick to think about it, but then I realize how seriously unintelligent this person had to be! Yea, ok intelligent enough to get a laptop, but we have so many more valuable things that he/she could have taken laying out in plain sight, and they choose the five-year-old computer? Clearly they need the money more than me...but REALLY? Thankfully I have most of my documents and photos backed-up to my external HD, but the plain fact that some creepo felt it necessary to enter our home and take things that don't belong to him/her is ridiculous...I guess that's why they call them thieves though. Like I said, had this person been taught through love, faith, and common courtesy, I would not be sitting here wanting to whoop someones butt right now!

When I think back to where this thought originated, I can only hope that my students don't fall into terrible habits such as stealing and worse. Fortunately, I have the opportunity with them to make sure they feel loved, and to make sure they know how to treat others. I may not get all of them, but as long as I get some of them, I am okay with that. It kills me to think that the first thought that my housemates and I thought was, "Well, it was when all the kids from *** school got out on Friday." This is an alternative school in the district where students who have been in trouble with the law are sent. Lucky for us, its four houses down. We shouldn't even have to suspect that a student from that school did this, but unfortunately we did. Unfortunately, human nature shows a pattern in people, and unless we are taught positive patterns, we will end in the destruction of self.

Please continue to pray for my kids, and all of the kids in the district. Please ask that they have mentors, and someone who loves them.

Shalom

What We Don't Understand

I have learned so many things about life this year....from my students, my family, and those I have been blessed to meet. I have learned so much more about humility and service, about compassion and blessings, and about how to appreciate what I have in life. I think that I appreciate my everyday blessings of food, family, and friends even more since I have begun teaching.

Recently I have begun to realize that my kids and their parents are doing what they know how to do to the best of their abilities. Majority of my student's parents are foreign...they might be from Jamaica, Puerto Rico, or some other country that is not well developed in the field of education. It is for this reason that I have realized they really don't know how to push their children beyond, "did you do your homework?" My assumption is that they don't truly understand what it takes to make it in the American world of education. My kids have been born into a world that they are set up to fail in. Starting in elementary school, they are already far beyond their peers for the simple fact that they might not have been read to as a small child. They have already not been exposed to the vocabulary that their wealthier peers have been exposed to. In seventh grade, those same parents are trying their darnedest to make ends meet, to give their child opportunity, but it really is a viscous cycle. If the parents of my kids cannot help them to go as far as possible, then how can we expect my kids to help their kids go as far as possible? And on and on it goes.

So here I am in the middle of an American crisis that not everyone recognizes or even knows about, and I am trying to stop the cycle. As only one person, I don't have enough energy to focus on all of my kids. So I have been faced with a choice. Looking at my students, I see so much potential in so many of them, but I am forced to pick and choose who I put the most of my energy into, who I push the hardest, and who I continue to challenge beyond the classroom. I feel the weight on my shoulders that bears down on me because I know in some cases, I am the only one who can really encourage my students to go far, and coach them to get there. Talk about an energy-draining job!

As I sat at dinner last night with a lovely family who supports Teach for America, I realized just how little my students have. I have gotten so used to the dingy clothing that many of them come to school in, and I have gotten used to the emotional struggles that they go through. I really should not be used to it at all. The four children in this family were so bright, so curious, and so well spoken that it made me sad when I think about my kids at school. The two boys in fifth grade are already so far beyond where my seventh graders are in school. They are so engaged in their learning, and so happy to be in school, and I saw so much potential! Then I look back to my kids...what they experience can only be changed by me at this point in their lives...please continue to pray for me and my kids as we go through our journey together this year...pray for their families who may be struggling...and thank you for all of the support you have blessed us with so far.

Oh the Life of a Teacher...Part 2

So last week was delightful! I cannot even begin to explain how pleased and thankful I am that God brought me to be a teacher...clearly he knows that I cannot handle (or choose not to enjoy) working 52 weeks a year:) As the days went on, I slept in, I read - not only did I read, but I finished a book that I have been reading since, oh about Christmas time (Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett - I highly recommend it! A great book!) I got to go snowboarding one evening (on a "mountain" no bigger than a mosquito bite compared to the CA and CO mountains I have experienced) ice-skating, and I even got in a hike on Sleeping Giant in Hamden, CT.

Though I was not with my 'kids,' I spent plenty of time with my good friend Randi and her 4-year-old daughter Laila. I met Randi through Ryan. She is married to Ryan's good friend and boss Hassan at the GAP. We have had so much fun with them! Randi is in her 4th year of law school, and so she sometimes needs help keeping little miss Laila busy when she needs to study, or even do dishes! So one day I took Laila after we had lunch and we played at my house for 4 hours. We made the biggest drawing of a house I've ever seen, made some extremely messy brownies, built a large fort in my living room, hid from a monster for about an hour, then killed the monster with marshmallows (apparently he was really ugly.) It was so much fun to spend some time with a child who is still so innocent and sweet. I spend so much time with hormone-filled, pre-teens who are screaming up and down the hallways that I forget how lovely children are.

I went back to work yesterday after my amazing 10-day break, and amazingly enough wanted to stay in bed juuuusssssst a bit longer. I begrudgingly dragged myself out of bed, wiped the boogers out of my eyes, and got my coffee fix - ready to go! At 8:30 when my kids started strolling in, I remembered how much I love my job. When Barbara came in and said, "I missed you miss," I remembered that I have been called to my profession. I have been called, and what a blessing it is to serve the Lord. I hope my kids know just how much I love and care about them in the name of the Lord.

Oh the Life of a Teacher

I can't tell you how lovely it is to be able to have a week off in the middle of February AND get paid for it! I have been able to relax, actually spend time with Ryan for a change, and GO SNOWBOARDING! Haha, the snowboarding teacher...I will be excited to hear the reaction form my kids when they hear Mrs. Shumway went snowboarding. "Wait, what?! You snowboard Mrs. Shumway???"

It's funny too, in the short week I have been off, I have thought about my students so many times. I got a text from one of my girls last night that said, "Hi Mrs. Shumway. I miss you." The first thing that came into my mind was, "Awe how sweet." I guess I really am making an impact on my kids, whether they are learning much or not. The second thing that I thought was, "Wow, how bored my kids must be in order to miss me." Thinking back to my own breaks in elementary and middle school, I NEVER thought about my teachers until maybe the day before I went back. I'm so curious if the reason is boredom, or honestly what 'home' is like for so many of my students. I know that some of my students have a hard home-life, and I wish that there was something I could do to help. But I guess in the long run, I am helping as much as I can in the classroom. I am helping them with their basic homework-completion skills, I am helping them understand the importance of respecting their peers and teachers, and I am helping them to understand that they CAN succeed and that they are loved.

Though my break has been short, I am starting to miss those sweet (and some not so sweet) faces. Please continue to pray for my kids. they need all of the love they can get.

Frustrations of a Haggared Teacher

This week was not only long, but extremely frustrating, and it's not even Friday...It's sad that I am hoping for a snow day tomorrow. I continue to say, and I will stick to it, that my kids need me in the room...but I will add on to that saying that they just don't know it all the time. I went through a few days of 'whisper whisper, yell yell, talk over Mrs Shumway, throw homework away, scream scream, roll my eyes, mock the teacher' etc, etc...I can't imagine, sometimes, what is going through the growing brains of my students. Is there a miracle grow I can use for 11- and 12-year-olds? I don't know how it is that they can be so rude to me when I work so hard for them. But now that I am thinking about it, I figure it out...they have never been spoken to or treated, maybe, the way that I would expect them to be. So in return, how would they know? I have listened over the end of a phone line when on a phone call home as a mother screamed at her daughter for about 11 straight minutes...and in the background all I could hear from my student was fear in her voice, and excuses to mom. It made me feel bad for calling home, but then at the same time, I am not sure how else to deal with some of my more challenging students. When it comes to being frustrated, I have to think about my students who do love me, and who really do appreciate me.

I am so proud of some of my students who I have seen grow so much, either mathematically or socially. I had three students who came up at lunch just wanting to eat with me. These three boys don't typically come up, but today was different. I don't know if it is a comfort thing, that they come up to get some quiet, but I love having them up. They love to share different little pieces of their lives with me, helping me out in the smallest ways --without me even asking! Those are the little things that I have to keep remembering -- that is why I am here! Lord knows I love all of my students, but some of them love me back...and that is what REALLY makes it worth it. I can't let the few bad days get in the way of the good ones.

Understanding Kids

It is amazing to me how little some people know about managing kids in the classroom. Now I do not claim to be an expert in the area, but I know that I manage with care and compassion, along with a 'flexible iron fist.' I sit in my classroom on my prep and listen to the mismanagement of students in other rooms. Beginning the class by getting frustrated and angry, and yelling, "Do Now!" at a student is no way to earn the trust and respect of him or her. I experience so much more joy from their learning, and calmness in the class when I begin with a, "Good morning D'Ante."

I know I am not the most calm person on my staff, but I try to be as calm and reasonable as possible...yes, sometimes I lose it for a bit and try to re-explain an instruction to an individual student by yelling, but for the most part I try to teach my students with respect. No way on God's green earth would I comment about how terrible the student is, or that someone can't do something right in front of them, let alone the entire class. You know that the kids don't respect you when they mock you in your class, in front of your face. Why should they if that happens and you do nothing about it!?

Off to grade for now, but maybe more to come later today.

The Nurturer

I have no kids of my own yet. The 72 students that I see everyday and teach every day ARE my kids. I have seen them hate me, spite me, respect me, and love me. I've had them call me mom, give me hugs, and do work for me because they like me (whether it's for my class or another class). I don't know where the breakdown is, what the reason it that so many teachers have a hard time respecting the same students that I do. Yes, they are a handful, they are challenging, they are sometimes mean, but that's why I teach them the way I do - with a lot of love.

Growing up, my parents always told me that I could do anything that I wanted to as long as I put my mind to it. This is what is missing from so many of my kids lives. So many teachers discount my kids as unable, that they don't care, as passive. I beg to differ with these teachers. They can and will work hard. They need to be shown that you care, and they need to be loved. It's a hard world to be brought into when you are not taught better from the society around you, but I can be that influence, that nurturer who tells them, "you CAN do anything that you want."

I believe that my parents were hard on my brother and I for a good reason; they showed us responsibility and respect through their tough love. This is why I am not only loving towards my students, but I am extremely hard on them when it comes to grades and their own responsibility. As I sat through a professional development session today, I heard so many colleagues say that they can't get students to turn in homework, but if they give them a zero for all of the missing assignments, they'd fail. I say GOOD! Let them fail! They need to understand that without doing the work and putting in the effort, they will not pass. From last quarter to this quarter, I see a definite improvement in the return on work that is due. I have so many more students coming to me to ask, "Can I get the work I'm missing?" "What can I do to boost my grade?" When it came to the end of the quarter, they were amazed that they had an F. They saw the lack of responsibility and how it affected them. Through that realization, the number of students who are failing has been cut in half. I am even harder on the students this quarter. I used to give ten pages of make-up work to them, kindly letting them make up work from two months before. This quarter, they have five days, and that's it! They feel the responsibility through the tough love that I bear down on them. Some of the students that I am the hardest on have improved the most!

At the end of the day, I say goodbye to my kids, I get a few hugs from them, and I remind them as they run to the bus to remember their responsibilities for the night. Maybe they have a hard time remembering their work, or maybe they have a lot to deal with at home, but it's not that they "don't care," so much as they need someone to tell them they are brilliant! They may not meet society's view of brilliant, but I see the potential, and I make sure that they know I have all the faith in the world in the ability of each and every one of my students.