3 days of school down, 75 more days to go
Alright friends, I was debating on where I would go to decompress, vent, reflect, share. My first thought was to come here so that I could share all the good, bad, and ugly that happens at Huckleberry Prep. Then…I was like, but do you really want to share all of your thoughts with the parents who are entrusting their more sacred treasures (their children) to your care and safekeeping? Maybe it would be better to write all of your thoughts in a journal. “Accidentally” leave the journal in a bathroom for someone to read when their on the can.
Went back and forth on it all, and finally decided, “Meh, I couldn’t hide anything even if I wanted to.” So, you get the unfiltered truth, kinda. I’ll spare you the worst of my thoughts.
This blog is here just so that I can make it up to you when you ask me how school was, and all I can muster up at the moment is a falteringly cheerful, “Fine.”
So, how was school today? Well, I’m glad you asked!
Started off the day killin’ it by dressing up for the third day in a row. Jaena, I’m comin’ for that $1,000 shopping spree! You know a house husband needs to get dolled up for his honey. Househusbands are a handful. They require lots of retail therapy and massages. But, I digress. The kids need to see Mr. Kojin taking their education seriously and showing up at his best. If I come to class with my best, I expect them to come to class prepared to do their best!
Unfortunately, my day peaked after getting dressed. Today’s breakfast was mediocre — cereal with milk. Except we ran out of milk. So, water it is! Just kidding, I rationed the milk and told the kids to “Suck it up, Buttercup!” Don’t worry, I only said the last part in my head. The children’s self-esteem and self-worth — still intact!
Thanks to a protip from Adrian, I set up a school bell alarm on my phone to go off at 9AM. Totally forgot about setting this, but when I went off, I shit you not, in unison, all the kids were like, “Time to start school!”
Next came the ZOOMs. Which should have some kind of Darth Vadery type song to it, but I think we’ve turned a corner. The kids are not actively fighting the ZOOMs. They’ve all settled into a spectrum of mild enjoyment and listless boredom. No fighting or screaming though, WHOO!
Yeung Laoshi’s Chinese lesson was “meh.” He just talked at the kids. I think he was trying to help the kids identify feelings in Chinese. His lesson was just 30 minutes of call and response. Marty preoccupied herself with a healthy dose of fidgeting, fish flopping, and bored staring.
As one might imagine, Kona and Traxson really benefit from each other’s company. Kona is the stronger of the two in Japanese and enjoys coaching Traxson through the lessons and activities. They both don’t always know what Mahugh Sensei is saying or asking of them, but they’re giving it the old college try. At six years old, that’s more than I can ask from them!
Since Mikey’s sessions have changed to be thirty minutes long and smaller class sizes, he is thriving! Thriving might be too strong a word, but he is engaged, listening, and eager to learn. Rome wasn’t built in a day. I’ll take my small win.
Then it was time for Calvert Learning. If Calvert Learning anthropomorphized, she’d have to be that pretentious, asshole Math teacher that shoves their Pre-calculus textbook in your face, tells you to pour over the material over the weekend, and when you ask for help, smugly tells you to “Deal with it.” Her name was Ms. Carter.
Thank God for Ms. Barron. Clearly she cares about the kids and is eager to help us support them through Calvert Learning. The most disappointing theme of my conversations with her was how little she knew about the program and how to better tailor it to 1st graders. I get that she can’t reprogram a sucky system, but, damn it all, walk me through a sample lesson and how she’d do it.
The thing that sucks the life out of me the most with Calvert is mostly my fears that this program isn’t tailored for the kids. The heavy lifting of translating this program to the kids will fall on me. Which is a real bummer because I’d rather come up with fun vocabulary games, fun cultural activities, reading books, and organizing field trips. I need Calvert Learning to provide the foundational, nuts, and bolts of reading and math. If Calvert can provide that it frees me up to spend my time helping to make school fun, immersive, and AMAZING.
Alright, this is getting really long. I didn’t get to the part of the day where Mikey had a meltdown. When Mikey and I get in an argument, I think we bring out the worst in each other sometimes. It really emphasized to me that how I handle the first instances of combative, disrespectful behavior really does dictate the trajectory of the behavior. Can I nip the behavior in the bud or have WWIII? Those are the only options. Mikey and I had our own Mexican Standoff.
I had to as the other children to leave school in order to deal with Mikey’s attitude. We eventually sorted out our issues, and he wrote his rules — just in time for his own 3:30PM ZOOM.
P.S The kids really like LEGOS. I really don’t like the mess LEGOS make.
Getting my mint CONTAINERSTORE bins today was a pleasant surprise. Nothing like an unexpected, I-forgot-I-ordered-those order to brighten the rest of the day. If you like your house organized and clean, check out CONTAINERSTORE. While they don’t presently sponsor this blog (yet), I always give a shout out to products I believe in!