Postcards from the Funny Farm

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It was great today seeing my class that I high-fived goodbye just 3 months ago. You see, I “looped,” had the same batch of kids follow me to the next higher grade. I won’t see all of them that much however because as a grade-level, the other 2 teachers and I will be running performance leveled groups. I have the high language arts and the low math. The kids will rotate to different teachers throughout the day based on their test scores and other criteria.

Having always up to now experienced new faces at the begin, it was weird today seeing familiar ones. They all seemed so happy to be there. They liked it that it was a bigger room, and a few mentioned to me how “cool” 4th grade was. Ahhh, I can remember 4th grade vividly. It was when I had my first crush. Her name was Kelly. I’ll never forget the day my friends dared me to “ask her out.” I went to where she was waiting in line for a chance to swing and this dialog followed:

“Hi.” I said.
“Hi.” She said back (ooohhh good so far!)
“Do you want to be my girlfriend?” I was bold, it was quite a scene.
“No thank you.” She ran to get on the swing, I was crushed.

My son, who is incidentally in 4th grade this year, seems preoccupied with a certain girl. He talks about her daily and seems quite smitten . . . well, in puppy love anyway. I’ve told him the same thing I tell my students: “I don’t care who you ‘like’ and I really don’t want to hear about it. You are too young.  Do your work and then go talk about it on the playground, or better yet not at all.” I know kids will be kids, but it really does seem to be an attempt at avoiding schoolwork and the rigors of it. My wife says I’m the Grinch, well maybe she’s right.

It’s gonna be an amazing year. My school blew the scores out of the water. We are really on a roll with some serious strategies at the starting gate. I am confident we will be an 800 API school by this summer! As we get the acdemics underway, I hope there’ll be funding for me to teach guitar again. The kids love it, the extra cash helps my family, and I feel like I am passing on a highly valuable skill to children. I learned when I was in 3rd grade so It’s the ideal time! In the 8 years I’ve been teaching I’ve never been so optimistic. The scaffolding, my awesome team teachers, and this able group of kids I know we can achieve our proficiency goals. Now it’s just one day at a time, one standard at a time, 185 days to teach and try and keep them all on the path as we go. Then we can boast next year of another amazing stride in out API and AYP proficiency scores.