Ah, Fifth Grade

I've been back in my old classroom for four weeks and have just one more to go before I roll off this long term sub gig. I'm excited for the direction the class is taking, and the relationship I've built with their new teacher. We have both been in the classroom for the past week and a half, and will both be there through next week.  Last week I handed off the lead teacher role to her, and spent much of the last two days of the week seated at a table in the back of the room.  She has rearranged the furniture, re-done the bulletin boards, added color back into the room. Her layout doesn't quite match anything I would use for myself, but I understand it. The room feels cleaned up, more colorful, and is easier to be in - to the point that students literally asked, "Has that wall always been blue?" Um, yes. It was painted blue in the summer of 2016, so it's been blue the whole time this has been your fifth grade classroom. That's a good summary of how drab it felt at the beginning of the month in the space.

It's going to be easy to hand the class off to the new teacher. I have felt like we have been on the same page about EVERYTHING.  Okay, almost everything; she did change the layout of the room. I know she is going to take care of these kids and their needs. She is going to meet the students where they are and work with them and their families, or in spite of their families, to do what is best for each individual.  She will strive to help them achieve more academically than they thought possible, and have a gentle but firm handle on discipline.  She will celebrate the positive and endeavor to minimize the time spent on necessary redirections or handing out of consequences.

It's also going to be hard to leave.  I like this job. Well, really, I love it, and feel strongly that it was what I was meant to do. I'm pretty sure I'm pretty good at it. I have already built relationships with these kids, and walking away from them will be very, very difficult. I hope their new teacher remembers to have them write me letters. I promise to write them back!  There is also the glaring fact that I like to work. I am more balanced when I have something besides my kids and their needs to worry about. It's as true today with the addition of the foster-adopt process as it was when my biological kids were an infant and a toddler.  I'm going to miss having a place to go and be needed after my kids are out the door each morning come February 5.

I know I've said it before, but fifth graders are in the sweet spot between loving school and being too cool for school, for having a natural curiosity about everything, and finding one or two passions that make every other subject seem totally boring. It's the mushy middle of a K-8 school - they are not primary students, but neither are they middle schoolers yet.  It's the year where critical thinking begins to supplant the concrete-operational, black and white thinking of childhood. It's the place where you can have a student say in an oral report, "Only the lowlands of Pennsylvania have mountains," and no one in the class giggles or even smirks. (This happened last week, I swear it's a direct quote.) The kids in the audience fall into one of two camps; they

are either oblivious or too kind, too aware of how hard it is to get up in front of the class and speak, to react. It's the place where students begin to advocate for themselves, while still striving hard to meet the teacher's expectations.  Last week I had a student ask, "Mrs. Conrow, can you read cursive?" and when I said I could, he followed up with, "I mean, like, fifth grade cursive?" Yes, yes, I can. And more than that, I know what you mean with your question so I can gently tell you I have taught third graders to write in cursive, and can read even their cursive.  It's the place where a teacher's day can be made by reading in a student's letter to her parents, "Mrs. Conrow is so patient with us!"  It's a place where I feel I belong. 

Long Term Subbing

I started the calendar year back in my old classroom, my old space. Only it wasn't my space. Someone else had been in the room for four months, and left under less than desirable, less than normal circumstances. The outgoing teacher was out sick on the Thursday and Friday before the winter break. I know the sub who was in for her - she's amazing - but the room felt trashed: All kinds of paper stacks all over the room. A very large stack of ungraded work. Teacher's manuals in different locations all over the room. Barebones bulletin boards, and the set of posters collected by myself and the teacher who had the room before me, for 30 years, GONE.

I'm just a sub in for the month. I am a stop-gap. A short term solution. A band-aid for a very bad situation. Whatever the parent community thought of the outgoing teacher before I got there, I have heard nothing positive. It's understandable - they are angry and nervous. Their ten and eleven year olds will have had to learn the teaching style and expectations of three fifth grade teachers by the end of January.  The "real" new teacher begins Wednesday, but I'm staying on until February 2 in order to allow for a much more smooth second transition.

I've had a lot more fun than I expected. It's been overwhelming too, but every time I begin to worry about all the work, I've been able to remind myself that I'm not there for the remainder of the year. I'm just a sub. I get to have fun with the kids and do something I like and I'm good at, while trying to help further the education of twenty young people. I'm not attending meetings and cutting out as early as I can to get home to my kids... and there's been a lot going on there.

But I'm also relieved.  I get to do what I do for a month. The new teacher has already been hired, and I get to work with her - a much more seasoned teacher who has also been a principal - for two and a half weeks before I go back to being a stay at home mom who works on writing in any spare time I find.  I know I need to spend some time finding me again. I am a teacher. I am a mom. I am a wife. I like who I am. It's a good start, but I am not grounded right now. Hopefully writing will help with that.

A New Beginning

I got a call on the Friday before the Christmas break. Apparently the teacher hired to replace me when I left at the end of last school year quit just after the staff Christmas lunch. The principal was in crisis mode, trying to figure out how to solve the problem before he hopped on a plane to Italy for the duration of the break.  He asked me to come back to finish out the school year, or at least sub for January.

My new baseline at home makes the idea of taking back the classroom and all the responsibility it entails laughable, but I talked to my husband, enlisted the help of friends and neighbors, and figured out how to make January work. It took me until Saturday to get into the space that used to be mine with my former partner teacher, intending to plan. But the room was a disaster. Apparently the teacher who quit had been out sick the two days prior to the holiday break. We spent two hours cleaning and rearranging the room to allow for two more desks for Korean exchange students who will be joining the class tomorrow.  It's still a work in progress. I feel like I need to dust, and there is a rather large stack of ungraded work that I have no idea what to do with.

That meant I had to plan at home. I spent the evening of December 30 planning for the first week back in my old space that decidedly does not feel like my space.  I had teacher's manuals and my computer spread out over half the table on a Saturday night, like old times. I don't want the demands of teaching to take over my home life again: I don't want to spend major time planning and grading when I should be making dinner, helping with homework, or just spending time with my kids. I am worried about the impact of working full time for four and a half weeks on my family. I'm also worried about the impact of having their teacher leave abruptly on the students I will be teaching this month.  Will they feel betrayed by her? Will it magnify the usual January crazy or will it afford me an easy path for resetting the classroom expectations?

But I'm also excited. I know several  teachers in the building are excited that I will be back, even if it's just for a short amount of time. I came home from my two hours in the classroom animated and looking forward to the week ahead. This January feels like its new beginning, full of potential.

Subbing

I subbed today and Friday. Both jobs were at the same school, but Friday was in kindergarten and today was in fifth grade.

Before I ever became a teacher, I told people I wanted to teach kindergarten or first grade. All of my classroom volunteering as an undergrad was in these two grades. Then, in my final year of college, I had the opportunity to spend a few hours, three days a week for the entire school year, in a kindergarten classroom. It was my dream come true. I loved working with the littlest group of kids. I helped Hope understand that using the mouse was more difficult for her than her classmates because she was left handed (like me), and that if we put the mouse on the other side of the keyboard, she had less difficulty.  I was there to be angry at and depressed for Sam's mom when she finally told the school (in December) that Sam might be having more than the average separation anxiety (sobbing for 20+ minutes every morning after drop off) because his Dad had been killed in a car accident two weeks before school started.  I was learning how to be there emotionally for children who had been alive barely longer than I'd been in college, and still challenge their learning at an appropriate level.

In January, a student teacher was assigned to the classroom. And my dream position became a nightmare overnight. The class that I had come to love became totally unmanageable. Throwing a new teacher who really didn't know how to manage students yet at first year elementary school students - right after the holiday break - now seems like a massive error on the university's part. But at the time all I knew was that a veteran teacher had a solid handle on the kindys and the new teacher did not.

I had an instant change of heart. I decided it was not in my power to teach kids to learn how to "do school." When I got to pick my student teaching assignment, I chose a 5/6 multi-age placement. I spent my first four years as a certified teacher in third grade, followed by two years of subbing, and then eleven years in fifth grade. As I told the school secretary today, fifth grade is my jam. Yes, those words came out of my mouth in a professional setting to someone who might have the ear of my future principal. I blame my most recent partner teacher. I was also wearing glittery cowboy boots I bought with her when I said it. Teaching can in fact keep you young.

I suppose my point is, I totally enjoyed BOTH jobs.  Those five year olds on Friday were incredibly sweet. I had endless patience to explain over and over that the BIG shapes needed to be circled in red crayon but in the next set, the LITTLE shapes needed to be circled in blue crayon.  This was too much for many of them, especially since the worksheet had four additional sections.  It was the kind of worksheet that makes teachers of older students wonder where the academics are, but teachers of five year olds wonder why it's really that important to gain mastery over these concepts at such a young age.

The school's annual fun run was on Friday.  It was ridiculously exciting as we got to watch the KA aide race a mechanical pig with the other top fundraising classes. Sadly, "our" pig lost the race, but happily, she won the beauty contest.  But the most exciting part of the day, at least from a five year old's perspective, was probably when the principal was turned into a "human sundae" by the top ten fundraising students in the school. I was a little worried during the actual run when I didn't know where many of the kids were, but the aide assured me that the missing kids were with their parents. She was correct - by the time the parents who had attended the fun run had all left with their children, only one kindy was left. I read her two books and then we played on the "little toy."

If Friday was fun, today, I was in my element: speaking Pokémon and Magic the Gathering on a passable level; blending sarcasm with understanding; teaching from textbooks I had used for eight years, and even tweaked tests from, to better suit my needs.  There were two boys who saw a sub at the door this morning, and thought it was going to be a fun, no work kind of day. With all the experience I now have managing classrooms, and fifth graders in particular, it was easy to shut that down, fast.  When a student said he couldn't find his notebook I asked him to be a problem solver, and a classmate offered up the very solution I would have suggested. When a different student lamented that she couldn't find the pencil she had been using before recess, I told her, in all seriousness, "I didn't eat it."

At the end of the day I had the table groups tell each other the worst part about having me sub and the best part. My favorite response (overheard as kids talked among themselves, as I did not ask them to share these responses with the whole group): "Mrs. Conrow is as hyper as me!"

I can't sub tomorrow, as my foster-adopt son has a mid-day appointment, so I just had to turn down a job in my former building.  I'm disappointed, but not sad. Life is full and I can still rock this teaching thing - if only for a few days here and there.

The Family Leave Begins

Flowers from Valentine's Day and from my last day before leave.

The past month has been very full. I'm sure I missed several opportunities to write about the amazing activities happening in my classroom, but I never found the time to sit at the computer and compose my thoughts. In addition to getting ready for a long term substitute teacher, my students took a second round of standardized testing for the year, created newscasts or skits to showcase their learning from our novel study, created and presented projects displaying their knowledge of the liturgical seasons, observed and graphed the phase change of ice through water to steam, made and calibrated their own thermometers, and celebrated Valentine's Day during the past month.

Proudly showing off their custom thermometers.

My husband went back to work today for the first time since before Thanksgiving, when the foster kids moved in. He has been out of the office for 12 weeks. I will now be out of my classroom for 9 weeks (except for two days during spring conferences), taking my turn at home with the crew of kids.

I have very mixed feelings about the beginning of my leave. I am sad to be away from my students for so long, and anxious about what kind of "mop up" I may have to do when I return for the last six weeks of the school year. I am also worried about my ability to parent full time, to keep the kids' schedules straight and get everyone to their appointments and activities on time with a minimum of family discord. However, it's also very freeing to not have to worry about daily lesson plans and materials prep, meetings, and timely responses to emails for the weeks ahead at school.

But I also feel that this time with me at home is exactly what my family needs right now. The kids, biological and foster, need to know they rank a higher priority in my life than my students. The foster kids need time with me around to really get to know me as a parent so they can trust me and feel the love and stability I hope to represent in their lives. Somehow this all came together for me on Saturday when I attended the funeral of a former fifth grade student. He was not quite twenty when he died, and had been a student in my classroom a decade ago. As I sat in the church where I had taken him and his classmates for school masses, watching his parents sob for the duration of the funeral and beyond, I realized there could be no other reaction to losing a child. The gut-wrenching, soul-deep ache clearly displayed by the parents mourning for their son would be mine if I had to sit through the funeral of any one of the four kids I now call my own.

To Build a Density Column

January in the classroom can be a challenging time of year. The students know the routines, but they are out of practice, and internal motivation often forgets to come back from the Christmas break with students.  I have the added barrier of planning around our second round of MAP testing right now, but I have found that well structured group work will pull most kids back into the routine of the classroom. 

Occasionally there are one or two kids who shut down this time of year. I have one this year - a student who has spent whole group and small group time wandering around the room, laying across a desk, and playing with a variety of small items with intense focus. Attempting to draw this student into our novel study, discussion of liturgical seasons, or really any class activity has become draining in the past couple of weeks, but science investigations are a notable exception.

We built density columns this week. Simple ones made out of vegetable oil, corn syrup, and colored water. Although students were enthralled by the pictures of columns with up to seven different layers, they were grateful that I did not require them to weigh and measure that many liquids to calculate their densities before pouring their liquids into one graduated cylinder and watching them separate into three distinct layers. My kiddo who is having a difficult time participating these days commandeered the group's calculator and was meticulous about rounding and proper notation.  Mission accomplished: full, active, participation... for at least one class period.

Watching my little scientists observe the liquids as they separated and settled was definitely the highlight of my work week. One student was adamant that I photograph the density column from above, and many thanked me for the activity on their way out the door. I wonder how many students are building more complex density columns in their kitchens this weekend.

Happy New Year

We staggered back into the classroom this week, many teachers were bleary eyed and still reeling from ringing in the New Year. My school had school on Monday, January 2, the only one in the area, probably only one of a very few nation wide to have school on the National Holiday (observed). But students were excited be back and the only student in my class who was still on a vacation was in Mexico, and did not return until the end of the week anyway.

My school has short school-wide get togethers to start and end each week as a whole community. Monday morning we gathered in the auditorium for prayer and to discuss the International Baccalaureate attribute we are focusing on this month: inquirers. Energy was high and students were probably more focused on each other than on what the principal had to say. Two weeks can be a very long time, especially among kids, and there was much to discuss: What did you get for Christmas? Where did you go? Who came to visit? Why didn't you respond to my texts?

The best lesson plans for these circumstances require students to move around, get into groups, and work together. I think I was able to meet these criteria most of the week. We are investigating the properties of matter in science. Students worked in small groups to find the volume and mass of different quantities of water and calculate its density. They also measured and weighed blocks of different substances to calculate their volume, mass, and density. Not everyone quite understands what it means that density is a characteristic property of a substance quite yet, but we will continue our work with this next week with irregularly shaped objects.

We started a novel study this week to compliment the fifth grade social studies unit on the Revolutionary War. My class is reading My Brother Sam is Dead. Their comprehension of the book so far is high, but the vocabulary has them scratching their heads nearly every page. So I had students come the board and write down any words they weren't 100% sure on the meaning as it was used in the book. I use this phraseology in an attempt to free students from the worry of what their classmates might think about the words they don't know. This time it worked - the students covered the board with unfamiliar words. I took their words and wrote one on an index card for each student to define and illustrate. I love my word wall since I started doing it this way.

By the end of the week, I was done - ready for the weekend. The first week back is tough, even if the break was "only" two weeks (which, I reiterate, can feel like an eternity to kids). So if your kids, or loved ones who work on the school schedule, are a little tired or grumpy this weekend, cut them some slack. And maybe, suggest they take a nap.