More qualified Teachers?

The New York Times seems to think so.

I wonder what the breakdown is for Mississippi?

Success

Today, I was informed that my goalkeeper was off the team. He had a 39 in english. My assistant coach had somehow gotten grades early, and informed his mother, and that was that.

Charlie will graduate this May. My assistant coach just dropped him off at home (at 11 PM) after a tutoring session. He or my other assistant coach will take him all day Saturday, and I'll take him on Sunday. If he never plays another game with us, he'll graduate. If he gets his grades up to the point where he can play again, great. But he is a part of something. He has people who care about him, who won't let him slip through the cracks. This makes all the difference in the world, and that fact that I can be one of those people - not the most influential or important, but just that I can be one of those people, is a success for me.

This leads me to believe that schools with 1700 students are a bad idea. There aren't enough things for everyone to be a part of. Two schools of 850 each would have two football teams, two soccer teams (maybe), two cheerleading squads, two track teams, two x-c teams, and nearly twice as many kids feeling like they belong to something. My research paper didn't find any sort of link between athletics and academic performance, but I trust my gut over my research. It's important to belong to something, especially at 16, 17, 18 years old.

Things I will miss about Mississippi

Ryan Conley and his jail-bird suit.

Lisa.

Anna.

Other MTC people who are not in my living room right now.

DB,NB,CB,DukeFG,MW,AL,JT,IB,JR,AM,WB,FM and the rest of my soccer boys. I'll miss them like hell.

Perfect soccer weather October through March.

My garden.

My awesome house - with cheap rent.

Late, late night drives to Oxford.

San Juan Mexican Grill.

Bogglific.

Pick-up soccer with Spot and the rest of the guys.

Gluten-free meals.

Reggae.

Church casseroles.

Blues.

The majority of my students.

Skiing

I feel like a terrible teacher at the moment. About to go back to school, after having had nine days off, and I have nothing done, nothing ready, no idea about where we are going.

In high school, I was on the cross-country ski team. I needed to do something in the winter to stay in shape for soccer, and I couldn't play basketball. I remember one race, at Cranwell, an old golf course, which was one of the only places that made snow. It was warm, so the snow was very wet, and it was a classic race, so all the kicking I could manage still didn't get me anywhere, because my wax wasn't sticking. Then, when I finally made it to the finish line, I fell, right on the finish line, in a pile of deep powdery snow, and managed to land, somehow, directly on my nuts. I couldn't get up, and so I had to just drag myself across the finish line, where I was immediately shouted at by angry parents, because I was, of course, in the way.

This is how I feel about teaching right now. All the hard work I could put in doesn't get me anywhere, and now I am just trying to crawl across the finish line. I was never a graceful skier, and I feel anything but graceful in the classroom. And to top it all off, there is just that general feeling of getting kicked in the nuts.

I guess the good thing is that in three years of skiing, I finished every race.

0-0-2

2-2, 1-1. Out on PK's both nights.

Pasta Party

Tonight was the second annual pre-season meal at coach's house. Expanded to include the girls' team. I'll elaborate later.

Floyd, food, and spades.

My goalkeeper. I can't explain the face.

Two of the nicest guys I've ever met.



Jacedric, one of my little seventh graders. In a few years, he just might do something.

Also, thanks to all the fantastic people who helped out with this event. The kids really enjoyed it. So, Tabitha, Anna, Sunny, Jessie - you all rock.

Understand?

Are black teachers more effective than white teachers in reaching black students?

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/understand/

My favorite teacher

Dr. Mullins asked us to write something about our favorite teacher. I don't even know where to start. With Mrs. McBride, who let a group of us write books in a group in the corner during seconds grade? With Mrs. Bernard, who guided us through our biography projects in fifth grade? Or with Mr. Vadnais, history teacher and soccer coach, who's skills were in his ability to relate to middle school students and make them feel like human, and who helped us reenact Gettysburg, with snowballs on the hill behind the school. Mme. Kahus, who in grades 7-9 taught me all the french I ever learned, enough so that even after two years of horrendous high school french I could still get by and so that now, nine years later, I still can conjugate verbs in the passe compose, imparfait, future, and conditional. Probably not a lot of verbs, but hey. More importantly, she instilled in me a love for and fascination with languages that has never left me. She offered Russian for two years, and I took it, and loved it - I credit her with my majoring in Russian in college. Cramer, my only high school math teacher, taught a mean calculus class, interspersed with strange stories about some hippy named Wavy Gravy, who may or may not have contributed to the campaign to get a pigasaurus elected president. And of course SB, who genuinely loved spending time with us, interacting with her students and engaging with their writing. I can't think of another class that is as conducive to forming a strong bond with a teacher as a creative writing class, and she handled it all so well, with gentle criticism and genuine praise for our attempts at literary art.

And then there was Mahar. Mahar may be my favorite teacher, in a way that I did not expect when I began contemplating this question. Mahar, with his fieldwork on coyotes, his real love for his subject, was not even a great teacher, in some ways. He bungled some questions about cellular biology and his explanations were sometimes indicative of the fact that he himself was not entirely comfortable with everything that was going on in the glycolysis reaction. Yet in others, he was superb. He was weak on cellular and molecular bio, but he knew it, and knew enough to get by. But he found a way to let the things he was really passionate about become the important things in his class. I still remember the Lincoln-Peterson labs, daubing mice with whiteout on the backs of their necks, and going back out to catch them again. The riparian ecosystem lab, measuring trees along the stream, and the statistical analysis that went with it. Mahar asked for t-tests and p-values in high school, and that was huge. Not only that, but we read Song of the Dodo. Mahar did a really solid job of picking books for that class. I was about to bash the one we read about Watson and Crick and Rosalind Franklin, but now that I think about it, that was a great book to read too. Understanding where the biological world was at before the modern synthesis made me finally understand, for the first time, the full importance of genes, DNA, and the forces that modify them over time. The Song of the Dodo, by looking a the stripped down system of island biogeography, really brought to light enormous amounts of evolutionary theory and made it accessible on a wonderful scale. As much as Mme Kahus led me to major in Russian, Mahar was instrumental in my majoring in biology. My greatest, most enduring academic interst, the only thing that I have ever considered going back to grad school for, is evolutionary biology, and a good chunk of credit for that interest has to go to Mahar. As goofy as he sometimes was, and as much as he disliked teaching cellular biology, his passion for ecology and evolution and his ability to share that passion made him a great teacher for me.

Recruit where? MTC

Q: Should MTC focus more on recruiting in Mississippi, in the South, or nationwide?
A: Nationwide.

Reason one: You will draw better applicants from a bigger pool.
If you want the best possible applicants, you need the biggest pool to choose from. Pretty self explanatory.

Reason two: Teachers coming from the south or Mississippi will bring inherently different perspectives to the classroom than teachers coming from the north, midwest, westcoast, southwest, alaska, anywhere. Of course, it depends on how you interpret the goal of MTC, but I feel that a fresh perspective, from the outside, can only be a benefit. When my students run through all the places that start with M where I might go home for Christmas - Manhattan, Michigan, Minnesota, Connecticut... I realize just how limited their perspectives of the wider world are.

When I was in high school, all of my teachers were from the northeast, except maybe Aase. At least, as far as I know. But I think I would have benefited from having teachers from other areas of the country. I know I did in college. Diversity is touted as being exceptionally important in education, and geography can be a good proxy for establishing a diversity of perspectives and past experiences.

Teachers from increasingly local levels (the south, Mississippi, the Delta) having the correspondingly increasing benefit of familiarity and cultural understanding. But the kids already have lots of teachers with that familiarity and background.

Reason Three: (The one that will get me in trouble)

MTC should recruit heavily outside of the south and Mississippi because it is important for MTC to recruit students from the best colleges and universities in the country, from those institutions that represent the very pinnacle of learning. Going to a good school does not make you a better teacher, but it certainly does not make you a worse one. I have realized that some of my ideas about education are more elitist than I ever thought, and this really disturbs me, in a lot of ways. I want some of my students to go to Harvard (or MIT, Yale, Stanford, Bowdoin, Middlebury, etc.). I've almost deleted this section three or four times now, because I worry that I'll offend someone. I have a very north-east-centric view of things, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I had been taught be a more goegraphically diverse faculty during high school. But I think that MTC should continue to recruit from the very best colleges and universities in the country, where ever they are. Any recruiting policy that limited recruiting to the south would certainly eliminate many students from the institutions that are considered the flagbearers of higher education in this country, despite what the incensed regular viewers of ESPN's College Gameday might argue.

The cons:
1) A national recruiting policy is more expensive.
2) This is entirely speculative, but I imagine that the likelihood of an MTC teacher staying for a few extra years or for the long haul is inversely proportionate to the distance between Mississippi and that person's home. Ben has data on who is still here and who left and where they were from, and could probably actually tell me if this is true or not. But as my second year is moving along, I am already starting to feel incredibly guilty about leaving these kids. There is no way to do enough for these kids, and to walk away from them after just two years seems cruel. At the same time, there are the parts of me that urge me to leave in May - my sanity, my family, my memories of foliage and snow and the daydreams about the good life teaching somewhere where I don't have to deal with so many discipline issues, so many disorganizational issues. It's so important for teachers to stay more than two years. Maybe that's easier for teachers whose homes are a little closer to Misssissippi. If it is, this might outweigh all the reasons for recruiting nationwide.

It's better to burn out, than to fade away...

At least that is what they say.

But burning out as a teacher is never a good thing. At one point someone suggested that we offer some advice for the first years on avoiding burnout. Unfortunately, I haven't had nearly the success in this department that Jeremy has had, and so the best advice I can offer is to be what I am not - organized. And don't coach football. But I am really not in the correct frame of mind to offer advice. I am just going to dive into how burnt out I am.


I'm not sure what I was thinking when I agreed to coach football last spring. Maybe I thought I would get more respect from the kids, just by spending more time with them, they'd understand, a little better how much I cared. I thought, perhaps, nostalgic for soccer season, that it would be great to spend a little more time with the boys who play both soccer and football, and that if the soccer guys were so great, maybe I'd be able to love the football players as much as I do the soccer players.

Regardless of what I thought, it was a poor decision. I was not helpful to the football team. I was not helpful to myself. I learned a few things from the football coaches, about football and coaching in general. I met a few great kids who I never would have met otherwise. But it was a mistake, because it left me already running on reserve when soccer season hit.

Football meant getting home between 7 and 7:30 every night, between 10 and 1 AM on Fridays, and a few hours on Sunday for film. Soccer means getting home between 7 and 7:30 every night plus responsibilities. We ordered new uniforms, we're still trying to track down some of last years, the field needs to be lined, the goals need to be moved and the new nets put up. We need buses for away games, checks for away game meals and pregame food, we need to order new balls and shin guards and cones. And then there is eligibility. Birth certificates, physicals, permission forms, eligibility sheets, counselors, principals, and athletic directors at four different schools - the two campuses of the high school and the two middle schools. And that is just the BS part of coaching. The real work of finding a system and putting the right people in the right places, and finding and fixing deficiencies, of discipline, spirit and pride, loses out to the paperwork. I got an assistant coach, finally, and she is fantastic. It's my delegating skills that are weak, and we got a bit of a late start, because of football.

In addition, for the last three or four weeks I've been teaching trig during my planning period. I volunteered - the trig teacher was in a car wreck and had to get stitches in his head, so our principal, rightly, did not want the kids to fall behind. I applaud her for that. But that has really been taking a toll too. Leave the house at 7:30, get back to the house at 7:30, no stopping. No getting anything done. It's not the fact that I can't get anything done during ym planning period that is the worst, although the enormous stack of grading that has piled up on my desk, shelves, in my backpack, and on top of my overhead projector has become an almost unbearble stressor. But rather, the fact that I am "on" for nearly 12 hours a day, in front of kids, putting on the teacher act, pretending to be an adult, nonstop. That just wears me down.

In closing, don't teach four block classes, coach two sports, and go to grad school at the same time.

Progress

I just filed a referral. It was the third one that I've gotten back, although I think I wrote two others that I haven't seen back yet. It's mid-October. Just for fun, I looked at my bulging referral folder from last year. By this time last year, I had written about 30 referrals.

Why are you here?

Today was our second day of soccer practice. We had a fairly hard day - not as bad as the two practices yesterday, but nothing too easy either. After practice, they took a knee, and I asked them a simple question - why are you here? I went first. I told them I had three reasons for being out there. I love them, I am passionate about the game, and I want to win. Some of their answers were really fantastic.

Well, you introduced me to soccer. Before, I never would have played it, but now I have a passion for it, I love playing, I love running people over, well, I just love running.

I'm out here because last year, we were 17 and 0, and I want to show some people that we can play. They're gonna see us coming and remember last year and say we're gonna beat them black boys again. But look, this is my motto this year - if you're not gonna hustle, don't waste your energy. We got to go to states and it's hard work that is going to get us there...

Coach, you introduced me to this game too. I used to watch it on TV and I thought those people were stupid, but then I came out here. At first, I wanted to run on the field, but then I started playing in goal, and I really like, well, playing in goal.

I'm out here, not just to win some games, but to go to state.

I love sports, and soccer is a good sport that I really like playing. I like playing soccer and being around people who, you know, like being around other people.

I'm out here 'cause my brother's out here.

I'm out here because I'm joining the marines next summer, and I want to be in the best shape I can. I want to be so that I can just run the entire game and never get tired. Also, I look over here and I see JH, my cousin, and over here is WB, my best friend, and here's NB, my brother. Just a lot of good, hardworking people that it's good to be around.

Now we just have to work on turning words into deeds. I've got to plan something really hard for tomorrrow.

An Unexpected Guest

Sunday morning. Actually, Sunday noon. "Mike, um, Mr. G, there's a student here."

Anyone who read my failure story remembers KM. He been staying around here a few days now, with his old lady's folks, still looking for a job so he can get him a crib. He was on a walk with said old lady, in his red pajama pants and a red tank top. We chatted for a few minutes, I asked him to come by for dinner tomorrow, if he has the time. Told him that if he had a mower, I'd call him when the grass got long. We talked about jobs, the plaes he's been to look, and the responses he's gotten, all the same. We'll call you. And no calls.

 

I hope he comes back tomorrow for dinner. I'll try to cook something good.

Tale of Two Classes

I just finished grading my algebra II quarter exams. I have two blocks of algebra II, first and second. Second block did very well, while first block failed rather miserably. This has been the pattern of the year so far, and I am looking for ways to correct it.

The problem is easy to explain. First block is bigger - 19 students compared to 12. First block is earlier in the morning. There are more students in first block who are unprepared for this class - at least 10 in first block who just had abysmal math skill coming in, compared to only 2 in second block who I would put in that category. But the biggest difference is classroom management. My CM plan has worked fantastically well in my second block. We spend 92 of 98 minutes on task and engaged, they work quietly, they help each other, and we generally get along swimmingly, except when I make catastrophic errors in judgment and try to do something fun, like Jeopardy, which backfired tremendously on Thursday.
In my first block, things just don't work. Half the class comes in late, everyday, about half of them with late bus passes and half without. Some students sleep, and almost all the rest are openly hostile towards me. This has gotten a little bit better, but is still a huge problem. They refuse to listen to me when I teach, and then want help on the quizzes and classwork. That is, of course, unless they refuse to do the classwork.
I'm going to try dividing the class into two parts tomorrow - those that want to work and those that do not want to work. Teach all of them, then let the ones who are good - I'll call them group A or something - practice, while doing something much more structured, and silent, with group B. I'm honestly not sure how it is going to work, but I don't want to let this class ruin my year. When I start to think things to myself like "they are all just a bunch of jerks" I know that they are getting to me and I am starting to lose it. So I've got to get them under control. Hopefully this will do the trick.


Also:
I got back from the football game Friday night around 12:30 AM. While waiting for players' parents to pick them up, I saw one of my soccer boys, who had showed up at the school to meet one of my soccer/football boys, since they were going back to his house. I pulled the ball out of the back of the truck and we played for about half an hour, the three of us. I suggested turning on the lights and going out to the field, but NB noted that the sprinklers were on and so we were forced to abandon that idea. We are going to have a great season this year. Maybe we'll manage to sneak a few wins as well.

Grading proofs is annoying. But actually, it isn't bad, because my geometry kids can actually write proofs now. Seriously, they give statements and reasons and do things logically. It's amazing. I'm super-proud of them. They work really hard (usually) and so they deserve to do well. But it takes me way too long to grade these. I even had to make up a rubric to help.

Proof that my kids can write proofs!

Get Ready

Soccer season is coming. October 15th.

18 hours

By now, I am pretty used to being Mr. G. There were times last year when it felt pretty strange, but I feel much more accustomed to my adult role this year. Every once in a while though, it still seems so strange. Like when I wake up at 1:30 AM on a dark bus and the first thing I hear is Ed's voice.
"Aw Mr. G, you slept good, didn't ya?"
Yeah. Why, was I snoring Ed?
Yeah, you was snoring.
Loud.
Naw, not loud, but you was snoring.

what a gift. Imagine how much more of a difference that money would have made were it spent on a single school here. But I guess we nneed an elite class to rule the country and make the right decisions for the rest of us.

Yale? Where that be?

So, I emailed admissions departments at a bunch of top tier schools. I'm basically trying to work my way down the list to get a bunch of information for my students. Today, I got my first packets, from Yale and Stanford. Yale even included a poster, which I promptly displayed in my classroom. Although I wouldn't always call my students the most observant bunch, they picked up on the poster right away.

Mr. G, you went to Yale?
No.
Then what you got that poster for? Who went to Yale.
One of you is going to Yale.
I ain't goin' to no Yale.
Sure you are. Or Harvard then.
Yale, where that be?
Connecticut.
Oh no, I ain't going to no Conneccticut.

But after school, I stopped one of my favorite students. I told her that I had gotten the poster for her. She said her mom wouldn't let her go that far away, but I tried to convince her. She took home the viewbook. And she is just a sophomore.

To any fellow MTC-ers reading this, or any other delta teachers, have you ever had a student go to a really top-tier school? Or ever heard of a student from the delta going to a top tier school?

One of the things our principal said he wanted was for some of our kids to be going to Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. While these schools aren't for everyone, and while they may be elitist, perhaps even extremely so, I feel like the academicaly elite of my school deserve the chance to match minds with the academically elite of the rest of the country. But even my brightest kids, even if they made it into that sort of institution, I wonder if they would be too far behind. I just think of my freshman year classes at Williams and then think about what my kids leave my school knowing. That's a big part of what makes me push them. I can't stand when they complain about having too much work, or when they're lazy - they have so much catching up to do. Maybe I should start some sort of after-school club, the elite college club, and just take the best students I can find, do community service and ACT prep, alternating one every other weekend. Obviously find a non-MTC teacher to help out with it. So many ideas - so little time.

i thought about the army

"well i thought about the army, dad said son you're f-cking high"

I don't know what I think about the services drawing as heavily as they do from poverty for recruits. Some consider it a form of conscription. Others see it as a great opportunity offered to those who have few others, with a strong dose of discipline being among the most important aspects. Do recruiters lie to these kids? I don't know. Do the kids leave recruiters' offices with a skewed conception of reality that is not corrected by recruiters? Yes.

Mr. G, I'm leaving for the guard in a couple of weeks.

Coach, I was thinking about joining the marines.

Well, at first they had assigned me to artillery, but then they put me in transport.

Coach, I'm gonna be all I can be.

I just know I don't want my kids to join up. I don't want my kids to be on the other end of an AK or an IED. Transport, to me, means roadside bombs. Marines means all the dignity of a military funeral.

Maybe I'd feel differently if I supported the war, or the idea of war, or patriotism, but I don't think I would. Those are questions for men to decide, not boys, and these are my boys. I know that they're almost men, and some of them have already gone through much more than I had before I was of legal age to enlist.

Maybe I'd feel differently if the kids who planned on enlisting were kids who could really benefit from it. When KM told me he was joining the guard, I was not upset. The kid needed the discipline, and he didn't have anything else. Nothing. He had such a strong personality about him, he could have gone through the military, gotten something out of it, and used that to forward himself. WE probably made the right decision too, although I didn't know him as well. But NB and DJ? Fantastic kids, never a behavior problem, probably not a referral between them in 4 years of high school, varsity athletes, (DJ 3 sports), supportive mothers. DJ has a 3.5 GPA. And he wants to go into the army?

I'm not going to stay in Mississippi forever, and once I leave, I don't want to be coming back for any military funerals.

SquashFest

My senior year at Williams, I lived in what is called a co-op, an on-campus house that is like a stepping stone to real life. You still don't pay rent or utilities, and you have B&G to take care of things like shoveling snow, fixing the heat, and cleaning the bathrooms, but you do have to do things like buy and cook food (no dining halls), keep a kitchen neat, and not kill each other.

I lived in this house with some very special people. It just so happened that they were all female, and all vegetarian, but nevertheless, they were good people who enjoyed food, and, to various degrees, cooking. Cooking, like many other things, is something I really enjoy doing whenever I don't need to do it. I made such delicacies as blini (блины), pierogies, raspberry muffins, and hamburgers. For many of the meals, the six of us all made time to eat together, and often we even invited guests - students living elsewhere, faculty, and other friends.

On of our staple foods turned out to be butternut squash. Cheap, easy, and abundant. We bought 25 pounds for $10, fresh from the farm. Then, we bought 25 more pounds. And 25 more. Over the course of a few months, the six of us ate more than 75 pounds of squash. Usually, we just baked it on a cookie sheet, with a little brown sugar, maple syrup, or some raisins, but we had some more creative cooks who tried some great things. Jess made a delicious squash soup, and one night, Kate made an entire dinner with every course containing squash.

I managed to grow a small garden last spring, to help keep me sane while my classroom tumbled into the, um, pits of hell, and although it was mostly overgrown by the time I got back this summer, there were a surprising number of butternut squashes hidden among the waist-high grass that the landlady was so angry about. I gave most of them away last weekend at Oxford, but I kept a few for myself, and tonight cooked up a squash extravaganza. We made a cookbook with all the recipes we had used in the co-op, and so today I made myself a double-batch of Jess' Squash Soup and Kate's Squash Rolls. Delicious, delicious. I also made the one addition that was always impossible at Parsons - some pork chops on the grill. Then I started to miss everyone just a little, then I remembered that I saw almost all of them this summer, in New Orleans, New York, Leland, and Lake Champlain, and realized I am still a pretty lucky guy.

Scholarships, Fellowships

I have some amazing students this year. I have one recite a list of the best colleges in the country at least once a week. I've been thinking about how to find opportunities for them, like the earthwatch fellowship one of Dan's students recieved last year. So, I made a new wiki page about it, to try to find things for my kids to apply for. I haven't got enough time right now to go through all of it, but this weekend or next weekend I'll try to put up link as I find them. Any suggestions or ideas anyone has would be appreciated. That's why, afterall, it's a wiki and not my own website - edit please!

Mr. G, you're not asleep?

So, about an hour ago, my phone rang, but I missed it. A 662 number meant a teacher or student. I called back, and it was DW. "Hey Mr. G." Hi DW "Hey, uh, hey, uh, I wanted to switch my club from, uh, modeling squad to, uh, drama" Ok "Did you turn in that paper yet?" Yes, but we can probably change it tomorrow. "Ok" Click.

What was that all about? Couldn't we have dealt with that just fine tomorrow? Kids rarely call for the reasosn they say they call, that was lisa's sage comment. Sure enough, five minutes ago, it rings again.

"Mr. G? You're not asleep?" No, DW, I'm not. "Oh, ok. How do you find the roots? Do you just make x zero and then find y?" No, you have to set y equal to zero, and then you'll get an equation with only x's in it, which you can solve with the quadratic formula or factoring, once it's in standard form. "So I got to subtract from both sides?" What's the problem? "I'm trying to do number sixteen. y = 4x^2 + 4x + 2" So, put in 0 for y. Then it's in standard form, right? "Yeah, and then I can just use the quadratic equation?" Right, but be careful, that one has complex roots. "Yeah, I see that. Alright Mr. G." Alright DW. I won't be going to bed anytime soon, so call back if you have more questions. "Alright."

In my mind, I'm going to Carolina..

$10,000 signing bonus for teaching Algebra I?

They need teachers in NC, and elsewhere.

In a sense, NCLB might actually be doing a good thing here. It seems to have shifted the demand curve for teachers upwards and increased what districts are willing to pay to get them. Perhaps, finally, we are on the way towards offering teachers salaries that are commensurate with the vital role that they play in our society. After all, you get what you pay for.

Next time...

Things I should blog about in the future, when sleep is less precious:

The upcoming soccer season.
The wonder of podcasts.
Feeling old.
Food.

Things I need to do:
Get a lawnmower.
Mow the lawn.
Clean the porch.
DO LAUNDRY.
Deal with that interest at ole miss.
Sign my award letter.
Buy stamps.
And many more.

Check it

So, I managed to turn it around. It wasn't a bad day. Fourth block, well, they didn't academically rock the world, and the lesson was certainly not fun, but they got better. They are still struggling with proofs, but we made some headway, which was great. And they are just good kids. I am glad I wrote that first blog, because it let me get a lot of that out of my system. It's so important to stay positive. So important. It can be hard though - almost as hard as keeping up with grading and planning. Not quite though. Plus, the kid who walked out of my class - three days at home. Move on to Friday.

Anatomy of a Bad Day

The first one of the year.
Last night. Came home from football practice. Made daily quizzes for today. Found a worksheet for Algebra II on complex numbers. Outlined (in my mind) lecture and notes. Ate hot dogs and generic cinnimon toast crunch for dinner. Forgot to make a sandwich for lunch.

6:00- 6:40 AM
Attempted to set a new record for snooze button hits in a single morning.


7:10 AM - left for school.
7:32 AM - arrived at school.


8 AM - FIrst block began. 6 students were tardy. All students were talkative. Consequences were applied unevenly. Detentions that should have been handed out were not. Things contnued to get worse. Class ended with a lecture about respect.

9:43 - Second Block begins. Tardy bell rang early, and so 4 or 5 students were tardy. Just after I sent them away to get a pass, they made an announcement to allow all students into class at that point. So they came back, and we finally got started. Most students were excellently behaved during the daily quiz. One student was working on work for another class. I took the work and told him he could get it back at the end of class. Then, I told him to get out a sheet of paper to take notes after he finished the quiz. He claimed not to have any paper, so I assigned him detention and gave him some paper. He took the paper and detention slip and walked out of class. I sent the referral down a few minutes later. When the office called down and asked for his books, one student, KP, noted that he hadn't even realized that the student had gotten up and walked out of class. So I guess, at least I was able to handle it without it becoming a big enough deal to distract him from his work. However, when the bell rang, he got up and walked out without being dismissed, so he has a detention slip waiting for him when he comes back tomorrow.

11:21 - FAP starts and we head to lunch. Disaster in the hall. Loud, shouting. Refusal to get in line. The lunch looked so bad that I didn't get any. The trip back from lunch was worse. At least BC didn't find the girls that he refers to, daily, as the Big Booty Patrol. But there was shouting, disrespect. When we got into the classroom things were worse. Shouting, jumping around, hitting each other, going through each other's things... Chaos. Next person who leaves their seat will find themselves in detention. Things improved. They just left now, with BC telling the class that he is just going to take a masturbation break. No kidding. So now it's my planning period. I have to re-plan for geometry, because apart from that quiz, I'm not sure where we are going. It's really hard to teach proofs. I'm a bit stuck here. I'm not sure what, exactly, it is that they are supposed to have mastered, since writings proofs is such a huge undertaking, I can't expect them to master it all at once. So I'll get on that. But still, a bad day this year is not nearly as frustrating as a bad day last year. I'm not going to let this year descend into the pits of hell, which is an apt description, borrowed from another second-year, of the first year.

losers

How do you coach a bunch of losers? This was the question coach asked today, and I'm still wondering.

funny

Quiz: Solve for x: ax + by = c

Response: x may equal anything because there is no numbers to help sorry for the x

Chess Club

Today during homeroom, I suffered my first loss in chess to a student. It was great. I'm going to start a chess club.

Ben suggested that we write an entry about how the begining of this year is different from the start of last year. First, let me say how they are the same. I am exhausted, and was equally exhausted this time last year. I am not less exhausted the second time around. I'm just doing more.

Last year at this time, I was teaching 3 classes (2 preps), plus the MTC work. This year, in addition to all of that, I'm coaching football and about to start a chess club. So I'm still as exhausted, if not more exhausted. This year, though, I'm just a little more efficient, and more of the work that I do actually seems to have some sort of result.

I spent more time this year on rules and procedures, although not quite intentionally. I planned to do a day and a half of rules and procedures, but once I had written up all my procedures, I realized it was going to take longer. I let that take the whole first day, half the second day, half the third, and probably 10 minutes of the fourth and fifth. There was a lot of repetition, which was great, because I had new students continually showing up for the class. In fact, today, on the eighth day of school, I had another student show up for my Algebra II class. She had been out of town, in Kansas. But because the new students kept arriving, it gave me a good excuse to review rules and procedures, without the kids feeling like I thought they were stupid.

I've enjoyed my kids so much more. Part of it is knowing them, and knowing how to deal with them and talk to them. I didn't realize that I had even gained anything in this regard until I started talking to a fellow MTC-er, a first year teaching in my school, who said she just doesn't know how to talk to the kids, not in class, but in the cafeteria, the hallway, wal-mart, etc. As we were talking, I realized that I did know how to do that, and did it unconciously all the time. My favorite parts of the day are often interactions I have in the hallway or cafeteria with students or former students or kids who have never taken my class but who know me somehow. It's definitely something I could not do last year.

Plus, Big Delta is run so much better this year. The new head principal, new associate principal on my campus, and assistant principal back from surgery this year have made all the difference. The climate is changing, slowly. Right now, all we have is a better run jail, but I can feel that we are going to start running school soon. No fights, I've written one referral, and I hand out detentions like candy for the smallest infractions. No homework, no problem, here's your detention. No textbook, no problem...

The biggest difference, though, is that I am happy. I love my kids. I like my job. I had a great summer at home and was fortunate enough to spend a lot of time with a lot of people who are very important to me. If I say any more about being happy, though, I might jinx myself. I'm just exhausted.

Today

Today -
I was at school for 13 hours.
We had a fire drill.
I found out a student from my school was shot over the weekend and is in ICU.
A student gave me his demo cd, then called me to see how I liked it.
I ate a little debbie oatmeal cream pie (370 calories, each).
The temperature was over 100 F for the fourth day in a row.
I taught math.
I had an overwhelming response to a facebook-wide petition for pen-pals for my students. I'm thinking about starting a school-wide pen-pal project. I'll start by just using my homeroom students as a pilot, and see how that goes.
I got tired.
and soon to come... I went to sleep.

ode to a principal

"we aren't doing anything but running a better-run jail. can we be satisfied with that? no, we need to be running a school. I can't wait to be up there at that graduation, kid walking across the stage, they saying "...with a scholarship from harvard..." And that's for the mind, not because he can knock someone out."
I love my principal.

Granted, we are doing a better job running our jail, so far, than we did last year. It's only been two days though. But the way that man talks, he makes you feel some passion for the job. He has that passion.

I know I'm asking a lot. But I'm at that point in my life, where I'm thinking, when I come to judgement and the lord show me a child, I want to say I did everything I could for that child, and if he didn't come right, wasn't nothing could have been done for that child.

He must have been a heck of a coach. He is just the kind of guy that gets things done. I won't write any more, because I need to be the kind of guy who gets things done too, right now.

First Day

One down, 179 to go.

The first day went well, but boy, was it exhausting. What with football practice and all, I was on my feet for a full twelve hours. I need to do a little more Ben Guest style teaching, otherwise I'll fall out, as the kids say. But if I write any more I'll be procrastinating; I've got things to do.

Pause. And begin again.

What Is the Beautiful?

The narrowing line.
Walking on the burning ground.
The ledges of stone.
Owlfish wading near the horizon.
Unrest in the outer districts.

Pause.

And begin again.
Needles through the eye.
Bodies cracked open like nuts.
Must have a place.
Dog has a place.

Pause.

And begin again.
Tents in the sultry weather.
Rifles hate holds.
Who is right?
Was Christ?
Is it wrong to love all men?

Pause.

And begin again.
Contagion of murder.
But the small whip hits back.
This is my life, Caesar.
I think it is good to live.

Pause.

And begin again.
Perhaps the shapes will open.
Will flying fly?
Will singing have a song?
Will the shapes of evil fall?
Will the lives of men grow clean?
Will the power be for good?
Will the power of man find its sun?
Will the power of man flame as a sun?
Will the power of man turn against death?
Who is right?
Is war?

Pause.

And begin again.
A narrow line.
Walking on the beautiful ground.
A ledge of fire.
It would take little to be free.
That no man hate another man,
Because he is black;
Because he is yellow;
Or because he is English;
Or German;
Or rich;
Or poor;

Because we are everyman.

Pause.

And begin again.
It would take little to be free.
That no man live at the expense of another.
Because no man can own what belongs to all.
Because no man can kill what all must use.
Because no man can lie when all men are betrayed.
Because no man can hate when all are hated.

And begin again.
I know that the shapes will opne.
Flying will fly, and singing will sing.
Because the only power of man is in good.
And all evil shall fail.
Because evil does not work,
Because the white man and the black man,
The Englishman and the German,
Are not real things.
They are only pictures of things.
Their shapes, like the shapes of the tree
And the flower, have no lives in names or signs;
They are their lives, and the real is in them.
And what is real shall always have life.

Pause.

I believe in the truth.
I believe that every good thought I have,
All men shall have.
I believe that what is best in me,
Shall be found in every man.
I believe that only the beautiful
Shall survive on the earth.

I believe that the perfect shape of everything
Has been prepared;
And, that we do not fit our own
Is of little consequence.
Man beckons to man on this terrible road.
I believe that we are going into the darkness now;
Hundreds of years will pass before the light
Shines over the world of all men . . .
And I am blinded by its splendor.

Pause.

And begin again.

- Kenneth Patchen

That is one of my favorite poems, from Patchen's 1943 book Cloth of the Tempest. I cite it here without permission, but with the certainty that such beauty should be shared, and that the author would probably not mind too much.

Here I am at a new begining, trying to pause and take stock in where I am, where I'm coming from, where I'm heading. I feel strangely optimistic. God, what a job we have. I don't think I can fully explain how just completely in awe I am of my job at the moment. At this moment, I'm sure I couldn't have a more worthwhile job anywhere. It's hard, and perhaps we are going into the darkness now, but I want to completely give myself over to it all. I want to suceed this year, more than I have ever wanted anything before. It's frightening, but if I can do this, if I can get this right, I can do anything. And I will do it. I may not have a life while doing it, but I'll get it done. Math is alright, but let me love these kids through math, let me show them beauty.

State Test Scores

88% passing.

Success - at last

Success Story
Algebra two, spring semester. C was one of seven seniors in that class. She was also one of the four pregnant girls. She is the only student I have known in Mississippi to have gotten an abortion. C graduated. She is my success story.
In February, C wrote me a note. "I will stay after school and do anything", she said "math is my downfall and I plan to march in May." C was so far behind in math that I would have been shocked before I got to the delta. No sense of how to deal with negative numbers or fractions and no sense of what it meant to solve even the simplest linear equations. I am still not sure how much she knows about logarithms and quadratic equations, but she knows an awful lot about persistence.
When she wrote me that note, she was failing with a low sixty. She slept through class and did not pay attention, but rarely talked and was never rude. I never could completely blame her for not paying attention, even though it frustrated me enormously. The material, as presented in class, was so far over her head that asking her to pay attention was be like asking me to pay attention to a presentation on the intricacies of Chinese grammar. But she got better. When I'd write something on the board and ask her what it is, her stock answer was always "A hot mess." But when she came after school, I realized that she had started to at least take notes on the hot mess, even if she didn't understand it, and she began to come ready with questions.
C came to see me after school almost every day. We worked and worked, going over imaginary numbers for what seemed like forever. These sessions were usually as frustrating for me as they were for her, because things just never seemed to click. By eighteen, if some basic things haven't clicked already, there is nothing that I can do in a few months to make them click. Just keep on plodding away at them until they become habit. We often lost the why of the math, which hurt to give up, but we eventually got the how, enough so that she had moved herself within touching distance of passing as the end of the year rolled around.
That was when I started Senior Saturdays. We met at McDonald's, every Saturday that I did not have to go up to Oxford, from nine until the last of them left. I never left before noon, and often later. C came every Saturday. It seemed like she stayed after school and made it on Saturdays not because of her parents but rather in spite of them. Her mother was always calling her, telling her she had to come home for this or that or that she had to pick her up at a certain time, and no other. C, however, thought that her mother and I would get along just fine. "You two should go out" she told me one day, "she real cute." I told her, of course, that I wasn't interested, but she continued "Why not? She real young. Aw, you must not like black girls." Eventually, however, I was able to assure C that my lack of interest had nothing to do with race, and that I was sure her momma was very nice, but that the demands of teaching left little time for a relationship.
C passed. She also passed Advanced Algebra and Trig, which she was taking simultaneously and which we worked on sometimes. She even passed Econ, and so in May, she marched. She probably won't remember anything about the quadratic formula or imaginary numbers, but she will remember that she worked really hard, and that she was successful. If I had not helped her, she would have failed. I guess there is a measure of success in that.

Assigned Blog #2

Instructional Goals

During summer school, two of my objectives were as follows:
1)Students will multiply and divide exponential expressions and
2)Students will simplify square roots.
As per the assignment, one of these was met successfully and one less successfully. It does not take a genius to imagine which.
After a fairly short explanation, the students were quite capable of using exponent rules to perform multiplication and division. This process includes only one step and students have only a few things to consider in their minds before getting started. One reason we were more successful with this goal was simply that it was easier. Another, is that at least some of my students began to actually see why it has to be true. By expanding exponents and showing repeated multiplication, my students could look back at the definition of exponents and see that as long as they accepted this definition, the rules must be true. Maybe I ought to prove everything next year, and tell my kids they will have to reproduce certain proofs on the test. Because when you know that something must be true, you don't guess, you don't have to ask yourself whether you multiply or add, or whether your base multiplies too or just your exponent. You don't have to memorize anything, although you will. Also, using induction to allow students to discover these rules for themselves helped them to get a better grasp of what is going on.
Teaching students to simplify square roots was much more difficult and less successful. Partially, this is due to the increased complication of the task. There are more steps, and the process is less intuitive, but there are some obvious things I could have done differently that would have helped my students be more successful. I tried to rush through this lesson because of time constraints but if I did not have enough time to teach it well, I ought not to have taught it at all. What I should have done was illustrate why the process we were working on has to occur as it does, why root eight must equal two root two. Unfortunately, illuminating such connections requires me to spend more time talking, writing on the board, guiding through handouts, or something equally preachy. I have not yet been able to develop an inductive strategy to meet this objective, nor have I been able to find one on the internet. Working with decimal approximations on the calculator would be one way to tackle such a problem, but it would require the belief that the calculator is magical and always correct. I try very hard to dismantle the calculator myth in my classroom, so such an exercise would be highly counter-productive.

Differentiated learning in a classroom of three students just happens. It becomes obvious very quickly though informal assessment which students are not understanding the material, and the plans change accordingly. It is more difficult with more teachers, because each teacher might not see what the other teachers see, so communication is essential. Differentiation in the classroom took place in the form of assigning different students different problems, and also in questioning, when different students were asked questions relating to different depths of understanding.

In the future, to better address the learning needs of my students, I think it is important to seek out inductive strategies when possible, and to be patient and avoid rushing students. I need to be always committed to the vision of mathematics as a unified, interconnected web of knowledge and never forget that it cannot be understood piecemeal.

One of many

My Failure Story

One of Many

Preface:

When I began thinking about a “failure story,” I thought of Hank Bounds and his assertion that every child who is a behavior problem in your class is a result of a failure in your classroom management. In fact, he never said exactly those words but that was what I heard, at a time when I felt decidedly low about my classroom, the behaviors that I had allowed myself to tolerate, and the effects that my classroom management had on my students. I think he was right. Even the worst students I had, the absolute classroom terrors, the pregnant gang-banging girls, the bipolar ones, the sleepers, shouters, paper-throwers, and so on and so forth, each of them showed me on more than one occasion that they still carried within them a kernel of childhood, the desire to do well, to please, to succeed. They wanted to be successful, and at the times when they wanted it, I did not have the vision, the energy, or the clarity to show them a path to get where they wanted to be. Very few people would choose the lives that my kids are choosing for themselves every day, if they knew anything else, if they knew how to make that choice of something different, but they don’t know how to make that choice.

So what story do I settle on? Dominique, who I lost from day one? Ebony, who I lost from day two? Kendra, who I thought had gone for good only to return from alternative school just in time to disrupt final preparations for state testing. Tim Kelly, who cost himself his place in the tenth grade by cheating on his algebra final? Or should I choose my best students, whom I failed equally but in different ways. Keyera will still, if there is any justice in the world, go to college. Not community college, but a challenging, academic school. Millsapps? But if that girl does not get in to one of the elite educational institutions in the country in three years, I will have failed her too. I already did, by not challenging her enough, by not cutting through the mess and finding a way to teach her something stimulating. In the end, although I failed all of my students in one way or another, I can probably only write this story about Keith.

Keith

Keith sat in the second row. He survived the exodus to pre-algebra, and remained in my class when nearly half my students were sent elsewhere for a remedial course in adding integers. His hair was always, well, rather unkempt, or else done in an entirely ridiculous manner. There was very little that was serious about Keith, but the pink beads hanging down from the beads, or the ridiculous halfro that he often sported were especially absurd. But they always managed, along with the rainbow headband and extra small female jacket, to get someone’s attention, and that was enough to light up his entire face with that equally absurd grin, so absurd that I struggled to keep my own smile encased within stern, teacher lips. That was all the boy ever needed, was attention.

Keith thought everything was funny, and would disrupt class in most ways he could, if he wasn’t asleep. One incident stands out, in which I take the blame. As the class was commenting about my the ever-present wrinkles in my pants, Keith, upon waking from a nap, uttered something to another student, disguised by his habitual, yet sleep-enhanced mumbling. Apparently, as he told me later, he said something about someone’s Dickies. You can imagine what I heard, and I pulled out the referral. As I began to realize my mistake, it was much too late, and Keith had already huffed and puffed himself up into a storm. I said, Keith, if you did not say what I think you said, tell me what it is you did say and we’ll discuss it after class. No, you think you heard me say something, you go on and write it down there and send me outta here. I want to go down to the office. Give me some days at the house, I don’t need to be back here no more. And so on, so off he went.

Hope

Keith’s expertise was slope. He could graph a line better than any student in my fourth block, finding the intercept, using the rise and the run, and making great lines. He was actually quite good at transforming equations into slope-intercept form as well as calculating the slope from a graph. He showed the entire class how to do it. There were plenty of concepts he struggled with, and some that he didn’t even bother to struggle with. I remember when he stayed after school, for an entire week. One day I called him to the board to explain something the class was struggling with, and heard the following conversation:

Keith, how you be knowin how to do all that stuff.

We did it after school the other day.

You be stayin after school? Who else be stayin up in here.

Just me and Mr. G. It be crunk though.

I took him home, to the little house on the end of central street, squat and square and very yellow. As we drove down the road towards his house, I thought I smelled a whiff of marijuana. You smell that, Keith asked. That’s my antie’s house. She always be smokin up in there. Sure enough, as we eased toward the white house on the left, the aroma became stronger and then faded as we moved on, bumping past the potholes and over the train tracks. His dad, all 300 pound of him, was sitting on the porch, or rather the concrete area under a small awning in front of the little yellow house, that performed all the functions of a porch. He sat, paper-bagged bottle in hand, waiting. As his son clambered out of the truck and past him, into the house, it became obvious that he was waiting not for his son, but for something much more elusive. He had been waiting a long time, and six months later, when I stopped by to check on Keith, long after he had dropped out of school, his father was still on the porch, still waiting.

Gone

Keith dropped out in October. He had already been suspended three times. He was still failing my class, but getting closer. During my first block class (Keith belonged in my fourth block) he knocked on my classroom door. I saw him standing there, his sheepish grin somehow absent as he held out his textbook and his withdrawal slip. He did not say anything. I took the book, and signed the slip. Made sure that he had my number, in case he needed anything, in case he needed help with the GED he has insisted so many times he was going to embark upon. I took a moment to collect myself before I re-entered the chaos of first block, and had to wipe away a stray tear. I never should have signed that slip.

What could I have done for Keith? I failed Keith in the same way I failed too many of my students, by not creating a classroom environment designed for success. I failed Keith with inconsistencies. I could have given him more progress reports, so he could see the huge improvements that I saw him making. I could have called his mother more, coerced him to stay after school more often. I could have done so much for Keith, he was crying out for attention, for love, for anyone to help him do right. He never wanted the eternal waiting of his father.

Epilogue – Touched down in the land of the delta blues

It was fantastic to be home for Christmas. After seven lonely months in Mississippi, I never appreciated more the love and support that I have from so many people at home. Without any understanding of god, I still felt blessed, for if there has ever been anything to be supernaturally thankful for, it is a plentiful group of people who love each other.

When my flight touched down in Memphis, I turned on my cell phone, a ritual that is still new to me. A few moments later I heard the text message chimes, and wondered who could be texting me. Since this story is all about Keith, the answer must be obvious.

Wat up mr. G this keith i was just textin to mess wit you since i aint heard from you in a min...3341234 this my number if you want to call in holla.

That was the first message. In the second, he explained that he would be joining up with the national guard in a few weeks. I called him the next day, and we tried to set up a time to get lunch, but it never worked out.

As the months passed, I did not hear from Keith, and the number he had given me, unsurprisingly, was soon disconnected, so that I had no way of getting in touch with him. I heard that he had not gone into the guard; rumors suggested that he had possibly joined job corps. So one day I went down to central street. Keith's father was still waiting one the porch, and was glad to see me. Remembered the truck. No, Keith had not joined the guard, no, he had not joined job corps. He was just trying to stay out of trouble. Was he succeeding, I asked. No, not really. He's looking for a job, but has not been looking too hard. Here's his cell phone number; I know he'd like to hear from you. On my way back to Leland, I thought I saw someone waving to me in an old Blazer when I stopped at the four-way. I wasn't sure, but the Blazer followed me through the two turns to my house, and as I got out of the truck, I realized it was Keith, with his absurd grin and do-rag covering his ridiculous hair, and my face lit up. I just stopped by your house. I know, my momma called and said you was there. I gotta go drop my sister off now. This where you stay? Yeah, this is where I stay. Aight, well, I'll holla at you some time. Ok Keith, I got your number, I'll give you a call. We still haven't managed to get lunch. But I have the number and if it changes, I always know where he lives. So I hope we'll get to sit down and talk, and maybe he can muster up some sort of initiative, some sort of drive. I just don't want to imagine that absurd smile extinguished behind a paper-bagged bottle, on a porch that isn't a porch, waiting for a future that has already come and gone.

Ready, Set...

Ben suggested that we should post about something we wished we had done before the school year started. I've got a long list, both of things I wished I had and had not done.

Organization - Clear, detailed procedures for my students and myself.
My most challanging problem last year was organization, which, based on the way I had made it through college, nevermind my own experiences as a student in high school, should not have been surprising. Before I started the year, I needed to have better procedures, that were much more thought out and thought through, both procedures for what the students would do and for what I would do. Where would I put the daily attendance list when it showed up at lunch, during 3rd or 4th block, or the next morning (that is, if it showed up at all)? What would I do with the do not admit list? How would I keep track of attendance in my own classroom? How would I record disciplinary infractions, and how would I inform students of consequences? How would I communicate grades with parents, and when would I have time to grade all the crap that I assigned? Would I grade at home or at school? Even simple things, like what I expected when I asked the class a question, were unclear. So I wish that before school started last year, I had set these ideas out very clearly, in writing, and played them through a few times in my head, then went to a second year and gone through all of them with the second year, just to get an idea of what is reasonable and what is not. A second year from my district would have been ideal, but since I was the first in my district, that was not possible.

My room
I wish I had taken more time to make my room an inviting place for students. I don't mean a circus, but I do mean clean, neat, bright colors. Encouraging slogans or posters. Lots of math. Things that I find exciting and interesting, so that if my students ask me about them, I can share some of my passion for other subjects, even if they are not math-related. In this regard, I would especially like to have some things posted that reflect the world outside of the town in which I taught. A world map. Posters of Russia, Africa, South America, anywhere but the delta, memphis, or chicago. College posters of both local and elite institutions. I have students who could go to Williams, Harvard, Standford, etc. Or at least Amherst. They need to know these places exist, and about the doors that they could open for a delta kid. This sounds extraordinarily elitist, maybe I am. But Delta State and Valley do not provide the kind of education my kids deserve. The fact that I was told by someone at Valley that I should teach there after I finish MTC illustrates exactly why my students deserve better than that. A continuation of the high school experience is not what they all need - although some of them certainly do. My room also needs to be neat, which means better organization, and also better procedures about leaving the room, eating, etc.

My Sanity
I wish that, before the year had started, I had set some limits for myself. Regarding, for example, grading. Next year, I plan to do all my grading at school. I have a 98 minute planning period. I am only going to allow myself to take home grading on days when, for one reason or another (covering another teacher's class, school pictures, the extravaganza, meetings, general chaos) I do not have a planning period. The sheer amount of grading I accumulated and did not deal with immediately terrified me as it piled up in my classroom, backpack, dining room, living room, and bedroom. It will all stay at school next year, organized in folders.

Discipline
I wish I had known something about my school's discipline policy before I started. I also wish that the school offered school-wide, supervised detention. But that won't happen.

Planning
I wish that I had planned ahead more. Actually, as I recall, I did plan ahead, but was completely shocked by incompetent my students were at basic mathematical operations. Few of them were actually unintelligent, but fluidity in mathematical operations was somethinng that alluded them, so I had to throw out all my planning on the first day, since it assumed that my students could add and subtract fractions, and integers. Assume nothing.

Like anything you do the first time, there are still a million other things I think I could have done better, but that's why I'm glad it's a two year program. Just a year here and I would feel completely unsatisfied.

Summer School Goals

What can I possibly teach this group of students tomorrow / next week / next month? This question has been one that troubled me throughout the year, and all too often I found myself asking about tomorrow rather than thinking as far ahead as I would like, but with summer school, things have been a little easier.

I have four students this summer. Some failed pre-algebra, some failed transitions to algebra. Luckily for me, and unluckily for the students, the pre-algebra and transitions are in fact the same course. So is eighth grade math. And seventh grade math. Most of sixth grade is devoted to the same concepts as well, which are then re-taught throughout the high school math sequence.

This is not just a rant about the absurdity of the system (though such absurdity is significant). If affects the goals that I choose for my students. These are not always the objectives I write on my lesson plan and on the board. I do that because I get observed. The goals that I have been trying to chose for my students involve deeper levels of learning, connectivity and understanding than most of the objectives in the frameworks target.

These goals are much more appropriate for my students (in terms of development, past mathematical experiences, and student needs). Recognize patterns. See mathematics as something that stems from fundamental truths about the way that numbers interact, and begin to see that the rules governing these interactions are not arbitrary, that in fact numbers could come together no other way. Build confidence. Create a framework of language that will allow each student to process thoughts about math in logical ways. My students have been "taught" the tricks of math so many times. They've been told that when they multiply exponents they add the exponents, and other equally nonsensical things, but they do not see the connections, they do not see the why, and so the rules all get jumbled when there are no reasons supporting them.

My instructional strategies so far have been very different than they were last summer, and throughout last year. Last year, my goal was to survive. This year, I have loftier ambitions. I have a vision of math as I want them to see it. To that end, I have changed the way that I speak and give instructions. I pay very close attention to the language that I use, defining and re-defining math terminology, and making my instructions much clearer and more specific. I try to provide more definite structure to my lessons, and place enormous stress on the continuity of ideas, the connectivity of concepts, and the multiple paths to solutions. I stopped saying the word "answer" so that I can always be sure that both I and the students know what it is we are talking about. We are never trying to find the answer to a math problem, we are always trying to find something, and if we cannot name that thing for which we are searching, we may never recognize it when we find it.

One inductive strategy that I created this summer was used to introduce exponent rules. I gave students several products and quotients of exponential expressions to simplify, without mentioning the exponents rules, and offered them "clues" from a clue jar to help them solve the problems. The clues showed similar products and quotients that had been simplified correctly, and the students were left to deduce the rules for themselves. The activity was appropriate in that it forced all my students to think and will help them remember the exponent rules much better in the future. However, it did not do enough to make these rules more than simply rules, even though they may be more memorable since they discovered them themselves. I followed the activity up with a formal definition of the rules and an explanation of the symbolic language used in the definition, then a lecture and discussion about why the rules, especially the multiplication rule, must be true as long as we understand the definition of exponents. At that point, it was obvious that the definition of exponents had not completely sunk in yet, but I think that may be something I'll have to keep plugging away at.

Although not exactly relevant to the assignment, I feel I ought to mention confidence. Confidence in a summer school class is bound to be low. Everyone failed regular class. Yet confidence is essential to learning, and I feel that it is my responsibility as a teacher to build the confidence of my students back up, and so I've made that one of my goals. We're on the right track on that one, but it comes slowly, and I hope that our first round of quizzes will not crush that.

I haven't yet spoken much about how to assess these goals, mostly because that is a question that I am still struggling with. But I'm working on it.

Last Day

I took a lot of pictures of my kids today. Leave a comment with an email address and I'll be more than willing to share them with you, but I probably ought not to post them in such a public place.

So close

Terrified that next year might not be any better. I'm going to have to work my ass off this summer to make sure that it will be. Now I just have to get my seniors through this exam and out the door. I hope they make it. One or two might not, which is really hard for me. And hard for them too, I'm sure. I've spent so much time working with them, trying to get them caught up, making sure they make up work. I've stayed after school, met them at McDonald's on Saturday mornings, at Tabbs on weeknights with a platter of sweet potato fries, during my planning period, during homeroom. I just hope it's enough. I don't like having so much power.

My favorite announcement of the year

Please pardon the interruption. Some of you have been very disrespectful to your teachers lately. If you are disrespectful to your teachers, I'll send you home. If you are disrespectful to your fellow students, I'll send you home. If you are disrespectful to any of the staff, I'll send you home. I just gave out 20 days at the house. I've got a stack of referrals and a new box of pens, and I will send you home.

(Students: Man, Ms. Principal come back crazier than ever. She'll do it too, she be sending people home for nothing)

Pardon the interruption again. Seniors: you have not graduated yet. If you think you don't have to follow the rules any more, I'll give you some days at the house too, and you won't graduate. You are not certified yet, and if you decide you don't have to follow school procedures any more, I'll send you home.

I paraphrase, of course, but these were the two best announcements I've heard all year. Maybe that says a little about how my attitude as a teacher has changed. At the beginning of the year I don't think I understood how important it is that the students have someone to be terrified of. I even made a student terrified of me when I told him I'd break his middle finger if he insisted on continuing to raise it in the direction of other students. He tried me on it, too, and I gave it a pretty good twist. Someone suggested I'd get fired for that up north... they were probably right.

annie are you ok

My freshman year in college, I had a 10 am physics class. Not early, but early enough for college. For williams, it was a big class, 35 or 40 students, and when the clock hit 10 and it was time for class to start, the prof would always push a little button and we would all hear the opening riff of "smooth criminal." He had it set up to fade out after about 5 or 6 seconds, well before "she came in through the window, to the sound of a creshendo" It was the perfect start to class, and by the time it had faded, everyone knew what was going on, namely, physics. When class ended, he pushed his hidden button somewhere, and the song started up again. Every once in a while he would vary the song, if there was another song that was perhaps more relevant to what we were doing, but from september through january, just about every class, I heard those same opening few notes.

This is something I'd like to try for next year. With less technology, and less time between classes, I wouldn't be able to work it exactly the same, but I think I could at least start, if not end class with it. Or end my bellringer with it, because when the music stops, that's when I need the focus on me, to try to teach something, anything,before I lose them.

Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth

What a b....

The cluster method was what I taught FM after school - it made so much more sense to him than any other way he had learned this stuff before, as I said in my mental math post. Obviously, as the woman says, the textbooks seem a little absurd, but really they are no more absurd than the insistence that all students use the standard algorithm (which she continues to call the most efficient, least error-prone, based on what evidence I wonder?) to the exclusion of all others. Certainly, it is often the best algorithm for multiplying five or six numbers by hand, but when will such a skill be neccessary or even useful? As far as division goes, until I started teaching I had used long division maybe once or twice in eight years. Clustering in division problems makes so much more sense.

Furthermore, the fact that this is being debated as the part of standard 4th and 5th grade math curriculum is almost as ridiculous as the fact that I am teaching in to high school freshmen. Whole number multiplication and division should be mastered by the end of third grade. Students should be able to compute fluently in decimals and fractions by the end of fifth grade, and in sixth grade should begin a two year course in algebra I. In 8th grade they should take geometry, algebra II in ninth grade, Precalc and Trig as sophomores, calc as juniors (basic single variable derivitive and integral calculus) and some elective their senior year, whether it be a serious statistics course, linear algebra, or multivariable calculus. Maybe I'm wrong - I don't know that much about how the brain develops at a young age and I am basing this mostly on my own experiences, which apparently are not the norm. Besides, to have anything like this actually work, we'd have to have middle school teachers who understand algebra and geometry and high school teachers who can explain eigenvalues and integrals in spherical coordinates. Not to mention students who want to learn.

Mental Math

Very often, I'm amazed at what my kids can't do. The fact that they can't do any sort of mental math has astonished me over and over again, as I wait on things like 30 divided by two or 46 divided by 10. Only today did I realize that even skills like these need to be taught.

I started thinking about a week ago about what I do when I divide something in my head. For example, if I wanted to divide 68 by 2, I first divide the sixty by 2, to get thirty, then divide the 8 by two, to get 4, and add to get 34. Pretty standard, I thought. But today after school, as I watched FM labor through the same problem using long division, I realized it might not be the standard thought process for my kids. So I stopped him and told him how I did it. Oh yeah, he said. That's so much easier. That does make sense. Hopefully, it is a little more intutive for him. FM has become my mental math experiment. A few days ago I caught him laboring over a multiplication problem where he had to multiply something by five. Just take half of it, I told him, and put a zero on the end. Works anytime you have to multiply by 5. That astounded him. And when I explained why, it was like a little light went off. It made sense.

Today, FM stayed after school along with DB. (DB was in my class for a few months in the fall before he got moved to pre-algebra. He is the sweetest kid in the world, and would kill to be back in my class. That's why he stays after school.) Anyway, DB was showing off his solving equations skills, while FM was solving some quadratics. FM was simplifying a square root, trying to make a factor tree for some number, and asked me what went into it. So I decided to tell them about how you can tell if three goes into a number. I told them any number they gave me, I could tell them if three went into it 5 seconds or less. They gave me some horrendous numbers, 5 and digits, and were amazed when I told them yes, three is a factor or no, three isn't a factor as soon as they had finished writing. Finally, after about five minutes of them giving me bigger and nastier numbers, I told them the trick, which had them holding their heads and laughing and generally being amazed at math. As they walked out the door, DB told me he was going to go right home and show that to his mom. FM said he was going to show it to his friends tomorrow. I need to think of some other "tricks" to have ready for them next time. I also need to decide what to do with the last month of the school year. Three weeks for seniors. Oh man.

Oreos

When I have a bad day, I have a few different coping mechanisms. One is to work in my garden. Another is to lay on the couch and read. Neither of these are very helpful. A third, more helpful mechanism, is to think about my favorite students and how wonderful they are.

HC is one of my favorite. Maybe my favorite, these days, I'm not sure. She's brilliant, but can get an attitude, and has told me more than once to shut up talking to her. Today, after a hectic day of testing, she came up to me in the hall.

"Mr. G., don't forget about those oreos."
"Right, the oreos. I'm heading back to my room now, come and I'll get them for you"

During a makeshift "game" that we were playing today, I awarded points for getting questions right as we were prepping for the test. HC, sure that she would come out tops, pressed me about what the winner would get, and finally, I cracked and said some oreos, after school.

As we walked back to my room, harried by a pair of her friends who seemed certain that their bus would leave without them, HC told me all about he new diet. She's keeping a list of all the things she eats and drinks, which she showed me, along with a list of exercises that she is going right home to do. She had tried this earlier in the year and given up after about a week, so I was excited and I hope she lasts a little longer this time. By the time we got to my room, I had forgetten why we had come. But of course, HC hadn't.
"Where them cookies at Mr. G?"
"Cookies? But isn't that counter to everything you were just telling me about?"
"Aw, it'll be alright. I ain't hardly but eat nothing all day."
"Would you rather have some gatorade instead?"
"Naw, just gimme the cookies. Well, no, gimme the gatorade."
"Alright.."
"No, I wan them cookies."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. No, I'll take that gatorade. I gotta go. Thanks Mr. G."
"I'm gonna have to start bringing fruit."
"Ok"

Infant Deaths Climb in South

NYT on symtoms of poverty in the Delta.

The Good Things

So, I can't teach 131 students in the cafeteria. Big deal. Some things are going right though. A former student, who was shunted out to pre-algebra, came to my class after school today. He never does anything in that pre-algebra class, and so he came to me for help. He smiles "I'm gonn be up in your class next year."

This leads to the theme of all the things that kids say in and about my class. "We don't do nothin up in here." "Girl, we don't never do nothin up in this classroom, he just be talkin'" "We ain't learned nothin up in here." "That man don't even teach." Today, I heard it from other kids, about every other algebra teacher. Kids are kids, and kids can complain like few other creatures on earth. I can't bother to take them very seriously.

One student's mother told me that he writes poetry, and that these people sent him a letter saying that they wanted to publish his poems. My first thought, of course, was poetry.com, who want to publish everyone's poem in a special, hardbound, coffee-table edition. Today, he brought be the poems, and the letters from, you guessed it, poetry.com. I guess I do have something in common with my students - I too submitted my early works filled with forced rhymes and the fleeting charm of feelings that seem, momentarily, eternal. The first poem that I submitted, was in fact entitled "Always." Today, as we were all preparing for the state test in what we called Academy One (unofficially: chaos in the cafeteria), he asked me if he would take me for algebra II next year. Not likely, I told him, since he was signed up for geometry, but I assured him that he could and should take both, especially if he hopes to satisfy his interest in architecture. Well then, if he does take it, could I especially request that he be in my class? Sure, I could do that.

Furthermore, in the cafeteria, my students made me proud. "I already know how to do this junk." "We been knowing how to do that." "When we learn this, back in August?" Even one of my most difficult students, and I have a few of those, called to me, across the caf, in that voice that can so often be a torment - MR. G, COME HERE. Oh no, god no. AIN'T YOU SO PROUD OF ME I DID THIS ONE ALL BY MYSELF. Yes, in fact, I am proud of you, very proud. Now do the rest.

Another happiness - the same student to whom I referred in an earlier blog, who claimed to have spent the night in the baseball dugout, showed up at the middle school to play soccer today. I throw out a casual invitation probably once every other week to any and all of my kids; I figure it would be good for all of them, and certainly better than whatever else they are doing. We threw him in goal for a while, then he came out and got his toe stomped on, but he soldiered on until the end, showing me later how purple it was.

I often forget that these kids are, well, kids. The guys, at least, often have the bodies of adults. Well, at least the seniors. The freshmen still appear as if they would fit in quite well in a middle school, but the two guys who came out today, if I saw them for the first time outside of school, I would judge to be between 20 and 22, rather than 17. One of them has two inches and at least 60 pounds on me. But they are kids, they need attention, they need to feel respected and listened to, and they need so much love. I can't do enough.

Unconscionable

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Democrat, who voted against New York’s new budget, called it “an unconscionable, discriminatory addition to the school aid formula.” (nyt)

Brodsky is from Westchester county, where the median home value is in the range of $350,000 and high school graduation rates are near 99%. What is unconscionable is that in the Bronx, graduation rates hover around 50%, and more money is spent, per student, in Westchester County than in the Bronx. When children begin their academic lives three steps behind, of course the logical thing to do is to make sure that those children, slighted by the system and by a capricious fate, have all the advantages that the state can confer. As long as the graduation rate in the Westchester is 50 percentage points higher than that in the Bronx, all state aid should go do the Bronx and none should go to Westchester. The rich kids can hack it.

(Graduation rates, per pupil expenditure, and other stats taken from publicschoolreview.com)

Happy Birthday to me

My kids would say I'm blessed. In the past, I would have said I'm lucky. Now, I'm no longer sure what sort of word to use, but whether I attribute it to blind chance and luck or to a higher power, I was born and grew up with a wonderful group of friends.
Just today, I got a birthday card. Granted, my birthday was a month and a week ago, but the best cards have no need to be on time. Their lateness just confirms that someone has been thinking about me all that time, waiting for the right inspiration to write a note. In fact, the card came from one of my neighbors, Jenny, and her daughter, Ashley. When my house was a duplex, they inhabited the other half. Ashley was a freshman when I was a senior, which means I was in third grade when she first got on the bus to kindergarten, a moment I remember well. We played all sorts of games, one that I'm sure Jenny recalls with dread was the "game" when my sister (it may have been me, but I might as well have blame her) decided to unzip the pink beanbag that was a current feature in Ashley's room. That room was the mirror image of mine at the time, and later became the room I called home during high school and on to today, after my dad took on the ambitious project of converting the old mill house into a single-family dwelling. And yet, as terbulent as my room was over the ensuing years, the floor covered with soccer or ski clothes or whatever sort of clothing happened to be in season, papers, books - I never was and still and not what you would call a neat man - yet no matter how much I abused my mother's sense of order, the room was never as joyfully chaotic as it was on that day when Rachael, who could only have been four or five at the time, unleashed an avalanche of miniature styrofoam snowballs from the bright pink bean bag.
They poured out, swamping our version of the peter rabbit board game, and began to run to all corners of the room. As the senior child in the group, older than the rest by four years, I ought to have done sometime. Although I may have organized some sort of half-hearted cleaning attempt, what I remember was how tiny the bits of styrofoam were, so light that they fell in slow motion when you tossed handfuls of them up in the air, and so small that they fit not only between the edge of the hardwood floor and the wall (the molding was not something my dad had gotten to by that point) but into some of the larger cracks between the floorboards as well. Later, with the trusty shop-vac, I realized that they were some of the more difficult cases to dislodge.

To be continued.