(life) lessons and tests from a first-year teacher

a new year

2010-08-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

Oh no.

I fell in to the worst new teacher trap: giving up on a half-hearted, though well-intentioned, attempt at intellectualism and communicating with the outside world!

Instead, here I stand (lie in bed), year two, having lost over half of my original special education cohort last summer. And there's so much to say. And I'm going to re-start this to say it all.

Second worst new teacher trap: (I still am a new teacher, even if a 2nd year-er seems "veteran" in this crazy system): Putting things off due to tiredness. Alas, I think this trap is one that we can't avoid as every day our bodies feel an exhaustion that seems to have no end in sight. Tiredness becomes an incurable, internal invasive species for teachers in the District of Columbia Public School system.

McDonalds or Crack Overdose

2009-11-11T18:43:00.000-08:00

My students were acting out the other day as I was covering for their gen ed teacher during an SST meeting (part of my job??!!!). An administrator came by, saw the state of the class, came in, and SCREAMED at the kids: "You think you're in the ghetto? I'm SICK of hearing how terrible this class it! You think you're so cool----you're on your way to flipping burgers at McDonald's, or dying of a crack overdose!"

All the kids said "oooooohhhhhh"........but they quieted down.

We proceeded to have a "Real-Time" conversation about why their test scores are low.

They all had very good ideas.

We need to rally them somehow.

It was harsh.

It was... inappropriate.

But.. am I starting to lean towards the "hey, whatever works" ideology?

I might be.

But in this dysfunctional system, what does it mean to "work"??

Long, Long, Long

2009-10-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

No, the title of this entry does not relate to one of my favorite (and under-rated) Beatles songs. These days are just nothing short of long (well... to be short of long, it wouldn't be long, right?), long, long.

Today, six students (3 of whom are in the special education program) got into a brawl at recess. Spectators said it was like a mob scene. There was biting, scratching, and strangling---a teacher had her entire arm bruised and scratched trying to split it up.

I spent the entire afternoon in the Dean of Students office trying to patch pieces of the story together.

He was trying to get everyone who was "maybe" involved suspended for 10 days, as per DCPS' Chapter 25 in the new discipline code.

But I was arguing against having my students out of school for 10 days. Having my students not learning for 10 days?! Speaking of "long, long, long"----that is a LONG time!

If our school followed "protocol" every time students fought, we would have an empty campus.

RIF, etc

2009-10-07T14:03:00.002-07:00

It is almost impossible to know what to write at this time.

My thoughts go out to all the teachers who were RIF'ed. Certainly the manner in which this news was delivered to you, at minimum, was inappropriate; the measures taken to "assure your transition" inadequate.

My school got pretty lucky.

I feel like I am living in the middle of an era that national public schools will examine for a long time to come. I feel like I am living out the nightmare of being stretched from all angles, when all I want to do is teach kids using resources like this.

But things are never that easy, and there's nothing like working in DCPS to prove that to you day after day.

Everyone is high stress, high tension. Everyone. Our staff meetings feel corporate. We have to meet AYP this year (though who doesn't?), so everything is all about business... but is our business approach a good match for the emotionally-charged jobs and lives we lead?

2009-10-07T14:03:00.001-07:00

DC-ASS (oops)

2009-09-22T15:14:00.001-07:00

So the results of last week's DC-BAS test for "proficiency" came back.

My non-reader was labeled "proficient" in a reading section...

None of the other students were in that section.

He did a really good job guessing bubbles on that one.

....(really? these "high-stakes" tests are what teachers' futures, schools' paths, etc are based on.... really?)

How do you...

2009-09-16T21:34:00.000-07:00

How would one go about investing kids in their own education?

I've pulled kids aside and done the "what comes after elementary school? what comes after middle school? and after high? right, college" talk a few times this year. and what!?! is college our end-goal? (it's not for me.....having the most opportunities in one's life AS WELL AS being a responsible global citizen are, to me, the end-goal of education, all education. but perhaps college can be a means to that end...) if so, how do we make it a concrete one?

K-W-L

2009-09-13T17:02:00.000-07:00

A K-W-L can be a useful graphic organizer to help students put together thoughts on what they Know (the "K," which also, incidentally, reinforces a lesson about silent letters....), Want to Know, and Learned. The other day, in our first Content Seminar (DCTF's alternative to a Masters program), we put one together based on our first couple weeks of teaching. I think the results are fairly entertaining and telling.

What we Know

Our Kids Can Succeed.
Teaching is Difficult.
The First Year... Is Rough.

What we Want to Know

How do we cluster standards when students are incredibly below their grade level?
What exactly should we be doing in a SAM (School-wide Application Model) school?
How do we explain to general ed teachers what special ed is... and what our job as the special ed teacher is?
What are the best record-keeping systems?

What We've Learned.

Some kids just will not listen to me.
Teaching requires a LOT of prep.
I will raise my voice :(
Things that you thought should take 5 minutes take an hour. Things that you think will work, bomb.
Getting kids to line up and walk quietly in a hallway is near impossible.
Your day does not end at 3:30. And weeks do not "end."

Teach a Teacher to... Post Standards?

2009-09-08T15:26:00.001-07:00

A Third Week Pop Quiz:

Q. Which of the following make a good teacher?

A.
a. Posting Standards on the board
b. Posting Essential Questions for the unit on the board
c. Creativity, Empathy, and Flexibility
d. Having a Word Wall in the classroom
e. Following a five-part lesson-plan format
f. Everything but "C"

?

Scholars

2009-08-23T17:45:00.000-07:00

tomorrow is the FIRST DAY.

i think i'll see everything from the itty bitty pre-schoolers, so nervous and overwhelmed, to my students, some of whom invariably don't want to be there and will probably...show that.

i hope to take it all in....

and to go with it, whatever it brings.

B-B-B-Benny and the Vets

2009-08-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

So veteran teachers.

In our program, we spent a lot of time learning that it is a Good Thing to seek out veteran teachers. We even learned the Best Ways to do so.

All I can say is, after this past week of professional development, I don't think it's a Good Thing to seek out veteran teachers. It is a NECESSITY!! Do people ever really walk in to their schools without asking at least 8942375 questions?

Everything from, and not limited to: where the custodial room is to how I plan field trips to how my schedule will work with pulling students out to do you know anything about my students, anyway? to what is the reading program we use in the school to what is a lattice square to what does PD stand for to where is the music room to do I have to sign up for lunch duty? to where do I sign in in the morning to how do I sign up for an email address to how do I sign up for my HR benefits to how do I log on to a computer to how many copies per month do I get to how do I print out lesson plans to when will I be observed... phew, that was a big breath. But seriously... thank you, thank you, veteran teachers.

(New Teacher) Orientation

2009-08-16T19:48:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, my brother heads back up to college to prepare for O-Week (Orientation Week--for new students). This is something I was a part of for all four years of college. Embarking on tomorrow's New Teacher Orientation, 400 miles from the serene college life, I wonder how similar those two O-experiences might be.

Let's see. In Freshman orientation at school, we always (arguably ad nauseum) learn the Fish philosophy, borrowed from the Pike Place fish market in Seattle, which teaches four simple skills for doing customer service-y things that you're not necessarily having a blast with.

1) Be there.

2) Play.

3) Make their day.

4) Choose your attitude.

Simple enough. And probably applicable for working with students---who I certainly do not and will never view as customers---just as I never viewed my freshmen and women peers as customers, either.

What else?

Johnny the bagger. Overly, overly, overly sappy, buta good message about how each person can do a tiny thing that makes a big difference. Yadda yadda, I sound very Mr. Rogers right now. It's late. And... I'm trying to get into Mr. Rogers mode. Which I think means getting rid of my trucker mouth. And getting some neighbors. And some sweater vests.

(life) lessons from the past month

2009-08-13T12:51:00.001-07:00

Okay, so I've been really bad with keeping this up.

And by really bad, I mean.... terrible.

It's been over a month. But that hasn't been completely accidental.

It's really tricky to keep a blog---as a DCPS employee, you are working for the District of Columbia government. It is incredibly hard to navigate a space whereby I can write about my frustrations... but also cover my butt.

A lot of other fellows have started blogs, too. One of them wrote about how he/she was observing all the immediately post-college fellows and already placing bets on which naive ones of us would leave by December.

Do not get me wrong. We do not know what we are doing. But nobody does. And it is strange to me that somebody in our program would have divided up the diverse life experiences of the group into two nice little packages----the (fresh-faced, innocent, naive, in-for-a-damn-rude-awakening) immediately-post-college kids, and the (toughened, been-out-in-the-real-world) career changers.

Look, I also feel that the complications of this year will be even more heightened for me because I admittedly have not been out in the real world yet. Filing all this paperwork through HR, choosing an insurance policy and a beneficiary, that is new stuff for me. I get that, and I am working to hike up this learning curve.

But being a teacher doesn't have to do with what you've done before you were a teacher. It has to do with a lot of things, including how humble you are, how unafraid you are to ask for help when you need it. And, if I were to dip down low and divide up DCTF into "career-changers" and "post-college kids" (which, by the way, I don't know of anybody else doing), I could argue that us post-college kids have a leg-up in the humility department. This program is filled with question-askers, the kinds of people that make the best teachers...because they understand what seeking knowledge is, they understand what curiosity feels like, they are intrinsically motivated to seek those answers to own their own knowledge.

It just feels... counter-productive to all of us being a tight-knit group of colleagues to "make predictions" about who will last and who won't. Which is sad, because I really feel that I left this summer training experience with a tight-knit group of colleagues.

This anonymous (as of right now) person also continued to write about how maybe some of the people in our program are in it because the job market sucks.

And I can say unequivocally that that is NOT why anybody has gone into teaching in inner-city DC.

Yes. Some people in our program are justifiably concerned with money right now, and are checking the mail every day for our summer school stipend. But to imply that some people are in this just for the resume-building or for "just having a job" is truly.... ignorant? And makes me feel like this blogger experienced a different reality from me this summer. Because I saw people, already, sit through such intense conditions in the six weeks of summer.... and now I am seeing them at professional development, starting at 7AM today and tomorrow, eager and ready to get in the classroom in (ah?!) 10 days.

If that doesn't say something about energy, committment, drive despite the bureacratic obstacles that have already come up, then I don't know what does.

fist stick knife gun

2009-07-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

i should be working on the lesson plan for tomorrow's class. my co-fellow and i are going to read a book called "my lost teeth" and then have the students make models of their own mouth by pasting in paper teeth into paper lips. it will, of course, be differentiated for each student. for the ones who can count, the teeth will be labeled different numbers that they have to put in order. for the ones who can look at an image and verbally identify it, we hope to get them to point at the paper mouth (and then their own) and say "mouth," teeth and say "teeth," etc.

the semi-irony is that today i was bit by one of my students...it was sort of inevitable, but damn, hurt nonetheless. and with the classroom not being my own, with few structures in place, i'm not quite sure what to do about it--i'm not sure that the teacher even knew it happened; i didn't want to make it even worse (he wound up biting someone higher up on the pecking order of the summer institute right after, so that sparked a lot of attention).

Anyway!

here is what geoffrey canada, founder of harlem children zone, has to say about school "safety." it's a clip from his memoir, Fist Stick Knife Gun, which i strongly, fervently, pleadingly recommend to anyone and everyone.. the stats are a bit old, but still ring true..

"Schools in America are dangerous places. According to a 1991 study by the Centers for Disease Control, approximately one in twenty-five high school students carries a gun...It strikes me that while metal detectors may prevent a few guns from coming into the school, they have no real impact on the children's sense of safety. Children simply get the message 'if you're going to shoot someone, it will not be in school. You must shoot them coming to school, or going home from school, but not in the school building."..School is too often the child's learning ground about the impotence of adult authority when it comes to violence."

i think i can i think i can i....hmm.

2009-07-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

it's been a while. we went away for the weekend---which strangely, even after only 4 days of PT, felt very needed.

but here are some thoughts, some others' words about teaching, will power and the unsafe school conditions that so many of our nation's children face each day.

the first: a poem that was sent out by the assistant principal of the school i'll be at next year, welcoming us newcomers. in my household growing up, we were never allowed to say "can't." i certainly feel that the sentiment of that is noble and good and all those things-- that if you believe in something, it is much more of a possibility to happen than if you didn't really believe. but i also strongly feel that a healthy dose of cynicism and doubt is healthy, real, and equitable-- what i mean is that saying "i can i can i can" can get me to some point, but after that, in america and in the world at large, it really is up to the conditions i've been born into to see how closely that "i can" matches what i actually do....i don't think that a positive mindset can typically transcend the many obstacles that our stratified society puts up against those whom it has neglected... anyway! here is the happy poem, a happy thought:

The Man Who Thinks He Can

If you think you are beaten, you are;

If you think you dare not, you don’t.

If you’d like to win, but think you can’t,

It’s almost a cinch that you won’t.

If you think you’ll lose, you’ve lost;

For out in the world we find

Success being with a fellow’s will;

It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are;

You’ve got to think high to rise.

You’ve got to be sure of yourself

Before you can ever win a prize.

Life battles don’t always go to the stronger and faster man;

But soon or late, the one who wins

Is the man who thinks he can.

-Walter Wintle

(What about the woman? Does the same hold for her?)

Thoughts?

(I'll post some more tomorrow.. this is getting lengthier than I thought it would be. Preview: Harlem Children Zone's Geoffrey Canada on how unsafe America's schools are, and a bit about his personal expedition to change them).

today and the future

2009-06-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

today was our first day of "practice teaching." they keep calling it "PT," which i constantly think is "physical training" after my ROTC friends' nightmare 6am daily routine. but we didn't really practice teach---and it doesn't look like i'll be doing much of that for the summer. i'm working, over summer, at an elementary school. it's right outside of the metro line, a stop away from my (amazing) subletted apartment.. very convenient. my population is eight 3-5 year olds with autism, but only 3 of them showed up today. there were about 6 adults in the classroom (including classroom and dedicated aids), so about a 2:1 teacher:student ratio. which is a bit crazy. it's hard to know where to place myself, the space to navigate without stepping on anyone's toes.

one of the most heartbreaking things to see is the differences in these kids' abilities: how tuned in to the world they are. the 3-year-old girl has been receiving services for over a year. she started out completely nonverbal (and violent. a biter.) a year ago, and now is able to count (although, admittedly, she adds just random "8"'s in there sometimes) and to really do well with the alphabet, as well as communicating, playing with other kids, dancing, and spelling her name. she has an amazing one-on-one aid and has had an amazing classroom teacher. this is what EVERY kid should have!!!!!

and then. the 5-year-old boy. he exhibits every single trait that i can identify as being on the autism spectrum. he is so in his own world. it takes about 20 trials and heavy bribing with fruit snacks to entice him to even imitate the aid saying one word or the other. and it seems like even the teacher had given up on him, sort of: it's so difficult to know where to start. because he didn't receive early early intervention services, it'll take so much more of a spectacularly devoted and knowledge personality to do things that we normatively label as basic.

anyway, in the fall, i won't be working in a self-contained classroom like this one. last friday, i received a job offer from a great school located in columbia heights, NW. i clicked with the principal over the phone, and then, even though i showed up to my interview late and drenched (i mean it. try dc in summer time with over 80% humidity. then try running to an interview during a lunch break in nice shoes...) in sweat, we still clicked in person, and they offered me the job on the spot. i told them i was honored to accept, and i am. i'll be working with about 15 students, probably, taking them out of the class for services, or working with them one-on-one in their classroom. but that depends on their IEP. but more on IEP on another post.

and since my school for next year is 65% hispanic, i have to brush up on/actually learn spanish. so if some of the next posts are in espanol, you'll know why. hasta.

aforementioned harrowing facts

2009-06-27T08:18:00.000-07:00

the aforementioned harrowing facts about education in DC and in the nation include:

--On the District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System (DC-CAS) in 2007, which tests students' skills in reading and math:

only 46% of the elementary students scored at or above proficiency in reading and only 40% were at or above proficiency in math
among secondary students, 39% scored at or above proficiency in reading and 36% scored at or above proficiency in math.

-- 57% of students in DCPS qualify for free and reduced lunch programs. (DCteachingfellows.org)

--In terms of race and class:

Even when parents' income and wealth is comparable, African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and immigrants for whom English is not a first language lag behind English-speaking, native-born, white students. (http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/15_04/Race154.shtml)
The wealthiest 10 percent of U.S. school districts spend nearly 10 times more than the poorest 10 percent, and spending ratios of 3 to 1 are common within states. (http://www.pbs.org/weta/twoschools/thechallenge/gap/)
Jonathan Kozol, in works such as Savage Inequalities and Amazing Grace, has meticulously and heart-wrenchingly documented the differences between schools such as Paterson, NJ and Princeton, NJ; Mott Haven in the Bronx and Stuyvesant High School.
Even within schools, as UCLA professor Jeannie Oakes described in the 1980s and Harvard professor Gary Orfield's research has recently confirmed, most minority students are segregated in lower-track classes with larger class sizes, less qualified teachers, and lower-quality curriculum.

--A Teacher's Mandate:

Minority students are about half as likely to be assigned to the most effective teachers and twice as likely to be assigned to the least effective.
After controlling for socioeconomic status, the large disparities in achievement between black and white students were almost entirely due to differences in the qualifications of their teachers.

All this means that we, as beginning teachers without many of the experiences that more experienced teachers have, have quite the job in front of us. The stakes of teaching in these conditions--in a country that claims to be founded on principles of equality for all--are nothing short of life-or-death.

let's start at the very beginning...

2009-06-27T04:26:00.000-07:00

i decided to start this blog because while i've gone through many challenging experiences in my life, i don't remember the last time that each day felt like a year---how many different emotions i go through daily, how much is crammed into one day, and bluntly how exhausted i am at the end of it.

after the second day of institute, i felt already a bit isolated from the immediate world(s) i've left to be here---from cornell, where all i would have to do is run down the street or across the hall to vent after an exhausting situation; from great neck, where i would have the yankees and my family and friends and lots of ice cream to distract from any stress.. but here, you're surrounded every day by people who feel the same stressors as you do, and while that's a beautiful thing for cohort bonding, it's also hard to describe to someone on the outside.

hence the blog.

okay, some housekeeping: for anybody reading this who might not know, i'm enrolled in a program called dcteachingfellows. while this blog might highlight some frustrations with what we're learning from the program, it overall is a great organization that hooks up career changers (about 50%) and recent college grads (about 50%....percentages are based on my own probably-wrong approximations in an activity where said demographics had to stand up and wave to rest of group) with the washington dc public schools.

we are there to work in high need schools in critical areas--i will be teaching special education in elementary school along with 20 others; scott, my partner, will be teaching math in a middle or high school, etc. "high need" is defined by how many students are receiving free or reduced lunches, among other things. maybe i'll write a post with dc's harrowing statistics about the achievement gap there, this research-corroborated gap which is the most frightening, unreal and unjust part of the united states in this day and age. really.

when it comes down to it, we should not have jobs. i wish dcteachingfellows did not exist. i wish there wasn't a need for it. but the facts on the ground---what an education looks like for a child in anacostia (a poor area of dc) as opposed to a suburb---are terrifying. and, as all things terrifying, motivating as well..

more later.