on the job again

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.

countdown to iLeap

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.

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.

who has time to sit on their ass?

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?

TAP

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.

an educational economy

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.

standardized testing

This is pretty much what the LEAP test looks like to my students. They're not stupid - they just don't know the right language.