On Explaining Tragedy

In other words, a second grade teacher's guide to explaining 9/11.   

This morning when I walked into class, my teacher said, "the math lesson is ready, right?  And you're ready to explain 9/11 to the children?"  Uh, what?


I'm student teaching on the west coast, but I grew up in Southwestern Ohio (should "southwestern" be capitalized?).  On the morning of the attack on the twin towers and pentagon, I was in my seventh grade history class when the principal asked teachers to turn on the televisions over the intercom.  I didn't really understand what was happening, but I was pretty nervous when people started spreading the possibility of random attacks on towns throughout the U.S.  You know, the corn fields of Morrow are an obvious target...  Anyway, I started to really understand when I went to Papaw's house and tried watching TRL, but instead found only 9/11 coverage/tributes.  

I have heard from my friend that grew up in California that 9/11 wasn't as scary for him because of location and awareness.  A lot of his classmates weren't in the loop immediately about 9/11 because they hadn't watched the news before leaving for school.  In his experience, Northern Californians were a little nervous that San Francisco was a potential target.

Given my different experience with 9/11 (considering my teacher was an adult at the time of the attack), I really didn't think I would be an appropriate candidate for explaining 9/11.  Did I mention she didn't want me to really talk about the terrorist attack/death aspect of the events?  Don't get me wrong, as a teacher, no matter my background I should be able to represent an unbiased view of historical events, but having no time to research appropriate presentation methods along with NO IDEA HOW TO SPEAK ABOUT TRAGEDY to students who are seven or eight year olds...  I just think that this would have been a great "modeling" opportunity for my lead teacher.

So what did I do?  I illegally hopped on the computer and researched "9/11 for kids."  The best link that I found was a link to watch the Nickelodeon video "What Happened? The Story of September 11, 2001" which I watched a little bit of.  I have to say it's pretty good, so you should check it out.  Unfortunately, a twenty minute video is unacceptable for a brief discussion (there was no extra time allotted for this discussion, thank you) so I wrote down a few tidbits by watching the beginning and end.  I started out by asking students if they knew what day it was ("Tuesday!").  I then explained that it was 9/11 (a.k.a. Patriot Day, if you haven't heard) and asked if they knew what 9/11 was ("it's when the war started and the soldiers went away to fight!").  Eventually, I explained the Twin Towers, terrorists, and the memorial.  Then I explained that it is important to remember events like this because we want to come together as a community to protect each other.  We "remembered" 9/11 by singing Grand Old Flag, Star Spangled Banner, Yankee Doodle Boy, This Land is Your Land, and God Bless America.  We didn't really have much of a discussion, now that I think back on this morning, it was more like an "info session."  Even though some students do not eat breakfast before school, at least they had a large helping of American patriotism to start their day!

Next time, I'll definitely take care to come up with more of a discussion and structure some in-depth understanding- I'm sure there is at least ONE picture book out there explaining 9/11... (September 11, 2001: Then and Now, A Place of Remembrance: Official Book of the National September 11 Memorial... Sorry they're all informational, I can't find any "cheap" picture books)

I havae a ErasRe in my malpfe. Srooy"!

Today marks the beginning of my fourth week in my general education placement!  This is the week before "mid-point" since there 10 weeks in each placement (special education and general) and there are a lot of assignments that I'm working on.  I have to put up 2 bulletin boards, create a substitute binder, write about three classroom procedures/routines.  There is probably more that I'm forgetting, but oh well!  Maybe next time!  In the last week I recently picked up Math along with Shared Reading and Read-Alouds.

Math is not so bad, but I haven't quite mastered think-alouds to my lead teacher's liking.  She usually interrupts my lesson (before I've even moved on!) and will provide more examples.   Sometimes this is annoying, but honestly I've thought about it and I'm just being grumpy- obviously she knows what the kids need and I'm learning!  We teach math out of a Houghton Mifflan book- chapter by chapter (we also teach reading/phonics with Houghton Mifflan...).  The kids seem to get it, mostly.  There are of course, some obvious strugglers, but they receive extra help from aides and the teacher.

Shared Reading is this daily activity where the kids sit on the carpet and learn a song, poem, or read a big book.  They come with pre-made lessons that create goals like learning how to question the author, making inferences, and using pictures or headings to interpret the text.  It's not bad and the kids like the songs.  We usually do read-alouds first thing in the morning, so they're either really interested, or, really NOT!  

For Read-alouds, we have to select books from a list of "mentor texts" which are boring and terrible books pre-selected by some "expert" in the district because they model certain styles or genres of writing (example: personal narrative, descriptive writing, etc.).  So far the worst book that I've read was My Mother Has a Dancing Heart by Libba Moore Gray....LAME!!!!  Sorry, it could be the best children's book ever, but in my opinion it was the most terrible book I had ever read ("it has rhythm," my lead teacher said).  They really like authors like Donald Crews, Cynthia Rylant, and others are frequent flyers of this "mentor text" thing.  If I can't be interested, how could the kids possibly love this stuff- FYI they hated that book, too. 

*In case you were wondering, the title of this entry was determined by a letter a student wrote to their mother after my lead teacher caught him chewing a pencil eraser.  Gross!  

**Another gross thing:  another kid can almost move his front tooth a full 360 degrees!  It creeped me out!!!

Word Vomit!

If you're a student teacher, you understand!  Nothing personal towards anyone I work with, just a whole lot of junk I need to get out of my system because of how hectic and fast-paced everything is.

Teacher's Lounge Revelations

Usually I eat lunch in my teacher's classroom because she does, too.  Today, I took my lunch to the teacher's lounge to see if I was missing anything (and because my teacher usually makes me do work during my lunch break).  There were three other teachers there and while I ate with them, I realized that being a student teacher can be lonely.

Some teachers smile and say hi, but there are some that ignore my existence even when I greet them.  I'm no stranger to the staff, either- I was introduced to them several times and I have been present at all school meetings/training.  I can't really blame the others for not starting up conversations, what would they have to say to me?  I can admit that although I'm lonely, it's nice to not answer the same questions each time I meet a new person (where are you from, which school do you go to, wow they let you student teach out of state?, etc.).

I'm the only student teacher at my school so when I received the staff list during training, I was excited to see that another teacher had a student intern.  Unfortunately, that other intern is non-existent at this point because I have never seen anyone with the teacher the student was listed with.  I thought we'd be able to bond over the complications our programs presented, or, laugh about our experiences fumbling through lessons... If only, if only. 

When I go home I complain or celebrate about my daily experience in the classroom, but since there is no one to trade stories with it's not as satisfying because I want reassurance that someone else is going what I'm going through!  Especially because I've started disliking my placement because I know I'm not a good fit with my current teacher... Oh well, I'll go cry a river later, I guess!

Educating Esme

Yesterday I read Educating Esme and I wasn't impressed, which is really too bad because I've been pining over the book for so long!  I mean, yes I enjoyed reading her "diary" and reading about her students, but nothing was deep- there wasn't a lot of content and I didn't really walk away from it thinking about anything.  I bought a version with 25 tips for new teachers, but nothing was surprising, especially since I paid attention in class for the last four years.


If you're wondering what Educating Esme is about, it's a journal-style narrative that guides you through the author's first year as a teacher.  She talks about her students, the staff, and her frustrations.  It is a really quick read and I don't know what else to say about it...  If you want to read it, you can have my copy (assuming that I know you!).

I wouldn't say it really gave me any true advice or even showed me the ropes of becoming a teacher, with is really too bad.  I guess I chose to read it because I was expecting a "survival guide" type of book.  Her diary entries were about a page at best, which was why there was little depth.  Yes, she struggled with her principal and vice principal, but it was a superficial problem.  I admired her strength (or stubbornness, ha) and creativity, but I wish I could have learned more from her experience.  

I've never been very good at reviews, so I realize that I have no examples to support my claims of "lack of depth".  Sorry, but the book is upstairs and I'm downstairs enjoying a Sunday afternoon!  Find a cheap copy on Amazon if you don't want to take my word for it or borrow/take my copy.

Link to Amazon Review of "Educating Esme"

One Week Down...

I just registered for Praxis II: Special Education Core Knowledge and Application on September 12th.  My heart is racing, my blood is pumping, and my stomach is in knots!  I have no idea why I'm so nervous.  It might not have been such a great idea to register for a test that takes place at 5pm, but I really had no choice because I have plans for the two Saturday dates that were available for computer testing.

Today was our second day with a substitute and I taught even more today than yesterday (and I am exhausted!), which was awesome.  I am sad to see the sub go, but SUPER RELIEVED to have my lead teacher back tomorrow.  She is just so much better with student management than me at this point!


To celebrate my first completed week of student teaching, I sent an email to my supervisor with concerns about being percieved as an aide, rather than an intern.  At the staff meeting, an item was discussed that brought on suggestions for me to give people bathroom breaks during yard duty (or if that was inconvienient, class time).  I'm not against helping a sister out, but when I begin my full control take-over, bathroom breaking will cut into my personal prep time/lessons (they were not asking the other teachers to use their prep time to bathroom break, so why would they ask me?) annnnnd I will only be in my current classroom for ten weeks.  

The larger issue, though, is that they are placing me on yard duty in order to cover them, which is illegal according to my interning agreement.  What if they head to the bathroom and get locked in and while they're locked in the bathroom, something terrible like millions of injuries occur????  Also, I shouldn't be pulled from observations in the first week (or ever!) in order to run errands such as photo-copying, laminating, etc. or to give people a classroom break.  I know their trip to the restroom would be short, but if I cannot substitute for other teachers, why would I be permitted to supervise their class alone for even a few minutes?

I tried explaining this to the staff at the meeting yesterday, so we'll see.  I also asked for help from my advisor- hopefully she can write a good email that I can forward to the principal.... OR people could just read the manual I forwarded to them...  

FYI (if you have no idea what I'm talking about):  basically I'm saying that I can't really be anywhere my teacher isn't because of liability issues.  

Miss Alley + a Substitute

Today we had a sub- to find out more, watch my video!

FYI: It took multiple 'takes' to complete one video, so enjoy this blooper below!