dorophoria

epic FAIL

2010-10-05T09:56:00.002-05:00

I can't believe this.

Not the solution.

Prison 101

2010-07-08T16:01:00.000-05:00

How can you call us reformed and improved when schools are being run like prisons? I've seen little kids in handcuffs. You tell me, how are they ever supposed to trust us and feel safe when adults treat them like they are already criminals?

Sick.

a little side reading

2010-07-07T14:37:00.000-05:00

Where was Teacher X when I needed a laugh before?

I no longer teach. This makes me sad, but it made me more miserable to try to stick it out. The end was totally fucked up and I left before the school year ended. If you wanna hear about it, buy me a drink some time and maybe I'll subject you to the wrongness of it all. But occasionally I come across blogs like the one linked above and I think about what could have been if things had just been different. If our 'system' could just be different.

I worry about my kids - never got to tell them goodbye or why I was leaving. I hope they're okay.

a new something. maybe.

2010-01-20T20:32:00.000-06:00

I have students again and I'm back in school myself. I've considered whether to write about it. Calmer now, trying not to internalize more than necessary. If I do write, it will be here.

an end

2009-09-18T14:56:00.000-05:00

Just when I think I can step out of the ubercrap and pretend...I stop and realize that I'm not doing anybody any favors except people who don't need them. I can't actually retool this blog to be something other than open and honest. I haven't been able to post much new precisely because being superficial would defeat the purpose.

There are serious systemic and cultural issues that need to be addressed in order to truly reform our schools. The system is still corrupt and it is still broken, it is merely hiding behind a curtain painted with pretty pictures of reform. At least in my case, I think I can safely say that we are simply rebuilding the same old crap with a new face.

There's got to be a why to get this out there in the world, but I think it is safe to say that this blog is dead.

the data bitch keeps her mouth shut

2009-08-28T18:21:00.000-05:00

Just when I say I'm going to behave myself on the interwebs and not talk so much about my kids, shit flies.

Yesterday, while on bus duty, a couple of my students from last year were talking about the math teacher quitting. When the first boy mentioned it to me with his signature sneaky grin, I thought he was hatching a plot to drive the math teacher to quit (which I immediately sought to squash - if my kids want justice for being treated badly, then they cannot be participants in cruelty). Upon discussion with a larger group of boys, however, they insisted that the teacher had packed up his stuff and left that day. I tried to caution them about making such assumptions - they might get disappointed in the morning.

Today I find out that they weren't just hoping. And the only people who are really hurting on account of this guy are the kids. Don't even get me started on that rant.

And they are already interviewing someone else.

And I'm sitting in my supply closet crunching numbers (they tried to kick me out today - I shot that one down quick). Knowing that no one else outside knows those kids the way I know those kids. That's cool, though. Sometimes you've got to take the subversive route. But I gotta say, it's been hard to answer all the kids' questions about my job. Number one question, "What class you teaching?" Number two question (when they find out I'm not teaching), "Why?!" The guilty pseudo-mom side of me is trying not to feel like I've let them down by not teaching.

More on the number crunching once I've got the ELA finished.

meet the data bitch, mofos

2009-08-26T18:36:00.000-05:00

So I have not been blogging and I fully intend on taking down much of my archives and stashing those posts away offline (to the limited extent that anything can be deleted from the internets). But this is not to say that I don't intend to return to blogging, just that I intend to be more guarded and more general. There are many, many things that occur on a daily basis that I find repulsive, suspect, irresponsible, corrupt, and even abusive but the internet becomes a smaller place all the time and I can't rely on the technological deficiencies of others to keep me safe forever. Really, I'd love to be the gossip-whore and lay it all out there but I can't afford it. Sure, there are only about a dozen people who have ever read this blog but it only takes one (the wrong one) to get me in trouble.

Anyway, that's really just saying more calmly what I've already posted before. I'm technically not even teaching right now, despite retaining employment at the same school I've been at for the last two years. This is simultaneously a relief and an insult. I keep looking at the middle school math teacher and I keep thinking, "That should be MY job - those are MY kids." And no one else should be scarring my kids but me, dammit.

I worked the 8th grade LEAP remediation over the summer along with an English teacher and I crammed all the math into one month that was humanly possible. Between two teachers and 3 weeks of instruction and 1 week of testing we got more than a dozen failing 8th graders into high school. So, coming off that accomplishment, it is only understandable that I feel that the current 7th and 8th graders (my former 6th graders) should be in my classroom preparing to totally dominate the Spring 2010 LEAP test.

Oh, wait - I don't have a classroom. Or students. Meet the Data Bitch. I coordinate the benchmark tests, create the databases, crunch the numbers, examine the correlations, find the weaknesses, track the progress, and generally spend most of my day grading tests and staring at a computer screen (my own personal MacBook, because I haven't been given a school computer or desk). My "office" is the un-air conditioned room full of books and supply boxes that I have commandeered over the last few days because my make-shift table in the 60-degree computer lab is an unbearable and isolated place to work. I've been kicked out of other rooms and I keep my old teaching supplies in a cabinet in the social studies teacher's room (kids, keep your sticky fingers off my UNO Cards and my Monopoly board!). The supply closet is a little warm this time of year, but I just found out that it is illegal, due to the unfinished nature, for them to put students in the room for anything so there is almost no risk of being told I have to move again.

This was not my first choice, this job. That's all I'll say about it here. But ultimately, it's not the most awful thing that I could be doing right now and I'm rather proud of sheer quantity of useful data and statistics I've been able to produce using my custom-built databases. I feel so nerdy. Also, the less emotionally-demanding and moderate stress level of this job is going to be a plus when I get into full swing back at UNO (starting my certification process all over again). It is also giving me a very broad, school-wide perspective of the students at my school. I can see hard evidence of progress and achievement that I couldn't see before, too bogged down in my own little classroom bubble of worry. And let me tell you, folks, this is turning out to be a truly eye-opening experience.

So I'm hoping to take this blog on a slightly different course - a detour, if you will - over the course of the next year or two. First, I'm getting into this idea of how best to assess and track the achievement of students over the course of a year and over the course of their education. Tracking them is now my job, after all, and I work at an institution that strives to offer instruction that is "data-driven." What is data-driven instruction? What should it look like? And what makes for good data, anyway? What does all this standardized testing really tell us anyway and how do our NOLA kids rate, really? Second, since I am back in grad school working on my certification again and ultimately aiming for my masters degree, what's the research say about how education should operate? What does a good education look like? What does education of educators look like? I've realized over the last couple of years and many conversations with my most patient boyfriend that a lot of the educational mumbo-jumbo that I've come to take for granted as normal is not intuitive to the general public. Considering just how complex and nuanced getting just one kid properly educated has become, it is ridiculous how uneducated the public is about public education.

Allow me to throw out a quick poll on a few topics:

1. Inclusion - do you know what it is and what it means for your kids?
2. What's the difference between Special Ed and 504? (Do you know what 504 means? Negative 5 points if you tell me 504 is an area code.)
3. Discipline--nevermind, don't even get me started.

state of the blog

2009-07-20T00:15:00.004-05:00

No comment from this peanut gallery, but it'll be interesting to see how things pan out this school year with the ACSA. I know that I've become pretty disillusioned with education in general in New Orleans and my trust in my school has been shaken severely.

But my boss says I still have a job. So I go on.

I believe the nature of some of the fucked-up at my job has become too much for me to safely blog as in the past. Which isn't to say that this blog will shut down, just that I will have to make some changes. I'll be sticking to math nerd-ness and general ed. Time to lock things up and hide them away. As a teacher, I no longer feel comfortable commenting on the state of my school or New Orleans education. It's been a long time considering whether to even continue. I got a hint of what type of crap I'm really facing out there in recent months and as much as I wanted to blog about it, I realize that the internet is a small place and I'm going to get myself in trouble eventually.

Can't afford that. Got a job to do and I can't do it out here.

trust no one

2009-05-26T16:37:00.002-05:00

This should be about wrapping up the year. But it's not. It's about getting screwed. It's about trusting those in decision-making positions to make reasonable decisions and trusting that things would work out for the best. It's about being fooled by and disregarded by the very person you trusted to take you seriously and hear you out.

And it's about getting royally screwed and written off. Despite what they say, it's not really about children. It's not really about working hard, getting results, and using data to make informed decisions. It's about politics, about using people, about jerking around good teachers to make up for the faults of others.

It's about being backed into a corner. You can either stay and take it in silence or be forced out only to find out that you've been sabotaged in your escape.

So, when it comes to education in New Orleans, take some advice from Mulder and company: trust no one.

goin' to the conference and we're gonna get nerdy

2009-04-22T11:09:00.003-05:00

So I'm on layover in Tampa for another 2 hours, poking around the NCTM website to see what looks good and maybe plan out the next couple of days in DC. There is so much juicy mathematical, differentiated instruction, technological, new teacher-oriented goodness on the conference schedule that I wish it were longer. I've already got some much overlap that I'll be holed up in a conference room all day for the next two days and part of Saturday. It's looking way damn cool and nerdtastic.

All that said, I definitely need these few days to get my head straight. I'm in give-up mode again. Monday and Tuesday were soul-sucking days. Again, is it worth it? It's awfully painful to teach and coach and mother and model and lather-rinse-repeat only to realize that after months and months their behavior is still horrific and they still don't understand how fractions or decimals work. When word problems at a 5th grade level are still viewed as insurmountable obstacles even though they have the skills they just refuse to use them. And they talk. They just never shut up. Which would be fine if they would stop and listen every once in a while.

Even so, I think the disconnect is somewhere higher up. If the kids are totally fucking bonkers then it is probably on account of some adult somewhere either doing something wrong or not doing anything at all. I count myself among such adults and therefore, while I am away on this conference, am also working on my resume and considering my options.

I want to keep teaching, but I very well may stop.

Until that's figured out, however, there are 4 weeks left in the school year and I have to survive them. Hopefully a little better than that.

spring time equals conference time!

2009-04-11T11:47:00.002-05:00

I need this shirt to wear to my post-spring break conference in a couple of weeks. I was unable to go to Salt Lake City last year but this year I'm headed to the NCTM Annual Meeting & Expo in Washington, DC. For this, I am super excited not only because I will get an extra few days break from my kids during the crazy spring season but also because I get to go be a math nerd all by my lonesome. I also get to go visit friends in DC again (for someone who'd never been to DC until this year, it's a popular destination lately).

Until then, I'm enjoying Day 2 of teenager-free existence.

an now for something completely different...

2009-03-28T14:05:00.004-05:00

Been talking Unapologetic's ear off about my kids lately because it was a tough week of test prep gone bad at school and I'm just frustrated with my students' complete lack of will to succeed lately.

So I would like to introduce you all, dear interwebs, to some of the things that I've been using for mental distraction. Dorophoria, after all, began not as my teaching blog but as the moniker of a crafting enterprise that never formulated. I've been fantasizing about using my summer's to get back into the yarn and paper and glue and needles and fabrics. Until then, I just drool over other people's stuff:

New favorite craft blog: the purl bee
Also enjoying: CraftyCrafty

Otherwise, I've been a total comics nerd and my recent purchases and reading is listed as follows:

- Dr. Who: The Forgotten (all 6 issues)
- Dr. Who: The Whispering Gallery (single issue, short and sweet read)
- Courtney Crumrin and the Tale of the Fire Thief (3rd in series)
- Courtney Crumrin and the Prince of Nowhere (4th in series and if you haven't picked up Ted Naifeh then you're missing out on some goodness from the Youth category)
- SwampThing - Alan Moore (first trade and so far so good)
- The Umbrella Academy (Issues 1-5 still unread by that's up next)
- Fables (up to issue 81 or 82 now I believe)
- FreakAngels (Warren Ellis, bitches!)
- Aetheric Mechanics (more Warren Ellis, bitches! and it's teh awesome)
- Star Trek (in comic form, which I haven't read yet but apparently it's good stuff so we'll see)

Now I'm just getting Unapologetic into 100 Bullets and I've got to get him into the Transmetropolitan before it's too late.

all the crazy for one day

2009-03-12T19:13:00.004-05:00

I have not been a good blogger lately. Mostly because I was blogging myself (and teaching myself) into a serious crisis and it was time to take a few steps back and think (or sometimes just fucking stop thinking).

First: to quit or not to quit?

Well, circumstances what they are not quitting is looking like the most definite answer. In an ideal world I could take a year off, get my bearings, make daisy chains and skip dreamily around New Orleans considering all the pros and cons and options. But this is our crap, fucked-up, rush-around world and I've got a house to deal with and bills to pay and debts to suck up and in the end, I rather like the idea of teaching and hope that if I can just survive the certification process that one day down the road I will actually spend most of my time teaching and less of my time putting out fires and filling out paperwork.

I am coming to terms with the fact that my current situation is seriously craptastically disfunctional. I'm getting better at my job even as I stop sweating stuff so much. Just because, well, there isn't a sane human-being alive who could do everything that a New Orleans public school teacher is expected to do on a daily basis. This person, whoever they may be, is probably a sleeper agent android from Omicron Theta. I, however, am capable of multi-tasking and coping with so much so I'll stick with the shit I know I can handle and the rest of it will just have to fucking wait, thanks. I have to sleep sometime.

All that said, sometimes my kids are just too weird. I know I shouldn't be so horribly shocked that on the very last day of the 3rd quarter eight, count 'em EIGHT, of my students show up for "tutoring" as if that will magically fix their grade. Two of them are my regulars - they will stick around just to clean the classroom if there's nothing else to do and even when that's done I have to push them out the door to be out by 5:30 or 6. One started coming in a few days ago due to a failed test and has been working diligently to correct her errors. One boy is supposed to come in daily due to shitty grades and behavior contracts but only shows up when he feels like cramming for a test he ends up failing anyway because he's a punkass who can't get his act together. Another started showing up yesterday with the aforementioned boy just to be a tag-a-long. Yet a third boy is a good student but a procrastinator lately. Three other girls from my homeroom show up with no damn notice. One I have been begging to come to tutoring since the first quarter and just now starts showing now that is way too fucking late to save her grade (and she brought her little brother too, which was extra annoying). The last two girls just came in to fuck around because one is punished from speaking to the other so they hang out in my room after school to get away with it. What she doesn't know is that I'm going to call her mamma and let her know what a sneaky little monster she's being wrecking up my tutoring afternoon with her bully of a loser friend. Joke's on you, biz-nitches!

All this on the day that I am supposed to be number crunching their damn grades and putting everything in final and turning it in to my boss. I want to kick them all right now. My kids, my boss, everyone. Because there's just no way that I'm going to have all this straight and know that it's right and sign off on it being right and have it all ready today or even tomorrow. Talk to me Monday, stoopids, 'cause I know for a fact that you're not even going to print the damn grades for nearly two weeks so what's your fucking hurry?

Grr. Argh.

Again, all of THAT said, I'm in something of a groove even if that groove is a little precarious and uneven and windy. I'm coping better lately. I do enjoy the teaching part of the job when I have students who are into the learning part of their job. Oh, and I am totally the favorite teacher. It doesn't always make them behave any better but between the kids and the parents I am the fucking golden child and that's something at least. For example, the absolute nightmare of a behavior problem girl in my homeroom class apparently LOVES MY CLASS. She rolls her eyes, refuses to follow directions, never finishes her assignments, talks through lessons, tells me to get out of her face all the time, and is generally nothing but a bad attitude out to distract everybody in the room. But according to her mother, I can do no wrong and I am her favorite and she loves me. According to a lot of mothers this is the case. And I don't get it, but I'll take it.

Oh! And the best thing I've heard in forever: one of my kids wrote a poem about me! This is the same student who wrote me the sobber of a Christmas card. He's a major pain in my ass, but he is at heart a good kid and damn smart too. He told me this while I was waiting with him on bus duty this afternoon, that he'd written his english homework assignment about me. Fucking cool. I'm getting a copy for my wall and I hope it's really rhymy and ridiculously bad poetry too. That'll make my damn day.

condoning the violence

2009-03-11T21:30:00.004-05:00

Even if a kid is an asshole, it doesn't make witnessing his mamma knock him upside the head any less shitty.

But hey, the other kid whose mamma beats him? Well, we don't want to refer him to child services because "there's a backlog" and it won't do any good. So if we won't do anything but watch it happen and keep punishing the kid...well, I'm noticing that many of the people I work with have no problem with kids getting the crap kicked out of them by their parents. That's good for 'em, right? There's no such thing as a cycle of violence, right?

Great. Just fucking great.

being adult is the suckiest job EVAR!

2009-02-10T18:52:00.002-06:00

I will put this out there early: I'm totally masochistic. I must be. Because I don't want to quit my job. While I have this fantasy idea that it would be great and stress-free and life will be better somewhere else - that is bogus. Okay, it may not be bogus, but I would be copping out on something that I want really badly. Giving up. And despite all the crazy at my school and all the stupid shit my kids do, I want to see them through. I want to be there next year when my kids from last year are in 8th grade and I find out whether I set them out right. I love it when my students, past and present, drop in at my room after school to say hello or complain about their current math teacher or ask to help me staple things to the walls or when they crowd around me on the school yard and tell me more about their day and who's picking on who and what they ate for dinner last night and can we have a class pet, Ms. Em, can we pleeezzee?

I want to start over again.

All of this is to say that I finally got my boss in his office uninterrupted for a few minutes this evening. And it was rough and I always cry like a big girl who is way too damn attached to her babies. But I brought up the issues with the other teacher and have been sufficiently assured that there is stuff going on above my head to be done about that. The kids need a serious pep-talk and the principal has agreed to pull them out tomorrow and hopefully that will help put the kids at ease and reset their brains a little and calm them down. It's been an angry week with the kids. Everybody is in a foul mood. I also brought up the certification issues and hopefully will have some extra help with that as well.

Now I just have to have "a talk" with my other teacher. I've agreed to do that, though I don't even know where to begin. I guess that's something else that I have to figure out - the professional shit. I thought it would be enough to do my job and fulfill my responsibilities and generally be a good person and respect folks. But there's also the part where you have to muster up the civility to have a conversation with someone whom you don't respect and who puts you somewhat on edge. That part of being adult fucking blows.

Mostly because I have a bad habit of crying a lot.

critical mass

2009-02-05T18:03:00.004-06:00

Yesterday was low. The past week or so at school was the lowest of the low. Even if it was only low for me. I went in to work with quitting on my mind but no way out and I left feeling like even more dirt because I'd let everybody down, mostly my kids.

So what does critical mass mean? What happens now that everything's finally gone boom? Do I still want to quit? Do I give up teaching? Do I reevaluate everything that I spent the last two years working for and throw it all out?

Um. I don't know.

But I do know that I'm not continuing on at this school under the current circumstances next year. Tried to catch the principal today and lay it all out but no dice. Up early in the AM tomorrow to have the talk. I love what I do, though it can be stressful. Occasionally, I'm even good at it though I spend most of the time screwing up. The very thought of letting down my kids breaks my heart above anything else, even though they wear me down. But I can't keep up this roll as things are. I won't stay if I continue to be partnered with another teacher who doesn't give a rat's ass about kids or teaching and has been putting up a fucking good face at everyone else's expense. I also won't stay if I have to continue to teach science - I am not qualified to teach it and the kids can see right through me so there's no point in pretending. If I am going to put in the time, energy, and money to go back to school AGAIN and try this certification thing all over then I'm gonna need some support financially and otherwise. The way the middle school is structured right now completely marginalizes the 6th grade and it's not doing the students any favors. The way the special education situation is working is marginalizing our kids with special needs and that's not doing ANYONE any favors.

Maybe I'm not in any position to make demands or lay out ultimatums. But if what my boss tells me about my teaching is more than just pandering blahblahblah, then he'll at least think twice before he sets me loose.

And if I go to another school/certification/career...? Well, that's life - right?

if you're looking to take up my job

2009-02-04T16:47:00.003-06:00

It is occurring to me more and more that it isn't about what needs to change in the school, in the kids, in the parents, in the teachers. It's about me not being cut out for this - at least, not being even close to ready or prepared.

And I keep going over and over and over and nothing changes. Because my way doesn't work either. And I wasn't particularly great at this to begin with and I've only improved marginally. So please keep the following things in mind, future wanna-be teachers of the universe (and especially New Orleans):

you are not their teacher, you are their mother/father/best friend/worst enemy
take nothing for granted
you can't assume they know anything
you can't take anything personally
as soon as you find yourself thinking adults vs. kids...you've failed
you have to be good at manipulation - they'll never give you control
if you've got control over them then there are only a few possibilities (choose one): they have been fooled into thinking that they are in control and you are a superhero teacher, they are not learning shit but just sitting through your class and hoping it ends soon and that being quiet will get them a good grade, OR your students have been brainwashed by aliens
one word: management.
and finally, your students don't have to get you but you have to get your kids - if you don't, you might as well write FAIL on everyone's forehead

And me, I don't get it. I don't get it so hard that I've been banging my head against the same fucking wall for going on two years. So what really needs to happen is that the person cut out to teach these kids needs to make twice as much money as I do and I will blog about them. Because I've wasted everyone's time here pretending that I had the chops for this and, just like every other bright-eyed young twit wooed into teaching by "alternative certification programs," I thought I could change the fucking world and save everyone.

And I can't. I just can't.

do not admit

2009-01-25T19:29:00.002-06:00

Most days, I receive an email with an attached document: Do Not Admit List. It gives the names of students who are suspended, what grade they are in, what they have been suspended for, and when they should be returning to school.

On the one hand, it is a relief to see some students will be gone and will not be disrupting my class or talking back to me or bullying or picking a fight. On the other hand, that is another opportunity for those students to fall behind and fail and another opportunity lost to maybe actually teach them something. And sometimes I get that list and it has a student on it with whom I rarely have a problem, offense listed as "disrespect," and I know that once again one of my students is getting punished for standing up to an adult who couldn't keep their cool. And everyday I have to deal with that fallout.

The biggest relief sometimes, is not when a student is absent, but when a teacher is absent.

this post is way more civil than i feel

2009-01-23T17:03:00.004-06:00

Tough working environment today. I've actually been feeling good about the overall improvement in class behavior since the return from break, but feel like I'm being sabotaged by peers. My students were pretty cooperative today, focused on taking their iLEAP pre-test in preparation for the LEAP blitz and review. A fellow teacher, however, has walked all over my kids and myself quite enough, thanks.

It's little things and it's big things. And I wish I could say that this was a recent development but I have to admit that I was shocked when this person was asked back to teach this year. This is a teacher who stole my classroom rules and consequences (when I was a first year teacher and knew shit about class management!) and still has that plagerized material hanging ineffectually in her classroom. A teacher who openly admits to never taking work home, leaves during her planning period, comes to school late, and does not do paperwork for their students unless it is a referral for a parent conference or suspension.

All week, I've been taking my students to the computer lab during science to do research for a project and cleared the class time with the technology director in advance. Yesterday, I made the mistake of mentioning this to my coworker who conveniently beat me to the lab this morning (so that my students could not work on their project today). I was pissed that they did not collaborate with me or double check with me or technology about the lab use - especially considering that I'd taken the time to clear everything officially. Now my planned lesson got fucked because another teacher hadn't planned at all.

And I might have been able to smooth this over with the kids and play it off, if it weren't for the fact that the other teacher's yelling and abusive language could be heard next door all through class. Calling kids stupid (and when I say "stupid" that is without the extra adjectives), screaming at them for no reason at all, and then not sticking to the rules that actually effect the rest of us (effectively undermining all my behavioral crafting and progress just by walking into a room).

On top of this, I'm getting an administrative conference next week over paperwork that is not finished because we were supposed to split it. But now it's not done because I have to do this teacher's half, too!! I wish it were a one time thing, but I've been picking up the slack for going on two damn years now and I'm sick of this bull.

When students got put out of the other class today, I could not in good conscience do anything but tell the disciplinarian that it's no damn wonder the kids curse and mock this teacher. If someone spoke to me the way this teacher speaks to my students, I'd be kicking chairs and cursing and talking back too! The disciplinarian was getting on one student's case in the lunch line about her behavior and I had to step in. It's not the student out of line here, it's the teacher. I know these aren't things you are supposed to discuss in front of students, it's not professional. But this situation is so far from professional it is disgusting.

And finally people are taking notice and hearing these complaints and I just hope that finally something can be done to get this toxic sorry-excuse for an "educator" the hell out of my kids' lives. This person is a two-faced, lazy, lying, irresponsible, bully of a teacher. I could hardly bring myself to speak to them, let alone look them in the eye today without the urge to scream.

I lost my cool with the assistant principal after school today (not at him) because it's too much to expect me to deal with in addition to the other crap I deal with from the kids on a daily basis. I expect that my teenagers will act like brats and bullies from time to time but a TEACHER? And don't even get me started on GRADES.

I have to paraphrase something that got one of my students suspended last year (because his sentiment fits perfectly right now): this teacher is a bad person and they are going to hell. I'd never been so proud of a kid for being disrespectful to authority.

insomnia purge

2009-01-03T01:46:00.003-06:00

I feel almost sick at the prospect of going back to work on Monday. Can't sleep due to anxious mental back-and-forth over what to do, how to cope, finding the time, the energy. Forget sick, just frustrated to tears at not being able to just sleep and stop thinking negatively.

I thought that this break would clear my head out. Make things calmer. But the anxiety is coming back.

I don't think that I can do this for another year. It's becoming a soul-eater. The joy's gone out of it and there was so little of that to hold on to in the first place. It was supposed to get better. And for a little while I thought it might be, but now I'm really doubting it. I don't like this much stress in my life. I don't care how good the vacation package is - I don't feel like I own my own life. I don't have time to enjoy anything with school looming in the backwoods of my brain at all times. The pressure is stupid.

I'm tired of fighting every day. When did education become a fucking fight, a war?

Two weeks off work and I'm exhausted just thinking of going back.

I think I have to quit in the spring. For my fucking sanity.

not thinking about school

2008-12-24T10:42:00.003-06:00

This is what I've been doing over break. Second bag is in the works in gold yarn. My hands actually are starting to hurt from all the crochet madness but it's keeping my brain clear and I get pretties at the end of it. Made a hat for my aunt for X-mas and have been making pot holders with skulls on them. But the bag is my new favorite thing.

Thinking that I will make a line of potholders with mathematical formulas on them and sell them on Etsy for extra cash. And an extra excuse to keep crocheting.

For now, my two weeks are going at a leisurely pace. Trying to enjoy it while it lasts.

why i don't know if i could ever work at a cushy school

2008-12-19T15:30:00.002-06:00

I received one card today. It reads as follows:

"The first day of
school I looked
at you and knew
you were nice
and would
fight for your
students."

It's always the ones who try your nerves who say something to remind you why you'd be an asshole to quit on them.

nice work if you can get it

2008-12-18T21:59:00.002-06:00

Maybe I should just go back to school for a while and live on loans and part-time work.

I dunno. I'm burned out on this shit. I don't know whether it's me and my own disorganizedness or whether it's because it sucks. It just fucking sucks.

Forget it. Mantra: "Two Weeks Vacation."

Maybe I'll feel better in January.

a (temporarily) white winter

2008-12-11T17:09:00.002-06:00

Today I took my kids out for the last 10 minutes of math class and watched them have a snowball fight on the playground. Not something that happens in NOLA very often. The last time it snowed was Christmas four years ago. The time before that was before my time here by more than a decade.

No, it's not the kids who are the problem here. It's the adults.

Still looking for a good reason to stick around. And it can't be out of guilt. It can't be for the just the kids. It has to be for me, too. That part gets harder.

it's not the kids

2008-12-09T17:02:00.003-06:00

Today, one bully of a girl started a fight with one of my new students.

I left the room, restraining one, and totally lost my cool. I took a walk. I sat in the bed of my truck. I cried out of complete frustration. I tried to go back inside. I left before I could cry again. I hung out on the corner with Mr. D. We went inside. I couldn't bring myself to go to my classroom. I lost it in the principal's office. Talking to him didn't make anything better.

But he did let me leave at 2:00.

It's 5:00 now.

I'm still a fucking mess. With every thought of going back tomorrow, I have to fight back a repeat of the anxiety attack I had in my boss' office.

Today was the very first time that I ever really, truly dreaded returning to my job so much that I couldn't physically bring myself to go to class. Today was the very first time I seriously wondered whether I should just fucking quit.

i got tagged?

2008-11-25T21:27:00.003-06:00

Swampwoman tagged me the other day and it occurred to me that I have no excuse for being so slow to respond. The rules as follows:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up

As for writing six random things about myself...well, here goes nothing.

I was born in Frankfurt, Germany roughly 26 years ago.
I was a drama nerd in high school and participated in such illustrious productions as Chamber Music (I was Gertrude Stein...at least, I thought I was...), a modern adaptation of Aristophanes' The Birds, Jesus Christ Superstar will all-female apostles (with security guards at the door due to death threats sent to the school!), all-female crazies cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (played bomb-building Scanlon), and my last play The Curious Savage (in which I played Mrs. Savage complete with blue hair).
I got my first tattoo in Ybor City in Tampa, FL when I was 20 around Valentine's Day.
I wrote my undergrad thesis on the hagiography of early Christian women saints in comparison to female ideals in Greek heroines.
If you don't count Snaily the snail who lived on the sliding glass door by the patio, then my very first pet was a turtle named Fluffy. He ate cold hot dogs. He ran away.
I took five years worth of math in high school (geometry and trigonometry simultaneously junior year) just so that I could take calculus from my favorite math teacher, Mr. Swenson. Then I really hated calculus...but we did get to watch samurai movies.

Tag, you're it!

unapologetic
purple tinted glasses
Mer
jayel
baccarati
will continue to seek out a 6th...wait for further update...

do you really know who is teaching your children? really?

2008-11-21T17:39:00.006-06:00

I guess now is just as good a time as any to make an update. It was a calm, mostly uneventful day considering that we have the next week off so I'm in a calm and (gasp!) rested mood this evening. I gave the kids a math and a science test today that kept them busy and silent all day except for the "enrichment" period at the end of the day. Once my kids finished their tests, I pulled out the scissors and paper and had them start making snowflakes to decorate the room. It was eerily pleasant. I really have to cherish the brief periods when I can just enjoy my students.

The other 6th grade teacher has been out for three days at a conference and it's really been kind of a relief for me and the kids. My 2nd period students are calmer and less agitated when they switch class. Of course, two of my most agitating students have been suspended as well and it makes an enormous difference in the mental health of that class. I'm just relieved when these students are gone. I have done as much as was in my power to do and it didn't help the situation. I gave these two particular students as many chances as possible and tried just about everything I could to motivate them and alter their behavior. For nothing, no payout. They fail and they fuck with the other kids and they try to play me and they act like little dipshits with no respect for other people.

There really is no saving them all. Maybe someone's got the energy for these kids - I hope something changes for them. But I've got 38 other kids who are losing out because of two who threaten and bully. And I'm by no means an expert or vet at this. Maybe one day I'll be better at dealing with this crap, but until then I gotta do what I can do. And it will be without these boys.

That said, I have a couple other tough jobs as far as academics. With the struggles that my students have with our latest topic - the dreaded fraction! - I can't shake the feeling that so many students are failing for one of two reasons (perhaps two of two). First question: has anyone been holding these kids accountable for anything? Have the students been getting away with pretending to learn things with other teachers? Second concern: Or previous teachers have just not actually properly covered this material before. The ground work for fractions was supposed to have been established started a couple of grades back. But I am not confident that they ever received it.

The more I know of other teachers and education professionals in this city, the more convinced I become that these people are not fully equipped to be teaching some of the things that that they are hired to teach. We can't find paraprofessionals that can handle the 6th grade curriculum (I've had two paras tell me that they learned x, y, or z math skill during a lesson in my class - so how can I expect them to know enough to help the kids?!). And the teachers themselves (at least in my experience) act out and exhibit the same behaviors that they find unacceptable in their students! They expect their students to shut up and be on time and do whatever they are told (no matter how ridiculous) but they don't shut up or show up to work or keep up with their responsibilities. It can be highly discouraging.

The fact that a couple of people still have a job at my school at all really makes me question those in charge. Seriously. If you really give a damn about children, then how the fucking fuck could possibly keep these people on the payroll in good conscience? ARE YOU FUCKING BLIND, DEAF, AND CRAZY?!

I mean. I know I'm not the best teacher ever but I know my content, I don't treat my students like dirt, I work my butt off to teach and hold them accountable, and I love my kids even when they're dickheads. I can't even claim half that for some of my colleagues. That concerns ME who is merely the math teacher. Someone explain to me why that doesn't seem to concern some administrators or parents?

Let me detour a moment. I only just recently was able to internally process this incident enough to even share it with my boyfriend, let alone the interwebs. A couple months ago, while I was discussing a student with the counselor, the social worker approached me to give me a "heads up" about yelling at the kids. That a visitor had overheard me and expressed concern and that usually the social worker would have to report it as abuse but she wanted to warn me first.

I was floored. Too shocked to even process exactly what was going on. I politely agreed that I also was concerned about how much yelling was going on and that I was working to cut down on that before she'd even mentioned it. The idea that I would ever be abusive to my kids was gut-wrenching. But when students are being abusive to each other and ignoring me, especially with the things that were going on early in the year, if I was yelling it was with the kids' individual and personal safety in mind. Sucks, but I'd rather yell to restore order in a chaotic and potentially dangerous situation than stand by and watch kids hit and chuck stuff across the room at each other with no recourse (can't send 'em out - they'll just go start a fight).

Since this time, however, the things that I have observed have made me wonder why the hell something isn't being done about some other adult actions that are most certainly abusive. It's so bad some days that some teachers have threatened to quit rather than put up with the bullshit. After so long of taking the social worker's comment very personally and hard, I've started to wonder why the social worker hasn't reported these other adults for things which are most certainly abusive and illegal. Either someone is not paying attention, or it's just getting overlooked because...because WHY? Excuse me for even thinking the thought, but did the white chick get singled out because she's white? Oh wait - heaven forbid I insinuate that a black person might somehow do something racist. Racism is something that only white people suffer from (at least that what some of my students have expressed to me!).

Since my last post, I've been preparing the laundry list of serious concerns I have to bring to the boss. I can't in good conscience let this crap continue. It's fucking up my kids and god knows that their lives are fucked up enough without getting it at school too.

Still, it is tempting to look over at greener pastures (or I suppose greener school systems) and consider what it might be like to work at a school where there is less talk, less crazy shit, and more working about setting their students on the right track to a better existence. But then...who's going to look after my babies?

something rotten in denmark

2008-11-07T19:20:00.005-06:00

Today has been a most discouraging and disturbing day. There is a lot going on in my school that I am concerned about. My children are imperfect and live in a culture that supports abuse, neglect, irresponsibility, and lack of vision. I fight every day to show them something different. And everyday others around me perpetuate the cycle. Even those I once thought to respect.

I cannot be more explicit here until I've confronted the problem and decided what my part to play will be. But then, maybe there is no decision. I have to do something and it means making enemies or maybe just having to deal with losing. I don't know.

It's been a hard day. A hard week. A hard month. And my kids are the ones paying for the hypocrisy and inadequacies.

I have this hope (almost a goal) that if I ever had children of my own that I would eventually feel confident sending them to a school in my neighborhood. But right now, I don't see it happening. You would never send your children to my school, charter or not. You'd be fucking crazy. This absolutely depresses me.

november 4

2008-11-04T14:46:00.003-06:00

I voted. Got let out of work early and rushed my butt to the Algiers court house. I told my students that I would not discuss my vote. Some immediately understood that a vote is private. When I refused to say whether I was voting for Obama this morning, there was a garbled racial comment and some said, "She's voting for McCain!" (And then had no idea what to do when I retorted, "Just because I'm white?") I told them that McCain and Obama could walk into my room and I would not tell them who I was voting for. It's my vote. I don't want my opinions to taint my place as an educator. Like I tell them, it's not my job to give you the answers. It's my job to teach you to use your brain.

Even so, this is going to sound dumb, but it's true...

...I voted for my kids. I voted for not letting them be forgotten or written off.

the long stretch to thanksgiving

2008-10-20T18:01:00.003-05:00

There is so much that I want to blog. But I choose my kids. My sanity. Sleep.

There have been some big disappointments. There is disillusionment. They test me everyday and this year I try to stand at a distance, to keep my emotions out of the picture. And then I get home and I tell Unapologetic about it all and he tells me, "Tell me about it, don't relive it!" But that is difficult - not reliving the frustrations of everyday. Because there is no time to process these things. You are constantly flying by the seat of your damn pants, you are constantly a step behind and trying to make up for others' shortcomings and your own. You are constantly being let down by the people who claim to support you. Because it is just too much to ask with so little to work with.

The last presidential debate set me on edge over a few comments. McCain's offhand comment that somehow New Orleans is a fucking education success story made me wretch. Bullshit! Yes, some parts of New Orleans are coming along but anyone who knows anything about New Orleans education 'system' knows that success is quite a ways down the road. No informed person would look at the changes here and announce "Mission Accomplished" in our schools. I lose respect for McCain day by day. He does not speak for me - he does not understand me and mine. Is education the only issue I'm concerned about? Of course not, but it's certainly the subject on my mind the most.

Lately, I have entertained the idea of getting a masters in Special Education. Our Special Ed services are absolutely inadequate for our needs. My kids are getting forgotten, marginalized, and receive a half-assed education. It angers me daily. It's hard not to beat yourself up about it.

I hear endless complaints about the other 6th grade teacher. And I feel helpless to change anything. I love my kids but I don't love their cruelty.

I also think about the possibilities of adult education. I want to try any number of things. I want to do everything but I can't. I hate having to choose. I hate feeling like I can't do enough because I look around and I see that others don't have the same urgency, don't seem to get that "okay" is just not good enough. Our kids can't compete on what passes for an "okay" education in this town.

I'm ranting. I'm exhausted. I have so many stories to tell. But I'm trying to just tell and not relive...it is too painful to do.

two steps back?

2008-09-30T21:57:00.003-05:00

So horribly frustrated with my kids right now. I just don't know what to do. I feel like I'm reliving last year. I don't know why they act this way, I don't know why I can't get them to stop taunting each other, I don't know why I can't get them to pay attention, I don't know why things seem to be getting worse instead of better and I don't know why the things I do to make it better just never seem to work. I hate that I snap at the stupidest things. I hate that I put up with the things I put up with, that I feel helpless to stop the kids from poking, teasing, throwing, yelling, etc. I hate that other people seem to get a response from my kids but I can't.

What is it about ME? What's wrong with ME?

There was this great segment on This American Life on Sunday about a program in Harlem and Baby College for low-income parents. Everyone should go listen to it. It reminded me of my kids and their parents and now it's kind of making me feel helpless and angry.

I don't know what the sudden burst of pessimism is about. Just tired, I guess. Worn down and trying not to show it, trying not to crack. Tired of being treated like I don't exist by bunch of punkass little adolescents. Tired of the show. Tired of being the one who has to put on a front in the face of all the whining and pushing and shoving and picking and picking and picking. Tired of feeling like I'm repeating some of this crap from last year.

I'm tired of my help and my support not being very helpful or supportive. I'm tired of not having the special ed teacher when I'm supposed to be working with the special ed teacher. I'm tired of having paraprofessionals that don't know my content and correcting the mistakes that they tell my children are correct, tired of paras who won't help my kids because they can't look past the behaviors, of feeling like I'm in this madhouse of a classroom trying to pull a miracle out of my ass.

Really, this is the most frustrating thing that I run into over and over and over: the adults who are supposed to help my kids academically who are hurting my kids because they don't know the content! It makes me want to scream. If you won't help with the behaviors and the accommodations that my students are supposed to receive, at least you could not confuse the shit out of my students who don't need as much help.

Fuck this shit.

peeking out of the trenches

2008-09-28T21:16:00.003-05:00

Well, I've been a crap blogger lately. Spending 12, 13, 14, 15 hours a day working. I figured out recently that for every hour that I am actually teaching in the classroom, I spent two hours working outside the classroom either planning or assessing. There must be a more efficient way.

Friday was total insanity. Nevermind. I don't even want to get started on that again.

Maybe bedtime on Sunday night is not the best time to write about school. In fact, I am actually done working for the day and have put aside the books until tomorrow. Usually I am still working Sunday until 11ish. Gonna read comic books and watch Adult Swim to celebrate my temporary respite.

Until Monday.

pumpkin time

2008-09-11T22:02:00.003-05:00

1st math test of the year (Data Analysis & Statistics): finished writing.
1st science quiz of the year (What is Physical Science?): needs to be corrected.
Lots of miscellaneous papers in my school bag: have been put off yet again.
Unit Plan for the next 3 weeks: so not even started yet.
The idea of crawling into bed at 4 o'clock tomorrow afternoon and staying there: YAY FRIDAY!

My greatest pleasure in life now: going to bed early.

hurrication 2008: hurricane hillbillies and nola-fugees

2008-09-01T14:22:00.004-05:00

Completely reliant upon the Twitter community for good Gustav information. WWL is every evacuee's hero where the national news networks are EPIC FAIL. The roomie and I have been fortunate to avoid exposure to much television. Especially concerned about her because her son is still at Gustav-central and while the winds are slacking, there is still concern about late-arriving storm surge.

Based on pictures from Bea, who stayed in the city, there are trees down and power out but no indication of water at this time. The Harvey Canal on the west bank appears to be holding fast so there is hope that we're gonna get through this without major disaster. Trying not to be overly optimistic yet but definitely feeling better.

Still worried about the state of school. The grounds flood in a good rain on a normal summer day and we didn't put sandbags out on Friday so I'm afraid there may be water in some offices and the cafeteria. A messy clean up if nothing else. Hoping to get back soon and help out if I can.

Calls home get no answering machine. No power in the Point.

Ready to go home, though.

this rum'n'coke is for my babies

2008-08-30T23:47:00.004-05:00

Listening to WWL on AM radio. Just me and the roomie and the farm in this little house in a quiet little Pensafuckingcola neighborhood. Getting anxious. Worried about people.

I forgot what this was like - this being outside your life and waiting for it to start again. Still obsessing over the fact that my roll book is at school. My kids.

My students from last year always ask me if I like my new 6th graders, ask if my new students give me a hard time like they did. Some of them say that they want to be back in my class and try to sneak in jokingly after lunch or between classes. Some of them whine at me when I'm on duty in the morning that they should have failed so they could stay with me. I, of course, can't play favorites. "They're alright," I say, "We're still getting used to each other." And that's true. And always the questions about whether I have my own children. When you tell kids that your students are your children, they don't really think you're serious.

I want to be snapping at my children on Wednesday morning. I want to give them their test on Friday. I don't want to be wondering what's going to happen to them scattered around the country, lost and outcast, with people who don't understand us.

I suppose sitting here holed up in this place thinking about it isn't going to do much good though. Just waiting. Just waiting.

hurrication - 2008 special edition box set

2008-08-30T15:12:00.005-05:00

I've been here before. With different people, under different (but not) circumstances. A different life. Sitting on the back steps of my parents' little bay house remembering a time when it didn't have walls or furniture and I sat back here with my two first and best New Orleans friends, drinking beer, reminiscing, fearing for the future. Now they are gone off to lives outside our city and I'm here with my roommate (the last of my original New Orleans French Quarter stoop crowd) and the dogs and the cats and what random belongings we deemed important in the emotional flood of packing and worrying.

Our joke now is that we are hillbillies, piled into the tiny cab of my truck last night on that dark stretch of interstate between New Orleans and Pensacola. Two cats in a cardboard box between us, one dog perched on top of that, one dog on the floorboard of the passenger side and the two of us. Sardines, with a full truck bed of food and plastic tubs, laughing instead of crying as we talked with tv redneck accents.

I left behind the one thing that I needed the most: my class list and gradebook. Accidentally packed it up in a drawer somewhere in my classroom while the kids and I hid the books in cabinets, wrapped the electronics in garbage bags, and frantically cleared away the debris of everyday in a school. It looks desolate again.

We had all the children sitting on the floor in the cafeteria at the end of the school day and it was all I could do not to cry. To wonder when (if) I would see those same kids again. But the adults have to be strong. And I told them, in their squealing and half-giddy state of near-panic, that I have faith (I have FAITH!) that we will be in school on Wednesday morning just like we thought we'd be before all this Gustav shit hit the fan.

Be safe, New Orleans. I'll be back the first second I can.

sleep is for people who don't have kids

2008-08-28T22:33:00.003-05:00

My children are losing their minds in hurricane mode, just like everybody else. Today, I realized first thing that it wasn't even worth fighting the hurricane chatter and trying to be a state standard-abiding GLE pusher. So instead of talking about outliers and data sets, we talked about hurricanes. All day.

The miracle of the smart board is that I can do that. I had internet access and UnitedStreaming account (not to mention google). So we looked up information about Gustav, information about Katrina, how to measure strength of hurricanes, how hurricanes form, and whatever else the kids could ask. Videos, Saffir-Simpson scale websites, news, graphs, photos...you name it. The kids, for the most part, were eager to be involved and eager to be heard and full of questions.

It was still a tough day, behavior-wise and for other reasons. But it was kind of an inspiring day too. The behavior is such a hurdle to get over but motivation is not. They want information and they have so many ideas (great and/or misguided) and they want to contribute - but it's got to be relevant to them. And THAT is so fucking difficult sometimes. Figuring out what to tap into and how to integrate that with our strict curriculum.

Broke up a fight at the end of the day today in my classroom. Lots of frustrating things going on in my second class. Lots of frustrating things going on outside my classroom and I'm not sure what to do about them. But in some ways I feel like I am carrying the 6th grade on my shoulders this year, moreso than before. I learned that the hard way at the end of the last school year - that there may not be someone else holding the kids accountable for their learning all the time. That I've got to find a way to fight for my kids subtly because others won't stand up for them.

D is my classic example. D and I knocked heads a lot last year. He's got a reputation. But this year is something else. Things are not perfect. I have to take him into account every moment that he is in my class. But he's beginning to open up. Even when his behavior is atrocious, like a day earlier this week, I can work with him. I can pull him aside and he doesn't immediately fight against me. He's telling me that it's not me, it's not school, it's something else - something is wrong and he can't talk about it yet but something is wrong and he needs help and he wants help and he wants things to change. Unfortunately there are so few people who can see past his outbursts and his posturing and pacing and gnashing his teeth at the world. He NEEDS all the support we can give him and I see that there are glaring gaps in that support system that I cannot control. I can't control others around me. But it makes it no less frustrating to see this kid neglected and written off by some of the adults who he needs the most.

I am terrified that I will lose this kid.

After listening to my kids today, I am terrified for them, terrified of losing them, and heartbroken for them and the way their lives are being jerked around by the uncertainty and distrust caused by a government that has failed them and failed to protect them. Because who is going to step up? Who can guarantee their future or their safety? Who is going to reassure them and give them stability?

They ask me if I will come back. Of course I will come back. I won't leave you. I can't leave you. I'm not fucking giving up now.

open house - year two

2008-08-27T21:40:00.002-05:00

So exhausted. Twelve and half hours at school today to stay for Open House. Kids acting up this afternoon. Hell only knows what I'm going to do about it. But there were lots of mamas and grandmas and aunties and one father at school tonight and that is a very good sign. Makes my work harder in a good way.

But right now, too exhausted. No time for, you, Gustav - I've got kids to teach, motherfucker. Get the hell out of my way.

the answer is no

2008-08-25T17:39:00.003-05:00

Good day in the classroom today overall. My second class of mostly boys needs some serious whip-crackin' but I ain't playin' benefit-of-the-doubt like I did last year. I told the class that if they were going to abuse the privilege of having a voice in my classroom that all their voices belonged to me until further notice. Some of them had the ownership of their feet commandeered until further notice as well. This seemed to get their attention at least for a little while especially when one mouthful of trouble couldn't remember what silence is. The scene looked something like this:

Student talks to another student across the room, despite directions to complete assignment silently.
Me: Do you steal?
Him: Wha?
Me: Do you steal?
Him: Huh? No.
Me: Then why are you using my voice without permission?
Him: Dur...
Other Kids: OMGWTF? Srsly?!!!!1!1

Alright, that last part is just ridiculousness, but it got their attention. And when I've got their attention I have to use it as quickly I as can. I haven't had to do too much yelling so far today like I did last week. Giving them the evil eye works fairly well. I've got a better list of mammas to call this year too - more complete that is. Progress is small but already apparent.

Another one that makes them think long enough to stop talking and pay attention for at least a minute: If you're running your mouth to your neighbor when you're supposed to thinking that's just a whole lot of stupid coming out. I got too many smart kids in this class to hear all this stupid in my room. Well, that one's worn off since last week. They keep me on my mental toes, though.

And one more thing: the freakin' bathroom. I spend more time dealing with kids who need to go to the bathroom than is probably normal. "Can I go to the bathroom?" No. "Can I go to the bathroom now?" No. "But I never got to go at lunch." Tough. "Can I go to the bathroom NOW?" NO.

Excuse me, but I have ABSOLUTELY NO SYMPATHY for some kid who spent all their time chasing girls on the yard to remember that they had to pee and now that they are back in class suddenly they really have to go right this second. Kid, I'll have you know, at 1:30 p.m. I have been awake since 5:30 a.m. and have peed exactly ONCE and will not see a bathroom for another three hours. AND I've been on my feet, working on filling your brain with vital information all this time. Ask me to go to the bathroom again, you little punkass - I goddamn DARE YOU.

Still some good conversation floating around the interwebs re: RT3. Check out comments at Pistolette's post for an ongoing debate. I certainly have more to say on the subject but right now, papers to grade, kids to assess, lessons to plan.

And peeing.

2008-08-24T09:43:00.001-05:00

Particularly like the Suspect Device summary of the education panel for RT3.

allow me to stand up for my flawed little institution

2008-08-24T08:10:00.002-05:00

After RT3 yesterday, I was inspired to catch up on the blogs of panelists that I either had never read or only scanned briefly a long time ago.

Still trying to process a lot of this Dirty South Bureau post, especially the references to TAP and Algiers. But my brain is snotted up and it's way too early for a Sunday so pardon me if I'm incoherent and too brief.

First of all TAP and the incentive-based pay. I can't speak for the pay, as last year was my school's "practice" year with TAP. This year it really kicks in. While there are things about TAP I find annoying, my master teacher was a huge help to me. It has been hard to find help with my content (math - and now science) but when it comes to teaching more effectively and managing my kids more effectively TAP, at least for me, did a helluva lot of good. I was a crap teacher at the beginning of last year but I was lucky to have good advice. Am I a fluke? Am I being duped?

I've been feeling uncomfortable about this sort of attitude I got yesterday that bringing these new teachers in is bad and all our old, experienced teachers must be good. There will always be new teachers, a need for new blood. And, yeah, they will probably always suck in the beginning. I did. I'm still a work in progress. And I hardly want to insinuate that all the old New Orleans public school teachers who got fired were horrible and needed to go, however, in my experience with some of the "old guard" I've seen a resistance to change, a resistance to learning and continued education, that I find disturbing. When given the opportunity (multiple times) to go to conferences, expand their knowledge, participate in meaningful professional development, there were many of our more experienced teachers who resisted. They didn't care to go. I can't see passing that opportunity up.

I'm seeing experienced teachers who are opposed to the nationwide movement toward inclusion in the classroom. Special Education is something that should happen in an isolated environment as far as some people are concerned, because that's the way they've done it for decades. Because children with special needs are a hassle, a problem to be pushed aside. And I'm getting their kids and finding out how poorly socialized they are, ill-prepared to function in a classroom, and lulled into this idea that because they have been labeled "special ed" that they don't have to work to pass because they're too dumb to do what they other kids do. Because teachers don't want these kids. It's fucking appalling.

Yes, there are some long-term vets I know who I look up to as great teachers. But there are also some veteran teachers that make my skin crawl, that make me fear for the kids they teach. And it's because of those teachers that I don't have a problem with my lack of job security, my one-year contract. If I'm not doing my job well, they should damn well find somebody else who can. Because we can't afford to have mediocre teachers for our kids. We can't afford to have teachers who sit back and believe that just getting by is good enough. We have something to fucking prove and we have classrooms full of kids who have a shit future if we don't. Am I crazy to believe that teaching should be high-stakes and competitive because if its not then we're doing our kids a disservice?

I'm actually surprised that the fellow second-year teacher on the panel didn't stand up to defend his position as one of us TFA/alternative certification/fast-track smartass-kids-who-want-to-change-the-world better. I found that I spent a lot of the panel yesterday actually feeling vaguely offended (maybe I'm more conservative/neoliberal/reactionary/whatever than I know) and the more I read and the more I write the more that feeling solidifies.

I need to shower and ruminate on this some more.

and one other thing

2008-08-23T19:04:00.004-05:00

Cliff mentioned that the principal of his childs's school came to his home to talk to him about the school. And really, I feel like that is a great sign. I have heard too many horror stories about administrations that are uninvolved and out-of-touch and, to me, that is the heart of the problem.

It is also why I think my boss is a rock star. He's with the kids all day, his door is always open, and he physically gets out in the community, the churches, the corner store, the pot-holed streets and talks to people. That's a sign of a dedicated and committed administration in a school. If you don't have that, your best teachers are going to run like hell.

So I guess what I'm saying is that sure, you want better teachers and more involved parents and better things for our kids, but if you want to get those things we need to build a better class of administrator. I can say for sure that I would not have returned to teaching this year if I didn't have the unwavering support of my principal, if I didn't respect and believe in him and his vision for my school and - ultimately - my community.

more rising tide mental purging

2008-08-23T18:18:00.004-05:00

Rising Tide III was worth skipping derby, if only to give me things to chew on in my blog. While everything else was interesting in its own right, I'm still mentally stuck on all the things said during the education panel because that's really the only area under discussion where I feel like I can have any sort of informed opinion (and even then, huge gaps in my knowledge). As I said before, this really needed a whole other conference to really get at the heart of the matter and cover everything that ought to be covered. I was physically shaking half-way through just through sheer frustration/inspiration/information overload.

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around a thought that hasn't quite made all its connections yet. All sorts of information that I have just been too busy or sheltered to stumble across yet, new perspectives. But let me say that Cliff was a valuable addition to the panel and I wanted to hear more from him. After a lot of discussion today about those who are working to undermine and privatize public schools and some pretty direct negativity about the state of charters in the city, what I felt was lacking was a sense of what's going right (if anything) and what parents want for their kids. Cliff brought that, I think, but we need more.

When I was at the CEC conference in Boston this spring, I attended a presentation about a program that was aimed at helping families who had to deal with multiple government agencies (schools, social workers, probation officers, etc), consolidating their needs. And what the organizers found to be the most effective way to get the parents to "buy in" was not to try and tell them what to do or dictate what they should have to run their families or their kids' lives. It was simply to ask them what they needed and then to provide that. It made the biggest difference in the long run as far as improvement for students with special needs in inner city schools and their acheivement levels.

This comes to mind now because of what was brought up in the panel about charters being created or schools being converted without community imput. It is desparately needed, however, I don't believe that New Orleans has the mechanism to really reach out to the parents. And, as great as the blogger community is here, I don't know that this is even an effective medium to really get to some of the most isolated and marginalized people in the city. The people who really need someone to just ask them what they need. Not to tell them what help they are going to get (which is what our school systems are doing in large part) but to really get out there and ask people what help they really want.

More is brewing in the synapses, but I'll take an interwebs breather for now.

the past, present, and future of elementary and secondary education in new orleans

2008-08-23T11:48:00.003-05:00

Edit: Hit up Maitri for a good outline of the panel discussion.

Can't think fast enough, can't type fast enough, can't make connections fast enough. I've got a couple pages of frantic handwritten notes that I'm trying to compile into something coherent as this panel wraps up and it's just entirely too much. I'm going to be blogging about this for days (or, at my post rate, probably a couple months).

Bullet points that I needneedneed to talk about:

- confusion for teachers/parents/everyone in our fractured lack of cohesive school system
- need for community involvement / vote in the system
- charters roll dismantling the public schools? / privatization
- price of our current state of "individual choice" any worse than flight to the suburbs?
- unions?
- what about incentive-based pay? continued teacher education? contracts?
- perceptions tainted by past bitter experiences / need for outreach
- public school is still a dirty word
- charter PR machines / are charters keeping their promises?
- when are charters good? bad?

There's more but wait. I am torn by the feeling that there are serious problems with many of the charters / privately run schools / and the fractured system that New Orleans Schools is currently working with - but also there is a lot of hostility toward the charter movement here and I work for a large charter association in the city. Personally, professionally I LOVE my school. I see charters working, building community, reaching out to parents, educating the kids who live right down the block from me. It kills me to hear the negative that's dominated and I'm trying desparately to put my thoughts together to counter that, to put out that there is something working with this new, weird, fucked-up way that we are dealing with now. Am I lucky? Are my kids just lucky to have a charter association in their neighborhood that seems to be working overall? Am I biased? Yeah, in a big way. The last thing I want to hear is how charters here are not working because I see them working. I see mine working. Yes, there are bad charters in this city. Yes, they are terribly imperfect and inconsistent in quality and intent.

Charter schools must be prepared to deliver upon the promises that they are making to people. I understand that that is not happening city-wide but I believe that it is beginning to happen at my school, in my neighborhood, in Algiers in general. The skeptics are right to be skeptical of what's going on but I'm still waiting to hear a viable plan to reconstitute a coherent system that works. Fine, the system is still broken in its own way - but if you are out there yelling about it, please someone tell me and point me in the direction of someone somewhere who has a concrete plan to fucking do something about it.

Parents have an insane amount of choices right now and I think that is great. I don't think that it is necessarily a bad thing, although it does create new issues to deal with. Those choices are not always good or easy to make; parents don't have all the information they need to be informed about their childrens' education, nor is that information easy to obtain. Schools make promises that perhaps they are not ready or prepared to keep and that's doing a disservice to kids and parents who are trying to make something better of New Orleans and their lives. But I can't help but think of the way public education works throughout our nation, the struggle to move to more affluent neighborhoods so that your kids can go to the good public schools, the flight to suburbia because schools in the city are screwed up. If I ever have children I don't want to have to choose between paying for private school or moving out of a neighborhood I love for the sake of their education. If I ever have kids I want them to live in New Orleans, not out in suburban wasteland (sorry suburbanites, but it is not for me). I guess what I'm getting at is: is the way we have now so much worse than the old way?

We've got to be doing something right even a little because people have faith that public school can work again.

More later. Must eats.

teh geek

2008-08-23T09:37:00.003-05:00

Blogging the Rising Tide III - wifi is a marvelous invention.

Actually just sitting here drinking coffee and being totally weirded out by seeing so much of the N.O. blogger community in person for the first time last night and today.

Edit for 11:01 - and so begins the education panel. This is why I'm here.

playing hooky?

2008-08-21T21:51:00.004-05:00

So I think I'm gonna hit the Rising Tide conference on Saturday morning. It's derby bootcamp this weekend but I can't really afford to drive to Houma and spend that much time when I need to be focused on school right now. No, that's just my excuse to go rub elbows.

I'm tired. I'm losing my voice. The attitudes are starting to show. But it's a good challenge and I'm not burned out yet.

half days are teh rule!

2008-08-14T17:07:00.005-05:00

Our first week of school has been all half days due to air conditioner issues in the building. How brilliant life would be if there were more half days in the world. I get so much work done in the afternoons when the children are gone. More collaborating, more copies, more papers graded. And then I go home and there is less pressure to keep working so much and less pressure in the morning to be in to work extra early.

Feeling incredibly organized, too, so far. I have my binder with all my students' math & science pretests. Most of them are even already graded. I've got a file folder for each student at my desk, each with a behavior log stapled to the front. I've got files going for each new handout and test and reading and whatever that I give out. Having the lectern for my Promethean board up front where I actually teach makes keeping up with my papers easier. And I'm getting the kids to do most of my legwork for me.

Have a few rowdy boys in my second class that I am monitoring. So far nothing like what I had to deal with last year as far as behavior disorders, etc. But the ringleader is obviously a smart kid so I have to jump on him to use those brains constructively. The chatty girls are the issue in my first class. They will not be sitting with each other. My seating is mostly randomized right now which has worked out okay. I'm going to mix them up again next week ostensibly to help me learn their names faster. Really, though, I don't want them thinking that they are going to sit wherever the hell they want.

Much effective use of the authoritative, take-no-shit teacher voice today. No really yelling, just a good fear-inspiring boom. It's getting the right reaction. Because I'm the boss, dammit.

My job kicks ass.

yay for good teacher days!

2008-08-12T18:13:00.003-05:00

The first two days of school are making me feel a little spoiled. Even with half days I am exhausted but - so far - I'm not terribly stressed. I am still looking forward to that familiarity with my students but I know that isn't something that you can affect or force. Something that I didn't have this time with my previous class was my "stern" - that authoritarian teacherness that can really only develop with lots and lots of practice. But I'm feeling much better about that this time around. A good verbal warning seems to be more effective than with my old bunch and getting the kids to follow directions is eerily smooth (not perfect, but pretty damn good).

Many good signs today. My homeroom class is (mostly) super attentive so far. Even with two of my old students who are easily distractable, I am confident that I will be able to move much more quickly this year. I'm also confident that I've started off on a much more solid foot than before. When my second class started to get a little rowdy at the end of the day, I could get them back relatively quickly. "If you can hear me, raise your hand and close your mouths." And then I raise my hand and wait. No raised voice, no snapping. The kids just...raised their hands and closed their mouths. It's a responsiveness that I'm not used to at all!

One student, D, is a repeat in my class and I have written about him in the past. He is one of the special education students, notorious throughout the school for his disruptive behavior. His home situation is one of the worst and he is far too old to be in 6th grade. But he loves playing the drums and he wants to be promoted desperately, so he has been a whole new person these two days with me. Yesterday, D was initially upset about being assigned to my class and pouted in his seat. But he was not disruptive and began to follow directions more readily as the day went on. I couldn't be more proud! I've been enlisting him (trusting him) with running office errands and helping around the classroom and he hasn't disappointed. I was momentarily afraid that letting him out in the hall might mean he'd vanish from class but he just did what I asked and came right back. So today when he did not want to eat lunch with the other students, I was more than happy to let him stand aside with me and feel a little special. Praise, praise, praise, praise, praise. I want so much for things to turn around for D, for him to get his education, play the drums, stay out of trouble (out of jail), and have a life.

Seeing a struggling kid turn around is so much more satisfying than having model students. Although, I can't complain about model students either.

the first day of school: year two

2008-08-11T16:46:00.004-05:00

The first day of my second year of teaching has come and gone, serving only to reinforce something I began to believe pretty early on last school year. While the first year of teaching is necessary, kids who get a first year teacher are going to miss out on some level. Which is just to say that being more organized, more confident, and more prepared this year makes the challenges ahead seem less daunting than they were this time a year ago. Today went smoothly for the most part, even eerily so. I feel good about my ability to manage a teach this year's group but I also will miss having some of my old students in class. That said, it was good to see the old kids and know that I don't have those old problems to cope with on a daily basis (save a few students who are back with me). I have a new dynamic, a new set-up, a new system, and a somewhat-wizened outlook on the whole. I did spend a good amount of time with the 7th grade teachers helping them organize their classes and giving them the info on their new brood.

This year is the year of the hardass. It's the year of parent accountability and the year of student accountability. Actions, rewards, consequences, consistency. I felt pretty good today but the kids were wary and sedate and I know that won't last forever. I'm working on having a better system of student responsibilities and the kids seem to enjoy the little jobs that always need done in a classroom. Last year I tried to do too much myself and it was chaotic and difficult. This year, for the most part, I don't want to do anything but teach and grade papers. My kids should do the rest.

As always, I've got some super students who will be far ahead of me and I've got some students with severe exceptionalities. I didn't even really know where to start last year, but this time around I know better what to look for, what to prepare for, who to talk to, and how to evaluate the kids' needs. Pre-testing is on already and I'm giving out extra credit left and right to get kids to be prepared and organized early. But this class will be different from the last in a whole ton of ways, the biggest being that most of these kids have passed the 4th grade LEAP (I could not say this for most of my students last year).

The more I write in this post, the more I realize how general I'm being. I'm tired and trying to push through it. There's work to do. But first, time to go watch it rain from my front porch.

t-minus 9 hours to kid time

2008-08-10T23:38:00.004-05:00

Tired. Unprepared. Terrified of new student dynamics. But my classroom looks pretty good. New layout, new toys. More tomorrow. Sleep is now.

t-minus 4 days

2008-08-07T17:22:00.002-05:00

I don't even have students yet and I am absolutely exhausted. Lots of work has been done in my classroom and I hope to take some pictures and post them up tomorrow.

On a disappointing note, I realized today that having three 6th grade classes is impossible. I will have two very long classes and I am very, very, very unhappy about it. It totally destroys my plans. It actually kind of makes me dread my life. I honestly don't know how elementary teachers put up with the same group of kids all day - I can barely handle 90 minutes. Now I'll have them nearly three hours each class. Last year that was a nightmare. But somehow I'm going to have to make it work.

on the job again

2008-08-04T20:57:00.004-05:00

Today was the teachers' first day officially back on the job at ye olde John McDonogh #32 Literacy Charter School (one of oh-so-many exciting changes that have been going on while I've been in my summer hibernation). There was so much at the morning introduction that I had to take notes. Now that I look at my notes there is so much that it seems best to list the highlights:

- we have three (count 'em - 3) assistant principals
- a reading specialist!
- a Spanish teacher
- a full time middle school art teacher (who lives across the hall from me and I already like her a lot)
- 2 extra social workers
- parents will be required (to the best of the school's ability) to volunteer 1 hour per week
- community service and service learning focus in learning
- 90 minute planning periods!! (though only three days per week)
- TAP (Teacher Advancement Program) in full swing means performance-based pay
- lots of toys and new technology

As for the state of my affairs, this year will be a year of big changes and big challenges. It never seems to end. I suppose that's the way education should be - how exhausting. And awesome. As I mentioned before, I will be teaching 6th grade math once again with the added challenge of teaching 6th grade science (chemistry and physics - my two least favorite sciences). Because I am the science teacher I was given a Promethean board in my classroom, which is quite possibly the most exciting toy-tool that any teacher could ever have.

It makes planning lessons seem so much more exciting, quizzes less of a pain in the ass, and technology in the classroom that is a thousand times more useful to me and my kids than a couple of computers that only get used for MySpace and other illicit non-educational purposes. I am probably speaking technology teaching sacrilege to say so, but I hate having PCs in the classroom and I am happy to have them removed. That being said, our school has laptop carts now (a laptop for every student in the class with a wireless connection - sweet!) which I certainly plan to put to use.

The daily schedule looks slightly more sane on paper, but we shall see. We continue to work on a block schedule (90 minute periods) and I'll have three classes. The upcoming class is supposed to be fairly small so I believe I will have an average of 10 kids per class period which, when you think about it, is absolutely unheard of in a public school like ours! These estimates, however, will probably end up being closer to 15 per class which is still more than educationally reasonable. No word on the numbers of kids with exceptionalities yet, but I hope to get access to files and names by mid-week.

Still debating how to juggle my two subjects. Last year, for the brief and completely overwhelming period that I had both subjects to teach, I had two classes on three hour blocks and tried to split the class time with absolutely no success. I think my best bet is to teach math MWF and science on TTh. This strikes me as the sane way to go about things. Yes? I wish I knew more experienced teachers out there on the vast interwebs who might give a little input on such things. But this is, alas, a blog mostly for my own cathartic benefit with a tiny readership. And I am a terrible networker.

The process of putting up bulletin boards and attempting to arrange my classroom today lead to more chaos than progress. But I'm excited. Things are new and strange and seem to be moving even faster - yet the school appears more prepared in general than last year. Better prepared. Better equipped. I can't find the actual listing at the moment but at the beginning of last year #32 was at the very bottom of the barrel in New Orleans according to the state tests. After just one year, it is now in the top 30% of New Orleans schools. Which is just huge. Granted, that isn't even remotely good enough when you consider the state of New Orleans test scores. Still, there is momentum.

Gotta keep running.

t-minus 8 days

2008-08-03T22:37:00.001-05:00

I've fallen off the face of the earth, swimming in the abyss of time and heat and paralyzing fear and pure laziness that has been my summer hermitage. But is the eve of my return to the working world.

I get a brand new batch of children on August 11th. Math and Science (for real this time). I've got the same classroom, more work, less kids, and one week to get ready for the insanity. Here we go again.

the summer countdown

2008-06-26T13:12:00.003-05:00

It's really overwhelming, the whole thing. Second year is coming up if I can get my act together. It has to be a better year for my kids, or else why am I doing it?

About a month left of my summer. And it is beginning to sink into the pit of my stomach the task ahead.

cleaning up, clearing out

2008-05-14T11:04:00.002-05:00

This paperwork disaster is my classroom. No more bulletin boards, no more posters, no more students in desks. Just lots and lots of paper. This is me trying to get organized on multiple levels. The first is making sure I have enough evidence to back up the 20 F's I gave out (that is, for a little more perspective on the numbers, equivalent to the entirety of my homeroom class this year). Two kids to a desk--that's eight per group of four desks--with their tests and quizzes and class assignments stacking up as I clean out what's in my desk and my file cabinet. There is more paper at home.

The rest of the papers piled up in my room are worksheets and assignments that will be reused in the future, organized mostly by subject (fractions, decimals, place value, geometry, multiplication practice, integers, etc) so that I can put together the beginnings of a filing system which will hopefully make planning that much easier for next year.

And yes, there will be a next year. I just signed my new contract today. I've been told I'll be teaching science in addition to math. I sincerely hope this is not true, but at least this time I have two-and-a-half months warning to try and become a physical science expert before the kids find me out for the fraud I am.

correction

2008-05-14T09:29:00.002-05:00

A full 2/5 of my students failed in the final accounting. Further accounting of the 4th quarter breakdown to follow.

in the final account

2008-05-13T17:09:00.004-05:00

Today was the last day of school for the kids. I thought I would feel better, lighter. But no. Today was embattled. I knew I would win but winning felt like crap. Because nearly a quarter of the class failed and it was my F that failed them. I know my boss has my back and I know that the F's were right (and also that there should have been a couple more). But I know the kids don't feel that way and there will be parents who don't feel that way. I had one other person at the school point out the discrepency (F in math next to C's and B's in other subjects) and comment that it does not "look right." I agree. There is something wrong with that. There is something wrong when my kids can't read their damn report card but the only class they failed was my math class. Can't shake the feeling that the comment was directed at me, though. Despite all that, I can't in good conscience say that the kids who failed deserve a better grade. So I stuck to it, in tears in the office agonizing over how to help these kids with no way to go. Frustrated and fighting. Because it's too late now. It's done.

There are few things more heartbreaking than watching my children fail.

I need a drink.

there is a lot that's left to say

2008-05-08T17:53:00.001-05:00

Went to see Hurricane on the Bayou at the IMAX with the kids today.

Just about all of us cried.

just when you want to give up

2008-04-09T21:34:00.002-05:00

Found while grading a make-up quiz on operations with positive and negative numbers:

"thang you for
all youve done"

The little bastards know a hundred ways to make me cry. Some of them are good.

square one

2008-04-09T19:02:00.002-05:00

Today was horrible. I wish I had something more reflective and educational to say about it, but I don't. I also am long overdue to do some proper blogging about the things I brought home from the CEC conference. Instead, I offer a formula for math teacher misery:

Where c represents the number of changes in routine throughout a given school day, s represents the total number of students a teacher is responsible for teaching in a day, a is the number of absent faculty who teach the same students, r is the number of unavailable substitutes required to monitor said students, and x represents fourth quarter daily average spring fever levels* -

[cs + (a + r)^2] * x^2 = m

*spring fever is measured on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the lowest (students sleeping on desks) and 10 being the highest (teachers are keeping security guards posted at the doors to maintain order).

In the given formula, m will be equal to the math teacher's daily misery level. Values of m surpassing 7,000 dmu (daily misery units) may result in increased door-slamming and erratic behavior. Values that approach or exceed 8,000 dmu have been linked in completely unscientific studies to an increased likelihood that the given math teacher will be forced to leave the room before she either a)grabs a child by the throat or b)sobs uncontrollably in frustration.

hit or miss continues

2008-04-04T12:15:00.000-05:00

Well, my urban learners session was affirming (hey! that's my kids!) but not particularly enlightening. A lot of recognizing my own students' behaviors, descriptions of the urban learning environment, relating to the broken discipline system, and generally feeling like someone out there is going through the same things I do on a regular basis! But they didn't really tell me anything I don't already know.

I did just get out of another session run by a Pearson rep which was actually useful. Short, to-the-point, and gives me ideas to take home that don't require a lot of investment. I'll take it. It is also good to know that some companies out there are publishing for kids who are not on level from a vocab/reading perspective. And by that I mean, not just publishing reading intervention programs or reading material, but publishing subject area texts for secondary education on elementary reading levels. A big part of the reason that my class text is pretty useless to me as a teaching tool is because the vocabulary and reading comprehension skills of my students are not yet up to the level of the book. The text is abstract and the vocabulary is difficult for students who can barely read. Even when the text uses concrete examples and modeling, the instructions are too difficult to interpret for my students. So I am forced to improvise. Wouldn't it be grand to have a text written on a lower reading level with all the same content?

conventioning in Boston

2008-04-04T09:25:00.000-05:00

So here I am at the Hynes Convention Center, skipping out on my first session of the day because it's boring as hell and not particularly helpful. I took my copy of the power point and left. I started a 'strand' of panel sessions by the Access Center on differentiation yesterday and it continued with a more specific math and science track this morning but I have been disappointed. Yesterday's module was excellent.

There are a couple words that educators throw around these days, one of which is 'differentiation' (an ambiguous term to say the least). With the laws as they are these days and inclusion (another education buzz word) in the classroom, differentiation is something that everybody says but very few really know what it means or what to do about it. We have to differentiate instruction, they say. Well that's great and all, but have you met my children? HELP! For once, during the session yesterday, I actually got some concrete useful information and not just lip service. I was hoping for something in-depth and math-specific this morning but I've been let down. For a two hour session, I heard everything I needed to know in 20 minutes. So here I am blogging about it.

Overall, the conference has been a bit disappointing for me. I am learning that educators can be notoriously bad about saying what they mean. And by this I mean that lectures and panels that have one title and description often turn out to be completely useless to me. I struck out twice yesterday before hitting something that had any meaning. For instance, a 'demonstration' ostensibly titled "State of Practice: Implementation of Inclusion and Prereferral Practices Across School Systems" that claimed to be about improving collaboration to improve inclusion practices (I realize that this means little to any of you out there - but it's important) turned out to be an awful slide show about the demographics of special education students in one small area of Texas. Useless to anyone not from Texas. "Strategies to Sustain Improved Outcomes for Youth with EBD and Their Families" turned out to be another data presentation with no real helpful information about what strategies were used in order to get such encouraging results. Most of my special ed students (and even those with 504 acommodations) have some sort of EBD (emotional/behavioral disability) classification and I need help, ideas, a starting point. It's why I came to this conference in the first place. So far, I got nothing. Most of the presenters I've seen have been preoccupied with presenting the specifics of the data from their studies without ever telling me how I can use the results of their study to benefit me or my school district. That's higher education for you.

I'm a math teacher. I need my presentations to be practical, to-the-point, and devoid of unnecessary information.

Yesterday was a beautiful day in the city so I took a walk around the neighborhood and admired the brownstones and enjoyed the cold but sunny weather. Today is nasty and rainy, but if it lets up any time soon I may skip out of the conference for a little while and go find the comic shop and waste some time. Either that or I'll hit the mall or Barnes & Noble and hide until 5 o'clock. Oh, but look! There is a session titled "Differentiated Instruction, Social Skills and Behavior: Teaching Urban Learners" that claims to want to give me concrete and applicable information. Off I go.

Council for Exceptional Children Expo

2008-04-02T22:14:00.000-05:00

So I'm in Boston for the CEC conference. It's more than a little on the chilly side but I'm hoping that it will be worth it. If nothing else, I've gotten away from the kids and out of town for a few days. I get to spend it feeling all professional and enjoying my swanky hotel room and the fabulous king-size bed and flat screen TV. Also hoping that I can do some good American consuming downtown between sessions and escape the group I'm with. Not feeling very social. Up for an adventure.

Anyway, perhaps I'll have something interesting and educational to blog about tomorrow.

Spring Break!

2008-03-19T17:27:00.005-05:00

Because today is my Friday and I don't have to go back to work until next Wednesday, I am not going to talk about my own students at all today. But I did want to share a gem of the internets.

I am still laughing my ass off over this one. This comic is an alternate reality version of my life for the last eight months. I can't even tell you - there are not words sufficient.

3rd quarter - order up

2008-03-18T21:26:00.006-05:00

Well, kiddies, it's accounting time again. The third quarter has ended, LEAP week has passed, and soon there will be report card conferences. I have some mixed feelings about this past quarter for multiple reasons. One is that I feel that I cut them a big break by not giving a quarterly exam in anticipation of iLEAP. Another is that grades are looking up, I believe, on account of this. My quarter exams (well, exams in general) have high failure rates simply because my children are horrifically bad at taking tests, as a rule. Their retention is poor and their interest in the subject, despite bribery and coercion and every sort of trickery I know, is lower than the average.

(Side note: never ask your students what their favorite and/or best subject is at the beginning of the school year. They will lie.)

When all is tallied, however, I do feel that there has been a continuing trend of improvement from almost all of my students and I feel that their grades should reflect that. Even if it is just moving from an F to a D. For some of my kids that tiny uptick can make all the difference in their morale which, I hope, will keep them moving toward at least a C this final quarter of the year so that I can feel justified in passing as many students as possible. Who wants to fail a kid who has already failed so much? But if they fail, I'll do it. I won't reward apathy. I refuse.

But enough of the rambles. Let's crunch some numbers. Allow me to include here, an accounting of the grade scale that we operate under:

100 - 93%: A
92 - 85%: B
84 - 75%: C
74 - 70%: D
below 69%: F

First through Third Quarter stats are as follows:

1st Quarter: 30 Fs, 10 Ds, 3 Cs, 4 Bs, 2 As (49 Students)
2nd Quarter: 20 Fs, 10 Ds, 10 Cs, 8 Bs, 2 As (50 Students)
3rd Quarter: 3 Fs, 12 Ds, 18 Cs, 13 Bs, 4 As (50 students)

I would like to believe that this is a dramatic turn-around. And it is, but only sorta kinda. Had I given an exam, I would see considerably more Fs, more Cs, and would probably have my previous quarters' As. Also, I am still refining my grading system to be a more accurate reflection of the students' progress. This isn't something that they teach you in your teacher crash course. You just have to figure it out on your own and by talking to other teachers and they all have their own ideas. Mine is improving, I think. (Also, if any teacher ever tells you that they don't tweak their grades occasionally with clever number crunching - they are lying.) One of my As is a pleasant surprise, some of my Bs should be As but just couldn't quite squeak it. One of my Ds is a big disappointment because one of my kids is slipping. Most of my Cs have been well-earned and many of the Bs are also pleasant surprises, though they were greatly benefited by the lack of exam. Still, I won't begrudge my kids a taste of success. Our grade scale is a bitch.

Anyway, there it is.

"those kids are our kids"

2008-03-18T19:10:00.000-05:00

I am not a political person in any strong sense of the word. Most of the time, I refrain from discussing my vote or political opinions with even my closest friends. But Obama's speech is something else. Because it is not a speech that leaves me trying to figure out what he really meant, what his agenda really is, what he is covering up for. This is what I have been waiting for a political candidate to say for quite possibly my entire voting life: the truth.

It is a speech that I hope that one day, if not today, my children will understand. It is for them and about them. It's about you, too. And, because I'm hardly objective and this is a teaching blog, it's for the teachers. All the teachers: the biased, the idealistic, the strung-out, the black, the white, private, public, suburban, urban, rural, as well as those who have failed our kids and those who struggle against failure. All of them.

And I'm sap enough to admit that it made me cry. (I'm pretty sure I lost it at "those kids are our kids.") Because it is an honest look at the complexity of people and race and everything, for once - finally, without the side-stepping and posturing. It should be watched in it's entirety. Otherwise you miss the big picture and this, after all, is about the big picture.

speaking of derby

2008-03-07T15:13:00.000-06:00

I have found my favorite derby name to date:

Lois Carmen Denominator (a Boston Derby Dame)

Someone please tell me when, exactly, I become such a math dork.

countdown to iLeap

2008-03-05T20:35:00.000-06:00

So the third quarter of my first year of teaching is drawing to a close. This means frantically updating gradebooks, filling out retention forms, and (drum roll, please) preparing my 6th graders for the iLeap. I will have an update on how many students passing/failing just as soon as I can crunch my numbers. But right now I am more worried about getting the kids prepped to sit and take tests all next week.

I am torn about the status of standardized testing and educational accountability. On the one hand, it totally fucking blows. It is cramming as much information into a kid's head as possible with minimal attention to what they really learned and will retain or to what is really going to be meaningful. I've said this before, that intuitively I may need to know that the commutative property of multiplication or addition exists, but do I really need to know the fancy math term for it just so I can fill out the right bubble on the standardized test? I mean, honestly?

On the other hand, in order to pass these tests, the children really do have to have problem solving skills of some sort and that is something vital to life outside of testing. Multiple choice does not an easy-pass make. In order for them to do well at all, I do have to figure out how to teach them to think and that's what we want, isn't it? These things are stupid to those of us to take it for granted that reading comprehension and basic arithmetic are no-brainers. Ever tried to teach a kid to think? Most people at some point in their lives, especially if they have kids or younger siblings, have spent time trying to teach someone their times tables or how fractions work. But did you ever have to teach them how to think?

This year has been a slow realization that the process of thinking out simple problems is something that a lot of us take for granted. You just do it. But my students, most of them, haven't been trained to think for themselves. It's not that they are any less intelligent than your average privileged white kid in suburbia. When they want something bad enough, they will figure out a way to get it and in some of the most surprising ways you can imagine. The problem, as I see it, is they have gone through their lives thinking that just getting the answer is what's important. 2 + 3 = 5 but who taught them to connect the numbers to the reality? They learn math because we told them to, not because they actually believe that it is useful to them (no matter what the stupid curriculum says or how much their teachers try to convince them with silly scenarios). So they go through the motions as quickly as possible, spit out an answer, and then move on to the more important task of gossiping and trying to figure out a better, sneakier way to eat noodles in class without getting caught.

They have super powers, these kids, they just haven't yet learned to use their powers for good.

Anyway, this all started with iLeap. And I guess what I really wanted to say is that there is something to be said for what the standardized tests are trying to accomplish. Still not convinced, however, that they succeed or that they are the best way to assess our kids' progress. Not that I have any better ideas.

ain't nuthin' but skin

2008-03-03T22:29:00.000-06:00

My whiteness was a theme today. In one class, one kid started to say something about me being white and thought better of it quickly. A few other kids jumped on them, but I could tell the offender didn't mean to be offensive. I just held out my pasty white arms and said, "No - it's the truth. Can't change it. I don't have control over it and don't see how it makes a difference. It doesn't make a difference to me that you are black, so I hope it doesn't make a difference to any of you what color I am. It's genetic. Moving on."

Later, with another class, I was half exasperated and just half loopy. I talk and teach with my hands a lot. I wave my hands around, accidentally send dry-erase markers flying across the room, and generally dance around in front of the white board like a lunatic. So finally I just stood up in front of the class and I said that I don't know what the deal is that other teachers walk into the room and they get immediate respect, immediate response. Am I invisible? This is my classroom and you all are my students and I love you and stand up for you and I fight every day for you and I haven't quite figured out what I did to earn your disrespect. I know I may seem like this crazy white woman who stands up here everyday screaming 'math! math! math!' (insert crazy arm waving here) but I wouldn't do it everyday if it weren't important. (The polite, if frantic, way of saying, "I come to work everyday for your benefit, you little monsters, what the fuck is your problem?")

And then one of my girls said one of the best (if most perplexing things) that I have ever heard on the subject. She says, "Ms. Em, we don't think of you as white!"

They're stupidly brilliant, these kids sometimes.

everything goes to hell anyway

2008-02-29T16:35:00.000-06:00

You love them and you love them and you love them and you try to protect them and teach them and stand up for them and fight for them and give them everything they need and raise them right when their mamas don't. You love them despite themselves and you love them because of the wonderful things they are capable of when given the chance. So you love them and you give them chances and opportunities and sometimes they step up and surprise you. And then they trample and disappoint and abuse and cheat you.

You love them no matter what. But in the end, that's what makes it so maddening and heartbreaking and all there is left in you are tears and frustration and defeat.

And like Tom Waits says, "everything goes to hell anyway."

Today was a beat down. It was hard on the resolve. All there was at the end of it was tears. I love them now more than before, which is why today hurt so much.

2008-02-28T18:54:00.000-06:00

I guess I've been pretty (relatively) zen about the kids and their craziness this week. And, I've said it before, but despite the lunacy displayed daily, I do love my childrens. They've really mellowed out considerably from the beginning of the year (although, if you saw them you might not believe me). At least, in my classroom they have mellowed out. I cannot and will not speak for other classrooms. I'll get my ass in trouble or say something untrue and that's not what this is about.

True, there are a couple of them that I can live without. But mostly I love them. They make me laugh. They are beginning to surprise me in good ways. Students who fought me in the beginning, now I think I've earned a little respect. It was hard earned, tooth and nail. And there is still a long way to go, but I am proud of them for what progress we have made. What progress they have made. It can't all be quantified, unfortunately, in the iLeap exam that my children will take in a little more than a week. And that is what is breaking my heart right now.

The kids are starting to ask me if I will be back next year (of course!) and a few even asked me if I would be teaching 7th grade math because they thought I should. I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know that it means that at least for a couple kids I have accomplished one of the things I set out to do when I pursued teaching math in the first place: to not be the sucky math teacher that I had in middle school.

Score.

it's the little things

2008-02-27T15:59:00.001-06:00

Holy crap!! I just had the best five minutes of the school year so far! I can't even tell you, dear interwebs, just how fucking amazing it is when suddenly this kid, this kid who is way too old for 6th grade, this kid who fights me every step of the way and is so used to failing at life that his only coping mechanism is to annoy the hell out of everyone so that they pay attention to him - how fucking amazing it is to hear the click in his brain when suddenly he understands!

I'm on top of the fucking universe right now. I'm so damn proud of him! And it just was so awesome to see the big grin on his face over something that so many of us take for granted. This kid, J, is a kid who can barely do arithmetic. He can sort of multiply and he can add after a few tries, but he never really got it. Subtraction and division? Forget it. Please, someone tell me how you can be 15 years old and not know these basics?

Today we were learning how to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators. Yesterday we covered adding and subtracting with like denominators. He did okay with that because it was a one step process, but today I could see the glazed over eyes. He had checked out. But I sat down with him to walk him through all the steps (finding the least common denominator, making the equivalent fractions, adding it all up, and simplifying your answer). He knew how to find the LCD (which was a pleasant surprise, but not earth-shattering) but when it came to making equivalent fractions (say turning 1/2 into 2/4) he was totally stuck. So I walked him through one. (This is where things get technical and don't translate well to text.)

I set up the proportion 1/2 = blank/4 and asked him what would fill in the blank. When we learned how to solve proportions a few weeks back, I taught the kids the cross multiplication method to solve for the blank by multiplying (in this case) 4 times 1 and then dividing the answer by 2. The division stumped him. But I held up four fingers and told him to break them into twos - how many groups of fingers was I holding up? His eyes got bigger and he says, tentatively, "Oh, that's how you divide..."

That was my cue to give him some other division examples. 10 divided by 2 can be done by drawing 10 tick marks and circling every 2 ticks - how many circles do you have? Subtraction could be done with tick marks too (for 11 - 5 draw 11 tick marks and then cross five of them out and count how many are left). The realization in this kid's eyes was fantastic. There is nothing better than hearing him say that he gets it. Nothing.

I feel like such a proud division mama! That something so simple can be so satisfying. And incredible.

Fucking incredible.

being a work-a-holic is not for the weak of immune system

2008-02-25T22:56:00.000-06:00

Once again, it is Monday night and I find myself sitting at a table across from unapologetic at Rue de la Course. It is way more productive than being in my house these days, as my house tends to be entirely too comfortable and sucks all motivation out of me. Considering how far behind I am (still) on my workload, spending a couple nights a week at the coffee shop until midnight is good for me. Considering how little sleep I'm getting on account of it, this time spent is bad for my health. Since life in New Orleans right now is bad for my health, it was decidedly good for my health to escape to Destin for the weekend with friends.

Of course, I got nothing done. (Unless you consider procuring a mild sunburn and building a sand fortress on the beach to be productive.) But the sun and the company temporarily cured one hell of a nasty cold, which has crept back up on me since we got back to town last night (probably because I don't have my lovely derby wife around to make me shoot Emergen-Cs and eat properly).

Tonight I am supposed to be updating the gradebook (3-half-weeks behind!), writing tomorrow's lesson plan, and working on my Teacher Work Sample for school. Oh, and filling out potential retention forms. And putting together make-up work for students. And tearing my eyes out. Trying to chip away a little at a time without stressing out about everything too much. Since I wasted the past two weekends on having way too much fun with my friends, this next weekend needs to be about getting work done (and maybe just having a moderate amount of fun with my friends).

The kids - what can I say about the kids? I get the feeling that my relationship with my students is generally on an upswing. Even on a sucky day, I feel calmer, better able to ride out the flash hormonal shifts and abuse. It's much easier to leave the kids at school. I bring the work home but not so much the children anymore, and that is good for my overall sanity. It's way too emotionally draining to bring all their problems home with me all the time. That said, I am noticing that my kids are sharing more little tidbits out of their lives. I'm hearing more, they are less secretive around me and I think overall that is a good thing. My teacher "with-itness" is improving. I can catch the shenanigans most of the time before it gets out of hand and I can often get what I want with a well-place glare or a raised eyebrow in individual cases.

Relationships with my most difficult students are mostly looking up these days but I find that the mood changes as soon as everyone gets comfortable. A was a model student today after last week's blowout and reconciliation. D's classroom behavior has seen a dramatic turn for the better the past week and he's expressed to me what appears to be his most genuine desire thus far to make good and try to learn something. I realize that this will last only so long as nothing really horrific happens at home for him, but I'll take it while I've got it. I guess what I'm getting at is that I've become more tolerant and more attuned to what triggers my students' episodes. Still haven't figured out what the hell to do about Blackbird. She was supposed to be up for suspension after some crazy tantrums in my room last week but it got lost in the paperwork. Next time I will insist. Her parents need to be faced with the seriousness of their daughter's troubles. At this point, I do not get the impression that they truly understand what kinds of fucked up is going on in her head right now. (But hey, that's just my uninformed opinion on the matter.) I don't understand it, either, but I know that it is a serious problem in my classroom that isn't doing her or anyone else any good.

In other news, my anonymity is about to be non-existent. Because I'm using derby to get the word out about my school and when all the details are ready, I will post them here.

For now, though, back to the gradebook.

get real, folks

2008-02-19T22:03:00.000-06:00

Who decided that having professional development days on a Tuesday was a good idea? I personally don't mind getting a break from the kids in the middle of the week every time they do this. But professionally it drives me up the wall and screws up the flow of the educational week. Also, doing lots of feel-good blah blah blah activities that talk about empathy and "teaching everyone in the world to love each other" and "the power of teaching" really makes my brain bleed. Certainly, there are a few tidbits of information or useful activities I can pull out of the seven hours I spent trying not to vomit on my copy of the power point presentation. For the most part, however, I really don't want to spend my day in a chair listening to some Canadian woman tell me squishy stories about "troubled kids" in cushy school school systems and how good teaching changed them, yada yada yada.

I don't need a pep talk, lady. I need some damn tools to deal with an entire classroom of kids living in crap-ass situations who don't know how to divide. It's really irritating to be told these inspirational stories about kids (who honestly did have it rough) bonding with babies to learn social skills. I need some examples of how the hell I'm supposed to motivate a bunch of myspace junkies with no parental supervision to learn their times tables.

I don't really mean for this to become a rant, but I'm really getting sick of hearing how things work at these great schools dominated by the white middle class suburbanites whose kids are on grade level. I have black, poverty-line urban kids who need to get their lives turned around while there is still time. What good is your complicated note-taking system if they can't even form a coherent sentence and have never truly been held accountable for their own learning in their life?

UGH.

So yeah, that's what I did today. Now I am at the coffee shop trying to finish a lesson plan for my observation tomorrow morning and my brain is totally fried. With the imminent doom of iLeap on the horizon, all I can think about is how my students are entirely unprepared and there's just no time, no time.

who has time to sit on their ass?

2008-02-18T22:23:00.000-06:00

I love them. I really do. But sometimes my kids can be so dumb! And it isn't necessarily because they really are dumb but just because they are content to be that way.

Anyway, that is entirely beyond the point of anything. All I gotta do is my job and hope that something clicks somewhere along the line. There is nothing like review / iLeap blitz time to really make me wonder whether anything will ever stick to some of them. The next two weeks are mostly cram time: cram everything they've ever done and whatever else you can fit into the math block into their brains and hope that something, somehow sticks to their brain cells that does not have to do with myspace.

Once again, my boss' enthusiasm and confidence get me through these weeks. Two people at school are really my hero right now. One is my master teacher, because she is supportive but also realistic and straightforward. She's been into the same trenches I've been into this year and she knows the deficiencies and obstacles facing my kids. The other is, of course, the principal who has this enormous confidence in me that I am not always sure I have earned, but which makes the work seem less bleak on the bleak days. He is also my hero because he sees what is going on with all the teachers and I know that he will reward those who work and cut those who drag us down. Who they are, I don't ask and don't always want to know. In a profession where administration is often criticized for being out of touch with what is going on in the classroom, he is one administrator who pays attention. And it is reassuring to know that he sees the inequity that I have been experiencing and I know that he will do something about it in the end.

I said today that I less exhausted by what the kids put me through than I am by witnessing others who are supposed to be my peers not pull their weight. It is the most frustrating to feel like I should be able to look to these people for their wisdom and experience only to find that I'm busting my ass and others...aren't. With all that is wrong with our children's lives, we should be worried less about cutting them breaks and more about busting their asses to catch up in any way possible. Last week I had several students ask me why I am the only one of their teachers who never sits down during class.

Who has time to sit down when you're teaching? My desk is not a work space, it is a hall pass/homework/tardy slip/workbook/pencil dumping ground that I sometimes lean against when my knees start to hurt or my ankles start to swell at the end of the day (god, I'm too fucking young for this shit). It does little more than take up space and give me something to hide behind during my planning period (when there are, mercifully, no children demanding my attention). I don't even have time to eat! No, that's not true - I don't have the brain cells available to remind me to eat. Because I wake up at 5:00 a.m. and know that I have to be at work for 6:30 to have time to think, prepare, make a battle plan, dominate the copy machine while no one is at work, and enjoy the only solitude I might get in my 10 to 12-hour workday. So, you can understand why I royally peeves me to notice that my colleagues routinely show up to work ten to fifteen minutes late (after the students get to class and have had time to take advantage of no adult supervision) and rarely show up (or skip out early) for duty (and then do so late).

Which is the long of way of saying that it is good to know that my principal sees me busting my exhausted ass. And thinks to check in and make sure that everything's going as smoothly as one can expect in our universe of the unexpected.

I know I should be doing it for the kids. And ultimately that is true. But when I just can't stand the sight of their ungrateful tween faces, my boss makes this job worth it. Why would I want to work anywhere else?

just because

2008-02-17T19:15:00.000-06:00

Sometimes there are just these moments where it's hard not to realize how good you have it. I have this pretty amazing life even if it means very little in the grand scheme of everything. If you think about it, I'm willing to bet that there is something amazing about yours too.

My papers aren't graded, my gradebook is three weeks behind, I've got a ton of UNO stuff to do, my house is a disaster, and I have no lessons planned yet for this week. But things are good anyway. If I can get through this week, there will most likely be a trip to the beach at the end of it. With my people. I have awesome people.

'cause she white

2008-02-14T21:29:00.000-06:00

When you let your kids tell you what they think, they will tell you. And it may not make any difference at all. Blah.

Straight from the Queen Bee's mouth: I'm white and I'm "too nice" (but when I'm mean like they say I should be, there is no difference...which brings us back to "'cause she white").

Oh, how I hate Valentine's Day. It is yet another reason for my kids to eat entirely too much candy and be little bastards on sugar-highs. Love ain't got nuthin' to do with it. Never liked it much before, and now I have a whole new perspective of hate for candy-filled, ego-driven non-holidays.

Thanks, that is all.

mardi gras 2008 accomplished

2008-02-06T19:51:00.000-06:00

It's been a whirlwind, oh internets, and it came far to early in the year for my taste. But Mardi Gras 2008 (or as I like to think of it now: Successfully Escaping All Things Educational & Responsible Four Days in a Row 2008) has been a success. The calm of Ash Wednesday is always so refreshing but kind of sad.

I did a little something every night since Friday over the festival weekend. Friday was a delayed Muses parade wherein I skated the entire parade route and then met up with a friend from out of town and proceded to stay up for a total of 26 hours. Saturday was meeting up with other folks from out of town and spending entirely too much time at Pat O'Briens (a bar I go to only during this season, really). Sunday was...uh, I've already forgotten Sunday. But I did something good, I'm sure of it, and crashed in the Quarter. Lundi Gras was the most excellent of evenings spent at One Eyed Jack's to watch Morning 40 Federation, a stop from the Noise Parade, and Quintron & Miss Pussycat. I even scored a small black rubber chicken that was not actually very rubbery from someone with the Noise.

And Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras in the French Quarter is always a spectacle and I spent a great deal of it dancing barefoot in Jackson Square with some Evangelines and anyone else who happened to come along, just watching the people go by, and rather joyfully dancing in the face of those who would have me repent, be reborn in Jesus, and subject myself to the will of a husband. No thanks, I think I'll go to Hell happy.

Happy Belated Mardi Gras, New Orleans. This is one of the best places on earth.

Photos courtesy of ab3, because I am camera-less. And anyway, he takes better pictures than I do.

i have to be enigmatic today

2008-02-01T19:11:00.000-06:00

This week was generally awful.

Again, I face the old dilemma of how much to tell about my precise school. I've already narrowed it down to a handful of possible schools as it is. Those in the know have probably already figured it out. And while I want to share the cool things and promote my school, I think it is also an important part of this blog to share the bad. Unfortunately, I don't think I can truly do that. Not without putting myself and my school in a very compromised position. In the interest of watching my own butt, there are some really fun things that I can't blog about as well and that's kind of sucky.

I guess I have to do like the principal always says and stay focused on the kids. It's about them. And days like yesterday and today, I wish I could share with everyone but especially my students that I am on their side. I wish that I could voice that to them and support them in a situation where I am helpless to do anything. I have to be an adult and show solidarity with the adults.

But let's face it, folks - sometimes the kids know what they are talking about. And someone needs to start listening to them.

TAP

2008-01-30T22:33:00.000-06:00

This week and next week are going to be total losses at school. Compass testing this week - what a waste. Mardi Gras next week means we only have school on Thursday and Friday and there will be a dance on Friday. Not getting anything accomplished those days. So that makes things suck.

All that said, I had a comment question about TAP and my experience with it. My school is in their practice year of the Teacher Advancement Program - TAP for short. I have to admit that I was pretty skeptical about it at first and I admit that there are still things about it that I think are totally lame and inconvenient. The sixth grade teachers, the three of us, have a cluster meeting with the school's Master Teacher twice a week. In the beginning we were learning the rubric (if there is one thing I loathe about education it is all this rubric stuff) that covers all sorts of things that research shows make for good teaching. Now we're on to tracking student progress, teacher evaluations, and in our case we are implementing the G.I.S.T. strategy (I couldn't explain to you what GIST stands for if I tried, but you can imagine what it is about) and tracking student data as it relates to that.

Things that drive me crazy: standards and GLEs. Not exclusive to TAP, but I guess I should make my stance on the state Grade Level Expectations known. THEY SUCK. I hate the Comprehensive Curriculum, I hate the GLEs, and I hate the stupid standardized testing that is required by the state. Which is not to say that it is stupid to test kids, I just think the tests they take are stupid. The kids are not being assessed using real life situations, they are not being taught problem solving skills, and they are being force fed all sorts of math that (let's face it folks) no one ever fucking uses outside of a classroom. I happen to like algebra, but do you use variables and algebraic equations in your daily life? Do you ever need to know the associative or commutative property of multiplication? Do you ever need to know the difference between a supplementary or complimentary angle? Honestly? There is all sorts of cool math that kids could be learning and it isn't as tangible or testable as a bunch of multiple choice questions. Basic operations are important, number sense is important, spatial reasoning is handy, and just generally being able to solve a problem using common sense is a must. And the middle school math years are important in our system for establishing all that. But it's silly the way we compartmentalize math. Algebra, geometry, number theory, fractions, decimals, percents, everything in math is related.

I'm not entirely sure where this rant is going, except to say that breaking math instruction down into tiny little bits and they expecting kids to assimilate it all seems ridiculous to me. Why should I be force-feeding them abstract ideas out of the shiny-white-middle-class-perfect-world text book in a certain order when what they really need is the time to explore and make a lot of mistakes. Pressure on account of LEAP means that I have to figure out ways to make the kids think the way that the government thinks they should in order to pass a certain test. I'd be happy if they had the confidence to divide 36 by 12 without the crutch of a calculator. I'd be happy if actually knew what multiplication and division are used for. In sixth grade I have a large number of students (a majority I would even venture to say) who don't actually have a concept of what addition or subtraction or multiplication or division mean beyond scratching numbers down on paper or entering them into a calculator. I plug numbers into a calculator and an answer comes out - that's math.

This is me beating my head against a wall.

Anyway, all this is related to TAP because we are attempting to track students progress according to state standards. In my case, the math standards. And as a general rule, everyone in every grade should be teaching the same sort of thing in their math class at the same time and at the same rate and as you can imagine this is a preposterous idea. One, by the time I discovered this, I had already covered a lot of stuff that they wanted me to cover again. No way. My kids were sick of fractions and frustrated and it was time to do something else. Two, my kids are dumb on average. I am trying to sneak problem-solving into a curriculum that already assumes that the kids have problem solving capabilities. They don't. They've never had to think critically in math because as far as I can tell no one ever expected it of them. This is baffling to me on many levels, the most pressing being that problem solving is the entire reason for studying math as far as I'm concerned.

I can't teach kids to think if I'm expected to teach them to pass a standardized test.

Now that I've gone completely off track, let me come back to TAP by saying that I enjoy my Master Teacher very much and she has been a huge help to me as a mentor. She is also understanding that what happens on paper and what happens in an actual classroom are two completely different animals. It doesn't make me less annoyed by so much of the educational jargon and bullshit that I have to be able to digest and regurgitate, but it does make it easier to accept as part of the daily grind.

As for this rubric which the teachers are being evaluated on, I do believe that the time we spent going over it and the things I learned from that time was worth it for me as a first year teacher. It certainly prompted me to change and improve some of my practices and I do believe that it has made a difference for my teaching and for my students. I really don't know that I would have seen the improvements that I've seen from my first quarter teaching to today if I hadn't had the TAP meetings and the Master Teacher's guidance. I think I'd be a worse teacher - or at the very least, it would have taken me longer to figure out some of this stuff on my own. It helped me provide much needed structure and focus to my classes that I was missing because I was so wrapped up in the overwhelming newness of it all.

So while there are aspects of TAP that I find annoying, I can't say that the program is a total loss. Overall for me it has been a great help. But as I said before, I think I can attribute a lot of it also to our Master Teacher. She's an excellent mentor: encouraging, full of ideas, and very good at relating the rubric's mumbo-jumbo to the way things really work in the classroom. She may not be a math person, but she's definitely helped me to feel more at ease in my situation. Because knowing your content is easy but knowing how to deal with your students is the real challenge.

I don't know that this post really answered the question that was asked, but I gave it a shot. Suppose that a more detailed and thoughtful diatribe on the sorry state of math education in our system should be forthcoming. But we'll see about that.

in short

2008-01-25T16:27:00.000-06:00

The Week (in short): fights, craziness, miracles, exhaustion, breakthroughs, and algebra.

Teachers don't have a reputation for being cool. But seriously, folks, my job is the coolest. I still love/hate it, but this has limited impact on the cool factor. The main contributor to my job's cool factor this week has been teaching my kids some basic algebra skills. Algebra, I should tell you, is my favorite branch of mathematics. So what makes this all so cool (besides the fact that I love me a good linear equation)?

The kids are loving it.

the good, the bad, the professional

2008-01-24T19:16:00.000-06:00

So much to blog about, so little brain power. So let's bullet point the overall picture and we'll see where I end up.

* I had an official administrative observation on Tuesday
* I had my wrap-up/evaluation today
* I am going to at least one, if not two, conventions in April
* How does one choose between cool things at work and roller derby?
* Classes at UNO have begun again
* Oh crap.
* Barack Obama sound bite on education
* Wow, my job is cool.

Now for the long version: I had one of my official observation/evaluations on Tuesday. There were about a million people in and out of my room and I felt totally off my game. The principal and the master teacher and all sorts of folks are always coming into my class, but usually just as a walk-through. I felt unprepared and disorganized and was slightly worried when Mr. G and the master teacher and whoever else was watching left about half-way through class.

But...after observations we are supposed to do a wrap-up and self-evaluation with the master teacher. And I'm not too proud to say that for the most part I got glowing reviews. (On our scoring rubric, we are aiming for 3s and the MT kept saying 4!) This mostly makes me happy because I know that it means I have a job next year at the school I want to be at working for the people I want to work for. It also helps to know that starting next year we will be working on a performance-based pay scale and glowing reviews means a sweet paycheck. I like sweet paychecks. But beside that, I like feeling appreciated. It is comforting to know that even if I can't see when I'm doing things right, someone sees it. I want to be the best. I want to take pride in what I do. This helps.

I also have to admit that it was pretty cool to hear about Mr. G's enthusiasm for my lesson. He's just the type of guy that you can't bear to disappoint. He inspires people to want to be better and that's an awesome quality to have in a principal, especially for a low-performing school such as ours.

Now I know I've made it into the "professional" world: I'm going to conferences! The charter association is paying for professional development in the form of sending teachers to conventions for various teacher-type subjects come spring time. For me that means paid room and board for two separate conferences in April, back-to-back. I'll spend four days in Boston for the 2008 CEC convention dealing with special education topics. This is the one I am most looking forward to development-wise. Dealing with my special needs kids is my biggest challenge and currently my biggest failing. The week after that I am going to Salt Lake City for an NCTM conference, Becoming Certain about Uncertainty, whatever the hell that means. It should be a good time, however, a lot of my favorite teachers are going.

Plus, two weeks away from the kids! In other cities! I like traveling for free.

On the downside, going to both conferences means that I will not make practice requirements in April in order to skate in the championship bout. This makes me very sad. But I have got to take care of work before derby. At least until the day derby starts paying.

Classes at UNO have started again. Yeah. I don't want to talk about that. It makes me want to hyperventilate and die. Which brings us to...

Oh crap.

I had something to say about Barack Obama. But I have to go grade 50 papers and update my gradebook and for that I need the last of today's allotment of brain cells. So it will have to wait.

That said: Wow. My job is cool.

twist my arm

2008-01-19T19:34:00.000-06:00

What do you do when your father makes you an offer that you'd be an idiot to refuse? My dad just called offered to paint my house, replace the other apartment's appliances, refinish the floors, paint the walls, do some yard work, generally fix the place up, and pay my $700 per month. If I give my renter notice to be out my May 1st and let my dad move in in June.

I'd be a lunatic to refuse. I'd be a lunatic to accept. But hell, it would be exactly like having a live-in maintenance guy on site who pays me. Really, the deal-maker is the fact that he's offering to PAINT MY HOUSE!

Dear gods, how I have longed to paint my house and make it pretty and new and bright. But there is no way I could afford it any time in the near future.

But then my dad would be living next door. And I never ever wanted to be one of those people who lives next door to their parents in their adulthood. But here I am, contemplating it. Somebody please explain to me how this could go horribly, horribly wrong.

2008-01-18T00:15:00.000-06:00

About - no, exactly - 45 minutes ago, someone got shot by my house.

Scary shit.

and one more thing...

2008-01-16T00:55:00.000-06:00

"If nothing changes, then nothing changes."

Ah, faculty meeting wisdom.

manthano : learn

2008-01-15T20:42:00.000-06:00

Not a very consistent blogger, am I?

Getting into my second week back at school, back at work, and as always no one day is like the day before. I'm never sure what insulting, insane, dangerous, funny, weird, stupid, brilliant, surprising, disappointing, maddening new tricks my children are going to come up with. Second quarter grades are up and there are disappointments and there are small victories. I find that, though quarter exam grades continue to be disappointing and discouraging, overall I am beginning to see students climb their way up the grade scale. Final grade stats for my first and second quarters are as follows:

1st Quarter: 30 Fs, 10 Ds, 3 Cs, 4 Bs, 2 As (49 Students)
2nd Quarter: 20 Fs, 10 Ds, 10 Cs, 8 Bs, 2 As (50 Students)

From 9 passing to 20 passing? At least two of my students labeled special education went from Fs to a B or C. At least one of my 504 students went from an F to a C. A few Fs raised themselves to Ds. I only have one or two who passed last quarter that did not pass this quarter and the one I know of was only in school for the last two weeks of the 1st quarter so he didn't get a chance to show his true colors before grades. I have a couple of F and D students who I can focus on now, knowing better their weaknesses and knowing who is willing to try and who just fucks around. Looking at these numbers, I finally feel like maybe I'm getting through somewhere, some little bit, even if I can't see it on a day-to-day basis and have to crunch numbers to see it. It should also be noted that Ds are not considered passing at our school as far as I know, though for some of my students I think there should be an exception, as below 75% is considered a D.

I hate to say that as a teacher I would ever pick and choose students to favor, but it is in fact true that I have about 6 students that I really feel that I can help out of the F/D hole with some more effort. I guess that goes back to a phrase that public school teachers unfortunately use a lot in this town (at least in my experience) and I'm sure it comes up in other high needs areas around the world. "You can't save them all," they tell you. And at first you think that for you it will be different but it never is. It's impossible. Kids still fall through the cracks and we can't always find the magic button that gets through to them. It's an impossible task especially as a first year teacher. I am seeing more and more the ways that my current students are disadvantaged by my inexperience, ways I will do it differently next time, ways to do things better. But I've just got to suck it up and take on the things I can take on. So I've got my handful of "project" children--children I think I can help pass 6th grade math with just a little more effort and some different strategies on my part. The others, well, I can do what I can and after that it is mostly up to them and up to their parents to take responsibility. I can only do so much.

I can only do my job. I can't be Wonder Woman.

On a slightly different note, my master teacher shared a surprisingly timely tidbit with me at our meeting yesterday. She told me that she didn't really feel comfortable teaching, didn't really know that it was the job for her, until after her third year. And it was just so comforting to hear that coming from her because she is amazing with the kids. To know that she was uncertain, that she thought about quitting, made it a little easier to think that I can survive this for at least the three years I am committed to surviving. First year is always tough for everybody, and maybe the 2nd year won't be much better, and after that isn't gonna be a magic transformation either, but maybe at least I can hope that I didn't make the wrong choice. It's a slow process, settling into this new teaching skin.

But I made another symbolic step for myself on Saturday. Took myself a little trip to Electric Ladyland and got the complimentary tattoo to the ink I had done in June. Check out Ed - he was completely awesome through the entire process, making this my most fun tattoo ever (and I do love getting inked). I owe him a rollergirl photo.

I teach. I learn.

here goes nothin'

2008-01-06T22:37:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow it is back to the classroom. I wish I could say I am prepared, but I'm not. I did no preparation whatsoever over my vacation. I've been grading tests I should have graded three weeks ago tonight and I'm still not sure what I'm going to teach tomorrow. Behind in a lot of other important things, too, but can't get up the guilt to do them.

Me: best procrastinator ever.

2008?

2008-01-02T17:50:00.000-06:00

Am I here already? Have I survived the worst? No, there is more to come but I'm half way. I'm rested, vacationed, and I have new rock star red hair. I am not quite ready to go back to work, which is fine, because I have a few more days to get there. Think I will pop by and help Mr. G with the library tomorrow just to get myself back in the swing of things.

The good news is that the extra hour of tutoring I do at 7 a.m. looks really good on my paycheck so I think I can find the motivation to keep it up. This, I am sure, will earn me some extra brownie points with the admins--not that I particularly need them right now. I feel pretty secure in my job, having been told several times that they do not want to lose me as a teacher, that they want me back next year. That's good. Now I just have to be ready to step up and deal with the UNO madness. I think I'm ready to take it on again. I think I've cleared my head, steeling myself to get through it and hope for the best. I've got a lot of work to do in the next few days. Now I just have to make myself do it.

I've been sleeping and drinking and watching a hell of a lot of Farscape on the internet lately. I've been forgetting, which I needed to do. I haven't even skated since our last derby bout in December. I've done nothing responsible and it felt really, really good.

Teachers really do have the best vacation plan ever, deservedly so.

There have been a lot of interpersonal things going on in my universe. None of them need sharing on this, what is supposed to be a vocational blog, but many of which have served to put a lot of things into perspective. Finding balance is the most difficult thing for me to do these days and I can attribute a lot of my dissatisfaction and ennui over the last few months to having a totally unbalanced life. I am all or nothing. And I can't be that way. It is hard to feel like you have to care about these small people who don't have to care about you back. You do have to care, but you do have to stand aside. I haven't yet learned how to leave the kids at school, mostly because there are not enough hours in a day to do so and I am bad at time management.

I miss A, I miss my second grade girls, I miss the comeraderie of the other teachers, I miss students who give me drawings and poems they wrote. And I have to remind myself that this is them reaching out and I can't just leave them behind. I can't forget about them. But I can't let them destroy my personal life either. I'm tired of missing my friends. I'm tired of missing their lives and their victories and their defeats. I'm tired of not being able to be there like I want to be. I'm tired of meaningless flings, no matter how much fun they may be at the time, keeping people at arm's length because there is no time. I'm tired of being tired all the time.

So I guess my New Year's Resolution would have to be finding that balance. I took a big leap last year to do this teaching thing. And in all the chaos and newness and stress I forgot that this was something that I did for me. I chose to teach for ME and my sanity. Now I've got to own that. This has got to be the year that I make this life mine.

'twas the week before christmas

2007-12-20T17:15:00.000-06:00

today: five fights (that i'm aware of), multiple suspensions, expulsions, blah blah blah blah. 6th grade christmas party canceled due to poor behavior all around. getting completed disrespected and back-talked too more times than i can count.

i'm too tired for this shit.

me = masochist

2007-12-07T20:57:00.000-06:00

Well, if my life wasn't surreal enough and stressful enough before, I decided to take on just one more thing. As of this next Monday I will be teaching a small group of about half a dozen 3rd graders in the mornings before school. For an hour a day I will be an elementary teacher and I'm really not sure how that will end up working out.

The good news: most of my materials are provided, we are working on pretty specific skills, the 'class' will be small, and I will get paid $25 an hour. That's $125 per week! That's my drinking money, baby. And boy, will I need me some drinking money...

The bad news: the mornings from 7-8 have traditionally been my prep time for the day ahead, so this means staying longer after school for the next day as well as coming early (I already pull 9 hours at school each day, nevermind time spent at home working). Also, I'm not trained to teach 3rd graders - what do I do with these strange creatures? Also, I have the dubious honor of teaching both math and reading (the other teachers are just teaching reading). Because I have never had to teach reading, I will happily point back to the good news, which is that most of my materials have been provided and are pretty straightforward.

This morning program is pretty much for the 'dumb' kids. I am a bad teacher in that I privately (and affectionately) refer to my students as 'my dumb ones.' They are putting the whole human race into perspective for me. Most of us are dumb, which is why education is such doomed but necessary enterprise. More accurately, parents signed their kids up for this extra time at school because they need the extra help, they are falling behind their peers, or possibly the parents just want them out of the house for an extra hour a day. I really am not sure. There are things that I like about having the 'dumb ones' but lately I've been fantasizing about a class of smart kids. I don't think I would love them or worry about them as much (my smartest kids right now are not particularly my favorites, though they are mostly good kids) but it would be a weight off my mind to have students who are less stressful. At least some of the time.

In other news, my students are cheating again. It makes me want break things, break kids even. There is one major peeve that I inherited from my father and that's a lack of integrity. It really bothers me when people lie to me like I'm stupid, like I won't know the difference, like it's no big deal. When it comes to my kids, it hurts the most even though I can't let them know that. I can't fucking stand cheaters.

trickle down

2007-12-06T21:05:00.000-06:00

Today was this weird mix of good and ambivalent and stressful that has put me in a strange mood. Tired, emotionally drained, frustrated - the usual mess - but also calm, weirdly content, and resolved.

I was out yesterday on a sick day which was good for me even though it messed with the momentum of my week. This morning there was an outpouring of relief and appreciation from my students that I hadn't anticipated. I remember when I was in middle school, it was always good when my teacher was gone and we had a substitute. We hated our math teacher. He wasn't mean or overly harsh or unfair or any of that. We just loathed him for the sake of loathing. (Sorry, Mr. Gutfeld, but you were a tool.) Also, I was bored out of my mind and nearly failed 7th grade math because I thought the whole thing was just stupid. I knew it all but couldn't test into the advanced class. Stupid. Maybe there was a case of 90s grunge apathetic angst about the whole deal but I digress. The point was, my students couldn't stop talking about how they were glad to have me back instead of the sub (they all walk all over him and, well, he's not very good with kids yet - very authoritarian but has no authority). And of course, that meant that they couldn't stop talking, but it wasn't malicious just kid stuff, exacerbated by the fact that I got pulled from class after 45 minutes for a tech training and my homeroom all protested loudly about it.

It was a strange show of affection, but no less appreciated. My other classes were messed up for the day but ran smoothly nonetheless and it made me feel better about my whole situation.

Had a conversation with the middle school special ed coordinator regarding the kids in special ed and specifically about D. D, the root of many headaches, but also the one who needs saved the most. We are not sure if he will be coming back to school. He is abused, neglected, and unwanted. He can hardly read but a few sight words and his math is marginally better as long as he has someone to read the problems. All his academic deficiencies have been overshadowed by his behavior problems. He is out right now because his mother won't take him to get his shots so we can't let him back to school - though we fudged that rule for most of the school year because of his situation. The problem is that his mother won't take him to get his shots so that he can stay in school but she won't let him stay home during the day so he roams the neighborhood on his bike and fends for himself. What the fucking hell is wrong with this woman? The school is running out of options. He's already been in foster care and his mother is uncooperative. It's no wonder he has a serious problem with female authority figures when his mother beats him. What can we do? I'm just afraid that this kid is way too close to being permanently broken and all I can do is watch it happen.

Another of my students got suspended today and I'm really kind of depressed about it because I don't want him to lose out so close to the end of the quarter and I think that he can pass this quarter. I don't want to see him singled out excessively so that it hurts him, which is what it seems is happening and I can't do anything about that either. Going to try to get him his work through his sister for the week that he will be out so that he can prepare for the exam and get the credit he needs. I really hate that progress the kids may be showing in my class behavior-wise seems to get no credit outside my class and I don't know how to fix that. I know that part of the problem is that this kid has a personality clash with one of the other teachers and he fights back fast. I have noticed, for the most part, that over time my students have calmed as I've calmed down. They may not talk any less but things are less dramatic most of the time. Trying to save the yelling for the most harmful behaviors has worked even though it has taken a while to see small results. I had expectations set too high too fast, especially considering my inexperience. But my inexperience is what makes it difficult for me to make suggestions to a more experienced teacher about how they deal with their own classroom discipline. I don't like people butting into my classroom, so I can hardly go butting into theirs.

I am trying to at least point the kids in the direction of empathy, though I may never see the benefits of anything I try to teach in that capacity.

All this said and rambled, brings me to my evening at UNO and my talk with my cohort leader about the state of my own academics. I nearly had an anxiety attack just thinking about the whole mess but it will probably be fine in the end. I've got some extra time to make up the disaster which is not as much of a disaster as I had suspected. But she told me that she thought I had a good rapport with my kids, which I have rarely felt. Reminded me that kids don't show it well, but after all that happened today I can see some of the little things. It may not get them to learn how to factor, but that is probably not the most important life skill they will ever need. Maybe I am just the stepping stone and I might not see the payoff. And you know kids, they'll take everything you've got and more and never realize until much, much later (if ever) the ways we try to point them in the right direction. The ways we try to shape them into something good without smothering what's there already. I try not to let my first-year mistakes get in their way or stick.

It's too much to say, I've realized, that I want them to have everything. I don't care whether they grow up and go to Harvard and blame all their success in life on my 6th grade math class. I just want to know that they are going to be okay, have a decent life, and pass on the favor to their kids. For some of them, this is a lot to hope for but I hope for it anyway.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that today, yes, I have been crying. But it is only because I really do love the little fuckers.

you're tipsy, you're turvy

2007-12-04T02:26:00.000-06:00

I am up irresponsibly late and I will probably continue my irresponsibility on to tomorrow but you didn't hear that from me and I don't know what you're talking about. It's been a strange day. Kind of a weird week, but mostly a strange day. The roommate was supposed to be camping tonight but there was an issue with her camping companion that exploded into all out bizarre with the park rangers and she is now home, though very depressed. Instead of working, I've been trying to be a good friend. Sometimes, even for the guilt-laden teacher, it is more important to be there for the girl who keeps you fed and sane than to get the papers graded or the lesson plans written.

There have been some strange incidents at school that have spawned new behavior issues where before they were becoming manageable. I have a student who, I am sadly convinced, will end up with a gun in his hand and/or a bullet in his brain. I hope that this will not become the case, but if things keep going the way they are going I think it is inevitable. I can't even say that I like this particular boy - I really sincerely dislike him - but it does depress me to see a kid make such bad choices so young. There was an incident on Monday (rather, multiple incidents) involving other students from two of the sixth grade classes so that they pulled him from my homeroom to separate him from one and had to assign him to my second period to keep him away from a student in my third period. Unfortunately, putting him in my second period class is a DISASTER waiting to happen. I have no control over this boy - no one does at our particular school - and he is being put into a classroom with the most combined anger management issues and behavior disorders. He's malicious and it is going to make my life a living hell. I've made my feelings about the matter clear with the principal and will continue to do so. If he is antagonizing the other students so much that he has to be removed from TWO classes, then he needs to be removed entirely rather than give him another chance to antagonize in a third class. Is there a better situation for him? I hope so for his sake. For mine and my other students', I hope it is a situation at another school.

One of my students in special education has returned after being absent the better part of two months. I was kind of relieved to see him gone. But nothing I can do but take him back and try to bring him around to the ways of my new and improved calmer homeroom.

In some good news, I am a TAP (Teacher Advancement Program) teacher of the month at my school. TAP is basically built in professional development meetings we go to twice a week. I got a good observation from my master teacher/mentor today and actually felt pretty good about it because she walked in just as I had an epiphany in the middle of my lesson. This week we started on ratios and today I was trying to teach my students about equal ratios (i.e. 2:1 = 4:2) and using multiplication to make equal ratios. I was trying to get their minds around the oh-so-complication idea of picking a number and multiplying both sides of your ratio by that same number. Multiply by 2, 5, 10, 100, 56 - I don't care just as long as you multiply both sides of your ratio by the same thing. Voila! Equal Ratios! But the lesson has bombed in my first class and was bombing in my second class. Until I had this epiphany about sets and I began to see the confusion diminish. It was very satisfying to have someone come in an witness my moment of clarity and actually see it working with the kids.

As a first-year teacher, I have to say that it is kind of a ripoff for the students who get the teacher in the first year. They are the guinea pigs, the practice round and they won't get the full benefit of all the billions of things a first-year teacher is learning constantly about everything the job means and how to teach their subject. I want to give my students the chance to have the teacher I can be, could have been, would have been if I had just known better in the first place.

Oh well. I've got a $25 gift certificate to The Educator! Time to go by flash cards and workbooks!

keep on chuggin'

2007-11-30T01:05:00.000-06:00

Today was a rather strange day at school, but the week has been going okay. We've been working on integers, numbers lines, absolute value, comparing positive and negative numbers, etc. The kids have been loving it. They've caught on very quickly and even my students in special ed (well, most of them) have been active participants. Of course, it helps that they are now getting paid.

Welcome to the real world, kiddies, where people who work get paid and people who don't work get left out. It's called "Positive Behavior Support" in education language but in reality it is pure bribery. Today I caught myself saying, "Who wants to make five dollars? Alright, then get in line." Like magic. I've got fake money that I printed out and starting dispensing to the kids on money. Doing their bell work, following directions, starting their class assignment in a timely manner, raising their hand, finishing their class assignment, cleaning their desk, sitting down and shutting up--all these things get you paid. Except that I don't tell them how much they are going to make (most of the time) or when they will make it (most of the time). Maybe bell work is worth a dollar today but tomorrow I'll hand out five dollars. Maybe you get five dollars for a clean desk today, but ten tomorrow. Maybe I'll hand out a dollar to every student who raises their hand now, stop, and then start up again without telling them. I have to keep these kids on their toes right now to keep them interested, keep them from getting comfortable and exploiting the system. They are dishonest, conniving little monsters (well, they ARE adolescent) and I have to stay one step ahead of them.

This has been working extremely well with my homeroom class. This week they have been on exponentially improved behavior and two of my special ed kids (and subsequently, as a norm, the cause of many behavior disasters) have been amazing (well, relatively--I'll take it). My second class is a tougher bunch and I remain frustrated. They still talk incessantly and don't pay attention and they still bicker and treat each other like crap, snapping insults at each other in the middle of lessons. For a few of my students in my class, the system is working. For most, they still haven't got the picture so I will have to be patient. My third class is also a problem, but less so. I have two or three students who will take more time to crack but most of the class is doing well.

Unfortunately, in my third class, I had two friends get into a fight today and get suspended. One of the girls was one who tore up her progress report and threw it at my feet. The other is generally a good kid, but lets herself get distracted by a bad crowd and is consequently failing my class. I'm not looking forward to seeing the fallout of that scrape when they both return to class sometime next week.

We've got an auction in class tomorrow. I went to the dollar store and bought a lot of crap and candy that the kids are all very excited about. I'm a little wary of the process, but we'll see how it goes. Tomorrow is also the principal's birthday, so there will be an assembly for him at the end of the day. My homeroom got to make a banner for him (because they rock the negative numbers' socks off) in class today. I let the others make birthday cards, but they didn't get to have all the fun.

Really, I can't complain about this week. But every day is something new, every week is some other challenge. I can't get lulled into a false sense of well-being with this group. I have to admit that there have been second thoughts lately, about whether I made the right choice to be here. To be teaching. But I can't quit. It is really tempting, just to go and sit on my ass and not do anything for a while, not worry about the kids and the paperwork and what's going to happen. But I'll have two weeks to do that in December. I have to remind myself that I have the best vacation plan ever, that this is just my first year, that one of these days the kids are going to do something that will make all this bullshit worth it. I had a little hint of that today, reading some of the things that my students were writing to Mr. G on the birthday banner. They really love him and that is a good sign--for the school, for the kids. It will get better.

It has to get better.

why, again?

2007-11-27T01:33:00.001-06:00

Back to work today. Not really sure how I feel about it right now. Depressed. Uncertain. Run down. Cornered. And as always, rushed. The workload is what's really getting to me (and my workload is easy compared to many). I've been told that I'm too hard on myself and that is probably true.

I hope that it gets easier. If it doesn't, unless I miraculously get tougher, I don't know how long I can keep up. And I'm at a 'good' school.

Nevermind. This too shall pass.

happy turkey day

2007-11-22T02:10:00.000-06:00

So, the problem is that I have seriously messed up at UNO. I choked on the stress and have (unofficially, but most likely) failed my fall classes due to my complete inability to deal with stress and responsibility. I realized on Saturday evening that I was screwed - I'd screwed myself - and I cried about it and moved on to other things. But it is not just UNO that has me stressed. There really is a part of me that does not want to go back to school on Monda, that is questioning whether I've got the balls for this job. So here I am crying about it again.

Self-sabotage? Maybe if I fuck up at UNO they won't let me be a teacher for good and then I'll just have to find something else to do. Which is dumb.

This morning I visited the old job and talked to the old bosses and the old coworkers and i remembered what it was like to have weekends and evenings and no-stress. And for the first time I missed the 9-5 and thought that I could go back and that would be okay. I need something to remind me that that is not what I want. But just right this second, I couldn't even tell you what's wrong with me. My principal called me today, got my number from the librarian, to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving. Just that kind of broke my heart, because I've been feeling so awful about school for the last couple of weeks.

I feel busted. And this vacation ain't gonna fix it.

re: UNO

2007-11-17T21:57:00.000-06:00

I've choked. I can't do all of this.

"what i did?"

2007-11-16T16:20:00.000-06:00

Some of my kids are royal little shit heads. After today, I would not be surprised if I get my house vandalized. Today is the first time that this became a real thought in my head.

I am the bitch today. I'm the bad guy. I've got two torn up progress reports to prove it. I'll be paying for that soon.

It sucks. I can't even think of anything else to say. It just sucks.

is it turkey day yet?

2007-11-14T21:52:00.000-06:00

No matter what, there is no one of my students who is more excited about having a week off for Thanksgiving than I am. My brain checked out a week ago, and that is bad. Get me the hell away from those kids. NOW.

I will love them again after I've done nothing but be selfish for a week.

an educational economy

2007-11-05T19:58:00.000-06:00

Life, at this exact moment, is all about surviving the next two weeks. The enormous amount of papers, assignments, grading, and pre-Thanksgiving stress leading right up to the next derby bout of Antoinettes versus Punches. But I did just get back from a pretty cool presentation on a third grade class room that is run like a corporation. It gives me hope for the rest of my school year, that it can be saved. Basically this guy started and economy in his classroom, beginning much like I had wanted to do originally with paying for desired behaviors. I just wasn't on my game enough at the start of school to implement anything effectively. But I think that now, listening to what he's done, I could probably handle it and I think it would work wonders for my kids. So that's something.

Also, I'm debating about having my derby life intertwine with my school life. I want to get the rollergirls to do something with my school or just my sixth grade, but I realize that it would probably compromise my school's anonymity out in the internets and beyond. Not that I have many blog readers, and not that I'm a particularly popular rollergirl, but it would be out there for anyone and everyone and I would have to cope with that. It will probably be just fine, but still I'm sure that there would be consequences that even I can't imagine, good or bad.

In the effort to make my tests more LEAP-like, to better prepare my kids for the 6th grade iLEAP and beyond, I gave a mostly multiple choice test today. I am wary of grading it, as I don't know new levels of disappointment my kids can dredge up. On the other hand, my hope when I was writing the test was that it would actually make things easier on some level. Kids would have choices, an idea of what the answer might be. On the other hand, a lot of my kids see multiple choice and just start circling answers without paying much attention to what the answer means. Here goes nothing.

i can haz vacation now?

2007-11-03T14:30:00.000-05:00

I am just plain tired and that is affecting my teaching. I just need a breather from the kids, the stress, the madness of everyday. This past week at school was the longest ever and I am severely behind in my work on all fronts. This weekend I am trying to catch up but it is slow going just because my brain doesn't work as fast as it needs too and I have to fit in some social time to prevent myself from becoming a horrible hermit crab who hates the world and yells at her kids too much.

Spent the morning oversleeping through derby practice, going to Pho Tau Bay fro breakfast, going to Target with Henry and my derby wife, Diamond, and having bubble tea at Frosty's. It was good for my sanity but not for my deadlines. So I am sitting on the front porch on this most beautiful fall day, making files for my kids and trying to plan out the most important things I must accomplish today before and after a baby shower for a good friend. I have to write a math test that should have been finish days ago, do several assignments for TGNO, do laundry, write some lesson plans, and finish grading papers. That list looks short, but the actual To Do List is about 25 items long. Prioritizing is far too difficult.

Halloween turned my children into sugar-rushed monsters on Wednesday and Thursday. The fact that they turned the AC back on my building, therefore making my classroom absolutely miserably arctic, didn't help matters. I think a couple of my students are going to be expelled soon and that is both a relief but also it makes my heart ache. I am not a fan of some of the tactics of one of our disciplinarians. I don't have a better solution, but I don't think that telling students that you are going to to everything in your power to kick them out is going to accomplish much. It just reinforces the idea that they can't be saved and for some of them, it is far too early in their lives to write them off. Some of my students are being labeled and picked on and it makes me very uncomfortable because they are not even being given a chance to change. Change takes time, especially with behavior. Making them the enemy doesn't make change happen, it just turns them against you. This is something I've been struggling with the last few weeks but don't really know how to address the issue. I am far from perfect but I see that something is wrong.

A vague description, I know. But there's only so much I can say and still protect myself, my students, and my school.

Next week there will be a positive behavior field trip to the skating rink. I am very excited about getting out of the classroom and playing with my kids. Also, I like any excuse to put on roller skates. But I do wish that I had more wiggle room to be more strict about what 'good' behavior is. Some students are sliding by because we can't exclude too many. I think our expectations need to be higher so that the rewards are more meaningful. But that's just me. As the master teacher told me the other morning, if they don't know how to act in a classroom how can we expect them to behave outside the classroom?

My students did prove to me on Wednesday that they know how to behave. The master teacher came in to teach my second period class for a field test and they were amazing! I'd never seen them behave so well. The next day they were back to their old ways. She will be back again this Wednesday to complete the lesson and the students have been told that they are expected to behave the same way no matter who is teaching. In one ear and out the other. I KNOW they know how to behave -- I've seen it. They choose not to behave for me. We'll see whether the joint interventions of myself and the master teacher have any effect in the long term.

There is nothing more frustrating that realizing that your students have no respect for you. This is why when the administrators and the master teachers tell me that I am good at what I do, it feels like an empty compliment. What does is matter if I'm good at instruction if my students have so little respect for me that it doesn't stick?

The principal walked into my classroom on Thursday and I was having a rough day. As soon as he showed up all the students went quiet and started working diligently and the principal was very approving. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I looked straight at him and in front of the class said, "You realize, Mr. G, that they are only behaving this well because you just walked in." And then it was all I could do to walk calmly out of the room and go cry.