One year in a school: An emotional upheaval

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, May 20, 1999 | 11:40 a.m.

This is the fifth day of a seven-day series that chronicles the lives of fourth graders in a classroom at Helen Jydstrup Elementary School. Reporter Benjamin Grove closely followed the class during the first three months of this school year and has monitored the students' progress since then. The Sun changed the names of the students, their teacher and substitute teachers to protect the children's identities. Names of other teachers are real.

Today teacher John Pendry reflects on what his students are learning and the sometimes harried routine they endure.

Monday, Oct. 19, 1998

It's been a hectic few weeks for John Pendry's class.

"I've been gone, they've been moving from class to class," Pendry says. "They don't know whose class they are in. We have not established a routine in here in all."

Pendry has been out of the classroom for several days for seminars. His students have had substitute teachers. They also have been taking the TerraNova standardized tests, which must be taken during October. Students also are preparing for the Nevada Day school play.

And now pupil shuffling. Three of Pendry's students are transferring to the school's newly created fourth grade class.

Pendry is upset and feels helpless.

Several times today he laments to other teachers, "Between the testing and the play, I may get an hour of academics in."

It's even less than that. They get about 15 minutes for spelling practice later in the day. Pendry notes this in an atypical week.

"Next week we will regain some semblance of a normal day," Pendry says.

It's the first official day for the sixth fourth grade class at Jydstrup. Several students have been plucked from each of the other five classes to create the new section.

The new teacher, in his first teaching job, is having a rough day. Amid other problems, he can't find enough books.

Pendry was supposed to lose six pupils to the new class. But the parents of Jennifer, Jorge and Roberto H. joined a chorus of crying parents in the office this morning, begging principal Nadine Nielsen to let their children stay put -- with Pendry.

So Cheyenne, Darius and Elizabeth are Pendry's only students to become part of the new class.

Splitting up classes is sometimes an emotional upheaval for children and interrupts a sense of continuity and routine. Darius was so upset he threatened to ruin the school play if Pendry moved him.

For parents, it's worse. "Adults have a harder time adjusting than the kids do," Nielsen says.

But now that the move has happened, the children don't seem to care much.

Just a few days after the change, Darius already refers to the new class as "my class."

Still, creating a new class has created a bureaucratic headache, made parents angry and ignited a search for books and supplies.

And Pendry still has a big class, just three pupils fewer.

"Tell me about it," Pendry sighs.

Test time

Pendry is picking up students from their music class. There should be enough time before lunch for students to take the last four sections of the TerraNova.

It's the third week of the tests -- students typically take one section of the test each day. Pendry wants to take four sections today to get the whole thing out of the way.

Pendry has told the students that the standardized test taken by students nationwide will not affect their grades.

"But I had to tell them it was a very important test, or they would just fill in the bubbles," Pendry says.

He adds: "Amal is just filling in the bubbles."

Pendry has sent Amal, who continues to be a disruption, to a corner where his desk is squeezed between a cabinet and the sink.

After getting the class settled after music, Pendry dismisses students by rows to go to the bathroom. It takes about 10 minutes. Then Pendry passes out pencils to students who say they have none. He lets them sharpen the pencils by row.

Another 10 minutes tick by. "It's amazing how an hour of testing can turn into an hour and 50 minutes," he says.

Students get drinks of water in the classroom as their classmates finish pencil sharpening. Ramon lingers at the fountain and then says "My tummy is stuffed."

Pendry announces: "Stop drinking so much water. The more you drink, the more you have to go to the bathroom. It's a never ending cycle of consumption and elimination." Students laugh.

Pendry finally begins explaining the test and going over the sample questions. The first test is 20 vocabulary questions. Fifteen minutes are allowed.

"I can give you directions, but I cannot tell you what a word means," Pendry tells them.

Finally, after 43 minutes of directions and trying to keep a lid on a rowdy classroom, the students start their first TerraNova test of the day. Pendry keeps time.

Some students are easily distracted. Dean picks his nose, then ponders his finger. Shannon T. coughs a loud hacking cough and looks up helplessly at Pendry. "I just got back from a camping trip," she explains.

Darius asks Pendry to define "rough" for him. Darius has never seen the word. Pendry explains he cannot help him.

Difficult words

After 15 minutes, most students are finished. On the vocabulary and "language mechanics" tests, students are asked to find synonyms for words like "vividly" and "banquet," difficult words for these students.

Asked if the test is hard, Ramon says, "kinda." Maria says, "Yeah. I had a hard time with No. 4."

(No. 4 was: Fill in the blank with the word that fits in both blanks. Jane has a new --. That bell has a nice --. Answer: ring.)

"I guessed," Maria says.

Pendry later says some of the words are over their heads.

" 'Intention' -- yeah, they use the word 'intention' a lot," Pendry says, sarcastically.

Pendry knows he is not supposed to do it, but he goes over each of the subtest directions. Carefully reading directions is part of the test.

The math computation test is the last exercise. Just before students begin working, Ray bolts from his desk for destinations unknown.

Pendry leads him back. "I wish these desks had seat belts," Pendry mutters.

Math test problems vary and include addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

A few minutes after Pendry says, "Go!" Teresa Lee, one of Pendry's two special education students, is still fiddling with a paper cat she cut out this morning.

She plays with a paper towel, despite Pendry goading her to begin work. She goes to the trash can in the room. She spends about eight of the 20 minutes allotted for the test actually working on the test.

Teresa Lee gets six or seven questions done -- most incorrectly -- in the 20 minutes.

She hurriedly fills in the rest of the bubbles in the last 30 seconds.

Ray also has just filled in bubbles at random.

The students have not yet been taught how to do some of the problems, such as any multiple-digit multiplication and division problems.

Pendry is called into the hall shortly after the test is over. A few minutes later, Pendry calls Nasser and Hannah into the hall.

The students return to class looking shell-shocked.

Pendry was talking to Nasser's parents, who had come to school to find their son.

Stolen goods

Nasser's uncle has been visiting the family from Saudi Arabia. Nasser had stolen the man's portable CD player and an autographed picture of Michael Jordan. Then he gave the goods to Hannah.

Hannah still has the Jordan photo at school. She hands it over. But she took the CD player home.

Her mom brings it to school by the end of the day.

"I didn't give my girlfriend these kinds of gifts in college," Pendry muses later, laughing. "He likes her, I guess."

At lunch Pendry calls Ray's dad. The boy is openly disobeying him. Ray's father agrees to stop in after school.

After lunch it's time for play rehearsal. Students will perform the skit Thursday night for parents.

Six classes at Jydstrup have prepared songs, poems and skits. Pendry's class performs a play in which Shannon T. is the teacher of a mock class learning a lesson on Nevada.

Pendry observes, "The kids like it," referring to the play.

But Pendry resents spending so much time on something with marginal learning value.

Pendry spends two hours babysitting his antsy pupils. Ramon throws a bead at the first graders while they perform. Five students ask if they can use the restroom. Pendry denies all requests.

Ray and Jennifer, a sharp-tongued girl who sometimes wears her bangs pasted to her head with hair-care products, are bickering. The two often gravitate to each other, usually to argue and fling insults.

"If my eyes are hanging out of my head by the veins, and I am clutching my chest, you'll know why," Pendry says. "You can't expect kids this age to sit still this long."

Just before the bell, Pendry catches Roberto L. making a circle with the fingers of one hand and moving his index finger of his other hand in and out.

Pendry tells him to get in the hall and wait for him. He spends several minutes scolding the boy for making the gesture. This wasn't the first time. At lunch recess, Roberto and Ray were making the gesture and telling girls to "Suck it."

The girls had told a playground supervisor, so Pendry knew about it. After class is dismissed, Pendry follows Roberto out to where his mother is picking him up from school.

Mom in shock

Pendry tells Roberto's mother everything. She is genuinely shocked. Pendry has Roberto repeat the motion for his mom. Slowly, painfully, the boy demonstrates the gesture he had made on the playground.

The woman is floored.

"She gasped," Pendry says later, describing the encounter. "I thought she was going to keel over."

Then it was Ray's turn. Ray's dad shows up after school. He immediately begins scolding Ray.

"What were you doing?" he demands.

"Playing around and not obeying," Ray says, sheepishly.

Ray's dad continues scolding his son. Pendry jumps in to explain that the reason he called his dad was that the boy had openly defied him.

"I told you what to do and you pushed me," Pendry tells the boy in front of his father. "You pushed me to see how far you could go. That's a shoving match you are not going to win."

Ray's dad asks his son, "What is going to happen tonight?"

"I get the belt," Ray answers, softly.

His father also announces that there will also be no TV, no Nintendo, no toys and no hockey practice.

It's a painful 15-minute conference. Ray holds it together until the end when his dad thanks Pendry and then tells his son to apologize to Pendry.

Ray extends his hand and mutters "I'm sorry." Then he breaks down. His dad tells him he isn't falling for his "crocodile tears."

After the meeting, Pendry says, "It's going to be a long night for both Ray and Roberto."

The practicum teacher is a no-show again today. The UNLV education major who has begun her new career student teaching in Pendry's class, has missed several classes.

"I think she is slowly realizing this is not something she wants to do," Pendry says.

She has good days and bad, sometimes connecting with the students, other times struggling.

"She gets where she can't keep control," Pendry says. "And she wants me to bail her out. I won't."

The woman eventually has her final day in Pendry's classroom in mid-November. It's a stressful day for her: both Pendry and a UNLV professor evaluate her as she leads the students through an art project. She shows students how to make turkeys with construction paper, Styrofoam balls and pipe cleaners.

She tells the students they can color the turkeys any way they want. Teresa Lee draws hearts on her turkey. The teacher-in-training tells her, "No, it's not Valentine's Day."

Pendry notes that the lesson has nothing to do with any curriculum, but he gives her a shining evaluation. When the lesson is over she thanks Pendry and heads out the door with hopes of having her own class by next school year.

Thursday, Oct. 22, 1998

Show time. The school's multi-purpose room is packed full of parents, dressed mostly in T-shirts and sweat pants, eager to see their children perform in the Nevada Day production.

The show goes as well as expected. It drags on for about an hour. Second graders go first, with a poem they read in unison, "Here in the Southwestern Desert."

Meanwhile, Pendry is trying to keep his students calm in the hall.

Six of them did not show up, so Pendry hastily assigns chronically shy Gwen and several others to fill in holding props and reading lines. Amal is among the no-shows.

"Some of them -- their parents just don't get 'em here," Pendry says.

Finally, Pendry's students are on stage and perform their parts well.

Pendry talks about the pre-show chaos: "They were killing me," he says. "As soon as they got in the spotlight, though, they were perfect."

Thursday, Oct. 29, 1998

The annual fall carnival at Jydstrup has been cranking since 5 p.m., despite unseasonably cool temperatures and a light afternoon rain.

Outside the front door of the school, students are learning a Latin dance. On the playground, a small train offers rides to several dozen children at a time. One of the Jydstrup fathers, a hulking man with a huge pair of cooking tongs, is tending hot dogs.

Inside the multi-purpose room, teachers are running carnival games and collecting tickets hand over fist.

Some of Pendry's students are there: Dean is with his dad. Holly and Shannon R., close friends who together worship the Spice Girls, are hanging around Pendry.

Shannon's mom stands nearby and discusses how Shannon lately has been hanging out with a girl several years older.

"She's in middle school," the woman says. "Oh, boy."

Pendry is immediately recognizable, wearing a bright yellow clown wig. He keeps brushing the hair out of his face, much like Lucy does in class.

"This thing is really sweaty," he says. And, later, "I went through seven years of college for this?"

Pendry is running the karaoke machine, one of the most popular booths at the carnival.

The girl all want to sing songs by the Spice Girls. "There are no offensive lyrics in here are there?" Pendry keeps asking as they request songs.

Girls request four Spice Girls songs in a row.

"I had never heard this song, until tonight," Pendry said of the song, "Spice Up Your Life."

"Now I've heard it six times."

The girls aren't really singing, it's more yelling as they try to keep up with the teleprompter as the music blares. Karoake is a kind of reading exercise, Pendry says.

"I should integrate this into my curriculum," the teacher says.

Tuesday, Nov. 3, 1998

A math problem pops up in physical education class this morning.

The 27 students in Pendry's class today covered a combined 58 laps. Shannon R. wants to know how many miles the class ran. She knows four laps equals a mile.

The fourth grader calculates the problem in her head. (58 divided by 4.)

"Twelve miles," she announces. Then she corrects herself: 13. (Actual mileage: 14.5)

Back in class it's math time.

Pendry has been pushing division problems as he continues to drill pupils on multiplication.

Pendry has moved Amal to a desk up against the board. "A front-row seat," Pendry says.

He asks Amal to divide 19 by 3. Amal has no clue how to get started. He shrugs.

But Pendry won't let him off the hook. He pushes him to think it through. Amal stares. Pendry explains it's essentially a "backwards multiplication" problem.

He runs through the multiplication tables -- tables students are supposed to have memorized by the end of third grade.

He writes them on the board. 3 times 1 is 3; 3 times 2 is 6; 3 times 4 is 12; 3 times 5 is 15; 3 times 6 is 18.

"Eighteen? Does that go into 19?" Pendry asks Amal, turning back to the division problem.

Amal looks confused, but senses that 18 must be a good answer.

Amal nods.

"How much is 19 minus 18?" Pendry asks.

One, Amal answers. That's your answer, Pendry says: 6 remainder 1. Amal seems confused.

"You know I'm going to keep making you do this until you understand it," Pendry tells Amal.

The boy grimaces, then forces a phony smile. He's uncomfortable.

"It will come," Pendry says, softening his tone a little. "You need to pay attention a little more, and it will seem easier."

(For now, students learn division with remainders. Later, they will learn how to calculate answers in decimals.)

Some of the brighter students, like Hannah, Molly, and Ramon, seem desperately bored. Hannah and Molly stare blankly. Ramon squirms in his desk, scanning the room.

Finally, Pendry pulls the answer out of Richard, who seems more confused than ever. He's just relieved it's over.

It's Armand's turn. 25 divided by 3.

"How many times does 3 go into 25? What do you multiply by 3 to get a number close to, but less than, 25?" Pendry asks.

Armand struggles, then blurts out an answer.

"Thirty-seven," the boy says.

Pendry pauses. Armand and his teacher stare at each other for a moment.

"What?" Pendry asks, disbelieving. "No ... 37, did you say?"

Time for a speech.

'If you can't do multiplication, you can't do division," he tells the class, pausing to let it sink in.

"It all builds and builds. If I ask you what 3 times 8 is and you all look at me like your heads are going to explode, that's a problem. If I could somehow plug these numbers into your head, I would. You have to work on these. You have to learn them. You have to work on them at home. How many of you have flash cards at home? You know whether you know them or not."

Later Pendry discusses the lesson: "They are so low. Armand! Thirty-seven! He has no idea even of what we were doing. It's like when you ask a kindergartner the difference between a hundred and a million. They have no concept of it."

Later in the afternoon it's time for social studies.

"We've studied the symbols, the state bird, the flag -- of Nevada," Pendry announces. "Now we are going to study the people."

Pendry leads them through a lesson on five of the native Indian tribes of Nevada, Southern and Northern Paiute, Shoshone, Washoe, Mojave. Students draw maps depicting where the tribes once lived.

Ramon makes an ironic observation: Of the five tribes, Ramon notices that the Shoshone once occupied the largest share of what is now Nevada.

"Wow," he says. "They're rich."

Tuesday, Nov. 10, 1998

The class is in the middle of boardwork.

Little by little, students pick their way through two sentences, correcting grammar, punctuation, capitalization mistakes.

This routine seems very familiar to them now. They know what to look for: periods at the ends of sentences, capital letters at the beginning.

The boardwork geography question today: what direction is Bangor, Maine, from Los Angeles?

Fourth graders have learned north, south, east, west. But Dean answers correctly: northeast.

For emphasis, Pendry pretends like he doesn't understand. "Do you mean north or east?" he asks.

"Northeast," Dean insists.

Giving direction

"Wait a minute," Pendry says. "If I were in Kansas going to Missouri, what direction?"

East, the class answers.

"From Texas to South Dakota?"

North, the class says.

"OK, then. Which way is it from LA to Bangor?"

"Northeast," Dean insists, laughing.

The rest of the class giggles as Pendry heads for the door.

"Just a minute," the teacher tells them.

From the hall, the class hears a well-acted scream of frustration from Pendry, "Ahhhhh..."

The students burst out in laughter as Pendry re-enters.

"OK, someone explain how this is possible -- northeast?"

Hannah explains it's both north and east. Pendry draws a compass rose on the board that includes northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest.

Pendry lets Amal hold the pointer he has been using.

"Don't do anything disgusting with it," Pendry tells him.

Amal immediately begins using it a sword.

Later Pendry discusses a troubling problem: the class has abandoned long division for now.

"They just don't know how to multiply," Pendry says. "They don't know their times tables."

Clark County pupils are supposed to learn multiplication tables in third grade, but about half of Pendry's students don't know them yet.

So they are back to more reviewing. Pendry is bummed.

He has modified some college drinking games into math games -- minus the drinks. The children are oblivious to the game origins.

"I have to fight the urge to yell, 'Drink!' " Pendry says.

FRIDAY: Pendry navigates his class through the writing process. Later separate groups of students leave their classmates for special attention in two programs -- one for students who need extra help reading and one for gifted children.

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