July Christmas

Report Card Conference Week and Gabby....

A Vision In White

In my classroom this week I had the pleasure of looking up to a vision in white.

Friday afternoon of 1^st grade conference week, mom in hand, her head up, shoulders back, arms at sides in a Degas like presentation from one of his ballet sculptures in bronze, there standing for her very first conference and report card, my student Gabriela made her entrance. She had gone home, changed, had her hair crimped, put on “makeups” and was ready. Gabby was striking quite the pose, a la Frieda Kahlo and Strawberry Shortcake, in a floor length Confirmation or, possibly, flower girl white satin with silver accessorized gown. I’ve seen it all, and never seen this in 23 years.

The timing was perfect. It was Friday. I was tired of explaining to parents this entire week every form of test that is imposed on my students in my school district (one that is in it’s fourth year of Under performance). A District that is chaotically, knee jerkingly reacting to NCLB and that is scripting, mandating, monitoring and generally testing the children into the ground in response to it’s interpretation of the “right’ thing to do. And I was very tired as she put foot through the door of pointing to the rows on the report card and translating from one form of foolishness into another, while trying to connect to parents and their lives.

And so into Room 10 entered a child I delightedly call Gabby La La lifting the name from something a friend wrote and I co-opted from him loving the sound. And after ordering her the music CD, it appears my student also loves the comparison. As she came dramatically into the room, in an entrance I’ll remember the rest of my life, I just finally started to laugh out loud again, and her very reserved, careful, thoughtful mom couldn’t help but smile. And suddenly for the first time in several weeks I found the fun of teaching again. And recalled in reading Nell Noddings Happiness and Education book earlier in the week that this is as it really should be. Education should be founded on the pursuit of happiness. And life should be founded on the concept that school cares a very great deal, centrally, about the happiness of the child.

I learned this again, as a child brought me my happiness during her first conference walking in to the space saying, “I am here Mrs. Puglisi, give me the bad news first…” Later on her leaving when I had to briefly go throw up in the trash can, that child has put into such perspective for me the “formal” grading process I’ve been involved in this trimester, tummy issues of my own rising to the surface finally from my own unique set of medical problems that kind of came into play this week. I had a way to get through it all. I could just laugh at the irony.

And so in Gabby came for the good and the bad news while I laughed for a good while at how silly we adults are of late in schools. Princess Grace meets the grimy Room 10 apple carpet at the end of a long day of dumpy sand spilling on it, as she was sucking on her dripping and very sticky peppermint candy cane while listening to me go through her conference. Watching me and thinking her child thoughts of what this adult is all about. This teacher she brought a Strawberry Shortcake Doll to as present when I returned from 4 days out with pneumonia and got the best gift, the most unusual one in so very long. A doll with bright read hair that looks just like her. A doll her Mom tells me she made her Mom drive all over town to find for me. Sometimes I spoke directly in the conference to my student and as she is 6 going on 45 it was a funny end of a long day on many levels. I was late to get to a medical test and somehow think I put the doctors orders into the envelope with her copy of the grades, because I lost them, so I’m sure my part of the conference carried my own special brand of professional polish. But then, I was dressed in an older shirt, pants covered with glue and paint, with glitter under my nails, so it all fit.One of us in Satin, the other in flannel. As it should be the future I will hope lies before her with the promise of a new beginning. That calls for satin and jewels. I’ll never be sure if Gabby staged this dress to dramatize the report card experience and the “bringing of the mom”, or if she somehow in her growing English heard “conference” and thought “confirmation”. It’s hard to tell but fascinating to consider.

Gabby is a student in my first grade who is a very unique child, every child is unique, and she is generally known far and wide as the archetypal queen of drama and wonder(a word I’m inordinately fond of lately , overusing, in teaching and living). She is making such a wonderful and instructive transition into English, what she thinks -she says and what she feels- she expresses, so in many ways she is an open book for her peers, for me, a leader in the room and as her mom says, “Gabby doesn’t really ask she DEMANDS.” And, oh, she likes to hold court. And of all the students I work with and love to watch, my ear is tuned to her as no other, as I learn how language unfolds in the social and academic world of her classroom.

If I didn’t have the connection that I have with her, I’d still not miss her, really, because in terms of volume, my little girl has a couple decibel levels above the upper limits of human tolerance. Great for stage or saying something in true Shakespearean aside. I like that kind of presence. You’ll never get too far from a basic awareness with Gabby around that in teaching children you are always in the moment. And always just a moment away from, “I don’t want to Mrs. Puglisi” upstaging or my favorite, “I have a cut.”

My class lead by Miss Gabby is in a new pattern of finding small invisible finger cuts just as reading groups begin, or needing the restroom as we start the math timed tests, or needing to point out the “Softsoap needs refilling’ just as we begin to test on the latest Themed Skills test. It’s a hassle to keep to a commitment to put feelings and low affective filters in place and stay happy and caring as these student tests of my patience and limits come to me and I was quoted saying, “ I don’t care if your fingers are falling off, we are taking this spelling test, and no the Hello Kitty Band-Aids are out you will have to put a Shark on it, so hurry up. “

But overall why I enjoy Gabby is for her sheer audacity, power, her defiance of patterns I often see for girls, her creativity inside of the language learning. And oh, she is learning, her quick adaptation a phenomenal thing to witness and her wit and humor in her new language a refresher course in delight. It’s especially refreshing to have her raise a hand and ask in mock seriousness and deeply held breath if I can tell her “ The Story of The Santa”. She isn’t coming from a culture used to “the Santa” and she wants to get to the bottom of how “The Santa” is functioning in this world she is becoming a part of in her school. Well, good choice Gabby I love the hot seat, “The Santa” is no longer a part of our reading programs which fail to note any kind of holidays or traditions. So I pulled out The Night Before Christmas and waded on into the depths. And sunk there with the voice of authority, ”Some people say…” “Some people believe”… "No I’m not sure if the reindeer fly using the wings..” It got a bit difficult for me because Gabriela wanted to be clear on whether this is a “true issue”, an American issue, something for kids to adopt like they adopt language constructs. Eventually she demanded I tell them, “If you think we need to be getting The Santa to come to our houses. “ And at that point I thought it was time to get washed up for “the lunch.”

Gabby has me inserting “the” in all kinds of places and like we do with our young kids as they say maglazine or bisgetti or her “wonderunderful” or her “excemplicity” I am enjoying the patterns and words too much to fully extinguish them just yet.

I find this an added bonus of working in Sheltered Immersion in my classroom in California with children being put into” the English”, it’s possible to look at it from a frame of the joy of learning to speak. And communicate. It can be a great pleasure.

One of my tricks in teaching 1^st is to concurrently teach basic American sign language and songs with signs as we go along, so I had fun this week teaching the Twelve Days of Christmas sung by the Muppets on our karaoke style CD singallong-with-its, which is great for counting in reverse, and in signs a hilarious amount of fun full of language. Over the River and Through the Woods was next, Elvis singing White Christmas , then Feliz Navidad. Actually for the Winter Program the 1^st grade level is singing “Must Be Santa” which is how the Santa question probably really started, so I also hauled out Maoz Tzur, Hava Nagilah, The Dreidel Song and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen but that’s so our lunchtime Muppets Christmas Carol DVD showing will be more fun.

In December despite all the curricular controls, all the issues of crèches, menorahs and holiday on ice singing it’s still alive in Oxnard and in play in our world. Years ago it was in play then too, much earlier in my career, one of my most vivid memories of being in a new culture teaching in a small migrant town far from my West Virginia roots. There I was rapidly seeing customs and holiday anew, learning of the posada and walking through a house which nightly put straw all through the entire place, right on the floor, brought in a donkey, goat, dogs, the family dressed with towels on their head, brought in a manger, put the furniture out back which I saw through the glass door and holding the baby wrapped in white reenacted the Holy Night for five bucks. I got in free because I taught the baby Jesus’ brother and sister and finally the baby himself when he grew up a bit and a cousin was enlisted to take over the part.

Gabby has a good report card as it turns out and her mom grants permission to share her story. With Sheltering strategies instructionally to bring context to language learning her progress is excellent. She’s driven to learn and she works on reading driven not by my praise, or even by my noticing, it’s her thing entirely. She often holds court at recess writing her letters to other kids, making stories for them in written form, sending kids her “moon and stars” notes and using the power of the written word in all kinds of ways to bring me to foolishness- as I am forced to intervene- and stop the use of a friends’ name unwanted or define acceptable and unacceptable uses of our Blues Clues mailbox or simply to quell some of her enthusiasm. At times her hints about who is getting a special letter today have stopped my ability to do my mandated lesson on the two sounds of e , or the ck pattern at the end of words.

One of Gabby’s favorite things to do is stroll by another child on the way for “a tissue” and whisper, “You’ve Got Mail.’ After that whatever SoundSpelling Card I’m up there holding loses all meaning. She also appropriated, “Can You Hear Me Now?” and I can’t tell you how glad I’ll be the day that one dies down. Her mom in her parent conference shared she’s watching TV in English, it’s where she’s learning through, I think, “Friends” it must be among her choices as she likes to use “Rachel, Phoebe and Monica” to rename her friends in play situations. I’m not sure but I think that might also explain her recent announcement that she’s planning to grow up and work in a coffeehouse. I’m actually afraid to ask her.

All of these lovely things were a part of our conferencing as Gabby eye rolled and enjoyed her dripping stick peppermint candy cane, while I sweated through my 15^th presentation of the “data’. None of my parents were interested in the “Presentation of the Data”, and several simply cut me off by telling me they resent three hour tests, Skills Tests required of me to give in the Reading Series every new theme or about every three weeks. They consider it ridiculous. Me too, mandated and paced I can’t even be reasonable about it. And from a very poor assessment I’m supposed to then take this to peer teachers and discuss it for hours and hours (on our time in something called a Professional Learning Community) to prove we will do Whatever it takes to get the scores even higher. One idea might be keeping the testing to 30 minutes. That might work. Or to use different testing vehicles, some perhaps in the actual learning context or within reading instruction, but that said, at Report cards I was struggling to talk to why things are as they are. Those kinds of discussions are very tough. I talk with parents new to the country that want to help their children have a chance. And I know the deck is stacked. It’s really a hard, long talk sometimes. I did my best for Gabby’s mom. Gabby took this over saying, “You needs to stop these tests and start reading the books up in the boxes that I like the ones with the shortcakes.” Yes, absolutely I know I do. I need lots more Strawberry Shortcake in my day Gabriela. And I will have more to say on happiness and your right to it in your education.

For now I’m choking on a system feeding the young a bad substitute for yummy shortcake. My school thinks a rigid diet of testing will get you a delicious banquet of learning. No can do, whatever it takes, takes some truth now and again…dessert isn’t getting to take another test. It's getting to put a letter in the Blues Clues mailbox and write a happy note to your newest friend. It's learning within contexts that inspire a child to put on that long white dress and come in to hear what the teacher has to say about how you're doing.
And then getting a hug to say, JUST FINE.