The Principal's Office

My permanent record is pretty much golden.  Not one trip to the principal's office.  Never.  Not ever.  Not even after I toilet papered the principal's house with my best friend and then ran over his water mainline when he blocked us in the driveway.  I probably would have been expelled, but I didn't get caught.  No one made a peep even after I wrote a personal narrative about my little adventure for Junior year English.  

I had another close call in first grade.  My mother loves to retell this story.  

Michelle came home from school and said she got her name on the board for helping Tony take his boots off.  So, I went up to that school and I asked the teacher what she had done that was just so terrible.  And the teacher said ever so sweetly, "But you see, Tony didn't WANT his boots off!"

My mom just cracks up at that part.  I'm not sure if it's because I was so unhelpfully helpful or because at the tender age of seven, I was already manhandling the would-be-men in my class.  Either way, I missed my ticket to the principal's office due to my teacher's good nature.  In the class of another, I might not have fared so well.

It's a good thing that those permanent record things, aren't that permanent or my adult self would be in a heap of trouble for marring that pristine document.  Today, I got called into the principal's office.  It wasn't pretty.  It certainly wasn't my first time since I started getting called into the principal's office, which was sometime back in 2009(-ish).  (Holla-attcha, Mrs. Trout, and, by the way, FUCK YOU!!!)  

On the bright side, my current principal is NOTHING like Mrs. Trout.  That is because my current principal is a good and decent and rational person with a good heart that cares about children AND her teachers AND staff.  She is the opposite of a two-faced cold-hearted amoral self-serving jackass with whom I am familiar.  My current principal is practically an angel by comparison.  

Angel or not,  new principal knows how to smack down.  She is succinct, to the point, and cuts to the chase.  She mixes in a little Encyclopedia Brown style questioning/concern.... How are you doing?  What's going on with you?  (You know, she's making sure that nobody in family has died and that I'm not recently diagnosed with something awful.  I can respect that... nice move.)  Then, boom, so I notice that you've come to school late the past two mornings. (I've gotten there at 7:18 and 7:19.  The bell rings at 7:20 and that's when we pick up the kids.  We are supposed to be at school by 7:10.)  You know, Michelle, it's very important that you are here on time.  

Blah, blah, blah... some other stuff.....  I won't bore you to death with it all.  Suffice to say, I better not show up late one more day and I better have the kids all set and ready to stick with our plans.  No more cleaning out desks during intervention time.  (I did have to tell her that we were cleaning out desks, because last semester one of the kids had a roach crawl out of their desk and I thought it was necessary to clean them all out, even if it took a little extra time.)  

The good news is that my principal was well within her bounds of reasonableness to talk with me about being late and even to check on whether I was going to be doing intervention.  I think it gave me a moment to let her know that I was recalibrating for the year at the start of the new semester and to hear what was important to her... i.e. timeliness in general and working in small groups for interventions.  This was a good thing for me to focus on for my future.  

As they say, every cloud has a silver lining.  If I have learned anything, that is the God's honest truth.  If you can't see the good out of the bad, then you aren't looking hard enough, and you aren't getting the message.  For all of the dislike that I have for Mrs. Trout (Fuck you, again, you fired up my engines all over again with your latest bullshit stunt - sorry - I have Tourrette's, when I think about that woman sometimes and I just start typing crazy shit) um, back to... for all of the dislike that I have for Mrs. Trout, I credit a lot of my current happiness to her.  

I learned a lot from her. I learned a lot about curriculum and rigor.  I learned about what a good teacher that I am and that I can be better and better all of the time.  I learned that I can learn so much from my peers and specialists. I learned that it is important to always to talk about your strengths and to not be defensive about your weaknesses.  I learned that when it comes to your boss just apologize, agree, change it, and move on.  I learned that there are some people that lie.  I learned that there are some people that cheat.  I learned that there are some people that manipulate and bully.  I learned that I am not one of those people.  Above all, I learned that if you do the right thing, good things will happen for you.  Always.  Every time.  Without fail.  I learned that integrity is the permanent record that only you can see and its the only one that matters.

Ms. Milky is M & M

At the initial parent meeting, I warned them all about my propensity to rap.  

I kind of think that I'm Eminem.

There were a lot of smiles and a few chuckles when I confessed this, but it turned into full blown laughter and I knew that I had the parents hooked after my demonstration.  I broke out into a little bit of my self-penned "Dime Rhyme" and the "Rollin' Multiples" song that I borrowed from KIPP.  

Done... I made them believers.  Just.  Like.  That.  

The kiddos eyes got really big.  Is this really gonna be my teacher?  

That was when I knew that this year was going to be different.  That I was finally going to get to do what I do.  That I could finally be the teacher that I have always wanted to be.  

Until this year, I lived in a lot of fear that I wasn't a very good teacher.  That I sucked actually.  That didn't have control of my class and that I didn't know what I was doing with curriculum.  

In actuality, I have been a good to an excellent teacher.  A new teacher who was unsure of herself at times, a teacher who wasn't supported at others, and even a teacher who was bullied, picked on, and harassed.  In those latter times, I was filled with self-doubt and worry.  I let my lack of confidence undermine my abilities and esteem.  

I decided that this year I would take risks.  That I would allow myself to fail and try again.  That I would try something new.  That if something made sense that I would give it a go.  That I would do the things that I was passionate about and that I would have fun doing them.  

I love to rhyme.  I love to rap.  So I decided I would rap and rhyme in class a lot.  I know that kids learn to read by being read to, so I decided to 1) buy a whole lot of on-level books for my classroom 2) read them onto cds 3) create a system for my students to listen to the books on cd and read the books at the same time.  I developed an organizational template for writing and a pre-writing system that accompanies it along with a system for developing voice so that my students can begin to write in ways that make sense right away.  

And it's working!  I kind of can't believe it.  I'm not exactly sure why, but the things that we are doing are helping them to think on their own.  

They are reading.  They are thinking.  They are beginning to write.  

I am not afraid that I am a terrible teacher anymore.  I am exhausted.  I am having fun.  I feel more light of heart.  I am not looking over my shoulder waiting for an administrator to tell me that it's not enough.  Maybe that will happen later.  I don't know.  But so far, so good, and that's good enough for me right now.

Here's an example of one of my classroom raps for your entertainment:

The Dime Rhyme

I got my mind on my money 

And my money on my dime!

Penny, nickel, quarter, dime!

It's small, ridged, and flat 

So we put it in the back!

1, 5, 25, that's fine!

10s the magic number when we're talkin' 'bout dimes!

A nickel is fatter and wider than a dime

Cause size don't matter this time!

I got my mind on my money 

And my money on my dime!

I gotta double up my nickels 

To make one dime!

I got my mind on my money

And my money on my dime!

Beef Jerky Bribes

All this talk of hot Cheeto blackmail reminds of the great "Beef Jerky and Skittle Bribe" of 2004.  Anna Marie was one of the fastest talking girls I have ever met.  She had a way of making you despise her and absolutely fall in love with her simultaneously.

She was smart and funny and sneaky as a snake.  There was a new boy in class who was just straight up wierd.  He ate his boogers, talked in a squeaky voice, tattled constantly, and looked like a cross between a Fraggle and a shrunken head doll.  Poor Mitchell crossed paths with the wrong girl, because one day Anna Marie decided that she was out to get him.

Not one to get her hands dirty and sensing my innate preference for the girls in the class, she bribed four of five of the sweetest little angels to drag Mitchell behind the playground slide and beat him up for stick of beef jerky and a bag of Skittles.  Two of the little darlings stood as a human shield while the other two slugged him in the stomach.

My co-teacher and I were clueless.  Another student ratted them out and brought the remnants of the evidence (a jerky wrapper and empty Skittles bag), as well as a bleary-eyed Mitchell to sketch out the story.  Anna Marie copped to the story almost immediately.  She smiled this huge smile and put her hands in air and said, "He's been driving me crazy, Ms. Milky!" It was like seeing that wrapper and empty bag was the equivalent of catching her with her hand in the cookie jar.


Kids never seem to think... hey... you littered!  They just know that they are in trouble and confess.  It amazed me that it seemed reasonable to beat the hell out of someone and conspire to have others do it for you, just because someone was bugging you. I think about Anna Marie from time to time and I wonder how she is doing.  I can imagine how Mitchell is doing and that is too dreary for me.  I hope that nobody has beaten the shit out of her.  I hope that nobody has beaten the fire out of her, either.

I spent a good part of the year protecting Mitchell from bullying, but I know that the kids that were doing it were being bullied by someone else.  And that is why my thoughts linger with them.