My first full-time teaching assignment was 6th grade social studies (Ancient History) at Ponus Ridge Middle School in Norwalk, Connecticut. I really enjoyed my 3 years with 6th graders. I don't think there is a better age for teaching ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. They respond so well. What's not to love about pyramids and mummies and Greek gods? In September they are still kids but the pull of adolescence is just around the corner. By June the girls' curves are in evidence; the boys, however, are another story. Many are still short with higher pitched voices; their changes are a year or more away. Thankfully, most of my students still wanted to please and would raise their hands frantically when I asked questions - even when they didn't know the answers. Call on me! Please! Please! Please!
Things haven't changed. I have a new volunteer job with the Portland library system. I used to work in the gift shop at the main branch in downtown Portland but now I visit two 6th grade classrooms in a low-acheiving school in NE Portland. I visit every other month and bring 2 copies of 9 books with me. I leave the 18 books so they can exchange them among themselves until my next visit. I spend about 30 minutes with each class, reviewing books I brought last time and enticing them into reading the new books I have with me.
The goal of the program is to get kids to read therefore all books are of high interest. As the head of the program told me, it is not the greatest literature but they are fun, exciting, adventurous, creative, filled with imagination - all designed to get them into their hands. My 9 books always include 2 graphic novels and 2 "chapter books." The remaining 5 are a mixture of poetry, drawing, adventure, horror, biography, sports, history, etc - I have hundreds of titles to choose among. Thus my bookshelves are filling up with 6th grade-level books (well, with reading levels of probably grades 4 - 10 which represent the students I reach).
Last week was my second visit and I was on my own this time. I found myself nervous. "Come on," I said, "34 years of teaching under your belt - you can do this" and once I pulled out the first of the 9 books, nervousness fled and I loved drawing them in.
How about a book where 14-year old Peak (ah, new age parents!) is caught by NYPD finest at the top of a skyscraper he has just scaled and is only saved from significant time in Juvenile Hall by the appearance of his father, the most famous mountain climber in the world, who agrees to take Peak out of the country and supervise him himself? Nice for Dad to offer, but Peak hasn't seen him in 7 years. Dad has been too busy climbing mountains. And what will happen when his father announces how he plans to have Peak spend his time - scaling Mt Everest?
Or, the novel about Isabel who has just moved from a house she loved, next door to her best friend, to a dumpy apartment above a laundromat - a space that her parents are going to convert into a cupcake business named, appropriately for its Oregon location, It's Raining Cupcakes? Will the move be worth it? Can Isabel establish a new life?
Or Finding Big Foot (by the folks at Animal Planet) - with facts galore about how to convince your parents to make their next vacation a Big Foot expedition, what gear to bring, what to look for, what to expect? Who knew that Oregon is number 5 in the nation for Big Foot sightings (and, just across the Columbia River, from Washington which is #1)?
Or Ghost Fever, a story in both English and Spanish about a haunted house in Dustin Arizona way back in the 1950s. The ghost is female and she goes after the 14-year old daughter of the man foolish enough to rent the house. The locals warned him but he just laughed. Who's laughing now?
And so on.
By the end of the session with the first 6th grade class I was feeling confident. When I asked if they were interested in reading any of the books, one girl in the back sighed contentedly, "All of them!" I gave myself a mental pat on the back.
Ah, pride goeth before a fall. I left the classroom and knocked on the door of the neighboring 6th grade room. The glass panel in the door was covered with paper and, I soon learned, the teacher was out of the room (everything I learned from my law class in the administrative master's degree program came flooding back - "Teacher, you better pray nothing happens while you are out of the room!"). A student came to the door, pushed back the paper covering the glass, looked me over, opened the door, turned back to the class and announced "Ah, it's an old lady with books." The rest of the class sucked in their breath and out came the collective "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh". They recognized his rudeness. I, in a manner totally not conducive to teaching him a lesson, burst out laughing and said to him: A) I am old, B) I do have books, and C) Your mother probably wouldn't want you to say that." He looked sheepish. I made the point.
With just the evidence of my first visit in October I already knew that this class performed below the level of the students I had just left and, sure enough, their responses to my questions about the books from my previous visit were less critical, less thoughtful. But, like the other class, they were enthusiastic about the books I described. I am no fool, I saved Big Foot for last and it worked its charm. They were all ready to go hunting - even Mr. Big Mouth who had opened the door.
As I bagged up the books they had returned from my October visit and walked out to my car I decided it is very good to have a toe back in the classroom. Like my 3 months of teaching 5th and 6th graders in India, it's fun to be back part-time, to not have much responsibility, to just get to enjoy them. But I will watch out for Mr Big Mouth. I'm ready. He won't get me twice.
Things haven't changed. I have a new volunteer job with the Portland library system. I used to work in the gift shop at the main branch in downtown Portland but now I visit two 6th grade classrooms in a low-acheiving school in NE Portland. I visit every other month and bring 2 copies of 9 books with me. I leave the 18 books so they can exchange them among themselves until my next visit. I spend about 30 minutes with each class, reviewing books I brought last time and enticing them into reading the new books I have with me.
The goal of the program is to get kids to read therefore all books are of high interest. As the head of the program told me, it is not the greatest literature but they are fun, exciting, adventurous, creative, filled with imagination - all designed to get them into their hands. My 9 books always include 2 graphic novels and 2 "chapter books." The remaining 5 are a mixture of poetry, drawing, adventure, horror, biography, sports, history, etc - I have hundreds of titles to choose among. Thus my bookshelves are filling up with 6th grade-level books (well, with reading levels of probably grades 4 - 10 which represent the students I reach).
Last week was my second visit and I was on my own this time. I found myself nervous. "Come on," I said, "34 years of teaching under your belt - you can do this" and once I pulled out the first of the 9 books, nervousness fled and I loved drawing them in.
How about a book where 14-year old Peak (ah, new age parents!) is caught by NYPD finest at the top of a skyscraper he has just scaled and is only saved from significant time in Juvenile Hall by the appearance of his father, the most famous mountain climber in the world, who agrees to take Peak out of the country and supervise him himself? Nice for Dad to offer, but Peak hasn't seen him in 7 years. Dad has been too busy climbing mountains. And what will happen when his father announces how he plans to have Peak spend his time - scaling Mt Everest?
Or, the novel about Isabel who has just moved from a house she loved, next door to her best friend, to a dumpy apartment above a laundromat - a space that her parents are going to convert into a cupcake business named, appropriately for its Oregon location, It's Raining Cupcakes? Will the move be worth it? Can Isabel establish a new life?
Or Finding Big Foot (by the folks at Animal Planet) - with facts galore about how to convince your parents to make their next vacation a Big Foot expedition, what gear to bring, what to look for, what to expect? Who knew that Oregon is number 5 in the nation for Big Foot sightings (and, just across the Columbia River, from Washington which is #1)?
Or Ghost Fever, a story in both English and Spanish about a haunted house in Dustin Arizona way back in the 1950s. The ghost is female and she goes after the 14-year old daughter of the man foolish enough to rent the house. The locals warned him but he just laughed. Who's laughing now?
And so on.
By the end of the session with the first 6th grade class I was feeling confident. When I asked if they were interested in reading any of the books, one girl in the back sighed contentedly, "All of them!" I gave myself a mental pat on the back.
Ah, pride goeth before a fall. I left the classroom and knocked on the door of the neighboring 6th grade room. The glass panel in the door was covered with paper and, I soon learned, the teacher was out of the room (everything I learned from my law class in the administrative master's degree program came flooding back - "Teacher, you better pray nothing happens while you are out of the room!"). A student came to the door, pushed back the paper covering the glass, looked me over, opened the door, turned back to the class and announced "Ah, it's an old lady with books." The rest of the class sucked in their breath and out came the collective "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh". They recognized his rudeness. I, in a manner totally not conducive to teaching him a lesson, burst out laughing and said to him: A) I am old, B) I do have books, and C) Your mother probably wouldn't want you to say that." He looked sheepish. I made the point.
With just the evidence of my first visit in October I already knew that this class performed below the level of the students I had just left and, sure enough, their responses to my questions about the books from my previous visit were less critical, less thoughtful. But, like the other class, they were enthusiastic about the books I described. I am no fool, I saved Big Foot for last and it worked its charm. They were all ready to go hunting - even Mr. Big Mouth who had opened the door.
As I bagged up the books they had returned from my October visit and walked out to my car I decided it is very good to have a toe back in the classroom. Like my 3 months of teaching 5th and 6th graders in India, it's fun to be back part-time, to not have much responsibility, to just get to enjoy them. But I will watch out for Mr Big Mouth. I'm ready. He won't get me twice.
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