Always Alone | ✓

Chapter Eight

C, C, D, B, B, F, D, and the grades keep dropping. What have I done? I think to myself as I grade the reading and science tests my kids took today.

It has to be me, obviously.

As a first-year teacher in charge of my own classroom, the thought of failing my students has been floating above me like a nimbus cloud about to burst. I've been terrified they won't understand what I've taught them and as I look at these results, all I can think of is, I've failed you all.

I go online and search How to teach science to second graders? Coming up to a PBS website, I read an article talking about different strategies and the best one to use with second graders. I land on a YouTube video with ideas on the Water Cycle and the Life Cycle of Plants and Animals.

I type on the search engine How to teach reading to second graders? and read about the emphasis on fluency and automaticity. Jotting down some methods and new strategies, I soon notice that all the ideas would work great for most English-speaking student, but not for my English Learners, so I research ESOL in Science and Reading as I spent yet another hour studying new approaches for ELLs.

"Miss Peterson, what are you still doing here?" I jolt in alert at Mrs. Ruiz' voice.

Placing a hand over my rhythmic heart, I feel it running in my chest. "My goodness, you scared me." I look back at the computer and see it's almost 6:00 pm.

Crap, it's late.

"I lost track of time," I tell her. "Did you forget something?"

"Oh, yes. I'm helping Erik with his math project and left the cardboard here. I was five minutes away from home when I remembered and had to come rushing back. If it weren't due Monday, I would've gone home and picked it up another time."

Erik is her sixteen-year-old son, who, from what she's told me, is a great baseball player, not much of a mathematician, though. I can't believe she does his projects for him. How in the world is he going to learn? But what do I know about learning, my kids are failing my class.

"Mrs. Ruiz, can I talk to you for a second?"

"Of course." She walks over to me, looking like a giant as she takes a seat on a student's desk. "What is it?"

I don't know of a better way to say this than to just blurt it out. "I think I'm a bad teacher."

"What? You're a great teacher. I've seen you and you're very passionate, not to mention the kids love you. What are you talking about?"

"Look." I hand her the stack of papers holding evidence of my failure. I hold my breath while she assesses them, raising her eyebrow and tilting her head occasionally. That can't be good, can it?

"Miss Peterson." Mrs. Ruiz gives me a stern look and begins, "I've been teaching second grade for fifteen years. Trust me when I say, this isn't entirely your fault."

I scoff. Not entirely my fault?

"Oh, I didn't mean it that way." She swats at the air.

"Our curriculum focus is mainly on reading and math and because we don't do standardized testing on social studies or science, students don't see the value it contributes to their lives. Kids don't understand that science teaches them to make sense of the world around them. They think reading is boring because the books the district demands us to use are boring and frankly, inconsequential."

"Since they're ELLs I don't know if it's a language clause or if it's me and since I have no prior experience, I don't know what to do and the weights keep pushing me down," I confess my insecurities. "I just wish I could fast-forward this year and let the unknowns be part of the past so that I can show my true potential as a teacher. I want to be done with my first-year mistakes."