Wednesday, May 25, 2016

May 25 - Mrs. Martinez, Fifth Grade

                                  Tough Love: Too Much or Just Right? 

My 5th grade students have been creating their end of year slides for our graduation ceremony. While I was looking through and editing the slides, I started thinking... Why do these kids like me so much? I'm constantly told I'm so strict and yet... Several of the students stated how much they wanted to thank me for everything I did to help them succeed this school year. This made me reflect on the impact I make on my students everyday. Most of the time, I think to my self...stop being so intense... Am I being too hard on these kids? I tend to forget that they aren't my biological kids, but man, they sure do pull at my heart strings. What is it that I give them that makes them WANT to keep coming back to me everyday? The no excuses allowed in my classroom? The "solve your problem" mantra? The " I love you too much to argue" statement I use 1,000 times a day? 

Then, it dawned on me. My biggest challenge, my hardest student... Needs my strict, consistent environment the most. He needs to know exactly what is expected. He needs a firm voice and someone who shows passion. He needs me. Everyday. I believe the structure of my classroom allows my students to feel safe, needed and wanted. It is just so mind boggling sometimes... These kiddos like to come into a very strict teacher's classroom because it shows I care? 

That's what makes sense to them, so that makes sense to me. Who knew that my biggest challenge, my hardest student, would be the one to write the sweetest note about me. Thanking me for pushing him to his limits. Interesting enough... He was the one who pushed me to my limits... Everyday. 


All of this sounds a little like...parenting. That  must be it. I'm mama bear to these students. And the added bonus... I get to teach them at the same time. Life is good.

Mrs. Kelley Martinez


Tuesday, May 24, 2016

May 24 - Mrs. Stapleton, Kindergarten

                                                   The Power of Volunteers

I have seen first hand how powerful having volunteers interacting with my students has been. My own mom spends a couple mornings a week pulling my kids one at a time not only to help them practice their High Frequency Words but also building a relationship with each student. They look forward to those few precious minutes with her and are highly motivated to practice their 4 words for the next visit so they can make her proud and earn that next certificate they all work so hard for.


I have had multiple parents tell me that those certificates are hung proudly in their child's room and that they won't let them take them down! They work hard for something as simple as a piece of paper, all because of the relationship they have built with Mrs. Skoba. 

Other volunteers have also impacted my students, like our Sunshine Reader. What a beautiful relationship for students to have with a grandparent figure. I know this relationship is feeding their souls just as much as the students. Each week Miss. Patty comes and listens as the students read to her one on one. For a 5 year old to be in the spotlight like that with someone's full attention builds such confidence.


Volunteers are powerful people that have impacted my students and helped them grow in many ways this year. These people belong in our classrooms and have the power to change a year for the better and impact a child forever!

Mrs. Jenn Stapleton


Monday, May 23, 2016

May 23 - Mrs. Vickers, Kindergarten

                                     My Little Loves, My Family

It is the end of the school year, and as I reflect on this year, I am filled with pride at what my class has accomplished. In August, we walked into a room of mostly little strangers who had very different life experiences. I wondered if I could reach them, if I could love them like they deserved to be loved. Throughout the year, we talked and got to know each other. I went home and shared their lives with my family as they went and shared my life with theirs. We played and learned how to share, to win and to loose. We read. We wrote. We built. We explored. We manipulated. We did all these things together and as we did them we grew to become a family. I love my family. They inspire me every day to become better than I am. I know that they are ready to move on and as I pass them on to a new teacher, it is my most passionate hope that together they will be as close as we are now.


Mrs. Monica Vickers

Friday, May 20, 2016

May 20 - Miss Glasscock, Fourth Grade

Coming Out in G-Force

Real life learning happened on Friday at Morton Ranch Elementary, and experiencing this was daunting and beautiful, all at the same time. It wasn’t part of the curriculum or in the lesson plans, but it quite possibly might be the most important lesson both my 4th graders and I learned this year.

The moment I picked up my Little Gs (my term of endearment for them) from lunch in the cafeteria, I could sense something was off, something was wrong. They walked solemnly towards me, not bouncing with energy like usual, several students had tears in their eyes. As I walked down the line to gain a better understanding of what might be going on, I took a moment to look into the eyes of the kids who were and weren’t crying. They all looked similar with varying degrees of despair and sadness. “This can’t be happening,” I thought to myself. I quickly thought of a recent TED talk I watched on Twitter about emotional stress in young students and thought of the dabbling I had been doing in studying mindfulness (thank you Kate Henninger) and decided going back to the classroom to “check off a lesson” would be counterproductive to these kiddos’ well-being. We exited the cafeteria and headed for the front porch of the school. Looking back, maybe this decision was just second nature for me, as so many problems have been solved in my life by talking them out with trusting folks, on a beautiful day, on a porch.



We all sat in a circle, some wanting to be close, others trying to not to be part of the group. “Thumbs up if this is a class issue, or thumbs down if this is an issue concerning a few people?” I asked. All 19 kiddos put their thumbs up. As luck or divine intervention would have it, our Zoe had a koosh ball with her. “Zoe, can I borrow your koosh ball?” Zoe tossed it to me. “Nobody can talk unless this is in their hand.” I instructed. What followed was a respectful, purposeful REAL conversation among all of us. It began with students saying there were arguments among them in a previous class, something I was unaware of. Before the conversation could turn into a “he said, she said”, the kiddos were reminded to only speak on THEIR actions, not those of others. This began with apologies to each other for their actions towards their peers. Students were taking pride in apologizing, taking ownership, and asking for forgiveness. They were doing this without trying to make excuses for their actions. I witnessed students who, at first, I could tell were not going to admit wrongdoing. These are my tough as nails boys, but then as they heard others apologizing to them, their faces softened, their hearts opened, and these tough as nails boys couldn’t get the koosh ball in their hands fast enough to ask for forgiveness of those they had wronged. This was powerful and beautiful, yet I knew we had to get to the root of the issue. These kids hadn’t been mean or petty all year long. What was causing this? And then it was said…the smallest student in our class vocalized for the other 18 the “WHY” behind all of this. “I don’t know why this is happening, why I am acting like this, Miss Glasscock. I’m stressed and I just don’t want to lose these friends I’ve made. I just got them and some are leaving.” Almost in unison students burst into tears and/or begin fiercely nodding their heads in agreement. There it was…19 students looking at me for answers on how to face…their fear of change.



As students continued to talk it out, I began ferociously texting Ms. Harrison and Mrs. Carr. “They will know how to handle this better than I,” I thought. No one wrote back. No one answered the phone. No one came. Funny thing is, I knew they were in meetings in the conference room that had a window looking out to where we were sitting. I wondered if this was the way it was supposed to be. That together, these 19 beautiful souls and I could figure out how to conquer this fear, a fear I, myself have struggled with throughout my 33 years. I asked one student to go grab a book off of my small group table, while the others were talking, listening, validating each other’s thoughts and feelings. “Why is Katy doing this to us?” one student looked at me and asked. I tried my best to explain that change was part of life and that Katy ISD wasn’t doing this to them, they were doing this to help all students have exactly what they needed to best learn, that we were getting too big, so more schools needed to be built. I even told them about how the same thing happened to me as a little girl, in Katy ISD, with the building of Fielder Elementary and Beck Junior High…how my friends and I were separated, not once, but twice…how it made for a special bond between the Katy High and Taylor High classes of 2001. Some took comfort in knowing that we were alike, others weren’t having it. “Channel your inner Julie Harrison, your inner Kelley Carr, your inner Christina Dismuke, what would they say or do? How can we turn this negative into a positive?” was my inner dialogue.


 Julie, Kelley, Christina


After letting them talk it out, I asked them if I could read them a book. They agreed and so I began reading the picture book, “We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song” by  
Debbie Levy and Vanessa Brantley-Newton. It was a long shot, but I was going to try and make a connection and turn this situation into an empowering one for these kiddos. If you are not familiar with this book, let me give you a quick summary. It is all about slavery, race relations, and the journey of equality and doing the right thing between blacks and whites. The book walks the reader through history, showing the reader that even in times of struggle, strife and pain…there was a reason to sing, to celebrate, to believe that “we will overcome” this obstacle in front of us.



As I read, the faces of my precious babies softened, their tears weren’t falling as hard, and one by one I saw them move closer, hold hands and lean on one another. The message of the book was healing not only their hearts, but mine as well. What these precious children don’t know is that I have been struggling with this change too, knowing that MRE staff members are embarking on a new journey to open a new school, worrying about losing friends and part of my support system. I wondered how many adults in our building are dealing with the exact same feelings these 4th graders are dealing with, even the ones that are excited to go, don’t want to leave others behind. I kept reading, trying not to think about the power of this exact moment too much, knowing I would turn into a puddle of emotion, if I did. My voice quivered a bit, but I knew it was okay for these 4th graders to hear me being real. I looked up and a few students were getting up and went to stand on a line, a crack in the cement. At first I thought, “What are they doing,” but before I could make sense of it, they made sense of it for me. In the most genuine, quiet, orderly fashion, the rest of the students followed. They all stood as one, side by side, on that line, arms around each other, now swaying as I sat on the concrete finishing up the book, “We Shall Overcome”. When the book ended they all clapped and as if it were scripted, the biggest group hug in the entire world happened.



There was no more sadness, there was hope. We went back to the classroom and brainstormed ways we, this class of the most beautiful souls put together for such a time as this, could communicate and stay in touch. Email? Texting? Apps? Websites?  We don’t have it all set in stone yet, but together, 19 4th graders and one humbled teacher, are building a plan to keep the lines of communication open and OVERCOME our fear of change. Yesterday, REAL LIFE happened at Morton Ranch Elementary, and it was the most beautiful lesson I have ever witnessed. 19 empowered 4th graders supported each other, worked through a tough growing pain and TAUGHT the teacher something so much bigger than anything in the curriculum.


Miss Renee Glasscock





Monday, May 9, 2016

May 9 - Mrs. McKelvey, Second Grade



I was inspired last week by this student's face when he "harvested" our radishes we grew in the garden outside!  He made such a great connection to what we are learning in Science; touching each part of the real plant in his hand and describing it to me.  The power of hands-on learning is incredible.  He's promised to bring me the recipe for his vegetable stew!

Mrs. Tonya McKelvey

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

April 19 - Ms. Wilmore, Special Education

Passion Awakened in the Midst of the Storm

As I awoke this morning on day two of being home-bound due to the hazardous storms that have swept through the Houston/Katy area over the past several days, I felt a bit of sadness that today I would not be going to school AGAIN!
Yes, like most people, I was really grateful for the unexpected “three-day” weekend and used my time off to relax, catch up on some work assignments, and watch documentaries (my favorite past time…weird I know)! But oddly enough, after that first day off, my heart began to yearn for the classroom, to teach and mold the minds of my young learners.

Without a doubt, this extended weekend has once again rekindled my purpose and passion for being an educator. I think being an educator is not just a “job” it is a CALLING. Teaching is something you wake up thinking about and go to bed thinking about. It’s what causes us to spend our “vacations” researching new topics, watching YouTube videos on how to set up a classroom, attending professional development courses, and creating innovative lessons with household items with high hopes that the project will go as well in “real-life” as it did in our heads when we created it!

I wonder if I am the only one who is missing the classroom and the excitement of being an educator at MRE?


Ms. Tiffany Wilmore


Tuesday, April 12, 2016

April 12 - Ms. Silva, Third Grade

#PositivePostIt Day

After attending the #WGEDD Conference on April 8-9, 2016, I returned back to school with so many exciting ideas and inspired to continue making this school year as great as possible for my students! One of the presenters was Todd Nesloney @TechNinjaTodd, and he encouraged all educators to participate in #PositivePostIt Day on Tuesday, April 12. 

We did a condensed version in our classroom, yet it was amazing for our third graders to write a post-it to celebrate the “awesome” in a classmate and themselves. They quickly finished their post-it about a classmate- from “You are my best friend because you are kind” to “You are great at soccer,” but I think the most powerful part of this experience was the time they took to reflect about themselves. One of the students wrote “I love my handsomeness,” and it was wonderful to see this student who had struggled with self-confidence in the past years write that about himself! Another student, a very quiet girl, wrote that she was awesome at dancing! Imagine our surprise and the encouragement from everyone to soon show us what she knew how to do. Another student wrote about loving her glasses, and this was so important in a classroom where we had a couple of students not wear their glasses because of the insecurity of what others would say about them. “I’m awesome at drawing!” was what another student wrote, and yes he is! Every single post-it they wrote about themselves went on our “Dot Door” where we taped their dots after reading The Dot by Peter Reynolds earlier in the school year.
           


Every day we work on building a classroom where students believe in themselves, and this exercise demonstrated how far we have come this year. I loved #PositivePostIt Day, and it is definitely something that I will continue to celebrate with my students in the future!


Ms. Erika Silva