I ACTUALLY survived Institute

Wow. It's done. Almost. Technically there is another hour left in the school day but my teaching is done, and my workshops are done, and I have to wait until school is over to break down our room.

The week's highlights:
* Mighty was absent Tuesday, when she was supposed to be bringing me a few paragraphs based on her brainstorming that she surprisingly did on Monday, on Lil Wayne. But Wednesday, she showed up with an entire essay on Lil Wayne!! It wasn't great. It could use work. I gave her edits. But she actually had done writing! She refused to take the assessment (which was essentially the same test they took on the first day so that we could track their progress); actually I had to send her out because she was playing with things during the test and refused to put them away, but when she came back, I let her know that when she was done with her test, she could work on her essay and see the comments I'd given her. She gave me an eye roll and a "humff," like yeah right, you're crazy if you think I'm doing this test or think that I care. But a few minutes later she waved me over and asked if she could work on her essay. Boo-yah!

* Sleepy falls asleep often in my class. He's this bigger, quiet, kinda sweet looking boy who apparently has anxiety attacks. In fact he started to have one in my class earlier this summer when I was asking him to write. He knows the answers, he's very bright, but he has such a resistance to writing. I would try to sit with him as much as possible during independent work to give him some one-on-one guidance, which really helped him, but whenever I sat down and wasn't looking at the class, they'd start chatting, writing notes, etc. And I'd have to stop and redirect them. Plus every kid in there needs help, really.
By Monday, I was very concerned with his progress. Whereas every other kid had several paragraphs, he barely had a few sentences. I would direct him, he would write part of a sentence then erase it, I would give him directions as I went to help another kid ("Sleepy, you want to write about fishing, and one paragraph you said will be about types of fish. Before I come back in a few minutes, I need you to write a LIST of at least three types of fish." A LIST! Not even a sentence. And he wouldn't do it.). I tried giving him pep talks about how he could do it, he could write, he is smart and he can put his ideas on paper and share them. He'd just shake his head and tell me that he didn't like writing about himself (they were supposed to be doing personal narrative, but I allowed him to just write about an interest) and that he wasn't a good writer. "That's why we practice. That's why we try." It didn't seem to help.

Feeling overwhelmed and guilty about having not gotten his home number and called home previously about his lack of progress, I reached out to the other English Language Arts 7th grade teachers to ask if anyone had B block free and would be willing to help. One girl, who is so sweet and from Salt Lake City, volunteered; she teaches in my classroom during the block before me. And she came in during peer review day on Tuesday and sat with Sleepy and helped him write 3 paragraphs! The next day, he didn't bring the homework he was supposed to have done (which we couldn't penalize them for since we were advised not to give homework anyhow because the school doesn't typically give summer school students homework). And he asked if Ms. C was gonna help him again, but they had an assessment anyhow. The next day, their last day to be working on their essay, he found her as she was trying to leave the classroom and asked her to help him finish. She was flattered, of course. And near the end of the period, he came to me, with a slight smile which is the most expression I've seen on him, and said "Miss, I finished my essay. I finished it." Ms. C said he paused before putting on the final period and just stared at it, then placed the period and said "I did it. I wrote an essay."

* So grading... yeh... I have some opinions about how this went down this week. Probably better for me to discuss offline. Let's just say it was a bit ridiculous. But, as everything else, it got done. And like many things in my institute experience it was done haphazardly and poorly.

* My last day: a bit uneventful. The students were NOT into sharing their essays with my friend's class. They were very reluctant to participate and really did the bare minimum. I should've given them cards, or at least a final pep talk, but I didn't prepare anything because we had a closing ceremony we had to attend last night and then I had to go to Super Target with people to get the snacks we'd promised to give our kids today. So after that, all I wanted was a beer and a crappy movie. Alas. With my next class...


Other random institute memories/thoughts, not necessarily from this week, that I've remembered I wanted to mention:

* So last week, my site school was on lock-down because there were gang members outside waiting for certain students to jump them. Apparently the C block (lunch) teachers were warned not to allow any students not on their roster -- "I don't care if they have a note from God" was one faculty member's direct quote to my friend. AND I heard rumor that they had to let some kids out of school early and drive them home so that they would be able to leave safely.

* This week, in our dorms, we had a lot of issues. Over the weekend, the bathrooms on the 9th floor (mine) and 8th and 10th were closed for construction. And now, there is no hot water. The shower I took this morning was luke warm -- luke warm like barely warm, like I'm shivering and trying to decide if it's colder in the stream of water or without. And actually I walked up to the 10th floor to shower because our 9th floor showers were flooded with a foot of standing water. AND Wed PM/yesterday AM all the water was shut off from the 7th - 18th floor, which means that we couldn't flush the toilets (think about it).

* Houston: it's a weird city. I think it's the zoning codes but there is just strange arrangements of neighborhoods. There will be cute houses and then suddenly really dumpy, or boarded up, houses then some dilapidated buildings or random stores like those instant cash stores. Strangely though, the neighborhoods near this middle school are really cute -- little brick houses with little porches and tiny green yards.

There are so many freeways branching every which way. Nearly EVERY time I've been out in Houston, we've gotten lost. And most people I know have GPS units in their cars but because of the freeways spiraling atop each other, the units seem to get confused about which freeway we're on and then gives us the wrong exits. Plus it's always hazy -- yuck. And humid, not as much as I expected, and it doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would, but it's definitely warm/hot and moist.

* HEB: that's the major grocery chain in Texas, or at least in RGV and Houston. It stands for "Here, Everything's Better." No joke. That's Texas for ya.