Birth Story

Sixteen day old Rose is asleep in her bassinet and life has completely changed for the best possible reason. Being a mother is an absolute joy, but before I get too caught up in it I wanted to record the birth story before it all becomes a blur.

Sixteen days ago (Sunday August 9th) I had spent the morning tidying and feeling very pregnant. My bump was making it difficult to sleep and I kept waking myself up because I was on my back. On the Saturday, we had enjoyed a walk along the river and spent the evening clearing and organizing the basement. I apparently wasn't happy to just sit on the couch. (I was planing to do that in the last two weeks of my pregnancy!) Sunday rolled around. Lunchtime rolled around and I saw an afternoon was lazing ahead of me, lay down on the couch and felt liquid coming out of me - liquid I apparently couldn't control. I sprang up. Running up the stairs, desperately clenching my pelvic floor, Brent called out "there's some on the couch." I immediately thought - or wanted to believe - that it was just pee. More kept coming and I made a hilarious attempt to collect it in a new contact lens case.

We both sat in the bedroom and nervously discussed our choices. Both of us were sure it was just pee - though I was pretty sue it was coming out of the wrong hole. The doc also was sure it was just pee, but sent us to the hospital anyway. Just in case. Cue some desperate bag packing and deep breathes. At the hospital, I was examined and immediately told I was in labour. What. My mind just kept repeating oh shit oh shit oh shit. There's no way you can be ready, but I certainly wasn't ready.

Because my water had broken, or membrane had ruptured in doctor speak, it was important to get things moving quickly. My doc gave me three options for induction which I couldn't really take in. I ended up with the drug pitocin and a catheter I was sure they were calling a volleyball - turned out to be a Folley Bulb. Five hours in and nothing was hurting too badly. My doc arrived andchecked me - I think I was three cm. He upped the pitocin and removed the bulb, things began to hurt. They kept asking me one scale of 1 - 10 where is your pain. I had no idea as I hadn't really experienced much pain before. The contractions felt like period pain intensified. I found bending over, warm rice on my lower back and my darling husband counting one thousand and one one thousand and two, one thousand and three helped a lot. It got pretty bad - I wanted to get a taste of what it could feel like - and I asked for the epidural. That magical thing came and for the next 10 hours I read and slept. Nobody had told me that was possible. Our calm nurse, Vanessa, kept coming in and checking vitals, moving the monitors, asking if I wanted anything. I was calm and happy, something I really did not expect.

At 4. 45am on August 10th 2009, the beautiful resident came in checked me. She could not feel my cervix, my doc came to double check and confirmed. It was time to push. I started to shake. This was real. There were some tears. The pushing scared me, with the epidural I could feel a growing sensation of the contraction, but struggled to know exactly when to push. Pushing itself was hard because I really wasn't sure where I was pushing. I felt relieved when I was told that was an "awesome push, whatever you did there do it again" or "great job". I was lying there clueless. Unfortunately this experience went on for three hours. About two hours in I was told another 15 minutes. That gave me a goal that quickly went and I started to get frustrated and tired. Turns out that the baby was the wrong way up and had got stuck on my pelvic bone. I don;t know how close I was to being taken for a C Section. There was a lot of discussions happening out in the hallway. Finally, however, a few huge pushes and some help from the vacuum, Rose popped out.

She was immediately laid out on my stomach. She was slimy with white and red liquid, but I started stroking and talking to my little girl. She started to cry and for a few moments the whole family was crying. At the moment of her birth four or five extra people entered the room and she was whisked away for her tests and tidy. She came back bundled and beautiful. We had a perfect, healthy daughter.

I look back on my labour with fond memories! The pushing was, without doubt, the most uncomfortable, frustrating part, but I certainly didn't hate any moment of the nineteen hour epic. The following two days were spent on the post-partum floor. Breastfeeding was tough, but we had a super nurse who got us going - at least while in the hospital. It is clear that labour is really not the difficult part - the hard stuff comes after. You have a baby to look after.

Health-care La La Land

The Obama administration is attempting to reform America's health care system. How they plan to do this is highly complex and downright confusing. No matter how many articles, charts, and graphics I attempt to understand, I still emerged perplexed. I'm pretty sure that the bottom line is to provide insurance to all Americans though a number of convoluted programs. This costs money and threatens the health insurance tsars in charge of the current ridiculous system. An elderly lady was turned away because the doctor's office this week because the practice did not accept her insurance. If she has insurance, she should to have access to see a doctor at any office - isn't that a fundamental right?

Now, however, the debate has gone completely into la-la land. Instead of focusing on getting the reform passed, the media is filled with stories and videos of protesters heckling politicians in health-care reform town hall meetings. The protesters appear to be republican-backed citizens focused on stopping any kind of reform. Why they don't want the reform is very difficult to determine. The news paper articles don't seem to be explaining the protesters motives, instead they detail the shouting and fighting. Great. Many people are claiming that the protesters are being controlled by republican lobbying firms. So it is all, again, political bullshit and the media is playing into there hands. Why give these people any press? Why can't we focus on what is important - educating people on what the reform is actually trying to do and not sensationalize the actions of a few emotionally charged republicans? It would be a depressing if the reform fails because of these dirty tactics. Surely the Obama administration and the politicians driving the reform is strong enough to resist these attacks. Why are the important bottom lines always lost in the bullshit and why do people listen to the bullshit?

Some commentators are saying the motives driving the protesters is racism. The protesters are predominantly white and the people set to gain the most from the reform (the uninsured) are not white. If this is true then the whole situation dives even deeper into la-la land. Who, in their right mind, would begrudge anyone having access to medical care whatever color their skin happens to be? But again this gets back to the fact that it is so difficult to actually discover the real motives of these folks in the media. Maybe I just need to look harder - but why should I have to do that? Shouldn't their motives be clear?

Back to things I can actually control. Our interaction with the health care system has been equally as complex this week. I have seen my doctor twice this week and had my fifth ultrasound. On Monday, my check-up showed me to be measuring slightly small again (but my sneaking suspicion is my doctors had the wrong dates in his head) and I was advised to have 5 - 6 hours of rest a day and avoid unnecessary activity. I had planned to go to the zoo the next day and stupidly told him so. He advised me not to go. I went anyway - I think my doctor is being a little too careful. On Thursday, I went to the ultrasound. It showed her to be in the 57% percentile for size (7 pounds and 1 ounce for 37 weeks and 5 days). She is absolutely fine.

Finally, yesterday we met with the doctor again to discuss labour and delivery. He is a proponent of early induction to reduce the risk of C-section. A wonderful idea that means a very long, painful and highly medicated labour. We talked it though and our bottom line is not before Mum arrives. I would not be forgiven if we scheduled the birth before her arrival. We did, however, discuss August 25th as a potential induction date if she is still hanging out in there. I would be happy for that to happen. However, for the past 24 hours my BH contractions have been increasingly more frequent and powerful. I have had some cramping and a definite increase in discomfort. I don't know whether she is going to be happy to stay put until the 25th! Whatever happens I can't wait - though considering the tiny level of discomfort I'm feeling right now, this birth thing is going to hurt like a mother f****r.

The Male is Away

My husband left this morning for a three day trip to New Mexico. A few weeks ago I flipped at the thought of him leaving this close to D-day, which was incredibly unfair as I was supportive when he booked it. You have to love these hormones. Chances of my going into labour in the next two days are minimal. I am, however, feeling incredibly big and increasingly uncomfortable and doing normal things like walking the dog is like being asked to run 5K without training. I have a bowling ball in my belly. My swollen feet are doing an excellent impersonation of two flat-fish. My rings are stuck. Emotionally, though, I am still pretty upbeat.

Against doctor's orders, I went to the zoo this morning. They supply teachers with free passes in the summer months - apparently 34,000 teachers signed up for the program. Somehow I don't think the zoo will be getting 34,000 field trip bookings. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it and felt a particular connection to the pregnant/new mother animals. Firstly, the female orangutan had decided she was not coming out today - they believe she may be pregnant. I know how she feels. Also, the natural instinct to keep the little ones free from germs was on view at the otter enclosure. A new sea otter Mum was furiously cleaning the bums of her four newborns as we went passed. That will be me, but with nappy cream and not my tongue!

I got home, though, and crashed out. There was a half-hour nap on one couch, a move to another room, and then a half-hour nap on the other couch. Pregnant women are just like the animals at the zoo, an average of 20 hours of sleep is needed for us to function. I'm embracing my inner animal, especially while the male is away.

Skyping and big reading

Skype is something I am not yet comfortable with yet. Today, there have been two grandmother-to-be sykpe conversations. Well, less conversations and more belly showings. There is something very off putting at going from the comfortable faceless world of phone calls to the all-out-there-to-view Skype call. You really shouldn't feel you have to brush your hair before you ring your brother, should you? I find it hard to talk to the person while there I am staring back at me on a little screen. The conversation is always so stilted and frequently comes to a complete standstill as the monitor is adjusted and heads are centered. Also, my family haven't quite been able to get the sound to work on their end so we both have mobile phones to our ears anyway, or have been known to resort to writing notes to each other, some of them backwards, and holding them up to the screen. But, I'm sure as I use it I will learn to love it. There is something lovely about being able to see my familia - I haven;t been home since Christmas so I'm feeling a little England-homesick. Plus, with the baby coming it will be perfect we can stick her up to the camera and everyone can coo. I don't have to be on screen at all.

I have taken it upon myself to read the BBC's list of top 100 books by the time I am 35. I have read 27 of them so far and about 8 of those are Roald Dahl books. (It is a very British list.) I'm quite disappointed at my starting number, though I guess I got into this reading game late. I am currently in the final act of The Woman in White. Who killed Anne Catherick? What is Glyde's secret? Will Laura survive? I'm wallowing in the intricateness nature of the plot and the differing narrative voices. Mr. Fairlie is the most poisonous character I've come across in a long time. It is refreshing to be taken on such a convuluted, lengthy story. It is also perfect for my pining for all things British. I'm going to get back to it right now, while my dearest husband fixes a decidedly non-British dinner of ribs, corn bread, corn and beans.

Midday musing

The neighborhood in the middle of the day is a quiet place. It's almost spooky. People walk the streets on their own. Plumbers and Fed-Ex vans populate the road. Where are all the kids? Surely they can't all be at camp, can they? I wonder how many people are actually home. You have pregnant women who are cleaning everything in preparation for their babies. Mums at home with babies. People working from home. I'm impressed that those folks get anything done. Maybe they are the folks walking the pavement alone at the middle of the day - going to a cafe for coffee and company. People who are sick. People who are on vacation. People who do not have a job. People who work at night. There must be a surprising amount of people home right now at 12.27 on a Friday afternoon.

I imagine that most of the at home people are on their own. Lots of houses with one lone person working, thinking. Is the TV on in these houses? These are the people buying those small soap magazines you find at the supermarket checkout. The ones that are dedicated to one soap. How many people are napping? Why does a nap always happen on the days that you are not really doing much, instead of the crazy busy work days. I guess because you have time to nap. Naps always make me feel worse. I wake up disorientated and annoyed. I'd love to master the 10 minute power nap - mine always seem to stretch to 30 minutes or more. If you add that to the 9 hours I get every night, I'm a lazy bones. Oh, sleep how I will miss thee.

Selfish writing

I am thinking about how I want my classroom and lessons to improve and doing a lot of teacher book reading for inspiration. I just started a book about keeping a writing notebook. The premise seems to be regular writing nurtures a love and comfort of the craft that in turn leads to deeper, more significant final pieces. Certainly, after a year of painful five paragraph essays this sounds highly appealing. The book starts out by explaining how to launch a notebook and how to stop the inevitable comment "I have nothing to write about." This hit home with me. I think about this blog and that thought goes through my head each and every time. What about me and my life is important enough to write down here - a place where anyone can access it? But, as the book explains, just the process of writing helps you to see significance where you couldn't see it before. The more you do it, the more worthwhile an activity it becomes for you, and maybe at some point, for your reader as well. Writing is a selfish activity, in whatever form it describes something about the author.

So, back to thinking about teaching, a major motivation for me is to join the students in the activities I assign them. If daily free writing is one of those activities then I need to start keeping my own writing notebook. I think I already have right here. And it feels good.

July is slipping away and the baby is growing. I just updated the whiteboard and we have 28 days until D-Day. Four weeks left of being a young woman. Four weeks until I become a young mother. I'm spending my days waiting - filling in time with lovely activities like reading 19th Century British literature (I'm halfway through A Woman in White"), starting a book club at school, pre-natal yoga, seeing friends for lunch, watching TV shows via Netflix online streaming, walking Gus in the humid Philly weather, napping, watching my belly shake and stretch with each little movement. There is no pressure on me right now. It still makes me feel guilty and I list things I could be doing in my head, but then I stop myself with the thought that in a few weeks this freedom is going to be gone. I should enjoy it while it lasts.

It's fascinating how my brain works with all this freedom. I may have a day with nothing specific planned, but in my head I have to break the hours up into various activities - if it is just going to the store or cleaning. I obviously need a routine. I think free time scares me, doing nothing scares me. I need a schedule - almost so if anyone asked how I filled my day I would never have to say "I did nothing".

Wow, this is a lot of rambling free thoughts. I have already gone to delete a lot of it. But I'm not going to want my students to delete, so I can't delete either.

Who's in control?

I was walking Gus in the park yesterday. I hear the jingling of a collar coming up behind us and I brace myself for what happens next. A medium boxer attempts to sniff Gus. Gus's hackles are up immediately, he yanks on the lead and lets out three low growling barks and goes for the boxer's throat. I pull on the lead, desperately try to move Gus away. End up being under low lying branches of a tree, bending down and trying to get Gus under some kind of control, saying "sit". All is pointless, because the boxer keeps coming back for more and Gus repeats his growling and lunging. I walk away and I assume the boxer's owner eventually collected his/her dog. I have no idea, I didn't look round, just walked away and burst into tears. I cried all the way home.

Being 8 months pregnant and having to deal with dog aggression is not really how I wanted my Sunday morning to go. It really shook me up and made me think about how safe I'd feel with Gus and baby out walking. Something that will happen in a few weeks time. I don't want to give Gus up, but I really don't think it will take many more experiences like that before B takes him back to the pound. So, I've launched a take back control project with our little dog. All the books, TV shows, advice websites say again and again you have to be the leader. So my mantra with Gus is "I am the leader". I've started to be a Nazi on walks with him and we are doing leadership activities at home (he lies next to me without moving for 30 minutes, every time he pops up, I put him down without saying anything). He is being a little stubborn - which tells me I am not the leader in his eyes - but we will get there.

I've been too soft and it is not good for him or me. It is the same way with teaching - and I assume going to be exactly the same way with parenting. With all three I have to be a leader - firm and consistent. However, there is always a little voice that is prone to bending the rules. I need to stop that little voice. I think of how often I have done it in the classroom and it has resulted in so much pain and stress for me dealing with the negative consequences.

I have four weeks to develop my leader persona to help me be a dog owner, teacher and a parent! I am the leader. I am the leader. I am the leader.

Crazy in the Summertime

Two experiences over the past week have made me question where I live.

First, I was doing my normal lunchtime dog walk and my dog was doing his usual act of peeing on any other dog pee laden leaf, bush or plant. I stopped at one unkempt garden to wait for his territory marking to finish, quietly munching on an apple and thinking about going for a swim. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a figure stand up on the front porch of the house we were standing at. It was an African American man in his 40s - 50s with messy hair and he started yelling at me. "Hey lady, are you going to clean that up?" I gave him a quizzical look and started to explain that my dog had just peed. I didn't get out two words before he got louder. "You need to pick that up, this is my property, you think you can come by here and leave it. Bitch. You think your dog can crap. Bitch." I tried to take a deep breath and again explain his misunderstanding. My talking angered him more and he got louder. "Bitch. Fuck you. Bitch." I told the man to have a nice day and walked away. I had to hold back the tears.
I have walked past the house another two times and find myself crossing the street. The man has been sitting on the porch both times.

Second, I was running some errands and leaving a car park. Another man, African-American late 40s - 50s, came up to the car gesturing for me to wind down the window. I drove on. In the rea view mirror I saw him get money from another woman. Ten minutes later, I'm reversing out of another car-park, looking over my shoulder and then out of my side mirror and take a big gasp. The window is filled with the same man. Again his is gesturing for me to stop and open the window. I wait for him to move around the side of the car so I can drive away.

I live in a huge city and I have felt safe. Moments like these burst the bubble that I have created. Am I safe? Is it safe to bring a baby into this neighborhood? I walk around the streets and there are clearly two worlds existing side by side. The slow gentrification of the neighborhood means richer white people are moving into traditionally black blocks. There is a new "fair-trade" cafe or sushi restaurant opening up pretty much every week. On the surface the neighborhood looks like a wonderful, up and coming place to live. But it's not real. Take two more blocks west and people are living much poorer lives. The two worlds don't often mix, so the bubble of safety is created. This week those two encounters burst my bubble. I felt unsafe here this week and it has shaken me. I realize that a lot worse can/could have happened to me and I may be over-reacting. But just those tiny glimpses of what could happen make me question our choice of home.

The joys and woes of pregnancy

Before this moment in my life spins past and I'm consumed with being a mother, I want to remember some of the high and low points of having this baby growing inside of me.

Joy #1

There is a growing baby in my belly. It amazes me each time I look down at my ever-expanding mid-section. Only a few layers of skin and muscles and there is a little girl who has grown from nothing into a person complete with fingernails, eyelashes and taste buds. I imagine her enjoying rocking from side to side as I walk the dog and listening to me talk to her during the day. I cannot wait for her to arrive, but having her in-utero is consistently wonderful and while she is in there she is all mine!

Woe #1

I can no longer find a comfortable position. Sitting up can last for about 20 minutes and then it feels like someone has lodged a brick underneath my ribs and keeps moving it further and further up. Shifting position can help for a little while and then the brick-layer returns. Last week's road trip to North Carolina was not much fun. Standing up isn't so hot either. When I stand the magic comfortable 20 minutes passes quickly and then the skin over my stomach begins to feel like an elastic band that's been stretched and is about to be twanged.

Joy #2

The first homework assignment from the birthing class was to count kicks. You are meant to feel 10 kicks in a 2 hour period. I have been counting kicks for about two weeks and each night I have counted 10 in about 5 minutes. She is one active bambino and I love it. I place my hand on my belly and I get a welcome kick/punch/hip bump who knows. Some people have said they can tell what body part is making which movement but I have no idea. I'd like to think that the "bricks" in my ribs are her feet - but that might be me wishful thinking on my part. When I'm on my side in bed, my belly can resemble a bag of popping corn. There are moments were she makes me flinch her movements are so intense.

Woe # 2
The noises from my bottom that I now produce are unbelievable. Juicy, loud, full-bodied. I have to laugh at myself everytime a new one makes its debut. Amazingly and thankfully there is no smell. I'm hoping that this lady-like attribute stops after she is born.

Joy #3
My stupidly thin hair tends to be incredibly greasy. I have to wash it daily to avoid the fried chip look. But now, thanks to this baby, my hair is looking great. It is thicker and I don;t look like I'm drowning after 24 hours. I realize that this is defnitely not going to continue, but I am loving every dry, glossy folicled minute of it.

Woe #3
In the first trimester, I would be in bed at 7.00pm. There was no choice, I was done and needed every minute of sleep I could get. Now in third trimester, the tiredness is back and I'm not giving in to it so easily. I am annoyed at how little I seem to be able to do without needing to sit or lie down. Walking the dog can be a struggle! But I'm trying to stay active so when I step on the scale at the doctor's office I don't have to gasp at my weight gain. I have gained 22 pounds so far...right on track, but it needs to be managed. My doctors has said that I won't be a member of the 80 pound club! But I do have to see a line graph that tracks my weight gain and get a mild scolding if it is too steep. The problem is that food is just tasting too good right now - especially the dreaded crisp.

Third year done

On Thursday, I taught my last class for six months. The excitement is yet to hit me, instead I feel a little lost. Last Monday, I had four different lesson plans to prepare and sixty essays to grade. Today, I am trying to decide between picking up a book or watching another re-run of The Office. This is not a terrible situation, there is just a lot of nothing. So far I have filled the nothing with this blog, sketching, cleaning, cooking for four hours, reading, ordering stuff on Amazon. I wouldn't switch this week for last week - not having to deal with 801 ever again is delicious - I just obviously need to keep myself busy.

Also, I have only nine weeks until female A makes her entrance. The doctor told me today that my "safe date" is July 21st, meaning if I was to go into that labour after that we are good to go. Maybe that is why I am finding it a little difficult to celebrate the end of the school year. Summer equals baby. Baby equals scared mummy to be and the end of my life as I know it. I've found that I am even avoiding reading all the baby books, thinking in some way if I don't read them then I am somehow delaying the inevitable. Daddy A is a little further along the road to accepting our young married couple life is ending and being responsible for a child is beginning. I will get there, and as Daddy A has just reminded me, I don't really do that much now anyway. This is true, but I like just hanging out and worry female A will not.

The Calm Before the Storm

Apart from the 60 essays to grade and the materials to make for next week, I have a day of nothing stretching ahead of me. Thank God. It has been a hectic week; field trip, exhibition night, dinner dance, spring cleaning. I'm the tired that bring tears to your eyes and my feet have started to swell.

Five more days of school and then I will not stand infront of a classroom of students for 6 months. The prospect of having to go through a "first year" again is terrifying, so I'm going to continue creating "The System part deux" this summer just like I was going back as normal. I fear that if I don't I'll repeat some of the hell of this year again. For example, for some reason it took me until January to implement a really successful bathroom policy I had started the year before. I found myself having to play the bathroom game with kids for a few months. Why? I think I lost my mind a little at the beginning.

I'm excited to think about school and a little sad to not be going back full time and starting all over again. Amazing what a little time and an easier last couple of months can do. These thoughts go through my head and I feel guilty - remind myself I have a baby coming and should be thinking about her. But school seems more real right now. Also, when she arrives I doubt I'll have time to think about hallway procedures and assessment reflection forms.

Welcome to thrid trimester

I think I'm having one of those sickeningly perfect pregnancies. Yes, for the first three months I struggled to keep my eyes open past 7.00pm and I was a little trying to live with at times, but overall, the experience has been wonderfully warm and fuzzy. I have spent the last three months feeling invincible; not even needy 8th graders have managed to tear down my glowing demeanor. Most of the time, I have wandered around with my hand on my miniscule bump imagining the little girl growing inside. 

Sunday was my baby shower. The experience was lovely, but I'm a little concerned my pregnancy perfection is beginning to crack. I have spent the past two days fighting to stop tears. Emotions are rocketing out of nowhere and I have little if any control. I was leaving Kansas yesterday and struggled to get into the car in time for the floodgates to open. I'm starting to find myself cursing our choice to live so far from family...the thought of it brings instant tears. I'm terrified how close the due date is looming, espeically whe I peek my head around the door of the empty, unfurnished, half-painted nursery. I'm scared about my general ability to do this thing. And I keep having vivid frightening nightmares, last night my brother had no face. 

I feel I am being welcomed into the third trimester. I'm taking a deep breath. 

Two and a half years later

A short summary of the events of the last two and a half years (in chronological order): survived my first year of teaching, bought a house, bought a dog, completed a second year of teaching at the Philadelphia public school, got a job at charter school in Philadelphia, went to Mongolia for a month, started at the charter school and felt like I was right back in first year again, got pregnant, bought maternity clothes, started to see success at charter school, revisited blog, began new post on blog called "two and a half years later"....

Discovering this blog again has been like an surprise gift. I think I have blocked a lot of the trauma from the first year out of my mind; to reread just the few snippets I managed to put on here have been humbling and motivational. I am now nearing the end of my third year of teaching in Philadelphia. Each and everyday I complain about the sheer amount of work required to feel marginally prepared, but deep down, deep deep down, there is an element of enjoyment to the job. Needless to say, this year has had it's moments of uncontrollable crying, mental health days and the desire to quit and beg at the door of Barnes and Noble for a quiet booksellers life. I'm proud of myself; I am now a teacher. I even have a student teacher in my classroom for two weeks. If they are sending students to me something must to going right.

So as one thing starts to become more manageable, a whole other side of my life erupts. Around August 25th this year, our little girl will be arriving. Each time she moves, I smile and my hand automatically goes to my growing belly. She's coming and she is coming soon. I cannot wait. I am in KCK for my baby shower tomorrow. An American tradition that I am fascinated by; an all female affair (B is heading to the bar with his brothers and friends) celebrating this little baby and probably scaring me to death with painful labour stories and tales of colic.

Parents

I have experienced the parent conference. And it really was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be.

For four hours I have seen a series of parents, grandmothers, brothers and sisters. Out of 120 students, I gave out 30 Fs and not one A. I have enjoyed handing the parents the bad report cards almost as much as the good ones. There are so many kids in my classes who need a huge kick up the arse; I’m really hoping a card of circled Fs might do the trick. A good example is Deyonta. The degree of laziness and insolence he reaches in class is mind boggling (unfortunately he is not alone). He doesn't bother to take out his notebook; he fails to read anything let alone finish assignment and has never participated in whole group or small group discussions. He might as well not be there. His father came in today and after taking in the plethora of Fs informed me that in 5th grade Deyonta had been classed as gifted. Well BULL SHIT.

On a happier note, I also had a parent began to cry when she saw her son's good report card.

Her son, Dasaahn, is a very interesting child. In class, he will work hard, but the minute he doesn't understand something, or something goes slightly wrong he will seriously lose it.
He has screamed in my face "I don't get it?” "I can't do it" "You are not making any sense", " I haven't finished"
He has thrown his work on the floor. He has stormed out of the room.
Every time he does this he comes to me the next day and apologizes. One day I asked him privately about his temper and without missing a beat he answered, "Oh I think I'm bipolar."

What do you say to that? He's 13. Maybe there's something in the genes.

One more day until I get to go home and spend some time with my beautiful family.

No voice no power

I took my second day off last Friday. I did feel slightly ill, but really I just wanted a day off. I'm calling tghem mental health days. Sods law is that now I;m really ill and have to go to work. Today I pretty much lost my voice. Not good when your trying to control 36 kids. But. the kids seemed really concerned "Ms. Lloyd are you sick?" "Ms. Lloyd I'm going to buy you some medicine.", "Ms. lloyd, I'll get you a get well soon card."

Unfortunately not a lot of work was done. But that is always the case.

I learned today that my classes will be reduced from 41 to 35. I'm scared that I have been leaning on the fact things are so bad because the classes are so big. If the class becomes smaller and it is still bad, then what is the reason????? Me?

Bad blogger

Over the past few months I have pushed myself further than ever before. It is pretty obvious that up before September 7th 2006 my life was ridiculously easy. Little stress, worry, responsibility. Things have changed. I became a teacher. Eighth grade English, 120 students in three classes, 85% reading below grade level. A challenge in anyone’s book, but added to that is the fact I had, and still have, no idea what I am doing.

I have failed to write down any of the numerous stories of craziness and trauma that I have struggled through in the past three months, but I am hoping to change that. I feel it is incredibly important for me to record what I am going through every day to both help me improve in the short term and reminisce in the long term. Right now I am terrible. The class is completely out of control and I feel learning does not happen. I face kids who seem to just not want/care if they learn to read. Read. I face others who are plain crazy. I face disrespect. I face some complete sweethearts who really try. I will write about them all and my responses as honestly as I possibly can.

It's natural to be terrified...right?

In 30 days I will have completed my first real day of teaching. 120 students will have come in the door, sat in the seats, made judgments about me, and filed out again. I'm a little scared.

My practice teaching ended on Friday and I have three more days of training. It was called practice teaching, but its worthiness is debatable. We taught, but to eight kids in one of the best schools in Philly. Not exactly what I'm going to face in ONE MONTHS time.

Two fellows were placed in a classroom with the cooperating teacher (CT). Our CT, Ms. Finkel or The Fink as she became known, was a 50ish year old veteran special Ed teacher. She was exactly the teacher I do not want to be.

Here's a quick list of her misdemeanors:
1. She constantly humiliated the kids in front of class. Her choice of humiliation was usually calling their parents in the middle of class. For me, this is completely unacceptable. But this was her only form of management, so a week into summer school the calling lost any power it may have had and became a constant nuisance.
2.She gave us absolutely no feedback on our teaching, but was heard bitching about the fellows program and us personally to other teachers.
3. She made her terrible opinions known to all. A class on immigration was a great example. In Philly recently a scandal broke out when Geno of the famous Geno's stakes posted a "speak English only" sign in his restaurant. Ms. Finkel used this as a jumping off point to launch into a tirade about how everyone in America should speak English and how when she went to Florida she thinks it’s unacceptable to be surrounded by Spanish speakers. There was a Hispanic girl and a boy from Puerto Rico in the class.
4. She pronounced water "wooder". (This is a Philly thing but coming from her it was grating.)
5. She constantly moved the class from room to room because SHE was too hot.
6. She was unable to listen to anyone without cutting him or her off and inserting some completely irrelevant fact about her life.
7. She called one student "crazy" to his face and constantly repeated how she deserved a medal for putting up with him.

The list can go on and on, but I feel so much better for getting all that out! So happy I will never work with the fink again.

Apart from that joy, training has been great. The people on my course are seriously fantastic. I'm coming around to thinking the training doesn't really prepare you for what is about to happen, but it does give you a huge network of like-minded friends that are all in the same boat.

Love you all

Listening to: a clicking fan
Thinking: water doesn't have any o's or d's damn it.
Feeling: annoyed the fink bothered me so much.

P.S. Ooo, I drove in the city for the first time today. No crashes, sideswipes or freak-outs. I feel very proud!

And it begins

My journey towards teaching has begun. I have successfully completed three days of training. Icebreakers are over, the role-plays have started and my nerves are not going away. I still feel equally terrified and excited about the whole thing. My fellow fellows are great so far – I am in a group of 20 people from all walks of life; a university lecturer, a wannabe MTV VJ, a policeman, a food cart owner to name a few. I suppose I feel a little out of my depth right now, which is natural as I have only four weeks to learn the basics of teaching.
I have also not secured a placement yet. Two interviews down and two nos. Obviously this is only the beginning, but I can’t help feeling I would feel so much better if I had a job sorted out. I will have a teaching position in September, that is guaranteed, I would just much rather choose it than be given it. But it is still very early days. Watch this space.

Changing the subject completely. I have an only in America moment. On Friday night while innocently chowing down a “Carne Enchilada”, I saw a sight I hope I had to share. A van drove past advertising its owners “blood and blood component “ cleaning business.
I am living in a city where someone was watching the umpteenth report of a Philly murder on the local news and had a revelation – starting a cleaning business specifically for blood. The blood I can just about handle, but blood components – the mind comes up with some pretty Tarantinoesque

Yo, teach!

This week has been a life-changing week for me -how dramatic is that. It has involved nerves, waiting, talking to myself, email checking, postman harassing, waiting, and waiting. Months ago – because I’m so lax at updating this – I mentioned I had decided to try my hand at teaching. After much research I knew I had 2 choices: firstly, was the traditional grad school route where I would earn a masters and certification in around 10 months at either Penn or Temple (2 Unis in Philly), and secondly, an alternative program call the Philadelphia Teaching Fellows, which gives you 5-6 weeks of intensive training in the summer and places you in a full time teaching position in September with full pay. Which would you pick? I applied for both.

In the beginning I was Penn all the way until I went to an open day and discovered the fees had gone up to a huge $43,000 for 10 months. The minute they let that slip I think everyone mentally crossed Penn off. How can they charge that much? Doctors and lawyers I can understand, but teachers. I wouldn’t make that much in a year.
The choices were down to Temple (at a much more respectable $12,000) and the Teaching Fellows.

I had been umming and ahhing about the Teaching Fellows and finally decided to apply one drunken night. Grad school was the way I was going, but things started to change when I went along to a Fellows information session. I learnt that it’s a program run by Philly’s school district and basically recruits new graduates or professional people to work in “high needs’ schools in Philly. “High needs” is code for the lowest performing, poorest, blackest schools in the city; the one I tutor in is a high needs school. The idea being that the secret to improving the schools is to put better teachers in them. While teaching, the “fellows” would attend a grad school at a reduced rate and earn their masters and certification – with up to 3 years to finish.

The other attendees were a motley crew – young uns like me, people who looked stereotypically teachery, the occasional power suit, and a few older folks. The staff was extremely enthusiastic and it was infectious - I quickly started warming to the idea. The pros: you get paid, you are ensured a job, you get the masters, and you are actually teaching and not talking about it. The cons: you get thrown into a classroom with minimal training, and the classrooms are some of the worst in Philly. Big cons. I left feeling very happy about my drunken decision and really wanting an interview. They told us out of the 1000 applicants they were expecting they would interview around 500 and choose 80 – 100 to become fellows.

So I waited. They would let me know within two weeks if I had an interview. Two weeks went by. I was so upset. I hadn’t given this thing any thought a few weeks ago and now I was gutted I hadn’t got an interview. So I pinned my hopes on Temple. Then an email arrived, “Congratulations you have been invited to attend an interview day for the Philadelphia Teaching Fellows”. Huh. Holy shit. I got an interview. Oh my God. I quickly signed up for the only day they had left – 5 days away.

The interview was 4 hour long. I arrived at the brand new Philadelphia School District building, signed in, and join the other interviewees in a tension stuffed waiting room. There were maybe 50 people there, men women, young, old, but everyone with a slight look of terror in their faces. I tried to eat some of the free energy bars and chatted to the girl next to me for a painful ten minutes. Finally we were split up into groups of twelve. First hurdle was a five-minute teaching sample for any subject or any grade (the cause of much of the terror). I had planned a five-minute introduction to haiku poetry – those tiny 17-syllable Japanese poems. I shook and croaked my way through; asking them about syllables -“how many syllables in “cat”? How many syllables in “catapult”? talking about the origins, going through an example, making them close there eyes and describe the image the words made in their heads. I thought it went really well. Especially as so many other people just lectured and didn’t ask any questions,
Then came a group discussion. Thirty minutes of disjointed hypothetical chat, and I was amazed but some people didn’t speak. Hello - you’re in an interview! That was followed by a writing sample, and finally the day ended with a thirty minute one on one interview. My interviewer had grandparents in Dorset so that killed a few minutes, and then I was fired questions such as: what would you do if you had no textbooks on your first day/ first few months; when was the last time you failed at something – God bless algebra; what would you do if you didn’t get into the fellows; how do you think your teaching sample went; what did you think of everyone else’s teaching samples? And on and on.

They would be in touch within two weeks. Now I really wanted it. It just made sense. Yes it would be terrifying, going into a school with 6 weeks of training and into a challenging school. But I would be teaching, really teaching. By September. And if I absolutely hated it I could leave and try something else, without having paid $43,000 for the training.

Waiting is excruciatingly painful. Days ticked by with me checking my email every ten minutes. Nothing. Then after 13 days of pain I had an answer. I had been selected. I think the noise I made was “Arghug”, and then the tears came. I had been selected. In five months I will be standing in front of my own class.

Now, a few days later, I feel great –I am so happy and only slightly terrified. My acceptance letter was posted today; I am officially a Summer 2006 Philadelphia Teaching Fellow. I told you it has been a life-changing week. I know it’s going to be exhausting, wonderful, emotional, scary, frightening, soul-breaking, sickening, and rewarding. I have been dying for a challenge, waiting for my life to begin properly over here, and now its finally happening. Wish me luck, I have a feeling I will need it.

www.philadelphiateachingfellows.org

Let it snow let it snow let it snow

I woke up this morning and there were 18 inches of snow on the ground. 18 INCHES. Six in the UK is more than enough to cause traffic chaos and days off for everyone. And it’s the cool powdery, perfect-snowball type snow - not any wet, sludgy pretender snow. I have felt like a child all day, it’s impossible to fight that urge to try to throw a hard ball of snow into someone’s face or get it down the back of their clothes. And you have to make a snowman. Frosty is now proudly standing guard in our back garden, complete with half limes for eyes and beer cans for buttons – but now it’s dark I keep scaring myself thinking someone is standing out there. But, I’m guessing tomorrow, when I actually have to leave the house, the snow isn’t going to be that much fun.

Tomorrow morning I get the results of my second math test in 7 years. I am taking two maths courses, algebra and statistics at a community college (to qualify to teach in Philly you have to have two Uni maths courses). Last week I took an algebra test and I failed. A serious wake up call – I was thinking that it would be easy. I don't fail!!!!!!! Luckily statistics seems to be easier. My teacher is a man called Dr. Bumble, he’s at least 92 and totally lives up to his name. For the first 10 minutes of every class he tells us about all the companies he worked for in the 1960s – his apparent heyday and how to succeed in getting a job.

The whole thing has reminded me of how much I hate maths. There is a switch in my head that turns off the intelligence when I look at an equation. Alongside this I'm taking the Graduate Exam (GRE) in a couple of weeks that comes complete with a juicy maths section. Has the world gone mad!!! The humanities are just so much kinder - you can say whatever you want and as long as you do it in legible English your going to pass.

OK, it's so cold upstairs that I can't feel my toes. Love you all.

Listening to: Kanye West rage

Thinking: how the hell do you work out if 15 men and 12 women are in a room and an equal number of men and women enter the ratio becomes 7:6. How many women have entered the room?