Today was: Fantastic

I really don't like to toot my own horn, and I'm REALLY bad at taking compliments and hearing positive things about myself from others, but today was pretty great. I had to teach a lesson today because my supervisor from SFSU was coming for an evaluation (I didn't mention this yesterday because I didn't want to jinx myself...), so I did one out of the Houghton-Mifflin textbook. It involved talking about the concepts of little versus big, and how kids can do things now that they couldn't do when they were babies. Then, there was a poem reitterating this concept with the last sentence saying something like "Now I can ____, you see!" I solicited possible words/phrases from the students which could fit in the blank, my model for them being "drive". Kids came up with things like "swim", "eat cake", and "jump". Naturally, me being me, I was pretty aware the whole time of things that I thought I was doing "wrong", or places where I thought I wasn't being clear, or talking to fast and mumbling. Plus, because my mind was SO full of what I had to do in order to get the right words out of my mouth, I didn't really have the brainpower to focus on behavior management. Sure, I could see in my peripheral vision that this kid or that kid wasn't paying attention, so I would say, "____, what is something that you can do now, that you couldn't do when you were a baby?" and get him/her back on task, but I know that some kids weren't sitting still or were looking off into space. That all comes with time and practice, I suppose.

SO, to jump to the part that I REALLY need to tell you about, when I was finished with the lesson and handed the class back to Miles, he whispered, "That was fantastic", as I passed by him. AND, when I walked over to my supervisor, I saw that she had a FULL page of notes in her lap. She said to me, "Why am I here? You don't need me to tell you anything. The program that you are in can't teach you to do the things that you did up there. You've got it. You're just a natural teacher. It's not even really worth either of our time for me to come and observe you anymore because you are doing exactly what you should be doing." HOLY CRAP. I said to her, "Wow, you're going to make me cry", because, well, my eyes were filling with tears. She mentioned that she specifically liked how I drew direct comparisons between the kids in the class and some of the situations in the book. One picture showed a boy whose hands were covered in paint ("Now I am big! I can clean up all by myself when I get messy."), and I mentioned how it reminded me of yesterday when one of the kids in the class came in from recess with colored chalk all over his hands and he washed them by himself in the sink. There was also a picture of a girl riding a horse ("When I was a baby played on a rocking horse. Now I am big! I can go horseback riding on a pony!"), and I made the connection between that and the girl in class in the wheelchair who always talks about how she takes riding lessons. These are things that are no-brainers to me - you've GOT to draw connections between the lesson concepts and the students in order to draw them in. Oh, and when I saw my supervisor in the teachers' lunchroom, she said that she mentioned to the SCHOOL PRINCIPAL that he should come in to observe me. My initial reaction was panic - "How could she go over my head like that! Too much pressure and she didn't even ask me if she could!" - but that quickly became "Holy cow. This could write me a ticket to a job with the district." I'm going to give myself a pat on the back for all of this.

I also worked with half the kids (and then the other half) with their "Poem and Song Folders" - we sang the Alphabet Song over and over and over again (it was the only song/poem in their folders!). And, during math time, I sat at the art table and kids could either choose to work with Miles (He had a big box filled with shape blocks - kids would stick their hands in, feel around for a block, describe it, and then guess the shape. I never liked these kinds of things - they remind me of going to the "Environmental Center" and having to stick your hand in a box. Usually, they were filled with feathers, snake skin, or tree bark, but I was always afraid that there would be something in there that could either bite or goo on me...) or work with me gluing shapes down on white paper to form a Shape Collage. Miles and I walked over to the autistic girl and asked her who she wanted to work with. I kept pointing to myself (Just like the old "Kids in the Hall" sketch: "Pick me! Pick me!") and she eventually came over to work with me. It was AMAZING - she'd pick out a construction paper shape and hand it to me, and then I would put glue on it and she would take it from my fingers and paste it down on the paper. AMAZING, I tell you.
So, after school, the autistic girl's mom showed up with a therapist that has been working with their family to help them deal with the fact that they have an autistic child. Actually, I suppose I should say that he is helping the MOTHER adjust - apparently the father is having NOTHING to do with his daughter. I asked if he lived with them and the therapist said, "Oh, yeah. But he refuses to acknowledge the fact that he has a daughter with special needs." When I heard this it was the closest that I've come to full-on crying in a long time. Yeah, I keep saying here and there that I "teared up", and I frequently do come close to tears, but this time I REALLY thought that I was going to have to excuse myself, go into the bathroom, and just weep. It may be useful to know that the girl and her family are Chinese, and there are a bunch of antiquated cultural issues going on here. It just adds another layer of sadness to the sadness. The mother seems quite lost, and now I know why.

After they left, I sat in while Miles explained how he has integrated the MANDATED Houghton-Mifflin reading program (stupid Bush and his lousy "No Child Left Behind"...) into his schedule to a couple of teachers who are having some trouble with it (geez, he's amazing). It lasted for over an hour and a half, and by the end my brain was FULL from the day. Brian and I were supposed to go to a free screening of "Millennium Actress" tonight, but I'm physically and mentally DRAINED. It was an incredibly full day and I'm going to post this before it is somehow lost and I have to redo it all, which would make the day even more physically and mentally exhausting.