for only a moment

I’ve felt the need to reflect for a few days now… I’m into the fourth week of school.

I would have expected to be working with students more. I had a meeting all afternoon Monday, most of the morning Tuesday, and one more all morning tomorrow. This RtI thing–it’s complicated and requires a lot of training. I am a little frustrated about losing so much time with students. I have two students at one school who are in third grade and brand new to the county. I only see them 2 days a week, half days. The other bilingual teacher sees them when I’m not there. And I’ll be getting one student straight from Mexico in first grade at my main school. I’m not sure how to teach a student English from ground zero. I feel like I should know–isn’t that what I do? But I don’t.

I had one student before who had no English when she came in 2nd grade. I don’t know if I taught her anything or not. She’s in 5th grade now. I see her the two afternoons I’m at my other school. She had a rough year last year and because of issues beyond her control, didn’t make as much progress as I would hope. Worse, she almost completely refuses to speak Spanish with me. I am worried the same thing could happen to my other brand new three. I don’t know where to start with teaching them English. School is such an ordeal for them now that they’ll soon develop the ability to tune out like other ELLs in the regular classroom.

I wish our district had a T.B.E. program that included sheltered instruction so that new arrivals are actually out of the regular classroom for a good chunk or all of their day. But it is not so. A colleague sent me some questions to reflect on and answer for one of her ELL endorsement classes. It made me think about the weaknesses and strengths of the program structure.

Since then, I have felt a little hopeless regarding the difference I hoped to make. Things at home are…okay…I guess. The girls have adjusted pretty well to their school. It is definitely Hannah’s cup of tea–the Montessori school they go to. Clara usually cries at drop off, but she is a very busy girl once she gets over her separation anxiety. Clint is taking them around between 9 and 9:30, and I pick them up between 3 and 4, so their day isn’t as long as many kids in daycare. Plus it’s the right type of environment for them. Even Clint says he notices that they are learning things they weren’t getting at their sitters’ before.

Nights are so busy. I’m so tired. It’s just a state of being. I barely do any work after arriving home so I’m kind of behind on the paperwork and quite disorganized. But I’m maintaining. And I’m not as tired or exhausted as I was last year. Nor as overwhelmed. I haven’t taken any new pictures of the girls. Need to do that. Clara’s hair is getting longer, and less dry like baby fuzz/hair and more like toddler hair. She’s hit a language boom. She went from two word utterances to complete sentences. Her pronunciation is very toddler-ish and she is sometimes hard to understand. She does say three and four word sentences. It’s pretty amazing. I often forget that she is not even 2 yet.