Saved by the bell

Spent an hour today with my sister, the freshly certified teacher. She'll be teaching ELL for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in the Highline district, a 10-minute walk from home.

Her new classroom is a converted teacher's lounge, which can be good and bad for an ELL class. There's a sink, kitchen area, and a big balcony. I can be good because you can take advantage of these non-classroom areas by labelling all the objects and providing more vocabulary opportunities for the kids. But it can be bad because it's not a real classroom; there are no cubbies for the kids to put their coats and backpacks, and she'll have to keep reiterating that they shouldn't turn on the stove or the oven. (I was reminded of the entrances to the Department of Education in D.C. a year ago: little cartoonish schoolhouse doors, with "No Child Left Behind" emblazoned on top. Maybe they're still there.)

One of the challenges of teaching ELL will be using the state-approved curriculum for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders for students who are much older but are reading English at those levels. Obviously, you can't play the little kids' learning games with the older kids, without insulting their intelligence and emotional development. Also, she'll have to have 5 different interpreters for her parent-teacher conferences later this fall.

I learned a few things by revisiting an elementary school ... granted, a newly renovated one. For instance, elementary school children are still required to say the Pledge of Allegiance (my sister taped up a card with the word "flag" on it over the Stars and Stripes, and then briefly wondered how she was going to explain some of the more difficult words in the Pledge to the kids. Like "allegiance." Apparently each classroom eventually gets a chance to lead the Pledge over the intercom, and by the time her kids' chance comes around, she wants them to know the words and not just the phonetics). Playground equipment is no longer made out of wood and metal. Bathrooms are set up so that hall monitors can see whether or not the kids are washing their hands.

There were a few other teachers getting their rooms ready today. Another thing I learned: teachers play Lord of the Flies too, scavenging for desperately-needed desks, chairs, and shelves. We spent a lot of time roaming the hallways, searching for furniture that the custodians hadn't either put into classrooms or storage yet. Apparently sometimes furniture that's not really up for grabs gets taken, and then teachers become paranoid about which peer of theirs stole their property. That can't be a good way to start the school year.

It was all kind of fascinating.