Teaching

2008-10-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

October 12, 2006. Two months since I got off a plane from Australia, and four months (!) since I drove from Rolling Fork, MS, to Leland, MS, said goodbye, and kept driving North, as I'd imagined it for months. It lacked the glamor and poignancy with which I'd imagined it. It was just goodbye. There some crying, and some driving. As we often do when leaving, I brought the whole place and all of it's contents- people included, as we were then- from outside to inside, and left it there.

Many of my students called or e-mailed. There are one or two with whom I've maintained more frequent contact. Lots more I wonder about, think about, worry about uselessly- what happened to them, what will happen to them, and what's next for them. I can't wait to see them again (hopefully this summer), but I'm more than a bit afraid of what I'll find. There seems to be a degree of grim certainty that I've yet to truly accept.

In the past months I've visited friends for whom I would go anywhere and do anything, spent some time with my family, and taken on a new job working for a Boston-based non-profit that works with community building and youth education.

I've realized how fortunate we were to have the group of people we had in MS. I was inspired and supported by the people in teacher corps, and felt honored to be counted among them. Outside of that sheltered group, there's been a level of separation, probably self-perpetuated. No one's been there.

2008-06-02T08:12:00.000-07:00

New York is so strange after Mississippi, especially the Delta. Everything feels landscaped and artificial, too perfect, unreal. People are curt and formal, distant, and it feels harsh after the casual comfort among strangers in the south.

It's good to be home; it's good to see these walls- my childhood home- and these mountains.
I don't belong to them anymore, though. While there are certain people for whom I will always bend, I feel rather distant from old friends, sometimes even my family- everyone who has not been there for the past two years. I understand how unfair that is, but I'm not sure how to bridge the gap between the people who were closest two years ago, and who I am after knowing my students, and their families, and their culture. I don't know how to disengage from the concerns that have dominated my life for months and months, and I don't know what to say when conversation and even lifestyle seems dominated by things that don't seem to matter. I'm hoping that I will get a job in service and education that will provide an outlet.

Leaving behind yet another life, another set of people who were everything, and contending with the holes that remain lead me to give new attention to an old question, which is "What do we build our lives around?" Most people want marriage, children, a family, and I've never wanted that before, but longing for people who are out of reach, again, helps me to understand the appeal of family and commitment and a home that lasts. Like most people, I'd guess, I really worry if I could ever find that. I am less concerned than I've ever been before that I would feel suffocated by that lifestyle. At least teaching has made it clear to me that I want to pursue service through my career. I can't imagine enjoying a corporate job after this- not that I ever could.

2008-05-22T17:01:00.000-07:00

And it goes on.

One of my very, very special kids- the most talented dancer (save for his brother) and one of the most talented artists I've ever seen, emotionally aware and very sensitive- is also a special education student. He struggles academically, but I think he is classified as special ed mostly for financial reasons.

Everyone from the head special education teacher (who happens to be a warm and wonderful person) to his other teachers to he, himself, believes that art school would be the best place for him. He is, however, still under his mother's thumb. His brother, who has similar talents, is at Morehead. The special ed teacher says his mother has told her about "a training program in Greenville" that she has in mind for him. "That check" she says "pays a bill in my house". Those checks are a curse more than a gift.

It is enough to make me want to hit someone; it's too bad that there is no productive physical reaction to anger. It is difficult for me to imagine anything more evil than seeing him waste himself in a menial job.

I don't know what to do for him. He will graduate tomorrow with a "certificate" and will pursue his GED until January, but there are doubts about whether or not he will be able to pass. It is said that the GED exam is perhaps more difficult than standard graduation.

He gave me an invitation to graduation, with his named en scripted inside. I gave him my phone number and e-mail address.

I'm looking forward, but I'm not sure to what. Nothing will be the same, and everyone will soon go disappearing. I haven't been able to write. I don't know what to say. I miss people that are right next to me. I have yet to find a way to deal with this. I want to ask people to stay with me, to stay in touch, to stay near. As departure creeps closer, my tendency is to want to bring people closer, and theirs is to begin to pull away. I'm always left watching the shadows grow longer, until finally the sun sets- that beautiful Delta sunset, like no other- and this is no longer home.

To the people who have been here, who have sat in a silent room, listening to the heaviness of evening, who have watched spring storms from the porch, who have told stories about problems with no solutions and asked questions with no answers, who have noticed how the honeysuckle complements the stars, who have watched me cry and cried themselves, in small moments of something true...

Well, if I knew what to say, I would have said it already.

2008-05-14T19:36:00.000-07:00

"Ms. Shaffren, you leavin'? I thought you was gonna be one of the one's who stayed."

Ow.

2008-05-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

Just a few little things I don't want to forget...

The language differences; when they say "why" they don't really want to know why, necessarily. This makes more sense in the context of the phrase "how come it's not" or "how come it ain't". Often "why" is not a request for more depth, but, rather, another way to say "I don't get it".
And fittin', "shut up talking to me", "uh-uh boo-boo", "get your weight up", fittin' ta get whopped", "get you a lick", "you crazy ain't it?" and so many more. Learning a bit of the language has been a huge part of learning the culture...and a little more about the kids.

The way they see, know, notice everything about you; bits of yourself about which you are ashamed, insecurities- many a time I've been amazed at how well the kids pick up on them. It's great, actually. It helps me laugh at it, and work on it.

Hair with gold-painted flecks.

There's so much that seems so commonplace at this point that I wouldn't even think to write it...

2008-05-02T18:33:00.000-07:00

Three weeks before the end of the two years, I step out of the house in Leland into the night, and it's all lavender and lightning. The combination cuts beautifully through my haze of questions and doubts. Near the end of a personal era, for lack of better terminology- it feels so wrong to call this a phase because it has had such impact on my character and my plans- every sensation is stronger, and living is somehow ultra-nuanced. Maybe I just hold on.

If there was one sweet moment this year, it was this:

Before the Biology I state test, I invited all of my students to my room for sugary breakfast foods and last minute tutoring, from 7:00 am until testing began. I did not have the turn-out I would have liked. About 25 of my best students came, but I am told that others were turned away by administration before they made it to my room. (Despite arrangements to prevent this situation.) I fired questions at them for a while, and answered their last minute queries. When the bell rang for them to go to testing, the room erupted into applause, and I don't think they were kidding. I didn't really feel much joy or relief the day of testing, or even much afterwards- we don't, after all, have the results. But if there was a moment of slight release, that was it.

2008-04-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

After the last weekend, thinking as always about the next step, I hope that without the hours spent in (sometimes deep) discussion with a group of inspiring people, good people, solid and capable and intelligent people together to share issues and battles and dreams, I will still maintain my drive and ambition to work hard toward something that makes a difference, that I will find in myself what I see in them. (What is living and what is good? What is a good heart?)

2008-04-19T10:47:00.000-07:00

I missed lunch with the crowd because I over analyze everything, and the evaluation took me a long time. Typical of my patterns. So I drove around a little, came back to Guyton, and now I'm doing what I always do.

When I first got into teacher corps, I looked around and wondered how I got in. After two years with my class, I have never felt more privileged to be part of a group.
It will be difficult to leave Mississippi for that reason almost as much as it will be difficult to leave the kids.

2008-04-19T10:38:00.000-07:00

I wrote this under the guise of a cover letter....It's unedited, raw, and emotional, but I wanted to share it.

When I left for the Mississippi Delta, the endeavor was viewed by many as a sort of experiential personal growth- a charitable adventure to help break me of my idealism. In reality, I will depart tearfully from the Delta having gained far more from my students than they possibly could have from me, and leaving with them an important piece of my heart.

I have been furious with them, stayed up all night preparing for them or thinking about them, mourned their stories and my failure to mend the broken parts of the system- to offer them what they truly deserve. I have shared meals with them, spent hours in the car with them, taken them to colleges, coached them on runs, driven around town in search of them to deliver make-up work when they’ve gotten themselves suspended, or college recommendations just in case one of them decides to beat the odds. I have cried for them- in front of them. I have made a fool of myself to demonstrate any of a thousand concepts, rapped about mitosis, the kingdoms, prokaryotes, eukaryotes, DNA, biogeochemical cycles. I could spend days on end retelling the stories that have held me wrapped up for two years- the most intense and important years of my short twenty-three.

What I have found is an entire world of love and passion- a beautiful fight for the little flame of potential in a million kids with a million stories. I have seen that sometimes- and despite everything- a little ground can be won: a victory like no other, small as each tiny success seems.
I will depart from Rolling Fork, Mississippi, from Anguilla, from Leland, from the Mississippi Delta itself, with impossible goodbyes on my lips. Moving on, though, will I hope mean moving toward opportunities to make a greater difference in an area of broader influence- opportunities to interact with other creative, passionate people, to write, to brain storm and pool ideas- to change the world. It is more important to me than it ever has been- in fact it is one of the few important foundations upon which I want to build my life- to make a difference. I prepare to leave in May- bracing myself for the impact- with my ambitions to help affect change deepened by the realities of inequity, by the fire of potential and desire that still exists in our children in beautiful, incredible ignorance of the fight they face, and by the blissful victory of the occasional success. Those successes can be in the the classroom, on an athletic field or court, or more subtly- in minds or hearts of a student who inches a little closer to making the most of a talent, an intelligence, a secret strength that will make his or her life better.

2008-04-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

Contradiction and constant flux

Also, in lots of ways and especially on good days, I am more proud of this than anything I have done. I hope that whatever I do next will be as meaningful.

2008-04-17T03:10:00.000-07:00

I've always said "writer" when someone's asked me about myself, but two years after the start of teacher corps and my life in Mississippi, I have trouble choosing words to wholly describe it, or even to start.

It used to be that when I started to write, there was always a firm piece of ground to stand on. You always have the credibility and authority to write about yourself, to describe your experiences. And I do write; I am constantly describing flashes, the intensity of countless moments.

But I've had more trouble beginning this post than possibly anything else I've written.
I'm sore from the inside out; my thoughts start and stop incomplete, and imperfect. Nothing is right, nothing is good enough, nothing makes any sense.

If I were writing about myself, that would be one thing, but I feel like I have walked into a world upon which I have no authority to speak. There is beauty here, and I notice it and describe it often, and there is tragedy, and I do the same. But staring (or maybe falling) into this endless cavern I understand that I am infinitely small, unless I change something, and I have not changed a single thing.

At the end of two years, I am ashamed to write about my experience- as much as it has touched me, affected me, deepened my insights.

Landon wrote about how he could maintain, in his classroom, a place where students began to understand that there are consequences and rewards for actions. I have felt the opposite. I have felt like I came in with my ideas about right and wrong, with my idealism and hope, and been completely washed over by one of those waves that curl, crest, and break over your head- breakers. I feel like a fool, holding up a fly swatter in which I have complete faith, because it's always been effective before, and then a lion enters the room and examines my defense with raised eyebrows.

I've always believed in discipline, in pushing yourself farther than you believe you can go. That is, when you feel like you are being stretched too thin, you stop feeling and just do what needs to be done, until it's all been done.

I admire people like Jess, like Jeremy, who just make it work, who get the job done.

In the beginning of the year, I vowed to call parents everyday. For months, I did- or at least every other day. It sometimes helped. Usually, the kids were worse two days later, half- without exaggeration- the numbers were disconnected, or wrong numbers (even when I used my records, and the emergency numbers on the office records, and asked around for accurate numbers from people who knew people)- and then I started receiving death threats on my cell phone, that all the kids knew about and asked me about. That's not why I stopped- I shouldn't have.

I came into this with a particular set of ideas about the world, a particular set of beliefs. It's not that they've changed; they've deepened, and I've abandoned a lot of the younger aspects, a lot of the frills and fantasy. I feel ten years older than I was two years ago, and I don't mind. It is, however, a lot to process, and I'm not there yet. As I've already said- I am still too ashamed.

I wonder, in fact, if I will ever get over the shame of this particular failure. I did not just get it done. I am almost always behind in my grading (though how anyone can grade 120 papers, sometimes 240, each day is beyond me). My parent phone calls slowly dwindled, and I still do not have the hang of classroom management. I now just write them up. That works if I'm willing to write up enough of them. For what it's worth, I do plan well, I give excellent notes and often fun lessons, and I have a following of 20-25 kids who show up for after-school tutoring (which does mean something to me), and around 10 when I do it Saturdays. Spring break I had 5.

When I was hired, there were four of us who came down to interview together. The high school where I teach is on its third administration since then- fourth if you count the one that was running the place during the time we were hired, still left-over from the year before. It is the kids that suffer.

I hope that I have given the kids something they would not have had otherwise, that I have done something for some. I do love them, and I think there are a few for whom- maybe- it mattered.

I wanted to do better, and I wanted to do more, and I am tempted to stay and try again, but there are important parts of me that are slowing disappearing, and I have to believe that I can do more good if I am okay than if I'm not.

Teacher corps instilled in me a dedication to change- to work that matters. Rather than cure my idealism, like everyone expected, it is more important to me than it ever has been to make a difference, and I will make choices partly based on that priority.

2008-03-24T20:23:00.000-07:00

A few thoughts on the last night of a long weekend...

"Am I a bad person?" We seem to be asking ourselves- and each other- this question constantly. I have to admit, this is one of those questions I used to ask myself all the time, and it is among those persistent queries that has yet to be diminished by time. In fact, there now seem to be more people around asking this question on a regular basis than ever before. Are we having trouble finding our moral compass? Is it the age? Maybe, instead, we have particularly high standards for what is right, what we should do, and we feel like bad people when we don't fulfill them? Where is the limit, and what is the source of the confusion? Is this universal across cultures? If we worry so much about being bad people, why not always do what we "should" do. From that angle, it seems like what we "should" do is in constant conflict with what we need to do to preserve important parts of ourselves. Many people use religion as a guide, or tradition- but really it is up to us to decide what is right, which brings up greater questions about the nature of "good". One of my favorite professors in college used to explain to me that it is not selfish to take care of yourself, because if you want to do good in the world, you have to start with yourself, and the rest will fall naturally into place. While it sounds like a selfish outlook, I think that in practice it is valuable advice.

2008-03-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

I am so afraid for them. I have no idea what to do. I keep picturing their faces.

It's broken; too much of their light will die where it started. They seem to refuse to cross the line out of this.

Or else I wasn't the one to make it happen.

Like carrying bricks from the bottom of a lake, by hand, one at a time, and then teaching them how to swim.

Sometimes it's hysterically funny- when you don't think too hard, and sometimes it's devastating.

Their faces....

2008-03-19T18:01:00.000-07:00

Before Mississippi, I'd never really seen much darkness, and I was afraid of loosing myself in it; maybe I did for a while, while I still believed it worked that way. But now I'm really mostly afraid of going through a life and never doing anything to make it better.

2008-03-19T01:49:00.001-07:00

Also, I don't want to teach anywhere else. I don't want to teach other kids. I want to be here for these kids. And yet I'm leaving. They will never understand. (Neither do I.)

2008-03-19T01:47:00.001-07:00

Sometimes race, religion, and every other physical factor all seem small, meaningless, compared to the distances we struggle to cross just to find friendship, to find warmth. How could we be so preoccupied with these things when we have to fight so hard just to make a connection? And when we love, when, impossibly, we build a bridge between worlds, and find ourselves fighting for others as though for ourselves, putting them first, we again realize how small these physical factors are.

2008-03-19T01:03:00.000-07:00

I love them so much. I hate the weakness in myself that leads to the failures, and the arrogance that leads me to loose patience, to get angry at others for the way things are, as though I could ever really understand how they got this way. I hope that in two years I have given them something worth having.

2008-03-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

On the wood floor in Anna's bedroom with my arms and head resting on her low bed, taking up space in her company and listening to her music in the pre-dawn hours while she packed her things- a ruffled shirt, a long string of pearls, a bathroom bag with orange geometric shapes-I felt so much like the kid I was (could it have been?) six, seven, eight years ago, watching my high school best friend get ready: a ruffled shirt, a string of beads, scented oil. Maybe there are some parts of our hearts that maintain their childish honesty and vulnerability. It feels like I have relived this scene a hundred times; I think I have a soft spot for the final hour before departure. I sat on the floor and soaked up the last wisps of her warmth.

So much like Kaitlin used to do, she told me the story of a French novelist and the final great novel, discovered years later by her daughter. I remembered how long it's been since I've really spent much time reading. It reminded me of the parts of myself I've put on hold- as we all do- for teaching. I'm looking forward to their rediscovery. I expect we will each find ourselves, on the other side of this, to be someone new, and always in some way tied to the kids that we (impossibly) cannot bring with us. It really does seem impossible: To leave an entire world behind. To let go. To set down the baby we've been carrying around for two years just as suddenly as we picked it up, and to know, in that part of ourselves that we allow to grieve for this, that it will not be okay. Impossible. That is the part of us that will always be here, furious and sad. Leaving it unappeased feels so much like admission of defeat. I think part of living in the Delta is really understanding, for the first time, that everything will not be okay.

I saw Corderral during tutoring on Wednesday. He was with a few unsmiling tough-guy sorts, who eyed me suspiciously. He was one of my Chemistry II students from last year with a sharp, capable mind and some behavior problems, but opened up to me a bit by the end. (After he had a daughter: "Sometime I be scared of babies, because they cry and you don't what they want.")
When he saw me, he smiled his special ear-to-ear goofy grin and hugged me. His little girl just turned one, and he just got back from Texas where he was "having fun". No college. No ideas.
He said he would work on it. Sometimes I feel like I'm being ignorant or condescending when I insist that they should be in school. I reminded him how smart he is, and felt sheepish. He hugged me goodbye.

And our childish hearts plead.
(I am still that kid.)

Teacher corps is waking up on Friday night the second (and last) weekend of spring break with nightmares about showing up unprepared on Monday, and somehow leaving your Biology II class unattended and coming back to find they've all disappeared. But it is also waking up with nightmares on a living room coach with the voices of friends in the background, and someone tells you to go back to sleep.
It is spending spring break mostly in a panicked daze, making calls about certification and spending hours with four or five kids on the steps of a church with a borrowed easel and not feeling like anything is getting done. But it is also the sweet reprieve of a spring storm, watching from the porch.
And it is also escaping the isolation by spending too much time at other people's house so they feel like you've moved in, but also starting to feel like family, meeting people you admire and wondering about yourself, accepting change, trying everything a thousand different ways, accepting frustration, realizing that this is nothing like you pictured it: It is much, much more.
More than anything, it is the kids, who will keep some of us here, and be the reason for staying, and who some of us will never see again. They will hold the pieces of us that we leave behind.
Everyone's phone number changes, everyone moves, and sometimes it feels like everyone has a baby, like everyone forgets what they used to want. There seems to be no way to keep in touch in the Delta, but also no way to let go.

2008-03-08T14:35:00.000-08:00

I think I understand

I ran into Eugene at the gas station. He was wearing a collared shirt, black tie, and sweater vest- "clean", as the kids would say. I soon realized that Rico and DeMarcus were also there, in the backseat of the SUV that Gene climbed into, and decked out in the same attire. (Occasion unknown). Driving was a man in his 40's or 50's with gold teeth, very dark sunglasses (even though they were completely unnecessary), a broad smile and an almost creepy smoothness about him. Very surprised at the particular combination of kids he had with him, I asked if "these guys were all his". He made some sort of comment about how when he started doing it he did it all the way. They seemed so pleased and proud to be seen with him. Rico and DeMarcus, who had waved at me from the back seat, and even Gene, who had caught my attention at first, wore wide goofy grins. I shook their father's hand and we introduced ourselves, and he dropped some sort of flirty comment before they drove off. Thinking about it afterwards, it occurred to me that if their role models- their fathers , are flashy men mostly concerned with appearance and women (unless of course I was completely misjudging), it's no wonder they have little regard for the merits of getting an education. I think I knew before, but you don't really believe it until you meet dad. I think about my own parents, about the values they modeled, and I wonder how my brother and I would have turned out without that.

2008-03-07T16:07:00.000-08:00

There were some girls having a snowball fight outside my window. They waved, and I ran outside to join in (playing the role of the crazy grown up who joins snow ball fights without warning or introduction). They laughed and threw snowballs at me and told me that they're sisters .

2008-03-07T14:01:00.000-08:00

The weather (and what I'm doing for spring break)

On Sunday, it was 79 degrees Fahrenheit, and we sat on the swing outside to work. (Was that this past Sunday, or the one before?...time is just one more thing that seems to shift and warp beyond control.) On Monday, a tornado touched down (luckily no damage) a few miles south of here, and a couple of miles south of the high school. Today, the Friday of spring break, school was dismissed at 1:30 (which was a welcome end to the utter chaos that the school becomes the day before a break) for snow. Not just any snow, either; thick fluffy flakes that stick to your clothes and pack into marvelous snowballs (I wonder if I could convince some of my kids into a snow-ball fight. Everyone seems pretty shuttered-up inside.) I'm going to be here spring break, but for the first time in 6-8 years, it looks like New York (which is home) in Anguilla, MS.

As my first act of spring break, I paid some bills and picked up a package (thanks, mom) at the post office, came home and opened the blinds to watch the snow build up, and sat down to record it all. I also bit into a chocolate apple with a gummy worm: a surprise gift from one of my students to "tell me I was appreciated"....so sweet.

Spring break I'll be spending here, creating a resume, applying for jobs, grading, planning, working on my portfolio, writing raps to help my kids remember...and of course to get it together for the final push to the state test.

Tutoring starts at 11 am Monday, at Christian Light Church in Anguilla. (The school, of course, will not let us use their building without an administrator.) Let's hope the kids show, as promised- I have already begun to hope.

As my best friend wrote "The weather speaks volumes of what has become of the flame"...

2008-03-06T16:29:00.001-08:00

I've been waiting for answers; to feel like I've arrived. I have somehow been waiting for the mist-shrouded solution, for the secret to coalesce, both personally and professionally. I've been looking around for someone in myself that doesn't make any mistakes, and I am forever unsatisfied and short on confidence because I haven't found it. I admire others, and look up to them, but I always feel young and unsure, because I know that I make mistakes.

Lots of times I come home at night, frustrated and isolated and missing important pieces. I try to write but there's always something important I can't say, and it makes harder to just notice the truth that I'm trying to find, to get down on paper and into solid words.

But whenever I see anything clearly, I always see that everything just is. There is writing and there is music (Granian, lately "I still see your face and so I...") ; it's enough. There is struggle and there is summer.

My Dad always used to order the green ice cream whenever my family went out together. It was one of those sweet little traditions that now reminds me what home felt like when I was a kid. Since I didn't know what pistachio was, he always told me it was pickle. He said he knew something had ended when I looked at him and said "Daddy, there's no such thing as pickle ice cream."

Sometimes I look at the kids and find faith in the light behind their smiles, their innocence- despite everything. It is like summer. And then it breaks, again and again. I am disappointed, every single time, when they cheat and lie and laugh or roll their eyes when it upsets me. It makes me feel weak, stupid, soft- which is the worst thing to be in a way, young, incompetent. I feel like a little kid finding out that the world doesn't work the way I thought it did, that there's no such thing as pickle ice cream.

(It's still real to me).

I am still and always looking for strength.

2008-03-03T15:01:00.000-08:00

another tornado watch

Does anyone listen when, for once in a thousand tries, you say what you mean? What becomes of the flame, of the tiny bit of light you bear?
(And I've said it all so many times.)
Do we bring it here, hoping to share (and bring out theirs)? Another teacher commented that is us, not them, who have hope (for them).
There is no space to breath between the days, and we search for grace in their faces or maybe in our own hearts.
Ken told me today that he's joined the army (reserves). He is one of those few that helps me believe in them all. It was a little too much like watching him disappear. I think I am finally beginning to understand why people around here pray so much.

2008-02-21T14:53:00.000-08:00

Since I rarely share, a few (mostly non-academic) positive moments from the past couple of days (for balance):

-When I complimented Kenyarder's bracelet yesterday, she insisted that I wear it, and keep it. (If she was that intent, I wasn't going to say no.) This morning, she asked why I wasn't wearing it. Usually she talks back and refuses to work. I thought she hated me.
- "Y'all come back now, y'hear"- A comment by our assistant principal at the end of our rather negative staff meeting.
-Watching my students constantly wearing each other's jackets, jewelry, even shoes. (I once had a kid from last year come to my door and tell me that he absolutely needed to see another student. I reluctantly granted permission- he never asks for anything. The student in my class stepped into the hall, and the two wordlessly traded shoes and went to their respective classes.)
-My clock broke today- the cheap cardboard face was warped and preventing the minute and hour hands from moving. Two of my students- another two who I figured both hated my guts- took it apart and fixed it.
- One of my students, a talented artist but a failing student, drew a detailed plant cell on my board. (Most of the students were not in class today, and I had them drawing and describing cell structures for each other, but he went to another board to do a whole cell.) I suggested art school and reminded him to focus in class so he could get there, because he has a talent but has to graduate to use it. He listened and gave the kind of half-smile that tough kids give when they're trying to pretend they don't care what you're saying and therefore trying not to smile.
-There were lots of kids out of class today, for various reasons, and for all practical purposes, no administrator in the building who does much for discipline. I think I finally, finally understand, that you can not force anyone to learn, and all the frustration and anger I pour at them only makes it worse; when students work, more often than not, it is for the teacher, and not themselves. Most are not knowledge-hungry, but they are attention-hungry. Before you can teach them, you have to love them, and show it. Our anger does not impress them. Our commitment, love, and kindness does.
-Because of various schedule irregularities and activities today, there were several classes at various points in the day that were left without teachers, and from what the students said, left completely unattended to. (Who knows if the kids were telling the truth, but I heard it several times from different kids, it's happened before, and it does not surprise me in the least. Somehow, it doesn't even bother me anymore. I am so used to this that it's routine. The kids are, too.) I had several kids ask to come into my classes, and not the way they do when they're getting into trouble. They had been left by the (Votech) Complex bus or their classes had no teacher or they were getting in trouble with someone's sub. I'm pretty sure the one or two that I allowed in were telling the truth, and it's not like they were learning anything walking the halls; maybe, hopefully, they picked up a concept or two in my class.

2008-02-20T05:04:00.001-08:00

I came to the Mississippi Delta with the usual preconceptions of an impoverished land in need of help...a mystical world full of people who have grown up in a culture that is not like the culture I grew up in, a chance to learn.

The more places I live, and the more people I spend time with, the more difficult it becomes to identify with any particular culture. Why, after all, should the cultural experience we had first be the one that defines us?

In a packed high school gymnasium, I watched one of my "favorite" students from last year, now a senior (and I think it's true, by the way, that it's easier to get closer to juniors than freshman) sink 3-pointers , remembering how bright she is, smiling at her flippant attitude. No matter how much you hear about the Delta, you need this to really know what the stories mean. You don't really understand the dark side until you see your students, get to know them and understand their potential. When you see how talented they are, when you really see how bright they shine, then with the classic "stone-in-your-stomach" dread realize, time and time again, what is lost and what is tossed away, the dark part of this becomes clear.

If I had to choose, I would say that the single most defining aspect of teaching in the Mississippi Delta is the hair's breadth distance between intense hope and deep disappointment, between strength and failure. The ups and downs, as I've heard other teachers comment, are the most wearing aspect of this endeavor.

2008-02-17T10:23:00.000-08:00

This is old; I found it while sorting.

Locking fingers across a fence
Separate
What you ain't and what he is
What you is
And what they are
What you does
And what they do
And for the life of you
You could not would not cross
The space that separates
The sinners and dreamers
The fighters and speakers

Disclaimer: Of course, our kids are dreamers too, but sometimes it is very difficult for them to look forward, and they would rather be distracted by something immediate. It also seems as though they can never put what they have to say into words (they yell and fight instead); it goes back to the emotional resources bit.

2008-02-15T19:45:00.000-08:00

2008-01-18T13:53:00.000-08:00

I am so sick of looking at their faces and theirs hands- awkwardly flipping book pages, as though there were navigating some foreign landscape- and knowing that it's not their fault, and knowing what they go home to at night. Read: It's not goddamn fair.

I dropped off one of my students at her house last night, after tutoring. A sweet girl, a little attention-hungry. Her mom reluctantly walked over to the car to meet me. She was holding a lit cigarette in one hand, and a giant can in the other, with the top popped, wrapped in brown paper. The lawn was scattered with beer cans, and the house itself was a broken-down trailer. I'm pretty sure that she's better-off in terms of home life than many of her peers. She lives essentially across the street from me- a one-minute walk. I live in a big brick house. The house immediately across the street from her is a giant southern-style almost-mansion, with expensive architecture, a front porch, and landscaping. I wonder what she thinks. This morning, I invited her to start coming over after school to do homework and make cookies or something. We'll see if it happens. And if it does, what happens when I leave?

The post-break low point is past, and now I'm thinking that I almost certainly want to teach next year, for the right reasons this time. I know that wherever I go will be Less than this, in every way. I don't want to go, anymore. I want to stay, but I already promised, and besides I know better than to think that staying here wouldn't destroy me. But who cares, it's one for hundreds, and I could do so much better than I am doing now. I can't write. I can't sort out what I could possibly have to say to this, can't sort out the inside things from the outside things because the because the outside things are bigger so expression is frivolous, but I can't turn off the inside things, which makes it worse.

I keep failing them (my kids), in both senses. I will work this weekend and try to plan some good lessons, but it feels like building sand castles at low-tide.

The G-ville (haha) soccer team won last night, against an experienced team of athletes. This was the infant team's second season, and I've watched their (teacher-corps) coach agonize over his team's struggles. In this place, with these kids, every defeat is a tragedy. (They already feel so defeated. ) While the experience alone more than makes up for it, last night was incredible.
Five minutes of beautiful in a thousand hours of maybe, or maybe someday. So worth it.

2008-01-16T16:32:00.000-08:00

School Community

The pair of them, brother and sister, marked into my room for academic updates on their children. He asked about students I took to be his offspring, but I'm fairly certain that most of the students (and there were several) that were hers were only slightly if at all related to her. A giant of a boy who generally cuts up in my class, and had better things to do than take any of his nine weeks exams, smiled sheepishly and cowered beneath her glare. She is a regular substitute at the school. A few minutes later one of her charges confesses that he sometimes cries about how he doesn't stay with his mom, but a minute earlier three adults had commented about how lucky he was that someone cared enough to stay on him about his grades.

The inclusion teacher who regularly works with students in my class room took her pregnant goddaughter to the doctor, since she stays with the teacher now instead of her mother. The same teacher kids around with the kids like she is one of them, but they seem to respect her.

I had two parent conferences (of the five or six that showed for report card pick-up and wanted to talk) with other teachers in the district, one with a high school teacher watching out for her niece, and one with the daughter of one of our cafeteria ladies.

The teacher who teaches in the room next to me calls nearly all of the kids by nicknames. They treat him like a brother, and he has insights and access into their hearts and minds that I couldn't build if I spent the rest of my life here.

The students are the children of the faculty; if you need a phone number, or need to know if someone has a phone, or need to know what's going in someone's home life, or who they run with, or whether or not they were involved in the town-to-town fighting that went down over the weekend, you usually know who to ask. Most of the teachers are from the area (the rare exception being those of us who have intentionally come to critical needs areas) and most of them will never leave. There seems to be an unusual conception of parenthood around here; adults are universal parents, and children find parents wherever they may be found.

Sometimes I feel like I understand, feel surrounded and supported and responsible within the community, and know that I can do something here. Hours later I feel like an outsider and a fraud and helpless against the forces that dominate my students lives.

The school community, though close-knit, is not exclusive. There is a niche available if you are willing to open your views a little, and accept the niche that opens for you, including laughing at your own strange habits, like walking fast and talking fast and looking stressed and not eating fried chicken. Most important, of course, is that you care. That alone is the deciding factor between belonging to a community and visiting one. If you love the kids, if you celebrate and hurt with them, and fight for them, even and especially when they won't, then you are theirs. The school community belongs to it's children.

2008-01-13T18:00:00.001-08:00

I was already crying when he hugged me, but in the embrace I just let go. Call it weakness; it felt so good to cry, to grieve out the stories (the kid's stories) that haunt every day and settle into a dirty haze that slowly darkens dreams. There is so much of it, and so much to do, that there is never any time to mourn, and without mourning, there is never any dawn, and there is never new light.

There is such release in abandoning the dishonesty that everything is OK.
Teaching in the Delta is like committing your heart to perjury. You pretend, based on some conception of strength, that there is nothing here you can't handle.

Before Mississippi, it is easy to believe that poetry is worth writing, a canvas is worth painting, a book is worth reading, a photo is worth taking. Before this we trust in our own competence and strength; it has, after all, always worked before. Enveloped in the false security of good home lives, loving families, close friends and strong academic backgrounds, it is easy to have faith in the beauty of living. Every minute is a canvas.

Once that illusion is broken, it is irreparable, and it takes time to get there. For months and months, you go into school, thinking you are going to fix everything, make it all better, amazed time and time again at the chaos and often tempted to complain about the disorder, the unfairness. Unlike your students, you were not raised with the inherent understanding that life is unfair. Through battle after battle, you march into school, winning some and loosing some, but still clinging to some faith that it will get better, that you can win this war.

When you realize just how deep the darkness really is, it threatens to swallow you. Poetry and art and even conversation require too much faith to even begin. You cannot fix this new world that you have stumbled into, and now that you know it exists, you can't go back to the one you came from. Suddenly, you are helpless. It's too hard to write, to focus on work, to wake up in the morning, to laugh and mean it.

I've been in a stage where I'm burnt out, heart broken, mentally filthy and damn near hopeless for my students. I've been day-dreaming about the future, thinking about next year, mostly because I've hit a wall here. I think about plans for next year because I am overwhelmingly guilty about all that I am not accomplishing with my students, and all that I don't think I can accomplish anymore. I stopped loving them. It feels like I'm watching them disappear a few at a time, until I've lost them all completely, and it is a battle of me against them, instead of me for them.

Crying tonight was like coming back to life. It's not OK. It's not going to be better. But we are accomplishing something, with some of our kids.

If there is one thing that makes this program possible, it is the other people. The only people who can offer comfort are those who understand, first hand. Thank God for friends.

Edit: One more thing. I do love them. That's why it hurts.

2007-12-13T18:11:00.002-08:00

It is going to be so hard to leave, just when I am beginning to discover what is really here. I was so proud of them tonight, and I finally felt really, really connected to this place. At the same time, it made me even more upset with myself for everything that I am not doing right and everything I have let slide, as I watch those same kids shine, and hate myself for every way I fail them.

I wonder if he'll ever get to college and graduate, I wonder if anyone else will ever see how talented he is, and let him build up his strengths like he should (and why didn't I make it happen...could I still?)...I wonder if she is safe at home, I wonder if they'll graduate, I wonder if anything I do will change anything at all for the better, I wonder how many of them will be alright. I wish I could tell the world and chance and mistakes and fate to keep their hands off of my kids.

2007-12-13T18:11:00.001-08:00

So there is sweat and there are babies in the arms of babies, gold chain nike signs and a battle for pride. There is blood at the tips of our fingers, a cloud of anger and the hurt honesty so rarely breaks through. There are two-hundred dollar shoes while begging for change, there are disconnects in logical progress and a wall that seems un-scalable.
But my God, if there isn’t a flame; If there isn’t a fire in those fingertips, a power behind those eyes, a ferocious will and a beauty that is beyond anything I have ever been.

2007-11-14T16:18:00.000-08:00

They marched with high knees and ran with the last dregs of adrenaline, back and forth, from the 18 yard line. Against the demands of aching muscles, and that injury that is for our boys especially profound-bruised pride, they ran. As a team, they honored their coaches' orders, and ran out- or maybe despite- their anger, frustration, and hurt. What better way to teach character, to model strength, than refusing to wallow in losses. By the simple exercises the team was forced to accept responsibility, and keep moving as a team. Their coach just guided them in their first steps after the defeat. I was more impressed by the conduct at a defeat than I would have been by a victory. These boys learn far more than how to play soccer.

There has been some talk about the underlying goals and purposes of MTC, but a simple hedgehog concept (thank you Mr. Collins) seems most appropriate: To give kids opportunities they would not have had otherwise.

Based on that perspective, when a teacher makes a student smile and makes it a little more likely that they will get something out of school for the day, the goal of MTC is being fulfilled. When we stay late to set up our classrooms, when we plan a great lesson, when we spend some precious time at a student's athletic event, when a struggling student makes a breakthrough, when a student sees a college campus for the first time, when students fill out college applications in our classrooms after school, when a coach lines his kids up along the 18 yard line to teach them a little something about pride, character, integrity....

2007-11-02T21:11:00.000-07:00

MTC: Why

We lost tonight's game. It was a painful loss; arch-rivals. I had no intention of working the game upon arrival seconds before kick-off, but we had around 1200 people in the stands (source: rumor/principal's extrapolation), and of course I was asked. (Plus my mentor, who I love, was working, and I owe her more than a few favors). As usual, I started off a little irritated (Ole miss game tomorrow), and ended up loving it. There's is a particular sense of pride at feeling a sense of ownership- feeling like the host- at an event where 1200 people stream into stands to watch our boys, lead by our assistant principal and head football couch, take on an arch-rival. No restaurant I have worked at, including the fancy one with the white tablecloths, ran as smoothly, politely, or comfortably as the concession stand at our home football game. It's not really less stress- it's just more fun. It's like going into battle with your co-workers- the same one's you fought beside during the State Invasion, and the same ones you walk into battle with everyday. It's almost like you have no choice but to love them, since you are both part of the same fight, for the same kids. Seems a little dramatic, but that's the best way to describe it. Plus, the simple math, adrenalline rush, and physically fast pace feel so good after a day of teaching. Like a work out, it burns off the frustration, and it's easy to be succesful at selling candy bars, so you feel like you've accomplished something at the end. Anyway, athletics are an incredible thing to be part of, and even watch, in this situation. We get to see our kids shine, and realize how proud we are of them. And then we realize....

There are a lot of reasons to do teacher corps. Personal growth, character growth, career growth, financial beginnings, an incredible crowd of people, leaders that win our deepest respect, and many more. The only reason, however, that is a reason at all- the ONLY reason to do this- is that when you pour your sweat and blood and tears, free time and sleep time and love and faith (really) into this- there are a few moments when something brings you a few steps back from the scene- and you understand, as you hope but dare not trust, that something you did mattered. You really can give love, hope, faith, and second chances. It is so hard to let yourself beleive that anything you do matters, but when, rarely, it shows- well, I am pretty emotional, but I bet this could make anyone cry. I think I understand a little of what parents feel for their children. That is somehow what this job is like; you dedicate yourself to this, pour yourself into it- even when it's not healthy- and hope for the best. If we all honestly examine our reasons for coming here, I believe we will all find that we came here for that- to do something that matters, especially in a world where people seems to dedicate their lives to things that don't. We are all passionate people- the type that do pour themselves into something, and like I said when I first applied, if we're going to do this to ourselves, it's got to be for something worth the effort. Even when I feel like I am failing (read: every day), there are still those rare moments when I get to step back, and I have never been prouder to be a part of something. I wonder how anything else could compare to this.

I believe that the reason for staying is the very same as the reason for coming: this matters. That's it. That's everything. Dr. Mullins said it- the chance to make a difference. That's why.

2007-10-22T17:14:00.000-07:00

Integrity and Corruption

The former, a search, a concept of what we would like to be, an image of ourselves and of others as we could be at our most glorious, our most alive and real, our deepest level of existence, with our actions mirroring the truth of our hearts; an honesty of word and deed, as they say. Corruption, then, is the opposite- the bending and slurring of our lines, boundaries, and our very faith. Perhaps principles are solid...dedication to what is right...but solid conceptions of right and wrong are but another vague remnant of childhood.

("Where is the road to Neverland, like we were promised in Peter Pan, lost boys can't stop or understand the raging storms of men.")

Of these two- integrity and corruption- I say the latter is not less valuable than the former.

When do begin to arrive? (To achieve that of which we dreamed.) At present, integrity is notable only by it's absence, conjured up by the sweet after-taste of memory that corruption leaves in its wake. I think it was C.S. Lewis in "Out of the Silent Planet" who said that a pleasure is only complete when it is remembered. So it seems to be, these days, with integrity. An elusive notion to start, it grows slowly more clear as it deteriorates despite grasping hands. Failure is like rot, and shows you the flaws in your solid notions.

Out of high school, searching as always, I defined the word for myself: "When your hands are cracked and callused, and the rain is dripping from your hair, and you keep going; that's when you know you're there."

I suppose, then, the corruption comes in when you are finally alone and you put your head down and cry. And when you flick off your alarm at 4:00 am and go back to sleep, as though you could hide from the dawn. Corruption, also, of your defenses, as you begin to notice how a slew of strangers has crept into your life and made themselves at home in your heart, despite your tallest strongest walls. Corruption of your dependence, of the ties to friends that keep your afloat, as alone in your house (again) through Delta rain, you discover the pleasure of drowning, the honesty of letting go. Corruption of your pretty face as you resolve to admit your weakness, in hopes of mending it. Corruption of your form and shape, as you collect your shards from the floor, finally aware of the fault-lines, and ready to rebuild your image of yourself and especially the world.

When do we begin to arrive? Apparently, only after we have departed.

2007-10-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

For honesty's sake, here's this. God knows I'd rather not have it be known.

There are times and places when you look at your hands, at your heart, and at the work that you have done, and you realize, again, that you are not what you thought you were, or what you would like to be. Call it facing the brutal facts.

We begin believing that we are bright, that we are talented and strong, that we can change ocean tides if we try hard enough.
What shall we do when the ocean teaches us otherwise?

I see in spark and color, and live to find beauty, to get to the truth. Over and over again, I meet people who are professional and official and they are correct, and I stand corrected.

I don’t understand the interface between passion and discretion. I have been taught a lesson over and over that I have yet to learn, and maybe ought to start- people look down upon honesty, passion is ugly and pushes people away.

And then there is the teaching. I feel like tearing apart my classroom, taking it down, bit by bit. Take the posters off the wall, and the projects and models, and the vocabulary words in units on carefully placed pieces of colored construction paper, and the shoe bag full of sets of index cards, and the project graphs, and the desk with two lines of perfect paper stacks, one for each prep, and the baskets and lab books and marble jars and the curve of the desks and the boxes of tissue and the boxes of pencils sharpened after school to save time in class, and the blankets- blankets!- for creative use of space. I want to tear it all down, one piece at a time, and look at the shreds of it, and be satisfied at the honesty in the destruction, and then let someone else come in and do this the right way.

A very experienced woman who works for the state came in and watched as I taught my lesson in terror, and moved through my activities, trying to give the differentiated lesson they were said they were looking for (they ASKED for a show, in essentially those words). She informed me that I had moved on without them (they were answering the questions!- it’s 8:00 in the morning, what kind of response do you expect), and that they were not understanding me. Again, they ASKED for a show. Should I abandon my lesson plan right there in front of her?! They have never heard of transpiration before. Yes, it’s going to take some work. She didn’t like my index cards. She said I should have one set, only, of teacher-produced cards, maybe in the center of the room (WTF?) for them to come look at. She was four feet away from them. She couldn’t even see what my kids were writing on the cards. And she doesn’t even know my subject! Granted, she was probably right about the kids understanding, I was nervous as anything, and I don’t think I made a whole lot of sense. Also, I was teaching biogeochemcial cycles and I could not, for the life of me, figure out a particularly fun way to teach it. Neither could anyone else I asked. The ideas seemed fine, but didn’t sparkle much. I planned in my usual style, with short activities that are alternately student and teacher-centered. She said I should have had the kids present in groups, showing a human’s life cycle move through from a baby back to the ground, for the carbon cycle. How would that have been relevant? First of all, decomposition is only one part of the carbon cycle, and that would have taken the whole period, on one part of one cycle. There are four cycles I need to teach, and this is only one unit. Second of all, the life cycle bit would have been a waste of time, as far as I can see- again, it does not really have much relevance. I had already planned activities where they traced the path of one atom through the cycle in anyway they wanted, including being eaten by an animal (my kids chose big foot and godzilla) and eventually ending up back in the soil. We’d already done an example as a class. She never smiled for real, and it felt, from our first meeting, like she was looking for ways to tear me apart. Well, I did a great job of giving them to her. It was not a perfect lesson- again, I was terrified- but it felt like she ignored everything I did well.
For my structured interview, I came in with roughly 7 pages, single spaced, of answers to her pre-assigned questions (just in case I didn’t have enough other work to do to teach my classes, the portfolio the state demanded, etc.), as I was told I should, and documents to support my answers. As I tend to do, I got excited, and when she interrupted me to ask questions, I expanded, and talked about other lessons and ideas I had used, research I’d read, etc. I even ASKED if that was okay, or if, since I was graded on organization, I should stick to the questions I written, as written. She said it was fine. I left feeling good about the interview. In her evaluation, she said that I interrupted myself too much, and that I had not communicated effectively. If you want my scripted responses, tell me!!!
It seems like they saw none of the work I did, none of things I did right. Even those things they complimented did not really boost my score. It feels like they were looking for a way to mark me down, to humble me, in a sense. Or am I that far off track?
Enough excuses.
Again, I stand corrected.

We believe in the beginning that we are bright, and talented and strong.
What the hell am I doing here, if I can’t even do my job? Why has no one ever told me this before now? I have been evaluated a thousand times. Yes, I was nervous. They TOLD US that they wanted a show. Of course I was nervous.
I can barely breathe at home. It is too quiet, and there is no one to tell you that you are not as bad as you feel, and that you have some redeeming value, and you begin to realize that you are as bad as you feel. And then someone comes into your classroom and tell you that you are even worse that you thought you were.

If I am not doing this job well, then I am lying to everyone, especially those who had so much hope for us when we came here. People I hate to lie to.

The state has seen, in one terrified period (the other evaluator hardly commented, but I was nervous enough then, too), what they needed to see, and decided.

What do we do with the reality that we are not bright and strong and talented, with the reality that no one is interested in your passion, with the reality that your numbers on paper mean everything, that an hour, a moment means everything, that there are very few people who will ever return the love and the loyalty that you feel for them, that you are smaller than you believed, that the color and the spark are all in your head.

And if I can’t do this job well, then what? There is not a single thing that I have ever felt like I’ve done well, and now there is confirmation, and now I am supposed to drag myself and my kids across a finish line that they don’t even care to look for, without the support of an administration whose faith in me has no doubt been destroyed- I’ll be amazed if they even let me keep my Biology I classes.

I feel like I’ve been holding on so tightly, and I dropped everything anyway. I don’t want to see anyone, I don’t want to tell anyone, I don’t even feel like I deserve the support of my friends that is the only thing that gets me through my days and weeks and months- which were getting better, for a while. I was counting the relief of having the state out of my classroom. I was worried only about not scoring a 4.00. Now what?

Next morning notes:

Here’s what. I am going to plan a great next unit, and I am going to teach my classes, as long as they let me, and I’m going to have fun with it, and I am going to give my kids what they need from me- the kids that I have already begun to love-, for as long as I am allowed to, and I am going to ignore the men and woman in expensive suits walking in and out of my classroom. I’m sure they won’t like a single thing they see anyway, so I am going to teach my classes, my way. My kids tell me they’re learning, they tell me if they understood and if they didn’t, and my obligation here is to them, my kids. I do apologize for the bad mark on teacher corps, of which I am not proud. I have said before that I am honored to be part of this group, and I hate to be a weak link. I hate to have someone tell me that I am not even doing a good job at the job that is the only reason we are here to begin with.

I know that this is not such a terrible situation compared to all the possibilities out there, I know that life is not fair, I know that no more is expected of me than any other responsible adult, and I’m sorry for whining.

My administration is great so far this year, my assistant principal has supported me through every situation I’ve encountered, and it feels good to have that support. I respect him. My principal has really taken on a leadership role, listening to his staff and making corrections to the school. Last year, we had two massive gang fights/brawls/riots, resulting in many expulsions and some students jailed, and we had fights nearly every day, sometimes multiple fights per day. This year, we did not have a single fight the first nine weeks, and we have had only one since then. One fight. They’re doing something right.

2007-10-11T05:48:00.000-07:00

Like everything else, my relationships with other teachers have improved since last year.
Whereas the other teacher have always been accepting, even warm, like every relationship, we started off a bit cautious of each other, and I was essentially an outsider.
The change probably is mostly due to the change in my relationship with this place as a whole. Though I’m not planning on doing it, I can understand how people spend their whole lives here. While this has never been just a job for any of us- it is really the center of our lives right now- that has become even more true for me this year, as I have begun to truly value the relationships with others at the school.
Again, all this constitutes a shift from last year. While there were certain students who would come to me to talk and certain teachers I felt comfortable with, it was always as much of a stressor as anything else. I had to make sure to say the right thing to the students, and I never really invested much into the relationships with the other teachers.
Maybe it’s because I actually showed up for a second year, but the other teachers have been warmer, even welcoming, and I find myself reciprocating. Again, I can understand the appeal of a small town environment. There are four teachers that I feel particularly close to in my school, not including teacher corps teachers, and I am comfortable with pretty much all of the others. They help me get through the day. It’s nice to feel supported at your school. We give hugs in the morning, talk a little after school, and just generally offer support.
Two final pieces of this equation. One is that I live essentially alone, since my roommate and I interact very little, which has lead me to lean on others at the school more, I think. At least, I don’t feel isolated from them in a separate little group, like the one we had last year. In a way, having a house of five teacher-corps people actually made it harder for us to start fitting in and accepting and loving the culture here.
Second is that state is in our school. I think there’s more than a trace of the uniting against a common enemy thing going on.

2007-10-11T04:41:00.000-07:00

On changing teaching style

Of course my teaching style has changed from last year.

A year's experience gives you some indication of what you should be doing, how you should be doing, what you kids need to learn. That being said, it's not really enough to get it all right, and I certainly still flounder trying to get my kids to grasp concepts.
Mainly the difference is in planning. Firstly, I actually write out lesson plans- real ones, not just the ones I threw up last year for my school, for nearly every lesson. Having a decent lesson really requires some coordination, and I find that even if I don't follow the plan exactly, having a plan makes my life easier in the classroom, and frees up my mind for other important stuff. It is not impossible, however, to have a decent lesson without a great plan, I don't think. I can understand how experienced teachers get used to just knowing what works.
The plans I write are different, too. Last year my lessons usually centered on one activity for a whole class, or almost a whole class, and the activities were often teacher-centered. I would go over a worksheet they were supposed to have done, or give notes, or lead a game. This year my lessons tend to be broken down into 5-15 minutes activities, during which students are working and I am monitoring. This seems to keep their attention better, since the responsibility is on them to be working, and since their attention span can be shorter. Of course, in between activities, students will often share, or we'll discuss, if it's appropriate. This also makes transitions cleaner, because it's really obvious when they should happen, so I can even plan roughly what I'm going to say.
For a lesson plan on biogeochemical cycles, for example, student will have a warm-up activity, followed by a teacher-led index card making activity, followed by five minutes to silently study their index cards, followed by a notes-hand out that they read silently for five minutes, followed by a class discussion and teacher-led comments and questioning on the hand-out, followed by a writing activity where students have to draw their or write out their own cycle.
It’s not perfect, and I find myself re-teaching more often than I’d like. It seems to be better, though, and I’m working on it.

2007-09-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

These are my confessions...

I'm starting to freak out here. I've been looking at Biology tests, and while Jess might have been a miracle worker, I'm starting to think she just had the touch.

There are only three practice tests to work off of, for the whole year. Many of the questions don't really fit into one of the categories that we'll be studying, but involve a synthesis of several of them, and I can't imagine how to prepare my kids for this year's combination questions- and there seem to be a slew of them on every test. How do I teach my kids to THINK when they don't even retain what I've taught them to begin with. I've tried everything I can think of, I'm going of off Jess's notes, and it feels like it's not sticking. Most of my kids ended up failing the scientific method test (they take their next unit test on Characteristics of life on Monday), and we went over dozens of examples, used group work, made index cards, put the words on the wall, did work sheets for homeworks and went over them, designed our own experiments, did a lab and wrote it up as a 60% grade, did a "what's in the box" activity and a group work problem-solving activity to get them thinking, did a broom dance to demonstrate observation and noticing patterns (don't ask, please), did an activity for "Story time with Aristotle", had the kids draw pictures of Redi's experiment, spent two days just reviewing, and probably did some other activities I'm just not thinking to include here. WHAT AM I DOING WRONG? !!!!! I know, I know, if my kids are failing, I'm failing. I think I need to realistically say that I may need help. I don't know what else to do. I call parents (lots of them). I enforce my consequences. I write kids up. I do spontaneous crazy things to get their attention. I am not being perfect, certainly, and there are plenty of things I still need to do differently, but I still feeling like I'm throwing paper air planes against a wall. I am not trying to complain. I am trying to do my job, and I think I suck at it, and I have 106 kids, give or take a couple by the day, that need to pass this test to graduate high school, and the state is coming in a couple of weeks (holy crap that assessment instrument is a brilliant work of frustration and nonsense). Really, if you have a suggestion, please give it to me. I think I need some professional help.

For this last unit, the kids read out of two different text books, took notes on both (for a grade), did a project of their choice where they could choose between writing a rap, song, or poem, inventing an organisms that they build or draw with a written paper describing how the organism had each of the characteristics of life, building a shoe-box model of an ecosystem (again with a matching paper), or doing a project of their choice, approved by me. We presented projects. We went over the important points from the text as a class, with each student having a packet that they highlighted or underlined as I told them exactly what to mark, with a homework assignment to take notes by writing all that stuff down. (That was after they'd already taken their own notes on the other book). After project presentations, I gave them notes to copy from the overhead, and assigned them homework for which they had to make index cards and study them. I told them exactly what to put on each index card, and how many they had to have. We did class questioning. I can't spend any more time on this. Two 60% grades plus warm-ups and participation. The second one is a test Monday. We'll see how that goes.

2007-09-11T04:06:00.000-07:00

Classroom Struggle

I think I need to be kinder- and stricter- in my classroom. I am noticing myself beginning to get tired- that first streak of it- and loosing patience with the kids. There are times when it feels like I've tried everything that I'm supposed to do- calling parents, giving write-ups, enforcing my consequences, every time (though I'm sure I'm still being too lenient). But I feel like I'm loosing them anyway. (Granted, not every class, but yesterday was not good.) Usually I would be able to step back, think of how my attitude is influencing my classroom, and adjust. As usual, I think not getting enough sleep made a big difference yesterday, but it should be automatic. I should know how I need to react in every situation. I wouldn't want to be spoken to the way I spoke to my kids yesterdays (well, one class). I don't think it was productive, and it certainly did not feel like leadership in the classroom. I should have given them a pop quiz, switched to silent work for the remainder of the period, and called it a day. Hindsight. Some of my kids seem like they like my class, but some of them- especially in the tougher classes- still complain about. It seems to come very naturally to many other teachers, and I can't help but wonder if I'm missing some key ingredient.

2007-09-08T13:36:00.000-07:00

I had a nightmare last night about the state coming into my classroom. They showed up on Monday, and for some reason I was not prepared, I did not have enough copies, I was not well planned. I haven't had a single day like that this year, but in the dream I did, and the guy from the state was not generous. He stayed for another period and it was the same. I wasn't teaching in my classroom, or someone had moved everything around in my classroom, and it really threw me off. It was different furniture, and I couldn't move around right, and I had that feeling like when your legs and arms are made of marshmallow and you're completely helpless, expect that my body was fine, I just couldn't teach. I was obviously wasting my students' time. The guy told me that I was inadequate and lazy. He came back one more period and it was marginally better, but not enough, and he told me to pack up and go home- that I was not an adequate teacher. It's funny, because I've been trying not to stress too much about the state thing.

2007-09-07T15:51:00.000-07:00

A personal rant about friendship. I think I've given up keeping my private thoughts out of this; they are just too entangled with all the others.

I always feel more for other people than they feel for me. I have come to rely on the teacher corps group, to love them as friends. I look forward to Oxford weekends, to seeing faces and hearing voices and feeling light, and it always seems like we leave having looked into a window at a beautiful scene inside that is beyond reach. We always scatter back to our busy lives and fight our big and small fights for another set of weeks. Every time, I accidentally paint up a picture in my mind made of bright colored heartbeats in time from those hours, and look at it unintentionally between working and thinking and drawing straight lines. Rather than chase every spark of affection, I hide from all of them, or most, because it matters to much to me. Is there a use and a purpose for this kind of thought pattern? I could probably stop it, but it took so long to get to this level of honesty. I might be more productive, better off, in a different way, but I don't see how it matters. Anyway, I wonder what will happen to all of these friendship-fragments, and if they will grow stronger with common memory or weaker with distance and time.

I also wonder if I can get everything done this weekend. If anything, this frame of mind is time consuming, and I think that's why I sometimes consider turning it off.

2007-08-31T02:42:00.000-07:00

Quarter till five, am. These hours are my favorites.

I carve out a space to exist, and think.

Most everything has been alone lately, actually. Outside of school, it's really just me. I could visit, probably. But I might feel like an imposition. Plus, I figured out the "why" of it. If I enforce loneliness, I control it. When life is this busy, you want to be able to wrap your hands around everything you deal with, to handle everything that touches you. Relationships have a way of handling you, as they should- some things you're not supposed to control, which means it could go a thousand ways, every time you try to connect with someone. And the reaction to it ripples under my skin for days, every single time.

Alone is easier.

There is more on my plate than I think I ever had at once, right now. I feel OK about it.
List: 1) School, planning, grading. State tested, and writing lesson plans for me and another teacher for my other prep. Essentially, I have all the Biology planning at the school, so it better be good.
2) SATP retesting in September. Again, this is no one else's job, and there will be lots of re-testers. Probably after school sessions, and I will have to find a way to get them to come.
3) My lab needs work.
4) The State. I am proud to work where I work- I don't feel this sense of shame that other teachers talk about. I like our little community, I feel close to many of the teachers, I love my students. I've never had this before. If the school has to go through this, I guess I'd rather be there with them. It is, though, a lot of work. 40 page assessment instrument, including scripted interview, 2 observations, document portfolio that will be a challenge, teaching under a microscope. Ready by October 4. Really nervous about this one. Need to get on it soon. (Meeting about it was Tuesday.)
5) Ole miss. Um...need I say more. Everyone knows what the latest casses entail.

I will do my best with it. I am happy right now, maybe as happy as I've ever been, except for a few select moments in time- such as summer- that exist on a whole different spectrum.

Part of it is coming to accept hurt as part of living. We love, so we hurt. Accepting sadness makes me happier.

Part of it, as always, is freedom, and understanding that it is ours, always. Independence is very, very good. We choose everything we do, and why choose to do anything but give it everything we've got? When there is choice, and it is our decision to make, and the work matters, there is a new kind of drive. And everything feels like failure, like not quite enough, even when we find some small success.

Part of it is taking time for myself, even in the midst of all of this. I burn out if I don't unwind, because I get so caught up in whatever it is I'm doing. You can only wind up so tightly before you need some release to function effectively. Living essentially alone (one roommate and we barely see each other) gives me all of my time to do what I need or want to do with it. Last year was too many people in one space. This is much better.

With all of this alone time- even while I'm doing other necessary things, like grading and driving and laundry and washing and shopping- come questions. If I am happy this way, should we, should I, always live like this? Wildly busy so that I am not left with pent up useless energy at the end of a day, so that my rests are deserved, so that I am using myself more completely. (I think that's it! That's why this is better than before- I am using myself more throughly, with more dedication, more completely than ever before, and with better reason, even if it's not totally complete because I still take time for me.) Is this the right way to live for me? What about other kinds of personal, selfish satisfaction? What about relationships that we live by, as in when people have a significant other that is part of their life style. At some point, some of the focus shifts from one's job and goes toward a personal or family life, for most people...right?
What about writing? I like what I'm doing, but it is not what I am made for, as some people say. I need to write, create, break boundaries and learn, just to breathe. Where will I find a teacher? I have a million questions, and I used to have college professors that would talk with me, but we are long out of touch (though I have been trying here and there), and there is some learning that I need, and I could use some guidance, someone to talk with who has thought about all this already. The only person who was ever really that for me was the wisest man I've ever met, and he did not return my last e-mail. It is a personal thing, and requires seeing someone, in person. I am past the point where my parents can help with this- questions about happiness and fate and meaning and love and passion's purpose and what we are made of and how we should live and how to make progress and change and how much it is possible to be and how to go about it and what our obligations are to people as a whole, and who will be by our sides or will we be alone, and how do we work together and how do we find the right people to work with. I think a little guidance could help me to be and do a lot more than I am now. An adult, someone older and wiser to talk with me for an hour, give me some suggestions. Not that I am not adult...but I guess I just miss the guidance of people who have thought through all this stuff already, and been everywhere with it.

A couple more questions. If we are complete by ourselves, with our hungers and empty spaces, as I believe we are, then why do we get lonely and think about the people we love and dream of company?

When are most people most themselves?

And why are strangers smiles so sweet. Understanding, simple connection...what is it about connection that melts us?

One more thing, about the kids. I am trying every creative thing I can, and will be trying lots more. It sometimes feels impossible to get them to understand a concept, like, for example, the difference between the independent and dependent variables. We have done over a dozen examples, gone through the history with Redi, working on presentations followed by a lab...and I still feel like most of them are missing the point. This is really frustrating, and feels like failure, even when my classroom looks and feels a lot closer to how I pictured it when I started this. Will keep trying, but if anyone has any suggestions-?

P.S I didn't mean that my teachers now aren't great. Especially the morning class really gets me thinking- in the way I'm talking about, even- as did the Issues in Ed. course. And I'm not expecting someone to answer all my questions. I just mean that a long one-on-one conversation with someone who knows and has been there can sometimes help me make progress.

2007-08-23T16:39:00.001-07:00

I don't usually post anything super personal here because I am so impressed by so many of my peers that I don't want to challenge the nature of it or waste anyone's time by using this inappropriately as an outlet. This one's border-line. And cheesy, but me.

I am made of two parts: One part that is careening through the universe, and caught on fire, and that cannot be still, and that is wrapped up in a new song and swallowed whole by the passion, jealous of it's fierce honesty. That part of me wants to burn across the globe finding friends (anyone who understands) and learning to play music so I can get it out from under my skin (and maybe be still for a second), and writing and writing and writing, and that part of me will never be complete until it is allow to grow until it grows tired (as I hope it won't), or grows to be softer.

One part is the part that has me in Mississippi, finding love for a community that I am hungrily working to belong to, spending most of my time fighting not to be another disappointment to the beauty that is disappointed over and over again, wondering how I should be living, how I should be doing better by my students and moreover their families, contemplating the meaning of leadership and the nature of my obligation, of everyone's obligation, to pursue it, and on Friday night every other weekend, drinking in a few exhausted hours of solitude.

One of the most significant differences for me this year outside of the classroom is my living situation. I have one roommate- so far so good, and a lot of personal space that I didn't realize I wanted or needed. While I got a lot out of the support of four roommates last year, I am also getting a lot out of the peace and solitude of just one, who is barely around. It's freedom to live my own life, and see what it is made of when there is no one else frequently and immediately in my personal time and space. Most of it of course goes to school, but some of it I claim for my sanity, and even the balance of those says something about me and my choices that I might not have known before.

2007-08-14T18:42:00.001-07:00

The number one difference between the first week of the first year and the first week of the second year is that the second time around it is easier to love the kids rather than blame them for their behavior and flail ineffectively against something you have not even begun to understand. It is so much easier this year to see the KIDS, to see what they are and understand that there a reason for every one of their actions, to see them for the sensitive and (importantly) young people that they are, to forgive them rather than trying to befriend them, to do your best to be the adult that they need in any situation that might arise in your classroom. With love and understanding also comes kindness that you notice in yourself and find yourself eagerly trying to offer the kids who sometimes seem to be crying out for it, without loosing the strict environment that seems to make for the most effective classroom. It is easier to be the adult this year, to see what the kids really need (or so I think; I guess I shouldn't assume) and there is more joy in it because you have more to offer your kids.

The second year there are thousands (maybe literally) of things you want to change, but you have a clearer idea of how to get it done. There is more positive excitement and maybe even more positive pressure, and much greater satisfaction thus far. It is easier to feel capable, and that feeling of success, the feeling that you might actually be doing something good for these kids, makes you even more responsible for them and pushes you even harder.

That being said, I also know my limits far better than I did last year. I need to sleep. No sleep= horrible day. (Same goes for not enough sleep.) It's still tempting, though. I also need time to not think about school; it's really, really important for perspective. I realized (tonight, actually) that if I am going to be the adult that these kids deserve in my classroom, then I am going to have to take some time to be myself outside of it, and not feel guilty, and not worry about it for a little while. I wasted a lot of time in a state of general burnout last year, because I felt I was doing a lousy job and never forgave myself for it enough to get a break and get better.
This year, I am taking some time to disengage.

Of course, there are the obvious differences as well: There are many kids that I remember and enjoy seeing during the day, and find myself wanting to know how they're doing and offer them any help I can give them. I actually started noticing this last year, with my graduating seniors. When they're not in your classroom anymore, you suddenly have trouble letting go and wish you could give them more. I am trying to be stricter this year, by a long shot. I did not like the way my classroom ran last year. This year, I am more aware that it is truly MY classroom, and I am trying to do what needs to be done to keep it that way, the only way that class time is going to be used effectively. I'm sure I'm still making mistakes, and there are still little uncertainties, but it feels so much better, and I am excited to get through the preliminary stuff (materials, binder set-up, student "likes" surveys, procedures review and quiz, pre-test, etc.) to actually use my lessons. We'll see how those go. I hope that the kids will get out of them what they are designed to teach; kind of nerve-wracking actually. (There's also extra pressure because I am state-tested this year and we're level 1/priority). If this is my best shot at this, what if it fails? I guess I'll have to stream line and make corrections as I go along. Wish me luck, and good luck to everyone.

2007-07-10T06:18:00.001-07:00

Your life on MTC

Exhausting awakening disheartening heartening heart-wrenching destructive productive intimidating infuriating enlightening disenchanting enchanting .............................................

It's difficult to describe how an experience has affected your life while you are still in the very thick of it...when in fact the experience has become one of the defining elements of the current period of your life. Still a worthwhile question. Here's what I've got so far....

Stating the Obvious

When you enter the program and complete the first summer, you become a teacher. Some time during the first year, you really become a teacher (forgive me, guys), unless of course you've taught before.

Escaping the Obvious

I left college interested in the subject I studied, but without the kind of passion for it that inspires productive and lifelong dedication to the furthering of that field. (I was also interested in philosophy, poetry, literature, sustainable agriculture, peace and conflict studies, human development, kites, kittens, tree houses, etc.) The passion I had was overwhelming and impractical, and I didn't want to give it up. The job that I do now is creative, dynamic, exciting, enveloping, productive, and lets me have summers free (or somewhat). My kids are every kind of inspiring. (Hopefully they learn something, too.)

I left college as a messy ball of non-specific passion. Or at least, un-directed passion. I did not want to destroy writing for myself by making it my job, and yet........
I didn’t want to sell out, give up on everything that put fire in my veins.

Teacher corps and teaching especially has been, I think, very, very good for me.

I didn’t sell out. I just found a little more direction. It is amazing. My kids are amazing.

Destruction and Development

The exhaustion of my mind and heart that happened after a couple of months in my own classroom was actually the foundation of my growth. It’s not easy to explain, actually, but the experience itself is worth something.

To keep it simple, I was missing some important perspective when I left college. My competence and confidence have both benefitted from my teaching experiences, as has my ability to identify with the grown-up world in a way that’s healthy and doesn’t offend my sense of childhood.

Relationships

With my heightened confidence has come, I think, heightened ability to make myself vulnerable to other people, in friendship and in love. That’s something.

Summary

Teaching and teacher corps together have given me something I really needed, something I don’t know think I could have found almost anywhere else, or at least not as quickly. Being torn down and then recovering is in and of itself a rather remarkable experience, and full of growth My students and their culture taught me something else all over again, especially when I let them sneak into my life as I did, letting myself slip a little into the community. Pouring yourself into something eventually causes others to open up, a little only, to you. Finally, from the people in teacher corps- a group of very good people who I have been able to trust and love- I have learned a bit about people and their hearts, about how we relate to each other, why everyone disappears, and why it’s so hard to really get close (questions I have had for a long time). Most of that learning, being able to learn from people, I think, comes down to trust, to being close with people, and I think that maybe for a lot of us it was easier to trust people in this particular group, based on commonality of experience. Anyway, I worry about losing this group, and value all of the time we spend together. June was gorgeous, especially since we’d already known each other for a year. At least one more year of this, all together, and may this next one be as meaningful and fulfilling as the last, with more success.

2007-07-10T05:53:00.001-07:00

Preventing first year burn-out

There’s no easy answer for this, of course, but there are actually some answers that are more feasible than many of the other daunting tasks we attempt. I actually believe that a huge part of this is simply being less hard on ourselves. The emotional repercussions of watching our own failure can really be one of the greatest obstacles to success, and I beat myself into the ground during the first months of school. (I tried to make up for an inadequate classroom by taking on three extracurricular activities at once- ACT prep, creative expression, and journalism on Sundays- as though offering the kids more options would in some way make up for all the ways I was failing them in the classroom. I think I also thought I could really do some good with all those activities. I might have done some, but it was not a good idea.)

Besides being less hard on ourselves, the two best ideas I have on this are that it’s important to keep up and to take a break. By keep up, I mean the important stuff. Grading, lesson planning, phone calls. Staying on top of that stuff helps to avoid some of the guilt and the burden of knowing that our time is not ours. We end up having to prioritize either way, and usually run into trouble of some kind, but staying organized makes a huge difference, and my systems of organization will be one of the biggest changes I make next year. (Systems in place ahead of time to keep track of attendance, bathroom passes, consequences, parent phone calls and phone number changes, student work, behavior problems, missed work and make-up work, class notes and assignments and homework assignments, extra credit, etc.) Even staying organized on a personal left has immense benefits for mental health, I think.

It’s been said a thousand times (Ben is a big fan of this one) but actually doing it takes some guts. The first time a took a day off, I used a personal day so I didn’t have to pretend I was sick when I needed to get car insurance during business hours (as it turns out this was not necessary), and I came into school for an hour in the morning and a half hour at the end of the day to talk with the sub, supervise my biggest class, and collect work at the end. As it turns out, some of our subs are really great, have been in the community for ages, and are well-respected by the kids. (This is especially the case if the sub is someone’s mama or sister, and very especially the case if that someone is a star athlete of some kind.) The Delta is interesting that way. Letting go was really hard for me, but especially during the long months, breaks keep you sane, and I should have taken more of them.

Actually, one last thing. Our relationships prove to be important factors in staying sane. Relying on each other is not a bad thing, and roommates or close teacher corps friends to talk to can prove to be a saving grace.

2007-07-01T17:35:00.000-07:00

We've been done with summer school, and this summer's component of MTC, since Friday. I'm still in Mississippi, despite the many silent vows I have made to escape this state (both types) as soon as possible. I'm by myself, in the house in the Delta where I lived this past year. The place is cavernous, with wood floors and antiquated flowered wall paper and windows that are sealed shut but let in the light or dark from outside.

The evening is an alone kind of quiet that is sweet for one night, especially when you are missing friends and want to be alone to miss them, but becomes suffocating if it persists.
I decided to spend some in-between hours here, in the same place where I squirmed for months with eagerness for anything else.

There's thunder and rain pounding massive living room windows.
"If dreams were thunder, lightning was desire, this old house would've burned down, a long time ago".

I'm leaving tomorrow, rain or shine, in early morning when I still feel like the day is mine.

2007-06-24T22:38:00.001-07:00

My first years are amazing!

I have witnessed the most enthusiastically facilitated pictionary game I’ve ever seen. There was jumping, high fives, ENERGY, and of course, biology. It was spectacular, and extremely satisfying to watch. I mean, our kids were ENGAGED! The whole time.

In the past couple of days, I’ve heard three or four fresh, creative ideas I’ve never even thought to try. And they’ve never taught before. Actually, most of the point of this entry is just to document some of their material, for myself and for others, so it’s not lost when the chaos of the school year ensues. So here are a few off the top of my head.

1) Pictionary, of course. (Tried this one already with chemistry equipment, actually)
2) Go fish- students make cards with pictures of organisms on one cards and descriptions on another card, so they review material once that way. Next all the cards go in a big pile, get shuffled and passed out to students, and the class plays go fish. What a great idea.
3) Cue cards with reading. Very insightful strategy. Handing out index “cue” cards stapled to a reading that give hints about what to look for in the reading. This helps students who are not strong readers to learn what to look for. Eventually, students will be weaned off of cue cards. A great way to work on reading comprehension- an area of difficulty- even if it’s not English class, and even if it’s not familiar material.
4) If students are not used to presentations, break them into groups and have them present to each other. This takes some classroom management, of course, and you can’t really grade the presentations thoroughly, but it’s good practice, especially if their shy, and you can observe enough to make sure everyone’s doing the work.
5) Imaginary safety goggles and lab coats- Really entertaining, and puts them in lab-thought-process mode. Could really become “a thing” in the classroom, and I could see kids getting used to it and excited about it.

Each of the new teachers has a different style, but each has a strong presence that I think will serve well when they get to their own classrooms, where sustainability is really importnat. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for their first days- I remember how much those days and weeks mattered, and of course I hope that their experiences will go more smoothly than mine did. (Not that is wasn’t challenging and worth while, but I made lots of mistakes.)

I’m kind of terrified, though, that they’ll go out to their own schools and classrooms missing some vital piece(s) of information that would have made all of the difference for their year. I know I’m no one’s mom, of course. All I can think to do with them is focus, above all, on classroom management, in terms of strict discipline and procedure but more importantly in terms of planning- well planned lessons that keep the students engaged, doing most of the work, paying attention to every detail, especially when giving instructions, and leaving no down time. That includes using time when some students have finished work and others haven’t by making sure they always have another assignment- homework or extra credit to work on. First-years have been doing great with this. Still, I guess you don’t know what it’s really like to manage a class of 33 until you get there on the first day of school. We’ve talked about lesson planning, staying on top of grades, giving specific instructions, staying organized, parent phone calls, coming up with creative ideas, saying no, etc. Only I know I’m forgetting some things and still will be by the end of ths summer. Ahhhh. Their also finding their styles, which is fun to watch. So props to the first years....keep it up guys...I’m impressed.

2007-06-22T20:15:00.000-07:00

Reflection on My Performance as a Teacher

Without the ubiquitous tug-of-war with a group of students whose respectful attention you have long ago lost through early inconsistencies in classroom management, creatively and enthusiastically conveying subject matter is suddenly less of an insurmountable task. The absence of strain from classroom management and administration-induced stress clears a suddenly fertile space for using teaching skills and style that have been unwittingly acquired during a whirl-wind of a school year. With the freedom and support offered by the summer school program, teachers have the opportunity to exercise their new skills and- rather importantly, for me- experience what they are actually capable of and how they would like their lessons and classrooms to run.

I entered summer school with the notion that I would need to change everything next year. One year of experience is enough to point out thousands of mistakes that you’d like to correct. Summer school lets you try out your envisioned role and structure, and actually see how your new systems and approaches work, get a grasp on the day to day effectiveness, and see the effects of your slowly acquired but perhaps newly apparent ability to carefully plan and execute effective lessons. Also more apparent is the fact that even when you plan carefully, your lessons are not always consistently stellar- some days your tired or distracted or don’t feel as prepared as you’d like to be. Part of the thrill of teaching is that when your teaching a lesson with an entire class in front of you, when your up in front of a classroom, it becomes the whole world, and being a good teacher is about adapting, maintaining positive attitude and energy even when everything’s not perfect. Realizing that even when you give it your all you can make mistakes will, I think, help me be a little more forgiving with myself next year- not that I deserved it this year, but hanging onto mistakes only causes more of them, and you have to let it go eventually to fix it, so might as well let it go right away. Again, it’s about flexibility.

My performance this summer has been, for certain, better than it was over the school year. I’ve had a lesson or two that I am not crazy about, and a few that I have been very happy with, including some of those planned for other teachers. (I am wildly impressed with my first years...read the blog I’ll be posting shortly if you want to know more.) Again, summer school has given me the chance to try out some of my ideas about how I’d like next year to go, and see how they work. So far, for the most part, they work. They are certainly aspects of summer school that are much easier than the school year, especially in terms of grading papers, managing paper work, and handling administration. My confidence in my lesson planning, though, has definitely improved. I’ve liked many of the lessons I’ve planned this summer, taught by me or by someone else. It’s nice to know that you’re capable now and then. Summer school seems to take it from a hopeful vision in your head to a realistic knowledge of what it takes to get it done and make it work, what it should and can look like.

Students met with the most success on the prokaryotic vs. eukaryotic cell lesson. (The student will distinguish between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.) During this lesson, I focused on one concept- the difference between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells- and presented the material in several different fashions, each of which required the students to do most of the work. Student each received two pictures, drawn side-by-side on a sheet of paper, with lines underneath and one line above each picture. There were no words- even titles- on the sheet. Students first had to flip over the sheet, and on the back write all of the characteristics they noticed of each of the cells. Next, students looked up prokaryotic and eukaryotic in their books, and compare the description of each kind of cell with their own descriptions of the two pictures. Finally, they labeled the pictures with the appropriate cell type and wrote the correct description on the lines provided under each picture. Students were given a set amount of time for each activity. We next created a sample Venn diagram to introduced the idea of diagraming information, and students created their own Venn diagrams on prokaryotic cells vs. eukaryotic cells. For the last part of the lesson, I filled in a venn diagram comparing the two on the board, with student input. When students had exhausted their observations, I filled in the remainder (only a few items) for students to put in their notes.

There were many aspects of this lesson that allowed it to flow smoothly and convey the material effectively, and I am excited to use similar techniques during the school year. Firstly, the activities were varied, and student-centered. Students were constantly working with the material in a new way, on a time limit, so they stayed focused without (apparently) getting board. The different approaches- tactile (when students looked up and wrote definitions), auditory, and visual- allowed for different learning styles within the classroom. Students really had to work with the material, first coming up with their own ideas, then comparing their ideas to the text book, and finally manipulating the same material to create the diagram that the teacher confirmed. The structured mini-activities approach seems to be particularly effective for me, and makes me feel like I have (near) complete control over my classroom. Accomplishing the same thing next year will certainly be a struggle, but, again, I’m excited to see how I make it work.

My students were not particularly successful at the lesson in which they identified the functions of cellular organelles. This particular lesson involved a full packet of pre-made notes on cellular organelles that the students used to follow along as I lead discussion on each one, describing the structure and function and drawing it on the board. Students did not retain this particular material especially well, though it was expected to be a difficult lesson and another full day on the same material had already been planned. The lack of success in this particular case could have been a result of the direct-instruction feel of the lesson. While the students did have notes and there were pictures, the lesson was about equally teacher- and student-centered, whereas a more student-centered approach requiring students to really manipulate the material seems to be more effective. In general, the energy was not as strong as it could have been, and I felt as though I was pouring energy in just to wake them up a little, without much response. Lessons like that tend to feel disappointing, though they sometimes pick up in the end. I’m not sure how to better approach the topic of cellular organelles. The cell-building activity for the next day was fun, but there’s got to be a more efficient way to teach the lesson.

Again, the most effective instructional procedures for me (discussed above) are student-centered and hands-on. If they’re not having fun, or at least really paying attention, they’re not likely to learn. Structure is extremely important- for me, the more structured the better, so students know exactly what to be doing, when, and how long they have. I don’t think I fully realized that until I finally figured out what I really like in a lesson through my teaching experience this summer. It’s funny, various expert teachers have told us as much many times, but it never fully struck me until now. Direct instruction is still tough, and I can maintain it for a little while, but I think the students tend to get bored. It’s going to be a challenge coming up with activities to really counter over-use of direct instruction.

As discussed above, we have been employing many different types of activities in the summer Biology I class, ranging from tactile use of manipulatives (I used this to teach classification and in several other lesson plans I’ve written), to concept mapping (used for the cell), auditory and visual delivery of information, to student-discovery of content (one of my favorites, and I have used it in some capacity nearly every lesson I’ve planned these past couple of weeks.) We also have a unique opportunity to work one-on-one with students when they need it, and to structure lessons based on their needs. All of these factors have contributed to our system of differentiating instruction for different learners.

To improve student performance in the future, I intend, first of all, to utilize some of the techniques that have really proven effective this summer. Seeing that they can work provides the confidence boost that can help make them work in a class of 33. I plan to focus on a more structured classroom, less down time, a more consistently enforced discipline plan, more student centered activities, and better organization. Again, structure especially is important for me, providing the control (well, hopefully) I need to feel like I have more instructional freedom within the classroom to cater to student needs. I may call in help now and then for creative lesson planning when I am stuck in a rut and can’t seem to escape using a heavy dose of direct instruction in a particular lesson, since it’s a rather ineffective technique when used for more than 20 minutes at a time. Something else- I think I will try and take advantage of the support systems available to me more than I did this year. I was so afraid of admitting failure, I didn’t want to ask for help. In hindsight, everyone gets burnt out, and a friend’s creative idea can make a survivable day into a great one.

2007-06-13T17:32:00.000-07:00

Learning Goals And Instructional Decisions

The objectives taught in the two parts of Biology that I am especially responsible for this summer- natural selection and the cell- are based on a division of the Biology I frameworks. Each goal is carefully defined, and students are expected to complete specific tasks or demonstrate mastery of particular skills or knowledge by the end of each lesson. For the unit on the cell, for example, students are expected to create a Venn Diagram comparing prokaryotes to eukaryotes, construct a cell out of provided materials and explain the function of each organelle included, and meet many more goals. For natural selection, students create classification guides, produce their own examples of the application of taxonomy and binomial nomenclature, identify characteristics of each kingdom, often through problem solving or inductive reasoning, and master multiple other skills and knowledge sets.

The overarching goal behind the particular objectives chosen is to encourage problem solving and student-derived solutions to science questions. Students are encouraged to build their confidence by discovering their own abilities to manipulate objects, facts, ideas, and concepts and arrive at appropriate, teacher- confirmed solutions to questions, acquiring necessary knowledge and skills in the process. The skills students are practicing, especially including articulating and writing out explanations for difficult concepts, researching, and problem-solving, are central to Biology and science as a discipline. They are more representative of science and less representative of memorization than what many students may see during the school year where they may be in large classes of students that do not lend themselves to inductive and student-centered activities.

Learning goals include verbs from various levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, including identify, apply, explain, create, construct, discover, compare, classify, and many others. Again, goals chosen are intended to encourage discovery of confidence and inspire excitement among our students, taking advantage of a rare opportunity to work closely with students who may have struggled in the past. Objectives are chosen to differentiate instruction for students who have various levels of knowledge and have different learning styles. For example, lectures with notes and pictures might work well for auditory and visual learners, but tactile learners may prefer construction activities. All required knowledge is given in lecture, and explanation is offered when a student has a question. If students are comfortable with a particular topic, that topic is discussed briefly to leave more time for others. In addition, lessons are intended to be carefully managed, with no instructional time wasted. Many objectives are taught using small student-centered activities that require short bursts of attention, each of which examines the same concept from a slightly different angle. For example, prokaryotic vs. eukaryotic cells were taught by first giving students a hand-out with two pictures of the two kinds of cells. Students had three minutes to write down similarities and differences they observed, followed by five minutes to look up definitions of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells and label each cell with the appropriate title and definition. Students then shared their work verbally, and created a venn diagram that was confirmed by teacher instruction. This format prevents students from getting bored and requires them to rely on their own skills and efforts to acquire knowledge, with teacher facilitation and support. Finally, activities are designed to be engaging. Hands-on projects and varied instruction are aimed at keeping students awake and interested. Inductive strategies are used as often as possible. For example, students will use the inductive strategy of Concept Attainment when they classify different organisms on a student-generated list into various categories. The student's choices will then be compared to conventionally accepted classification systems. This allows students to realize that their ideas are valid, and to come up with solutions to the problem of classification on their own to help them remember it.

2007-05-19T08:22:00.000-07:00

What follows is a selfish evaluation of teaching from an overall perspective on life and happiness. I have been starting to think of teaching as it might fit into my life, and so the thoughts here are about happiness and lifestyle choice and how teaching fits, and not just on teaching, as it is.
(Ben, you do not have to read all this. Seriously.)

Usually my weekends are packed. For a while, we had tutoring for state tests on Saturday mornings. Sometimes we have class for teacher corps, sometimes I visit friends, and there's always lots of work, and I need some time, too, to be still. I don't usually have time to be bored, though, or lonely. It's funny, to escape the isolation and when I really want a break from work, I fill the time with sensory input, I fill my space with other people, and I leave little time to be what I am when nothing and no one else is around. What are we when we stop being distracted by everything else?

Anyway, this weekend I don't have plans except to stay here and get some work done. Last night was a little heavy, in a sense, with nothing very immediate to look forward to, but it created the space for me to stop looking around for happy distractions and find my own groundings again.

This morning my roommate let me give him a half-hug without looking at me funny (we have really different personalities. I like touching people as part of communication, especially when I am comfortable- though I am pretty careful about it- and he usually likes to have some space), and we had a conversation that got me thinking.

I was thinking, and have been for a few weeks, I think, that I might stay in teaching, or at least in education, and use it as a spring board, as a starting point for other projects and ideas that I have occasionally thought of trying, just to see how much I could do, how much of an impact I could have, to see if any of my crazy ideas would actually be useful for anything.

That's really only a small part of it. Part of it is that I can't see myself doing anything else. The thought of working for institutions for any large portion of my life makes me cringe, and there's something in my mind that always wants to bail out, to get away, to not allow anything to gets its chains on me. I don't like being confined, stuck, restricted. I have an overpowering distaste- to the point of shudders and violent mental protest- for rules, for strict straight lines, for following guidelines and requirements, for boundaries, conventions...etc. I think that a lot of us do.

And it feels like settling, like caving in, like compromising- just a little- to say that I will stay in education. Besides, I hate the idea of education. I don't like it in concept. I don't believe that everyone should have to know the same material for any reason whatsoever. I do love language, and I think that people deserve- if they want it- the opportunity to learn to read, write, find information, do mathematics. I think people should have the resources to pursue whatever they want to, including learning, and that means that teaching and education still have some role, somehow, in society as I believe in it as a concept.

The world is not perfect. Education is not set up in a way that I believe in, and it is certainly not fair. Often people do not grow up with the resources- emotional, physical, etc.- to really think about themselves, I think, and what they want for themselves. Or maybe I'm way off base here.

Still, I cannot "fix" (according to my ideas, I mean) the way everything is, the way the world runs, the way society is currently set up. Part of my brain says that nothing else would be OK, and that is the part of me that refuses to accept anything as the right job for me.

There's got to be a place to start. I still believe in lot of principles, ideas, concepts that are not expressed accurately or clearly through what I am doing right now. But there's got to be a starting point somewhere, right? There are many aspects of teaching that I think might make it, if not the right thing, at least a good thing, for me and the way I would ideally like to live.

1) Affecting people in an important, positive way. Something finally dawned on me this morning- probably as an outcome of many conversations with that same roommate, who has both confidence in himself and also real faith that we are useful, that we are doing something good, that we matter to these kids (it doesn't seem like that sometimes to listen to him, but he really, really does, and it comes out when we talk about future plans, ideas, about life). As part of his confidence, maybe, he really believes that the role of one person is important, that by our actions we influence the world, that we can influence the world positively, and that this is one of the most important things in life, and the thing you should do that will leave you with no regrets.
I guess it just became clear to me that our actions really do matter. (I mean, I thought so before, but I don't think I fully believed that we could change anything. For so many years, everyone kept telling me that I was foolish and idealistic and young and that I needed to grow up and stop thinking that I could change the world. They really got to me for a long time.) It became clear that we can have an impact, and that there are millions of options for how to do that. And teaching is one of them. It might not be absolutely the most powerful (I mean, compared to being a legislator or lobbyist or taking some other powerful role), but it is a starting point.

To summarize all that: I have often been turned off to service because of this feeling that there is so much wrong, and there is so much hurt, and there is no way that I could actually fix any of it. I think I realized that we actually can make a difference. We can choose to be a part of something we believe in, to contribute in a way that we believe will matter. And we can make a difference, and that confidence can lead to ideas and projects and eventually we realize that we can do anything. People do amazing things. Why not us?

2) I like the freedom for thought that teaching gives you, the openness. We are definitely very busy, but there are also a lot of stimuli, emotion, personal and professional growth. From the chaos, a certain freedom is born. Teaching is an experience the tangles you up, that makes you question, that offers perspective. Even if I am stressed out a lot of the time- and hopefully the stress will go down a bit with experience- I am awake, I am alive, I am thinking. I am coming up with new projects and thinking of possible ways to make things better. When you see something wrong, and it is something important and something you care about, it is certainly stressful, but it also creates unlimited possibility.

3) And then there are the summers for breathing. Honestly, I am not OK right now. I need a break. I don't feel like myself and I don't feel human anymore. But I can have it. I can get into my car and disappear from the face of the earth for a month and not tell anyone where I'm going if I don't want to and turn off my cell phone and go the woods or the mountains and the ocean and sit there and look around and not speak or listen to anyone speaking. I wonder if I could function in another kind of job where I would not have that. I know that this is selfish, and a selfish reason to like teaching, but wrong or not, it is self-preservation, and I am not going to sacrifice certain parts of myself if I don't have to. I am not going to sacrifice childhood if I can avoid a situation where I will not have the space to exist.

Also, summers can be used for a project or two, or to read, or keep learning, or pick up an instrument or a language or four.

4) Financially, I feel like I can live with the kind of lifestyle I want on pretty much what I make now. I don't want to have kids- I don't know why, and I can't explain, because I really love children and they are made of happiness and light- and I don't want to settle anywhere long enough to buy a house. I don't ever want to be still. I would rather continue seeing new cultures, seeing different lifestyles, how people in different places live and the choice they make or do not make. I don't have any desire for anything big and expensive. The only thing that I really want for myself is my freedom- really that is the most important thing that makes money necessary at all, and that is even questionable as some extremes. I want to travel, which is part of freedom. I am so, so tired of missing people. And I realize that there is no way to be everywhere. You will always miss someone someplace, and people will never stay where you leave them, and there is no one and nothing you can keep, and moments that were everything exist still only in your precious memory. People move on and have new lives and our childish hearts still cling. And that pain, the empty space that love creates, that magic leaves when it flies away, the beauty would be incomplete without that. Still, I want to travel. I don’t want to be stuck here. If nothing changes, it seems that I have enough financial freedom right now to save for a plane ticket to just about anywhere, if I wanted to. That’s actually a rather important freedom, for me.

5) Nothing I can imagine will keep you as caught up in your job, as concerned and as obviously doing something important as teaching can. You work for the kids. Your obligation is the kids. Of course what you do is important. Of course you are affecting someone, even if it doesn’t feel that way. I can think of few other jobs that are like that. Most jobs, I think, have you in some way or another contributing to the making of money for someone already rich and maybe providing some small service or product that does not require your special touch.

I don’t want anything to be wasted. Especially passion. It would be like dying.

Anyway, again, the biggest issue is being free and feeling free to come up with ideas, travel, try projects, see where your ideas and aspirations can lead. Maybe this will be OK. (If you have actually read all this- thoughts?)

2007-05-17T02:00:00.000-07:00

I've said it before, but recently reading one of the blogs of the graduating second-years (again, at 4:00 am when I woke up to work) reminded me and now leads me to restate my case and add some thoughts.

He mentioned in his entry that what we do will hopefully be a chance, for some, at things beautiful and true that they would not otherwise have experienced, and therein is his cause for the work we try to do. He also mentioned that he is not sure he likes who has had to become to be effective in his classroom.

I could not agree more. Also, I started this partly to challenge my own notions, ideas and ideals. I believe in true things and beautiful things as pretty much the reason for living- at least, I think that's the best way I can describe it. Except everyone told me that the world is ugly and I am blinded and foolish and sheltered, and of course they were correct. I think that some part of my motivation for starting this was to test my boundaries on that, to see how my little sense of existence would hold up to a battering from a place where people never really had the opportunity to find their own sense of existence and happiness.

It has definitely been a battering so far. To even try to do a good job at my job, I had to abandon my usual approach to interaction in a way that I would not say I agree with. I don't really believe, in theory, that it is good for people to experience yelling, coercion to do what they don't want to through rewards and punishments, to maintain isolation from the actual human being behind their supposed role models. All of these things have proven to be important in the classroom. Intrinsic motivation is a fantastic idea, but if we are influenced by our environments right from the start, and they tend us toward turning off of education completely, shutting off chances to open up our minds, to get out of a bad situation, then is it really the person who has chosen? Or is it a survival response that has been programmed nearly since birth? What if a person has not been offered enough resources to see beyond the immediate influences and often inflicted restrictions of their experience to even decide what is real about them and what they truly want? Is it wrong or condescending to a culture to try to offer- and it seems like sometimes we even force- new ideas and alternatives?

As far as my faith in beauty, anyone who knows me knows that it has anything but dissolved. Honestly, I feel that as strong or stronger now than ever. Especially in contrast to dark realities- which can be overwhelming at times- beauty and spark and passion seem all the more sweet. There is some frustration and a lot of sadness, though, in not being able to share or give happiness to people who deserve and seem to cry for it, even though trying to share that or give that is probably crossing boundaries, getting too personal, trying to give ideas. That's actually been a struggle for me, too. I know that my job is to teach biology and chemistry, but I sometimes (usually only when prompted) will give my ideas about certain things, like being different and pursuing passion, and I can't help but feel like that matters more. I don't think I've crossed too many boundaries with it, even when I've talked with students at length, but that doesn't mean I haven't. I figure, if they didn't want to know, they would stop asking or they wouldn't listen. After all, they've had they're whole lives for other people to fill them with ideas, a few new ones can't hurt, right?

2007-05-16T18:33:00.000-07:00

Regret, reflection, suggestion

I should be working. I should be organizing. I should at least be making a list. I'll get there, really. Tonight might be one of those rare nights I succeed in not sleeping. Maybe. At least, I feel good now. Anyway, let me get this out of my head first. It will be at least one thing actually done.

In the chaos that we call "school" right now, there is very little that feels under control. It's somehow soothing to look back and try to come up with ways I'm going to fix this next year.

Some ideas have been slowly coagulating from the fragmented soup of thoughts currently stewing where I can't turn them off....sooo...another bunch of regrets, reflection, suggestion

1) A little at time. When I started teaching, I picked up an after school activity for every day except Saturday, and only because we often had to be in class on Saturdays. It wasn't worth it. My kids didn't get as much out of me because I burned out on it after a few months, the kids started to loose interest, I didn't really feel like I knew what I was doing with any of the activities (ACT preparation, Creative Expression Group, Journalism). I do wish that I had coached. I think its better to get yourself organized, get on your feet first, set up a schedule for getting (at least most of your) work done, then try channeling your frustrations at all the broken things by choosing one program to start with that your kids might like, or one activity you could supervise, and go from there. At the same time, something like coaching can burn you out by itself from what I've heard, but be very worth it.

On a side note, I'd really like to teach AP Biology next year, but wonder if I am prepared to do it justice, even if I spend the whole summer planning. One quarter of the time is supposed to be in lab, and we don't have any of the necessary resources, except some microscpes (which is something), and right now it looks like I will also have two other preps. Two school-assigned preps is an improvement over this year, and I'm wondering if it's stupid to try a third, again. My classmates/roommates/support group say "your crazy, don't do it". We're all mentally exhausted right now, though. Also, I need a long and detailed syllabus explaining how I will meet the AP requirements, I need to petition the college board to get the class registered, I need to get kids to sign up and get the counselor to rearrange the schedule, which is supposedly in progress, at least, I need to find out where the money will come from for these materials, I should probably take a training course but I selfishly don't want to sacrifice a week of summer that will probably be full of planning anyway. (I'm hoping that they don't change my classes on me at the last minute, because I want the planning to do some good. I'm wondering if I should ask them to sign something saying that I will only teach what they have told me I will be teaching before I sign a contract, if they are going to offer me one one of these days)

2) All of those times that everyone said take a break at the beginning of the year, I really should have listened. It does not pay off to pretend your OK so you can pretend to be competent when you're actually falling apart at the seams. Being honest with yourself and taking a day or two to get your act together, even by disengaging from work for a while, in hindsight seems like a good idea.

3) Life is easier when you're organized, obviously. I didn't realize how fast organization can fall apart as a teacher if you don't come up with a very good system for maintaining it, and then maintain it. Stuff to keep track of includes: attendance, student behavior (for documentation purposes), interactions with administration (which I wish I had tracked so I had evidence of what they said about what and when, because it would have kept my stress level lower since I could point out, if ever pressed, that I was following instructions), items loaned to other teachers, money spent on school supplies for tax purposes, textbooks given out, phone numbers and parent contact, grades of course (gradekeeper is great and only $20 for as many computers as you have, and also available on the internet), student folders, lots of other stuff I'm forgetting.
I am going to spend some time setting up new systems for dealing with all of this next year. Hopefully before I even leave for July.

Which brings me to something else. A suggested topic was what to do with summer. Here's another list, but these are only my ideas and I will not pretend to know what the best use of anyone's time is- this is what I'm planning on doing (except a little bit focused toward first years; it just happened, since I think first years read more blogs).

1) Set up a system for organizing. Think about how to keep track of all that information. Buy gradekeeper, or some other program. Buy small boxes meant for organizing index cards or some other method to keep track of phone numbers. Buy manilla folders and maybe one or two file boxes in case there's no personal filing cabinet (or lockable classroom) at school. (Okay, this is for me, but whatever works for you.)
2) Steal materials from other people, especially second years. Maybe even ask someone to e-mail their lesson plans as they write them, if they write full lesson plans. I think lots of us will be doing more of that this summer, actually, since we should hopefully have more time to think things through and will know more of what to expect.
3) Lesson plan. Even though (first year) summer feels crammed and is full of adjusting, as much as I didn't feel like extra planning on top of everything else this summer,that was multiplied by about a thousand for the school year. Actually, if you know what classes you will teach, I think just mapping out concepts on a calendar so you know what you need to cover when and in what order is really helpful. If you don't know how to do it, taking someone's recommendation for a good textbook and using that to plan is helpful for me.
4) Friendships begun over the summer ended up being really important to a lot of us, I think. Having a support group behind you makes it so much easier.

Oh my. Grading. Test-writing. Lists.

2007-05-15T18:28:00.000-07:00

"She 17, got dem 17 inch rims, driving down the high way goin' 17, got 17 dollars in my pocket, went to McDonald's and it was 17 (???)......2.65 yo...

To say that my seniors are distracted is an understatement. I shouldn't, but I love it. It's completely disarming to notice that your "tough-as-nails" kids- especially the seniors, who had more armor to begin with- have somehow slowly turned into goofy, grinning characters.

2007-04-30T16:10:00.000-07:00

Just one quick note. I stumbled into work today after teaching virtually nothing last week (state testing). I was feeling out of the loop, unengaged, and unsuccessful. It took the space of about thirty seconds- stimulus a room full of over-energetic 11th graders- for me to get over it and swing into completely inexplicably giddy mode. The edge wore off slowly during first period, but the mood didn't fade completely and helped me get through the day. So maybe I didn't actually deserve to be completely exuberant since I'm definitely behind on lots of important stuff, but claiming a little unearned joy seems to make everything lighter on a Monday morning.

2007-04-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

Through another teacher's story, I heard that some teacher corps teachers were impressed by some of the presentations made this past weekend, and disappointed that they did not feel like they had made the same level of contribution.

Not to validate their concerns, because I'm sure those concerned are excellent teachers, but that is a fear that I share.

In concept, our situations are full of potential. We are given thirty students for an hour at a time, a required content area, and a job: teach! We spend time dreaming about what we can do, coming up with solutions and ideas and hopes. We are passionate and we care.

Then we're hit all at once with a situation, passion is caged by exhaustion, wounded by failure. And then, slowly, we begin un-knotting the uncertainty we are tangled in and weakened tendrils of our potential begin to escape and get to work. Slow, painstaking work that doesn't progress linearly, that doesn't leave any solid evidence of accomplishment for a very long time, and when it begins to, the evidence is shakey and the real cause is uncertain. Except sometimes we just don't care and we can see what to do and how to do it and we are not hindered or inhibited and we could do anything especially this and people will respond and we will make a difference because we are made of spark and strength and we could work endlessly hard and never get tired. I am ashamed that I'm not there now, that I am selfishly unfocused and looking to summer. I wonder how to get there. I'm sure comfort in the classroom, confidence, has something to do with it. I think relationships do, too. Maybe teacher corps should start doing some kind of a partnership program where you have to work with one other teacher to come up with a project, outside of teaching, that impacts your students.
Aren't we all looking for that fire that transforms us into the most inspired and capable creatures we could be?

I don't like the feeling that I'm living for myself, that my head isn't where it should be anymore. It's natural to try to be happy, but I feel like I'm pulling out, like I'm waiting for the end. I think that might be partly because state testing was last week and the three classes during which I actually tried to teach content were a complete and total disaster, complete with calling the assistant principal to explain to my students that they have to work in my classroom every day, and for the very few classes that I even had any of my students, I ended up showing videos. (Note, schedule: 1st period for 4 hours, then either 1st (yes, again), 2nd, and 3rd), or 5th, 6th, and 7th, except if you are testing and it's a day before the test you go to a teacher to be tutored in your subject area as a 4-hour cram session, and if you are taking a test you're not there , and if you teach an actual subject area you are tutoring for the days before the test and proctoring at least one exam, and your kids are all gone other days.) I'm hoping I will feel like I'm doing something again once we start real classes back up.

Anyway, I have big hopes for next year, and I'm hoping to find the spark that drives the passion that some of this year's class has exemplified.

2007-04-12T15:32:00.000-07:00

Hey guys- guess what I just found out- we're teachers!

Something happens when you spend a lot of time instructing students in a classroom: eventually you realize that you're a teacher.

Maybe that particular part of me will be a big part of my life forever, and maybe it won't. Right now I'm thinking it might turn out that way, but who knows. The point is that right now that particular part of me is turned on, and when I'm at school, I am a teacher. I'm not pretending to be a teacher, I'm not posing as a teacher. I have spent the past 11 months (yes, really almost a whole year that we've been here) learning how to do that, how to develop my ideas into lessons, how to teach like a Delta high school student learns, how to speak the language of my students (or at least enough to allow academic communication and even flecks of real communication). Just realizing that I am more competent than I call myself, just having some confidence, suddenly puts a tone in my voice and a calmness in my classroom mannerisms that is one thousand times more effective than scrambling through each class (no matter how prepared I am or am not) afraid of messing up. Just recognizing the legitimacy of my role as a teacher suddenly makes it far more difficult for student actions to affect my focus on instruction.

I had a relaxed night with some MTC people yesterday evening, and it worked wonders. -Funny, I tried to relax over Easter break, but the isolation got to me and gave me too much time to think, which is as draining as working, and distracted me from work. I did get caught up on sleep and my space is finally near how I want it. Maybe just in time to move, depending on the plans of the new first years.- Anyway, some time with friends was really nice, and today was really, really good (and after a really bad yesterday, too).

Today, I actually loved teaching. I was intent on connecting with the students to explain balancing equations, and they were into it. My biology II kids started excel data analysis- maybe I'm behind since I'm just doing that with them now, I don't know, but it's certainly not in the curriculum. I (hate to admit it but) often look forward to the end of every day and dread the next classes. I realized I don't have to approach it that way. If you don't think you're drained, suddenly you're not, and it can actually be energizing to really work through a concept with an engaged class. It is, of course, easier on days when you can actually get really into teaching, when your kids are responsive and interested, but again, I think that has a lot to do with just being calm and confident. The kids pick up on it. I'm sure luck and the social life and the amount of sunlight and what they served for breakfast have something to do with it to, but most of it I think is possible to control. That's one of the things I remember about my favorite and most capable teacher from high school; he always managed to somehow get us to shut out anything else that was going on in, even if we weren't even that into math, which was his subject, and just focus on what he had to teacher us that particular day. In his classroom, time was spent learning math.

As the final months of the year begin to spin by, I am suddenly hopeful and calm. (well, not always, but more often than usual). I smile with my students more often, and usually we get more done. I have less patience for laziness. I am so intolerant that I even get angry with my students over it- something I have to let go of, I think, because it accomplishes nothing; They like to see me get mad. After all, what could be funnier? I'm looking forward to planning next year, and changing everything.

I'm also looking forward to hopefully catching up with the ocean and the way morning smells when it's yours and the way summer wakes you up and live guitar sparks and the way...............

okay, I guess I should focus back on school and class this weekend, huh.

2007-04-01T08:04:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning after an Oxford weekend, a rare moment of stillness, of peace.

First of all, someone requested thoughts on athletics. I've already written about this a bit, and its pretty simple. Athletics at a school where you are teaching are incredible. They make you so proud that these are your kids, and victory is so sweet in the midst of what feels like a thousand failures, even if you are only sitting on the side lines, coach or not. Even if the team doesn't win, seeing the kids care so much about something when they often seem repressed and turned of and worn out and too old and indifferent and angry and numb and hardened- not always, but not never- is a powerful medicine. Its like they get to physically fight for something in a way they know how, and it always seems like they are using the games to let out pent-up energy, like they are battling more than the other team. It's an escape, a refuge, and chance to stand up for something that they know how to fight for. I've always felt like athletics in the Delta have an air of emotional release, desperate happiness and enthusiasm that can wrap you up in an adrenaline rush that gets you awake and things and inspired again. And leave you in tears, tangled up in all the energy and seeing with perfect clarity (because you just get to be proud of them without worrying about whether or not they understand the lesson and whether or not they are supposed to be talking) that your kids deserve better that what they receive.

Anyway...

This week's been crammed- grades, four or five student recommendations by Friday for various summer programs, last day to requisition some chemicals that my principal agreed to allow me to order, starting new units in both chemistry and biology (which always makes me a little nervous because it usually means teaching something I've never taught before whereas topics tend to become routine, and explanations are easier after the twenty-fifth time answering the same question), assignments due Saturday.

Of course everyone's week is different, but we were all exhausted yesterday. A small group decided to stick around Oxford for dinner instead of going directly home last night. We talked a little, but for the most part it was a pretty quiet table. I loved it. Commonality of experience- knowing that we were all exhausted for the same reason, and probably all wanting company for the same reason- that seemed really comfortable and supportive. We all hugged goodnight before parting for another two weeks of separation and teaching and surviving.

After a good night's sleep, though, I'm more relaxed than I usually am, even on weekends. I know I have a thousand things to do, and I'll get there, but I also know that Sunday morning after Oxford is pretty much the only real down time in a string of up time, so it's easier not to feel guilty taking it. Event though everyone's worn out, it doesn't have quite the dire feel to it that it did a few months ago, and I think its even a bit more relaxed and hopeful- I think it has to do with the coming of summer-beginning to see the end, the energy from the kids, the warm weather. I also am beginning to realize how much I will miss them, and looking forward to doing everything differently next year so that I can do better by them.

We started the classification unit in biology this week that I have been looking forward to pretty much all year. I wanted to get through some of the molecular stuff first because it is important, and is also really the bulk of the curriculum- which we are required to followed, though I don't know how closely that is actually being checked, and if I get to teach Biology II next year I will definitely teach more what I think the kids will get the most out of and less what the state says. While I think the molecular stuff is great, the kids really don't get as much out of it, and really need a big picture first, especially since in their first year of biology, they learned how to pass a test. Anyway, there is really nothing on the curriculum for biology II that includes anatomy or physiology, so I pretty much just decided (after conference with Ms. Anatomy) to do a "classification" unit for the entire last nine weeks that involves dissecting different organisms and comparing them. Hey, its an in-depth classification study of at least one kingdom. That's as specific as the requirements are. Actually, I am trying to gear it toward comparing animals, which is really classification, and we'll talk about molecular phylogenies too. My kids are loving it so far, and I actually look forward to my biology classes.

I know I've already said this, but I am really looking forward to next year. There are so many things I know I could do better, and I am beginning to get anxious about getting there so I can do it right this time.

Hope everything is great in the world of teaching, job searching, getting through the weeks...we're getting there. See everyone soon.

2007-03-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

Some personal stuff...

Is it a common feeling that who you really are is something that you stow safely in a box someplace to remove only when, rarely, the smoke clears, and then you open it up and realize that the thing inside is senseless and trivial and selfish, childish and wild?

When I first came here I was wildly optimistic, ready for the experience and sure I could handle anything and change everything, for someone, at least. Of course I am completely scornful now of my ridiculous heroic notions, partly because they proved so ineffective and partly because of the uninformed arrogance they were rooted in. More than that, though, is that bit by bit I have packed up all those parts of me, and what is left, what I show my kids everyday, is something I don't recognize and am a little ashamed to have allowed to take over. The thing is, the other stuff wasn't working. Something is missing from my teaching, now, though; the creativity and excitement I had over the summer for inventing new activities, getting kids to figure things out, trying to inspire or make the day a tiny bit more fun- that stuff is less, by a lot. I am counting the days and its not fair to anyone, especially my kids. I know there has to be a way to embrace this, to do your best and work through it and not loose the excitement that I allowed to dissolve a long time ago. I am upset with my kids, even if they don't deserve it, and I am upset with myself. I think I really do pack away all the good stuff, like I am afraid of burning out all the stardust when I start finding out that it doesn't have the power I thought it did, and I am packing it away to save it and hoping it to fix it when I finally re-open the box. A friend told me that he believed it is "needy to expect them to love you back" (the kids). Of course that's true. I think when I am counting the days, I mean that I am selfishly not really looking full-force at the present, but rather waiting for days when I can open the box, brush off the dust, and have faith in my old nonsense again, even if it is powerless outside of a tiny little circle, even if it cannot fix the world as I once foolishly thought it could. One of the most difficult things to learn here, I think, was that the things I have faith in (mainly beauty, love, magic) are not the cure for everything. I guess I am just not willing or able to relinquish them, though. I believe too strongly that you should never stop being fierce about the few things that feel exactly right, even if everyone else things they are completely foolish, foolish as that notion may be. You can begin to see things more realistically, though; you don't loose anything, just grow deeper. Anyway, I find myself seeking out bits of company and warmth and sweetness when I should be more focused.....suppose I should get on that... hope everyone's great...see you guys soon.

2007-03-04T06:53:00.000-08:00

Teacher Corps-? What I have found (and only what I have found):

Experience dictates, to a greater extent than I ever realized before this program, how we handle ourselves, conduct our business, negotiate professional relationships, navigate personal relationships, uphold our integrity, maintain and loose the sanctity of personal space, and hold together the pieces of our hearts when we are under pressure from every angle.

I cannot imagine another experience through which a person learn as much as one does in teacher corps in so short a time. Maybe Peace Corps.

It brings out parts of you that you've never seen, turns you into a fierce version of yourself that you don't recognize, tattered at the edges and concentrated at the core into stronger stuff than you knew you contained. The intensity of the failure is completely destructive if you are afraid of failure- and who isn't?

You make inexcusable mistakes. And you have no choice but to forgive yourself, eventually, or give up and fail completely. You learn, though, that you are stronger than you every guessed, that you have been given everything that others have been denied ( and not to say it's right), that you have to find what you are made of and use it to fight if you want to do what you believe it good; there is no limit to how hard you are willing to push for this. And you fail at it. Over, and over, and over, and over.

Teacher corps shows you that life is unfair, even if you knew before. Mostly, your students will not want your help and they will need it desperately. Mostly, your administrators will criticize every move you make when you are already criticizing your own every move.

Your successes will be sweet moments of joy that you tuck away and protect and cling to ferociously. They will increase over time.

If I can survive teacher corps despite all my mistakes, if I can teach my kids something, if they learn how to learn or write or want to learn or believe in something worth fighting for...I think it will be worth it. I have not once truly wanted to walk away.

Other parts of the experience (besides the overwhelming parts that are the kids, the other teachers, the Delta if you live there, the culture, the poverty, the cruelty of circumstance, the horrible, horrible waste of brilliant potential):

The kids, the kids, the kids.

Your peers. They will blow you away.

Your classes (and professors): There are some classes you take for Teacher Corps you will, really, really, get you thinking. They show the depth of the problem and set your mind spinning away and ways to fix it, and probably leave you angry. Anger’s good, here, it gives you one more thing to fight with.

Athletics: I have never cared so much about a darn football or basketball game. I didn’t even care this much about my own crew races in high school.

Beauty and pain: You’ll see.

2007-02-25T07:58:00.000-08:00

There always seem to be lots of good ideas when we are far too busy to use them, when instinct dictates that we take every "spare" minute to breathe and maintain sanity. The more chaotic life gets, the more places you have to be and things you have to do, the more inspiring input. If there is no output, it's almost like getting clogged. Your brain gets full of too much stuff and you wish you had another day or a week or a year to sort through it all and use the important stuff in productive ways. Anybody know what I mean?

Usually my response to this particular situation is to bring a little notebook with me everywhere and write down every idea, every thought, every item on my to-do-list. The problem being, of course, the exhaustion that prevails once the adrenaline rush of initial inspiration has worn off and you've come home and sat down to begin working. And despite the fact that (yes, I know its ineffective) I tell myself that I will stay up all night every night, I usually end up passing out on a bean bag or some soft things on the floor before I've done more than an hour or two worth of stuff.

There is definitely inspiration.
I still can't shake the feeling that I am dropping every ball. I also feel like I'm juggling in the dark and I can't really tell if this is anything like how its supposed to be or not. I'm guessing no.

For example....
My lesson on DNA structure, function, and replication- a lesson I thought was effective- was followed by a test that all my students failed. It required thinking and problem solving. I explained how to solve the problems, and will reintroduce the same kinds of questions again on the nine weeks exam after we review the material. But there's got to be a better way to do it.

So for the next section on transcription and translation, before giving my students any notes or explanations (though after they had an extensive homework assignment on this chapter), I split up the class into pairs, gave each pair a table or figure from the chapter (since these usually highlight the most important concepts), and made them responsible for summarizing it, describing it in their own words, coming up with a picture (which could be some part of the table or figure) to describe it, and presenting it to the class. The description in their own words, and the presentation are together worth a quiz grade. Each partner must speak. I assigned a warm-up requiring students to copy down all the table and figure titles with 1/3 page space underneath each. While their classmates are setting up to present and while they are presenting, each student is supposed to be taking notes on the presentations and filling in missed details from the table or figure in the book. These notes area also worth a quiz grade. Finally, I am going to give a quiz, without first teaching the material, on the information the students have presented to each other. They are responsible for teaching each other the information and they are accountable to their classmates.

I have no idea if this is a good idea or not. I have no idea if this is actually a waste of class time. It definitely takes some time for the presentations and preparation.

Lots of other big and small stuff but I won't get into everything.

So in other news. Our secretary gave me a message that a parent want to speak with me. I of course got nervous and worried all day until the 3:00 meeting. When I finally met this particular grandmother, I was blown away by her warmth, her strength, her character. She told me stories and shared her thoughts about our student's lives and abilities and needs. We discussed her concern too, of course, but it branched out from there. I don't think I can really explain why I was so affected by this meeting, but there is something about meeting and learning about a student's family, a student who you believe does not like you, that offers insight into their softer side, the person they are when they are not in your classroom, and even when they are.

One last comment on another completely unrelated strand. Our last speaker mentioned that he recognizes our situation as a difficult one in which we are offered very little support. My reaction was...except teacher corps. This would be a thousand times harder if it were not for that. I just thought it deserved acknowledgment.

All this as I guiltily calculate the days before spring break and dread Monday morning because of all of the stuff I will not have gotten done by then...though a little before 11:00 am I am optimistic, just beginning to feel the panic....

2007-02-04T15:52:00.000-08:00

String beans and race cars

Lately I have been having the sort of days that make me not want to leave the Delta. Granted, no day is flawless, but I have at least been feeling like there is progress. Wong was right when he said that you are the most important factor in your classroom. Oddly enough, the less I try, the better it works. The days that I take my job less seriously, that I scold less and smile more, the days that I relax and get into it and act crazy and don’t care- these are the days that are the smoothest. Administration’s rules and my own ideas about classroom management convinced me that I had to be hard with my kids. In practice, I have found that being human is more effective.

I think that part of the allure of this place, of this job, is that every little spark, every smile, every correct answer and sometimes the subsequent celebratory (spell check says it’s not a word, I say it lies) antics, shines as a victory in a constant, tiresome battle. When something good happens, it makes you think that you just might could win (yeah, I said it). When I see my kids genuinely happy, I want to stick it in a bottle and label it and put in on a shelf where it will be safe forever.

Today was the sort of day that makes you feel like you never belonged here in the first place. First I was angry at the kids. Then I was angry at myself for not fixing it. Whether you have a good day or a bad one, Wong is still right- you are the most important factor in your classroom.

Something else- while I am completely aware of how important sleep is, every now and then I convince myself that I really don’t need it and actually manage to follow through. Then, of course, I remember why that was a bad idea. You can stay up and prepare for hours, have the best planned lesson you’ve ever taught, but if you can’t be flexible and think on your feet, it’s all over.

I guess it just feels like such a waste when you loose time or attention with a poorly managed situation. Those things are scarce enough already, especially with our kids.

So at this point I’m embarrassed to admit it, but there are still a thousand details I haven’t worked out and a thousand questions that I have about the best way to handle situations. Here are a couple of examples (please....PLEASE, tell me what you think- even if its stuff I’m sure I can work out on my own, it might help to have another opinion)

So you’re supposed to enforce your consequences exactly the same for every student, and if you don’t students say you’re playing favorites, and administration could get on your case about it- which, if they hear it from a student, they will. But. With some kids, the most effective action to take would be....let it go. Yes, cursing is against school policy. Every student who curses is supposed to be written up. And with some students that works, sort of. With others (the ones who really don’t care about being written up, who are at highest risk for dropping out of school), you loose all respect and credibility, and they turn off to your lessons.

I give essay tests in biology, and most of my students answer with a sentence, at most. I don’t want to fail them all- instinctively that doesn’t seem quite right, and would definitely get my administration on my case, but I also don’t want to lower my expectations and give them other work to make up for low test scores, which is what I have been doing. I have tried summarize short passages about biology with them in class to work on their writing skills, and I have also
tried writing example essays with them in class. Some of them will work really hard on in-class essays, if I am able to spend time with them one-on-one, and help explain the question. Any suggestions?

I had a list of things that I wanted to post about, but, frustratingly, I don’t remember most of them right now. One final comment...we spend so much time dealing with the bad stuff, but the beuty (my spelling) is usually surprising and powerful.

2007-01-18T19:39:00.000-08:00

Something else

I read the first five pages of Savage Inequalities and then stopped in the middle of a sentence and started writing furiously. Sharp imagery and good writing do that to me. At first I was going to e-mail it to Dr. M- maybe I still will- (is it okay to post his name on the blog?), but then I changed the last sentence, and posted it here, where everyone will see it because, umm, that's better. Forgive the drama/style/etc. It's rough. It was a spew of thoughts but I'd rather risk exposing some maybe improper thoughts than keep everything I ever write in a file on my computer to grow mold.

An issue that we don’t seem ever to address is “Why segregation”? Why, if it is (biologically) just a skin color, is there so much separation, even and especially self-segregation? Why do black students sit with black students, whites with whites (though this issue has been written about). Identity? Belonging? Insecurity? Why are people not simply unique things that connect to each other in different ways for different reasons? What are we afraid of?
For one, it’s not just a color, it’s a culture- but its exclusivity is blind and limiting. Also, it likely has to do with being who are, accepting who are, and looking into someone else. Exemplified by the way we wear the same clothes over and over, or buy the same style, or travel the same roads, our instinct is to stay comfortable. True desegregation is a truly personal, emotional issue, and a truly personal social issue. We’ve been looking at the big picture. We need to look at how people relate to each other- and it’s not just a race issue. Just as in the classroom we need to look at each student, segregation is not an issue that can be solved in the courthouse or the legislature- no more than teaching each student can be thoroughly achieved by state government alone. It is a problem that must be solved in our hearts and minds.
That further raises the question- can we force people to integrate? Can one person force another to look outside of their comfortable existence? Similarly, can a person or group force another to take the necessary actions to come out of poverty (-if in fact such steps exist for a particular situation)? The matter seems to be not so much one of harsh persuasion, but of encouragement and vision. Perhaps it is even an issue of love. It is difficult to encourage a large group of people, or even a small group that is safe and secure with their perspective-even if that perspective does not lend itself to the highest possible quality of life-to look at their situation and their options in a different way. One person, however, can sometimes help another to see something they did not see before the interaction. In this sense, perhaps integration- and the potential joys that might be reaped from unexplored relationships as well as from escape from poverty- is a matter of inspiration. These are by no means easy matters. Inspiration can be such an unsteady, elusive thing, especially in tight situations.
People do, of course, change and leave poverty and segregated lifestyles, but they also leave their geographic roots, abandoning the Delta- or elsewhere- for a place that offers more encouragement for inspired thought.
Everybody starts off with something- some perspective, some limitations- and the point is to see more, learn more, grow up and out. It is, of course, more difficult to open up if you start from a very closed-in place-just like it is more difficult to learn if you have not learned, at a young age, how to learn (thanks, Dr. Dobson). It is difficult to see something that you are not accustomed to seeing. How, then, do we create an inspiring environment and encourage exploration of wider vision? (Or perhaps I am the one blinded?)
And who is we? Can it be done by one person? Logically it must be achieved by every willing person. So several items are missing- a who, and a what. The answer could be a million things, a million projects and problems. What is a single one of those? Let’s start with one. There is a lot to work with. We have, in MTC, a medium-sized group of inspired, dedicated people. Now what can we do? Teach- sure. It’s not enough. Maybe some of us are great teachers. Maybe some of us are barely struggling by. Either way, you can’t cure a famine by providing nourishment, though it helps. Teacher corps provides a continuous string of new teachers- that’s even better. What next? What else? We are educated, intelligent, and capable. It feels like we’re throwing carefully crafted paper airplanes at a brick wall. There’s got to be something else.

2007-01-18T16:00:00.000-08:00

Incredible news! I got an overhead projector. Two, actually, which means that one of my fellow MTC teachers will get one of them, since none of us had one until now. There were two in my room that didn't work, and when trying to fix it myself with the help of Buffy, filing the paper work at the beginning of the year, talking to the principal, and talking to the maintenance people didn't work, I'd sort of given up hope. Though we had thought about buying one, they are quite expensive to spend your own money on, and Buffy and I had already combined our EEF money to order dissection materials for our lab, which can also be quite expensive. This morning, however, when administration finally gave us surplus/ broken stuff removal forms, I figured I'd give it one more shot and mention it to the head maintenance man, Mr. W. He directed me to the librarian, who for some reason has reign over the kingdom of overhead projector parts. Encouraged since this was the farthest I'd ever gotten, I brought all three sizes of bulb directly back to Mr. W, who directed me to bring them back to my room for his later, but same-day, use. When he did not arrive by the end of the day, I dropped him another friendly reminder at the end of the school day- when I'd asked earlier, he said it was okay to remind him if he happened to forget. I stayed after school until 4:3o with my creative expression group. When I began to kick them out (I don't like to, but I've got to do it some time) and they started leaving around 4:35, Mr. W. showed up. We began taking stuff apart and putting different parts in, trying this and that, until we finally realized the machines work only when the top is closed (seems obvious, but it almost made the difference between having two and having none). I cannot believe, myself, how excited I was at this development. I immediatley searched through my cabinet where I had remembered placing some transparencies, and started tearing into them until I had a nice little collection to use for tommorrow's lesson. There are tons of the things. Colorful, detailed, accurate, clear, labeled diagrams that it would take me hours to produce on my own. Chemistry concepts, biology concepts, difficult concepts broken down on a picture that I can show the whole class at once- and add my own notes to. Awesome. Anatomy pictures, charts, graphs, phase change diagrams. Also, I can write my notes out ahead of time so that I save all that class time writing on the board, erasing, risking not staring directly at my class the entire time, etc. And now two of us can have them, and I'm sure we'll manage to share. Yes, I'm a bit ashamed that I didn't figure out a way to get one before now, but hey, better late than never. It's a small victory.

2006-12-18T17:42:00.000-08:00

The Answer

Do you got a pencil?
Do you got some tape?
Do you got the answer?
Will you give me the answer?
What is the answer?
I need to know the answer.

2006-12-18T17:05:00.000-08:00

Just some thoughts...

I haven't been writing much lately, partly because I have this feeling that nothing I have to say is valid and a lot of my perspective is based on a fairly privaleged beginning. We all try to see things realisitically, to have a clear view and avoid prejudice, judgements and preconceptions. Except that all of my deeply rooted optimism and belief in the beuty (yes, I know) of the world is based upon a comfortable, nurturing childhood where I had the luxury of considering beuty. So that faith in the nature of people and the world and living is pretty strong, but I am beginning to question the fertile soil in which it was rooted, and wonder what kind of skew it has thrown on my perspective, and how this might compare with the kind of skew my kids have on theirs.

Most of my writing is somehow tied in with feeling; that is why, after all, we have something to say. It feels now like we have no right to analyze feeling, I guess, when our kids are deciding where to sleep tonight and wondering whether something bad will happen in the morning.

Please forgive the selfish introspection.

Which brings me to something else. This is a professional blog. I am often reluctant to write because it is so personal, and doesn't really adhere to the conventional sense of the professional. We are, after all, professionals, and expected to conduct ourselves as such. (Okay, and I'm still feeling like that's sort of an affected role, and a little shakey on the guidelines. And hate admitting it.) Here's the thing. Our professional lives are completely wrapped up in our personal lives; it is emotional. We don't give it permission to be, we don't invite it to seep under our skin until we think about nothing else, or at least until it is always knawing away someplace like an unsolved puzzle, a failed and guilty endeavor. It is difficult, for me, at least, to separate the emotional from the professional.

I went for a drive tonight to try to find a little bit of freedom, feel human again (it's amazing how quickly you forget to be a person, even after one day of school). I turned around when I realized that I was driving through thick, blinding (and dangerous) delta fog. Everything seems somehow deeper in the delta, beyond comprehension, like it's driven by something we can't understand that somehow controls everything; blame it on my sense of poetry and some kind of vague historical consciousness. Anyway, I rolled down my windows to listen for other cars since I couldn't see a thing, and I had to turn around in the middle of the road. It wasn't cold, but it was silent and moist. It felt like the night was coming in. The music, the car-heat, the lull of movment was temporary and artificial shelter. Like a chosen lie. Like the comfort we pursue. I guess somewhere I feel like finding happiness will make us more productive, will allow our best to come out and any true creativity or inspiration will come when we are not ourselves torn apart by circumstances. Of course, it feels like an excuse; happiness is selfish. But what is the alternative? To look only at pain?

So I'm a little analytical. Time to try and focus......

2006-12-08T22:19:00.000-08:00

How could a person go to work in the morning come home in the evening and have nothing to say: Reflecting on the first semester.

I've been dreading this one. I'm optimistic to the point of idealism but it would be dishonest to pretend that I think that everything will be okay. It's not okay, and I'm not fixing it. I don't even think that I'm doing a better job than somebody from the area could do; in fact, someone from the area would at least have the student's loyalty and respect. I'm sure of this because a fellow teacher's position was taken by a gentleman who has grown up in the area of happy sunshine school district and upon arrival at the school he commanded instant respect from his students, and mine. Really, I think he could do a better job at my job most of the time.

To be fair, today I loved my job. For the first time in a really, really long time. For no reason in particular, my classes were quiet and interested. I hope I didn't jinx it. When the classroom management stuff clears a bit, some other stuff is clear, too; the academic struggles are more obvious, but easier to face head on. When my kids are doing what they need to be, it's also clear that I'd like to be doing about a zillion other things with them.

The bottom line is, I need some improvement. Sure there are some difficult factors in the situation. Most factors, though, are within the teacher's control. If everything were as it should be on my end, it would be much easier to deal with the problems that arise. I'm getting there, I swear.

Also, it seems that no amount of planning is enough, that lessons never go as planned, and that my best lessons happen when I ignore the plan and just teach, instinctively. It keeps me thinking, rather than expecting to rely on some plan, and it's much easier to calmly handle problems when I'm in that kind of thinking-on-your-feet mode.

In curriculum news, I haven't covered as much stuff as I am supposed to have covered if I want to finish everything in my chemistry classes, my chemistry II class does chemistry I work because out of the six, two have not ever taken chemistry I and the other four were given a free period and an automatic A during the aforementioned class last year, and it takes three times as long as expected to move my chemistry classes through material requiring any foundation of basic skills, because those skills have to be taught first. I'm working on finding better ways to teach it, but you have to feel along as you go. My biology classes understand some of the concepts but it is a real struggle to have them connect the concepts to anything real to them and think about how they apply. On the plus side, another teacher corps teacher and I (the two of us constitute the science department at happy sunshine district) combined our EEF money to order some really cool stuff to dissect, I already have the ten day written for an entire content competency/ set of objectives out of six total for the year since of course it was an assignment, and the dissections will be a huge part of another one, so hopefully there will be some time to work on research and writing, which is what I really think they need. I do have them write essays, but I really don't have much curriculum flexibility since we do not write our own nine weeks tests. So we're working within that where we can. Or trying to. Again, I'm not saying that I'm doing a good job with it.

The kids keep you going, of course. They're the reason for everything, and the reason it hurts so much to fail.

One last note; I'm concerned about my teaching, yes, but it would be about a billion times worse if I did not have the support of all my roommates. Thanks guys. A lot.

I used to always have something to say, some idea for how to fix stuff. I'm not sure how to fix this one. Again, I'm working on it. Hopeing to have some good news to report soon.

2006-11-19T09:20:00.000-08:00

When the smoke clears....

This job will tear you apart. And make you love it.

It's Thanksgiving break, Sunday morning, class out yesterday night, the hours we've all been waiting for to catch our breath before diving back in.
One of my teacher corps classmates and her aunt were kind enough to offer me a place to stay for the night and a ride into memphis to catch a flight. It's funny how close I feel to all these people now; we've come to rely on each other in more ways than one, and I felt some mild regret leaving this kind of family, even to visit another.

I'm in her house now, rested from the first full night's sleep I've had in some days, and full of homemade muffins- it's great. All I can think about is my kids.

Not to be dramatic, but this is real, this is our everyday frustration, watching our smart, talented, passionate students being cheated. Fighting an avalance with a snow shovel. At least there are a lot of us.

I don't want to go home. I don't want to leave. I've been looking forward to this for months as some kind of reprieve, and now it feels like ducking out. I'll have some time to plan, at least, hopefully get my act together so I'll come back and have a bit more to offer. I'm giving it all some time to settle, the lost football game, the interrupted talent show, the everyday battle that teaching can be, and what's at stake.

Over Thanksgiving I also want to vist my old high school. Watch some of my favorite teachers and try to pick up a few things, now that I know what to look for.

Again not to be dramatic, but everything that was important before seems very small. I think we've all wanted to do something helpful all along, but it was never consuming in the same way. Of course, family, friends are still important, grades still matter. But it all looks a little more like background and the stuff that's haunting right now is what we're facing, what needs to get done and wondering if we're able to do it and what's going to happen to our kids.

Time to go...here's hoping that we'll make some kinds of a dent in this massive problem.

2006-11-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

Classroom management

We were supposed to have enforced our rules and consequences, exactly as they stand, in one class, for two weeks. To get this out of the way right now, I didn't do that. I like some things slide, partially because I did not do a fantastic job of enforcing my rules and consequences at the beginning of the year, and it has therefore taken quite an effort to do so more frequently. I've been working in stages, being consistently harder on my students. Partly, the concern is that if I just go ahead and write them up every time they move through the other consequences for something like talking in class, I would be sending kids out all the time. While the administration has thus far been supportive in distributing consequences when I send students out of my classroom, they have also told us specifically that talking in class is a classroom management issue. I'm still torn. Maybe I'm just still being too soft. Also, though, there are times when they say they are talking about the material, and I believe them. If my students want to whisper to each other even about something else that is for some reason vital in their lives at that moment, I guess it doesn't feel right for me to punish them for that. Maybe I just need to stop making excuses. On the other hand again, though, when I have tried to be perfect with the classroom management, I spend so much time stopping little things that I loose some teaching time. However, I see the point being made. As I've been harder on my classes, it's been easier to teach. Still needs some work. I'm thinking of taking a classmates advice and doing another day or two on rules and procedures when we get back from thanksgiving. Seems like an opportune time.

2006-11-10T03:11:00.000-08:00

Assigned blog of the month: Classroom management

Haunting thought (really one of about a dozen much bigger ones) for this morning: I had a student tell me last night during creative expression that there is no such thing as beauty. This was in response to a comment made that the good things are worth the pain. He was very upset at the time. One of the more emotionally aware/ intelligent, sensitive individuals I've met. Our kids are going through hell. Often wonder if talking makes it worse.

Time and place: Enjoying the solitude of delicious early morning hours to try and catch up (ha haha hehe hahaha) on some stuff.

Okay, on that assignment:

Classroom management. Mine could be better, but it isn't as bad as it was. Despite all the great advice received this summer about the central importance of rules and consequences, drawing the line was difficult. Personal tendency to let them get away with more than...than what? than I planned? Still not fully comfortable in the role of authority, mostly, I think, because I have a problem with it myself, even in concept.

Finally asked for some help and began sending kids out when they were conducting themselves in a manner inappropriate for the classroom or not conducive to learning. My administration dropped by a couple of times to make sure it was working when I finally admitted to them that I was struggling and started sending kids out. I also started administering detentions. I think I am the only teacher in the school that does so, and I don't even know that any actual detention has yet been held, but I've filled out the paper work and the kids know that I am filling out the paper work, so it seems to be somewhat effective. We'll see if it happens next week. At this point, dolling out actual next- level consequences as opposed to warning and writing assignments was really the only option.

On management, it seems to be getting better. I think they're probably learning more now, too. But it's a balance between making them comfortable enough to learn but still pay attention. I also do one-on-one talks with kids. Sometimes it helps for a while, but sometimes I'm pretty sure that they just pretend to listen and really have no interest in what I think of the situation.

It's been said a million times- pride and respect: really big deal. I think that was the main problem, for me, with my classroom management plan. They did not respond well to being assigned warning and writing assignments, of course. I felt like I was stepping on them when I take my consequences all the way and send them to the office, where they usually end up paddled or at home, which I presume is partially influenced by the way they handle themselves. And of course, the more sensitive or insecure students handle themselves a lot worse, still trying to make up for lost respect.

Anyway, I'm (confession here) still not fully comfortable with the whole you-be-"good"-or-else thing, but I'm doing it, and it seems to be getting better. Slowly. I'm more comfortable with it now because I have made lots of attempts to show my kids that I really care about them, and I'm not just the bad guy. But then again, we're not supposed to try to be friends for our students. I find this a tough balance to find. Working on it.

2006-11-04T16:57:00.000-08:00

Another venting session about the game...

Some people workout when they're upset. Some eat junk food. When I get really upset about a particular issue, like many people, I poor my frustration into (very emotional) writing. If anyone's interested, here is my venting session from this morning, still working out the left-over emotions of last night's game. This one, of course is completely biased, but I thought it was worth sharing. It says a lot about how I feel about some of my students who are athletes, too. So please take this as a piece of emotional writing...

The happy sunshine team deserved to win Friday’s game, and they did win- at football. The defeat suffered by the team, the school, and the entire community was not at the hands of skilled competitor athletes; there would have been justice in that. This was a far more painful kind of defeat.
Athletics are known for the intensity with which they twist the hearts of the competitors, the dignity that may be found in throwing all of one’s strength and courage into something, the outcome of the mind and body’s complete focus, the comradery of a team, and the integrity of accepting wins and loses with grace. The Sunshiners achieve this grace and integrity in their practice and their conduct, and maintained it at Friday’s game, in the face of a force that could bring any proud man to his knees. It seems that the community has never had more reason to be proud of its athletes than they did on Friday.
The game was griping. Sunshine district maintained the lead for nearly the entire game. Push after push, the Sun-shiners threw themselves into all-out battle, despite bad call after bad call. Anyone would be hard pressed to recall a more dramatic or more painful scene in the history of athletics than the scene witnessed by the Sunshine district supporters who saw the reaction of the team after Friday’s game. Fury, feelings of helplessness, tears. The community cried with them. What consolation could team mates offer each other in the face of something like this.
Perhaps it was not the poor calls that wounded so deeply that night. It seems that stronger and more historical forces (please review the races of the players and head referee for more information) were on the minds of everyone watching the game. If the Sunshiners had lost fair and square on Friday, there still would have been pride in that. These gentlemen have plenty of reason to be proud, and the team is more than strong enough to handle a loss or two and come back fighting harder still. The community did not have the opportunity to witness their team give it their all and take a defeat. The community witnessed a team that gave it their all, that fought harder than the competition and wanted it more- a team that deserved a victory.
No wonder these young men and women so often express frustration and hold so dearly to pride and respect. Our teams put in phenomenal efforts daily under leadership of a coach who demonstrates and teaches integrity. Again, the community has reason to be proud of its athletes. Win or loose, our athletes show what they are made of and come out on top.

2006-11-03T20:51:00.000-08:00

Our principal had to restrain our football coach from knocking out the referee at tonight’s game. No one would have blamed him if it had happened.

Our team took a defeat tonight, but not from the opposing team. Our players bested theirs at football. The team’s loss tonight was symptomatic of the apparently racist system that dictates the numbers that go in the books.

Three very, very bad calls by a white referee, all against us. Our guys wanted it more and fought harder.

Call it my bias, but I don’t think so. I’m pretty careful about that.

This is not about football. I’m furious.

2006-10-27T12:47:00.000-07:00

This week's schedule for happy sunshine school district:

Day 1: First period all morning. At 4th period, resume regular schedule.
Day 2: Second period all morning. A few minutes of 3rd period. Then resume regular schedule.
Day3: Short schedule. 40 minutes per class. Dismissed at 1:30. Report card pick-up. Teachers remain in their rooms until 5:00 for conferences. All after school activities canceled.
Day 4: Third period all morning. Begin sending students to lunch during this period. Then begin 4th period. Half of the students in each class have already been to lunch. At 2:00, entire school goes to an assembly for the rest of the day.
Day 5: First period interrupted three times. Once to hand out bookmarks and pencils for drug-free week. Once to hand-out evaluations of yesterday's assembly. Once to collect evaluations of yesterday's assembly. Fifth period Mr. sir comes in to collect money to attend a student-on-student basketball game. Students interested in choir dismissed to the gym. Normal remainder of fifth. Ten minutes of sixth period. Students dismissed to watch class vs. class basketball game for the rest of the day.

2006-10-14T09:39:00.000-07:00

Learning styles inventories I gave learning styles inventories to my two smallest classes, the idea being that it would be easier to cater instruction to individuals in small classes.
My students are mostly visual learners or a combination of all three, with one or two almost strictly auditory learners per class (according to the inventory).

This is handy, since as a rather visual person, I tend to use pictures in my explanations. In addition, much of the material in a science class, such as the structure of a macromolecule or an atom, involves concepts more effectively communicated via a picture than words.

Useful activities for providing varied instruction have included providing labeled pictures, asking student to compare pictures (for example, comparing pictures of animals to classify them or comparing pictures of molecules to observe their structure and link it to function), providing a verbal and written cue that gives students an instruction for drawing (tactile) a component of a picture (for example drawing in bonds between monomers given a verbal direction on which components of the monomers link them together), asking students to build structures or draw then and color code them using markers or colored paper, and assigning projects requiring pictures, student labeling of a picture- for example, use the internet to find a picture showing disulfide bonds, and label them, as well as research and summary (this was very effective for the roughly 1/3 of my students who did not plagiarize after receiving a lesson on summarizing, practice outlining and summarizing, help looking up words and directions to break down big words, and repeated threats of a zero if the information popped up on Google.)
Several observations-Firstly, students that have particular learning styles tend to receive more instruction of that type when they ask questions. That is, some of my auditory students (few as they are) will listen more and receive m0re verbal instruction when I am working with them one on one during an independent activity or after school. The same is true of visual learners. Some students have obvious learning styles, even without the inventory, based on their interests, such as very strong interest in art or music. These students tend to struggle when receiving instruction that is not their style, resulting in more instruction using other approaches, such as drawing pictures as opposed to verbal explanation.

I will continue to offer varied instruction, and will perhaps assign some work where each student learns the same information a different way depending on his or her inventory, then have students swap activities and compare results. We'll see. It'll take some planning.

2006-09-15T22:51:00.000-07:00

Response to Dr. Payne's "A Framework for Understanding Poverty"

As evidenced by both the brief but informative parent-teacher conferences held at our high school this week and by the detailed perspective on poverty and class structure offered by Dr. Payne's 1996 book, any insight into a secret and wary world that can be offered to an outsider learning to work within that world and clearly express concern for its members is valuable information. One of the major struggles of teaching in the Delta is trying to reconcile love and caring for the members of a group with an elusive language, culture, and familial structure, with outsider ignorance of its inner mechanics and subtleties. As teachers, we care about our students and want to both communicate with them and effetively help them to learn, but I personally feel like I'm conducting sensitive buisness in a language I am just learning to speak.

The systemized examination offered by "A Framework for Understanding Poverty" is helpful for developing confidence and insight into this world we have begun to work within. Especially interesting are the discussions of hidden rules, language, the different roles that students must play as they move between school, streets, and home, and the potential effects of role models. The latter is the easiest to address. It is simply encouraging and a little overwhelming to realize the potential we have as teachers to make a positive impact on students’ lives. Though that is, of course, the intention for teachers, it is encouraging to know that there is research to back up the validity of the attempt. We may actually be helping a little, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.

In terms of the different roles that students play, it is again useful to have a researched, solid set of support for observations and conjectures that we make each day. We may guess what our student’s lives are like, but Dr. Payne’s writing really makes the connection between how they live and the behaviors we see them exhibiting. Fighting and aggressive behaviors with each other, for example, difficulty taking instruction if they are used to parent roles, and skills they have to know for the street that are simply inappropriate within a classroom.

A brief comment about language: It seems somehow unfair that they should have to learn someone else’s, and be tested on it, when they have grown up with and effectively used their own since they can remember. Useful to note, however, that this is exactly what happens, and we are here to help our students with this.

In general, the book helps me to see how what I say and do might feel to someone who comes from a different world with a different set of “hidden rules”, accepted set of communications, and to hope even more that I am doing a decent job at learning to connect with a world I am mostly blind to but already loving its members.

2006-09-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

Why do we have to know this stuff, anyway?

I am surprised by how infrequently this question is posed. The issue has on rare occasion been raised during a lesson by a student athlete who has a realistic shot at professional sports, or a teenage mother (enough said).

I, however, am constantly considering this issue- along with a thousand others (my peers would say "what, that's it?" right about now). Every time I plan a lesson I try to make it relevant, and each time I present one I try to make it simple, catch interest, explain why the lesson is worth caring about. I still struggle, however, with a very basic question. What information is most important, really? Do I really buy the stuff I'm trying to sell my students?

Of course we all come up with our own answers for this. The students need to learn thinking skills, they need to learn how to approach problems, they need to realize that they are capable of solving them and that their ideas are valid and original, they need to learn how to interpret language and get familiar with common concepts (inter vs. intra, accuracy vs. precision, mass vs. weight. ) I also have the more general answers: Students need to develop skills for college, to succeed in an environment rich (note sarcasm) in societal norms and expectations, to achieve to the best of their abilities.

I think part of the reason that this question of "what do they really need to know?" irks me so much is that I know better than to think I'm really giving them what they need. Everyday in the back of my mind while I'm teaching biology and chemistry, I'm aware that they really need someone to be there when they're going to make an awful decision, they need someone to help them want to strengthen character, to help them find what they love and realize that it's worth something and pursue it. What makes us what we are, anyway? What will make the difference for these kids, and what will they end up doing? I feel like filling out a hundred college applications for them (maybe college applications could be another after school activity/workshop), all for schools outside of their comfort zones so they realize there is more than what they see around them- there is always more-and that they have something to contribute. But then I sound like an outsider, and (I confess) feel like a failure. Every single day. I love what I do, I love teaching and communicating, I love it when it works. I feel like a failure. We were told we would feel this way, but I didn't really believe it, and it doesn't make me more effective if everyone feels the same way.

So I'm constantly wondering "What should I be teaching?". Responsibility, strength, character-?. Do I have enough of that stuff myself for anybody to learn it from me? My kids complain when they're hungry, when they're tired, when its cold, when it's hot. I tell them all the time- it won't always be comfortable- in fact it rarely will. You're going to be tired, you're going to get hungry. Circumstances are never perfect, but strength comes from getting through it anyway. That's how stuff gets done. I wonder if they hear me at all. I sound like I'm lecturing, even to myself.

Out of the billion things (or so it feels) that I'm worried about, I thought I'd update my blog a bit (not touched for over a month) and at talk a little about one of them. I have at least three really urgent things to be doing right now....I think average is about seven these days...thanks for reading. Hope your night's a good one.

2006-07-22T22:04:00.000-07:00

Omaha, Montgomery, and the Mississippi Delta

"Hey mister if you're gonna walk on water, could you drop a line my way"
(sounds like a statement, not a question)

The counting crows set the background for the end of today, which is in turn the end of teacher corps summer training- many of us are leaving tommorow or have already left. Guess this is the end of the beginning. I've heard several people comment that they will miss the group, the proximity. I know what they mean.

Breakfast this morning was wonderful. Bottle tree. The food was delicious. The atmosphere even more so; I soaked in the company greedily. Really, really nice. Thanks guys.

I never really understand what draws us together and pulls us apart. The only obvious thing is that we are affected. We'll see each other after this summer, of course, but in a slightly different mode, different situation. And of course everything will keep changing.

I moved most of my things into our house today, which meant about half a day of packing, an hour of unloading, and five and a half hours of driving alone through the Delta. "I've never been so alone, and I've never been so alive"-3EB. I left in a rush, stressing out. The Delta lulled me. There's definitely an elegance to it, a special character. I glanced down at a map while driving in some vague attempt to trace my progress, and chanced upon Montogery county. Made me remember "Angels from Montgomery", a memory from a differnet world of a song about possibly this very place. I wonder how a place like the Delta affects someone who spends all of their time there, how it affects them and how they are part of it or vise versa, if they are.

I stopped for directions at a gas station. I was looking for route 6 and wanted to make sure I hadn't passed it yet. The gentlemen who gave me directions commented "Its a loooong" way from here...about 36 miles." What different paradigms we have. I have an admission; I'm not sure what the appropriate attitude toward that issue is. Instinctively, a difference is always a curiousity, something to be learned, the world from a different perspective. But at the same time, it is difficult not to judge, not to see some kind of tradgedgy there. Teaching seems to assume authority, though. If we are teaching, are we teaching only our subject areas? It would seem that much more is required. Insight, perspective, ideas, inspiration if we can pull it off. But does that mean assuming that our way is better, that our ideas are more valid. We will each do our best, and hope its the right thing... "the crumbling difference between wrong and right."-CC

I drove back through sunset. Spectacular.

I alternated between listening to music and listening to the silence.

"I'm sure there's something in a shade of gray or something in between." Perfect.
If only I could find it. There never seem to be right words or clear answers. Maybe it's true "there's always more than one way to exactly what you mean to say"-Fastball. Maybe there's no right way at all.

So if summer training is over, that means we have all the training we will have as teacher's when we start school. That thought has been on random repeat, along with a number of other selections, in the back of my mind for several days now. I'm feeling okay about it. I have a sketch, a rough idea of how the first days will go, how my classroom will run, how the lessons will go- the training gave us some ideas to choose from, and now the details are slowly solidifying as I try not to focus in on any one detail, but look at the big picture and let ideas fall into place. Despite the un-reality of it, TEAM was really helpful. Something clicked, I think, in the midst of trying to write the perfect lesson plan for each day. Maybe because we focused so much energy on only five lessons, and they still weren't perfect, I became comfortable with the ideas that plans are always changing, that there is no absolute ideal, and that you have to trust your judement if you want creativity to flow.

Hope the coming days are full of delicious moments for everyone...

"We roll by just like water..."

2006-07-20T10:21:00.000-07:00

A new leaf...

I've been somewhat hesitant with the blog concept, partly because I have never posted information about my life on the internet before, partly because (in case it's not obvious) I still have a good dose of self-conscious to get out of my system, and largely for three other related reasons.

1) I am still uncertain about the boundaries between what is personal and what is teacher-corps related, since at this point, the two aspects of my life are so tightly intertwined. I cannot predict what it will be like in the future, but right now, teaching is an integral part of living. Writing is very personal to me, a place where I am completely honest, and I am hesitant to be writing-style honest and then introduce restraint to the equation. Some information is obviously not neccessary or appropriate for a professional blog. Also, I want what I write to reflect me, and awareness of audience often skews tone, at least for me.
2) Blogging means talking about my experiences and feelings. I can almost hear the criticism...why should anyone be interested. I think I'm over that, though, thanks to my inspiring classmates and their brilliant writing. I really enjoy reading their blogs, so even without their elegant humor and smooth tongues, I am more comfortable with the idea of sharing.
3) It won't be perfect.

The thing is, I'm going to have to open up, relax. Have to run ...More to come.

2006-07-16T21:56:00.000-07:00

Video evaluation #2

I nearly fell asleep while watching the video of my lesson. There were several effective and enlivening activities used to demonstrate different types of protist motility, but these were not enough to create a dynamic, effective lesson. My evaluator must have been in a kind mood.

While there may be times that lecturing will be a component of the lesson, in this case talking through the notes and giving examples did not seem to create a memorable information set for the students. A more cohesive, engaging lesson is required.

My delivery did not help. My students do not need to see my self-consciousness, they need to see structure and strength. They'll need to see that I am serious and expect them to do their work, and they'll need to see that I am confident. They will- I don't think this will be a problem when I am in front of a class room of students, rather than a few of my peers, and I will certainly be aware of the self conscious behaviors that came out during TEAM evaluation.

In addition, I am teaching, not pretending to be a teacher. It's an important distinction. When being evaluated, it's easy to try to behave like a teacher, to use mannerisms and phrases other teachers use. To teach effectively, though, it seems important to drop this facade and be yourself, teach honestly, use your strengths. I will need to drop filler words such as "right" and "so".

The video evaluation activity from summer school was less informative than it might have been since I filmed a lesson that required students to do most of the work, whereas the more recent video evaluation provided insight into my teaching style. I am definitely more comfortable when the students are engaged and excited, and the difference was evident between the two lessons.

Overall- my style needs some firming up. The video definitely offered some perspective on my teaching style, and some ideas of what to keep in mind when I begin teaching my own classes.

2006-07-02T21:54:00.000-07:00

From the outside: On watching a taped lesson

The third period lesson I taped was unusual in that I did not invent the activity myself, but instead used a (rather good) concept suggested by one of my second years. The activity involved investigating carrying capacity via accumulation of “food”, or labeled paper plates and cups, of which there were not enough to support all of the “cougars”, or students, in the room. Several cougars had injuries or young to support, making the food gathering process more difficult.

After teaching the lesson, as after most lessons, I was highly aware of mistakes that I had made, aspects that could have run more smoothly, explanations that I might have made more clearer. I did, however, think the lesson was effective, and a useful activity.

Watching the video felt like watching a stranger, at least at first. I found that the ways a lesson goes in your mind and the way it runs on tape are apparently not always matched. For me, the tape is more forgiving. Since I am fairly highly aware of how each explanation goes, of whether or not I thought the kids really understood it completely, I don’t notice the parts of the lesson that are clear. Instead, I spend more time worrying about the parts that weren’t, since those are the ones that bear reflection.

While teaching, especially during the part of each lesson when a quiz is given and reviewed- the part that involves the least personality and personal style- I sometimes feel like I am playing teacher. I found it surprising to watch myself in that role.

Either way, it was a new sensation to watch myself teaching, and helpful to view the lesson from the outside.

2006-07-02T15:00:00.000-07:00

Realized today that it is July- has been, in fact, for nearly two full days- and I have yet to post my final reflections on a June in teacher corps (has it really only been a month?).

My impression:

Upon seeing, face to face, the issues that drew us to MS, certain realities are more immediately clear (enough said), as is the amount of work that will be required. I feel more capable and more directly aware of the problems. The second years have proved invaluable for providing perspective. Listening to stories about what they have encountered and what they have done about it has offered insight into the possibilities for dealing with various issues, illustrated what is effective and what is not, and especially proved that some things are effective, even when we meet with initial resistance.

An opinion about rules:

We have to teach students to think for themselves, not just to follow the rules. Rules should have a purpose, and we should encourage student ownership, not obedience.

An acknowledgement: The people make the program, and go out of their way to make it work.
This is needed, and we'll make it work.

2006-06-25T19:49:00.000-07:00

Since each student has their own learning style and comes from a unique perspective, it has always stuck me as most appropriate for teachers to facilitate learning, rather than deliver knowledge. I have incorporated this idea into my lesson planning as often as possible, partly by designing activities that encourage student to discover important ideas on their own- a method referred to in class as the inductive strategy. The method engages the students in at least two apparent levels of learning. Students 1) Think about the content material they are studying and derive the main idea on their own such that they have ownership of the lesson 2) Learn how to think and derive concepts on their own- an important skill.

Thursday's lesson on mitosis is one example of how I have used the inductive strategy in the classroom. Students were first given three minutes to think about all that they know about the cell and genetics, and to try to derive a possible process of cell division. Next, students were given small pieces of construction paper, each depicting one phase of mitosis, and told to work individually to put the pieces in an order that might be used for cell division. Students were then instructed to look up mitosis in their books, and to label each of the pictures they had ordered with the correct name of the phase. Students wrote the description of each phase in their own words next to the appropriate phase name. The class reviewed the concept together, with the students participating in the discussion. Finally, students were assigned a short paragraph for homework in which they were required to write out the process of mitosis, including all of the phases, in their own words.

While students did not learn the process of cell division by memory as indicated by Friday morning's quiz, they did actively consider the process and use more thinking skills than they might have in a lectured lesson. Hopefully they are one baby-step closer to working comfortably scientific modes of questioning.

2006-06-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

Friday's taxonomy lesson covered different phyla of the kingdom Animalia, and I used an activity that required the students in our section of BiologyI to derive the composition of each phyla themselves. Specifically, each student received a set of photographs (separate cut-outs) including several examples of organisms from each phyla, nine separate labels, each containing the name of one of the animal phyla and the organisms it contains, and nine short descriptions, one per phyla, on separate pieces of cut construction paper. They were required to group the pictures, phyla descriptions, and labels on nine separate pieces of notebook paper, such that each sheet contained one label (red), one description (purple), and the appropriate pictures. Since this was a somewhat unconventional way of teaching the animal phyla, I used the "Muddiest Part of the Lecture" strategy outlined by Donna Qualters to find out if the students found anything about the lesson particularly unclear or difficult.

Since there are only two students in our section of the class, we interact with them frequently. The "Muddiest Part of the Lecture" strategy allowed them to voice any quiet criticisms or concerns. At the end of the period, I collected their anonymous comments on any unclear parts of the lesson. Each student commented that most unclear part of the lesson was the pictures. Since success at the activity required the students to identify the organisms according to description, they struggled with organims that had similar characteristics but belonged to different phyla. While part of the problem is simply that different organisms have similar appearances with only subtle differences in morphology and description, I can be especially careful if I use the activity again to choose pictures that clearly emphasize the morphological differences between organisms. We will of course review each student's work next class so that each is clear about the differences between phyla. The strategy was helpful, and might be more so in class with more students since a smaller proportion of students in a large class might be willing to openly voice their concerns. I would use the method again to check on the effectiveness of a lesson and pinpoint problem areas in teaching strategy or content.

2006-06-11T10:46:00.000-07:00

A response to "Rural Schools: Definite Problems and Potential Solutions."

Joel’s focus paper on the challenges facing rural schools is a well-constructed essay that carefully considers some of the factors affecting the quality of education available to students in rural areas. A highly relevant topic, especially for those of us who will be teaching in the delta, the obstacles characteristic of rural schooling might be difficult to fully understand, in both their complexity and power. Understanding the root of the problems, though, seems vitally important to developing an informed approach to competently addressing the issues. Joel’s paper offers an excellent analysis of the most central issues, and suggests potential solutions. He points out the source of the struggle, providing some perspective than can be put to use.
While understanding the issues is one part of the challenge, applying that knowledge by finding appropriate solutions is another. The primary problems addressed in the essay included:

1) Low levels of education among adults in rural areas negatively affecting the academic achievement levels of children

2) Little technology and lack of consistency and experience among teachers as small and often collapsing tax bases result in poor funding and low teacher salaries in rural areas

3) School consolidation resulting in long commutes and further shrinking the available funding for the schools themselves

The essay also addressed positive aspects of rural schooling including small schools that both allow teachers to form close relationships with families, and also lend themselves to smaller class size. Suggested solutions that use small schools as a starting point included

1) Maintaining small school sizes by increasing funding to rural schools so that they can
hire and keep good teachers

2) Increasing funding for technology to allow for more long-distance learning
programs and therefore accessibility of effective teachers

3) Incorporate families into the process of rural education

While it is specifically noted in the paper that simply throwing money at rural schools is not the answer- that careful management and cooperation are also vital- it is also clear that funding is an important element of the only apparent solutions. As first-year teachers entering low-performing schools, some of them rural, it seems important to consider how we might practically address these issues through the hands-on approach that we will be taking.
There seem to be two core components of a solution, or two different levels at which these problems can be controlled. They are 1) In the communities themselves and 2) At the state and federal levels of government. Since funding and appropriate use of funds is required, it seems that teaching effectively is only a part of the solution. We are each one person, one teacher, only, and this seems to pose the question of what else we can do.
The funding aspect is more difficult. As discussed in Joel’s paper, government has begun to address this issue. Also, the group of people in the MTC is clearly one of tremendous voice; some of us are journalists, some of us lawyers, scientists, some have been teachers before, some of us will be doctors, and we are all writers. We speak and we vote, and maybe we will be able to use that voice to help ease some of the most intensive problems. As far as mending a community, encouraging employers to stick around and other roots of the problem-Any thoughts? (Maybe that should be my focus paper.)
Finally, maybe there will be ways for us to create cooperation, one of the solutions discussed in the essay, in the communities where we will be working. Since I’ve never taught in a rural school, I am rather uncertain of what to expect. However, perhaps we will decide it is appropriate to try to somehow include families in education-? Thoughts?

2006-06-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

One hundred and sixty-three hours (and seven minutes) ago we said our good-byes in the gravel drive-way to which I have always come home, 1300 miles from here. There have been a lot of partings in the past months and years, and the past month or so has been particularly abundant in them. It seems that we are always saying good-bye.

And now there is here. The accents, the kindness, the warmth (off both sorts-human and physical), these create an environment that is deliciously enveloping. Only, this process of welcoming is acheived with such Southern ease, it is subtley unsettling. The culture seems so quick to welcome, to become home, to be comfortable, and is rather good at it in a nearly aphrodisiac sort of way, and yet (forgive me for this) I am still feeling a little foreign.

Still, I have never felt so eagerly in my element so quickly. It is not that I am fully confident- very far from it. However, it became clear upon first meeting of the MTC that we share reasons, attitudes, and priorities. It feels like a group of individuals (and of course this is just how it feels to me- I'm sure each of is different) that are ready to be professionals because we know that professionalism is the least of what will be required to acheive what we intend- to teach, well.

I also must admit experiencing something I have not for some time: I want to impress these people. I know that my focus will shortly adjust to be entirely directed at the kids we'll be teaching. Right now, though, the details are flying, sorting themselves out, and I can't help being completely blown away by the obvious passion that is here, and wanting to connect, to share ideas. These people care, deeply and honestly. As adults, as people with the power to do something about it. There are a million little ways to make mistakes: The praxis, teaching and planning skills, social skills, nerves, organization, etc. The need to succeed is so great, and it feel so easy to miss or mess up something important.

Then there are the schools. I saw the town where I'll be teaching, looked around, met a student. It wasn't a perfect place, but it energized me further, made me want to start. We'll see how it goes...

Had more, but its really time for study and sleep.