ghost stories...

The Last Blog (finally...): My MTC Experience

2008-04-17T04:08:00.001-07:00

My MTC experience has been a long roller coaster ride. A unique one. Where the roller coaster only rises 20 feet off the ground but drops to 50 feet below.

So you’re in this roller coaster and it goes underground and you’re thinking to yourself, “What?? How can the ride get this low? How can it be like this? Who thought this up?? Bad idea!!” and you have dirt in your eyes, your ears, up your nose, in your shoes… everywhere. And you’re just waiting for the next ascent, so you can get above ground, breathe (gasp, really), dust the dirt off because you’re trying to find yourself, your clothes, your body, in all this mess (which is pointless because you’re going to get dirty again in a few seconds). And you go through this process with every descent and ascent. Eventually you start thinking you can prepare yourself for going underground so it won’t be so bad. You try different things to hopefully minimize the “suckiness” of the time you’re spending underground: you stiffen your body to reduce the number of crevices the dirt can lodge itself in; you’ve figured out the “perfect” hand swipe movement and leg shake that remove the dirt the quickest and most thoroughly. But in the end, all of these tactics seem pointless because you’re still on this awful roller coaster ride that goes underground… all the time.

I came to Mississippi with no expectations because I knew that nothing something would happen that wouldn't meet my expectation; it just wasn't a good idea. My first week here, I went to a welcoming party for the 1st years in the program and got chiggers, basically a bug infestation in your body. They burrow under you skin (very inconspicuously!) and leave at their own leisure. I had bites all over my feet and legs; one day the itching pain was so bad I had to get a shot of “Numb Me Up” so I could 1) stop tearing up from the pain, 2) walk at a speed greater than one mile per hour, 3) not resent being awake and, furthermore, in Mississippi. Perhaps I should have taken this as a hint and left with Anne…
Teaching summer school was nice. It made me feel like teaching was something I could be good at, that my first year as a teacher would be horrifying but okay in the end. But when school actually started in August, I was angry, bewildered, and just happy if I made it through a day of teaching alive. A small part of me was even angry to have had the summer school experience. It was not at all enough preparation for the school year. My first year was ridiculous. I was overworked (as are many teachers and many people in the program), provided very little guidance, received more assistance and sympathy from my two retired mentor teachers than from my own principal, and was humiliated by my principal on numerous occasions, both as an individual and part of a group. This same administrator would then expect me to perform on the same level as other teachers that she had come to favor, or at least respect. I had to leave the school.
Teaching summer school came and went again. I moved, bought a new computer with the money that I saved up (I was so proud of myself), even got a new cat! I was definitely above ground at this point, but I was only there for about two weeks. My students were failing. Yes. But what truly put my year on the path of misery was an elective class I was teaching. I had people failing the course for two reasons: there was no curriculum for the class so I was making it up as I went along, and many students didn’t pay proper attention during class so they wouldn’t care about an assignment that I’d said was worth a test grade, that sort of thing. I had a number of meetings with administrators, and in the end, I was told that I should do whatever and teach however my mentor teacher does in her classes. (Note: the mentor teacher doesn’t even teach the same elective class as I do, which is what started all these meetings in the first place.) For the most part, I’ve been doing as I was told just to avoid a claim of insubordination, but I have given my students extra work or changed assignments when necessary.
So as a recap, I’ve bee underground since mid-August. While hoping that this ride (teaching, the program, being in Mississippi) would not any worse, it did. Of course. I was in a car accident right at the beginning of a well-deserved break and right before final projects were due for my graduate courses. The dang car flipped, it was totaled beyond repair, and I was pretty mashed up myself. Family flew down from the North to take care of me when I couldn’t do it myself. It wasn’t any kind of vacation. I wasn’t well for about 10 days (I returned to work days after the vacation was over). I didn’t have a car for two months, depending on others to go anywhere and everywhere. I was so angry to have been in the accident because it took a toll on everything: my job (staying at school to get work done was no longer an option, nor was tutoring and early-morning copying), my school (I didn‘t have time to complete my finals and needed to make them up during what was supposed to be my semester off), my emotional well-being (which was already rocky: I’m normally an emotional mess as a teacher).
But somehow, it’s mid-January and I can breathe again: I’ve got a car, I’m making up those course credits, tutoring is back on. I was used to the irrational behavior exhibited by students, teachers, and administrators alike so that wasn’t a problem. The ascent continues. But the ride plummets again: with just weeks between me and the academic finish line, my laptop--the one that made me so proud of myself--was stolen. I’ve found some temporary replacement for the technology, but not for all the work that had been saved on it with no back up. What has bothered me most about the theft has not even been its occurrence, but the audacity of a student to do such a thing, considering how much of myself I have sacrificed for my job. This is where I am: searching for a way above ground and hoping I’m in one piece when I get there.
I have never been so tried as I have been these past two years. There has been a lot of bad that I’ve been endured since being down South, but there has also been some good that’s worth an honorable mention. I’ve met some great people through this program. Some of them have been representatives and speakers at functions or in classes. Others have been program participants that I can now truly call friends. These individuals have been the saving grace of my entire experience. A number of speakers managed to remind me, just in the nick of time, that it’s important for me to be here. And I have had close friends around me during some of my most desperate and lonely moments. And as strong as I am, I know that it would’ve been much harder for me to make it through these years without them. So I don’t regret my time here. I regret many of the events that have taken place, but I can appreciate the experience overall. I have learned more about myself and my ability as a teacher, and have identified my hopes for the futures of children in the US and for myself. I think this kind of reflection is important, so I don’t think I can truly regret my time here.
But man, I can’t wait to get off this ride and take a shower.

Required Blog: The Things I Am Not

2008-03-20T04:08:00.001-07:00

I don't think I'm a good teacher. This is why I'm leaving the profession with no guarantee of coming back to it. I really love my kids and I hope they all do well, but they all won't. And it's really hard for me to face that. With certain students, it's easier for me to be realistic and see that if they make it out of high school it will be a blessing. But with most of my students, I see this great potential, and all it does is weaken me. Before I go any farther on this tangent of sorts, let me get to the point. There are three integral things that a good teacher needs to be good at (which I am bad at): reaching all your students intellectually, classroom management, and balancing how much you care about your students/caring in a helpful manner.
I most definitely don't get my meaning across to my students all the time. There are kids in class that just stare at me because they don't know what I'm talking about, they're perpetually confused. There are those that sometimes understand me and other times are just dazed. Then there are those that understand me so well, they don't listen. I have a girl in my last period that comes in to class and never opens her binder unless I have given specific instructions to the class to write something down. She doesn't look at her notes, she wasn't even giving in homework for half of 3rd term (which was a big change for her from 1st semester). And the thing is she didn't need to. She's a really smart student that would get an 80 test grade on a bad day. I never pushed her, and a number of other students, far or hard enough. With the students that I know don't understand what I'm saying, I never gave them the extra time they needed with me, usually because I either didn't have the extra time or forgot to go to them. I never gave them the worksheets I wanted to give them to work on at home to build foundational skills they needed for my class. And then I have a select few that say, "Oh yeah, that makes sense, I gotchu'" but don't really have it at all because whatever they just "got" has registered in their brains as something completely different from what was intended. "Differentiated Instruction" is most definitely not my middle name. I have always felt so pressed for time that I haven't spent much time this year doing what's really necessary (a.k.a "alright kids, let's talk about nouns"). I have a co-teacher that has been saying all year, "These kids are in the *th dang grade; if they don't get subject-verb agreement by now, well, we'll just have to move on. That's ridiculous, they're in the *th dang grade." And for the most part I'd listen to her, and that kills me. I was told by an administrator to do whatever this teacher did, and I followed orders and watched my students eyes glaze over with bewilderment as I would just "move on." The last obstacle that's made it hard for me to reach my students is the way I talk. I'm not from Mississippi so I speak differently from them. I thought I spoke quickly sometimes. I was wrong. I speak quickly most of the time and speak really quickly sometimes. So about half the time, my students haven't even been hearing me. To top it off, their attention spans are even shorter than mine (which is kind of a feat) and I talk too much. I do a lot more lecturing and guided practice than their used to, I think. Yup. Haven't been getting through to them AT ALL.
A good teacher HAS to be able to control the classroom. Without control, no real learning can take place. That's another sore spot for me. I've gotten much better this year than I was last year with rules & consequences, but I still suck. If there is a disruption, there are usually two things I try to do: get it to stop as quickly as possible, or make an example of the offenders so others don't test me. The first option is where my inconsistency comes in. I sometimes just shush the class if someone made a joke that was funny and got the whole class giggling; I can easily end up giving three sets of warning to people (because the first two people that got the warning aren't the ones that made the noise the second time, who aren't the ones that made it the third time) and then give a class-wide warning just so I can get to copy assignments. The problem with this is that there have already been 4 class disruptions just for me to get to the actual consequences. Another issue: I'll say, "copy assignment" or "detention" and forget to write the name(s) on the board or to tell the student(s) to come to me on the way out to get the detention slip. Another issue: I don't want to give all the consequences I'm supposed to. Students have their own secret issues that they're dealing with that affect classroom performance. Some students have family issues, some have relationship issues that they *let* affect their schoolwork. I don't want to give a consequence to someone that's just having this one bad day, but if I don't I begin to look weak(er) to other students that need to see me in control. Another issue: Some strongly believe that any and everyone must earn their respect, so they didn't respect me when I first got to the school, didn't respect me when I gave them consequences for talking or chewing gum (two things they're allowed to do in most other classes) and definitely still don't respect me (once I found a partially eaten chicken nugget on my desk at the end of my last period (long story); students flip my lights on the way out of the room, erase names from my board when their coming in and I'm talking to other students, and have stolen transparencies and paperclips). These students have been and are likely to always be discipline issues in my classroom, no matter how many copy assignments, detentions and referrals I give them.
Now, let's say I want to stop and make an example of a misbehaving student. It takes time from class to give someone a detention or a write up in the middle of class. So even if I do want to make an example of someone I usually don't because I'd rather teach 27 than write up 1.
The last thing a good teacher should do well is determine how best to help his/her students, when to help them, and when not to help them. I think that I've been so busy seeing the potential in my students that I may have jeopardized how well they'll do in my class. I have given my students so many ways to pull their grade up: as much extra credit work as they want (if they ask for it), retests, they can make up missed exams basically all term. In some way, they've seen every test in my class twice all term, whether it was because I went over the first test and gave them a very similar retest, or from giving them a quiz and putting most of that same quiz on the test. Do I still have a bunch of students failing? Yes. Did I still get a bunch of students messing up the same questions on the test or being tricked by the same errors, despite seeing the questions and the errors twice? Yes. I'm almost positive that I have students that think they'll be able to make it all up 4th term, make up 3 terms of failing grades with one term of passing grades. And they're going to be really disappointed when they realize it's not true. Maybe if I had not given them so many chances to pull their grade up they would've put more pressure on themselves to get it right the first time. Maybe.
Now, I've come down pretty hard on myself. I think there are some things I've done well. I think there are a number of factors to consider before I can really say "I'm a bad teacher and here's why." I have large classes this year (my smallest is 23 and then they spike), I teach 161 kids, my administration tend to look at class averages which get skewed by class clown sillies that don't do anything and have 12% averages. I'm the only English teacher with no honors classes to make me look good (my co-teacher, who's been teaching a lot longer than I, has been having the same problems with her regular students that I've been having and our students scored about the same on a state practice test). And I'm sure there are a couple other things I'm forgetting. But had I found a way to get those three, larger skills down, I'm pretty sure all the other issues I've had wouldn't be so big.

2 weeks...

2008-03-03T05:01:00.001-08:00

That's it. Just 2 more weeks until Spring Break. I feel like I'll be home free after that. This has probably been one of the most challenging years of my life. I'm more than ready for a break.
As a random thought, I just realized that my students will be taking the 1st half of their state test TWO DAYS after we get back from Spring Break. That's ridiculous. I'm pretty worried about this.
After that, we'll have 1 month to get ready for the 2nd half and then it's out of my hands. We're going to read a book, hopefully one that I can find a movie to, and finish out the year.
I've come to realize that teaching is not for me. Not for right now. I'm not where I need to be personally to manage the work load, the stress, and it seems that I am less able to give up on students than many of the teachers I've come across in the schools that I've worked with. I can't tell you how frustrating it has been to find out from a teacher in my school that he or she didn't bother to push the students. This person said to my face, "They could barely identify adverbs, so what was the point?" What's the point?? The point is YOU GOTTA GET THEM TO IDENTIFY ADVERBS!! So that by the time they get to my class, the students aren't asking me the same questions over and over ("What's an adverb?) or giving the wrong answer when I ask it ("What does an adverb modify?" "A NOUN!!" "...No...") or just looking at me with blank stares. The point it for them to know the basics before they get into my class where they have to know collective nouns (are we talking about the whole or individuals in the group? It matters...), and participial phrases and many other unnecessarily named sentence structures. How in the WORLD are my students going to do well in my class, because I'm going to push them, if you don't start teaching them what push looks like?
I'm also frustrated when students confirm that their previous English teachers didn't teach them. A student of mine was the last person to leave the room at the end of the day. I told her, somewhat jokingly, that her group didn't know how to do group work (in fact, most of the class didn't) because I saw a lot of copying of answers and very little conversation. She said her old teacher didn't teacher didn't teach them how to do group work. She then told me a story of how once, she never took a test in this teacher's class, but brought in 20 boxes of tissue, so she got a 100 test grade (bonus points for supplies). I was quietly fuming.

I've been plagued with guilt all year because I haven't been able to help my students. And these types of situations are a big part of the reason.

Ready for a Break

2007-11-15T03:12:00.000-08:00

I have never been so ready for Thanksgiving Break in my life, I don't think. The past month has been ridiculous, full of parent meetings, class work, disorganization, headaches, late nights, early mornings, etc. For me, October was indeed a hard month to get through, harder than last year's October. First, last October I was full of disapointment, sadness and anger, not knowing how best to fix the things I was doing wrong, upset that my students weren't better at being students, absolutely exhausted and seeing that my administration didn't care. This year, the negative feelings I'm having are self-directed. I'm not in the exact same place as I was last year, but I feel like I am. I expect to be significantly better at teaching or at least at having my life together as a teacher, but I'm not that much better. Now that I realize this, I'm generally fine with it. Can't be great in the short time that I've been teaching. But the damage has been done. I'm backed up in paperwork, grading, grading, grading, and not to mention graduate work.
Also, I moved to a new district this year because I wanted to escape certain "evils" that I was facing at my old school. Little did I know that I would just be swapping one evil for another. Instead of apathetic students, I have students that care only about the grade they get and not subject matter (which of course is the opposite of what I expected). Unlike last year, I have a very caring, competent administration. But at times I feel pulled in so many directions (paperwork, advice up the wazoo, different meetings), that trying to do all of what is asked of me isn't going to be possible until we get 30-hour days. Instead of the uninvolved parent, I have the super-involved parent that has been taking up allllllll my free time. I tell you, all of it.

I will be more than happy in about 30 hours, when I am officially on Thanksgiving Break. On Monday I will wake up and think "It's Monday," and I will go back to bed. I'm positive it will be a good day.

Required: Take a Chill Pill

2007-10-12T13:43:00.000-07:00

One thing that you MUST NOT DO as a teacher is devote all your free time to your work. There's always something to do, whether it's organizing your week and resources or grading papers or calling parents... There's always something else that you could be doing as a teacher. Trying to steamroll through the work will just wipe you out and give you more work to deal with later. If you're a compulsive worker, schedule in some free time each night or week. Here are some suggestions:

-Save Friday nights for yourself: last year I went out to dinner and got catfish on Friday nights.
-Watch movies: This is my favorite thing right now. It helps me relax for a couple of hours; plus when I'm done watching a movie, I know I haven't been doing anything for a while so it helps motivate me to get work done..
-Find your network: Having a network of friends I can call and meet up with has been the best thing for my sanity, I kid you not.
-Get away: Go away on a day trip or for a few days, your choice. But getting away really helps clear your mind, and can help give you some perspective about what you're doing.
-Go to school events (especially [football] games): granted, this is supposed to be about how to relax outside of school, but if you go to more school events, you're creating a more positive connection to your school, where it's not just your really hard job, and you're making the idea of "school" a less stressful one).
-Discover you community: Where's the closest movie theater and how much is matinee? Is there an ice skating rink? When does the movie rental place close? What restaurants are within a 10-minute drive? Knowing information like this will make it easier for you to do something when you do want to relax, especially if these places are very close by.

Enjoy!

Required: Changing Districts

2007-10-12T12:30:00.000-07:00

I had a really rough year for my first year of teaching. I knew the thing was going to be hell. I knew that I'd be telling 2nd years that they were right about how sucky it was and the types of conflicts and complications I'd encounter. But somewhere along the way it was supposed to get better, at least by, you know, May? Maybe? No. Didn't happen for me. I was overwhelmed from day one and didn't get a break until just about the last week of school. My principal was negative towards me, therefore I got no support for most of the year, especially when said principal's requests were directly related to the issues I was having with my students in my classroom.
Honestly, I felt cheated when my year didn't get any better (not even a little). I knew that I couldn't stand my principal, I had no reason to believe that our relationship would improve the following year, and with the number of teachers that I'd heard were considering leaving, there was no telling what classes I'd end up teaching. The best thing for me to do was to find a new school to teach at. So I didn't renew my contract in April (which was scary since I hadn't lined up a new job yet) and started looking for a new position. I finally found the right one in June and accepted the position at a level 4 school (that had just recently fallen from a level 5).
I was really excited and happy to be at my new school at the beginning of the year; I was doing great. I was working with an extremely supportive administration and in a school with many teachers that were looking out for me just because I was new and they wanted to help. But I was also feeling guilty. I was teaching at a school that I knew didn't need me as much as so many other schools did. I felt like I was betraying Teacher Corps by being where I was. Plus I'd hear the horrors about how my old school had gone from bad to worse, and I'd think about my students, feeling like I should be there with them... I was having all kinds of regret.
But soon enough, I realized what things that were most important: my ability to teach and the "healthy" supply of needy students. A number of my students are failing my class, probably about the same number of students that were failing my class last year in my old district. There are students in need of good instruction all over Mississippi, and definitely all over my high school. By switching schools all I did was put myself in a better situation to teach them. I may not be in a chaotic school but it needs me just the same.

Living alone? Are you rich?

2007-09-06T02:43:00.000-07:00

I have never felt so financially as I have felt since the beginning of July. I decided to live on my own this year... I now consider this a decent-sized mistake. I knew that my expenses would double but I don't think I ever officially did the math. All I was paying for last year was my half of the rent, the cable/internet bill, and the essential food and gas for my car. Somehow, at the end of each month I had maybe $300-$400 left over from my paycheck. I opened a savings account with a high APY, I was just chucking sums of money in there, trying to "plan for the future" if you will. I felt like a pro.
But NO LONGER! Since July, I've had a calculated budget that I've been doing pretty good at sticking to. After I've calculated all the different items that I'm going to need to pay for in a month, from food to gas to credit card bills, the number I get is pretty close to the amount I get paid every month.
Now, don't get me wrong. I like the fact that i'm living by myself. I like the idea of making my home mine and what not. And now that i'm in this situation and see what it's going to take for me to get through this year, I definitely appreciate the well developed survival skills I'm sure I will have acquired by the end of the year. But feeling like you don't have any money sucks. It just does.
So unless I finally win the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes or some other kind of large sum of free money, I'll almost definitely be living with someone for the next few years.

Required Blog: The first days of school... again.

2007-09-06T02:14:00.000-07:00

The first week of school this year was so incredibly different from my first week last year that when i think about it, I still smile. Last year, I was so fretful about the idea of teaching and being a teacher as a whole. I did a relatively good job of masking a lot of that uneasiness, but it was nonetheless there. I had the same focus each day for at least the first couple of weeks: "Just get through the day." I would think this to myself as the bells rang in the halls (since my room didn't have a working bell), and if i was having a particularly bad class period, I'd think "Just get through the period."
This yea? Completely different. First huge difference: I had my syllabus ready for each of my students from day one (something that hadn't happened last year). It really helped me to set the tone for the class. But besides the syllabus, overall I was simply more confident. I didn't feel like a person that was told "You are a teacher" and was then trying to fill that role. I knew I was a teacher. I knew what I liked and didn't like in my classroom. I felt in control of my classrom immediately.
To help you get through your 1st year of teaching, you're told repeatedly that the first year is the worst and the scond is so much easier. I knew it would be true, but experiencing that for myself was something different altogether.

EDCI 602: Blog #2: Teacher Performance

2007-06-27T22:03:00.001-07:00

I feel that I have done some of my best teaching during these past few weeks. I think my students were must successful during one of my lessons for SVA. I was also being observed that day so I’m glad it was one of my best days. I used a paragraph with indefinite pronouns (which we had not yet covered) as a means to introduce the topic. I gave each student a paragraph to work on and instructed the class to work individually on finding the subject in each sentence, some of the subjects were indefinite pronouns; by noting the plurality of the verb used in each sentence, students were able to deduce which pronouns were singular and which were plural. One reason I thought it worked so well is because it was introduced to them inductively. They figured it out themselves as opposed to me just stating something and telling the students to take it as truth. A second reason for its success was the change in technology: I used a projector for my lesson, and it was the first time that a projector had been used in class. It gave the students a new way to relate to the information. This added with the inductive aspect really guided comprehension.
My students were not very successful in understanding the parts of a bar graph. One reason for their lack of success was due to the short amount of time I was able to spend discussing bar graphs. I spent a lot more time explaining a different type of visual aid that by the time I came to bar graphs, I was able to quickly describe them and handout out a worksheet for them to work on for homework. There was little to no real instruction. A second reason for this failure lies in the time span of the summer school and how we lead teachers divided that time. We were very good at deciding which topics were more important to teach and later reinforce. We scheduled what was going to be taught by which teacher for every single class period during the June session of the school. Doing this, however, made it very hard to find extra time for an extra lesson on visual aids. Since I had already taught classes on pie charts and tables, I felt I had sufficiently covered the topic of visual aids and decided to live with the fact that we never covered bar graphs.
I think that the way in which I organized my procedures greatly helped student comprehension. I utilized different kinds of text and worksheets, used varied technology, and at times changed the location of class for an entire period. I think that by changing up the things I did in the classroom, I effectively used differentiated instruction. By reaching a greater number of students through these means, I was able to increase overall comprehension of the topics I taught. I think I could have used more technology in my lessons than what I did this past month. Just from the reaction I received when I used a projector and transparencies, I’m certain that by using more technology in my lessons, I could have improved my students’ performance during those class periods.

EDCI 602: Blog # 1: Learning Goals

2007-06-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

I am one of two lead teachers teaching English 8 during summer school. So, I was responsible for only three of the first six lesson plans that we submitted as a class. In addition, one of those three was for the period that we used to administer the pre-test, so for some more obvious reasons, I am going to omit commentary on that lesson and its objectives. The two remaining lessons plans that I wrote had objectives that related to different, important aspects of subject-verb agreement (knowing what subjects and verbs are, pronouns, understanding what it is to be “singular” versus “plural”). So between the two lessons, I broke down the concept of Subject-Verb Agreement into fundamental steps to help explain the idea to the students in a more effective manner. My first goal for the students was to have them understand what a subject is and the difference between it and a noun. Next, I wanted them to understand what a verb is. The students needed to be able to identify both the subject and the verb in a sentence. The third goal was to have them understand the difference between singular and plural, another essential step in understanding subject-verb agreement. After the students could demonstrate competency in explaining and identifying these things, I wanted the class to put the basics together to create sentence with correct subject-verb agreement (SVA). Another important aspect of this topic, however, is to know which indefinite pronouns are singular and plural so those too could be appropriately used in sentences.
I feel the goals I set up for them were important due to how essential they are to being able to speak and write using Standard English. The student’s ability to understand and use correct SVA will help their own writing and overall achievement in school. Also, I feel that having SVA as one of the first topics to be covered in the class provided insight into the students’ prior knowledge on the topic specifically and a “heads up” as to what issues some of them may have in the classroom in regards to writing (we had 2 – 3 big writing projects scheduled for the students within those three weeks.
For the more simple concepts that were also easy for me to teach, I had no problem giving a definition for a part of speech, review sample sentences that highlight the important part being discussed, and later assigning a worksheet to be completed in class. I wanted to spend time on the ideas, but not discuss them extensively. I spent more time explaining how to actually use correct SVA in writing and when discussing indefinite pronouns, since those were less “fact” and more “concept.” I included an inductive instructional strategy in one of my lesson plans; its purpose was to review the topics we had covered on SVA. By locating the grammar errors in a badly written paragraph (without any help from me on what they should specifically be looking for), the students would effectively review the concepts just taught to them as well as develop the ability to edit work (an important aspect of the writing process, a topic they would begin work on before the end of the week.

2007-06-03T07:54:00.000-07:00

There is so much to argue about when it comes to education in Mississippi. But something that bothered the heck out of me throughout my first year of teaching is how much emphasis is put into the high school graduation. I taught two classes of seniors, about 35 students, and remember having my class pulled and sent to the auditorium (all the seniors were in the school were sent there) to receive an hour-long presentation from Jostens on graduation packages--it included everything from personal throw blankets that said "class of 2007" to signature books to stenciled name cards to give to your friends to remember you by or something? I don't even know how many colleges and universities receive Jostens package offers like that. There was all this hullabaloo about when and how you could order the package, which package is better than which... They were talking about these tassels that said "07" on them that you could hang from your car's rear view mirror like it was the coolest thing since... i don't know what.

I can't tell you how many times my class was pulled to go talk to Jostens... I find it very upsetting and saddening at the same time. I was upset during the year b/c it messed up my class period: I'd suddenly have students again for the very last minutes of class. It upsets me still because of the suggestion being made by these Jostens representatives. They were selling high school graduation with such fervor that it makes it seem like h.s. graduation is the icing on the cake. Put the sucker in a box and tie it with string, 'cause you're done. Reaching one's high school graduation is so widely seen as the chief educational accomplishment that that's all students come to school for. So many are just trying to graduate that they don't understand the greater importance of learning and the actual education they receive. It reminds me of that commercial that comes on every now and then with the woman in a business suit behind a desk that tells you that a high school graduate can receive hundreds of thousands of dollars more in a lifetime than a non-graduate. That's what education becomes, a money tool.
I have student that failed my class this year and some of them were actually upset about it. But a great majority were not upset because an F in my class meant they failed, they were upset because an F in my class would stain their transcript and make it harder to get out of high school, so they asked to do last minute extra credit work to get that 70 and were pissed when i said no to them.

It is very hard to get your students to care about putting in good effort and truly apply themselves in a classroom when the environment in which you teach and the community in which they live says that their greatest accomplishment will be to receive a high school diploma? At the age that these children usually are, why wouldn't you just do what you had to get that piece of paper? And why wouldn't you pay 300 bucks for a bunch of stuff to celebrate it? Makes that tassel on the rear view mirror look some much more... reasonable.

I know I'm ignoring a whole slew of other factors that one really should consider when discussing education, but this is all i really felt like talking about right now. And I'm gonna stop because I feel a(nother) rant coming on...

my students...

2007-06-03T06:27:00.000-07:00

In early May I decided to change schools for the upcoming year. I told my students during our last week of classes and I was honestly surprised to receive some of the responses that I did. Of course, there was that one class that I told and they all clapped their hands and shouted in glee... but I was surprised to have so many students even care enough to ask me why I was leaving. I told them I'd rather not discuss it but it wasn't them. I didn't feel right telling them that I "strongly disliked" the administration, most of my students had to stay with the administration. A few other students (a few of my seniors) got a little bit more information.

Either way... One of my students made probably the most mature gesture I'd seen all year from any of my students, freshmen to seniors. My year with him had been a like a roller coaster ride. He's a really smart kid with a lot of attitude and a lot of things going on in his life. So he occasionally made my life hell. He'd do things like get upset when I didn't call on him for answers to questions, or come in after lunch and just refuse to sit down and stop dancing. Once I saw him in the lunch room on a day he didn't take my class and he told me I was very ugly, and then said he was kidding. A roller coaster ride.

So at the beginning of the last week of classes, towards the beginning of class he raised his hand and asked if he could speak to me outside. So I stepped outside my classroom with him to talk and he said something to the effect of, "I know we've been through a lot this year, we've had our ups and downs, but I just wanted to say that thank you for this year. I really did learn a lot and you're a good teacher..." I was so touched by this. I made a big joke about it while he was saying it, but I went running to some other mtc-ers in the building and told them my little proud story.

I knew what everybody says is true, how teachers have a big impact on their students and even though you can't usually see how you're affecting them you are. But it was good to finally see it.

Oh you're kidding...

2007-03-04T07:14:00.000-08:00

Two or three days ago I was getting dressed for school (ha ha... ), doing what i do most mornings. One of these things is checking my hair. You never know when you may have a random piece of lint from your shirt smack dab in the middle of the back of you head. So I've got my bathroom mirror and a handheld one, and I'm checking and I'm searching, turning my head from side to side... I FOUND ONE! It wasn't lint, it was like this white, thin piece of thread, probably from some non-cotton fabric... So I'm getting a little closer to the light, slowly moving my hand to the exact point, bringing my fingers to a close around the thread... I got it. I pull it off and look at my fingers. I open them to see the thread (to make sure i got it) and I don't see it. Ooh it's a tough one, it's still in my hair. So i go at it again... and it's still in there! So I go at it a third time and PULL! A strand of hair comes out, but i got the sucker. HA HA! So now I'm pulling the thread apart from the strand of hair so i can look at it a little better, but it's knotted together (ah well). But then, as I looked at the strand-thread more closely I though to myself, "W-wait... wait a minute... Oh you're kidding. This isn't a piece of thread at all, it MY HAIR!" I had found my first flippin' gray hair. And it was creepy, man. Because when people I know have found a gray hair, the whole strand is gray. Not me. I could see the change in the strand from dark brown to gray, like paint. It was truly freaky. Looking at that gray hair that morning, I thought one thing: teaching had given me my first gray hair...!

I've been having a heck of a [rough] time this year so I shouldn't have been so surprised at the gray hair. I've been trying to think about a few things but haven't really had enough time to think about them. Should I stay at my school or go somewhere else? How do I decide? If I am going to go to a new school next year, where should I go? This has been a pretty big deal for me. A part of me wants to leave, just because my experience has not been generally positive. But I can't tell if the issues I've been having is because of my students, the administration, me being in my first year, the preps I'm teaching, or the number of preps I'm teaching. No clue. I'm thinking about looking into new job positions just to see what's available. Maybe even waving a job offer from another school at my current boss in order to get [more of] what i want.
I want to stay because I don't like quitting things. I have a big problem with that. I don't like the idea of my students thinking of me as just another teacher that had come in and out or of what we've been doing this year as useless. I also don't want to set myself up for another bad year. I know I haven't liked it where I am now. If I stay at my school for a second year when I had a chance to leave and it's still horrible again and I'm miserable again, then it's my own fault and I'm the moron. But on the other hand, is it worth going through a second first year of teaching just because of my current discontent? Can I gauge for myself how much easier teaching will be for me when I've got a completed year under my belt?

Decisions decisions... any insight you have on any of these questions would be greatly appreciated.

signed,

Confundida y Casi Muerta

Reaching for "sufficient enough"

2007-03-04T05:57:00.001-08:00

I've had a very crappy 8 weeks or so. One teacher told me, earlier in the year, that at some point you're going to hate yourself because you're not going to think you're doing a good job at all. I felt like this last semester, and understandably so, I was new to the job. But I've been teaching now for six months and I still feel that way. I've felt pretty ineffective and useless for most of the term. And what's sad is that I can see and relive positive moments that I've had in different classes this term, but they don't make me any happier or motivate me at all because they were so rare and surrounded by many more unhappy moments.

So besides sleeping and tearing up every now and then I've been thinking. Why exactly do I feel so useless? And I realized it's because I expected so much. I started out last summer making sure to have few to no expectations. Something happened along the way and I think I started expecting just about everything. I expected things to go as planned. I expected students to review the work at home. I expected to spend less time grading papers since I'd been doing it for half a year already. I expected my students to be somewhat civil in the classroom. I expected to be a better teacher than what I am now. I expected too much and didn't even know I was doing it.
In the back of my mind I keep on trying to be this sort of ideal teacher. The teacher that gets students their work in a timely manner, that does most of the things asked of her by the school administration, and that has time to help students individually, both in class and outside of class. A teacher that knows what she's doing. But sometimes I feel like I have no clue what's really going on. And I'm trying to work with this feeling of confusion and still get to this ideal teacher. I'm trying to pretend I'm not confused because I have other, slightly more immediate things to deal with. And I'm trying to walk in a straight line and maybe hold a couple things as I go. But it's not working and hasn't been. So with each step I take, to the right, then the left, then the right again, I'm still trying to walk straight and I'm still thinking of getting to the ideal teacher that's waiting for me, but I'm getting quite frustrated because I can't get my feet to do what my mind wants. And the mind.. the mind is supposed to control your body's movements. If the mind says walk straight, the body should walk straight. And if my mind says be a good teacher, then i should be a good teacher. But this is not happening. I'm still walking to the right and to the left and I'm still not where I want to be as a teacher.
Anyways. So that day that I was thinking, I also thought, "What would've happened if i came in here trying to be sufficient enough? If i had no hopes for greatness in any part of my teaching?" If I didn't have this idea of me as an "ideal teacher," it wouldn't matter that I was walking to the right and to the left. If that didn't matter, then I wouldn't be so unsatisfied and frustrated right now. My problem has been this ideal and my expectations. If i threw them all out the window, I would probably have fewer teaching nightmares, would have more time to actually eat a lunch... I could probably throw my bottles of Advil and DayQuil in the garbage...
But then i thought "Of course you can't do that. You'd be no different from too many others and that's why you're here."... yeah yeah i know. And of course, this was just one thought I had for a couple seconds a lil' while ago. I'll keep on doing what I'm supposed to as best as i can.

This is really beginning to take the life out of me. I'm just trying to find a solution, because you can't do anything with a dead teacher.

When is it my turn?

2007-02-06T18:47:00.000-08:00

Since June or July, a number of people have been giving me advice and told me what to expect from my first year as a teacher . "You'll think you suck," they said. "The paper work is ridiculous." "Classroom management is the most important thing." They also said that it would get better after Christmas break. Well, this is the fifth week of school, second semester, and I'm still waiting for things to improve.
This semester didn't start off where last semester ended. My students' behavior and attitudes got worse. My classroom management suffered from these changes (and a few others that I couldn't avoid). I expected my semester to get easier so much that when things got worse I was just very sad. My focus became getting through each individual class period (not even getting through a whole day, but through class periods).
I have so much work and grading to do it's crazy. This week has been slightly better, but it's only the beginning of the week. I guess I'm just waiting for my year to finally get a little bit easier. I want to start seeing more immediate proof that anything I did last semester had a point to it. I want things to be a lot more manageable. Hopefully that time is coming soon...

One Semester Later...

2006-12-08T19:28:00.000-08:00

I’ve been thinking about this blog for some days now, something over a week. In fact, one morning a few days ago I woke up from a good night’s rest and for whatever reason, immediately started thinking about my high school teaching experience thus far. It’s been crazy. It’s been hellish. Ridiculous. Exhausting. Oh and yes, painful. It’s even managed to be painful. But thinking of how I feel as a teacher right now, I think I’ve come a long way. Or have I??
Back to that morning I was talking about: I woke up thinking about how I’d changed since 1st term. I remembered these big boxes of student folders, info, homework and tests that I would carry from my car to my classroom and back at the end of the day. I remembered the pauses I would take in the middle of some spiel I was giving because I forgot what I was going to say next (though I made it seem like it was because what I was saying was VERY important, of course). I reminisced over 1st term and then realized I was no longer the same. I used to stress that school bag was slightly more than half full; now it’s almost constantly filled to capacity when I go home every day but somehow, I’m okay with that. I just recently found out the testing schedule for semester exams and it totally messed up al my end-of-year plans for my students. Last term, I would’ve been on the verge of breaking down. Now, I’m just kind of going to bed.
I thought of all this with my head still to the pillow. And then I realized what was going on. I’ve gone numb. Numb to the feeling of inadequacy, of never getting anything done. Numb to always thinking of a better way to teach a concept after I’ve already taught it. Numb to the paper work I never/always do (…right)… Numb to the lesson plans… oh the lesson plans… Numb to the paper mess that has become of my two desks (it starts on one and spills over to the other). And I’m most definitely becoming numb to my students. And some of their parents too…

It’s like spraining your ankle. Imagine you’ve just joined a basketball team or something similar, and you’ve been training for some decent amount of time but not nearly enough to be a pro. Then! The coach sends you into the game during the first period of the first game of the season. You’re not ready to play, but you fake like you’re good to go, you look confident enough. So what happens? You get onto the court, go up for a lay-up, come down on your ankle and sprain it (and no, you didn’t make the shot). The team could be all the teachers at your high school, the coach is your principal, and the proverbial “game” = teaching your students all year. As a first year teacher you get hurtled into this craziness that takes you for many loops and can hurt you emotionally, physically, psychologically, all the –ly’s you can think of. So when you do get hurt, you’re sprained. So you put some ice on it and eventually it goes numb. You’re numb. And then, you can pretend to function. You don’t put too much pressure on that ankle (or whatever you’ve sprained), but some of that swelling’s down… Eventually that body part will be fully functional again (although, have you ever noticed how long it takes for your ankle to look like it used to after it’s been sprained? Just saying…)
So what am I saying? I’m saying that teaching is crazy. And it can hurt’s you pretty badly. I started of the year with all parts of me intact, but I’ve been hurt pretty bad, sprained some things… I’ve been putting myself on ice for some time now and it’s beginning to do the trick: I’ve numbed. One day [in the far distance probably], I’ll be working as well as I used to.

Sticking to my guns… so to speak…

2006-12-07T16:07:00.000-08:00

The idea of making myself enforce my rules consistently for two weeks straight seemed decently close to impossible. I’m the kind of person that hates looking at or thinking about a lot of [hard] work and therefore, procrastinates. So just thinking about being consistent with all my consequences just made me want to curl up in a ball and watch movies under the covers… or something. But it had to be done. And then I thought of it! I could just work at one consequence at a time! I recently created a rule saying that there was absolutely no eating or drinking of any kind in class with the exception of water. My students even have to ask me before they have a cough drop. Otherwise, the consequence is immediate detention (bump the warning). I spent all of 1st term and at least 1/3 of 2nd term arguing with students about chewing gum in class or drinking Cherry Coke all the time. My kids were getting really out of hand with the food… there would be napkins left on desks, wrappers and empty drink containers on the floor… Once I even found a large mound of empty potato chip bags and candy wrappers in the back corner of the room behind the broom I left there. Entonces, no warning. In each class, I made an announcement explaining the food rule and the consequence of breaking the rule. Then I asked the students if they understood, and when they said “yes” that was that. Every single time I saw a student eating gum or a honey bun, it was detention. A sip from that coca-cola (at 8:45 am, mind you…): detention. Needless to say, the number of students in my detention has grown exponentially, but that’s a good thing. My students hated me for it for about 2 ½ weeks, but they’re used to it by now. At this point, the situation is pretty under control: I don’t find plastic bags or wrappers on the floor anymore and I don’t have to waste time in class explaining why a student is receiving detention (because the student and everyone else in the class already knows why).
Now that I’ve gotten this consequence under my consistency belt, I’ve moved on to another one: “bad words” and copy assignments. I no longer permit words and phrases like “stupid,” “shut up,” “idiot,” “dummy,” etc., and every time a student says one of these words, he or she receive a copy assignment. I’m beginning to go back and forth between giving students a warning for using a “bad word” before giving the copy assignment, but I’m sure I’ll work that out soon enough.

(As a side note: today three of my students asked me if they could have a cough drop. I told them to show the cough drops to me: two students had cherry cough drops and one student had lemon ones. I told the students they could have their cough drops with a straight, serious face, but in the back of my mind it made me smile.)

Classroom Management: Old & New

2006-11-10T20:47:00.000-08:00

My classroom management plan has changed since the beginning of the school year. Actually, I changed my management plan within the first month of school. Heck, I changed it a few days ago. It's really just a guide.
At the beginning of the year I didn't technically have "rules." I had "expectations." I didn't want to use "rules" because I didn't want my students to feel... I don't know... Oppressed? Burdened? With ruuuuuuuuuullllleeesss.. Well bump that. That's gone. It's as though the word "rule" is the only thing that will get my students to due exactly what I want them to do. Saying "I expect you to be respectful" is CLEARLY not enough. So. Rules they shall be and rules they have become.
One of the procedures that I started off my year with was that I'd make my students line up in two lines if we ever had to go move from the classroom to somewhere else. I've given that up and now allow them to get into one line. I got too many complaints ("why do we have to get into two lines") and it took them too long to get into two lines as opposed to one big glob of students taking up space in the middle of the hallway.
Another rule/procedure I initially put in place was the use of bathroom passes. One student was to receive one pass every term. I was so prepared to go through with this one... I even cut out about 130 keys out of orange paper (each student was going to receive a key with their name on it, which they had to give to me in order to go to the bathroom). But I decided to change that rule at the last minute. I allow students to go to the bathroom when they need to, but they can only go when 1) I say they can, 2) if it's not the beginning or end of class, and 3) if there if there isn't a student already out of the classroom.
The core of my classroom management, however, has stayed the same all year (so far). I give out consequences for inappropriate behavior in class (whether it's towards me or another student) . First offense = a warning; second offense = a copy assignment (the student must copy definitions out of a Spanish/English dictionary and hand in the assignment by the next class meeting). If the student shows up next class without the copy assignment, he or she receives detention. During my detentions, students will have to write a 250-word essay on a specified prompt; if the essay turns out to be less than 250 words, the student will have detention again the following week (I admit, I got the writing assignment idea from a friend). If a student skips detention he or she receives an office referral. And of course, there's always that immediate office referral for that just-way-out-of-line behavior. Having this in place has really helped. Students are good at coming up with excuses for why they shouldn't be punished; with these consequences in place it's just easier for me to handle some of the crazy things that go on in the classroom (which of course is the point of classroom management, so this is a good thing).
Actions that get students a copy assignment: 1)using "bad" words or phrases like "stupid," "shut up" "be quiet" (when it's too harsh), 2) talking out of turn (while I'm talking or another student is talking) 3) any other behavior that a student is engaged in that distracts me from my teaching or my students from their learning. Actions that get students a detention: 1) still doing anything that already got you a copy assignment, 2) curses, 3) eating any food, candy, cough drops (without my approval) or liquids (with the exception of water), and 4) not turning in the copy assignment you owe me.
One last thing I've added to my classroom management is the use of a seating chart. I only have a seating chart for one of my classes right now, but the effect it had on classroom productivity was so great that soon enough all of my classes will have seating charts. When I put the seating chart into place it was as though my students had changed. I could almost swear it...
Overall, my classroom management plan has been a morphing and shifting entity. It begins to go one way, and if I don't like how things have been progressing in my classroom I change it. So far I haven't had any complaints from students that I couldn't deal with in regards to some of these changes. And I'm very thankful for this, since we all know I don't have time to pacify the student in the corner that's upset that she can't chew her gum or he can't drink his Capri Sun. Now I'm not saying that my classroom management is perfect. Oh no no no, it's far from it. But. It's functional for now and at times that's all you can ask for...

Learning Styles...

2006-10-14T03:09:00.000-07:00

I gave the learning styles inventory to two of my classes. Upon reviewing their responses, I found that I had a lot of auditory and visual learners and very few tactile learners.

The different methods I’ve used to engage my students based on their learning styles tend to vary. I have always and continue to make sure that I explain whatever concepts we go over in class thoroughly. I try to explain concepts in two or three different ways, hoping that at least one of the explanations will make sense to each student. I always allow students to ask questions about the material we are reviewing. If for some reason I cannot answer questions at the time they are asked, I make sure to talk to students individually later on in the period.
For my visual learners, I write down any questions that I ask during class on the board in addition to verbally stating them; this way students have more opportunities to associate what I say to what they see and can hopefully better retain the information. Also, I often write Spanish paragraphs on the board and ask the students to either work at their desks or to come up to the board and circle and correct the different errors in the paragraphs. Another way I've changed my classes in response to the learning inventories is by instituting a mandatory vocabulary review session. For the last 15 - 20 minutes of each class period, my students work on flashcards of different verbs, verb tense conjugations, common classroom phrases and any other words they feel they need to learn in order to enhance their vocabulary. They work on making their flashcards, reviewing them, and we play review games with the note cards as a class.
The flashcards are also a good way to engage my tactile learners (though I only have a few of them). In addition to using the flashcards, I alternate between distributing handouts in class and making the students copy notes from the board. My goal is to keep them actively engaged in the lessons by changing the ways in which they receive information. To be honest, however, I know I could be doing more to help my tactile learners. I'm working on ways to improve that aspect of my instruction.

Even though I have taken these steps to improve my teaching, my students are not at the level of success that I would have liked. I wasn't expecting miraculous improvement, but I was expecting better results than what I've been seeing in my class. So despite all the insight the learning styles inventory has given me, I need something more. I'm still looking...

"A Framework for Understanding Poverty" - Dysfunctional Systems

2006-09-16T01:47:00.000-07:00

Ruby Payne begins chapter five of her book by discussing dysfuctional systems. She defines dysfunctional as "the extent to which an individual cannot get his/her needs met within a system." (63) The author provides a case study that was done on a young girl, Ellie, who was in a dysfunctional system. Payne states, "By being forced to take on an adult role earlier, she must in essence put her emotional development on hold while she functions in an adult role." (64) That emotional development Ellie puts on hold is crucial to her success in developing from a dependent person to an interdependent person. So, "...An individual operating in a dysfunctional setting is often forced to take an adult role early, and then as an adult, is literally caught between being dependent and independent." (64) Other important quotes from chapter five: "...In order to move from poverty to middle class or from middle class to wealth, one must trade off some relationships for achievement at least for a period of time. To do this one needs emotional resources and stamina." (65) "The development of emotional resources is crucial to student success. The greatest free resource available to schools is the rolemodeling provided by teachers, administrators, and staff." (67)
Okay. So let's say I have some percentage of students that take part in some sort of dysfunctional system at home. Then according to Payne's writing, to some extent, the emotional development and maturity for those students is at risk for each one of them. Okay. But then those students come to school and school is just another dysfunctional system. Students need to come to school, take their classes, do work, pass, and graduate. Too often are there issues with students' schedules. Student schedules never seem to be in order or fixed. After letting students complete a third of the term in one class, the school tells them that they've finally fixed their schedules and students get moved around from one class to another. They've now lost 3 - 4 weeks worth of work they they have to get caught up on. If they can't get caught up on it, their grades are in danger since they may not do as well on the next test if it refers to material that was taught before they joined their new classes; they may not be able to make up those lost daily grade and homework points.
Then there are those school-day mornings. If school busses arrive late, those students aren't there for the beginning of a lesson and have to figure out what's going on in the classroom when they arrive. What about breakfast? Some students recognize that they need some sort of a meal to start their day and get breakfast through the school. That is, if the school's breakfast procedure is functional. Often enough, there's a good number of students that want breakfast, wait to be allowed to go and eat breakfast, and never get there because the school's procedure for allowing students to breakfast is too unreliable and unorganized to it to truly work effectively. Now you've got hungry and upset students until lunchtime.
So let's talk about lunch time and how a month of school must pass before everything is figured out. Different methods are used to devise a way to get everyone (1100 - 1300 kids) to lunch during in one period. Sometimes the period before lunch will end early or the period after lunch will start late. But then you have a teacher who doesn't get to finish his/her lesson or a teacher that won't be able to do their lesson as planned because s/he lost 20 - 30 minutes of class time to lunch time. That loss of structure on the teacher's part comes back to the students because they are the ones that aren't learning the material as completely as possible. It'll affect how well the students understand the material, how well they do on tests and how well they do in the class.
And who make up the entity that is "school?" The teachers, administrators and staff. The same people whose rolemodelling is supposed to help students build emotinal resources. How can we as "the school" be an emotional resource for students and help them build emotional resources when the administration represent incorrect class schedules, teachers represent improperly learned material and failing grades, and the staff represent missed breakfast, late lunch, or late busses? It's going to be that much harder for us that work in and for the school to help students build the emotional resources that they need when we constantly provide such dysfunctional systems for them to struggle through. And what's most disturbing about all this is the fact that those same resources we find it hard to provide students are the same ones they need to advance in the world and in life. It's like an unfortunate paradox of failure...

Video Lesson, Part One

2006-07-23T12:41:00.000-07:00

Though it was quite some time ago, I remember having very distinct reactions to seeing myself teach the first time. It was, for one thing, really creepy. A part of me wasn't sure how to deal with the fact that I was holding a little version of myself in my hands and watching her run around a classroom. But after I got over that I thought it was so awesome. There I was, teaching. And the students were actually learning. AMAZING! I was excited to be teaching them, and got even more excited when my students seemed to grasp the concepts I was teaching to them or correctly answered a question. I felt like I was getting something done, doing my job, if you will...
There were definitely some aspects of my lesson that I didn't like, however. I thought I could have had the students up and out of their seats more. They were paying attention just fine sitting in their seats, but I felt that they probably could have benefited more from a lesson that had them directly interacting with the material they were learning.
But here's something that made my jaw drop: during the lesson I started dancing and made some excuse for it, made some kind of joke. I looked SO crazy. Just CRAZY. Now, I know I can be kind of "out there" sometimes, but just then I felt like I knew exatly what my students must have been thinking: "oh my gosh, my teacher is crazy, haha." I think that in the end, it'll be a good thing that my personality shines through in class. Maybe (hopefully) my craziness alone will make my students want to come to class, behave, do the work and learn Spanish. If I spend all of class dealing with classroom management I won't have time to really make class interesting. I hope my students will pick up on that one.
So overall, I thought it was a good lesson, but there's always some room for improvement. And although I looked really crazy, I liked it.

Blogging be gone!!! But not really....

2006-07-18T16:59:00.000-07:00

I don't know what it is about blogging, but we really just don't get along. Like, not at all. During the last semester of my college career, I was in this really *awesome* English class. I loved the teacher, I loved the material, I loved the class so much that I actually arrived early or on time for most of the semester. That in and of itself is a true feat, believe me. But you see, we had this blog thing we were supposed to do for the course. It didn't have to be complicated or anything, we just had to post something on the class website that was somehow logically related to the material on a weekly basis. But I just couldn't do it. I posted no more than five times throughout the 14-week semester. Those posts were "the bomb" if I do say so myself; I did indeed "drop some knowledge" each and every time. But I really hated sitting down and writing them. All that explanation, the feeling of being obligated to write in correct grammar when really all I wanted to do was fill the page with lowercased i's and "prolly" and "wanna" and "gonna" b/c I'm too lazy to spell out two full words and hold down the shift button. Or maybe it was the fact that I knew I was technically being forced to write those blogs, that if I didn't write them I was going to FAIL THE CLASS!!! (but not really b/c yeah, I only wrote five and I did really well in the class). Is it my rebellious side coming through? Down with rules? Down with organized thinking? Perfect timing considering my new-found profession...
Anyway. I guess I just wanted to give an explanation for the late-as-all-heck blogs and the long lapses between posts. I do have things to say. I do. I'm just to busy/tired/lazy to type them down. And that's truly a shame b/c I really love typing.
And to be quite honest, a small part of me is worried about my lack of motivation to blog. What if it's during the school year and something happens in one of my classes (can be a big or small incident) that gets me thinking or gets me riled up or brings up a new question or issue for me, what happens then? I could go to my blog and post something about it, maybe some previously-enlightened Teacher Corps participant will have the answer or a suggestion; maybe what I'm contemplating will start some good ol' healthy debate. But will I actually post those thoughts? I probably won't. Just bein real...
Or maybe something will happen in school that won't through me off my mental rocker necessarily but will be worth a blog post. And maybe what's happened to me has already happened to some other teacher I know and it'll just be nice to know that you're not the only person that this crazy stuff is happening to. But will that story ever become an official Ghost Story? Yeeeeeahhhh it's kinda doubtful.
Me + Blog = Generally Incompatible.
And I guess that's kind of unfortunate.

I'll try to write on a topic of greater importance next time...

Learning in groups...

2006-07-03T08:57:00.000-07:00

Sometime during the third week of summer school, possibly on a Thursday, I taught a lesson on haikus. We'd been discussing poetry that entire week and different literary tools that can be used, like assonance and alliteration. So that Thursday or so I taught them about haikus. We went over some examples, counted the syllables... Then I made them write haikus individually. That went off without a hitch. So then I split the class into two groups to work together: one group of two and one group of three. I assigned a topic, they wrote about it. Simple and straightforward.
Getting the students to work together was harder than I expected it to be. I could understand to an extent. When I was younger I was kind of timid and shy as a student, so if I had to work in groups it was sometimes hard for me to start talking with my classmates and participating in the discussion. But at least I'd get up out of my seat and move to wherever my group was supposed to be congregating. It was a hassle just getting my summer school students to turn their desks even slightly towards each other. I kept on repeating to the students that they all had to contribute to the discussion and decide what point to make with their haikus and the best way to get that message across as a group, but I felt like my efforts were mostly futile.
For the first haiku I assigned, it just didn't work out. A couple of people never really contributed, they just let the other person/people in their group make decisions for them. So I assigned a second haiku and gave the students a little bit more time to write it. Doing this gave me more time to go around to both groups and try to motivate the students who weren't participating to contribute more. The second haiku went a little better: everyone contributed at least a little bit, but still not in equal amounts.
The following week, I taught my students personification and onomatopoeia for one of my last English lessons. They caught on to the material pretty quickly. I divided the class into two groups of three for another group writing activity. This time, however, each student played a specific role in the group. The assignment was to write either a story of 2-3 paragraphs or a poem. In the writing, there had to be at least two instances of each of the following: onomatopoeia, personification, assonance, alliteration and rhyme. They also had to describe the rhythm of their writing sample. So with six requirements, each student in a group would be responsible for two of them. They could decide who would be responsible for what on their own, as long as the requirements were met. Each student had to write his or her name on the writing and list their responsibilities. This time the exercise was very successful. Granted, I still made sure to remind the class that each student had to be participating, and I went around to the desks and asked each person what two things they were responsible for, but I think that holding each student accountable for some aspect of the end product of the activity really made it easier to get everyone to contribute in even amounts and made the activity as a whole much more enriching. I was very pleased.

Questioning Strategies...

2006-06-19T11:53:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, I used the Muddiest Part of the Lecture questioning strategy. I was teaching my students about rhyme scheme in poetry that day. After handing out the index cards to the class (we only have six students) I told everyone to write down any questions they still had about that day's lesson on the card. Then I'd collect the cards at the end of class and we'd go over the questions the next day. Later, one of my students said he didn't have anything to write down because he understood everything. So I decided to make the questions mandatory as a way to make him think harder and find something that could be confusing for him, and I think this was my first mistake. Making it mandatory for the students to write down a question created an atmosphere that allowed the students to take the task less seriously. There were at least two students that couldn't think of a question to write on their note cards; at the end of class they were making jokes about how they only had a minute or two left to think of a question, and in the end, did not write down serious questions--they wrote down questions that I know they already knew the answers to. So I'm thinking I won't make it mandatory next time I decide to use that strategy in class.

But at the same time, I was surprised how helpful it was. Although I had to take the time to explain every step of determining the rhyme scheme of a poem, I really felt that all the students were with me by the end of class and understood how to do it. I asked them if everyone understood exactly how to do it and they all said they did. I had them figure out the rhyme scheme of a stanza in class and they were able to do it. So it was kind of startling when I collected the note cards and saw that a couple of students had said that they don't understand rhyme scheme. Those students went through the entire class saying they understood it when they actually didn't. And on top of that, I couldn't tell. That alone scares me. But this is helpful because it lets me know what I need to work on: my informal assessment technique(s) either suck(s) or just isn't suitable for my class, so a new method of informal assessment will help me make sure that they are truly comprehending the material.

There were some students in the class who just didn't follow the instructions. Instead of writing down a question about the class lesson, they asked a question they were thinking randomly about poetry or a question about homework or something like that. But even having this happen is helpful because it tells me that if I really want their questions to pertain strictly to the current lesson's material, then I have to be more explicit in my instructions.

Overall, the questioning strategy was very helpful in my class, just not in the way I expected it to be. Benefits? It tells me what's going on with my students, whether or not they're really getting the information. If they say they're understanding the material and then I find out that they're not, I know that I need to find a better way to make sure comprehension is actually taking place and that it takes place the first time around.

Last Year's Focus Papers...

2006-06-12T01:35:00.000-07:00

One paper that quickly caught my eye was on charter schools. I have 2 younger siblings that have been in a charter school for a year now and are going to start at a new charter school in the fall, so this topic really hits home (yay for real-life connections). So the paper on charter schools was saying that one way to better our public schools is to give them more competition (the charter schools being the competition). I'm not exactly sure what the competing forces are though: is it the public school trying to prove it's just as good as the charter school so the public school administration begins to crack down on the students and teachers and school policies? Or is it something more personal, like the students themselves want to prove they're just as smart as charter school kids or something so they step it up a notch? Maybe it's a mix of the two. But anyways...

As I was reading the paper, I couldn't help but wonder why any school would need any form of competition in order to [start trying to] be[come] a good school. The thought bothers me. There are certain telltale signs that let a school know that it's failing itself, its students and its community. The proximity of a charter school should make no difference. Why is the public school not taking a greater initiative to fix its problems? Does it even know it's problems? No? Well why not?
I am not against charter schools. In fact I think I'm generally in favor of charter schools. But it seems like too often suggestions are made for fixing the public school system and/or its academically malnourished youth that don't actually fix the schools. Not really. Instead of the schools holding themselves truly accountable for the betterment of their students thinking minds, they continue to promote students to higher grade levels while ignoring the fact that those students don't deserve any kind of a promotion (much more often a demotion). Parents don't help the situation when they don't demand more of the faculties and administrations of the schools they send their kids to; so instead of making these demands, parents (the ones that care) remove their children from the public school system, and put them in charter, magnet or private schools, leaving the public schools just as bad as it was before. This is just a solution to the problem but doesn't fix it.
For example, I know of this program called Prep for Prep. It takes young children in elementary public schools that show considerable academic achievement and puts them through 14 straight months of extra schooling (there's even school 5 days-a-week during both summers), by the end of which they will have found placement in a private school. The start attending that private school in 7th grade and mostly continue to attend private schools for the rest of their academic lives. It's a really good program, I know a number of people that went through Prep for Prep and reaped the benefits of the program (there's a lot more to Prep than those 14 months). But despite how good the program is, taking students out of the public school system shouldn't be the answer. Again, it does not attack the root of the problem, just works around it.
But now, what if the parents think the best thing for their child is to put him or her through a program like Prep for Prep or switch the child into a different schooling system? Because quite frankly, I could easily see myself moving my child from a public school system to a charter, magnet or private school in the future if the state of public schools in the US doesn't change. Can you really blame parents that actually care for wanting the best for their children and not wanting to wait for public schools to become the best? I feel like you can't. So much more weight falls on the shoulders of public school administrations and faculties to improve their schools. And if the only way to get public schools to make any progress is by an outside stimulus like a competing school, then that wait for public schools to be the best option for students is going to be quite a long one. But it is somewhat comforting to know that there are programs like the Mississippi Teacher Corps and teachers like the ones I've met these here these past two weeks that are trying to make that wait a little bit shorter...