[Editor's note: Mr. Foteah is a second-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. He blogs at The World As I See It, where this post originally appeared.]

Motor Mouth, one of my least mature students in terms of behaving in accordance with the expectations I and school demand of a child his age, has really impressed me the last few days.

One of the traits I correlate with him more than any other is his propensity for raising his hand and then speaking without giving much consideration to what is about to come out of his mouth.

Now, don’t get me wrong. He is still the loudest during morning unpacking and the most distracted during independent reading. But, for whatever reason, he has, this week, been putting forth the most cogent arguments I have heard from him all year, and some of the best from the class as a whole. More »

[Editor's note: Ms. Socrates is a first-year 10th-grade science teacher in a school in Brooklyn. She blogs at Teacher's Diary where this post originally appeared.]

It is a frequent occurrence in many 10th-grade classrooms: A lesson is underway, when suddenly, from the back of the room, comes the exclamation that no teacher wants to hear: “Miss, your class is so boring!”

Midway through my first year of teaching, I’ve been really getting into improving as a teacher. I’m excited about trying out new techniques and receiving criticism on my teaching. I have learned to detach myself much more from the day-to-day incidents and distractions in the classroom. However, no teacher likes to be told his class is boring, especially not one who is consciously trying to be the best teacher possible. As a first-year teacher, I know I could be more engaging at times, but hey, at least I’m giving it my all!

Since the beginning of the school year, I have dealt handily with comments about my breath, my hair and even my handwriting, never batting an eyelash. But for some reason, the boredom comments always throw me — either into rage or despair. More »

[Editor's note: Mr. Foteah is a second-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. He blogs at The World As I See It, where this post originally appeared.]

Inspired by some ideas I found on the blogosphere as well as the thoughts culled from interactions with my colleagues, I recently launched an exciting new vocabulary enrichment program in my classroom.

It started after I did some nifty reorganization that opened up the area in the front of the room, reduced the amount of clutter near my desk, and afforded me space to institute the new charts we’d be creating. I told the class, when they came in, to look for the changes in the room, and they all seized on the area I hoped they would: the newly empty board, on which I had drawn the Olympic rings and written “Something special is going here.” For period three, they may have noticed, all I wrote on our flow of the day was “Something special.” More »

[Editor's note: Mr. Foteah is a second-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. He blogs at The World As I See It, where this post originally appeared.]

My mother, a former principal, recently forwarded me this Edweek article, entitled “These Things We Believe.”

Although I’m still technically a neophyte, I empathize with and lift my voice in support of those teachers who are, according to the article, “so discouraged about the conditions under which they’re working and the daily criticism they’re hearing from political leaders, school reform groups, and media pundits who’ve identified teachers as the chief cause of public education’s problems.” In any school across this city, chances are the gripes are similar to those in my school, and many of them stem from our political “leadership.”

Too often it seems the public lacks any significant appreciation for the beleaguered teacher. Yet, the trick, implied in the article, is to insulate ourselves from the cacophony of insults directed toward us, and in spite of it, create atmospheres conducive to the success of our students and the sanity of their teachers. More »

[Ms. G is a fourth-year teacher in a high school in Manhattan.]

Terrell reminded me of Reuben Nassau, a high school classmate of mine. “When the lights go out, we all Negroes,” Reuben said to me after I rejected his homecoming invitation.

Terrell and Reuben Nassau were about as similar as a lobster and a unicorn.

During my first, nervous, long-skirted week of teaching, Terrell was quiet, peaceful, and polite. As a new teacher, it’s so nice to have someone treat you with politeness, I wrote in a note to him after the first week of class.

Terrell remained quiet, peaceful, and polite for the rest of the semester.

Terrell came to class in spurts. He’d come for almost an entire week, and then leave an empty seat in the third row for the next week.

I missed Terrell when that chair was empty. More »

[Editor's note: Mr. Foteah is a second-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. He blogs at The World As I See It, where this post originally appeared.]

Several weeks ago, my colleague across the hall and I were offered what sounded like a sensational opportunity for our impoverished students, something they might never experience in their lives: a trip to see the Broadway show “Wicked.” We were thrilled up until the point when we were told “the catch.” We each have 28 kids in our class, but, unfortunately, only 43 tickets were available.

Ouch. Talk about a punch in the gut. I am staunchly against ever withholding the experience of a field trip from my students, even for behavioral issues. (I’ll clarify: I would never disallow a child to attend the trip based on a transgression in school. I don’t believe in taking things away without warning, like some teachers do. I would however, if cause arose, make the child earn the right to go on the trip. The latter scenario has not occurred in my career thus far).

Given the news that only 43 out of 56 children would be getting this once-in-a-lifetime gift, I knew I would be forced to make some difficult decisions. More »

Image by arimoore: flickr.com/photos/arimoore/

[Editor’s note: Ms. Aha-Moment is a third-year ESL teacher in an elementary school in Brooklyn.]

I taught my first year in the New York City public school system at an elementary school in a hardscrabble neighborhood of the South Bronx. My self-contained ESL class consisted of twenty-six students, bridging 2nd and 3rd grade. As in many classrooms throughout the city, the children who entered my classroom brought with them an array of linguistic, academic and social issues.

Fresh out of graduate school, I imagined my class would be a Community of Learners, a circle of polite and happy children interacting seated on the rug. While the majority of my students displayed typical, manageable behavior in the classroom, I had my hands full with no less than five Serious Disrupters. All boys, the Serious Disrupters seemed bent upon sabotaging every attempt I made to create a Community of Learners by engaging in a variety of activities such as, chronic interruption, name-calling, cursing, stealing from, and punching or body-slamming other students. More »

[Editor's note: Miss Brave is a third-year elementary school teacher in Queens in her first year as a classroom teacher. She blogs at miss brave teaches nyc, where this post originally appeared.]

At my school, we’re so hyper-focused on reading, writing and math that science and social studies toooootally get the shaft. Which is unfortunate, because taking a strong interest in a particular area of science and social studies is often the catalyst for progress in reading, writing and math.

One of the things that’s surprised me in my first year as a classroom teacher is how much I really enjoy teaching science. Science was never my thing when I was in school, but as a teacher I get to see the “Eureka!” of discovery on a daily basis, which is pretty cool. We use the FOSS science curriculum, and unlike Teachers College, I can honestly say I love it. (And my students do too.) The kits come packaged with almost every supply we need, which is fabulous because it means I don’t have to run around trying to find plastic cups or clothespins for our experiments. All the lessons are hands-on, and they tend to surprise me even more than my students. There have been many times when I reviewed a lesson ahead of time, rolled my eyes and thought, “My kids will never be able to do that” — but then they can! I usually test out the lessons ahead of time so I’ll be able to demonstrate them for my kids, and half the time my kids can make the experiments work better than I can. More »

[Editor’s note: Kansan in the Bronx is a second-year teacher in a Bronx middle school.]

Sometimes it really pains me to give stuff away to children. It depends on the reason why, of course, but if it’s for anything other than on an occasion to show them I like them unconditionally I really question why I’m doing it. When I was in school I strove for success simply because I didn’t want to fail. I also had a vague but strong sense that my academic success was important. Last year, a lot of that went down the toilet as I attempted to persuade/bribe my class to behave better. It really bothered me because it was as if to say, “What I am telling you to do is not important enough for you to want to do it inherently, so I’m going to give you a chocolate to make it go down easier.” This year I’ve been giving out awards that are academic in nature rather than out-and-out bribery. The idea has been to reinforce positive behavior without seeming like it’s just an attempt to neutralize the poor behavior. More »

[Editor's note: Mr. Foteah is a second-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. He blogs at The World As I See It, where this post originally appeared.]

As a teacher, I look to assign work through which students can make a deep personal investment. Every teacher knows that if work relates to a child’s world, their dedication to achieving success in the work will be that much greater.

Our Mosaic lesson today focused on cultivating thoughts that would motivate the students to capture photographs that spoke about them as members of the community. I shut the lights, asked them to put their heads down, close their eyes, and get comfortable. I prayed the phone or fire alarm wouldn’t ring and that no student would immaturely sabotage the meditation activity I was about to lead the class through. More »

[Editor's note: Little Miss Sunshine is a second-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens.]

As any family with Italian heritage can tell you, speaking with your hands is practically a necessity. I come from a long line of hand-talkers; we simply cannot get our point across without using our hands. In fact, growing up in my family if you wanted to tell your cousin to “shut up” without getting in trouble, you would say “Sit on your hands!”

If you couldn’t use your hands, you couldn’t speak.

This habit of talking with my hands followed me into adulthood. When I began teaching, I continued to speak in this manner, using my hands to explain things that my words could not. I was surprised when one of my English as a second language (ESL) professors told me that there have been studies that have shown that speaking with your hands can actually help English language learners create meaning. More »

[Editor's note: Ms. Flecha is a third-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. She blogs at My Life Untranslated.]

One of my newcomer Bangladeshi students, “Alia,” recently published a biography of her grandmother during our writer’s workshop. She is a beginner ELL, so she started the story with pictures — she sketched out exquisitely detailed pictures of her grandmother in her village, wearing traditional clothing and carrying fruit on her head. She added key timeline-related details and then asked me what the word is for a job where women carry food around on their heads. I asked if she meant in a restaurant, and she said, “No, no restaurant in her village.” I suggested food vendor, but she preferred waitress. Really, we don’t have a word for such a job — another interesting chasm between languages, cultures, and experiences. Slowly, I felt I was being invited into her life.

To prepare them for the unit I had read them picture books such as The Librarian of Basra, A True Story From Iraq, and Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa, both by Jeanette Winter, as well as books about Ruby Bridges and Rosa Parks. With these books, I taught them how to focus in on their subject’s most important moment as the heart of the story. In retrospect, the powerful nature of these people’s lives in particular had probably helped some of my students to see the importance of retelling the often heartbreaking struggles their person had experienced. Some had chosen to describe when their father or mother had hiked across the border into the US, through thickets of thorns and desert. Alia, however, told me her grandmother was still in Bangladesh, so I asked her to sketch some more so I could help her choose the most important moment.

Although it wasn’t hard to figure out, it really took my breath away. More »

[Ms. I is a second-year teacher in a high school in Brooklyn.]

As tends to be the case in major life events, my high school teaching career began when I least expected. Midway through the school year, I was welcomed into a wonderful school community. I shed tears of joy. For sixty seconds, I was elated. Then, reality hit. I realized I had so much to learn even though I was now the teacher. So, in order to continue to learn about teaching and learning, I would now have to bring my attention, awareness and understanding to my own classroom performance.

An Irish immigrant and a mother with four degrees and years of professional experience, I was terrified. I asked myself: “What will I teach? How will I teach? What will my students be like? How will I know if they are learning?” I felt unprepared. Sixteen months later, these four questions are the focus of my current reflection. More »

[Editor's note: Bronxteach is a third-year elementary school teacher. He blogs at bronxteach.com, where this post first appeared.]

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, and I hope I get a chance to sift through it on here over the next few days. In the mean time, there’s one incident stuck on my mind.

It happened the other day when one of my students got caught with his finger up his nose by the math cluster teacher. She sent him to wash his hands and I escorted him to the sink in our classroom to help him out. He’s a third grader who can’t tie his shoes and can’t really use scissors, so I figured he might need some help using the faucet and the soap.

As he was soaping up I thought it was a good opportunity for a quick hygiene tip: “Do you know a good way to know if you’ve washed for long enough? You can sing your ABC’s while you soap.”

“I don’t know my ABC’s.” More »

[Editor's note: Ms. Flecha is a third-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. She blogs at My Life Untranslated.]

This is my third year as a teacher but in many ways it’s a first. It’s only my second year in the classroom and it’s my first year teaching 5th grade. In my self-contained ESL class, we’ve grown from 20 to 28 students since September — all of my new students are brand new to the country. This means I have roughly 20 beginners in a multi-lingual, multi-level class. Eleven of my students speak languages that I don’t: Indonesian, Chinese, Bangla, Urdu and Pashto. The rest are Spanish speakers. Their reading levels range from AA to Q. My colleagues tell me it’s like I have my own one-room schoolhouse. This is exactly the type of class I’ve always wanted, and yet sometimes it feels like it will be the death of me. More »