meet the data bitch, mofos

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.

if you're looking to take up my job

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.

more rising tide mental purging

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.

yay for good teacher days!

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.

it's the little things

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.

get real, folks

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.

the good, the bad, the professional

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.

manthano : learn

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.

2008?

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.

trickle down

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

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!

why they gotta be hatin' on the math teacher?

Perhaps I shouldn't feel so miserable about my discipline situation: at a colleague's school today there was a riot and they called in the S.W.A.T. team. Also, they set the school on fire. We just had a fire drill. So I suppose I can count myself lucky that I don't teach there, right?

Today I had another mini-breakdown, sort of out of nowhere. I kicked one or two out of my first class, two or three walked out of my second class, and I kicked another one or two out of the third. Half of my first two classes got lunch detention and I have several parent phone calls to make. When I took the lunch detention list down to the principal the waterworks started, made worse by the fact that he was so encouraging and I was so discouraged. There were lots of good things said about my lessons today, my teaching and that just made me want to cry more. "You're doing everything right," they say. "You're working hard and your lessons are great," they say. Well, that's all well and good but my kids! What do I do about my kids?

I do have to say that it was very reassuring to find, when bringing the kids back from PE, that the principal was sitting at my desk waiting for them to even try and start something. He didn't say a word, he just glared at them from my chair. It was the awesome.

Mr. G says celebrate your victories, even if that victory is small. No one got punched in the face today. Class started on time. One kid paid attention. And I know that he is right, that I can't take all this too personally. But I am so ridiculously frustrated and I hate to watch kids fail. I guess some small part of me thought I could be a rock star and get most of my students to pass or learn something. It is hard to accept that maybe only a dozen will get anything out of my class. How can I not see that as my failing? Even if logically I know that there is more to it than just my ability to control a class or explain a concept. I know there is more going on outside of school to sabotage all my best-laid plans. And I really, really hate it that when it comes to math so many of them just shut down and shut it out.

As a math teacher, I feel kind of ganged up on by the kids. And then today, I realized that many of my students don't know how to do long division. I have at least one who can't subtract. And I have several who might be able to read most of the words but have no comprehension of the test. I have more than one or two who can barely sound out the words. Top that off with a school wide average of 32% special needs students (that's a lot of individual accommodations to make as required by law).

Whoever writes teaching off as a 9-month job can bite me. I already feel like I've been working for a year and we're not even through the first quarter.