We've gotta get out of this place

Been having a really crappy time lately. I could whine and complain, but I won't. All day, I've been thinking, gee, maybe I just feel this crappy because I'm leaving. I remembered, before I went to Russia, seeing a graph about culture shock, and how, no matter how long you are away somewhere, your general happiness follows a certain pattern. Sure enough, before you leave, you hit a patch of what the graph calls up and downs. As if teaching wasn't enough of a roller-coaster already, now, when we're getting ready to unload, we have this extra little predisposition to chaos that is entirely unnecessary. My solution - buy a new motorcycle and read about pastured poultry.

The plan

This is a plan to make my teaching life better.
1) Start using tickets as rewards. Start just using them for the first 5 minutes of class. In seat and working quietly when bell rings. Move to in seat, working quietly for the first 5 minutes after the bell rings.

2) Grade only during my planning period. Never, ever, take work home to grade. And grade everything, everyday.

3) Post grade sheets every day or every other day.

4) Do all planning on weekends.

Number four will definitely be the hardest. I still have an extremely difficult time planning. But if I can do these things, I will be happier, and my kids will learn better.

This blog entry is a complaint. Don't feel obliged to read it.

May 24, I hope to have the truck packed and be on the road. I'll miss some of the kids, but I can't do this.

Anna told me that during class, Ben said (again) that classroom management was the biggest problem and the main cause of teachers leaving. I'll agree, but add that it isn't just classroom management, it's personal management too. I can never seem to get ahead, I'm always falling behind on everything (grading is a big one here). I have trouble getting students make up work because I don't even know what we did that day or where we put the extra copies, if there were any. I have no system for keeping things straight.

Oh Mississippi...

Oh Mississippi...

Keep on keeping on...

So, today I collected my first project. In over a year and a half, we hadn't done a project, so I thought what the heck, why not do a project. I'll let you know how they turned out once I grade 'em.

But does anyone have a good strategy for having students review tests that they've taken (and failed, often miserably). Especially when there were always students who were out and need to make up the test later. I feel like they could learn a ton from going back through the test and fixing their mistakes, or at least going through and trying to understand them, but I don't know how to work that process into class at all. If anyone has anything that has been successful for them in this regard, let me know. Right now, I don't even usually hand back tests - I just tell the kids what they got, which seems like such a waste of a learning opportunity.

Squirrel in the road

Should I stay or should I go now?

That is the question that's been bothering me ever since before Christmas. Here's a text I got the other night:

Wen will i no wat position i mite play & who my captains r

I get stuff like this all the time, not necessarily in text message form, but often verbally. From my players, it usually takes the form of "What up my boy co', you know next year I'm gun be grindin', we're going to beat warren central." Or "Co', I think my cousin (friend, sister's boyfriend, sister's boyfriend's cousin's friend) said he might play next year, we're only gonna have seven guys coming back, so we've got to recruit." "Next year I'm gonna..." "Next year we gonna..." "Next year..."


I get it from my seniors too. "Next year I'll be back to watch y'all play." "Next year I'm gonna try to play at Bellhaven." "Next year my little brother'll be up in here." And from my students, past and present. Mike R. was so upset not to have me for Geometry this semester, but he said "I'll have you for Algebra II next year, right?" Stuff like this happens all the time. And I just keep answering, to my students at least, that I have no idea where I'll be next year. Now, they think that I mean whether I'll be at Weston on or the Greenville Campus, but I don't know what region of the country I'll be in. I'll probably be in country. But to my players, I'm going to try to do everything like I would want it done before me if I were the new coach coming in. But I can't say whether I'm prepping them for another year with me or for a new sort of adventure. I've even contemplated leaving in June, getting a stress-free job somewhere, something in line with what I might want to do more long term, something more sustainable than teaching is for me, and then coming back in October just to coach. I couldn't "officially" coach, and couldn't get paid. But I could run practice and take the bus to games and do all that sort of stuff, and not be totally stressed about it all the time. I could even get a job at Kroger during the day while I'm here, or maybe even sub - probably not. But I guess you never know. Right now, I think that is my tentative plan - get a good farm apprenticeship from June through the end of September, then bust ass back down here to spend one more season as coach before doing something more permanent. Of course, I'll never do this. If I decide it's important enough for me to be here another year, I'll be here 100%, teaching and all the rest of it. Maybe I need to have an ultimatum - let me teach Calc - or Russian - or even just 3 blocks of Algebra II - and I'll stay. If anyone has tried such an ultimatum with their school, let me know how that went. Or maybe I could be more subtle, and just say "well, I have been going back and forth. But I really just hate teaching Algebra I. I've had some offers from some schools back up north where I'd get to teach Calc, and that would be a really big draw for me." Also, if anyone has any such experience with subtlety, let me know how it turned out for you.

Alright, well, assigned blog for Feb 20th is now complete. If anyone has a good idea for assigned wiki post for Feb 20th, let me know.

Progress

The good news - I am no longer as concerned about mere survival as I once was. The thought that there are only two more days until the weekend is not as comforting as it once was. I've started to worry about more important things, which is great, but the worries are often more profound than those that they replace. For example, "how do I make it to Friday while keeping kids on task enough that they don't riot?" was a real worry of mine for a long time. But now that I've mostly conquered that question, the others coming in are nearly as immediate and much more difficult to solve. "How do I teach all of algebra I, with new frameworks and a new test to pass, in 3 and a half months?" "What can I skip from the frameworks and still give the kids a good chance of passing?" "Why don't kids ever understand when I explain something?" "How do you get anything close to an hour and a half's worth of learning out of a 98 minute block?" "How do I differentiate instruction so the smart kids don't sleep or start a mini-riot?" "How do I differentiate instruction to deal with IEPs?" It's amazing, after a year and a half of this, how much I still have to figure out.

Algebra I – January through May

I am really starting to have doubts about my ability to teach all of Algebra I in four months. Sounds crazy, but that's what I'm supposed to do. Still not sure how. In two weeks, I set out to teach how to solve single-variable linear equations. Mastery is not happening, at all. I need to move forward and start talking about slope and lines and graphing – my master plan that I made has me spending just four more weeks on everything linear – graphing, slope, literal equations, writing equations of lines, all of that, before I have to move on to systems, polynomials, quadratics… it's insane. Not sure how it will happen. At least, if I suck it up big time, they might have me teach something else instead next year – if there is a next year.

out with a bang

one for the volley, two for the goal, clap your hands if you beat st joe.

rules

really, i should blog about soccer, as it is currently the best and most exciting part of my life right now. but i have a thought about rules, consequences, classroom management, and perhaps MTC's role in molding us all as classroom managers.

Throughout my year and a half of teaching, I've changed rules and consequences many times, trying to find rules and consequences that fit my style and would make my classroom what i want it to be. I can't have a silent classroom, but I can't stand having to wait to speak until everyone else is finished. I don't really care if students eat. Or do I? Starting off a new semester with dreams, as always, of being strict, I know that I won't be able to hold up to that struggle of bam-consequence, bam-consequence, bam-consequence. And I don't want to have a classroom of persecution, of enmity, of concealment and slyness and general strife.

So I wonder. Maybe we all had great teachers in school, who were really strict who made a great impact on our lives. We probably did. Thinking back, I remember Madame Corbiere, strict, maybe, but not nearly the teacher that Madame Kahus was. Mrs. Becker was strict, perhaps exacting is a better word, and she was very good. But I think we are equally likely to have had a great teacher who wasn't especially strict. Several of mine jump to mind, headed by Mahar and S.B. So what's the deal?

There are a couple things that could have been going on here. The first is that they were strict, but were so fair and firm in their decisions and were generally such good teachers that we didn't realize their strictness as such, but rather simply as the appropriate structure for the class. That may be true for S.B., but definitely was not the case for Mahar, and I imagine is the case much less often than one would hope.

The second is that it may be that a relaxed teaching style - relaxed in terms of rules and consequences - is appropriate for other student populations and not for ours. This, I imagine, is far more likely. I heard that one of the first years taught a year at a prep school and gave out a detention. A single detention. I wonder what that must be like.

But I wonder if it is possible to take a different view to CM than that which we have all tried to take. I know that the MTC folks are all hard-line rule-consequence-consistency-people, and believe me, I think that's fine. In fact, I'd wager that almost every time it is the method that affords the first year teacher the best chance of survival. And even if you aren't strict, you need to be consistent. But I wonder how many people there are that just can't fit that model, who could otherwise be great teachers. I wonder how many people can't come up with rules that work for them, ever. I can be a good teacher. With certain classes, I am a good teacher. With other classes, I'm not. I was a terrible teacher for my first block last semester, absolutely awful. I have a feeling I'll be a poor teacher for my first block this semester, although I'm not going down without a fight, detentions and referrals blazing. But I am a great teacher in my second block. My kids learn, understand, work with each other to help, and I am able to totally bend their behaviors to fit whatever it is we need to do in the classroom. I am undoubtedly in control, which is great, but I run that class by being strict about just a very few things and by being extremely, overbearingly positive all the time. I took Wong's idea of shaking kids hands at the door, every day. I love it. It make such an enormous difference. I treat those kids like human beings, and they respond fantastically. Whenever I try to treat my first block like human beings, however, they respond rather less humanely. It's so frustrating to see something work so well with one group of kids and so disastrously for another.

I just wonder how training for MTC could help teachers to pare down their rules and consequences and find those that are really and truly suitable for their teaching style. Maybe stress that not all classes will respond the same way, and that it could be helpful, or even necessary, to have one set of rules for one class and one set for another, especially when teaching different grades. Another reason why it's important for summer school teachers to observe other classrooms and, if it's at all possible, to make summer-school classes bigger.

Oh, and my fourth block. They like to sing when they work.

“his tongue no longer feels gross”

Or "Above the waist you can do whatever you want"

What's better then you're bored and don't want to plan your lessons on a Thursday night in Leland?

I was struggling to sit down at the computer and crank out a worksheet or two, when I heard a sonorous voice in the office. Anna was sitting at her computer (not working, gmail chatting) as Ryan leaned against the doorframe, reading from a small book - "We were in the passenger seat, and his hands were on my lower back..." Ryan had found a journal of a high school girl in Indianola, from about 10 years ago, and was reading to us. It chronicled Kathy's relationship with Jason, from their early days when she was too afraid to hug him, to the point where his tongue no longer felt gross and beyond. At one point, we stopped, thinking they had finally done it, but realized, to our relief, that she had been writing about one of her friends. By the time the journal ends, she and Jason have been dating for over a year. On the last page, she tells us that she is still too scared to do it but really wants to, leaving us in unbearable suspense. Will she and Jason do it? We'll never know. Unless we decide to call one of the phone numbers in the back.

And then I blogged.

What should we do differently with MTC Summer School? [Assigned]

The absolute biggest problem with summer school, as far as student learning is concerned, is that it is too short. Three weeks is an impossibly short time in which to teach an entire year's worth of material. I understand, from posts on other blogs, that this summer there will be one long session rather than two short ones, and this seems to be the best way to address the issue of time.

The second problem with summer school, as far as student learning is concerned, is a lack of rigor. It is impossible for first years to know what is expected of these students in their year-long classes and equally impossible to teach all of that in such a short time. Evaluations should be created by second year teachers, and should be modeled on the evaluations given in the regular classroom setting. The pre and post-test for the course should be a comprehensive final exam of everything that should be covered in a year-long course. Significant time and planning needs to go into the creation of these tests, and they should be reviewed by others who teach the same subject well before summer school starts. I am certainly guilty of not doing this during the past session, and it showed in our classroom. Moreover, more students need to fail summer school. They need that specter of fear as both a motivating factor and a sign that the summer school is as serious, or more so, than the regular classroom.

As far as teacher preparation, the second goal of summer school, is concerned, there are several things that could be done better. The first is that every first-year should be required to keep an observation log. They should be required to observe one lesson outside of their own classroom every day, and some of these observations should be in classrooms outside their own subject area. They should also be required to draft year-long master plans for what they plan to accomplish in their classroom placements. These plans should include topics to be covered, broken down at least by week, and should include all major assessments. Having teachers make these plans during the summer, reviewing them with second years, and then revising them with mentors during the second summer session would be an enormously helpful process.

Bigger classes, of course, are better for prepping teachers for the real world. While I have been luck with class sizes, having had a class of 12 last semester and one on just ten students during my first year, nothing has been as small as the 3-student pre-algebra class I co-taught this summer. Obviously, there is not a lot that MTC can do about the numbers enrolling, and as word gets out that summer school is getting more rigorous, enrollment may even drop. First years need to get a chance teaching in front of a bigger group, though, and if it can't be during summer school, it would have to be during TEAM or some other situation designed to get them doing the job in front of a group.

Another skill that many teachers lack coming in, and by many teachers, I mean me, is organization. The amount of organization required to be a teacher can often be overwhelming, and one way that summer school could help this is to have mock irate parents come in, demanding to see grades, work, lesson plans. Maybe tell the first years, or maybe just send someone in to each classroom after school, pretending to be an angry parent, and have them confront the teacher, wanting to see grades and work and demanding to know what has been done to help the child. Also, it would be good to videotape these mock confrontations and play some clips at the banquet.

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.