Year 3 Begins

I just spent a few minutes scanning over my posts from my first quarter of teaching. It is exciting to know how much a person can learn in 2 years, even as an adult. I worked really hard and did my best for my students in my first year, but I can already tell that this year the efforts I put in with have much greater yields. I feel I am finally able to create systems in my classroom that are effective and that I can stick with. I can already see how some of these will make my life easier and less stressful. I can also already feel how much better my classroom environment is for my kids (and myself) when I am less stressed. A lot of these systems have to do with managing the use of materials and the movement of children. These things seem like they should be so simple...but somehow they can really dictate how well things run. Who would have thought that bathroom breaks, pencils, seating charts and collecting papers would be so challenging to manage? Managing this stuff comes pretty naturally to some, but this is not my strength, so it has taken me awhile.

I am getting to know my students already. I already love them. I can see that some will challenge me, but I also feel that I have the tools I need to handle these challenges. I am in the process of making a few of my potential "trouble-makers" into my favorite students.

My school is in the process of a transformation. We have new administrators and I can already feel the positive energy throughout the school. As a staff we are more supported and it makes a HUGE difference. School feels like a wonderful place to be. I smile when I think of the place and the people I am fortunate to work with--both staff and students.

In this school year I am striving for excellence in the classroom and balance in my life. Efficiency is the name of the game. I am working on not bringing my work home with me and being organized and well planned in the classroom. I left school before 5 on Friday, my classroom was neat, I had made several parent phone calls, and I brought home no work with me. I will finish up planning for the week before school and during my prep tomorrow. This week my task is to get the next few weeks planned out now that the beginning of the year stuff is getting wrapped up and I need to have solid instructional plans ready to go.

At the moment I am looking back and feeling proud of how far I have come from the disoriented first year teacher. I am feeling content, professionally and personally, and looking forward to things to come...including the challenges.

AIMS Scores

Really pleased with my students' scores! I calculated the percentage of all my students "meeting" or "exceeding" the standard: 81.8% for writing, 69% for reading. This is a big jump from my students' scores from last year as well as an improvement on this group of students' scores from 5th grade. Standardized tests are not everything, but it is nice to have the affirmation that something is going right!

I am about to buckle down and get to serious work planning the school year. I am really excited for an excellent school year!

Letter to Sponsor...

a little update from the frontlines......I wrote it to my TFA teacher sponsor.....work smarter, not harder....


04/10/2009

Dear Mark,

I can scarcely believe that my students have finished their AIMS testing for the year. After 8 months of learning and 2 weeks of testing, my students and I paused this week to reflect on what we have accomplished so far this school year and what we have yet to accomplish in our final 6 weeks together. In order to establish purpose and focus--which can be tough to come by at the end of the year, my 6th graders and I reviewed our data. We reviewed how we have achieved as a group and as individuals on each learning goal for the year. We are on the brink of reaching our year-long goal--to have a class average of 80% on all assessment for the year. Our average right now is 76%. The students, having internalized this goal as an indicator that they are ready to move on to 7th grade, and I are planning strategic action to make sure we reach this goal.

The support I receive from my Teach For America Program Director has shaped my instruction and allowed me to lead my students to be within reach of meeting their goal. This support continues to help me refine my practice and ensure that my students really do reach their goal of 80% by May 21st.

My Program Director is helping me ensure that my lesson plans reach each one of my learners. With this support, Oswaldo, who entered 6th grade on a 1st grade reading level, scored 100% on a grade level reading assessment yesterday! Without your generous contributions, the support that leads to victories for students like Oswaldo would not be possible. I thank you for investing in Teach For America, my students and our future.

I have appreciated your support throughout the past two years. While my two years as a Corps Member are coming to a close, I plan to stay in Phoenix to teach 6th grade next year. I cannot wait to see what my students can accomplish in my 3rd year of teaching! I would love to keep in touch with you as I continue my work in closing the achievement gap.

Maybe we can catch the Ducks-Sun Devils football game this fall? Go Ducks!

Sincerely,

Carolyn Burns

"What did you do this weekend, Isaac?"

"I go to Food City,"

"what did you get at Food City?"

His response? "Food."

This kid catches on quickly....



Things in the classroom seem to go fine...I wonder how much better they could be if I was more consistent. I seem to have lapses of just getting tired and not using consequences the way I need to.

There are so many things that I need to do better. My planning is up and down...and how well I pull off a lesson doesn't seem to always correspond to how much time I spend planning. Sometimes my best lessons are the simplest ones that I put together in a few minutes...and what I think are well planned lessons totally bomb. It is also TOTALLY different with different groups of kids. I need to differentiate better. Then I get overwhelmed when I think of doing everything it would take to do things "right" and I just feel burnt out and I get paralyzed and LAZY. I realize more and more that I am still in the infancy of my development as a teacher...In SO many ways. In terms of my actual instruction, in terms of parent communication and keeping kids accountable......also, I think I need more consistent routines and systems and I have got to figure out a way to make things easier for myself so that I can do the important stuff without getting burned out. This makes me want to stay in my position for one more year so I can try and get it right.

mmmmm. deeeeeep breath. I will get better if I let myself learn.

4th Quarter Begins....

Well, I actually missed the first two days of the quarter due to illness. Apparently, Las Vegas is a great place to have fun....and come down with a cold. The Grand Canyon is a great place to NOT get over your cold and Phoenix is a great place for that cold to turn into an ear infection. Regardless, I made it back to the action by Wednesday with at least 1/3 of my voice. It was great...I think the kids were so relieved they didn't have a substitute, and felt bad for me that they were really well behaved. We had a really productive and fun three days doing AIMS writing practice. They now feel really comfortable with a pre-writing method we reviewed from earlier in the year and wrote persuasive letters to the cafeteria...they love to whine and try to get their way, so it comes somewhat naturally, plus we all love to talk about food. To top it off, fourth hour got to watch Adam Sandler's "Lunch Lady Land" at the end of class. The amazing thing was, as soon as that thing ended every single one of them was working furiously, determined to get their letters finished by the end of the hour.

Well done, sixth grade.

I had a perfect tutoring session with one of my favorite people, Isaac. The great thing is, since he is learning to speak English, we get to chat and joke around and it is a totally legit learning exercise. He is so smart and a very dedicated student. He is still learning the language but makes sure he figures out all the directions and turns in the parts of his science fair project on time something many students fluent in English have a hard time with! He is an amazing person in his personality as well. So good natured...there is more, but I can't quite describe it. I consider myself blessed to work with him.

Success!

80.25% across the grade level on a persuasive text assessment.

Holler...and on material taught and assessed during the week and a half before break.

My low class went from 52% to 73%.

**I used texts that were written at a 4th grade level for my two lower classes--but with questions that were written to 6th grade level standards.

We will get them to master with grade level texts, but we have to build them up!

Little by Little

I just realized I didn't post back with retake results! I stayed at school that Monday 'til 9:45 when the janitor warned me that the alarm system was about to be turned on so that I could get results ready to be turned back to kids. The overall average on the assessment went from 52% to 71% in one week! Some students are continuing to retake so they can master objectives. It is exciting to see that investment.

We wrote essays this week. Welcome to formulaic 5-paragraph essays! I saw some great work from many of my students. I am excited to start writing tracking. I am also excited to borrow a document camera and show some student examples of both strong essays and common places where people went wrong. Below I am going to type an essay that one of my students wrote. This student is an English Language Learner, though she has tested out of the program. She is incredibly hard working and an amazingly sweet individual. The students got to choose anything they would like to write about for their first expository essay. I had briefly talked about the AIDS pandemic on Monday--World AIDS Day, the day we chose topics. Kelly asked if she could write about it. I helped her get started, but these are her words and sentiments. I am really proud of her achievement. I'll transcribe the essay:


HIV/AIDS affects kids around the world by killing their parents, kids getting sick, need to take care of their parents.

When AIDS kills parents, kids became orphans which affects them because they don't have someone to take care of them. They're with hunger because they don't have parents to feed buy them food to eat. And by that, they could even die. By killing parents you hurt the kids feeling. They could die if they cry a lot of get very, very sad sometimes too.

Kids get sick for a lot of reasons. For example, kids get sick because when the kid is inside the mother's stomch and the mother has HIV the kid were be born with HIV because the kid has the blood of her and her blood is with the disease. If the HIV gets wrose the disease would be called AIDS. The kid will die faster if the kid doesn't have medicen to take. If the kid has medicen to take the kid will die in a longer time.

Some kids need to take care of their parents because they have HIV or AIDS. People that have that disease need a lot of care. But this taking care of your parents could stop them to be educated. Also, it could affect their future because they're not going to be able to go to school. Taking care of your parents is good but bad at the same time.

As you can see some kids in the world have HIV or AIDS that affects their education, future, family, and friends. That could affect letting them succeed in the future.

I commented at the bottom of her paper:
You are going to change the world if you keep writing like this!

I believe it is true.