White Folks at the Water Park

Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway. 

-Elanor Roosevelt

My kids were a little talkative today, they were "ackin a fool." We had to turn off the lights and repeat one of our new mantras for a few minutes "I (the student) am not behaving for you (the student.) I am behaving for me." We had to say it several times before it sunk in. We just needed to re-group and get some mosquito-like focus together and go right along. They had to do their worksheet as homework because of it, but that's a choice that they made, not me.

I also had some really beautiful moments with my kids. Jamya puts her arm around me everytime she asks me a question. Darrius' face lit up when I told him he had the highest ELA grade in the class. Queen told me yesterday that when she goes to the water park, there sure are a lot of white folks there.

I also had an epiphany. Love. Those. Ok, so, TFA has a teaching strategy that they use across all grade levels that WORKS. I do, we do, you do (teacher models, students and teacher work together, students work independently with limited teacher support.) I have seen this work over and over again. I believe it is an effective way to teach all people, not just students. HOWEVER, oftentimes when TFA presents us, the corps members, with difficult new material (such as the transition from planning literacy plans to planning math), they don't use their tried and true method. Today they gave us some broad terminology and a brief look at what a math lesson plan looks like, told us to turn to page 83 in SHREK, and do it on our own. WOAH. First, they specifically told us not to do this the other day. We went through this whole negative example of Kristen teaching a lesson the WRONG way. When she asked us why it was wrong we said things like "You went straight from Introduction of New Material to Individual Work," or "You did no Guided Practice or Teacher Modeling." And then what do they do when they teach us how to lesson plan? No teacher modeling, no guided practice, no explicit directions. It was a shitshow for a lack of a better, more fun term. I was LOST. I'm relying on someone who has taught math for the first two weeks to teach me because I came out of that session clueless. When we learned the Behavior Management Cycle, we did the I do, we do, you do. It worked beautifully. I retained it. Perfect. WHY can't they practice what they preach? It would be so helpful. I couldn't understand whi it took me so many practice times to "get" all of this new material, and now I understand. Boom, thought of the day.

I just want to go to school tomorrow to be with my awesome kids. Their faces (I finally got some pictures and I WISH I could share them with you, you couldn't handle the cuteness) are why I keep going despite extreme sleep deprivation and general cluelessness. 

Have a fabulous night.