A Day In The Journey

I hate inside recess/lunch. Actually, the inside recess isn't too bad since I have recess duty everyday and expect to be surrounded by children for that half-hour. It's the inside lunch that got to me. I guess that although I realized how much I enjoyed the half-hour of silence that usually accompanies lunch, I didn't completely appreciate it. Now I do. Ah well.

Now to the ships. I have never done a craft project with students. High Schoolers aren't exactly hands-on project types, you know. I have now been initiated into the world of paper mache and tempera paint. My 5th grade students are studying explorers right now and so we built two sailing ships. They turned out really nicely. The project was just messy enough to be exciting (flour paste is always interesting), and the kids really liked seeing the ships come together. I let them team up as boys vs. girls. Hmmm. I will say that the girls' ship was. . .well, it evidence more care and attention. The boys shows more. . .imagination. The girls were very neat and careful about their application of paper strips and painted their ship brown with a fairly good representation of the British flag hung at the top of the main-mast. The boys were less careful with their paper, being mainly interested in gooping their fingers. Their boat is named "S.B.B." for "Super Bee Boat," so named because they painted the interior of their boat yellow and black stripes. The outside is red with brown only on the very bottom and the top rim of the hull. They have two flags: one striped with a bee and one for Georgia Tech. Don't ask. At any rate, everyone was thoroughly pleased with the final products, so there you go. Frankly, I really enjoyed myself, too. I got goopy hands and painty fingers, and really enjoyed watching the kids.

Lockers. Who would think that something as simple as lockers would cause tumultuous joy among 6th grade girls. my 6th graders have much stuff (my 5th graders do, also, but I think milk crates are going to be the solution) and small desks. my headmaster and myself had previously discussed giving the 6th grade some of the extra upper school lockers, but I had waited to see if we needed them. My 6th grade girls decided they needed them of their own accord. So they asked me if they could have lockers having already checked to see how many extras there were. I told them that Mr. Elliott and I had discussed it before, so I would check with him. I did, and we decided to give them lockers. Now, lest one think otherwise, the boys were happy about getting lockers. For the girls, though, "happy" is an understatement. Squealingly gigglingly joyous would be more accurate. From the 3 girls I got 6 hugs, 12 We love You's, and a note. Wow. Who would have thought. And of course, 3 coversations about which cute actors would be appearing on their locker doors. Sigh. These are the things that make the frustrating days worth it--like the day I had to converse with my 6th graders about why they had to do grammar stuff that they "already know." If only I had know--give them lockers and it wouldn't matter anymore!

on a more serious note: One of my 5th graders, Sarah, needs some serious prayer. Her mom is going through treatment for breast cancer, and Sarah isn't doing very well at all. Her school work is suffering. She says she's slow and stupid. And the last couple of days that has developed into hating herself and saying she wishes she could die. Yesterday, she tried to hurt herself with scissors and when the counselor asked her why she said, "I want to hurt myself because I hate my life because my mom is sick." Please, please include her in your prayers. And me, because my heart aches for her and I really need guidance to know what to do and say to help her.

Posted by Renee at 08:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I succumbed to using the cheesy headline. I apologize to all who thought it beneath me, but I just couldn't help it. The local newscasters have pounded it into me, I suppose. My grandmother came to stay most of the week since she lives a block away from Lake Pontchartrain--which was in serious danger of flooding, being on the windward side of the storm. Thankfully, the Lake remained within its levies and here in Baton Rouge we received only wind and no rain. And a day and half off of school! Yes, that does put me a little behind, but we'll be okay. And certainly it is better to be safe than sorry. And the traffic!!!! There are disadvantages to being the center of hurricane evacuation routes from both the east and the south--like Interstate backup and taking twice as long to get to school. But, I was so blessed to see local people and churches using this as an opportunity to help others. And though God was merciful in allowing us to miss the storm--and in giving so many time to evacuate--those who are soon to be returning home need prayer. I can only imagine what this storm would have done to the Louisiana coastline considering what it did to Alabama. The beach reconstruction will take years, I'm sure. Missing school seems to minimal in comparison. Of course, two more storms stalk us already--there may be more hurricane entries to come.

Posted by Renee at 08:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I had a wake-up call on Friday. I had failed to review both history cards and grammar terms the way I should have been, i.e. daily. Boy did I realize it on Friday. Friday is History test day--and this Friday also managed to hold a Grammar quiz. I realized my failure when they started with the questions. Too many questions. Over things they should have had in their head. Things that weren't enough in their head because of me. Because I failed to review the material every day the way I know I should have. I guess it was bound to happen. I guess I'm still not used to the routine of reviewing and reviewing and chanting facts and reviewing even more that is the essence of the setup here--and really should be the essence of all grade school teaching. Well, I learned my lesson this time. As much as I desire to fill in with stories and extra facts, I cannot do so to the detriment of reviewing the facts every single day. Sigh. I mainly just felt really dumb. And I was definitely easier on their grades than I would have been otherwise. After all, it was my fault they struggled with this day of tests, so why should they be penalized for my failure as a teacher? This week, we already started off on a better foot. I took today to re-cover the grammar issues we hadn't gotten a handle on last week; and in History class, I made sure to review our previous dates and facts. Whew.

On a different and in a way lighter note, I have to share my "circumcision" story. Boy oh Boy (no pun intended.). We are reading through I Corinthians in Bible, which can be controversial enough if you let it (the school policy is to avoid controversy and simply make sure the students know the basic facts found in each book--very difficult with 10/11 year-olds who have a special way of asking weird questions). Well, this particular day I hadn't had a chance to read ahead and see what we would be covering, so I discovered in class that we had a small verse about circumcision. Gee whiz. Frankly, the context meant it should have been easy: that whether you were circumcised or uncircumcised didn't matter in Christ. So I mentioned that Paul was using the word "circumcised" to refer to Jews--that Jews were circumcised as a sign. So up comes the hanDATE: "What is circumcised?" "Well, it's something God commanded the Jews to do to show that they were His people." "But what is it?" So I ask: "Who knows what circumcised means?" All buy two students raise their hands. Now I'm in a fix b/c if I don't explain it, my problem becomes that all but two students know this mysterious secret. Great. So, after a long, awkward pause (after all, how to you tactfully explain to 10 year olds. . . ) I respond "It's something that's done by cutting off extra skin on boy's private parts." Whew. Thought I was clear until my resident drama queen (one of the two who didn't know) decided that was just too traumatic. She became horribly melodramatic and when I corrected her for that, decided that staring-off-into-space silence was the best way to continue her attention getting. Which worked for about 1 minute as everyone asked "Is Hannah okay?" etc. I instructed the class to pay attention to me and we moved on. Hannah, my drama, queen, I later discovered kept her stunned silence all through Latin the following hour. Finally in history, after I talked to her for about 5 minutes, everything was evened out; leaving me relieved, yet replaying the scene over and over wondering if I could have handled thing any differently. So I e-mailed my curriculum advisor (also one of my moms) and she said I did just fine. And that I could use it to pave the way for future wierdnessess by having a little talk "You all are in the 5th/6th grade now and old enough to start learning about more adult things. . . ." I did, and so far, we're okay. Yeesh. Kind of a baptism by fire into the world of grade schoolers. Anyway. My little drama does keep me on my toes, but we've avoided the melodramatic silence recurrence. Thankfully. So the moral of the story is--have the talk about being older and expecting somewhat mature behavior before you read about circumcision. It's much more peaceful that way!

Posted by Renee at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The title doesn't completely reflect my attitude, but it was fun to write, so I left it. Forgive me my slip of silliness.

I may have mentioned this before, but bear with me. I appreciate the way history is dealt with in the classical way. Sans textbook, I must do research--small amounts, to be sure, but still research. This fits intrisically with the idea that a school is people coming together to learn--though I am the teacher, I am also learning. And by always learning myself, I remain ever-fresh in my presentation and attitude. Another advantage to this form is that I am presented with several sources of information that I must reconcile rather than being tempted to assume that the textbook I am using presents the truth rather than the post-modern interpretation of it. What I also like is that the students are not overwhelmed by pages and pages of information that they won't ever remember. Instead, the students focus on memorizing essentially 32 major dates in the segment of history that we study. I fill in information to complete the picture, but they only need to remember the dates and basic facts for each of the 32 history cards that they study. This, of course, is based on the idea that grammar aged students memorize facts very well. If we limit the facts they are responsible for to the most important, they can focus and then remember them. When they reach upper school, they will have a bank of benchmarks around which to build as they expand their study. This has been very freeing for me as a teacher.

Literature, on the other hand is harder. One, because I have the two grades together. Two, because without a textbook (though I despise Literature textbooks) it means I have to be creative and proactive when coming up with projects and questions. Sigh. That is definitely a test of my literature teaching ability. And I wonder if I'm really infusing them with a love for what they're reading. Of course the first books we've read aren't spectacular classics, so many I shouldn't be hard on myself. Still, I wonder. I hope I'm doing this right!

Other than my small turmoil over my effectiveness as a literature teacher for 10 and 11 year-olds, school has gone well. I apologize for not posting in so long--it has been busy and exhaustifying. Since Monday is Labor Day, I hope to take some time and write more about the adventures we've had the last 2 weeks in class. And if anyone has fond memories of history and literature projects from 5th and 6th grade, feel free to pass them along!!!!

Posted by Renee at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)