learning.

This week has been all about learning. Surprise, surprise I know seeing as how I'm a student-teacher and all. Last Friday, I learned how to handle conflict with students and send them to the office and converse with the principal. Monday I attended the student teacher Fire Up! Conference held at Aquinas College and learned all kinds of useful information in sessions such as: Can I Take my Christian Faith into a Public School?, Special Education and the General Education Teacher, Reducing Teacher Talk (which was hilarious), Supporting English Language Learners, and Parent Communication Dos and Don'ts. I got to practice the Parent Communication tips on Wednesday when I had to sent a certain student back to the office... this time, his mom came in and wanted an explanation from me why her son keeps getting sent to the office. So, I sat in the principal's office with the principal, the student, and the student's mother -- talk about slightly intimidating for a student teacher who has barely gotten her feet wet! This little "meeting" went well. The mother has unrealistic expectations for what she wants to happen with her son (example, she wants him in special ed. even though he's really smart) and she is in denial that he needs testing for ADHD. She's one of those parents who you have to take by the hand and lead towards every step in a process because she is not proactive. She expects everyone to come to her and cater to her so she doesn't have to lift a finger.

I guess I could rant and rave about ridiculous parents all day, but for me the highlight of this little experience (yes, there is a highlight in all this mess!), was that the whole thing took place in 95% Spanish conversation. The principal, mom, student, switched in and out of English and Spanish and I knew exactly what was going on the whole time. Knowing another language is SO COOL! I loved sitting there listening to a conversation about one of my students while the parent and principal spoke in Spanish. I could even tell that the principal is from Puerto Rico because of the way she speaks her Spanish (I later confirmed it with another teacher). It's amazing to think that the human brain can learn a whole new set of vocabulary, phrases, sentence structures, and sounds and actually communicate in that new language. It's amazing. What's more amazing is that there are students who come to our schools from various countries in Africa who can speak 5 or 6 languages!!! LANGUAGES!!! This boggles my mind. I'm convinced that learning to speak multiple languages is its own intelligence.

What's hard at Burton Elementary, and probably every school with 2nd or 3rd generation Spanish-speakers, is that the students begin to lose their Spanish by middle school. They are so pushed so hard to learn English (which is a great skill, especially if you live in the United States) that they forget their Spanish. They can no longer communicate with parents and grandparents and it's really sad. It creates a generational breakage, a language barrier, that separates families. I compliment them whenever I can that speaking two languages is a great skill to have and not to forget their Spanish.

Here's a couple of my little intelligent students.

Drama in the 1st grade.

Friday was a rough day at school. To start off the day, there was a substitute teacher and two of my students reacted very negatively. To make a long story short, I dealt with them all day and exhausted all my options and then had to send them to the office to chat with the principal. One student exploded in anger, yelled at me, then ran away down the hallway. Eventually I found her and she stomped down to the office. In all that mess I got called, "mean," "tattletale teacher" and accused of "not caring," --- all by a 6-year-old. More like an old soul trapped in a 6-year-old's body as the principal described her. And it's true. That little girl has gone through more crap than I want to know. Her home life is a wreck. All of her siblings have different dads; there have been multiple step-dads in the picture; and now mom lives with a boyfriend. This 6-year-old is dealing with the effects. She's emotionally distraught, cries all the time, and can't even verbalize what is the matter when she is upset. Behaviorally, she refuses to participate with the class. She gets out of her seat and wanders around often, doesn't do her work, and runs away when she gets overwhelmed or feels singled out. Academically, she's low. Very low. Writing her name is still a struggle; her fine motor skills are weak; and reading is almost impossible because she doesn't know what sound each letter makes. And the little boy? His attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish because all he does is play GameCube and nintendoDS all day - he plays it so much in the morning that he is late for school! This kid is falling behind because his mom doesn't have the guts to step up and be his parent. There is no filter between his brain and his mouth so he just shouts out in the middle of class. He swears and calls other kids gay. He's always in his own little world and his mom punishes him by keeping him home from school. Now I could care less about being called mean or a tattletale teacher. It stung for sure, but what upset me the most was the environment her mom is raising her in. If only parents had to come to school and deal with the child they raised... do they not see the tangled mess of a child they created?! Let them try and teach her something. Teaching. If only it were that easy to just teach. Learning and teaching is on the back burner when I as a teacher am forced to be a psychologist, parent, and counselor. Teachers are INCREDIBLY underpaid.

                            

GO GREEN!

          In case you didn't know, MSU beat the UofM yesterday for the second year in a row!!! This is a historic win seeing as how MSU hasn't beat UofM 2 years in a row since the Johnson administration... Unfortunately most of West Michigan are U of M fans so we were quite outnumbered in our joy at church this morning. The pastor even thought it necessary to make a comment about his disappointment with the outcome of the game. He said - and I quote - "Spartan fans are like new money. They're just obnoxious!" Yep. He said that. We did not laugh. Anyways, we went to East Lansing on Friday night for AGR's annual Hog Roast. All the proceeds went to support Michigan AgriAbility. (It's an organization that helps disabled farmers.) We ate some delicious pork and cheesy potatoes and got to talk and catch up with some of Zach's fraternity brothers. We had planned to watch the game in East Lansing with friends ... but that doesn't work out so well when you realize most of your friends no longer live there... it was a bit of a wake up call that things are different once again. Graduating college is bittersweet. It's much like graduating high school because you are SO SAD to leave the incredible friends you made but also excited for the new friends that God will provide. Right now it's kinda hard...I miss my old friends.

            Last week Friday we went on our first date since we have been married - and we went to the circus! Ha ha. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's was in town at the VanAndel Area and I got tickets through my elementary school so we decided to go. Zach had never been to a circus and I haven't been since I was a small child. It had your typical weird things like people who can bend in every-which direction and ladies who twirled around by their hair way up in the air. But there were also some pretty sweet things. Take the acrobats for example who flip around on the flying trapeze; they are amazing! I told Zach that I wanted to take up that profession and he said no. The best thing was probably an act where they put 7 motocross motorcycles in a steel-cage ball and they all drove around in circles at the same time. It was crazy. Here's a picture and in case you don't believe us.

On Sunday Zach's mom and dad came over to our apartment for the first time. We have their approval, so this is good. :) After relaxing for awhile we went downtown GR to take in some of the crazy ArtPrize artwork. ArtPrize is a huge program put on by the city or Grand Rapids. Thousands of artists from all over the country entered in their pieces and placed them all over downtown. There is a giant table and chairs on top of a bridge, paintings on the sides of buildings, sculptures attached to fences, a giant floating Nessie in the river, and all kinds of crazy artsy things. People can walk around to look at the pieces and then vote on their favorite. They have narrowed it down to the Top 10 and voting will continue for a few more weeks before they decide on the winner. This moose made entirely out of nails was one of our favorites and I believe he made it into the Top 10. I have also included Nessie and the table & chairs.