rubinc in nyc!

Top three acts from the talent show today:

3. My identical twin girls from last year doing “All The Single Ladies,” in perfect unison the way that only identical twins can be.

2. Two fourth grade boys doing stand-up about our school who were as funny (”my teacher says she never punishes kids for things they don’t do, but she punishes me for not doing my homework!”) as they were adorable (one of them was wearing an argyle sweater and a brown corduroy blazer, which is the cutest thing ever on a person who doesn’t even come up to your waist).

1. A bunch of my most hyperactive seventh graders doing a hyperactive-yet-coordinated dance and looking absolutely ecstatic. It’s always nice to see kids in their element, and for a lot of kids that doesn’t happen in the classroom - I guess that’s why some of them can’t control the urge to bring their breakdancing/singing/rapping/stand-up comedy into class.

Completely unrelated to the talent show, two kids excitedly waved me over during class today to share “Ms. Rubin, we just noticed you’re always standing up!!” I said that most teachers spend the day on their feet, to which one responded, “But don’t you get tired? My legs hurt just thinking about it!” I actually do get tired of standing by the end of the day, and I don’t think it ever occurred to me that teachers don’t sit down during my 12 years of grade school. I guess this falls into the category of my kids’ uncanny ability to notice when I slightly change my hairstyle, despite being unable to remember the things I explicitly tell them a million times during class.

I was in a terrible mood today, since I had a coverage with my least favorite class (the one with Sidewinder) that gave me seven teaching periods in a row. I guess Sidewinder’s dad and his lizard have split again, as Sidewinder ripped the heating grate out of the wall, screamed at another kid that he was a “coon” and “smelled like skunk sex,” and knocked over like three desks. Also, over the past week there have been FIVE new kids added to the bilingual class, none of whom speak a word of English, putting the total enrollment well over the theoretical 30-kid cap.

But then I came home and two kids called me to make sure I am coming to see them in the talent show tomorrow, and my awesome sister did a beautiful job of translating my super long and boring unit test into Spanish. So I will try to focus on those things, and Sidewinder’s impending suspension, to get through to the weekend.

(Actually, this all happened yesterday, but I was too excited about Fossil Man to write about it then.)

I was lined up with a class in the hallway on the way to lunch, as was pretty much every other seventh and eighth grade teacher, when the fire alarm went off. This was pretty unusual, because they don’t have fire drills during lunch periods or in the transition time between periods, and this was during the transition time between lunch periods. The principal came on the PA and announced something, but since we were all in the hallway and all the classroom doors were closed and locked (last year some teachers had things stolen out of their classrooms by kids hanging back on the way to lunch) no one could hear what it was. We decided to play it safe and evacuate, and fortunately it turns out that that was what the principal’s announcement was telling us to do.

We ended up having to stand outside for quite a while, which was pretty miserable because since we had all been in the hallway no one had their coats on, and it was very cold. Also, because it happened at such an awkward transition time, a lot of the classes were mixed up, which was very stressful because teachers being accountable for their class’s whereabouts during a fire drill is Serious Business. The kids weren’t bad, but they were really agitated and whiney because of the combination of being cold, missing lunch, and being frantically shepherded around by anxious teachers.

We were let back in the building eventually (with only 15 minutes left for lunch, I don’t think all the kids even got to eat!), and kept pretty much in the dark about what had happened for the rest of the day. At the end of the day, I found out through the grapevine that a kid had actually pulled the fire alarm in the cafeteria! They have it narrowed down to a group of suspects, but I don’t think they’ve figured out who the specific kid responsible is. When they do… that kid is going to be the second most-in-trouble kid ever, after my two who brought in the BB gun.

And speaking of those two, something or other was negotiated at their hearing and they’re actually coming back in about a month. I can’t decide if my happiness to see the sweet one will be enough to outweigh the suckiness of the nasty one coming back.

I just wish it was longer.

In addition to what I’m sure is a whole host of neurochemical issues, I think part of Sidewinder’s insanity stems from the complete void of male role models in his life. Every man in his family is either in jail or AWOL, and I really think that he simply does not know how a man is supposed to act. This theory is backed up by the fact that the only teacher he behaves for is the only male teacher in seventh grade, and Sidewinder loves him - he seeks him out before and after school to talk about sports and video games, and goes out of his way to do well in his class.

I got more evidence for my theory today, when Sidewinder was in an inexplicably good mood and did not curse out or hit another student once the whole period. After class he pulled me aside to excitedly inform me that his dad was visiting and had bought him a pet lizard, and could I help him research lizards and how to take care of it, and by the way it’s the coolest lizard ever, and his dad got it for him, and maybe could he bring it in to show the class, and did he mention that it was from his dad?! It was kind of heartbreaking to see such a tough kid reduced to such childish glee because his deadbeat dad has temporarily appeared with presents, all the while knowing that the dad is not going to stay around for long. I’m thrilled that Sidewinder is so happy and is positively contributing to our class, but I’m bracing myself for the shitstorm that will be unleashed when his dad disappears again…

That’s what I’ve decided to name my polar-bears-are-extinct-because-they-hump-ice, I-want-to-dress-up-like-Godzilla-and-terrorize-Asia, probably genuinely insane student. Today while we were playing my patented rock cycle card game, he shouted, “Miss, why can’t we play Rock Crusher instead?!” When I asked him what “Rock Crusher” is, he said “You know, you get a bunch of rocks, then you get a bunch of hammers, and then you CRUSH THE ROCKS AND IT’S AWESOME!!” The written word does not do justice to his craziness, which is magnified by the fact that he has an always-yelling Owen Meany voice, and also really thick Coke bottle glasses that make his eyes take up like half of his face and always look unnaturally wide open.

We had another after school incentive trip today; we took about a dozen kids bowling as a reward for good behavior. I think they had a pretty fun time, but none of them really knew how to bowl - we had to get the bowling alley people to put the bumpers on the gutters so that they could actually knock over any pins. The one notable exception was Edward, who was so good as to arouse suspicion. We finally got it out of him that he is a member of a youth bowling league, and actually goes to bowling practice twice a week! He owns his own shoes and ball, and even goes to competitions. These kids are always surprising me.

First Lady of New York Michelle Paige Paterson, that is. I didn’t even know states had first ladies, so I learned something new today! Anyways, she came to our school with a news crew to promote her Healthy Steps to Albany program. Basically, NYC public schools can sign up for a six week eat-healthy-food-and-exercise-more contest, and the winning class gets to go to Albany for dinner with the Governor and First Lady.

What this meant for me was:

1. All the administration was in a frenzy about hallway bulletin boards.

2. I got to see the back of First Lady Michelle Paige Patterson’s head as she and her entourage walked by the room where I was doing QRA for today’s midterm.

3. Most importantly, I got a free pizza lunch! The Healthy Steps people ordered food for all the teachers so we would listen to their spiel about the program. Since I don’t have a home room and I don’t teach gym, I don’t actually have to do anything for the program, so I just got to eat the pizza and nod at things. I guess none of them felt it was too contradictory to feed us pizza while lecturing us about encouraging the kids to eat healthier.

While they don’t get high marks in the practice-what-you-preach department, I give her and her camp credit for actually showing up, unlike last year’s fake-out mayoral visit.

Well, I guess I jinxed myself yesterday when I wrote about getting the first half of the day off due to midterms, because today I got assigned to a group of QRA students - Questions Read Aloud. Administering tests to QRA kids is kind of a pain, because unlike regular proctoring - where you can read a book or do work as long as you look up periodically - you have to read the whole test out loud, one question at a time, with a two minute pause between each question. It is extremely tedious. It was made more annoying today by the fact that seemingly none of the kids in my group actually needed that help - half of them were finished with the test while I was still reading question 30 out of 50! I guess they had QRA included in their IEPs a number of years ago, and no one has bothered to remove it.

On a positive note, the students overall did really well on their science midterm today! I was afraid that they would all fail it miserably, and then all the other teachers would point and laugh at me. The mean and median were both around 70%, and there were only THREE questions that more than 25% of students missed. That means I didn’t totally suck at teaching any one particular thing! My AP even complimented me when he saw my score report, and then asked where I got my questions from. I told him they were from old state exams, and he said, “Good, then they didn’t do so well because it was easy!” I feel so competent

This week we are trying something new in the middle school: midterm exams. Each teacher of the four major subject areas (math, language arts, social studies and science) made up a cumulative midterm, and we are administering them one a day this week under state testing conditions - meaning the kids are locked down in their homerooms for testing the first half of the day. This is extremely awesome for me, because I don’t have a homeroom and got to spend the entire morning getting work done instead of wrangling children!

I did have to do the usual child wrangling after lunch, however, and since the science midterm is tomorrow I spent the time reviewing. The kids got surprisingly into it, at one point two girls got into a heated debate about one of the review questions that culminated in one of them jumping up and screaming “IT’S PLATE TECTONICS, NIGGER!!!” Totally not appropriate, but also totally not what I would have ever expected to hear two kids arguing about.

Anyways, I stopped at the Rite Aid near school on the way home, and was suddenly reminded of the first time I ever went to my school’s neighborhood. I had arrived too early for my interview with the Principal, and decided to kill some time wandering around the Rite Aid. It was hot and I was standing in line to buy a soda, and the guy in front of me was waiting to buy a window AC unit. As I have since learned, the checkout people at that Rite Aid are notoriously slow, and it was taking a really long time for the line to move. The guy in front of me was becoming more and more agitated, until he finally picked up the AC and ran out the door with it! The checkout clerk watched him do it, halfheartedly called out “stop” after him, and then just went back to leisurely scanning items. So that was my introduction to the Bronx - watching some dude steal an air conditioner. I’m not sure what made me think of that today, but I thought I would share it to give people an idea of the kind of stuff my students are growing up around.

One of the first graders has what is probably the coolest sweatshirt in the history of the world - it has spiderman on it, and when you press his chest all these little LEDs light up so Spidey’s web kind of tinkles. The kid spent all day running around having all his classmates slap his chest to make it light up, which made me think of the light-up shoes that I had in elementary school. Except, instead of running around and stomping to make them light up as much as possible, I used to tiptoe around to prevent them from lighting up too much and running out of batteries - I only stepped all the way down for special occasions, like to impress a teacher.

Whenever I tell people that story they make fun of me, but when I was studying cognitive development in college I learned that ability to delay gratification as a child is a good predictor of academic achievement later in life, which made me feel vindicated about the years I spent tiptoeing around to conserve battery life. And to further my assertion that I’m not crazy, I will cite the fact that some schools are now trying to teach self-control to young students for precisely this reason. Given all of the singing, dancing, slapping, etc… that still goes on at the seventh grade level, I think self-control should be integrated into the curriculum all the way up through the grades!