Inconceivable! Common core, modifying homework, cursive.....

1. Common Core

Sometimes I wonder if people who complain mercilessly about Common Core have ever read the standards themselves.  

Common Core standards are very general, as in, "Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style."  This is an 8th grade literature standard.  A teacher can have kids read pretty much anything to meet this standard.  The point is that they are learning to compare and contrast using different types of texts. Fifteen years ago, when I was in the classroom full-time we had similar standards.  They weren't call Common Core, but they basically outlined what kids should learn at different grade-levels.  

Some schools are trying different approaches to math, which has nothing to do with Common Core.  This is curriculum to teach kids math, and there are all kinds of curricula out there that schools may adopt.  It may be different from how I learned math as a kid, but considering how much I didn't understand math as a kid, I think different approaches to teach math to kids is a good idea.  It may be different from how I learned it, but that doesn't make it stupid or bad. 

My son is in 2nd grade and starting to begin problems that help students understand the process, the concept, of multiplication.  Yes, it involves drawing circles and grouping things.  I didn't learn it that way.  I just memorized my times tables, which he will also do.  But there is absolutely nothing wrong with learning what multiplication actually means.  Students will do all the rote memorization that I did as a student, but they will understand what the heck is happening when they are saying 5x5=25. 

Some kids may be fine with the way I learned stuff as a kid, but there are probably lots of kids who need to understand it in a different way.  I have personally gained a much better understanding of math by thinking in terms of 10s.  For example, if I want to add 43 and 52 in my head I add 40+50+5.  But if I am looking at it on paper or computer, as I am now, I add 4+5 and then 3+2.  

I learned to read music for piano 4 years ago by learning  Every Good Boy Does Fine/ FACE for the treble clef and Go Back Down For Apples/All Cows Eat Grass for the bass clef.  That is a perfectly fine way to learn the notes and the way gazillions of people have learned their piano notes.  

For the past 2 years, I have been taking a class with G and M in which stories are told to help kids learn the notes and play piano.  So E and G on the bass clef are "Bottom Button E" and "Top Button G," and they are the buttons that hold Mr. Bass Cleff's pants up.

I am 42 years old and learning about the buttons of Mr. Bass Cleff's pants has been FAR MORE effective to help me remember these notes than learning All Cows Eat Grass.  I would have to repeat All Cows Eat Grass over and over, but the story of the buttons has stuck in my head. 

With that being said, I have myself seen some terribly written questions which, again, has nothing to do with Common Core.  I have helped a group of boys in 2nd grade with their math assignment when I volunteer in G's class and had to read the question myself a few times to finally understand what the question was asking the kids to do.  There have always been poorly worded questions, and there always will be, whether there is Common Core or not.  

II.  Modifying Homework -

G has to write spelling sentences every week and complained about them until I suggested that instead of writing 10 sentences, he write a sentence using more than one vocabulary word in each sentence.  I modified what he has to do to make it more bearable for him (and me), but he is still doing the work and actually doing it on a higher level.  It is more challenging to figure out how to use 3 vocabulary words in a sentence and have it make sense than to use just one word.

Below are some examples of his sentences that he wrote the other night:
1.  Vocabulary words:  thumb, plump, grew
Today a boy's thumb grew very plump.
2. Vocabulary words:  blew, clue
One day I blew some dust off and found a clue.  

Are these the world's best sentences?  Of course not.  He could have improved that first one by saying the thumb grew plump because the boy was stung by a bee.  
Did he get the work done, compose original sentences, use the words correctly and practice spelling them?  Yes.  

If his teacher said she didn't want him to do it this way, I would explain to G that life is unfair and one day he will likely have a boss or a spouse who is very particular about certain things, and he will just have to deal with it.  Lots of things don't make sense, but you suck it up and do what you have to do.  

As a result of teaching at the cottage school, one of the things I've learned to look at is how assignments are structured.  Many times advanced students are given MORE work instead of being given the same volume of work as other kids but differently challenging.  Advanced students should not be given more homework, but what they are asked to do with the homework should challenge them more robustly.  

III.  Cursive---

G's 2nd grade teacher, who was also N's 2nd grade teacher, teaches cursive.  When I tell other parents this, they are astounded because most (or many) teachers don't.  My response is:  It doesn't matter whether their teacher teaches them cursive because I TEACH THEM CURSIVE.  

Last summer, before G began 2nd grade, and eons ago, before N began 2nd grade, I started teaching them cursive.  This summer, G will continue to work on practicing cursive.  

I think kids should learn to write cursive for one reason only:  they have to be able to sign their names to documents.  

Some parents make the argument, "How will kids read historical documents if they don't know cursive?"  I never read historical documents as a kid, and I learned cursive, AND I'm a pretty well-educated person.  The vast majority of children will not become historical scholars.  

G reads Geronimo Stilton books, which have cursive script in them periodically, and he can read them even though he doesn't know cursive all that well at this point.  I think it is because an "f" in cursive looks an awful lot like a printed "f."  Same with "t" and "m" and "p" and "b" and "d" and almost every other letter.  

The bottom line is if you value that your child learns cursive, then teach your child cursive.  Use this book.  The schools can't stop you from teaching cursive.  But a parent can't realistically expect their child's teacher to teach everything.  

And if you think it is important for all kids to learn cursive, then volunteer in your child's classroom to teach cursive after testing in May when teachers are looking for things to do with their students.  

When I think I'm not sane, I just look to people who want to be president

This is a painful, painful election season.

I continue to think that maybe I have gone mad.

But I haven't, and most people I talk to seem to feel like they've gone mad regardless of their party affiliation.

There is some small comfort in that, I guess.

As a way of checking my sanity, I ask myself, "Self, do you want to be President of the United States?"

Self always says no.

That makes me feel better, too.

Even though Trump seems the most insane of the whole band of candidates, I really think wanting to be President has to be a sign of some kind of derangement.  Extreme power-hungry-ness?  Acute idealism?

I'm not sure what is going on politically, but somehow it feels big....like the earth is shaking under my feet, under America's feet.  Like something is going to blow big and hard and irretrievably.  Maybe I am just feeling paranoid because everywhere I turn, every radio show, every article, every news story, is awash with "I can't believe this" and "No one predicted this."  This isn't just a case of my mind being blown.....and if everyone's collective mind is being blown that has to be big, right?

I don't love (or even like, if truth be told) any of the candidates from either party, but I will not, under any circumstances, vote for Trump.  He makes Ted Cruz look moderate and reasonable (and I maybe can't believe I just typed that).

I have posted occasional things on Facebook against Trump because he is unkind and reaches into the territory of cruel.  Maybe it is an act, I don't know.  If it is an act, that suggests he's a nitwit and can't be trusted with a role as big as the president.  If it isn't an act, that is one of the scariest things I've ever witnessed.

More than any other characteristic in my children, I encourage them to be empathetic and kind, and I cannot tolerate unkindness and cruelty when I see it and when it could become the 45th President.

I expect politicians to lie, to backstab, to not play fair, to have bags of bones in their closets.  I like to imagine George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as beyond reproach, but I suspect if I could time travel back to their day, I would be privy to unstatesman-like behaviors and statements.

But this election of 2016 makes me think we should remove statesman from our collective vocabulary.  A statesman is civil, is inspiring, builds and doesn't cut down, and knows that there is far greater power in compromise than in refusing to consider and negotiate.  A statesman makes other people want to be their best selves without having to trash anyone else in order to do it.  A statesman doesn't belittle others, and even if you don't agree with him/her, a statesman makes you want to consider his/her view because it is expressed respectfully and comes with a willingness to learn and listen.

Donald Trump, of all the candidates, seems the least capable of doing any of that. 

Ah, hell(ve) no! She's twelve, yo.

Dear N,

Twelve is a really sucky number to try to rhyme for an annual birthday blog post so that is as good a title as you're gonna get.

I would say I can't believe you are turning 12 tomorrow, but since you have been counting down and reminding me every morning that your birthday is 26.... I mean 15....I mean 8 days.....I mean 1 day away, I can totally believe that the day has finally arrived.

Today, as you will likely forget by next week, you sang "Tomorrow!  Tomorrow!  My birthday's tomorrow!  It's only a DAY AWAAAAAAAAAY" from Annie to me repeatedly before I had had enough coffee.  I will remind you of this episode should you ever have a child who speaks to you before coffee has had its full effect.

You are a really awesome kid.  Goofy as can be and definitely nerdy but you let your nerd flag fly proudly.  You seem to feel ok in your own skin, and while I know that may change as the next couple years come and go, I'm really glad that, at least for now, you are happy to be you and don't change for others.

Sure, I wish you'd read more books, and I wish you'd bring your viola home more often to play, but those are just small things that don't amount to a hill of beans.  You do your homework and are responsible with your school work.  You made a smooth adjustment to middle school and have a band of new friends who you really seem to get along with.

I love that you are so sweet to your brothers and that you give them goodnight kisses and hugs every night before you brush your teeth.
I love that you send me pins of goofy cat photos and jokes.
I love that we have our new ritual of watching Sherlock on Netflix on weekends.
I love that you are all smoopy over the kitties.
I'm a little concerned by how many duck-face photos you take of yourself, but I think that will be a short-lived phenomena.

Sometimes when I look at you, it is nearly impossible for me to find the little girl face I used to know.  While this makes me 10% sad that the years have gone by so fast, it makes me 90% happy that I get to see your beautiful, smiling 12-year-old face (as of TOMORROW).

I love you sweetest girl,

Momma

The problem with being an English teacher.....

is that it often makes listening to music so incredibly painful.  I am certainly not perfect with my grammar and language manipulation at all times, but gah.....

Like this lyric:

My head's spinning around I can't see clear no more.

What bothers me the most is that clear isn't clearly.  The double-negative doesn't help.  Needs some punctuation.

And then there is this doozy:

Let me photograph you in this light
In case it is the last time
That we might be exactly like we were before we realized we were sad of getting old.

What the freck?  

World's longest run-on sentence.  I don't care if she makes a gazillion dollars a day, this lyric has "poorly written" all over it.  

But the Grand Poobah of Terrible Lyrics has to go to this Paula Cole song:

So open up your morning light
And say a little prayer for I
You know that if we are to stay alive
Then see the peace in every I

That song was released in 1996, and it STILL plagues me.  

The meant-to-be-a-conference-sheet-thingie that just ticked me off

I didn't attend N's parent/teacher conferences in the fall because, much to my dismay, there hasn't yet been a Star Trek-like teleportation device invented yet that will allow me to be at two different schools at the same time (or within minutes).

N's grades have been fine.  When I say fine, I mean she has gotten all As this entire year.

However, some of the work that she has received grades on is stuff like taking notes, which tells me that she is a good note-taker.  It doesn't tell me whether she understands the notes she takes, whether she has deep questions about what she is learning and whether she can create or analyze anything based off these notes.  These grades are an effort to make parents who think grades are VERY IMPORTANT STUFF happy and content.  "My child is an excellent student" is sometimes code for "My child can sit still and do exactly what the teacher says to do but may or may not have very much going on upstairs."  Or "My child can do busy work very well."

The mom in me thinks my child is bright, but the realistic critic in me knows that mostly she is average (although I was average at her age, too.)  Like awesomeness, there is no rule that says a person's intelligence can't grow immensely larger as they develop and mature.

The district also changed the grading scale so that 90-100 is an A, but if I see a 92.4 I will read that as a B even if the report card says A.  Again, it doesn't really matter, especially if the grade is on note-taking, but a rose isn't a rose isn't a rose in public education.

Today, N handed me 2 manilla folders with a series of assessment reports inside them.  According to the paper, this is supposed to be a student-led conference to engage families and increase student responsibility for their learning.

Here is my written response to the sheet:

I understand, given how many students are taught on middle school teams, the need to do this, but I'm not sure how helpful it is for me and N without actually seeing any of the work and where her mistakes are on the proficiency assessments.  She isn't certain what the problem is without looking at the test.  I regularly check the Parent Portal so I don't need a grades update.  I'm not even sure what the "Learning Conferences--Reflecting on Progress" sheet is since nothing here is labeled as such.  Is THIS SHEET the "Learning Conferences" sheet?

That probably sounds bitchy, but that accurately sums up how I feel about trying to decipher this.  My problem is less that they asked me to do it than that it isn't user-friendly.  How can I accurately assess and reflect with my child if all pertinent information isn't provided?  How can I encourage my child to do "better" on a proficiency assessment when it might be asking her to regurgitate information instead of thinking?

Like so many things education-related, this "conference" seems like a well-intentioned but rather off-the-mark activity.  

Me and Marmee

I am teaching Little Women to a small group of 9th grade boys, which sounds a little weird, but I suspect they are enjoying the book more than they thought they might (and probably relate to it more than they expected).

In the first section of our reading, Marmee explains to Jo that she is angry nearly every day of her life and has to work very hard to manage this feeling.  Upon reading this, both the first and second time, I  wondered what Marmee had to be angry about.  Even when I discussed this passage with my students, nothing really smacked me with understanding.  I mean, I got that she is a woman and struggles under the limitations of her gender given the time of the novel, but I didn't feel it.

Until these past two weeks during which I, myself, have felt very angry.

Marmee is probably angry that her husband felt compelled to participate in the war and left her and the girls to find himself or act for social justice or soothe his conscience.  Maybe she resents a system where she doesn't get to do what inspires her soul?  Maybe there are things she would want to do but she can't because she is a woman and a mother?  Maybe she is mad at herself because even if she had the opportunity to do something, she might not act on it because she is a mother and would feel like she was neglecting her children and family?

I am not angry AT anyone.  I think I am angry at life, at the nature and structure of things, at the complications I didn't consider when I made decisions (like the slug of having to drive N to the middle school.  Three years didn't feel like a long time to do this until I'd spent half a year doing it.)

So what am I angry about?

I'm angry that it is SO EFFING HARD for a woman to find part-time work (not 30 hours a week part-time, either.  Like 15 hours a week during her kids' school hours) that uses her skills and intelligence and still allows her to live a life that doesn't feel hurried and rushed and overwhelmed.  I'm angry at the system.

I'm angry that because of my mom brain, or because of being a SAHM for so long, or because I am a ridonkulous control freak, I feel like I have to manage everything.  Why is it so hard to just turn it over to someone else and accept help without feeling like I'm shirking my duty as a mom?

I'm angry that I can't just be perfectly content shopping or staying inside my house and cleaning or doing laundry or cooking wholesome meals for my family.  I'm angry that I feel like I need more because wanting and doing more complicates everything.

Even though this is not my "someone hand me a perfect 1-2 morning a week scenario," I am going to apply to be a substitute teacher at my kids' schools.  I plan to sub one day a week.  Word has it I have to sub 5 days a month to stay on the preferred list.  I am nervous about the whole process because I've never been a sub before.

Every time I am at the boys' elementary school, and I see someone whom I know is not a certified teacher subbing, I think to myself, "Why am I NOT DOING THAT?"  I know I am a good teacher, and I know I would make a good substitute.  This is what I trained to do.

I love teaching at the cottage school, but that is one day a week.  Writing for the magazines takes maybe, and I'm stretching here, 5 hours a month.  That leaves a WHOLE lot of time for me to not do something productive.

With that being said, the idea of subbing at my daughter's middle school feels scary.  I haven't worked with public middle schoolers in over a decade.  My amygdala is yelling at me, "They are going to eat you alive," while my pre-frontal cortex says, "B*tch, please."  (I try to remember that I thought all of my homeschooled students were going to be more brilliant than me, and that has yet to materialize.  They are bright, but not smarter than their teacher.  Experience does count for a lot.)

And then there are the.....complications.  The picking N up from school if I sub at the elementary school.  Will D be able to leave work and get her?  Can I dial a friend to grab her for me?   How will mornings run if I sub at N's middle school?  Will it wear me out completely because I'm so unused to having to be and do and go with a functioning mind and in appropriate clothes?

It would be so much easier, both logistically and internally, if I could be 100% satisfied with what I have and what I'm doing.

But that would, I'm afraid, make me not of humankind.  

I didn't know what to title this post

It is 4:53 am.

I would still be sleeping, but the youngest woke me up (as soon as I get the middle to sleep through the night, M starts up this sh*t).

I didn't know what to title this blog post.

As I was lying in bed trying unsuccessfully to go back to sleep, I was running through possibles.  These were some of them:
Cause I'm (un)happy
I want the sesame seed bun, the meaty middle and ALL the toppings
A nebulous nugget of dissatisfaction

It is easy for me to "catch" other people's moods, and D has been dissatisfied at his job, so maybe I've just picked up on his funk.
Or maybe intentionally trying to scale back what I am doing (since I felt so overwhelmed with activity in the fall and December) has backfired, and I am bored.
Maybe I'm worrying about money (with working on taxes and all) and feel like I need to contribute more to the household budget.  Maybe knowing our oldest is 6 years from college is making me panic.
Maybe it is hormonal.
Maybe it is that these windows of empty time between schlepping kids in the car is sucking my soul.
Maybe I want to be more than a taxi-driver and errand-runner.
Maybe it is a little bit of all of the above.

I clearly remember scoring portfolios in the summer to earn extra money when I found out I was pregnant with N alongside a woman who was also newly pregnant and the mother of a toddler.  Talking with her made me realize that the old spiel about "being a teacher with kids is great because you are off when they are off" was bunk until the kids were in full-time school.  I'd never considered having to pay for daycare in the summer to hold your kid's spot even if you opted not to send the kid in the summer because you were off from teaching.

Staying at home was what I wanted to do and what seemed to make the most financial sense.  I willingly gave up years of my professional life, and I don't regret it at all.

Still, it did set a precedent that feels nearly impossible to get out of:  mom handles everything kid-related.  This is one of the downsides of stay-at-home mothering that no one really talks about.  Not that things can't be changed, but it is hard to undo 12 years of something without struggle.   If mom's "job" is to handle the kids, then she handles the kids until they are out of the house forever.  Or at least that is how it feels in my house.

It isn't fair, really, for me to want just a little bit more.... another 1-2 mornings a week of using my skills and love of teaching.  That is having the cake, eating it, and licking every shred of icing from the plate.

I know this.

But it is what I want anyway.