Others Blogs

Running dry on what to talk about, I googled to see if any elementary teachers had blogs. Turns out they do so I clicked on the first one, since it was a blogger site. Turns out to be a kind of funny blog (as almost all things elementary teachers write about it seems). It is by e-teacher who use to be a fourth grade teacher but switched to a third. I choose to read this by just the first post. Apparently an administrator sent out this e-mail....

A pair of orange handled scissors and two black sleeves were found in the boys' bathroom. If you're missing a pair of large scissors, let me know. They may lead to the person who is doing a wardrobe change in the bathroom.

Some of the other posts are just as funny, talking about what kids said about if they were president, what the third graders think the rules of the country are, by importance, (murder is fifth, no hitting girls is second) and just some funny stories of the day.

Trying to find some variety of teacher’s experiences on the internet seems impossible. Almost all of the good writings I have found seem to be third or fourth grade. Finally I think I have hit the jackpot. Its one of the top 20 teacher’s blogs on scholastic. It is a first grade teacher named Kathy Cassidy, and she loves posting lots of pictures and videos. There is some actual video of the kids talking to kids in Serbia (the class is from Canada). It’s very cute.

Busy Bee

In a chapter of this book, Done was talking to his friend who worked in an office. His friend said teaching is easy and you get too many breaks. Done said it was to recharge and his friend said he didn’t need it. So just to see how different their work is, for twenty minutes, they both wrote everything they did. Done wrote...

• Ryan told Done he was leaving early
• Matthew asked to use the bathroom
• Done started taking attendance
• Ronny handed him a note from his mom
• Aaron told him about his sleepover
• Michael asked what's for lunch
• Kevin gave Done a picture he drew
• Aaron borrowed lunch money
• Amanda asked how to spell octopus
• Done picked up a glove off the floor
• Kenny wrote hello on a calculator and showed everyone

and so on and so forth for about four paragraphs. The friend wrote,

• Stood in line for a latte

I think this is an accurate representation of what elementary school teachers do in a short time. Sometimes I feel like I do too many things at once when I work at my daycare. The first twenty minutes are always the hardest. I have to great the kids when they come up from school, sit them down for snack, listen to all their stories about school four times, dismiss them for snack, make sure they use soap while washing their hands, help half of them open their snacks, make sure they are sitting down while they eat, help them with their homework, try to listen to all of them to make sure they are not talking about inappropriate things (my first graders like to push it), get the right kids to their activities, make them quiet, tell them what were all doing for the day, then let them play. Everyday we go through the same thing, and yet the kids seem like they are doing it all for the first time every day. Sometimes it is frustrating, but it’s something I love doing on an almost day to day basis.

Relating

When I am reading my book, I feel like I can relate to it a lot. Done says there are the standard speeches teachers make during the year and feel like they repeat them endlessly. Working at the daycare, I feel like I just say the same thing every day. For example, in my book, Done calls it speech 29-Come Stand by me speech. At my daycare, it’s the Come Sit Down by me speech. The speeches that are the exact same are speech 45-Stop Talking Speech, speech 38- Don't do it Just Because She Said to speech, and Speech 259- Oops (if you can’t get this one, its "I forgot you were sitting out, you can get up now" speech)

There is also a chapter on things you can always expect. Some of these are exactly true for the kids I've worked with. like "When they sit on the carpet to hear a story, they will play with their shoelaces and stare at their fingernails as if they have never seen shoelaces and fingernails before", and "Right before they jump off the jungle gym, they will shout 'look!' when they are hanging upside-down on the monkey bars, they will wave and call your name"

My Book

For my book, I am reading 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny; Life Lessons from Teaching by Phillip Done. As far as I have gotten, it seems like a very good book. In the opening of the book, there is like a little poem. It is called I am a Teacher. It talks about all the things he does as a teacher like wear dandelions and clovers in his pockets, he fixes office supplies that don’t work, knows the difference between Australia and Austria, and can make a telescope out of a toilet paper roll. This poem is very cute and, for most teachers, true.

The first part of the book is about dealing with the class list and students. Done says that he remembers years like the Chinese do, year of the Rebecca, year of the Dylan, and so on. The first week or so you have to do the seating chart, and then rearrange it when you see how kids interact with each other. If two are doing a light saber duel with rulers, you have to separate them, if they are having burping contests, you separate them, and if they are talking too much, then you have to separate them.

Done states there are six different kids of class rooms,

• The Shock has every inch of the room covered with kids' work, banners, and posters. everything is also labeled
• The Chi has mirrors to impose balance, plants to soak up sound, wind chimes to absorb negative energy, and plays soft music during reading time
• The Natural makes everything super green. One of the teachers at his school threw away the Rubbermaid, poured everything into baskets, removed the carpet, and pulled the fluorescent light bulbs. They also wear hemp and eat carrot sticks.
• The Piler piles paper everywhere. One the desk, floor, on the animal cage, in the filing cabinet, and on other piles. they are also dreamers
• Hospitals don’t hang anything on the walls, doors, or cupboards. Do not lick their fingers to clean the overhead, and do not add extra vinegar and baking soda to the papier-mâché volcanoes
• The Model Home has fake trees in the corner, plastic runners on her carpet, and all of her books are the same color
  

He also states that you can mix the kinds of classrooms, like shock and pile, chi and model home, and natural and shock. But some do not mix, like hospital and shock, or natural and hospitals.