Goodbye Harrison!

Dear Harrison,

You were the best car. You really really were. You were the first car that belonged totally to me. The first time I saw you I fell in love with your sleek red sides and short fat butt of a trunk. You weren't to short and you weren't too long. (This is important, more important than you might think for short girls who aren't so great at backing up.) You had so much room on your back bumper for all the bumper stickers I could ever want to put on you.

My first tags gave you your name: 24 HF 12. I loved those tags. They pleased each of my OCD tendencies; even numbers, a good number letter pattern, easy division problem and the initials of the best actor in the history of the world. Harrison Ford. I'll never forget anxiously waiting in line at the DMV for your tags, wondering what number and letter sequence you would be. When they plopped down the tags in front of me, I couldn't believe it. We were meant to be.

I remember the time Dad and to replace a bunch of parts on you and I came home to find you all taken apart on the shop floor! Dad did such a great job of putting you back together and keeping you running well for all those MA VT years!

You took me back and forth from MA to VT. You spent entire summers on the Cape. During one, you drove me all the way into the heart of Maine and back again, same day. We made lots of trips back and forth to the Cape (first serious boyfriend) and later back and forth from Bennington to North Adams (second serious boyfriend.)

Harrison, you drove me from my old life in MA to my new life in NM. You were the wheels for the best rode trip ever. (All of you reading, if you ever get the chance to drive across the country with your Mum and your plant, do it. You will never regret it.) You took us across the border with Canada (numerous times, not a lot of good signage.) Past the wine groves in PA, past the Brooks and Dunn gear bus in Ohio, across the border between IL and Mo (again numerous times, because for one state the border is the river and the for the other it was a random line on the road.) Down across OK and Texas where we encountered the biggest cross (in the world?) Finally, into NM and to La Pasa. Once you got here, I didn't have to drive you much. It was nice to work and live in the same area. Out here we went all the way to Arizona and all the way to Wyoming.

Throughout these years, you have jump started all sort of cars that were bigger (Ford Explorer) and more expensive (Mercedes.) Remember that time we used the tow cables that Dad bought us that we thought we would never use to pull a two wheel drive truck out of a muddy ditch?! The best part was that I did all the hooking up and directing in a mini skirt and heels! The New Mexican boys that didn't know how do this (or drive a stick!) were very impressed with the little white girl from the Northeast!

You've always taken good care of me and all the friends and family you've encountered along the way. I was sad when the first car dealership offered only 500 for you, sadder when the second didn't even say what they would give us and even sadder when the third (and final! more on that later) dealership offered 250. I knew that you were worth far more, but we worried that because you had a selvage title, no one else would be able to see that.

Craigslist proved us wrong. Tonight you were sold to a very nice guy that is a student by day and a pest control person by night for way more than the amounts mentioned previously. He wanted you because you would get better gas mileage than his Jeep. As I did the last minute check to make sure all my personal things were taken out of you, I took one long last look. You were a great car.

Love,

Ms. Knitter!

Bad Halloween Costume

Dear Man Dressed Up as a Gestapo Officer,

What is your problem? How is your costume ok? Are you one of those people that does things just to get a negative reaction out of the people around you? Was it just some sick social experiment? As I was sitting there watching you smoke a hand rolled cigarette outside one of my favorite local brew pubs, I realized that many people use Halloween to dress up as something they would like to be. Do you fantasize about being a murderer? Torturer? Bigot? Rapist? Terrorist?

It was really really eerie to see you standing there smoking and laughing with a guy that was wearing normal clothes as if there was nothing off about you standing there with an olive green uniform, gun holster, German patches and the distinctive red band around your arm.

Do you really know no one that was affected by your fellow officers back in time? Do you really no one whose family was wrenched apart?

You disgust me.

Ms. Knitter

Adderall

I got a new fourth grader on Wednesday, Peter. Like when Gram joined my class last year, I noticed something was off right away. He couldn't sit still, he refused to follow the simplest direction, he shouted and said things like, "I don't know what a book is, how does it work?" (Which wasn't true because we found out later that he's reading at grade level.) Suffice to say, it was a hard day. I had to be constantly near him, keeping him from putting his hand on other kids.

Come to find out he doesn't like women in general and as ADD. I spoke to his mother after school and asked her what works for her at home when he doesn't follow any directions. She said, "Nothing, nothing works, I wish I could help." She went on to say that she took him off of his adderall over summer because he wasn't in school and was bringing him the doctor the next afternoon to have the prescription renewed. Thursday was another hard day with him and I started to get really nervous about how I was going to make the class work with Kismet and Peter, two really high needs kids and still have time to teach.

On Friday, I was anxious to see how he was, that being the first day he was back on his meds. He was like a zombie. It was weird. He was quiet and honestly, looked kind of high. I mean, it was much easier. For the most part, he did what I told him to do and worked well with the other kids. But by the end of the day he looked so whigged out I sort of wished for the first Peter I met.

I'm not sure what I think about putting kids on these kinds of meds this young. I know one person about my age who has been on ritalin since he was in grade school and this kids is so scattered, hard to talk to and nuts now that I wonder if it did and is continuing to do serious damage. Obviously, helps Peter cope in school, but to what cost? We're the adults, shouldn't we be the ones manipulating the environment to suit his needs? I know there is therapy out there that can teach kids the skills they need to harness ADD and ADHD without meds but perhaps for parents that's the harder choice because of the time and money. Or perhaps, the doctors aren't explaining this to the parents. It just doesn't seem right. But I don't know what the answer is.

The Year So Far...

I began this year feeling very confident in my teaching skills. I have grown a lot as a educator since that first class I had in 2007. So I thought I would write a little about how the year as gone so far.

Most of the other teachers are intimidated by this year's third grade class. They are a handful. I think this has mostly to do with the fact that the class is top heavy with boys. There are also a lot of kids with IEPs. Last year, these kids didn't have the best teacher. She gave them a lot of free time and during what teaching time there was, there wasn't much structure or very many expectations of them. In fact, last year's third grade teacher asked not be put back into the third grade because she knew that these were the kids she would receive.

There are also some things that set this class apart in a good way. This class is the first class of the school, they were the first kindergarten class. Not all of them returned of course, but there are a handful of kids that continue to come back each year. Because they are the first class, they are also the most bilingual, or should be. They've had the bilingual education from day one. It wasn't perfect. We the teachers, are still learning the best way to make this work in our classrooms, but we're getting better at it each year as well.

When I was asked to take on the third grade I was really excited. As I have mentioned before, I had a lot of these kids when they were in Kindergarten. I liked the idea of having them again. I knew walking in that it was going to be a challenge.

I spent the first two weeks talking over them to get their attention. At the end of the third week, I realized that that definitely wasn't going to work the whole year because by Thursday, I was having trouble talking normally and my voice was hoarse. So I decided to borrow yet another page from Sophia.

When I need their attention and they are talking or laughing or running around, I put my arm up in the air with five fingers up. Counting in my head, I scan the room for about seven seconds. When the children see me with my hand up that is their signal to stop talking, laughing or running around, they put their hand in the air. If everyone is looking at me, I'm able to give directions or whatever it was I needed their attention for. If I get to seven in my head and I still don't have everyone's attention, I begin counting down the fingers on my hand. They know that if I get all the way down to zero fingers, they get a mark on the board. If by the end of the morning or afternoon (whichever part of the day I happen to have them that week) they have five or less marks on the board, they get extra recess, 6 or more less recess.

So far I've been amazed at how this has worked. There are days when they gain recess and days when they lose it. When they get to the point where they are having extra recess everyday, I'll make it four or less and so on and so forth. This way the bar is always moving, yet they still know exactly what is expected of them. I like that I was able to come with a system that rewards as well as punishes. They know that they have to work together as a team to get the extra recess and so even the timid ones who rarely talk out of turn have begun turning to their classmates and encouraging them to follow the rules.

One day, perhaps four days or so into the new system, Mr. Rama came in to talk to me about a student in my other class with an I.E.P. I had to stop what I was doing in order to speak to him. (Which is fine, frustrating for me when it happens numerous times throughout the day, but fine.) As we talked the noise in the classroom became louder and louder and as I was about to interrupt Mr. Rama to put my hand up, the children did it on their own! It was awesome! I erased one their marks on the board and told them if they continued to monitor themselves successfully I would be willing to erase one of their marks! I was so impressed!

This method is not working as well with the fourth graders. I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm going to keep using with them in the hopes that it'll snap one of these days.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of my day is the bathroom break we have to take mid morning. Last year, it always took what I felt to be a bigger than necessary chunk out of my teaching time in the mornings. This was because of the usual things, getting the kids lined up and ready to go, getting them to walk quietly in the hallway, keeping them from fooling around in the bathroom. These along with the unusual thing, our bathrooms aren't in the school, they are across the driveway in the cafeteria.

This year, I was determined to make this process work with a bit more ease. I made a deal with the kids if they get could line up quickly and quietly, walk quietly in a line, behave in the bathroom as well as get back in line afterwards I would let them run races on the playground for a few minutes. Even with the extra few minutes for the races, which I think are good for them anyway as it gets them moving, I think we're saving time.

This, thankfully, has been working for both grades, though they aren't earning the races everyday, they are trying and they like the reward.

I think the best part about this year so far is that I have been actively thinking about being positive all the time. This is indeed another page from Sophia's book. I was always impressed at how positive she was, even when things were particularly difficult.

After teaching the sixth grade for the last half of last year, anything was going to be better. I didn't like my job at the end of last year at all, which made me sad and more likely to be negative. I was stressed out about everything, all the time. As the year was ending, I took solace in the fact that I had a job, as I was hearing about people around me and back home were losing theirs. I am happy to say that I'm back to enjoying my job this year, I'm taking things in stride and walking in each morning with a smile on my face. It feels good.

Wine Festival

Last weekend The Boy and I went to the Wine Festival in Bernalillo, New Mexico. This was the second time we've gone. Last time we went with a bunch of friends and it was a lot more fun. It's so hot out in the sun and the festival was in a big field. I also feel like there were way more people there, every wine stall had a long line and standing in the sun got old fast. We do love the carne seca and the chile dulce we get there though and honestly, that's what I was looking forward to the most. Not the wine.

In the interest of staying as cool as humanly possible, I wore a white shirt. In the second of our 15 minute waits to taste wine, The Boy was trying to pour water into my glass to swish it out. I fumbled a bit and water almost went all over my white shirt. (Which incidentally would have been fine, it's so hot and dry here that the shirt would have been dry after waiting in the next line.) After witnessing my fumble perhaps 45 year old wine man stared at my breastal area and said, "Wow, it was almost a white tee shirt contest!" He preceded to serve Ben wine and then held his bottle out to my glass and said, "Ma'am?"

I ask you, how can he make a bad joke about a white tee shirt contest and then refer to me as Ma'am?