Pilfered Booty

I got a lock on my door today. I put the service request in before school started, August. The only thing that had been stolen was candy and the candy jar was decimated. The first time I noticed something fishy was when the lid was open. There must have been a covert operation organized by some crafty students to swipe about 3/4 of the treasure. Then a week later the stash had been raided again and left us with 10 lone pieces of candy. Last week was the final assault on the tackle box filled with candy. Some invader, rumor has it a fifth grader, took the scattered stragglers and left behind a toppled and opened candy box. No effort was made to conceal the desecration of our shrine to extrinsic rewards.

Anyhow, since the only thing that was stolen was candy, not 24 handheld responders for our smart boards or any school supplies, I am not concerned. Stealing is unacceptable but since I have not had protected space for two months I would say that the casualties are minimal. What would have been hysterical is if they hi-jacked the smart board off the wall and tore down the projector. My principal would have said, “Mr. Castagnola you need to replace these items, they were in your room and your responsibility.” I would have said, “Blaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!” and pulled out a copy of the work order for the door and highlighted the date.

Now I have a lock on my door. It is new and very shiny and needs a key. Oh, a key. Maybe someone should have given Mr. Castagnola a key to his classroom. This way when he got to school early to set up his classroom he could enter the room. Whatever, a minor glitch, forty minutes of lost sleep, but it is symptomatic of the overarching administrative shortcomings. Our school does not, I repeat does not, believe in disseminating important information to the affected parties. If it is important or relevant they promise to let you know no more than 12 hours before the time of implementation. Like when they told a fellow teacher he would be moved from English to SS/Sci at 6:30 pm on Monday and the change would be effective the next morning. Or how the principal told me I would be teaching after-school and that it starts tomorrow. I had been trying to acquire information about the program for the last 6 weeks. Last year they had consultants to help out, this year they have no one, the last time they had no helping hand the school was taken over by the state. I am going to steer clear of this ensuing disaster and apply my energies elsewhere. One thought is to host my own afterschool tutoring and possibly organize a club. We will see.

Pumpkins and Calculus

What a week. I think I was experiencing post Shelby Fest dissonance. Enthusiasm was at a year long low, attitude was sitting somewhere between despicable and horribly obnoxious. I went to visit my buddy F… for an attitude adjustment. I drove by his school (50 min away) to help him carve some pumpkins. For the first time ever I tried some raw pumpkin, straight off the gourd. I think it had carrot like qualities, but I was told that I was being misled by the color of the vegetable. Well, I am sticking by my story, raw pumpkin is bland and carrot like.

We stopped by a friend’s house and munched on some peanut butter and fluff and talked calculus. E… is a math major and loves math. I am considering taking a calculus class as a grad school pre-rec. As E… was teaching me some basic calculus ideas and proofs, I was cognizant of the waxing and waning of my attention. It was bizarre. This is how my students feel in class. We crashed and burned with long division. The kids were missing to many of the pieces to successfully assemble the equation and it was way to abstract. Pop! My attention smacked back in when E…started talking about the relevance of calculus when dropping bombs, then I would space out as he was laying out a formula. Generating investment is huge, no matter what your subject matter or activity. If people don’t care, they are not going to do ANYTHING.

I went to school reinvigorated by Thursday’s conversation and pumpkin eating extravaganza. I regained control of my class. We did some yoga and solved some problems. One little boy called someone retarded. He thinks this type of behavior is funny. The last few days this sort of disrespect had become all too common. However, today, it was not going to work. The comedy from his disruption was squashed along with the smile he had from gaining the attention. The peer pressure was once again palpable and this sort of outburst will not be tolerated. It is a necessity for me to be on my game a 100 percent of the time. Cracks in culture let the demons slip out. Pandora’s box had been opened and it was not pretty. I had gotten too comfortable and forgot what lives within the personalities and attitudes of some children.

I am ready to be in school and to be positive. I will not be like that pumpkin, bland and lacking excitement. Nor, will I be like revenge a dish best served cold. Instead the school day will return to a smorgasbord of necessity by meeting individual learners needs, creating a safe and welcoming environment and working as hard as we can all the time.

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Shelby Fest '06

Shelby Fest happened. Drum roll please. AND...IT....WAS....A...SUCCESS!!!!!!! Thank goodness. Below are some pictures, but first a quick anecdote about the festivities.

The music was awesome. The festival games were a huge hit. There were children on line for all the games for every minute of the day. The races on the half hour had enthusiastic particpation. Everybody had a tremendous time and the mayor keeps telling me, "Mr. C you got to keep with working with me." We sold 2000+ carnival game tickets to over 500 festival revelers and raised about $2000. Who-wah! The fourth grade will be going on two heavily subsidized class trips.

The community came together, both black and white, to enjoy a fun-filled day of music, games, good weather, and food. The event was a success because of the hard-work and dedication of my fellow organizers, donations by the businesses of Shelby, teachers from around the Delta who came out to lend a helping hand, Shelby Women United, the police and fire departments, Mayor Grimm, and of course the other SMS faculty that helped keep things running smoothly. Please check out the blog link to Ms. Hayes and Mr. Frailich for more pics and info. Also, thank you for the support from all who bought T-shirts, they will be mailed out shortly.

Check us out.

The Shelby Middle School Starlight Steppers.

Shelby Fest '06 presents The Wessley Jefferson Band.

Look at the crowd. Just look at them. It was like this ALL day.

Bite the Donut...10 dozen donuts were gobbled up.

The crazy clothes race.

Check out this little tyke at the football toss.

Yes, we did in fact have a bouncing castle.

Face painting.

Bracelet Making.

Chief Daniels, rib chef extraordinaire.


The production values were high, things ran pretty smoothly and clean up went fast. We traded hot dogs to kids who filled up enitre bags of garbage. Who knows what the next project will be, but for now I am excited to focus on my classroom.

Something positive to offset the negative.

I called Wal-Mart today. They approved my community grant proposal and I can pick up the $500 check tomorrow. If all money comes through as planned Shelby Fest will be in the black baby!

I also sat down and looked at what has to be accomplished for this semester, at least now I have a tentative schedule to follow. Phew, moving in the right direction again.

Caution...anger ahead.

Man am I angry. The wretched burning that is consuming and crawling upon my skin like the billions of ants that will invade my house come spring-time is a torrid aggravation. Oh, look at that, another reference to the bugs dictating the seasons as opposed to the weather. There was torrential rain and wind yesterday and now there are crickets in my house. As I slapped two of them and herd their exoskeletons crunch I thought about the sound they would make grinding between my teeth should I have no food and be left with cricket stew. There is a wasp in my classroom. For the last week there has been a wasp in my classroom. I cannot imagine it is the same one, but the students point it out every so often and the other day I told them that if they mentioned it again I would eat the wasp then eat the student who thought it worthwhile to interrupt class.

Class was miserable today. Bitter, contemptuous misery prevails. The students were off task. Let me contribute the nature of this behavior to homecoming week disruptions, new groups in the classroom, and students wearing their throwback jerseys. It’s like they don these Jerseys and become hot shots. They think they are hard like their latest gun slinging, crack smoking rap hero. Beyond poor behavior, I am totally lost. I am drowning in the benchmarks of these nine weeks. The kids lack most of the necessary third grade skills, for multiplication, division, time, and measurement. I have not even come close to teaching a fourth grade benchmark and we are 7 days through this semester. We have not had a full week of school either. Assemblies, short days, testing days, pulling kids for homecoming activities, teaching students to use laptops, and my last class was decimated when all the girls had to go to the gym for 30 minutes to pick up their drug free cheerleader outfits. Pass them out in gym, or give them to me to distribute at the end of the day.

I crashed my car driving home from delivering Shelby Fest announcements to ten Shelby churches. Ten, I kid you not, and I am sure there are more. No big deal, no one was hurt and the damage was minimal. When the cop ran my plates I learned that my tags were expired. Kerplow! $225 plus the new tags, an additional $100, equals more money then I have to spend. So much for that budget surplus this month which now makes cricket stew look like more than a farce. Arrrggghh! I feel much better now. Thank you.

One week and counting.

We have a budget of $1500 and we are using every penny. I think the bouncing castle may put us over the edge, but we are ensuring that Shelby Fest will be fantastic.

I have been nervous about meal sales and cultivating realistic expectations for revenues. I have had considerable fear about appropriately estimating food purchases and my efforts to pre-sell rib and chicken dinners have been lack luster. However, I am hoping a rambunctious army of fourth graders equipped with excitement, enthusiasm and sales sheets will take care of the problem. Today I sent the legions out into the field with instructions to ask, invite, and harass anyone and everybody to buy meals for Shelby Fest. The kids are invested. They know the funds will go toward subsidizing their field trip, and I hope this eagerness translates into decent numbers of pre-sold meals. The excitement of the event and the allure of the trips to Memphis and Jackson have them geared up to sell as many meals as possible. The sales leader in each class will get a backpack filled with school supplies and undisputed bragging rights. The tally will be in on Thursday. Wish us luck.

And the City Came Together

Reverend Pitts was advertising a prayer walk for the city of Shelby, under the slogan of “And the City Came Together.” It was to be a walk through town starting at city hall and ending at the high school. Once we arrived at the high school there would be a short healing session given by a panel of Reverends. Reverend Pitts had secured guarantees that all the influential people in town would be in attendance and since these same people are also Shelby Fest shareholders, I would without fail be in attendance as well. The Mayor, Police Chief, Shelby Women United, Superintendent, School Board members and Board of Alderman were all present at the event. I was excited to participate in a moment of solidarity for the town of Shelby. I enjoy being involved in the community and as I have written before I think Reverend Pitts is a captivating speaker. However, my brain must have shut down when I heard about the event. When Rev. Pitts said short, I figured and hour and a half. I don’t know how I overlooked the obvious disconnect between the words panel of preachers and short. Clearly this was going to be a three-hour event. PANEL OF PREACHERS. These men live to talk. When they pontificate people say things like, “He’s preachin’ now and go preacher.” So I sat through the event and listened to the healing service, which was in fact three hours long. It was absolutely worth my time. The people I had been working with to ensure the occurrence of Shelby Fest recognized my efforts and provided shout outs. “And we call him Mr. C because we can’t pronounce his last name, but he is working very hard to assemble a community festival to send the fourth grade on a field trip.” My last name is a tongue twisting four syllables long, but it doesn’t matter, the town and its leadership are supportive.

Let me point out my favorite part of the event. One of the preachers was delivering his message and prepared the audience for an upcoming bible passage by acknowledging the author and verse before he started quoting it. Once the verse was known another pastor on the panel nodded his head and said, “hear it comes” like a ball of fire was about to explode into the room and engulf the entire audience. And as the verse began he hung his head, consumed by his faith and quoted along. The passion exhibited in his instinctive reaction to the upcoming biblical verse was intense.

A quick update.

Things are accelerating out of control. My classroom is becoming an environment of constant productivty. Down time is unacceptable and learning and practicing need to occur endlessly. The other day I introduced Sudoku puzzles and the kids are digging it. Now when they finish required work they have the option to do a math quilt, play Sudoku, or practice flashcards. When I looked around the room on Tuesday each student was occupied with a valuable activity. At one group four students were doing three different activities. This was a huge step forward in reducing down-time.

Shelby Fest is on the move. We have our approvals and funding. Student are creating and implementing fun fest activity booths that are on the way to looking stellar. It is three am and I have just finished creating banners for the booths. They are spectacular, five foot pvc pipes spray painted like candy canes in a variety of colors with fabric artfully strewn across. The students will be painting the banners to advertise their events tomorrow.

The shirts came in the mail and are super-cool, You know, "super-cool" was a slang expression used in Panama as well, it meant the exact same thing as I am conferring here. Bizarre. For those of you who ordered a shirt please give us three weeks to ship them out. We will do our best to get that out as soon as possible, but as you can imagine there are currently about a ba-jillion things happening all at once and I nervous about my head exploding.

Michael

Frogs, Testing, and Centers

I woke up this morning to find a fluorescent green frog sitting in my bathroom. I think it was lost and confused and it did not move when I walked in. The only thing I thought was…bizarre. Noting its brilliant electric color I decided touching it would be a bad idea, dare I turn into a frog myself and having no idea when the next princess would be coming through, I went and got a cup and a magazine to carry the frog outside. It left some slime as I dragged it onto the magazine. Who knows what’s poisonous down here. I already have North America’s most deadly spider patrolling the hallways and crevices of my house.

I figured the flamboyant reptilian creature was an omen or sign for something. Possibly that I need to move somewhere that can keep the outside, outside.

School disorganization was in rare form today. This is exam week and the students need an hour and a half for the test. So, when I asked my principal why she created a schedule that mangled the organization of the day she told me, “We are preparing them to take long standardized tests.” Ok, then why not leave the block scheduling that affords 100 minutes or an hour and 40 minutes, more than the requisite 1.5 hours needed for testing instead of getting all fancy. She told me, “Mr. Castagnola, we are using this schedule.” Cool, moving on. The announcement comes over the intercom, “Teachers, nine weeks tests are not ready, continue with your day and follow the testing schedule.” I cannot express how absurd this is. The first tests were not ready until there was an hour and a half left in the day. Experience has told me to expect this sort of calamity.

This is how we occupied our day. I am trying to build an overly complex centers system. It is overly complex and needs to be streamlined. To prepare for our foray into centers we had a community meeting to generate classroom love. We said something nice to the person to our left (left is still a confusing concept for some students) and talked about how we feel when people say nice things to us. The overwhelming response, I feel good when someone says something nice about me. Now that everyone was in a good mood, we got on with business. Check out some pics.

Now he’s preachin’!

You go preacher! Oh yeah! He’s preachin’ now! Keep on preachin’!

YOU GOT TO CHANGE THE THINGS YOU CAN CHANGE! This was the message that was delivered in church on Sunday. I attend a monthly service at Shiloh Church with Jess. I chose to go to this particular chapel because the secretary, or the unnecessary ‘sex’etary that is uttered by too many of the male staff when talking to her, attends this church. In fact her whole family participates in the choir and the band. Her son, who is in my class plays the drums and there are a handful of other community members that I know who go as well. I enjoy the experience even if it is a two and a half hour commitment.

The theme of ‘things got to change’ was repeated over and over in a dozen or so different ways. Some of them more reasonable than others, but when the preacher got on a roll, I often lost many of the words he was saying as the congregation became increasingly enthusiastic. Sweat was dripping down the face of the eminently large pastor; deep wheezing breaths desperately being inhaled as the flight of words were viscerally exposed upon the crowd. And as I sat next to Jess hand in hand I thought about the things that change. Change does not need to connote a negative. Whenever we are progressing, reflecting and improving we are changing. And as the preachin’ came to an end, I bowed my head in silence and gave thanks for the intoxicating young woman standing next me who has contributed endlessly to the continuing improvement that I have been experiencing. Church was a wonderfully refreshing experience.