TV vs Reading

Found this lovely Roald Dahl poem that neatly sums up the questionable value of television for children:

Television

The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink --
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.

Roald Dahl

Last day at Angell

Today was my last day at Angell Job Corps. I was too nervous to sleep much the night before, so by morning, I was pretty much a train wreck of nerves, and unbelievably tired after a whole week of poor sleep, but I got out of bed and made it to work somehow.

This morning was the student/staff breakfast (a quarterly event where the staff serves the students breakfast), but I had so much to do still, that I didn't have time to really go. I just made a brief guest appearance (I was too stressed out to eat anyway), so I went and took pictures (and took advantage of the fact that everyone was there to say goodbye to) then I went back to packing until the students showed up.

The last two days, I devoted to watching movies in class. I really needed the time to do things like data entry and grading and going through my files and such, and since school was actually still in session for another week, I had to do all of it with kids in the room. Movies were the obvious solution to the problem. I had my students bring movies and as long as they were appropriate, we'd watch them in class. It worked beautifully and kept everyone out of my hair enough to get my work (mostly) done. (I strongly recommend watching movies in class at the end of the year, it makes the behavior so much more bearable.)

After the end of the school day, I had a couple of kids stay and help me pack and clean the room up a bit (after a week of normal use). *R* elected to stay awhile longer and wanted to draw me "one last picture". I let him, understanding that in his own quiet way he just wanted to say goodbye in that fashion. Since I'm not good at goodbyes anyway, that made sense to me.

Before I left, I walked around the campus, catching whoever I could before I got into the truck and drove off. One of the last kids I saw was one of the very first kids I met when I started working at Angell--he was sitting in the office of Admin. Most kids come and go within 9 months to a year, but for whatever reason, he is still here a year and a half later, working on whatever it is that he's working on. It seemed highly appropriate that he would be one of the last people I would see as I left.

The weather was completely lousy, and it was raining pretty hard. I drove past the smoking gazebo and waved goodbye, past the dining hall (that was dark, being empty of students), and admin (where everyone had gone home an hour ago), and past the education building where I worked for a year and a half. I drove past those iconic wind turbines that Cedar has always found so fascinating, and looped out of the drive and pulled out on the highway, flying past Tillicum Beach, where I had spent so much time walking on the beach during my lunch breaks looking for huge pieces of Jasper, and tsunami debris from Japan.

I drove home feeling that way all teachers probably feel after finishing another school year, a small part relief, but mostly tired, nostalgic, and a little teary.

It's still really hard to believe that this is real, and that I won't be sitting in my classroom next week doing exactly what I've always done...teaching Reading and Health (and Life Skills, Social Skills, and a little bit of everything else!) It's hard to believe that it was over so fast, and that so many people have come in and out of my life in the past year and a half.

As a teacher, you always wonder what kind of impact you have on your students. How does the time you spend together affect you both? What things will they remember about their time in class? What was important to them? What did they think was memorable? What did they get out of being there? I always ask them at the very end, and this year's responses were a little something like this: "I loved all the cool books there were to read in this class", "I really liked going for walks during health class", "I loved that we learned about so many different things", "This was my favorite class", etc.

you're the best sub ever

"You're the best sub ever," the girl with the fading pink hair said as I came around the corner to the door of a very-familiar classroom at a very familiar school.

"Wow, thanks! That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all week," I told her.

And will I ever get tired of hearing that? Probably not. It's the highest compliment you can get as a sub--kids who are happy to see you. I love working at this school, so I do it on a pretty regular basis. It's kind of a standing gig I have, and part of a project I've kind of created for myself this year (project EBD-getting more practice working with "tough cases".

One of the reasons why I signed on to do classified jobs this year (even though I'm certified) is that the range of potential assignments vastly exceeds what's available to certified folks. (Plus, there aren't enough certified jobs to go around right now anyhow, so why sit at home like a rejected suitor when I can spend more quality time in SPED). Classified positions vary way more than most certified jobs, and often involve multiple grade levels, multiple subjects, and multiple settings, all in the same day. And that's before you even factor any Special Ed considerations into the mix. So aside from increasing my pool of possible job prospects exponentially, it also add some variety to what can occasionally feel like glorified crowd control or highly paid babysitting. And in terms of getting a broad exposure to everything that happens in the world of education, you could hardly to better.

How does all of this relate to what I'd like to be doing (teaching ESL)? Well, there's quite a few paraeducators who work intensively with ELLs so I get to do this sometimes. Other times, I get to work in mainstream classrooms where there just happens to be a lot of ELLs. In fact, it's pretty rare to work in a classroom (mainstream or SPED) where there aren't at least a few ELLs. But more important than all the days I spend working exclusively with ELLs on a sporadic basis, I get to see the entire picture of what these guys are expected to be able to do to function in school. I can see where the language barriers create problems in math, science, and even electives. I know what happens (and in what order) in most of the secondary grades. I have a pretty good idea what kind of language support needs to be happening in ESL support classes to make the time spent in mainstream classes more productive. I can't imagine another way of gaining this much information about the workings of a school.

And incidentally, project EBD is starting to show some payoffs. As I had always suspected, part of the secret to working with kids with EBDs is knowing which battles are worth fighting, part of it is being consistent and stable, part of it is being clear and direct, and part of it is cultivating a relationship that's strong enough to survive all the little "tests" these kids need to give you. The last part is the most encouraging--I'm pretty good at connecting with kids.

As much as we wish all kids came to school ready to learn, the fact is that they don't. Kids with EBDs really have a tough time in school because they're not as good at regulating themselves as the rest of us. One thing I've noticed is that people who aren't successful at working with "tough cases" usually don't understand that part of the problem is the assumption that the kids know what to do and can do it consistently on their own.

Another thing you don't ever want to do is allow yourself to caught up in a power struggle with an adolescent (with or without an EBD). When you encounter resistance from a student, you don't have to get sucked into a conflict. As the old saying goes, it takes two to argue. If you refuse to play the game, that goes a long way toward solving the problem. I used to freeze up in these kind of situations. I wouldn't escalate the conflict, but I just kinda got stuck. Now I can usually get both of us past the impasse and moving forward. If you can do that with an EBD kid, you can do it with anyone.