I had quite a surprise before school started this morning. I was supposed to be getting a new student (a Hispanic boy), but the resource teacher showed up & informed me I’d be getting a girl who had suffered mild hearing loss & had hearing aids in both ears. I was a little thrown off guard, especially when her grandmother started asking me questions, & informed me that her mom would like to meet with me tomorrow. The resource teacher went over some basic accommodations for this student in my classroom & then flew out of my room to make a copy of her plan. (One major aspect of that plan is that I will start teaching with a microphone/headset so that she can hear me even more effectively. I reminded the resource teacher that I have a loud clear voice, usually, but it's part of my student's accommodation plan, so....this will be interesting!)
I got really nervous at first & was somewhat confused as well, but kept trying to smile at her as I discussed her circumstances with those ladies & inquired as to whether or not she signs. I said a silent prayer in my heart after that, that I would be able to meet her needs, whatever it took, especially since I placed her up front by me, with her good ear facing me during instruction. She seems like a really sweet girl. The only problems we had today, were the boys complaining that the Hispanic boy originally assigned to my classroom was now in the other 4th grade class instead of ours, & probably wouldn't play soccer with them now....or increase the ratio of boys to girls in the room. But for the most part, classmates took her under their wing, & even made special efforts to play with her at recess (with a little prodding from the teacher.)
I think the funniest thing that happened today was when I announced that we were going on a walking field trip to discover evidences of erosion around the school, & my student Luis raised his hand & asked if they could invite their parents to come along. I looked at him carefully, & then said, “You’re not going to have time to invite them to come with us right now.” He looked confused, and then said, “I thought we were talking about the field trip later this month.: To which I replied, “Ummm...we’re in the middle of science right now. Why would I be talking about our field trip in a couple of weeks?”

First Christmas Letter

Dear family & friends,
Merry Christmas & happy holidays! This has been an eventful year for me! I will be graduating from BYU in the spring (April 2012) & I have been teaching fourth grade in downtown Salt Lake through a BYU internship this school year, & it has been both a challenge & a great joy in my life. I really enjoy it though, & my students teach me so much, especially about life. It has not been without serious difficulty at points, but I know I’m where I need to be.
I love my new student ward in Murray too;I have been called to serve as a ward missionary & really enjoy that calling thus far (though it also requires much of my time.)
May we all remember the true meaning of Christmas, as we consider the diligent journey of the Wise Men to find the young king, the Christ child. I have found true symbolism in their journey, as I search for the Savior & know that we all can & must seek Him in our individual lives, & give Him the only unique thing we can even offer-our will & our heart. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it: "What you are is God's gift to you; what you do with yourself is your gift to God."
Merry Christmas & may you have a happy & prosperous new year!
With Love, (Ms.) Katie Bauserman

New Problems Arise!

My family came & visited the classroom over Thanksgiving Break! Kel, Sammy, Joey, Dad, & Mom all let my students read to them throughout the room, while I worked primarily with my Spanish group on comprehension strategies. I also had Dad teach the kids a lesson on the thankful turkey we always have hanging in our home every Thanksgiving (listing a blessing on 5 fingers traced). They loved & very much needed the visit; I fear I can never properly give them the strictly individual attention they desire.
They performed a Reader’s Theater on Thanksgiving after lunch for the kindergarten & sixth grades; I was pretty proud of them, overall! Then they got to have their root beer float party (for good behavior)--they all wanted thirds! And they were doing the strangest things, like pouring chocolate & caramel on top of the ice-cream floating in the root beer. SUGAR overload.


Many new developments arose today; I’m not sure why I thought coming back from Thanksgiving break would be relatively smooth. First there was discussing with one of my favorite troublemakers his bad decision to take another student by the collar & push him down to the ground on the way out of school Tuesday (escaping before I could properly discipline him for it.) Later on, after giving him a copy of the write-up to take home & get signed, when he should have been working on his math self-start, I found him forging his dad’s name on the form where a parent’s signature is required. I realized in that instant that he’s been forging his dad’s name on his reading logs & occasionally in his planner as well; this could develop into a pretty serious problem later on in his life, especially because he’s tried to be so deceitful about it. Yikes!
Then the assistant principal stopped in to talk to me about a boy getting bullied in my class, mainly because of his girly looks & shy nature. His mom has been in close contact with the office & wants me to be on the look-out for instances when he might be bullied; I spoke with him privately about how he needs to come to me & let me know when such instances occur. The assistant principal said the school counselors are working with Bailey to try to help build up his confidence & teach him how to be more assertive; I can’t imagine they’re going to have much success in that endeavor, however. He’s a painfully shy kid & his mom allows him to skip school every Friday because it’s been difficult for him to adjust to public school (since he has been home-schooled in years past.) The assistant principal really feels like he’s being babied by his mom overall, & I’d have to agree.
Finally there’s the situation my student who has serious behavioral disorders. He was really “on one” today & he was out of seat almost every time I turned around, distracting or bothering other students. He was also especially defiant to me, especially when I pointed out that he needed to stay in for some of his recess since he lied to me about getting “yes’s” on his behavior scorecard (a mechanism I've implemented to help him stay on-task during instructional time.)He wanted to get a green card pretty badly, I guess (primarily because the counselor will reward him with something like a Transformer toy if he gets enough positives or green cards from me, which, if you ask me, is a pretty messed up system anyway, since it's based around bribery.) He also told me he’d had enough in my class, since other students are always telling on him, & that he would be moving to the other 4th grade class promptly.
He kept saying there were things he needed to get off his chest, but then never said anything particularly enlightening as to why he was acting the way he was. That child is a mystery to me.
The principal came in & observed me today as well (for my ECAP observation.) She mentioned to me in a note she left that she saw some good things & that we’d debrief Thursday. It really wasn’t too stressful having her there during my nouns lesson (as I had supposed it might be.) The kids were pretty engaged for most of that lesson though, & that makes a big difference. I love it when they get excited about learning & it's personalized for them!

It's been a really really rough rough week.....

The past few days have seemed endless; oh look! I'm capitalizing on our suffixes lesson...is it weird that I'm walking around labeling everything I say now? Probably. Well, there are some updates & some funny & serious highlights to share. Tomorrow is our first class field trip; that should be fun! And somewhat interesting as well.
Today when I was teaching the Literacy block, I asked my students to think of an adjective the author used in the story to describe the cattle. One of my students, without thinking or raising his hand blurted out "the cows were horny?" Oh dear........I told him that while the cows have horns that does not make them...ahem, well you get the idea. At least I didn't laugh aloud when he said it, or he would probably have kept repeating that phrase the entire day!
After-school today, my favorite troublemaker's mom came to get him & to get a report on how he's doing; today wasn't such a great day to check up on all that. Furthermore, he brought his mom's personally obtained crystals to school & started trading them with other students at recess & giving them away to others in the class. She was pretty furious when she made that discovery after school. ...& I found it interesting that she said the reason he just has a bag & not a backpack with pockets is because he likes to hide things he shouldn't be bringing to school. Weird.
Last night I graded writing samples my students wrote from awhile ago. They were written based on a prompt about good memories shared with friends. Unfortunately, one of my students mentioned his brother getting arrested during his "good memory" retelling; that really broke my heart. These kids really have a tough life & I'm just so amazed that they make it to school every day.
p.s. If you've heard this phrase before, go ahead & laugh, but if not, ask me what it means....I just learned today! Corn-dogging (and I'm not talking about the food connotation....)

The Plot Thickens......

So....today I was rudely "awakened" to one of my students' misbehaviors last week (which I knew he'd gotten suspended for, but was unsure of the details.) Imagine my surprise when the principal telephoned my room, in the middle of instructional time for literacy, & informed me of my students' suspension lasting until Thursday, since she can't get a court hearing before Wednesday. The court hearing developed from the fact that, not only did this student have posession of a weapon on the playground last week (razor blades) but he actually harmed another student! What a nightmare :/
Then, one of the girls in my classroom had to move her clip 4 times (she's become quite the "talker" lately during instruction) & she started bawling when she was told to go write a letter home, as the consequences so clearly outline, & admitted she's been acting out in class & talking because she doesn't get much attention from her mom (since she's gotten engaged & is a student as well.) That was so sad for me.
And on top of all that, most of my co-workers couldn't help but come by & comment about Saturday's slaughter; the massacre of BYU by Utah (since the corner of my classroom is decked out in BYU.) *Sigh* I'm so glad tomorrow's a new day!

The Gospel on the Art of Disciplining & Teaching

As I have been considering some of my more troublesome students (3 in particular) & their behaviors in the classroom as of late, I have taken some extra measures to encourage good behaviors from them, to replace the undesirable behaviors constantly manifest instead. For some of them, I have talked to their parents & the school counselor & enacted a behavior implementation plan (which entails cooperation of the parents at home to take away privileges if the student had an unsatsifactory day at school & my discipline plan had no effect on them in the classroom), moving seats closer to the front where I can see every off-task behavior, & even using scorecards on their desks to indicate when they are displaying "yes" or "no" behaviors. I took some guidance & comfort from a General Conference address given by Elder Lynn G. Robbins this past April; his infamous "to be and to do" talk. While the talk was directed towards parents, there are many gems of truth that can be applied in the educator's realm as well. He said: "We will never have a greater opportunity to teach & show Christlike attributes to our children than in the way we discipline them. Discipline comes from the same root word as disciple & implies patience & teaching on our part. ..you might consider the more challenging child a blessing & opportunity to become more godlike yourself. Could it be possible that you need this child as much as this child needs you?"
What a concept! But it is true; in my ongoing quest to become more godlike, these students & future students & children, can assist me in that quest, by encouraging me to be more patient, diligent, & charitable in disciplining them.

Today was an interesting one; my kids were really making me laugh when they interacted with volunteers from the Church who came to do the United Day of Caring (i.e. organize activities & games with the kids & eat lunch with us). When one of the volunteers introduced himself as someone who gets to "play" on the computer all day, a software engineer, one of my students blurted out, "I'd like to take your job!" And later, when students' cultures & languages spoken were being discussed, another student said, "Well, I'm not really from Mexico, but that's where my mom got pregnant." (If you've read earlier entries, he's the same one that said he's not really Mormon, but that he goes to church so they give him stuff for free.)
Unfortunately, the afternoon didn't end too well; two of my students got in a fight during the "extra recess" provided by the school counselor, & it escalated to the point that they ended up in the principal's office talking to her about it after-school. Also, one of the students has already gotten in a fight since school started, & he claims it stems from anger management issues. :/ I don't really know how to respond to that. We all have to learn how to manage anger & frustration in our lives though.
Also, I had to talk to the school counselor after-school today, & I'm lucky I snagged him, to refer 2 students to him for counseling. One of them being the young man who is picking fights with other students continually & the other the young man with ADHD & a lot of social behavior issues. With him I decided to pull his desk up to the front of the room, hoping that proximity to me will help keep him in check, & made a small "score card" to put in front of his desk to indicate when he is behaving & on-task (which will ultimately lead to a reward) & when his behavior is unacceptable. It mostly worked like a charm, today!
We'll see what tomorrow brings!