Email Inbox

The newest Fwd:Fwd:Fwd:Fwd that showed up in my email today is the one about the new version of Survivor: 3 businessmen and 3 businesswomen are each dropped into a 5th grade classroom for six weeks. Each business person will be provided with a copy of his/her state standards, and a class of 25 students.

Each class will have two learning-disabled children, three with A.D.D., three gifted children, and two who speak limited English. Two will be labeled with severe behavior problems. Eleven of the 25 will be eligible for Title One Math and four will be eligible to receive reading services...if the district can afford to offer them.

Each business person must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create materials according to the needs of their students (differentiating for the gifted students as well as for the lower achieving students). They will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, and arrange parent conferences. They must also supervise recess and monitor the hallways and serve on at least one building committee.

In addition, they will complete drills for fire, tornadoes, and lock downs. They must attend workshops, faculty meetings, union meetings, and curriculum development meetings. They must also tutor those students who are behind and strive to get their 2 non-English speaking children proficient enough to take the state tests (as per NCLB). If they are sick or having a bad day, they must not let it show (or spend three hours the night before writing sub plans). Each day they must incorporate reading, writing, math, science, and social studies into the program. They must maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment at all times.

The business people will only have access to the golf course on the weekends, but on their new salary they will not be able to afford it anyway. There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunch will be limited to 30 minutes. On days when they do not have recess duty, the business people will be permitted to use the staff restroom as long as another survival candidate is supervising their class.

They will be provided with a 50-minute planning period daily while their students are at specials. If the copier is operable, and paper is not being rationed, they may make copies of necessary materials at this time. The business people must continually advance their education on their own time and pay for this advanced training themselves. This can be accomplished by moonlighting at a second job or marrying someone with money.

The winner will be allowed to return to his or her job.

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Also in my email was the weekly electronic newsletter from NCTE. There were these news articles: Why Educators Quit: Lack of Support, Too Much Paperwork (duh) and How to Gauge a School's Progress ("Some educators and other advocates say that comparing one year’s third graders with the following year’s third graders doesn’t reflect individual progress or take into account changing demographics." DUH!!)

Let's take a moment to meditate on the meaning of the word IRONIC.

A Fun Summer Book

Okay, so this is an old book, but a new-to-me book. I don't usually miss a book like this one, but I did---for years it seems. BEACH IS TO FUN: A BOOK OF RELATIONSHIPS is by Pat Brisson. She is one of my favorites because of her books THE SUMMER MY FATHER WAS TEN, WANDA'S ROSES, MELISSA PARKINGTON'S BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL HAIR and . This is a totally different kind of book--it is great rhyming analogies put into picture book form. I can see lots of fun reasons to share this one with kids--fun with words, thinking about words in different ways, celebrating summer. Can't wait to get my own copy since I happened to see this one at my daughter's school library. (Yes, I was at a PTO meeting and saw this book across the room....)

The Mistress's Daughter by A.M. Homes

I had some time to do some adult reading this weekend. I finished THE MISTRESS'S DAUGHTER by A.M. Homes. This is Homes' memoir revolving around her adoption, the relationship she has with her birthparents in her 30's and her feelings during the time. It is a powerful book. I have not read anything else by Homes but was drawn to this one from a review in an adoption magazine. Although the focus is on adoption, it is bigger than that. It is a book about a 30/40 something woman finding out who she is. Something very universal. I highly recommend it as a great memoir for adults. A.M. Homes has some great lines of hope throughout the book. She seems like an amazing person who has a great sense of who she is. The story is not really a happy one--it is a journey filled with lots of struggles. The honesty with which she tells her personal story makes it a great read. I have just recently started to read memoir. I plan to read lots more. There is an interview with the author on her website--about the struggles in writing a book that was not easy to write.

Fun Finds

Daemon roundup is at Wands and Worlds. 17 Kidlitosphere Daemons gathered in one spot. Some have not settled down yet. Mine has. If only her name was Charlotte, she might not seem so creepy. Go here if you don't have one yet. What are you waiting for?

Cool time coming up: At three minutes and four seconds after 2 a.m. on the 6th of May this year, the time and date will be 02:03:04 05/06/07. This will never happen again.

At Worldometers you can see world statistics updated in real time. Watch the tickers spin on how many calories have been consumed this year and the dollars spent on dieting in the U.S. Change your computer's clock to some year in the future (they suggest 2050) and check out the projected statistics.

' “Your IQ has really no relationship to your wealth,” says Jay Zagorsky of Ohio State University...' Anybody want to try to answer this one: "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" Maybe this graph from Indexed holds part of the answer.

Road Trip Reading

We're driving north today to watch the ranch dog trials at Hado-Bar Farms, and I'm not much different than I was when I was a kid and we took a road trip -- half of the fun is deciding what reading material and what music to take! The music's a little easier now. My iPod has everything from The Sons of the Pioneers to the LAGQ to The Best of the Chieftains (with some Garth Brooks and Manhattan Transfer thrown in for singing along). When I was a kid, we had to select cassette tapes and make sure the cassette player had fresh batteries. (Our 1960 Ford Falcon only had an AM radio.)

I have at least three spots in my office for books I've bought/received but haven't read yet. Today I'll be selecting from the pile on top of this shelf rather than the pile on the top of that shelf, and rather than that entire shelf over there, or that other 3/4 of a shelf down there.

From lowest to highest priority, this pile includes:

Volumes 6-8 of HIKARU NO GO. I read Volumes 2-5 over spring break. It pleases me that after I finish these, I will have read an entire manga series.

RULES by Cynthia Lord. I know, get with the program.

HOW TO CHEAT A DRAGON'S CURSE by Cressida Cowell. I love this series. I think it deserves more attention.

DANDELION WINE by Ray Bradbury. Last month's book club book. I'm not skipping it, I just couldn't make it happen last month.

LOVE, RUBY LAVENDER by Deborah Wiles. The long-standing literature circle group finally finished THE SECRET GARDEN and they voted unanimously to finish the last two books on our list even though we only have about 5 weeks of school left. RUBY LAVENDER is a nice change after THE SECRET GARDEN. Why is this so close to the top of my pile when I've already read it twice before? I, too, need a change after THE SECRET GARDEN. And a dose of Wiles to get me ready for her new book coming out in August!

And at the top of the pile...

STRENGTHS FINDER 2.0 by Tom Rath. Yeah, I know: yawn. But I got it two months ago at a leadership training seminar for Ohio Casting for Recovery, so it's the one that's the most overdue to be read. I'll take it, and RUBY LAVENDER as incentive to finish it. When I get home, I'll go online and to the Strengths Finder Assessment. It'll be interesting to see how this compares to my Daemon!

Poetry Friday: Teaching With Fire

Teaching With Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach
by Sam M. Intrator

If you read my last couple of posts (minus the Daemon), you might wonder if I'm counting the days to retirement. Not even close to that! But some days I do need something to sustain the courage to teach my way until the moment when, just to use a recent example, a student compares me to Mo in INKHEART. Or some such. This little book of poems and essays has kept me going more than once.

"Teaching with Fire is a glorious collection of the poetry that has restored the faith of teachers in the highest, most transcendent values of their work with children....Those who want us to believe that teaching is a technocratic and robotic skill devoid of art or joy or beauty need to read this powerful collection. So, for that matter, do we all."
Jonathan Kozol, author of Amazing Grace and Savage Inequalities

"When reasoned argument fails, poetry helps us make sense of life. A few well-chosen images, the spinning together of words creates a way of seeing where we came from and lights up possibilities for where we might be going....Dip in, read, and ponder; share with others. It's inspiration in the very best sense."
Deborah Meier, co-principal of The Mission Hill School, Boston and founder of a network of schools in East Harlem, New York

Check out the great review and synopsis here. (I'm not being lazy; my copy lives at school on the shelves beside my desk!)

Here's Why I Love My Job

Today was Let Your Child Skip School Day Take Your Child to Work Day. Instead of 25 students, I had 12. It was the perfect day to share the book Once Upon a Banana, by Jennifer Armstrong (illustrations by David Small).

In this wordless (except for street signs) picture book, a monkey escapes from a street performer, steals a banana from a grocer's outdoor display, drops the peel on the sidewalk, and, well, you probably know the rest. One thing leads to another and then another.

We had great discussions from the very beginning. The monkey escapes in the end papers, the banana is stolen on the title page spread, and the monkey scampers away from the street performer while he is detained by the angry grocer on the copyright page spread. "It's like an...introduction," I said. "No, a PROLOGUE," corrected one of the students.

As we read on, they made inferences based on facial expressions and body language, made predictions, and used the terms "cause and effect" and "point of view." Then, right when the judge who accidentally stepped on the skateboard runs into the lady with the baby carriage, my Firecracker who was tipping in his chair fell, knocking his desk over, and dumping its contents on his head.

They thought it was hilarious (and no one more than Firecracker himself, who was not injured in the least) that this had all happened at the moment in the book when there's the most chaos.

And then someone brought up the time when I was reading BLOOD ON THE RIVER and the character Samuel punched the character Richard in the mouth and Richard lost a tooth. At that very moment, one of my students lost a tooth. At the time, we went, "Ooooh, ahhhh," because it was like I made my student's tooth fall out. But now it happened again.

"It's just like in INKHEART!" one of my super girl readers said.

"Yeah!" said another. "You're like Mo!" (That might be enough to help me make it to the end of the year!!)

After we explained to the rest of the class about Mo being able to read book characters to life, one of the boys commented that I better not read aloud any books with guns and killing.

"But I already have," I replied. (BLOOD ON THE RIVER currently and DANGER ALONG THE OHIO last year) "I must only be able to read into life things that could happen in a classroom."

"Read a story about cookies!" tooth-loss boy cried out.

"Read a book about Christmas!" begged another.

Those High Paid Teachers

About a month ago, I shared an email that circulates periodically among teachers. It speculates about how a dentist would react if subjected to the professional degradation that is routine for teachers under NCLB. Here's another one that makes the rounds occasionally:

SICK OF THOSE HIGH PAID TEACHERS

I, for one, am sick and tired of those high paid teachers. Their hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do...baby-sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That's right...I would give them $3.00 an hour and only for the hours they worked, not any of that silly planning time. That would be $15 a day. Each parent should pay $15 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now, how many do they teach in a day.... maybe 25? Then that's $15 X 25=$375 a day. But remember they only work 180 days a year! I'm not going
to pay them for any vacations.

Let's see... that's 375 X 180 = $67,500.00

(Hold on, my calculator must need batteries! The average teacher salary is $40,000.)

What about those special teachers or the ones with master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage just to be fair. Let's round it off to $6.00 an hour. That would be $6 X 5 hours X 25 children X 180 days = $135,000.00 per year.

Wait a minute, there is something wrong here!!! Teachers would earn more if we just paid them to baby sit!!

Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree

EMMA-JEAN LAZARUS FELL OUT OF A TREE
by Lauren Tarshis
Dial Books for Young Readers
2007

I checked out some of the buzz about this book before I read it. (see below) Based on what I found, I knew I was in for a story with two distinct voices, a tight plot line, and a unique style. I also knew that Emma-Jean doesn't use contractions when she speaks, and that I might be tempted to compare the book to THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME, by Mark Haddon.

Everything I'd read was true.

Except I didn't think of Haddon's book, exactly. Rather, I thought of the phrase "spectrum disorder" when I tried to make sense of Emma-Jean.

There is, however, nothing disorderly about Emma-Jean. She is logical, scientific, distant from her peers, and very, very organized and clean. She is unlike Colleen, who is a fairly typical 7th grade girl: self-centered (but trying really hard not to be), obsessed with what others think of her (but trying really hard not to care), and way smarter and better than she ever gives herself credit for being. And Emma-Jean is practically the polar opposite of Laura, who is the alpha female of the seventh grade girls (popular, powerful, cheerleader). Along with these archetypal 7th grade girl characters, there are boys that range from tall, blond athlete Will to Brandon the bully/buffoon.

Almost as soon as I thought of the phrase "spectrum disorder," I realized that Lauren Tarshis had not so much told the story of one character who was vastly different than "normal," but rather, she had given us a set of characters in this book whose behaviors ranged in a spectrum from Emma-Jean on one end, to Laura on the other.

Tarshis shows us that no matter where a character is on the spectrum, he or she is not exempt from from the struggles of finding a way to fit in, finding a way to connect with others, and just plain finding a way to be one's true self. And no matter where the character is on the spectrum, Tarshis manages to show us some good in that person. (Even Laura. A little.)

My favorite character in this book is actually the janitor. Out of all the students and adults at the school, I think he is the one who understands Emma-Jean the best. He knows ALL of the kids the best -- all the variations on the spectrum of what constitutes middle school behavior. He takes care of Emma-Jean, and he "takes care" of Laura, both in very satisfying ways. He reminds me of our janitor, who, for some of the kids, is the most important (caring, accepting, non-judgemental) adult in the building.

I asked one of my 5th grade girls to read this book. She's a fabulous writer who has incredible voice in her writing. She really liked the way the author told the story from two points of view, and made each so distinctly different. I asked her if she knew any kids in our school that reminded her of Emma-Jean or Laura. I can think of some, but she thought that both of those characters were a bit extreme -- "creative" or "bossy" characters that you could find in books, but more over the top than any kids in real life. She could think of several girls in our class who are like Colleen, however.

I'd be curious to know how real the characters in this book are to readers of other ages. 7th grade was kind of a long time ago for me, but even so, I can remember characters in my class like all of the ones in this book...except Emma-Jean. As an adult, I have met/taught some "Emma-Jean"s. How about you? Do these characters all seem real to you, or are they book character stereotypes? Have your 7th graders read this book? What do they think? Does it ring true for them?

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Reviews at:
Buried in the Slush Pile (how a writer should read this book)
The Excelsior File (great plot summary)
Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Brookeshelf
A Fuse #8 Production

The John Hancock Club by Louise Borden

What a lucky day we had today--Louise Borden came in to our class and read her new book to us--THE JOHN HANCOCK CLUB. This is a great story of Sean, a third grader, who is not so excited to learn cursive handwriting. But with the help of his teacher, Mrs. Tovani, he learns to have excellent penmanship and to join the classroom's John Hancock Club. Louise Borden weaves in facts about John Hancock as the students learn about him and his signature on the Declaration of Independence. Louise Borden has once again captured life in a great classroom. If you don't know her other school books, you'll want to check them out. THE DAY EDDIE MET THE AUTHOR is a story of a boy who gets to meet an author during an author visit at school. GOOD LUCK, MRS. K! is the story of a classroom of children and their support of their amazing teacher who is diagnosed with cancer. THE A+ CUSTODIAN is a great tribute to the important people who do the job of taking care of the school and the kids. (A favorite of mine because the teacher's name is Mrs. Sibberson :-) THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL captures the feeling of kids and teachers on that last day of school--the excitement of summer but the sadness of a good year finished. A great one for this time of year!