My first open house.

No, we have not had an open house at our apartment yet. We are still working on moving in 3 months later....

Open House refers to the night where parents come to the school mostly to find out if their son/daughter is passing. Our open house was from 6-8pm on Thursday night. What a long day. I got to school at 7:15am, had school until 3:55pm, football from 4-6, and then changed and rushed to the Auditorium. We then moved the 6th parents into the cafeteria to give them our little shpeel and introduce the teachers. We were expecting a few rows of parents, but they ended up filling the whole place. This was exciting. Our expectation as teachers in this area was that only a few parents would come to this open house, whether it was because they had other children at different schools, they were at work, or, sadly, because they didn't care. The presentation was a little shaky, and I was facing some mad anxiety due to the fact that most people were talking over the speaker. Our attempts to shush the hundreds of people were cruelly shut down, mostly because the speaker was speaking English, and the majority of the parents only spoke Spanish. Let's face it, if someone was talking at a big group of people in German and you had no idea what they were saying, you'd get bored and start talking to your family and friends too.

So, after the presentation, the parents were told they could go around to the classrooms of their students and talk to the teachers. I ran up to my room at waited for eager parents who just wanted to know "how is she doing." For many of the starry eyed little girls who accompanied their mothers, I opened with "well this one is a trouble maker, nahhh I'm just kidding." They all seemed to enjoy the joke, and pretty much knew that their daughters were angels. For others I told the parents that their kids were talkers, and they all seemed to confirm this fact. The only word I can think of to describe these encounters would be awkward. They were hanging on my every word, I was waiting for them to laugh or smile, and I pretty much just wanted it to be over so I could go home and go to bed. It was, however, nice to see the faces of the people who claimed my munchkins. Many parents spoke English, and encouraged me to call them whenever necessary. Some spoke no English and had a translator in tow (usually their son or daughter). I was getting a little tired of telling parents the same positive things over and over again, and then I realized that the parents of my trouble-makers were no where to be seen. I had about 3 seconds to think about that, and then in walked Jessica and her parents...

No more than 5 hours before, Jessica had received her first detention ever. My A4 class had been giving me a lot of trouble, so I halted instruction and said, "Okay, we are going to have 5 minutes of complete silence in order for you all to collect your thoughts and think about how the rest of class is going to change. The only stipulation is that if you speak, you will automatically receive a detention." I then checked for understanding where the student said, "If you talk, you get a detention." Very good, exactly, plain and simple. Go. 3 minutes and 12 seconds passed before Jessica raised her hand, I looked at her with wide angry eyes, and shook my head no. She then blurted out "Can I...?" I interrupted her immediately and said, "We are not talking." I then visibly pulled out a detention slip and started furiously scribbling in her information. She was devastated. Everyone looked around in disbelief. Did she really just talk? All she had to do was wait 2 more minutes. But no. Now I was writing a detention for a girl who had always been praised by every single teacher. Unfortunately, I could not take back my threat, and went along with it. Policy is to give a copy of the detention slip to the Assistant Principal who happens to have an office right across the hall. He was walking by, so I popped my head out and gave him the slip. He asked me what happened and I told him everything. He came into my classroom and proceed to give a speech to my kids about respecting me, and how they were hear to learn, don't waste time, and all of that. A known school trouble maker was sitting at the desk right under his nose. The AP put his hand on his desk and said how is Leo doing? I replied, "He's doing great." Leo looked up. The AP asked, "He's not giving you trouble?" I replied, "No, he's been awesome today." Now, not only was Leo looking up, but his eyes opened wide as if he had never heard these words uttered in his life. In a harsh moment, this look made my heart melt. The AP then said he needed to speak with the holder of the detention. He looked at the slip and said, "Jessica?" She raised her hand slightly and nodded at him. He quickly questioned the fact that this was the person who was receiving the detention, "You?" She nodded again, and he motioned for her to come with him. I continued instruction until Jessica came back in, tears streaming down her face. She walked right up to me and said, "I'm sorry Ms. Schwartz, it will never happen again." I said "thank you," and continued with the lesson. I tried to act as if I was not phased, but this had definitely affected me.

When she and her parents walked into my room that night, I was ready for the conversation. I proceeded to tell them that she is a very bright girl who is plagued by chatting. All she does is talk. I played the card that she was very social, and they got the gist of what I was saying. The parents seemed very pleased with what I was saying and the mother even told me to keep an eye on her and that if anything else happened that I should not hesitate to call. Phew. Crisis averted.

Not soon afterward, Tiffany entered my room with her very young mother. Tiffany is my favorite student. She's cool, she's calm, she's collected. She works hard and plays hard, and at the end of the day she comes to me to tell me all about it. She asks questions. She helps others. She is the perfect student. Except, she is also very social. She likes when people laugh at her jokes, she loves the camera. She loves sports and dancing, and is really involved in after school activities. Her scores are average, but I know she can succeed. She wants to succeed, and I want to help her. She is, however, constantly late to my class. She talks out of turn to get the laughs, and she eggs the trouble makers on to get more laughs. Again, I want to help her. Her mother was also a talker, she talked my ear off about what Tiff needs to do differently in my class. I really appreciated her concern, and this just made me love Tiffany even more.

The rest of the open house dragged on after that. I was relieved to hear the announcement from our principal that it was time to leave. I did a little grading, and then packed up my things. I went door to door to see if anyone was leaving so I could walk out with them. Unfortunately, everyone had left. I had never left the building after dark, and this was the first time I was actually frightened of the area. Every noise startled me. I was constantly looking over my shoulder, and did a little shuffle to my car. I quickly locked the doors and sighed heavily. I then though about the fact that I felt unsafe. It saddened me, but it was a reality.


Time for bed.

Care